New Bookmarks
Year 2005 Quarter 1:  January 1 - March 31 Additions to Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 
Plus the Tidbits Directory --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

My communications on "Hypocrisy in Academia and the Media" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 
My  “Evil Empire” essay --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm
My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 

Of course the people don't want war. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Hermann Göring

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

Choose a Date Below for Additions to the Bookmarks File

March 22, 2005         March 1, 2005            

February 20, 2005     February 8, 2005     February 1, 2005 

January 18, 2005       January 5, 2005     

 

March 22, 2005

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on March 22, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.  Think it over 
http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/Flash/Think_It_Over.swf

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Pictures from the war ---  http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf 
New pictures from the war --- http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1291780/posts 
Also see some troops who'd rather be home <http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf>




For Quotations of the Week, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q1.htm#Quotations032205

For Humor of the Week, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q1.htm#Humor032205

My communications on "Hypocrisy in Academia and the Media" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 

My  “Evil Empire” essay --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm

My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 




"IRS Announces the 2005 Dirty Dozen Tax Scams," AccountingWeb, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100597 

The 2005 Dirty Dozen

The IRS urges people to avoid these common schemes:

Trust Misuse. 
Unscrupulous promoters for years have urged taxpayers to transfer assets into trusts. They promise reduction of income subject to tax, deductions for personal expenses and reduced estate or gift taxes. However, some trusts do not deliver the promised tax benefits, and the IRS is actively examining these arrangements. More than two dozen injunctions have been obtained against promoters since 2001, and numerous promoters and their clients have been prosecuted. As with other arrangements, taxpayers should seek the advice of a trusted professional before entering into a trust.

Frivolous Arguments. 
Promoters have been known to make the following outlandish claims: that the Sixteenth Amendment concerning congressional power to lay and collect income taxes was never ratified; that wages are not income; that filing a return and paying taxes are merely voluntary; and that being required to file Form 1040 violates the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. Don’t believe these or other similar claims. Such arguments are false and have been thrown out of court. While taxpayers have the right to contest their tax liabilities in court, no one has the right to disobey the law.

Return Preparer Fraud. 
Dishonest return preparers can cause many headaches for taxpayers who fall victim to their ploys. Such preparers derive financial gain by skimming a portion of their clients’ refunds and charging inflated fees for return preparation services. They attract new clients by promising large refunds. Taxpayers should choose carefully when hiring a tax preparer. As the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. No matter who prepares the return, the taxpayer is ultimately responsible for its accuracy. Since 2002, the courts have issued injunctions ordering dozens of individuals to cease preparing returns, and the Department of Justice has filed complaints against dozens of others, which are pending in court.

Credit Counseling Agencies. 
Taxpayers should be careful with credit counseling organizations that claim they can fix credit ratings, push debt payment agreements or charge high fees, monthly service charges or mandatory “contributions” that may add to debt. The IRS Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division has made auditing credit counseling organizations a priority because some of these tax-exempt organizations, which are intended to provide education to low-income customers with debt problems, are charging debtors large fees, while providing little or no counseling.

"Claim of Right" Doctrine. 
In this scheme, a taxpayer files a return and attempts to take a deduction equal to the entire amount of his or her wages. The promoter advises the taxpayer to label the deduction as “a necessary expense for the production of income” or “compensation for personal services actually rendered.” This so-called deduction is based on a misinterpretation of the Internal Revenue Code and has no basis in law.

“No Gain” Deduction. 
Similar to “Claim of Right,” filers attempt to eliminate their entire adjusted gross income (AGI) by deducting it on Schedule A. The filer lists his or her AGI under the Schedule A section labeled “Other Miscellaneous Deductions” and attaches a statement to the return, referring to court documents and including the words “No Gain Realized.”

Corporation Sole. 
Since September 2004, the Department of Justice has obtained six injunctions against promoters of this scheme and filed complaints against 11 others. Participants apply for incorporation under the pretext of being a “bishop” or “overseer” of a one-person, phony religious organization or society with the idea that this entitles the individual to exemption from federal income taxes as a nonprofit, religious organization. When used as intended, Corporation Sole statutes enable religious leaders to separate themselves legally from the control and ownership of church assets. But the rules have been twisted at seminars where taxpayers are charged fees of $1,000 or more and incorrectly told that Corporation Sole laws provide a “legal” way to escape paying federal income taxes, child support and other personal debts.

Identity Theft. 
It pays to be choosy when it comes to disclosing personal information. Identity thieves have used stolen personal data to access financial accounts, run up charges on credit cards and apply for new loans. The IRS is aware of several identity theft scams involving taxes. In one case, fraudsters sent bank customers fictitious correspondence and IRS forms in an attempt to trick them into disclosing their personal financial data. In another, abusive tax preparers used clients’ Social Security numbers and other information to file false tax returns without the clients’ knowledge. Sometimes scammers pose as the IRS itself. Last year the IRS shut down a scheme in which perpetrators used e-mail to announce to unsuspecting taxpayers that they were “under audit” and could set matters right by divulging sensitive financial information on an official-looking Web site. Taxpayers should note the IRS does not use e-mail to contact them about issues related to their accounts. If taxpayers have any doubt whether a contact from the IRS is authentic, they can call 1-800-829-1040 to confirm it.

Abuse of Charitable Organizations and Deductions. 
The IRS has observed an increase in the use of tax-exempt organizations to improperly shield income or assets from taxation. This can occur, for example, when a taxpayer moves assets or income to a tax-exempt supporting organization or donor-advised fund but maintains control over the assets or income, thereby obtaining a tax deduction without transferring a commensurate benefit to charity. A “contribution” of a historic facade easement to a tax-exempt conservation organization is another example.

In many cases, local historic preservation laws already prohibit alteration of the home’s facade, making the contributed easement superfluous. Even if the facade could be altered, the deduction claimed for the easement contribution may far exceed the easement’s impact on the value of the property.

Offshore Transactions. 
Despite a crackdown on the practice by the IRS and state tax agencies, individuals continue to try to avoid U.S. taxes by illegally hiding income in offshore bank and brokerage accounts or using offshore credit cards, wire transfers, foreign trusts, employee leasing schemes, private annuities or life insurance to do so. The IRS, along with the tax agencies of U.S. states and possessions, continues to aggressively pursue taxpayers and promoters involved in such abusive transactions.

Zero Return. 
Promoters instruct taxpayers to enter all zeros on their federal income tax filings. In a twist on this scheme, filers enter zero income, report their withholding and then write “nunc pro tunc”–– Latin for “now for then”––on the return.

Employment Tax Evasion. 
The IRS has seen a number of illegal schemes that instruct employers not to withhold federal income tax or other employment taxes from wages paid to their employees. Such advice is based on an incorrect interpretation of Section 861 and other parts of the tax law and has been refuted in court. Recent cases have resulted in criminal convictions, and the courts have issued injunctions against more than a dozen persons ordering them to stop promoting the scheme. Employer participants can also be held responsible for back payments of employment taxes, plus penalties and interest. It is worth noting that employees who have nothing withheld from their wages are still responsible for payment of their personal taxes.

Other Scams Still Lingering

The IRS removed four scams from the Dirty Dozen this year: slavery reparations, improper home-based businesses, the Americans with Disabilities Act and EITC dependent sharing. The agency has noticed declines in activity in some of these schemes. But taxpayers should remain wary because the IRS has seen old scams resurface or evolve.

"The Dirty Dozen is a reminder that tax scams can take many forms," IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said. "Don’t be fooled by false promises peddled by scam artists. They’ll take your money and leave you with a hefty tax bill."

Involvement with tax schemes can lead to imprisonment and fines. The IRS routinely pursues and shuts down promoters of these scams. But taxpayers should also remember that anyone pulled into these schemes can face repayment of taxes plus interest and penalties.


 

"America's wackiest taxes," by Jeanne Sahadim and Les Crhristie,  CNN Money, February 22, 2005 --- http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/18/pf/taxes/strangetaxesupdate/index.htm 

History is littered with odd tax schemes. William Pitt the Younger introduced a tax on windows in Britain. Peter the Great taxed souls, and Nero, urine.

Let no man say that we here in America cannot compete for oddity of tax laws. We have some really weird assessments on the books.

In certain states and cities, you'll pay special taxes for buying a deck of cards, possessing illegal drugs, and, possibly, buying things from naked people.

Here are a dozen peculiar state and local taxes, as noted by tax information publisher CCH Inc. and the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax policy research group.

Illegal drug tax: On Jan. 1, Tennessee became the latest of 23 states to institute a tax for possession of illegal drugs. Usually, you have to be in possession of a minimum quantity, say over 42.5 grams of marijuana in North Carolina, to be subject to the tax.

In Tennessee, when you acquire an illegal drug (even "moonshine"), you have 48 hours to report to the Department of Revenue and pay your tax, in exchange for which you'll receive stamps to affix to your illegal substance. The stamps serve as evidence you paid the tax on the illegal product.

Don't worry that you might get in trouble for admitting you have enough drugs to fuel a rave party for years. You need not provide identification to get the stamps and it's illegal for revenue employees to rat you out.

Still, next door in North Carolina, which has had a similar law for 15 years, only 79 folks have voluntarily come forward since 1990, according to the Department of Revenue. Most were thought to be stamp collectors, or perhaps just high. Another 72,000 were taxed after they were already busted.

North Carolina has collected $78.3 million thus far, almost all from those arrested and found without stamps.

Flush tax: In 2004, Maryland began charging homeowners and businesses for producing wastewater. The funds will be used to help protect Chesapeake Bay waters.

Maryland will add $2.50 a month to the sewer bills of residents hooked up to treatment systems. It will also assess an annual charge of $30 to homeowners with their own septic systems, even though many believe these residents add little to the stream of pollutants that have damaged the Chesapeake.

Virginia appears poised to enact a similar flush tax of $1 a week per household.

Sex sales tax: Sin got pricier in Utah last July, when owners of sexually explicit businesses where "nude or partially nude individuals perform any service" began paying a 10 percent sales and use tax on admission and user fees as well as the sales of merchandise, food, drink, and services.

That would be on top of the 4.75 percent sales tax the state already imposes on most transactions, sexually explicit or not. Not that the measure will raise much money. So far only one or two businesses in staid Utah are actually wild enough to be subjected to the tax.

Jock tax: This is a tax on income earned by athletes, entertainers (OK, not just jocks), and their various entourages, including non-athletic or non-performer employees. Generally, any money player or performer earns while playing in that particular city or state gets taxed.

California levied the first jock tax in 1991, on athletes from Chicago, right after the Chicago Bulls beat the L.A. Lakers. (Chicago quickly responded in kind.) Today, most states with a professional sports team impose a jock tax.

William Ahern, of the Tax Foundation, said a DC United soccer player received tax forms from 10 different states. The player was no Alex Rodriguez. "The guy makes $26,000 a year," says Ahearn. "The jock taxes he owed varied from $200 to $2."

Sparkler and novelties tax: In West Virginia, businesses selling sparklers and novelties pay a special fee on top of the state's 6 percent sales tax. The novelties, according to the West Virginia State Tax Department's information sheet on sparklers and novelties, include: Explosive caps designed to be fired in toy pistols; snake and glow worms and; trick noisemakers which produce a small report designed to surprise the user.

Playing card tax: If you want a deck of cards in Alabama, be prepared to shell out an extra dime. The state government has levied a 10-cent tax on the purchase of a playing deck that contains "no more than 54 cards," plus the retailer must pay an annual license tax of $3 and a fee of $1, according to the Alabama Department of Revenue.

Blueberry tax: Like fresh, wild blueberries? If they come from Maine, you may be paying a bit of a premium. Anyone who grows, purchases, sells, handles or processes the fruit in the state is subject to a penny-and-a-half-per-pound tax.

Wagering tax: Speaking of cards – and bets – most people know they have to pay tax on their gambling winnings. But some places, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, and Oklahoma, exact a wagering tax on casino or track owners, whether you gamble or not. It can get passed onto customers through the cost of casino amusements.

Illinois forces casinos to charge a $2 admission price, which is essentially a tax since it must be remitted to the city and state.

Fur clothing tax: Keeping comfy during Minnesota winters can cost you. Businesses in the state must pay a 6.5 percent tax on the total amount received for the sale, shipping, and finance charges associated with the purchase of clothing in which fur accounts for three times more of the garment than the next most valuable material.

Most types of clothing in Minnesota are sales-tax-free, so if you want to keep warm switch to "leather, suede, or other animal skins where the hair, fleece or fur fiber is completely removed," as the Minnesota Department of Revenue Fur Clothing Tax instructions form puts it,

Fountain soda drink tax: This one hails from Chicago. If you buy a "fountain soda drink," you'll pay a 9 percent tax. If you buy the same soda in a bottle or a can, you'll only pay 3 percent.

Amusement tax: Ever wondered about the extra tax you pay on stadium seats? That's the amusement tax, often levied at both city and state levels. Most states, including Massachusetts, Virginia, and Maryland, and cities like New Orleans, have amusement taxes on tickets sold at any venue with more than 750 to 1,000 seats.

Amusing, isn't it?

Tattoo tax: As of last July, anyone in Arkansas wanting to get a eagle etched on their abs or a nose ring notched in their nostrils will have to pay an additional 6 percent, as the state included tattooing and body piercing in its list of services subject to sales taxes. Electrolysis treatments count, too.

Bob Jensen's threads on taxation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation 





Counseling Guide for Chairs of Faculty Committees and College Administrators

Forwarded by Auntie Bev




"Our Special Universe," by Charles Townes, The Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2005; Page A10

What is the purpose or meaning of life? Or of our universe? These are questions which should concern us all. As a scientist, I have been primarily trying to understand our world -- theuniverse, including humans -- what it is and how it works. As a religiously oriented person, I also try to understand the purpose of our universe and human life, a primary concern of religion. Of course, if the universe has a purpose, then its structure, and how it works, must reflect this purpose. This obvious relation brings science and religion together, and I believe the two are much closer and more similar in nature than is usually recognized.

My study of the connection between science and religion began when, back in the 1960s, the Men's Class of Riverside Church in New York asked me to talk as a scientist about my view of religion -- perhaps because I was the only scientist they knew who regularly attended church. The editor of IBM's THINK magazine happened to be in the audience and shortly afterwards telephoned to ask if, of all things, he could publish the talk in THINK. He did. I was again surprised when the editor of MIT's alumni journal asked if he could also publish it. The latter resulted in a serious objection on the part of an MIT alumnus, who would have nothing more to do with MIT if such were ever done again.

I certainly agree that university journals should not be used to sell religious views. On the other hand, I believe that serious intellectual discussion of the possible meaning of our universe, or the nature of religion and philosophical views of religion and science, need to be openly and carefully discussed. In the intellectual world, we shouldn't try to sell ideas, but we should be able to examine them freely. A well-established scientist and philosopher was once asked to define the "scientific method." Oh, he said, it is "to work like the devil to find the answer, with no holds barred." I believe the same can be said of religion. We use all of our human resources to understand either one -- instincts, intuition, logic, evidence (experiences or observation), postulates or faith, and even revelations.

We all recognize that science has produced remarkable results. It allows us to do so many things and to think we already understand so much. Science is indeed wonderful, and yet there are still mysteries, puzzles and inconsistencies.

We are now convinced that the matter we can identify in our universe is only about 5% of all that is there. What is the rest of it? Scientists are trying hard to detect this strange unknown matter. Will they, and when? Relativity and quantum mechanics have been remarkably successful, and we believe they explain and teach us many things. And yet, in certain ways they seem logically inconsistent. At present, we simply accept such inconsistencies and use these two fields of science with pride and pleasure.

The mathematician Gödel noted that to prove something we must start with a set of postulates, but then demonstrated that we can never prove the set of postulates are even self-consistent unless we make a new overarching set of postulates which themselves cannot be proven self-consistent. So, in science, too, we need faith -- or what we normally call postulates. An extreme and somewhat amusing statement of our lack of firm proof was that of Bishop Berkeley, for whom my town of Berkeley, Calif., was named. He noted that we cannot absolutely prove that the people and things we think we see are really there -- we may not be seeing them at all but only have such things in our imagination. The bishop was perhaps correct, but nevertheless we all believe those people and things we see are real. The most basic of sciences, which is physics, has been increasingly concentrating on problems which are pertinent to the interaction of our ideas in science and religion, such as the origins of the universe, cosmology, the nature of matter, and of the physical laws. This has recently focused attention on what a special universe is ours, and the strikingly special laws of science required for the existence of life.

Why does such an improbable universe exist? As we try hard to learn and understand more, where will that take us, and how much of our present sense of reality and meaning will be changed? I believe physics provides an illustration of the possible nature of future changes.

Classical, or Newtonian, physics has been remarkably successful, explaining and predicting many things very accurately and convincingly. But, as scientists began to look closely at very small things such as atoms and molecules, they were forced to modify their ideas basically, and "quantum mechanics" was discovered. Quantum mechanics and classical mechanics are philosophically very different, and the behavior of atoms and molecules can only be understood by this radically different quantum mechanics. But quantum mechanics must and does also apply to larger objects such as planets, balls, or our own motions. Classical mechanics was in principle quite wrong. But, it was a good approximation, explaining very accurately the motions of everything much larger than atoms, such as planets, balls, or ourselves. We still teach and use classical mechanics. It's a very good approximation to reality and much simpler to understand than quantum mechanics, even though philosophically incorrect.

As we understand more, will our views in science and also in religion be revolutionized as science already has been by quantum mechanics? My guess is yes. We must be open-minded and without completely frozen ideas in either science or religion. But even with future changes, I also guess that, like classical mechanics, our present understanding may be a good and useful approximation even though new and deeper views may be revolutionary. Overall, I believe we must try hard to understand both how our universe works and what is its meaning as well as we can, and for now, live by our best understanding. I hope very much that humans will in the future understand more and more deeply, which can change our views. And, just as classical mechanics still works well, I expect our present ideas and principles will still have a useful and functional validity.

Mr. Townes is a 1964 Nobel laureate in physics and inventor of the laser. On March 9, he was awarded the 2005 Templeton prize for his study of the relation between science and religion.


March 8, 2005 message from Dennis Beresford [dberesfo@TERRY.UGA.EDU

The latest issue of the Journal of Accountancy (page 16) has a brief item inviting readers to submit their "Top 10 Reason to Become a CPA." The results will be included in a special issue of the Journal commemorating its 100th anniversary in October. The item invites readers "to join in the celebration by submitting your own witty observations on why it's great to be a CPA." The final list will be "a fond look at some of the more lighthearted motivations for joining the accounting profession."

I'd be willing to bet that the contributors to this listserv could come up with some excellent suggestions for the "Top 10."

By the way, my main reason for becoming a CPA was that I wanted a job where I could sit down most of the time after working my way through school as a grocery store cashier for about eight years.

Denny Beresford

March 8, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

And after working as a CPA, Denny eventually saw the light.  He then became professor so he could have more time for golf --- right Denny?  By the way Denny is known as a colorful golfer (I mean literally in terms of his fashion wear.)

I became a CPA because I wanted to work in a white shirt in the tallest building in Denver .  Alas!  My first audit (really) entailed wading through manure at the Monfort cattle feed lots in Greeley .  My senior on the job got to count the cows.  I had to try to find an innovative way to measure bi-product after the "split." Those are the things they don't teach in auditing courses.

Then I quickly became an educator but not because of manure. I discovered E&E's tax season long hours were not conducive to my real dream of being a ski bum (true story) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/academ01.wav

The rest of the story:  Getting married and becoming a father ended my dreams of being a ski bum and, if you ever watched me ski, probably saved my life.  In truth, being tamed didn't exactly end my "dreams."  I now live vicariously through Bode Miller who lives with his family within walking distance of where Erika and I retired in the White Mountains .  Bode is now the world's greatest Olympic racer and a truly fine young man (sigh) --- http://www.bodemillerusa.com/BodeMiller.html   

Bob Jensen


"The Adjunct Pay Gap," Inside Higher Ed, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/mla/the_adjunct_pay_gap 

Among the study's findings, which are based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics:

All of these figures underestimate the gap between adjunct and tenure-track faculty members because these dollar totals are based on salaries only. While the quality and expense of health insurance and other benefits vary from campus to campus, many adjuncts have few or no benefits and many full-time academics have extensive benefits.


"Proper Accounting Can Save Your E-Business Time and Money:  A real-life story of how one e-commerce business created an accounting mess," by Devin Comiskey, eCommerce Guide,  March 10, 2005 --- http://ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/building/article.php/3489076 

After a week's worth of accounting clean up and a few lessons in QuickBooks, Carol was set up the way she should have been from the very beginning. As long as she follows the correct bookkeeping practices, next year all she'll have to do is present her accountant with a disk containing her QuickBooks data file.

To help new e-commerce businesses start off on the right foot, JT put together a list for budding entrepreneurs to follow before building a web site and selling merchandise. These rules apply for any new small business.

She said a new business needs to determine the following when setting up a new business:

  1. Select a legal entity.
  2. Registering with the tax authorities (IRS, state and local)
  3. Accounting (tax or accrual basis): "Who are the users of the financials? Do they need to provide financials to any financial institutions that lent them money? What questions do I need answered to manage the business? Who will be keeping the books/posting entries?"
  4. Payroll: "There are lots of requirements for filing payroll taxes."
  5. Income taxes: "Proper forms; will estimates need to be made?"
  6. Cash planning and forecasting: "You can save a lot of tax dollars by properly planning ahead, and making certain transactions by certain dates - i.e. contributing to a SEP."
  7. Internal controls - "Who is going to manage cash? When you spend money, are you sure that you received the goods or services? And, when you receive money, are you sure that the entry was recorded properly?"

"I would definitely suggest that someone setting up a business sit down with an accountant to set up their books (chart of accounts/accounting method); and either hire a bookkeeper or take some basic accounting classes to understand how to record transactions in your financials," said JT. "It makes a lot more work for accountants, because they basically have to recreate an entire year's worth of transactions if those transactions have not been properly accounted for. They need to remember that if they have proper financials, they can be used for a lot of things — like planning and managing your business!"

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's helpers for small businesses are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness 


I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. 
Richard P. Feynman

As I've quoted repeatedly.  "The physicists stole all the easy and glorious problems to study."  Even in quantum mechanics  there is a bit of a problem in that the process may change just because you are able to predict it.  If you factor in people (behavior) being studied it is likely to change big time.  

One goal of Quantum Economics and Finance is to predict when market bubbles will form and then burst.  But if success is achieved in predicting them, human participants in the model are likely to change their behavior.  You're then back to square one but the academic trip probably will have been delightful.

On the Academic (Chaotic) Edge:  Is Quantum Everything for real or just another passing academic fad?
Special Section on Quantum Physics, Quantum Economics, Quantum Finance, Quantum Accounting, Quantum ...

First the Quotations to Spark Your Interest:  From a book I received without having ordered
A book arrived in my mail box in a black box with lettering "Top Secret."  I was somewhat apprehensive about even opening the box.  Inside was a paperback book and a velvet pouch full of chocolate wafers individually wrapped in gold foil.  Now I was curious and would've never touched the chocolate until I looked more closely at the book  When I opened the book, I literally could not put it down.  The following quotations appear on the first page of 
Thog's Guide to Quantum Economics: 50,000 Years of Accounting Basics for the Future
by Mike Brown, Zoe-Vonna Palmrose, Warren Miller (Illustrator)  ($12.81 on Amazon)
Mike  and Zoe-Vonna both worked for Deloitte and Touche before Mike became President of NASDAQ and Zoe Vonna became a well-known accountancy professor and capital markets researcher at the University of Southern California.

THOG'S GUIDE

50,000 YEARS OF ACCOUNTING BASICS FOR THE FUTURE

"After being an accounting educator for over thirty years, I now have a whole new perspective from Thog's Guide.  It is a must read for any serious accounting student, faculty, practitioner, or regulator."
        --Michael Diamond, Vice President and Executive Vice Provost, University of Southern California

"An engaging and entertaining book - a philosophical and historical exploration of why accounting is central to any society based on commerce.  Thog's Guide offers a glimpse of current work aimed to reformulate economics on the basis of ideas from physics and biology - and all through the eyes of a charming family of hunter-gatherer-accountants.  I never had so much unexpected fun nor learned so much from a book about a subject I didn't even know I was interested in."
        --Lee Smolin, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

"Physics has Brownian motion and now economics has Brownian accounting, as a family of hunter-gatherers teaches a team of real complexity scientists the importance of back to basics accounting in economic modeling.  Thog's Guide is a light-hearted read, but it promises a serious breakthrough - the ability to test the consequences of our financial and accounting regulations in virtual reality before trying them out on you and me."
        --Alfred R. Berkeley, Former President and Vice-Chairman of NASDAQ, Chairman and CEO, Pipeline Trading

Jensen Commentary on Fashion Fads in Academic Accounting
On the Academic (Chaotic) Edge:  Is Quantum Everything for real or just another passing academic fad?
Special Section on Quantum Physics, Quantum Economics, Quantum Finance, Quantum Accounting, Quantum ...

First let me say that this book is very well written as long as you are not interested in getting into too much technicality.  And the various experts who write or appear in the book are for real and very well known.  It is an inexpensive good read that I highly recommend.  I could not put it down last night.

From the academic side of the world, let me say that Chaos Theory is definitely on the leading edge in the hard sciences and in some social sciences, particularly economics.  It is a valiant effort by some very smart scientists attempting to put more order into a very confusing chaotic world that is not in stationary state much or all of the time.

I received my PhD in 1966 and have been in the academy either as a faculty member or in think tanks since becoming a card carrying member.  This was an era when higher education in business was trying to attain more academic respect.  The drive was to put mathematics and science into business research.  Some of the efforts in the next couple of decades were at best trivial and at worst silly.  Although my doctoral degree is in accounting (I was a CPA when I went to Stanford), most of five full-time years was spent in operations research and economics since the accounting program didn't quite know what to do with me.  I became an evangelist for equations and was fortunate that I graduated in an era of business research where almost anything with an equation in it could get published in a leading journal.  

After about ten years, while I was actually teaching things like nonlinear programming, I became disenchanted with what I was seeing as fads in academia that put in the words of economics and business but made little contribution to the world (professions) of economics and business.  My best example is the short academic wave of accounting/business research rooted in Information and Entropy Theory as envisioned by Bell Labs scientist Claude Shannon.  After seeing a bubble of accounting research using this theory, I delved into Shannon's work.  It became obvious, at least to me, that business and information could just not be reduced to logarithms to base 2.  The fad rose and then fell in academic accounting and never got off the ground in the accounting profession even though this is still important theory in communications and computer science.

Then there were years of academic accounting research effort in applying Bayesian probability theory.  The research itself was most interesting and excited us and our students.  Interest has not yet died off on this one, but there was a lot more hype than hope in the academic output rooted in Bayesian probability.  One still sees a paper, usually at research conferences, with the term Bayesian in the title, but for the most part interest in Bayesian accountancy has waned.  Has there been any value added to the profession of accountancy itself?  

Then one of my own doctoral professors, Yuji Ijiri, developed the Momentum Theory of Accounting with a series of papers and one of the best selling Accounting Research Study monographs of the American Accounting Association --- See Volume 18 at http://aaahq.org/market/display.cfm?catID=5 
This became the focal point of much academic interest and enthusiasm.  But the world just wasn't amenable to triple-entry bookkeeping as envisioned by Ijiri and academic interest waned.  Has there been any value added to the profession of accountancy itself?

Time series models became a great fad in accounting research but died down somewhat, not completely, due to frustrations of fitting models into processes that were seldom stationary.

Much of my own research and writing was devoted to another fad called the Analytical Hierarchy Process where I wrote over 20 papers, most of which got published  and got me research leaves as far away as Canada.  AHP is still active in some corners of academe and even business management.  But academic interest waned.  Has there been any value added to the profession of accountancy itself?

There have been many other academic research fads that never did add noteworthy value to the profession and were not sustained over the years of academic inquiry.  This leads me to now view Quantum Everything with suspicion.  It is trite to say the world is exceedingly complex.  It is also stupid to discourage efforts to model some or all of its great complexities.  And I most certainly am growing old and perhaps more cynical with each year that now passes.  But I have to say that my view of Quantum Everything is that it will be a passing fad in accountancy and economics even though it may have sustaining value in mathematics and the hard sciences just like information defined in terms of logarithms to the base 2 have sustaining value in communication theory and computer science.

But far be it from me to completely discourage new fashion.  I suggest that you read Thog's Guide and take it where you may.  It is fun and richly rewarding to be an academic researcher in a world that loves its passing fads.  Fortunately we are never judged on whether our research adds value to the profession itself.  We live in the world of models that are increasingly computerized and complex but are, nevertheless, still models that leave out most of the important variables and complicated structures.  

As I've quoted repeatedly.  "The physicists stole all the easy and glorious problems to study."  Even in quantum mechanics  there is a bit of a problem in that the process may change just because you are able to predict it.  If you factor in people (behavior) being studied it is likely to change big time.  

One goal of Quantum Economics and Finance is to predict when market bubbles will form and then burst.  But if success is achieved in predicting them, human participants in the model are likely to change their behavior.  You're then back to square one but the academic trip probably will have been delightful.




From the Scout Report on March 10, 2005

BBC: Science & Nature: Human Body and Mind-Interactive Body [Macromedia Flash Reader] http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/interactives/3djigsaw_02/ 

The BBC is well regarded around the world for its fine news reporting and in recent years, equally well known for its educational websites. This very fine interactive website produced as part of the network's online Science & Nature site allows visitors to explore the human body through a series of interactive activities. Visitors can select the gender of the body they wish to view and then proceed to look through the organs, muscles, skeleton, and nervous system of each human body. The interactive part is really the best facet of the site, as users can choose each organ, learn about its various functions and properties, and then drag the organ onto the correct location within the human body. Visitors can continue by moving on to correctly place the muscles and elements of the nervous system within the body. Overall, this is a fine pedagogical tool and rather elegant in its user interface structure.


Russia Profile http://www.russiaprofile.org/index.wbp 

The availability of high-quality news reporting on the Internet continues to improve, though at times finding reputable sources can still be difficult for certain parts of the world. Russia Profile is one such source, as it is produced by the Independent Media group, which is responsible for publishing The Moscow Times along with a number of other magazines across Russia. The goal of this website is to both broaden the scope of news coming out of Russia and "to provide a platform for an informed discussion of issues related to or concerning Russia". From the site's homepage, visitors can read about the latest from Russia Profile, view a calendar of events, and subscribe for free to the print edition of Russia Profile. Visitors can also participate in a number of online forum discussions.


The Ten O'Clock News [QuickTime] http://main.wgbh.org/ton/ 

While it is relatively easy to find old sitcoms and variety programs in a variety of media formats, it is somewhat difficult to find news broadcasts that may be of seminal interest to any number of researchers, including historians or other social scientists. Working with funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, this collection created by the WGBH Media Archives and Preservation Center includes video clips of these original newscasts which date from 1974 to 1991. The collection focuses on news stories which relate directly to Boston's African-American community and may be browsed by categories such as personal name or geographic location. Some of the topics covered by these video clips include the desegregation of the Boston public school system, race relations in the city, and interviews with such notable African-American leaders as Julian Bond and Andrew Young.


EasyOffice+PDF Filter 8.0 http://www.e-press.com/downloads/freeware.html 

This free version of EasyOffice is an office suite package that is compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and Adobe pdf files. Some of the programs include a dictionary, a notepad, a calculator, an image editor, and a diagram creation device. Additionally, EasyOffice is available in a host of different languages, including Turkish, Spanish, Chinese, and German. This version of EasyOffice is compatible only with Microsoft Windows 98 or newer.


From the Scout Report on March 17, 2005

Landmark Supreme Court Cases http://www.landmarkcases.org/ 

There is always a great demand for educational materials regarding the most important US Supreme Court Cases and this website is an outgrowth of that sustained interest. Developed by Street Law and the Supreme Court Historical Society, this website was developed in order to provide teachers with a full range of resources and activities regarding such cases. The general teaching strategies offered here include political cartoon analysis, moot court, continuum exercises, and website evaluation. Some of the cases covered here include Mapp v. Ohio, Gideon v. Wainwright, and Miranda v. Arizona. The site also offers some detailed explanations of important related concepts, such as federalism, national supremacy, and judicial review. Additional, the site provides background summaries of each case and pertinent discussion questions for a variety of reading levels and abilities.


International Institute for Environment and Development [pdf] http://www.iied.org/index.html 

The question of sustainable development is one that has garnered significant attention during the past few years, and there are a number of organizations doing work around the globe to promulgate these principles. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is one such organization, and it has been working in this field since 1971. As the mission statement on its site indicates, the Institute seeks "to promote sustainable patterns of world development through collaborative research, policy studies, networking and knowledge dissemination." The homepage is a great place to start, as visitors can quickly delve into the latest reports and newsletters. Also, a dropdown menu titled "IIED Research" allows visitors access into its work in such areas as human settlements and sustainable agriculture. Finally, visitors can read seventeen issues of the IIED journal, _Environment and Urbanization_, (dating from 1995 to 2002) at no charge.


University of California-Los Angeles: Online Archive of American Folk Medicine http://www.folkmed.ucla.edu/ 

The Archive of American Folk Medicine is the result of more than 50 years of work by UCLA-associated folklorists who "documented beliefs and practices relating to folk medicine and alternative healthcare. In order to make the data more readily available to the worldwide community of researchers and medical practitioners, the Online Archive of American Folk Medicine was established in 1996 under the direction of Dr. Michael Owen Jones, a professor of folklore and history at UCLA." The Archive draws from over 3,200 published works, and is intended to serve folklorists, sociologists, and historians. The website provides basic and advanced search options; and records include brief entries for Citation, Condition, Belief, Method of Treatment, and more. Users should be aware that the Archive website has not been updated in several years but it remains a valuable resource for researchers and others interested in folk medicine. This site is also reviewed in the March 18, 2005 _NSDL Life Sciences Report_


Historic Scotland http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/ 

Scotland is well-known for its efforts to preserve its fantastic range of historic sites, buildings, and monuments and much of this work happens under the auspices of Historic Scotland. Historic Scotland is an agency with the Scottish Executive Education Department and as such, is largely responsible for developing long-range plans for the preservation of the built heritage of the country. To get a sense of the broad range of properties within Historic Scotland, visitors would do well to look through the interactive map of Scotland offered within the "Places to Visit" area. Those persons with a penchant for historic preservation and planning will also want to take a look at the organization's long-range preservation program and some of its free online publications such as "Archaeological Information and Advice in Scotland" and "Conserving the Underwater Heritage".


MultiGrabber 3.34 http://www.mulgra.com/smartgrabber.php 

These days websites usually have a number of compelling multimedia files embedded within their pages, and some of them may be worth downloading to view at a later date. This trial version of MultiGrabber 3.34 is an application that will let users do just that, as it can be used to save pictures, cascaded style sheets, Macromedia Flash movies, and RealPlayer movies. This 30-day trial version of MultiGrabber is compatible with Windows 98 or higher.


"How Banks Pretty Up The Profit Picture:   Playing with loan-loss reserves can produce deceiving earnings," Business Week, February 21, 2005 --- http://yahoo.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_08/b3921110_mz020.htm 

Last year the banks had an easy way to juice their profits. All they had to do was allocate a little less money to loan-loss reserves -- the money they set aside to cover bad debt. As the economy has improved and defaults have slowed, many decided they didn't need as much in reserve as they did in 2003, and presto, their earnings per share would rise a few cents.

But investors who assume the profits are humming and decide to buy bank stocks could be in for a shock. In 2005 many banks won't have this profit source. Some have already pared loan-loss reserves as much as they reasonably can, analysts say. "A lot of banks may do this from time to time to meet estimates," says Brian Shullaw, senior research analyst at SNL Financial in Charlottesville, Va.

The trouble with whittling away the reserves is that as banks write more loans, they will have to replenish the reserves. Plus, if credit conditions worsen as economic growth slows and interest rates rise, they will need to set aside even more, eating further into profits.

Do a little digging, and the current numbers don't look so great. Detroit's Comerica Inc. (CMA ) had one of the largest drops in its loan-loss reserves relative to total assets, according to a study of large banks' fourth-quarter earnings done by SNL for BusinessWeek. Not only did Comerica fail to add money in the fourth quarter, it also extracted $21 million from the pot. That gave it an extra $98 million in income, or 57 cents a share, that it didn't have last year. The bank beat analysts' earnings estimates by 10 cents. Comerica Chief Credit Officer Dale Greene says muted loan growth, coupled with major improvement in credit quality, justify the move.

Others, such as Citigroup (C ), garnered a few extra cents from replenishing reserves by a smaller amount than before. But it was enough to help them beat analysts' earnings estimates by a penny or two. Citi Chief Financial Officer Sallie L. Krawcheck said in a Jan. 20 conference call that the reserving process was done in mid-quarter based on a mathematical formula. She noted: "We as a company work very hard to systematize the process around rigorous analytics."

Of course, banks can't just shift funds around willy-nilly. Accounting rules dictate that they have to justify decreases in loan-loss allowances, for example by citing substantial improvement in credit trends. This past quarter, a bevy of bank earnings releases cited fewer nonperforming loans, improving asset quality, and a stronger underlying global economy as reasons for smaller loan-loss provisions. Bill Lewis, leader of the U.S. banking practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, notes that subjectivity is often involved, but "most banks, in light of heightened regulatory scrutiny, are more precise in their estimation methodologies today than they have been in the past."

Maybe so, but even if the decreases in reserves are perfectly justifiable, there are still problems with this common industry practice. Besides cutting reserves to the core, banks "are increasing the cyclicality of earnings," says Richard Bove, a banking analyst at Punk, Ziegel & Co. "When bad times come, you know they are going to be increasing the size of the reserves." Already, Citi's Krawcheck has warned analysts not to expect substantial reductions in provisions in the future.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on banking misdeeds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm 


Say what?  Do all presidents of Harvard University think alike?
More than 30 years before Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers suggested that innate differences may keep women out of science and engineering, Harvard took a stand on women's affinity for science -- and helped limit the scope of a key civil-rights law.  In a 1971 letter to a congressman, a spokesman for new Harvard President Derek C. Bok argued that accepting more female undergraduates at Harvard University "might underutilize our science faculties and require expensive additions to our faculty and staff in already crowded departments in the humanities and social sciences."
Karne Blumenthal, "How Harvard Helped Curb Title IX's Role In Admitting Women, The Wall Street Journal,  March 2, 2005; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110972681148867821,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 
Jensen Comment: I guess we can almost hope that success in future recruiting will result in even more expensive additions to science facilities.

March 2 reply from McCarthy, William [mccarthy@BUS.MSU.EDU

I am not sure why everything that Harvard does (grading, treatment of women professors and students, meaningless classes, and who knows what else in the future) becomes a cause for criticism on AECM, but I think we need a little more balance here.  From the father of a current Harvard MBA student:

If we insist on being negative on the list, isn’t it about time to start picking on somebody else?

March 2, 3005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Bill,

My wife's in New Hampshire and I'm in Texas. I'm a loose cannon with too much free time. Many AECMers are eagerly looking forward to Erika's visit to Texas in March so that they can take a "Jensen Break."

I congratulate your daughter on being admitted to Harvard. That's the hardest part of the entire process. You have to be good just to get in.

Interestingly enough, in the Ivy League schools the biggest complaint about grade inflation is coming from the very best of the entire set of students admitted. With such a huge proportion getting A grades, there's no recognition of the best among the best. For example, how can a law school even consider grades if all the applicants have 4.0 grade averages?

Some schools react to the complaints of the best students. Some years back when Jim Van Horne was Associate Dean of the GSB at Stanford, he imposed what then became known as the Van Horne Cap of 15% A grades (I don't think they had A+ grades in those days). I don't know that such a cap exists anymore, but the point is that Jim told me the pressure was coming most from the very best students in the GSB. They're the ones who desperately wanted the job offers from the most elite consulting firms in the world and felt that Stanford was not giving them a chance to stand out from the crowd.

I found the syllabus of another Jim (Wachowicz).  It is interesting in and of itself to read.  But in particular, I noted that this Jim is allowed to assign an A+ grade.  I think that should be allowed in every college.  My own school does not allow me to do this, and in the graduate school students must have 3.0 to even be allowed to graduate.  Giving a graduate student a C might result in my having prevented him or her from graduation, which is especially stressful in three days before graduation when the cap and gown is ordered and parents are already in the hotel.

There's also a motivational factor. I'm absolutely certain that the very best of the A students will work much harder if only a small proportion of them might have a chance for an A+. Some faculty, not me, argue that it is immoral to motivate students with grades. See Alfie Kohn's citation at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation 

I think the time has come to let up on Harvard.  Since I’m the worst offender, I apologize Bill.  I will refrain from future posts on this issue, at least in terms of singling out Harvard.  I admit to being on a campaign against grade inflation and especially the teaching evaluations that drive a great deal of that inflation.  I cite Harvard mainly because the world has picked more on Harvard with respect to grade inflation.  There is much more literature to cite about Harvard’s grading.  But I will try to avoid singling out Harvard in my AECM communications.  Harvard apparently banned its old 1-15 scale in favor of what you call the 1-2-3 scale.

I do have one question about where you got your 15-70-15 numbers?  My most recent numbers are 49-41-10 ignoring the outliers.  Some 2001 versus 1985 data given by NPR are as follows:

All Things Considered, November 21, 2001 · Student's grades at Harvard University have soared in the last 10 years. According to a report issued Tuesday by the dean of undergraduate education, nearly half of the grades issued last year were A's or A-minuses. In 1985, just a third of the grades were A or A-minus. Linda Wertheimer talks with Susan Pedersen, Dean of Undergraduate Education and a Professor of History at Harvard University, about grade inflation.
Harvard Grade Inflation, National Public Radio --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1133702 
You can also listen to the NPR radio broadcast about this at the above link.  

Bob Jensen's thread on grade inflation are at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation 


March 4, 2005 message from Groomer, S. Michael [groomer@indiana.edu

Hi Bob.

Question -- Are you aware of any courses being conducted that deal specifically with ethics implications for accountants/auditors. One of my Business Law colleagues ask me this question. Best I know, most of this kind of work occurs in UG Auditing or in a Master's level auditing course.

Hope all is well with you. Mike

Mike Groomer, Ph.D, CPA, CISA, CITP 
Professor of Accounting and Information Systems 
Kelley School of Business Indiana University 
1309 East 10th Street Bloomington, IN 47405-1701

March 5, 2005 answer from Bob Jensen

A lot depends upon what you mean by “courses.”  Courses can range from videos to CPE training to college course modules to college courses on ethics in auditing to onsite training courses.

For reactions of accounting education to the implosion of Andersen, I suggest beginning with the following modules:

Bob Jensen's threads on ethics and accounting education are at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudProposedReforms.htm#AccountingEducation

The Saga of Auditor Professionalism and Independence  ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#Professionalism
 

Incompetent and Corrupt Audits are Routine ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#IncompetentAudits

Future of Auditing --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#FutureOfAuditing

See the Dean of Wharton speak out on ethics --- http://www.globalagendamagazine.com/2005/patrickharker.asp

Wharton has probably done as much or more than any school on adding ethics modules --- http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/undergrad/topschools.html

Here are a few other suggestions for your friend:

For college courses enter “Ethics in Auditing” in the second box and “University” in the top box (don’t use quotation marks) and see the many links of interest that emerge from http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

Since the implosion of Enron, the Institute of Internal Auditors has changed its offerings on ethics training --- http://www.theiia.org/index.cfm?doc_id=883

Although the courses don’t necessarily deal with auditing per se, I always suggest visiting http://www.cfenet.com/splash/

These is a great deal on changed relationships between auditors and audit committees:
AICPA Video Courses --- https://www.cpa2biz.com/Stores/cpevideocourses.htm
Audit Committee Responsibilities After Sarbanes-Oxley

VHS/Manual or DVD/Manual — Sample video clip available
Fraud and the Financial Statement Audit: Auditor Responsibilities Under New SAS
VHS/Manual or DVD/Manual — Sample video clip available

AICPA's Annual Business Law Update See http://www.aicpalearning.org/palpha.asp

I recommend going over the entire alphabetical listing at http://www.aicpalearning.org/profdevclass.asp

The AICPA will also do onsite training --- http://www.aicpalearning.org/profdevclass.asp

ABLU

CPE (sometimes auditing is only a module of the course)

http://www.passonline.com/default.aspx

 

http://www.affiliateprofit.net/accounting/8/ethics-in-accounting.html

 

Corporate Responsibility
We Help You Create Corporate Social Responsibility Policies
www.Unity-Partners.com

 

Ethical Corporation
cutting edge news & analysis in global corporate responsibility
www.ethicalcorp.com

 

 

Ethics Theory and Issues
Save Money on Books. Buy For Less on eBay. Bid Now!
www.eBay.com

Outside Accounting

Code of Medical Ethics
The Authority on Medical Ethics. AMA' s Complete Guide for Doctors.
 
www.amapress.com   


March 11, 2005 message from Ronald Kucic [rkucic@DU.EDU

We are considering dropping the use of the GMAT as a requirement for admissions to our 3/2 Master's of Accountancy program. We would replace the exam with a rigorous interview with a School of Accountancy appointed admissions committee that would consist of a cross-section of School of Accountancy faculty, College admissions staff, and possibly alumni.

I know that BYU no longer uses the GMAT as part of its 3/2 admissions process. Are there other schools of which people on this list are aware that no longer use the GMAT for admission to 3/2 accountancy programs? Unless there are others on the list who are interested in this topic, those who do know of such schools can respond to me privately at rkucic@du.edu.

Thank you for your assistance.

Regards,

A. Ronald Kucic, 
Director School of Accountancy 
Daniels College of Business 
University of Denver 
2101 S. University Blvd. #355
Denver, CO 80208


March 2, 2005 question from a student

Dr. Jensen,

What is the difference between a "forward contract" that qualifies as a derivative and a generic agreement to purchase something at a set price at a set rate at a set time? I thought the only requirements to be derivatives were 1) nominal 2) underlying and 3) a market mechanism that could net settle for cash. The reason I ask is because at SBC we have some contracts to pay a certain price for electricity in the future and I was under the impression that they qualified for derivative status because they fit into the aforementioned 3 categories. We have agreed to buy a certain number at a certain price at a given point in the future. Are those not necessarily foward contracts? Your email to Ms. Walsh seemed to suggest that her situation (which sounds very similar to this) might not count as a derivative. I ask because we were trying to decide whether to disclose the agreement in the financials. Also, does materiality factor into whether you have to disclose derivatives or is it a special case?

Thanks,

Andrew

March 3, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Andrew,

The main difference lies in the “net settlement” requirement for a derivative.  If I have a forward contract net settles for cash then it’s a derivative.  If you must take delivery of the notional amount of commodity (or principal in the case of a bond), then it does not meet the test to be a derivative scoped into FAS 133.  Purchased options never have this problem, because an option can never force delivery.  Written options almost always net settle, but OTC options might be written to not allow net settlement.

There is a gray zone where FAS 133 says that it might be a derivative if the notional can be “readily converted into cash.”  Presumably this means that the conversion does not require that you actually take delivery of 25,000 bu. of corn on your front lawn.  You might be a broker who simply takes delivery on paper and then immediately transfers that delivery to some party that actually wants big loads of corn.

Your electricity example is interesting because it relates to a huge debate that power companies had over “bookouts.”  At first the FASB took a hard stand that bookout clauses in contracts made them derivatives scoped into FAS 133.  Then it took up the matter once again but did not settle it completely.  This was widely and vocally complained about in the power industry.  Eventually FAS 138 made some NPNS accommodation.  Look up the terms “bookout” and “Normal Purchase Normal Sale” at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm

I’m going to share your message with the class, because it is a very interesting question.  I like questions like this.  It means you are thinking.  For the mid-term examination, I want students to study the term NPNS and to understand, in theory, why firms strive to achieve NPNS status.

Dr J


Put up or call up --- know the difference between buying an option versus writing an option

When students don’t quite understand why investors like to write options, you might show them this article.  You might then guide them to the special rules of accounting for written options after you carefully explain the risks of going naked

"Investment Options," by Justin Lahart, The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2005; Page C1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110979345697268538,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 

Complaints along the lines of "there aren't many good investments anymore" have become as common as dirt.

High stock valuations, low long-term interest rates and small differentials in yields between corporate bonds and Treasurys: These are symptoms of a world where too much money is chasing too few ideas, and where investors' desperation to eke out a return has overtaken their desire to avoid risk.

A prime example of this complacency about risk comes from the options arena. Many investors use stock options, which grant the right to buy (in the case of a call) or sell (a put) a security at a set price, as insurance against a volatile market. The more worried they are, the more the insurance costs. These days that insurance costs very little -- the CBOE Market Volatility Index, which is based on the prices investors are paying for options on the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, has been steadily falling.

What's more, many are selling options cheaply as a way to augment returns. An investor who owns Microsoft stock, but doesn't expect the shares to advance by much over the next few months, could sell options that give buyers the right to purchase Microsoft for $30 (versus yesterday's $25.26) by June. If Microsoft isn't over $30 on the expiration day, the options expire worthless and the investor has pocketed the money he got from selling the option.

But investors aren't just selling options that expire in the next few months cheaply. In their eagerness for income right now, they are selling options that don't expire for nearly two years for far too little, says Whitney Tilson of the hedge fund T2 Partners. This, he thinks, creates a big opportunity.

A call option giving the right to buy Anheuser-Busch for $50 a share in January 2007 costs $3.50. Shares of the brewer closed yesterday at $47.58. If they advance beyond $53.50 -- $50 plus the price of the option -- in just under two years, the option will pay off. At $54, the option pays off 14%; at $55, it pays off 43%.

For value-minded investors, these options represent a better alternative than buying shares of the company, says Mr. Tilson. His strategy: Buy long-dated call options in Anheuser-Busch and other companies with proven track records, but because the options give such an outsize return if all goes well, invest much less money than he would if he were buying the underlying stock.

"We obviously expect the stock to do well, but if we're wrong, we've tied up very little capital," Mr. Tilson says.

There are special accounting rules for written options as opposed to purchased options.  Scroll down to the phrase "Written Option" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm#W-Terms 


Moral Philosophy

March 1, 2005 message from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU

Why use second hand stuff?

I would go to the originals, most of which are FREE.

Some examples:

1. Nicomachean Ethics, By Aristotle, Translated by W. D. Ross http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

(Ross translation is the best I have read; always on my bookshelf, one of my precious possessions)

2. Eudemian Ethics, Books I, II, and VIII (Second Edition), Aristotle Edited and translated with a commentary by Michael Woods http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/History/Ancient/?ci

=0198240201&view=usa

(Much neglected work, among his earliest works.

1 and 2 were really Aristotle's lecture notes;

makes me wonder to what lows we have sunk). Not free

3.a. History of the Peloponnesian War (Great Minds Series)

by Thucydides, Benjamin Jowett  --- http://snipurl.com/PeloponisianWar 

(If I were to be banished to a lonely island and I was allowed to take just one book, this would be it). Not free, but I would pay its weight in gold if I had to. One of my most precious possessions.

3.b. The History of the Peloponnesian War, Translated by Richard Crawley http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html

Free, but I would pay a hefty price for the Jowett translation.

4. Any Jowett translation of Plato (even after all these years, I read them whenenever I can). Jowett translations are my favourite. Even today I could not improve them by virtually changing even a single word) Free. One of my most precious possessions. http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Plato.html

5. THE CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON, by Immanuel Kant http://eserver.org/philosophy/kant/critique-of-practical-reaso.txt

A lesser known sibling of 'Critique of Pure Reason'. I read it again and again from time to time.

I also would use Sophocles's trilogy. Also Dickens, Rousseau's 'Emile',... The important thing is not to make an ethics course in the image of a run-of-the-mill Intermediate Financial Accounting course. It puts tremendous burden on the instructor, but I can not even conceive of a better way to spend a semester.

I know it is a tall order these days asking students to read works of all these "dead white men". But it will be their loss (and as academics, our loss) if they don't. It is irrelevant whether one is studying to be an accountant, a farmer, rocket scientist, or a brain surgeon. It is reading works like these that make one a better human being.

Respectfully submitted,

Jagdish

Jagdish S. Gangolly, Associate Professor
School of Business & NY State Center for Information Forensics & Assurance 
State University of New York at Albany BA 365C, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222

email: j.gangolly@albany.edu 

March 1, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

You might check out the Picola Project as a potential model for applying for grants and helping accountants around the world.  This model would be great if it were extended beyond communities and into accountancy --- http://communityconnections.heinz.cmu.edu/picola/index.html 

When it comes to the academic side of ethics, I always say begin with CMU philosophy professor Robert Cavelier.

He shares some course references at http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/CAAE/webmats.htm
Some of his fantastic course materials are linked on the left side of the page at http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/Cavalier/80130/  

Part I History of Ethics

Preface: The Life of Socrates
Section 1: Greek Moral Philosophy
Section 2: Hellenistic and Roman Ethics
Section 3: Early Christian Ethics
Section 4: Modern Moral Philosophy
Section 5: 20th Century Analytic Moral Philosophy

Part II Concepts and Problems

Preface: Meta-ethics, Normative Ethics and Applied Ethics
Section 1: Ethical Relativism
Section 2: Ethical Egoism
Section 3: Utilitarian Theories
Section 4: Deontological Theories
Section 5: Virtue Ethics
Section 6: Liberal Rights and Communitarian Theories
Section 7: Ethics of Care
Section 8: Case-based Moral Reasoning
Section 9: Moral Pluralism

Part III Applied Ethics

Preface: The Field of Applied Ethics
Section 1: The Topic of Euthanasia
Multimedia Module: A Right to Die? The Dax Cowart Case
Section 2: The Topic of Abortion
Multimedia Module: The Issue of Abortion in America
Postscript: Conflict Resolution

Note that his update materials appear to be buried in a CMU Blackboard server.  I suspect Dr. Cavelier would share the updates if it was for a good cause.  


March 1, 2005 message from Glen L Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU

When did the Internet start being called the "Internet?" I know what we now call the Internet was created in 1969, but was it called the Internet then? I believe it was first called ARPANet, reflecting the funding agency. NSFNet was used to reflect the subsequent NSF funding. 

Glen L. Gray, PhD, CPA 
Accounting & Information Systems, 
COBAE California State University, Northridge Northridge, CA 91330-8372 

http://www.csun.edu/~vcact00f 

March 2, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

You can read the following under "Internet" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm 

1974 Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf refer to the term "Internet" for the first time on their notes regarding Transmission Control Protocol http://www.bangla.net/isp/tech_support/internet-timeline.html 

The "official definition" came out long after the term Internet became commonly used --- http://www.itrd.gov/fnc/Internet_res.html 

I've got all the symptoms
In the early '90s, psychiatrists and clinicians were beginning to hear of a new medical term, "internet addiction." At first, this was met with a lot of skepticism and denial, however, it became evident that the more people logged on to cyberspace, the more they got hooked.The 10 Symptoms You Need To Watch Out For:
AskMen.com --- http://www.askmen.com/fashion/body_and_mind/16_better_living.html 


"Add Even More Muscle to “What-If” Analyses (in Excel)," by James A. Weisel, Journal of Accountancy, March 2005, pp. 76-79 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2005/weisel.htm 

This is the second of two articles on how to use Excel to conduct powerful business analyses.  Follow along as I demonstrate how Scenario PivotTable can make your analysis of even the most complex what-if projects more efficient and effective. In part 1, “Add Muscle to What-If Analyses” (see JofA, Sept.04, page 38), we demonstrated the basic techniques for managing multiple what-if versions using Excel’s Scenario Manager. To illustrate the process, we started with a model budget for a fictitious business, PQR Co. (exhibit 1) and created a series of five scenarios with varying sales growth rates, cost-of-sales growth rates and advertising expenditures . . . 


Egads!  Is this what you call filling in where schools fail?
The College Board will administer its revised college-admissions test to thousands of high-school juniors for the first time on Saturday, and the test has generated a bonanza of new study aids. "The new SAT has led to a flurry of new products because all publishers are starting new -- there's a new thing to compete over," says Justin Kestler, a founder of SparkNotes LLC, a division of Borders Group Inc.  Adds Jon Zeitlin, manager of college-prep programs for Kaplan Inc., a unit of Washington Post Co.: "We've been on a product-creation jag for months."  Test-prep giant Princeton Review Inc., which isn't affiliated with Princeton University, has developed software that delivers test questions, including critical-reading passages, to cellphone screens -- then grades the answers and sends the results home to Mom and Dad. Its chief competitor Kaplan has software for a cellphone or a Palm device: Order up easy, medium or hard questions in reading, writing or math.  Texas Instruments Inc. is programming all of its latest graphing calculators with SAT math and vocabulary drills. And SparkNotes has its test-prep eye on the ubiquitous iPod. "We're trying to figure out how to do it in audio," says Mr. Kestler. "It's the next big killer application."
June Kronholz, "To Tackle New SAT, Perhaps You Need A New Study Device:  Test-Prep CDs, Puzzles, Cellphone Software Hit A June Market of Nonreaders," The Wall Street Journal, March 8. 2005, Page A1  --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111024562510773081,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 

Jensen Comment
College admission tests serve many purposes, not the least of which is to guide students into what to learn in school.  One of the failings of our schools and the college tests is the failure to test and motivate students toward understanding personal finance.  Why is this important?  Personal finances are a major cause of suicide and divorce.  Sometimes I don't think teachers really are concerned about the tragedies of life that affect nearly all people later in life from the very poor to the very rich.  Our graduates mess of their lives because they mess up their personal finances and/or allow themselves to be screwed by credit card companies, finance companies, brokers, financial advisors, and banks (yes and banks).

Please read the following:
"Survey: Students Not Taught Basic Finance," Ben Feller, SmartPros, March 7, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47289.xml 

And then look at the following:

March 4, 2005 message from a staff member at Trinity University

Think of the many people whose lives might be saved and whose marriages might be more successful if they understood the basics of who to keep out of digging themselves into financial holes and how to stop digging once they're in those holes.

Bob Jensen's threads on the dirty tricks of credit card companies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 

"Survey: Students Not Taught Basic Finance," Ben Feller, SmartPros, March 7, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47289.xml 

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2005 (Associated Press) — More states are requiring students to learn about managing money, but personal finance remains a fringe topic in schools and a major source of federal concern.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seven states mandate that students take a course about basic finances to graduate high school, according to 2004 survey results released Thursday by the private National Council on Economic Education. That's up from 2002, when just four states required such courses.

In the standards they set for schools, most states say they want money matters to be taught - 38 states include the ideas of saving, investing, risk management and other finance themes in their standards or guidelines, an increase from 31 states two years earlier. But the survey found many states don't enforce the standards, let alone require entire courses.

"There is more good economic and financial education being offered in schools than ever," said Robert Duvall, president of the national council, which released its findings during an economic literacy summit. "But as a subject area, it continues to be marginalized as an add-on in an already crowded curriculum. We need to keep pushing to make it part of the core."

Poor understanding of personal finance can cause more than a sloppy checkbook. As young people rack up credit debt or fail to save money, they can later find themselves with bankruptcies, home foreclosures and financial stresses that divide families, experts say.

The problem of bad money management is drawing more national attention as a public education issue. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has prodded schools to help teach kids financial literacy so they are not saddled by poor financial decisions as adults.

The Financial Literacy and Education Commission, which represents 20 federal agencies and commissions, is working on ways to help people navigate complex money decisions.

In a national survey last year, only 52 percent of high school seniors answered correctly questions about personal finance and economics. The students struggled, for example, with questions on income tax, stocks and bonds, credit card liability and retirement plans.

The new report says that the seven states requiring students to take a personal finance course are Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, New York and Utah.

Relying on colleges to teach students about money is not a good approach, Duvall said, as many kids don't get that far, and college courses are more about theory than daily life.

Duvall's council wants all states to require an economics course, including personal finance. A total of 15 states require an economics course this year, up from 14 two years ago.

States can also reinforce economic themes in other courses, such as a math class on compound interest or a history class on the Boston Tea Party and taxation, Duvall said.

William Walstad, director of the National Center for Research in Economic Education, said states should unite those varied lessons in a well-defined sequence of courses - just as they do with math and science. He said advocates need to lobby with more urgency and unity.

"Time can hurt us if we don't keep pressing the case," Walstad said.

The number of states that included personal finance in their curriculum standards dropped from 40 to 31 between 2000 and 2002 before rebounding in the new survey.

Duvall said that was a reaction by states to No Child Left Behind, the 2001 federal education law that put a greater emphasis on state math and reading progress.

"We've had a couple of years to take that in stride and figure out how to not only put a rightful emphasis on language arts and mathematics, but also financial literacy," he said.

Bob Jensen's threads on credit card frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 

I agree with the habit of spending within one’s means.  But there still is a question of stupid spending within one’s means.  For example, should families really spend extra for an entirely new car even if they can make the payments?  And do they understand the car’s financing --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudDealers.htm 


Free credit report offers seem to flood the Internet these days. Most companies claiming to give you a free credit report are really looking to sell you something in the long run, such as a credit monitoring service or identity-fraud protection.

So, stop surfing around online for a free credit report, most of the offers you will find are not really free. If you do not qualify for a free credit report, you are still better going straight to the actual credit bureaus and just paying the $8 that a credit report costs. Knowing what your credit file says about you is priceless.
"Free Credit Report Offers... Are They Really Free? - Consumer Alert," AccountingWeb, March 3, 2005 ---  http://www.accountingweb.com/item/100593 

Free credit report offers seem to flood the Internet these days. Most companies claiming to give you a free credit report are really looking to sell you something in the long run, such as a credit monitoring service or identity-fraud protection. Once you purchase the service, you will be given a copy of your credit report, usually from just one of the major credit bureaus. Since there are three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Transunion, and Equifax), you will not see the complete picture if you do not receive a report from each one.

Other websites that sell credit reports are resellers for the real credit bureaus and exist to make a profit. Some of these websites are very useful if you intend to pay, and are very convenient as a centralized place to obtain a 3-in-1 report with a personalized account that you can return to at anytime to order more reports; however, you will not receive anything for free.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 you are entitled to a free credit report if your application for credit, insurance or employment is denied because of information provided by a credit reporting agency (CRA). The company that you applied to must provide you with a denial notice which will contain the name, address, and phone number of the CRA that was used. You must request your report within 60 days of receiving the notice of the action. In addition, you are entitled to one free report a year if (1) you are unemployed and plan to look for a job within 60 days, (2) you are on welfare, or (3) your report is inaccurate because of fraud.

Residents of Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and Vermont already have a right to one free report per bureau each year because of laws enacted by those states. However, a new Federal provision enacted in 2003, grants access to free credit reports to all consumers in every state.

Free Annual Credit Reports Available to Everyone

According to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, every consumer is entitled to one free credit report each year. The final rule on this Act issued by the Federal Trade Commission in June 2004, provides for a centralized source from which consumers can obtain their credit reports from each of the three credit bureaus.

The centralized source is becoming available in cumulative stages, over a period of nine months, rolling-out from west. The rollout began in December 2004 and will be complete by September 1, 2005. Western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming) became eligible on December 1, 2004;

Midwestern states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) will become eligible on March 1, 2005; Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas ) will become eligible on June 1, 2005; Eastern states (Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia), Puerto Rico, and all U.S. territories will become eligible on September 1, 2005.

So, stop surfing around online for a free credit report, most of the offers you will find are not really free. If you do not qualify for a free credit report, you are still better going straight to the actual credit bureaus and just paying the $8 that a credit report costs. Knowing what your credit file says about you is priceless.


To my accounting theory students:  I probably won't examine you on this one, but you might find it of interest.

Karen Richardson, "Swapping Rates to Save on Debt ... Maybe:  Rice Financial Products Offers Cities, States Deal Rife With Benefits, Risks," The Wall Street Journal,  March 15, 2005; Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111083206224878924,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 

Officials in Durham, N.C., hope that a financial transaction with a private New York firm will save the city millions of dollars on its municipal debt.

But some say the deal -- an interest-rate swap with a formula that multiplies the city's potential savings as well as its potential losses -- may contain costly risk.

"They're entering into a gamble where they believe they're going to win more money than they're going to lose," says Robert Whaley, professor of finance and a derivatives expert at Duke University in Durham. "It's just speculation."

The Synthetic Fixed-Rate Refinancing Swap, as it is known, was created by Rice Financial Products Co., which has sold such deals in at least five states. It would work like this in Durham: On existing debt of $103 million, Durham would pay Rice Financial a still-to-be negotiated fixed interest rate over 15 years while Rice Financial would pay Durham a rate that is about 0.9 percentage point greater, plus a so-called adjustment factor. Rice Financial has said the deal could save the city $8 million.

"This proposal is so complex ... that I don't know that there are 30 or 40 people in this entire state who can fully comprehend it," says Eugene Brown, a Durham city councilman who has been lobbying against the swap.

"What you really want to focus on is the all-in cost of funds," says Donald Rice, founder and chief executive of Rice Financial.

The adjustment factor is based on a combination of the Bond Market Association (BMA) benchmark index rate for tax-exempt bonds and the taxable London interbank offered rate, or Libor. Supply and demand, credit risk, tax policy, interest rates and different maturities can result in unpredictable swings in that relationship. "Understanding the dynamics of how these two rates behave in relationship to one another is not an easy task," says Prof. Whaley

The formula effectively "magnifies both potential benefits and risks" by 1.54 times, according to an analysis of the swap structure by Public Financial Management in Philadelphia, Durham's financial adviser. The firm approved the deal but recommended that the city budget the expected savings conservatively.

Rice Financial made an "unsolicited proposal" to Durham City in August after it sold a similar swap to Durham County, says Kenneth Pennoyer, the city's director of finance. Prior to meeting with Rice Financial, he says, the city hadn't been contemplating any sort of swap because most of its bonds outstanding pay a fixed interest rate.

"There's a potential savings for the city, and I think that's a worthwhile goal in itself," Mr. Pennoyer says. He is confident that a final city-council vote April 18 will approve the deal since a commission of the state treasurer has approved it and Standard & Poor's Ratings Services recently gave it its highest rating for this type of transaction.

Mr. Rice is a Harvard Business School graduate who started structuring municipal interest-rate swaps at Merrill Lynch & Co. nearly 20 years ago. He says his company has executed more than $20 billion in swaps since its establishment in 1994. "There may be a circumstance where our transaction causes dis-savings, but it requires a substantial market move ... one that's unparalleled," says Mr. Rice.

Interest-rate swaps aren't new to the municipal-bond markets, but their use has grown over the past three years. As interest rates fell to record lows, municipal issuers were looking for ways to trim costs without issuing more bonds. But with interest rates rising, fixed-rate issuers betting on a formula involving two floating rates and a multiplier effect seems imprudent to some.

"Often the political pressures are such that ... when [potential benefits] are couched in terms of 'savings,' the risk is that people are doing things they don't understand," says Mike Marz, vice chairman of First Southwest Co. in Dallas. First Southwest has advised North Carolina finance officials against using the Rice Financial swap.

Mr. Rice declined to discuss his company's compensation from the swaps, except to say that issuers' financial advisers were responsible for negotiating rates that were "fair value" in the market. On average, municipal-swap deals generate fees of 0.05% to 0.10% of the deal for bankers. Durham City's Mr. Pennoyer said Rice Financial's compensation on the $103 million swap was in the ballpark of about $800,000, or 0.8%.

In 2003 the West Basin Municipal Water District in California sued its financial adviser, P.G. Corbin & Co., in California state court, alleging it gave faulty advice in deeming a Rice Financial swap in 2001 a "fair market transaction."

A spokesman for West Basin said he didn't know the status of the case. Lawyers representing P.G. Corbin didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

Separately, this month a West Basin official was sentenced in U.S. court in California to two years in prison for extorting $25,000 from a consultant at M.R. Beal & Co., then a partner of Rice Financial, to steer the water district's debt-refinancing contract in Rice Financial's favor.

"The well-publicized events among certain of West Basin's board members are unfortunate," Mr. Rice said. "Nonetheless, we are pleased with the products and services we have provided West Basin over the years and value them as a customer."

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on March 18, 2005

TITLE: Swapping Rates to Save on Debt...Maybe 
REPORTER: Karen Richardson 
DATE: Mar 14, 2005 
PAGE: C3 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111083206224878924,00.html  
TOPICS: Advanced Financial Accounting, Derivatives, Governmental Accounting

SUMMARY: The city of Durham, NC., has entered into an unusual interest rate swap created by Rice Financial Products, Co. A Duke university finance professor, Robert Whaley, describes the transaction as speculative.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) What are the features of a standard interest rate swap? What is unusual about the interest rate swap discussed in this article?

2.) Why might a governmental entity want to engage in an interest rate swap transaction? Answer this question with reference to the current state of interest rates and the terms of the Durham, N.C. debt described in the article.

3.) Why does Duke University Professor of Finance Robert Whaley call this transaction "just speculation"?

4.) How does the assessment that this interest rate swap is speculative potentially affect the accounting for the swap?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

The practice of selling high risk derivative instruments products just goes on and on in spite of the enormous scandals of the past --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds 

You can read more about interest rate swaps by scrolling down at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm#I-Terms 

Particularly important is understanding Examples 2 and 5 of Appendix B of FAS 133 and how to value interest rate swaps --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133swapvalue.htm 

Bob Jensen's tutorials on FAS 133 and IAS 39 accounting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 


Forwarded by Don Mathis
A Write Shop --- http://www.awriteshop.com/e_reading.html 
Many links to free books and other readings online.

Bob Jensen's links to electronic books are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#ElectronicBooks 


Fannie Mae is a great source for students learning about breakdown of internal controls

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on March 11, 2005

TITLE: Fannie Regulator Tightens Its Grip 
REPORTER: James R. Hagerty 
DATE: Mar 09, 2005 
PAGE: A3 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111030895766973673,00.html  
TOPICS: Accounting, Information Technology, Internal Auditing, Internal Controls, Regulation

SUMMARY: "Fannie Mae's regulator told the mortgage company to fix 'deficiencies' in accounting-ledger and corporate-records controls. The new requirements include policies bhannien falsified signatures on journal entries and limiting employees' ability to alter databases." The internal control framework developed by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) is used as a basis for questions. For those instructors who wish to refer their students to the executive summary for this framework, it is available on the web at http://www.coso.org/Publications/executive_summary_integrated_framework.htm The Institute for Internal Auditors publishes a checklist developed by COSO which is available on the web at

http://www.theiia.org/?doc_id=374 

QUESTIONS: 1.) Define internal control and provide a proper reference to your source for that definition.

2.) What is COSO? Who or what comprises the members of COSO?

3.) What professional documents identify the basis for sound internal controls? Who establishes these standards?

4.) What internal control violations are highlighted in this article? Name each and describe the component of control being violated, based on COSO's five components of internal control.

5.) How does automation, and technical staff access to databases, add to issues inherent in systems of internal control?

6.) Compare the discussion of internal controls in the main article to the related article. How are the issues in the main article regarding internal controls consistent with problems that are identified in the related article as the basis for denying hedge accounting treatment for derivatives?

7.) Refer to the comparison made in answer to question 6. What general category or categories of internal control do you think were ultimately violated at Fannie Mae? Do you think this violation stems from the internal control environment at Fannie Mae? Support your answer.

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

--- RELATED ARTICLES --- 
TITLE: Fannie Faces Billions in New Losses 
REPORTER: Jonathan Weil and James R. Hagerty 
PAGE: A3 
ISSUE: Mar 03, 2005 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110980084894668645,00.html 

"Fannie Mae Is Cited for 'Deficiencies':  Regulator Sets Conditions To Correct Internal Controls; Office of Compliance Created," by James R. Hagerty, The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2005; Page A3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111030895766973673,00.html 

Fannie Mae's regulator announced that it has instructed the mortgage company to correct "deficiencies" in its controls over accounting ledgers and other corporate records.

The new requirements include the adoption of policies banning falsified signatures on accounting journal entries and limiting employees' ability to alter database records.

The latest move by the regulator -- the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, or Ofheo -- illustrates its tightening grip on Fannie in light of an accounting scandal that emerged last year.

Fannie's board also agreed to create an "office of compliance and ethics" and to direct the company's general counsel to inform directors and regulators of "actual or possible misconduct" at the company.

The directions to the company's board and management are included in an agreement with the regulator, signed by Fannie Mae's interim chairman, Stephen B. Ashley, and released by Ofheo yesterday. The specificity of the agreement suggests that Ofheo has found examples of Fannie employees flouting some basic standards of conduct.

An Ofheo spokeswoman declined to say whether such wrongdoing had been found but said the regulator continues to work closely with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission in investigating Fannie's accounting and internal controls.

Rep. Richard H. Baker (R., La.), chairman of a House subcommittee that oversees Fannie and its smaller rival, Freddie Mac, said the agreement "raises many disturbing questions, especially about tampering with records, and we need to know the nature of the records and the extent of this outrageous practice." He scheduled a hearing for April 5 to look into the matter.

Mr. Ashley said in a statement that the agreement "represents the next step in Fannie Mae's cooperative effort to address issues raised by Ofheo." A spokesman declined to elaborate.

At a minimum, Fannie seems to have allowed "extreme sloppiness" in its internal controls, said Karen Petrou, a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics Inc., a research firm in Washington.

The new agreement supplements one imposed on Fannie last September by Ofheo in the wake of findings that Fannie violated accounting rules in an attempt to smooth out fluctuations in its earnings. Those findings, backed by the SEC's chief accountant, prompted Fannie's board in December to oust the company's chief executive officer and chief financial officer.

Until recently, Fannie had the political clout to brush off concerns raised by Ofheo, but the accounting scandal has forced the company to seek a far more cooperative relationship with its regulator.

Among other things, the agreement requires Fannie to devise a plan for rectifying "deficiencies" in procedures for making and revising accounting journal entries. Those entries must be "supported by appropriate documentation," the agreement says.

In addition, Fannie agreed to "adopt appropriate internal controls" on any "overwriting" of database records by technical-support employees at the direction of management to make changes or corrections. Those changes would have to be properly documented.

The agreement also notes that Fannie's board has separated the functions of chairman and chief executive, formerly both held by Franklin D. Raines, who was forced to step down in December. Under Mr. Raines, Fannie resisted Ofheo's proposal for a regulation that would, among other things, require that the two jobs be held by different people. That proposed regulation has been held up for months by a review at the Office of Management and Budget; one person familiar with the situation said the Bush administration was reluctant to set policy on whether companies should combine the two functions. But Ofheo now has used its growing clout to persuade both Fannie and Freddie to separate the jobs, even without a regulation.

The new requirements come as Fannie is preparing to restate its results for the past four years and racing to meet a Sept. 30 deadline to raise additional capital, as previously mandated by Ofheo.

Fannie and Freddie were chartered by Congress to provide funding for mortgage lenders. Although they are instruments of U.S. housing policy, they are owned by shareholders and their shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.


Small Business Helpers from Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2005 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2005/news_web.htm 

Food for Thought
www.businessownersideacafe.com
“A fun approach to serious business” is the tag line here, with lively graphics and laid-back narrative that punch up its material. The Small Biz Tax Center helps clarify IRS tax and recordkeeping requirements and gives tips for start-up business owners. The CyberSchmooz “lobby” opens onto message forums on e-commerce, marketing and working at home. The Your Biz section includes a “fridge” full of business forms, e-mail protocols, marketing tips and even yoga instructions.

Small Company, Big Resources
www.allbusiness.com
From forms for consulting and confidentiality agreements to advice on sales and marketing or using the Internet, this Web stop offers guidance to CPAs who advise start-ups and small businesses. The Business Plans section has articles such as “Common Business Plan Mistakes for Startup Companies,” while the Small Business Advice section provides tax basics. Users also can tap into an FAQ section or a business glossary or sign up for a free e-newsletter.

A Dear Abby for Small Business
www.score.org
Since first listed here in June 2003, this site has added resources to its Business Toolbox section including a gallery of downloadable templates for bank loan applications, business plans and sales forecasts, as well as expanded links to such small business topics as finance, franchising and international trade. The Learning Center has a list of tips for business planning, marketing, public relations and office management.

Bob Jensen's small business helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness 


History of the word "gay" --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay 


March 4, 2005 message from Ethical Performance [list_admin@ethicalperformance.com

As someone with an interest in corporate social responsibility, I thought you would like to know that Ethical Performance has expanded its online service to include news and analysis directly from the Asia-Pacific region.

The online version of the independent business newsletter on corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investment now offers news from 29 Asia-Pacific countries at http://www.ethicalperformance.com

Ethical Performance Online also includes a detailed list of links to companies, consultancies, investors, civil society groups and other organizations in the region that are playing a key role in CSR and SRI.


March 3, 2005 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu

ENCOURAGING FACULTY ADOPTION OF TECHNOLOGY FOR TEACHING

"Some universities, some faculty, and even some students have increased their personal wealth by asserting ownership of the intellectual property created at the university. For many faculty, however, this new entrepreneurial orientation runs deeply counter to traditions of education and public service. Past campus debates about aspects of this cultural shift have created an environment of distrust and rancor." In a recent article Brian C. Donohue and Linda Howe-Steiger express their belief that this distrust has "spilled over into faculty attitudes toward the use of digital technologies for teaching" causing faculty to reject these technologies. This situation can be remedied if institutions "create incentives for faculty that balance public service goals with professional and entrepreneurial rewards, clarify ownership and usage rights of intellectual property generated by and for teaching, and generate additional funding for curriculum development at universities (possibly through tax credits)." They expand upon how to accomplish this in "Faculty and Administrators Collaborating for E-Learning Courseware" (EDUCAUSE QUARTERLY, vol. 28, no. 1, 2005, pp. 20-32). The article is available online, at no cost, at http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm05/eqm0513.asp .

EDUCAUSE Quarterly, The IT Practitioner's Journal [ISSN 1528-5324] is published by EDUCAUSE, 4772 Walnut Street, Suite 206, Boulder, CO 80301-2538 USA. Current and past issues are available online at http://www.educause.edu/eq/ .

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


WHAT LEADS TO ACHIEVING SUCCESS IN DISTANCE EDUCATION?

"Achieving Success in Internet-Supported Learning in Higher Education," released February 1, 2005, reports on the study of distance education conducted by the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness (A-HEC). A-HEC surveyed 21 colleges and universities to "uncover best practices in achieving success with the use of the Internet in higher education." Some of the questions asked by the study included:

"Why do institutions move online? Are there particular conditions under which e-Learning will be successful?"

"What is the role of leadership and by whom? What level of investment or commitment is necessary for success?"

"How do institutions evaluate and measure success?"

"What are the most important and successful factors for student support and faculty support?"

"Where do institutions get stuck? What are the key challenges?"

The complete report is available online, at no cost, at http://www.a-hec.org/e-learning_study.html.

The "core focus" of the nonprofit Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness (A-HEC) "is on communicating how higher education leaders are creating positive change by crystallizing their mission, offering more effective academic programs, defining their role in society, and putting in place balanced accountability measures." For more information, go to http://www.a-hec.org/ . Individual membership in A-HEC is free.

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 


MAKING THE CASE FOR A WIKI

The Wiki.org site defines a Wiki as "the simplest online database that could possibly work." It is a "piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly." Some uses of Wikis in education include collaborative writing projects, discussion forums, project spaces/libraries, and interdisciplinary projects.

In "Making the Case for a Wiki" (ARIADNE, issue 42, January 2005) Emma Tonkin explains what a Wiki is and how to choose and deploy a Wiki implementation. The article is available online at http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/tonkin/ .

Ariadne is published every three months by the UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN). Its purpose is "to report on information service developments and information networking issues worldwide, keeping the busy practitioner abreast of current digital library initiatives." For more information, contact: Richard Waller, Editor; email: ariadne@ukoln.ac.uk ; Web: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/ 

Bob Jensen's Wiki threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Wiki 


"Smart Startups Don't Wait to Set Up Accounting Systems," by Marguerite Rigoglioso in a review of a a study by Antonio Davila and George Foster, Stanford University Graduate School of Business Alumni Newsletter, February 2005 --- http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/entrep_davila_foster_acctgsystems.shtml  

The question of when to set up management control systems such as financial planning and monitoring tools haunts most entrepreneurs involved in startup operations. Until recently, there was little research on the topic, but a new study by Antonio Davila, assistant professor of accounting, and George Foster, the Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Professor of Management, explores this area.

Davila and Foster studied 78 companies in a variety of technical and non-technical industries, each less than 10 years old. They found firms that acted quickly to institute formal mechanisms such as operation budgets, cash budgets, and financial monitoring systems (tools that measure profitability, customer acquisition costs, variance from actual budget, and so forth) had higher growth rates in terms of revenues and head count. They also had greater and more rapid increases in valuation at successive rounds of venture capital funding.

"Control systems are critical for providing executives with data they can use for their managerial decision making," says Foster. "We can't prove whether growth pushes the adoption of management systems, or whether the adoption of management systems pushes growth, but clearly both are occurring. Larger companies are more complex and need the discipline that such systems can bring. At the same time, it's generally true that managers of early-stage companies are unlikely to predict accurately exactly when growth will occur. Therefore, because significant growth does tend to happen within a year of their establishing management accounting systems, it's likely that these systems anticipate and fuel growth, as well."

Because information about internal decision making regarding management systems generally is not available publicly, the researchers used questionnaires and interviews to glean valuable data about company practices from some 200 startup executives. They found that young companies begin with few management systems in place. These firms tend to institute financial planning systems such as operational budgets on average 1.48 years after the company founding, with cash budgets following quickly. Financial monitoring systems come much later—on average three or more years after founding. Still other systems, such as product development, partnership, and marketing control, come even later.

"Management systems are the foundation for growth," says Davila. "As an executive in one of the companies we worked with described it, 'management by personality' only works up to a certain point. After that, you need to put systems in place."

One key factor driving the timing of when financial management systems are adopted is when a chief financial officer is hired, according to Davila and Foster. "We call this the 'import-in' approach to establishing control systems," says Foster. "Companies look for what's missing in their organization and hire people who have skills in those areas. Bringing on a senior financial officer typically fast tracks establishing financial planning and monitoring systems. It's generally more effective and economical than trying to create something from scratch within an organization."

The study also reveals that venture capital-backed companies tend to establish operating and cash budgets sooner than individually funded startups. "Often managers want to be sure that the funding will not be abused, so they are eager to set up controls as soon as they can," Foster says. "VCs also understand the importance of good financial management and encourage the use of these systems." Companies with more experienced CEOs adopt planning systems earlier than those with greener leaders at the helm, as well. "More experienced executives recognize the importance of formalized decision-making mechanisms and are quicker to implement them," he says.

Continued in article


"The Shape of Tech This Year," Business Week, January 11, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/ShapeOfTech 

Certainly, plenty of excitement surrounds consumer technologies like liquid crystal and plasma TVs and wireless technologies like Wi-Fi. But for every high hope, there's a gloomy forecast of weak corporate spending and merger failures or continuing price pressure from China.

This much is known: After nearly three years of declines, 2004 was a ray of hope for tech. Business spending on technology was up, somewhere in the range of 5%. Venture capitalists started taking entrepreneurs to lunch once again. Tech employment picked up, despite competition from international outsourcing outfits. And tech stocks outpaced the rest of the stock market.

PLUSES AND MINUSES. 
Will those happy trends continue this year? Well, tech spending should keep pace with 2004. VCs look like they're ready to put money behind the young turks they've been lunching. The high-price products coming from the convergence of consumer electronics and the tech industry look like they're about to lose the ugly "high-price" moniker. Wi-Fi is about to go from cool-to-have to must-have.

But worries remain. While tech companies are hiring again, they don't seem particularly eager to increase wages. Many economists are concerned that tech salaries will stay flat or even drop this year. Either way, they certainly won't keep up with the cost of living. Meanwhile, investors happy about the software industry's merger mania may get a rude awakening: These deals may look great on paper, but they're awfully hard to pull off for a whole bunch of reasons, ranging from cultural to technical.

Most of all, investors fear that the stocks of tech bellwethers like Microsoft (MSFT ), Cisco (CSCO ), and Intel (INTC ) may take a big hit. After all, these companies have enjoyed premium share prices over the years because they were considered "growth" stocks -- companies that expand far faster than the rest of the economy.

FROM WALL ST. TO CHINA. 
Now that the tech industry is so big and these companies have such dominant shares of their particularly industries, it may be unrealistic to expect them to keep the growth pace of their younger days.

Maturity. It's not a bad thing. But it sure will take a lot of getting used to.

In this special report, BusinessWeek Online predicts seven big trends for the coming year. We'll explain why tech bellwethers may have a tough year on Wall Street, why venture capitalists are showing some moxie and investing in new ideas, and why Wi-Fi will soon be found in places unimaginable just a year or two ago. We'll look at tech employment trends, salivate at the likely prospect of big price drops for high-tech TVs, cast a wary eye toward software mergers, and count the ways China is having a big impact on the semiconductor industry.

Continued in article


Yet another hit on women
Why so few women chess masters? America's top female player ponders the question.
But Ms. Polgar is not someone who sees the two sexes as the same. "I think women are built differently and approach life very differently," she told me. And in a 2002 column for ChessCafe.com, she took on what might now be called the Lawrence Summers question. "If we talk about pure abilities and skills, I believe there should be no reason why women cannot play as well as men," Ms. Polgar wrote, but she went on to list various reasons that more female players have not reached chess's highest ranks -- among them their biological clocks, narrower opportunities to compete, cultural and gender bias, and the fact that "for years, women have set much lower standards" for themselves in chess than men. "If you do not put in the same work, you can't compete at the same level," she said then
Barbara D. Phillips, "Envoy From the Sport of Kings And Queens, Bishops, Knights," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005; Page D9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110964485701166720,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

Susan Polgar's book "A World Champion's Guide to Chess," co-written by Paul Truong, will be released March 8 by Random House Puzzles & Games, and a book on chess tactics is scheduled for 2006. Her instructional DVD series will be available later this year. Yet another book, her "Breaking Through: How the Polgar Sisters Changed the Game of Chess," also co-written by Mr. Truong, is due out from Everyman Chess in May. And in June all three Polgar sisters will appear at the Las Vegas International Chess Festival.

Susan, who speaks seven languages, now sees herself as an ambassador for chess in America. Study after study has "shown that children who are exposed to the game are ahead of their peers who are not involved with the royal game. Chess is a wonderful tool to increase concentration, self-control, patience, imagination, creativity, logical thinking and many more important and useful life skills," she says.

Her Polgar Chess Center welcomes players of all ages, from tots to retirees. This queen of chess says the center, which opened in 1997 and moved to its current location in a ground-floor apartment on Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills last year, is the "only full-fledged chess club in New York," operating seven days a week. She lectures there on Thursday nights.

Two years ago, she founded her nonprofit Susan Polgar Foundation to promote chess to young people nationwide, with a special focus on girls. This year, more than 3,000 of them will participate in regional qualifying events for the second Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girls. The University of Texas at Dallas will award a full four-year scholarship to the highest finishing player who has not yet graduated from high school when the tournament is held in Phoenix this August. She also is looking for support, both from donations and from politicians, for her foundation's Excel Through Chess program, which aims to introduce chess to every child in every school to help them do better in their studies and in life.

And if that isn't enough to keep Ms. Polgar occupied, she writes regular columns not only for ChessCafe.com but for Chess Life magazine.

Looking back, she says one of her biggest disappointments in the sport was in 1986. After qualifying for the Men's World Championship, the first woman -- girl, really -- ever to do so, she was not allowed to participate. But Zsuzsa (as Susan is also known) persevered and would have her share of victories. They included "breaking the gender barrier and becoming the first woman to ever earn the overall (men's) International Grandmaster title. Winning 10 medals in the Chess Olympiad, with five gold, four silver and one bronze. Winning four Women's World Championships and being the only World Champion, male or female, to win the triple crown in chess -- World Blitz, usually each player has five minutes for the entire game; Rapid Championship, usually 25 minutes for each player per game; and Classical Chess Championship, where the games usually last six to seven hours. The reason this is so special is because it is like winning the 100-meter dash, 800-meter race and marathon, or winning tennis on all three surfaces....Most players are good at one and not at the others."

And her latest victory? "After a more than eight-year break from international competition, I made a triumphant return to the Chess Olympiad, this time representing the U.S." That was in October of last year, when she picked up four of those 10 shiny objects in her collection. "I am proud to win the first-ever medals for our Women's Chess team -- two gold and two silver."

Did I mention that just before that, in Lindsborg, Kan., she tied seven-time World Champion Anatoly Karpov in "The Clash of the Titans," which was the first officially sanctioned match between a male and female World Champion?

Some of her clashes have mixed the bitter with the sweet. In 1999, FIDE stripped Ms. Polgar of her classical Women's World Championship title in a dispute over the timing, location and purse of the event in which she was to defend her 1996 crown. She calls it "a bitter moment in my life." But the feisty player fought back, suing FIDE. In September 2001, she won a $25,000 judgment from the International Court of Sports Arbitration in Switzerland. "Basically, I got the minimal monetary compensation, which I consider like a moral victory, because the courts take so long that by the time they decided, it was too late...by then they had another World Championship."

She had planned to take some time off from international competition to focus on her family, anyway, but "the break would not have been that long if I had had a chance to defend my title at the time," she says. "Then it would have been just two, three years. That was really the problem. They wouldn't let me defend my title and I got kind of upset."

Ms. Polgar says her comeback at the 2004 Olympiad in Spain "was fun." And she flew home to Forest Hills expecting the mainstream American press to be buzzing about Team USA's strong showing and her own return to the chess limelight. Instead, she was greeted with near silence. But if anyone can raise the profile of American chess -- and women in chess -- it is Susan Polgar, the self-appointed envoy from the sport of kings and queens, bishops, knights, rooks and pawns.

Continued in article


National Cancer Institute --- http://cancer.gov/ 


"Encouragement, not gender, key to success in science," by Janet L. Holmgren and Linda Basch, Carnegie Perspectives, March 2005 --- http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/ 

This month's commentary was written by the chair of Carnegie's Board of Trustees, Mills College President Janet Holmgren, and Linda Basch, president of the National Council for Research on Women.

Harvard President Lawrence Summers' observations that women may be under-represented among scientists because of "innate differences" between the genders have already generated a good deal of discussion. This Perspective, published previously in the San Francisco Chronicle, offers information from NCRW's 2001 report on the participation of women and girls in the sciences and calls for a more "constructive discourse" around this serious problem.


Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online ---  http://www.biographi.ca/EN/index.html 


From The Wall Street Journal Weekly Accounting Review on March 4, 2005

TITLE: Executives Find Restricted Stock Pays Dividends from the Get-Go 
REPORTER: Phyllis Plitch 
DATE: Feb 28, 2005 
PAGE: C3 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110955473657465520,00.html  
TOPICS: Compensation, Disclosure Requirements, Dividends, Financial Accounting, Accounting

SUMMARY: While "restricted stock generally requires continued employment...[and] employees don't have ownership rights on the shares until several years after they are awarded...executives are getting paid dividends on their restricted stock before it has vested." Disclosures of executive compensation often exclude these dividend payments.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) What is restricted stock? Why is restricted stock used as a form of executive compensation?

2.) What does the author say companies indicate as reasons for paying dividends on restricted stock?

3.) How is it possible that executives may receive dividends on stocks they never end up owning?

4.) Paul Hodgson, a researcher in executive compensation, estimates that some companies reinvest the dividends for executives holding restricted stock. How does this alleviate the concerns raised in this article?

5.) Prepare summary journal entries, without dollar amounts, made by companies that award dividends on restricted stock and then require the dividends to be reinvested.

6.) Compare the results of the transactions described in question 6 to the results of a stock dividend, explaining both similarities and differences. Do you think that these two transactions are perceived differently by stockholders?

7.) As stated in the article, ""Dividends are additional compensation and should be disclosed as exactly that.'" Are dividends on restricted stock paid to executives included in compensation expense in the income statement? Support your answer.

8.) What disclosures are required regarding dividend payments? How can analysts and investors "crunch the numbers" using these disclosures to determine dividends received by executives on restricted stock if disclosure of that amount is not made under compensation disclosures?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

"Executives Find Restricted Stock Pays Dividends From the Get-Go," by Phyllis Plitch, The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2005, Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110955473657465520,00.html 

Here's a deal any investor would love: You receive dividends on stock you may never own.

Sound far-fetched? That is exactly what is happening for many executives reaping dividend payments on restricted stock, a popular form of compensation.

Restricted stock generally requires continued employment, and most forms are so-called time-vested shares, meaning the employees don't have ownership rights on the shares until several years after they are awarded. But in many cases executives are getting paid dividends on their restricted stock before it has vested.

What critics find vexing is that investors can find this information only in the footnotes of securities filings. Even then, they have to numbers-crunch to figure out how much executives are getting from the arrangement, which can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Take Altria Group Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Louis C. Camilleri. The tobacco company last year raised its quarterly dividend to 73 cents from 68 cents. Mr. Camilleri, in turn, earned more than $1.5 million in dividends on 450,000 unvested restricted shares held at the end of 2003 and an additional 125,000-share tranche granted in January 2004. The company declined to comment.

In footnoting the explanation that dividends are paid on unvested shares -- and not breaking out the exact dollar amount -- companies say they are adhering to disclosure rules, because nothing more is explicitly required. But questions about dividend disclosures are coming to the surface as the Securities and Exchange Commission considers requiring companies to be more open about compensation.

Alan Beller, who heads the SEC's division of corporation finance, recently issued a stark warning to companies that even current rules require them to include in proxies all compensation for the highest-paid executives.

"Restricted shares are pure compensation," says Paul Hodgson, senior research associate in executive and board compensation at the Corporate Library, a corporate-governance research firm that often takes a hard line on compensation. "Dividends are additional compensation and should be disclosed as exactly that."

Companies paying the dividend generally declined to comment on the rationale behind the practice. Several stressed that executives have to pay taxes on the dividends at their ordinary tax rate. But because an executive could leave before these shares vest, "it's better to defer the dividends until vesting," says Ira Kay, national director of compensation consulting at Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

Mr. Hodgson estimates that 90% of U.S. publicly traded companies award dividends on restricted stock, with 85% of those awarding the payments at the time the regular dividend is paid and the remaining 15% reinvesting the dividends.

Bob Jensen's threads on compensation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm 


Center for Applied Linguistics --- http://www.cal.org/ 


Why Business People Speak Like Idiots
Here's the kind of guff that we've all had about enough of (and if you've already had more than enough, feel free to skip ahead): "Technological innovation, globalization, complex regulation and increased accountability at the senior management and board level have all combined to significantly change the landscape of risk management today. To help address these issues, our security professionals deliver services to address the various elements of security and trust associated with communicating, transacting and accessing in this environment."

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots (Free Press, 175 pages, $22) aims to put prose like that -- especially the spoken version of it -- out of its misery. Good idea.
Barbara Wallraff, "Assessing the Parameters Of Issue-Driven Discourse," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005, Page D9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110964096311766617,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

The authors -- Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway and Jon Warshawsky -- positioned themselves to write this book by developing software called Bullfighter in 2003, when all three worked at Deloitte Consulting. The computer program scoured business documents for snippets of unlovely jargon and suggested plain-English replacements. More of a gizmo than a killer app, Bullfighter was nonetheless a hit.

But business jargon, like a flu virus, keeps mutating. It's not enough to zap "bleeding edge," "frictionless," "results-driven" and other such words and phrases, one by one. The real goal is to avoid jargon instinctively, in the moment. Software can't help with this. To achieve the larger goal, you have to use your head. Another good idea.

So, the book's argument goes, if you can avoid four "traps" -- being obscure, being anonymous, overpromising and being tedious -- you'll knock 'em dead. "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots" follows its own advice. It's blunt, lively and chockablock with personality.

A sidebar in the "Tedium Trap" section is headed: "And This Is Interesting Because?" A chapter title in the "Anonymity Trap" section reads: "Pick Up the Damn Phone." A brief, ironic discussion of "The Secret Magic Miracle Cure Answer" leads into the final, summing-up chapter, which promises: "There is an amazing opportunity for you to rise above your peers, further your career, sell your ideas, and get what you want just by being yourself."

Hmmm. Can we talk about that last claim? If only it were so easy. If only speaking like a brilliant person, or giving a presentation like one, were as easy as this book wants us to believe. One problem is that to follow the book's advice you have to be a certain kind of person, someone a lot like the authors themselves -- breezy, confident, quick on your feet and more prone to swearing than anyone in this newspaper is allowed to be. It also helps to be enthusiastic about your subject.

But if you aren't naturally breezy, confident and enthusiastic, there doesn't seem to be much you can do about it. Referring to all of us, the authors observe: "On the weekend, we take off the corporate mask and speak in a real, compelling voice. And people listen." They suggest we follow such a course in the office as well. Is it possible, however, that the reason people listen to us on the weekend is that we're not talking about work?

Then, too, suppose you are breezy, confident, etc. Forgive me, but just having that personality style doesn't make you competent. The authors urge people to apologize when they fall short. Richard Clarke famously did, the authors note ("Your government failed you...and I failed you"), and so did Warren Buffett ("I was dead wrong"). We love these guys for such candor. But do we really want to hear heartfelt apologies from our boss, our colleagues, our assistants, our consultants, the IT department, the receptionist, the cleaning staff and the man who delivers lunch? Not me. I want them to have nothing much to apologize for because they do their jobs right.

Ultimately, "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots" has it backward. In my experience, the commonest problem with business language is that it tells you more about the speaker (or writer) than that person intended to share. People don't necessarily think things through or feel unconflicted enthusiasm for what they're working on. Not everyone has a personality with broad appeal. Not everyone knows what he's doing. A speaker's failure to convey his true essence is rarely the problem. More often the problem is the speaker's essence itself or else an uneasy relationship between that essence and the business at hand.

The problem with the "guff" at the start of this review, for instance, is that it's glib, fluffy and even dopey, no? ("To help address these issues, our security professionals deliver services to address the various elements of security...." Aw, c'mon!) As it happens, the example comes from the Web site of Deloitte Consulting, where two of the three authors still work.

Continued in article


March 2, 2005 message from Barbara Scofield [scofield@GSM.UDALLAS.EDU

I am in the midst of changing my teaching materials for Intermediate Accounting for share-based compensation for the new rules of SFAS 123R, and I need feedback on what FASB means by valuing stock appreciation rights at fair value. I don't see that the standard ever actually says that SARs have the same fair value as equivalent stock options (although I may have missed comments confirming or disconfirming this in the 250+ pages), but that is my conclusion at this time.

I'm having students download free options value calculators for this unit and have linked to http://www.trader-soft.com/download.html . Any evaluation of this calculator or suggestions for another source?

March 2, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Barbara,

Valuation of SARs --- http://www.nceo.org/library/phantom_stock.html

So from the time the grant is made until the award is paid out, the company records the value of the percentage of the promised shares or increase in the value of the shares, pro-rated over the term of the award. In each year, the value is adjusted to reflect the additional pro-rata share of the award the employee has earned, plus or minus any adjustments to value arising from the rise of fall in share price. Unlike accounting for variable award stock options, where a charge is amortized only over a vesting period, with phantom stock and SARs, the charge builds up during the vesting period, then after vesting all additional stock price increases are taken as they occur. when the vesting is triggered by a performance event, such as a profit target. In this case, the company must estimate the expected amount earned based on progress towards the target. The accounting treatment is more complicated if the vesting occurs gradually. Now each tranche of vested awards is treated as a separate award. Appreciation is allocated to each award pro-rata to time over which it is earned.

 

*********************

Option Value Calculator Dangers

You probably can use an options value calculator in your course. However, keep in mind the following (with respect to the Black-Scholes model) that appears at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm

But then the BS model doesn't work too well anyway since employees tend to value uncapped options much lower than BS model estimates (mostly out of fear that their options will tank). They will accordingly reduce their estimates of value even lower if the options have caps. I leave it up to you to explain to students why options with seven year expiration dates have lower value than traditional ten year dates, which in turn will result in higher corporate earnings per share if seven year expirations are used. Hint: It all has to do with that time value component of option value.

"Stock-Option Plans Get Revised to Meet New Rule," by Linlling Wei, The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2004, Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110435344663812226,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing

Companies are giving their stock-option plans makeovers.

In preparation for an accounting mandate that they treat employee stock options as an expense, companies are slashing option grants, replacing garden-variety options with various forms of stock compensation or tweaking the features of standard options.

"Most companies are looking at 'what are the alternatives?' " said Judy Thorp, national partner in charge of the compensation and benefits practice at KPMG.

One move under consideration, pay specialists say, is to cap the potential gain an employee or an executive can get from cashing in options. Tech Data Corp., for instance, already has won shareholder approval to issue such "maximum-value" stock options. Applera Corp. recently asked shareholders to vote on a similar proposal. Officials at both companies weren't available for comment.

A cap can make options less costly to companies than traditional options. It also "eliminates a concern of some investors that the open-ended nature of a traditional option could result in windfall gains for employees or executives," said Carl Weinberg, a compensation expert in the human-resources practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Stock options give recipients the right to buy their companies' shares at a fixed price within a certain period. They pay off only if the stock price rises, unlike stock grants that companies have long had to count as expenses. Employees, compensation experts say, tend to exercise their options well before the rights expire, which typically occurs 10 years after the grant date.

Stock options grew in popularity during the 1990s. About 14 million American workers -- or 13% of the work force in the private sector -- hold options, according to professors at Rutgers University and Harvard University.

Under the new Financial Accounting Standards Board rule, companies will have to deduct the value of stock options from profits, beginning in mid-2005. The options are valued when they are issued, and companies spread the cost out over the vesting period. Technology companies -- heavy issuers of options -- could continue to lobby Congress to derail the rule, but analysts see little chance of congressional intervention.

Some companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and insurer Progressive Corp., have stopped granting stock options altogether. Instead, they make grants of restricted stock, or shares that recipients can't sell for a set period. Because they provide a more certain payoff, companies usually can dole out fewer such shares. It is also easier for companies to value these shares.

Other companies, like SBC Communications Inc., are turning to stock grants that are paid out only when specific financial or operational targets are met. Shareholders favor such "performance shares" as a way to align compensation more closely with investors' interests. Microsoft Corp. has decided to give its top 600 managers shares tied to the company's performance.

Shareholders of Intel Corp., meanwhile, have approved a new option plan that, among other changes, requires employees to exercise options in seven years instead of 10. At aluminum company Alcoa Inc., new stock options will have a six-year lifespan instead of 10 years. Options with shorter lives have a lower value.

Bob Jensen


Part of a message received from a friend on March 1, 2005

Dear XXXXX

Thank you for your email, and for your consideration of our request to support PAA. The alumni association does receive a percentage of the total amount of charges submitted by our alumni who use the card. We are precluded by contractual arrangements from disclosing the percentages or amount but I can tell you that this is a significant revenue source for the alumni association.

The revenue from this program is used in a variety of ways to support the programs and services offered to our alumni and members. These funds help support our outreach efforts such as alumni clubs, student recruitment events, Purdue on the Road events. In addition these funds help support the Faculty Incentive Grant program to assist in faculty development, Diversity Grants to support diverse programming efforts and Legacy events that highlight Purdue students whose parents are graduates of Purdue as well.

In addition to the financial support is another way to market Purdue throughout the world. Every time someone pulls the card out of their wallet they are marketing Purdue for us.

I am more than happy to answer any further questions you might have and thank you for your email. It is very important for our alumni to be informed about our programs and I appreciate your thoughtful questions.

Best wishes,

Todd

YYYYY
Purdue University

Jensen Comment
One of my friends forwarded the above message.  It reflects what is commonplace now among alumni associations of colleges.  These associations promote a particular credit card company and receive revenue for this service on purchases of alumni and students.  I suspect it is not unethical as long as alumni and students are aware of all facts in the situation.  The letter above does not mention that alumni associations generally forward more than names and addresses to credit card companies and possibly other vendors.  I have some concerns when they forward social security numbers without express written consent for alumni.  I also have concerns when alumni are not aware of how or who is receiving confidential information from alumni associations.

I have written previously about this general practice at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 
I think the credit card companies want the social security numbers of all alumni and students so that FICO ratings can be investigated before inviting an alumnus or student to apply for a University of ZZZZZ  credit card.


Invasive Plant Atlas of New England http://invasives.eeb.uconn.edu/ipane/ 


March 16, 2005 message from Barry Rice [BRice@LOYOLA.EDU

I received this from a former student and would appreciate suggestions for answering him.

Thanks, 

Barry Rice 
AECM List Owner 

Hi Professor Rice... 
I took an accounting class of yours several years ago to get into the MSF program at Loyola. I work on the fixed income side of wealth management here at Mercantile. I have always struggled with accounting and one of my new duties is to track cash flows and market values for some accounts. Is there a mutual fund accounting text book (or something similar) that might be able to help me? The more specific to fixed income the better. Any assistance you could give me would be great. Thanks for your help...

March 16, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Barry,

I don't know of any textbook that does a good job on mutual fund accounting.

This is a tough topic because it is so hard to get at some of the elements needed for accounting. For example expense ratios are easy to obtain but brokerage fees sometimes buried and hard to find. I recommend starting with the SEC's mutual fund cost calculator --- http://www.sec.gov/investor/tools/mfcc/mfcc-int.htm 

It is important to understand how mutual funds work. A pretty good overview is at http://biz.yahoo.com/funds/basics.html 

For the broader picture, go to http://dir.yahoo.com/business_and_economy/finance_and_investment/mutual_funds/ 

One of the best known software packages is Captool Professional Investor (free demo available) --- http://www.wallstreetsoftware.com/newindex.html 

Tax accounting overview --- http://registeredrep.com/mag/finance_tax_crazy/ 

A summary of various software systems is available at http://www.finance-links.net/s_mutual-fund-accounting-software.html 

Although this is not an accounting article per se, there is quite a lot of useful information related to basic accounting of mutual fund investments at http://www.worldbank.org/html/dec/Publications/Workpapers/wps2000series/wps2099/wps2099.pdf  
The snipped link is http://snipurl.com/WorldBankMF 

Trust accounting DVD --- http://www.picturecompany.com/Trusts/tableContents.htm 

Bill Cogdell's tidbits of investing advice --- http://www.midland.edu/cogdell/setb.html 


"Accounting Firms Hiring Thousands of '05 Grads," SmartPros, February 23, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47148.xml 

Feb. 23, 2005 (SmartPros) — The job market for 2005 college graduates is predicted to be the best since 2000, according to Michigan State University's annual Recruiting Trends survey. The top employers include several accounting and consulting firms.

The survey respondents are ranked according to the projected number of hires from college recruiting for the Class of 2005. The top 20 employers, followed by their projected number of hires, are:

1 - Enterprise Rent-A-Car--7,000 
2 - PricewaterhouseCoopers--3,170
3 - Ernst & Young LLP--2,900 
4 - Lockheed Martin--2,863 
5 - KPMG--2,240 
6 - Sodexho, Inc.--2,050 
7 - Fairfax County Public Schools--1,600 
8 - Accenture--1,540 
9 - Northrop Grumman--1,266 
10 - United States Customs & Border Protection--1,200 
11 - Target--1,127 
12 - United States Air Force--1,095 
13 - Raytheon Company--1,000 
14 - Microsoft--970 
15 - JPMorgan Chase--810 
16 - Procter & Gamble--569 
17 - Liberty Mutual--545 
18 - Grant Thornton--500 
19 - Bank of America--413 
20 - United States Air Force Personnel Center/DPKR--400

According to the survey, economic sectors showing strength this year include: retail, wholesale, transportation (not including airlines), health services, entertainment and real estate.

February 28, 2005 reply from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU

Bob,

One can describe the reason for Accenture's needs for accountants in ONE word: outsourcing.

The following is from www.accenture.com  webpage:

Outsourcing

Application Outsourcing 


Business Process Outsourcing Accenture Finance Solutions-Accenture HR Services-Accenture

 Learning-Accenture Procurement Solutions-Accenture Business Services for Utilities-Accenture eDemocracy Services-Navitaire-Accenture Insurance Services 


Infrastructure Outsourcing

Jagdish S. Gangolly, 
Associate Professor 
School of Business & NY State Center for Information Forensics & Assurance 
State University of New York at Albany BA 365C, 
1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222 
email:
j.gangolly@albany.edu 

March 1, 2005 messages from Bob Jensen and Chuck Johnson

I hope Professor Johnson doesn’t mind if I share this with you. I suspect this is partly conjecture on his part, but it is somewhat more than conjecture. His reasoning makes sense to me. Apparently Enterprise has a different business model than other car rental firms.

There may be some fast food chains with similar models.

Note that he also points out a possible error in defining what is an “accounting graduate.” This also makes sense to me, although Enterprise may have requirements for more accounting courses than the average business graduate. I might add that this could be the case for some of the other non-accounting firms in the list of the Top 20.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Kenneth Johnson [mailto:kjohnson@GeorgiaSouthern.edu]  
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 10:25 AM 
To: Jensen, Robert 
Subject: Re: Accounting Firms Hiring Thousands

Bob,

FYI, EnterpriesRent-a-Car's hiring of so many college graduates is driven by the firm's basic business model. Enterprise has thousands of small offices. When business volume at a particular location reaches a certain point a new office is created a few miles away. The way I understand it, each new hire does everything, from: taking reservations, serving customers, picking up and dropping off customers, and even washing cars. Their favorite hire is a graduate of modest academic achievement but with lots of extracurricular activities and good people skills. I learned all of this from a strategic management textbook I taught out of a few years ago; Enterprise was a side-bar mini-case.

BTW, the way I read it, the 7,000 figure cited in the 2000 Michigan State University's annual Recruiting Trends survey was total college graduates, not just accountants.

Thanks for the constant stream of interesting stuff.

Chuck Johnson

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting careers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers  




Quotations of the Week
Archives of Tidits:  Tidbits Directory --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm


Yet another hit on women
Why so few women chess masters? America's top female player ponders the question.
But Ms. Polgar is not someone who sees the two sexes as the same. "I think women are built differently and approach life very differently," she told me. And in a 2002 column for ChessCafe.com, she took on what might now be called the Lawrence Summers question. "If we talk about pure abilities and skills, I believe there should be no reason why women cannot play as well as men," Ms. Polgar wrote, but she went on to list various reasons that more female players have not reached chess's highest ranks -- among them their biological clocks, narrower opportunities to compete, cultural and gender bias, and the fact that "for years, women have set much lower standards" for themselves in chess than men. "If you do not put in the same work, you can't compete at the same level," she said then
Barbara D. Phillips, "Envoy From the Sport of Kings And Queens, Bishops, Knights," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005; Page D9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110964485701166720,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Gasp!  When those pharaoh ants come marching in
Researchers say if you see ants in the house, then they should be taken into consideration if anyone has breathing problems.  Many insects (including cockroaches) have been reported to contribute to respiratory problems. Now, the pharaoh ant joins the ranks of suspect insects.  The tiny, yellow pharaoh ant came from the tropics but can now be found just about everywhere, having been carried throughout the inhabited world, say the researchers. The ants live indoors for warmth.  "Pharaoh ants nest in secluded spots and favor temperatures between 80-86 degrees Fahrenheit," according to the University of Nebraska web site.  "These ants are frequent house invaders, often found around kitchen and bathroom faucets where they obtain water."  Researchers Cheol-Woo Kim, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that pharaoh ants were responsible for asthma in two middle-aged women . . . 
Miranda Hitti, "Ants Can Cause Asthma, Allergies," WebMDHealth, February 25, 2005 --- http://my.webmd.com/content/article/101/106095.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_tn_01 
Jensen Comment:  We owned a home in San Antonio for 20 years.  Every winter something triggered the march of the Pharaoh ants.  It only happened for a few days each winter, but they were almost microscopic and became so thick that they almost looked like running water on counters and sinks.  Ant traps in kitchen and bathroom electrical outlets helped somewhat, but I think it was mostly a matter of the ants marching to their own tunes that turned them on and off.. My wife was a vigorous Pharaoh fighter.  Fortunately, none of us noticed any breathing difficulties arising from the march of the Pharaohs.  


Audio interviews with familiar news anchors are online (who competed for an amazing 21 years)
Also highlights some funny bloopers.  And then there's Rev. Sharpton alleging that the Nation of Islam in the U.S. has nothing to do with Islam.

This week in the magazine, Ken Auletta profiles Dan Rather on the eve of his departure from the “CBS Evening News.” On October 2, 2004, Auletta moderated a panel discussion with Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings, in the Celeste Bartos Forum of the New York Public Library, as part of the sixth annual New Yorker Festival. Here, in three parts, is a recording of that conversation. 
"The Three Anchors," The New Yorker, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.newyorker.com/online/covers/index.ssf?050307onco_covers_gallery 

Listen to part one of the conversation.

Listen to part two of the conversation.

Listen to part three of the conversation.


This statistic surprised me:  Fear of the outside versus reality of the inside
Suicides outnumber homicides in the United States, and some 90 percent of people who kill themselves suffer from a diagnosable and preventable problem such as depression, a top mental health official said Monday.  Charles Curie, who heads the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said suicides in the United States run at about 80 a day or more than 29,000 a year, three for each two homicides.
"Suicides Outnumber Homicides," CBS News, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/01/health/main677132.shtml 


Say what?  "If you construct a career raging against the system, you can’t stop raging just because the system has accepted you."
“To live outside the law, you must be honest.” Thompson, like a lot of people in the sixties and seventies, interpreted Dylan’s famous apothegm to mean that in order to be honest you must live outside the law. By the time the fallacy in this reading became obvious, his persona, thanks in part to the Uncle Duke figure in Garry Trudeau’s comic strip, but largely because of his own efforts, was engraved in pop-culture stone. It’s an occupational hazard: if you construct a career raging against the system, you can’t stop raging just because the system has accepted you, or has ceased to care or to pay attention. The anger needs someplace to go. At its best, in the Nixon era, Thompson’s anger, in writing, was a beautiful thing, fearless and funny and, after all, not wrong about the shabbiness and hypocrisy of American officialdom. It belonged to a time when journalists believed that fearlessness and humor and honesty could make a difference; and it’s sad to be reminded that the time in which such a faith was possible has probably passed.
Louis Menand, "Believer," The New Yorker, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/index.ssf?050307ta_talk_menand 


Now it's almost certain there'll be a remake of the movie about the Hole in the Wall Gang 
(remember Butch and Sundance and their Hole in the Wall Gang )

Two Turkish prison inmates who drilled a nine centimetre (3.6 inch) aperture between their cells, enabling them to have sexual relations in prison that produced a child, received four-month sentences for damaging public property.
Weird News, February 28, 2005 --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/ 
Jensen Comment:  These two murderers were convicted of planting a bomb in a public market.  Prison guards should've been  more suspicious of how Kadriye Fikret Oget could her hat on her cell's cement wall.


From MIT:  Technology Review Index
Technology Review, of course, is all about the future, and the companies and people involved in the innovation that will get us there. It is in that spirit that we introduce the Technology Review Index, which includes the TR Large-Cap 100 and its sibling, the TR Small-Cap 50. Developed in conjunction with Standard and Poors, these global equity indices will serve as our own in-house gauge of the pulse of innovation at 150 of the worlds most important public companies.  Our two indices will track both the most powerful innovators and the up-and-comers in the 10 most innovative industries of the global economy. The performance of these indices will be updated daily on our online platform at www.technologyreview.com/TRIndex .
Duff McDonald, 'Introducing the Technology Review Index," MIT's Technology Review, March 2005 --- http://www2.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/trindex/tri_mcdonald021105.asp 


There are no facts, but only interpretations.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 


Sarbanes Oxley Blues
What the business world now calls SOX is a law passed that forces auditing firms to provide better audits at a substantially increased cost to their clients.  We now have a new song that is not exactly a celebration of SOX.

From: Mike Kennelley [mailto:MKennell@jbu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 8:24 AM
To: escribne@nmsu.edu
Subject: Sarbanes-Oxley Blues

If you haven't heard this one, turn on those speakers and enjoy . . . 

http://www.headwatersmb.com/content/audio_02.html


Pull your SOX up boss (remember Marlon Brando in Teahouse of the August Moon)
More than 500 public companies have reported deficiencies with their internal accounting controls under a controversial new federal rule -- a figure sure to feed the continuing debate about the cost and usefulness of recent efforts to strengthen corporate governance.  To backers, the volume of disclosures demonstrates that the new rule, part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-accountability law, is pushing a lot of U.S. companies into line. But business groups complain that it's costing them a lot of money and effort to turn up deficiencies that in most cases are inconsequential.
Deborah Solomon, "Accounting Rule Exposes Problems But Draws Complaints About Costs," The Wall Street Journal,  March 2, 2005; Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110971840422767575,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us 
Bob Jensen's threads on reforms are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudProposedReforms.htm 


UNC student badly beaten:  Hate crime
Police say an attack on a gay student who was beaten by a gang of six or seven men was a hate crime, but no witnesses have come forward to help investigators. The victim suffered broken bones but wasn't hospitalized, police said. His attackers, described as six or seven white males around the age of 20, have not been identified. The student was walking alone around 2 a.m. Friday near the intersection of Franklin and Columbia streets when he was taunted by the group of ...
"Police: UNC student's beating a hate crime," News-Record, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.news-record.com/news/now/uncbeating_030105.htm 


Big Spenders Managing Our 50 States
The longer a Republican stays in office the more likely he will be a big spender.  The rankings cover all of a governor's time in office. George Pataki's B would drop to a C without his first term, when he slashed New York taxes. He has since increased spending so much that a huge tax increase passed over his veto. If Bill Owens were judged just by his recent attempts to alter Colorado's tax limitation law, he would not be considered A material. Florida's Jeb Bush, who earned an A two years ago, has slipped to a B after endorsing more bloated budgets. Finally, we'll note the bipartisan nature of Cato's F students: Republican Bob Taft of Ohio and Democrat Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania.
"Grading the Governors," The Wall Street Journal,  March 1, 2005; Page A18 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110964266317966659,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 
Jensen Comment:  This article ranks and grades all 50 governors.  Rick Perry from Texas comes in at Rank 12 with a B grade.  The two F grades are assigned to Ed Rendell (Pennsylvania) and Bob Taft (Ohio).  The Girlie Boy from La La Land heads the list with an A grade.


And this is where the "Big Spenders" get a lot of your money (but not in New Hampshire --- hip hip hooray)
The 2004 Sales Tax Rate Report released by Vertex Inc., shows the average sales tax rate in 2004 reached a record high of 8.587 percent, up from 8.5336 percent in 2003. This increase completes a four- year upward trend in the average sales tax rate that began in 1999 when the average rate was 8.231 percent. "Local jurisdictions continue to function with less federal and state funding and look to sales tax rate increases as one method to help fill the gap for local program financing," says Diana DiBello, Director of Tax at Vertex. "The high number of tax decreases are tied mainly to election year politics but were not enough to lower the overall effective tax rate."
"Average Combined Sales Tax Rate Reaches Record Level," AccountingWeb, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100573 


But those of us in New Hampshire aren't "tickled" by this report
A study conducted by Tickle Inc., an online career assessment testing company, has found workers in the Northeast fall far below other regions in many key areas of job satisfaction. Survey results show overall job happiness is strongly tied to a healthy work-life balance and strong company leadership. New England falls far below the national average in both categories, while the Midwest and South lead the country in both areas. Tickle's study also found that women maintain a healthier work-life balance than men and are therefore more satisfied in their jobs.
"Study Reveals Midwest and South Offer Best Work-Life Balance," AccountingWeb, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100562 
Jensen Comment


Hurricane winds recycling the snow:
Those in New Hampshire aren't especially "tickled" by the Mt. Washington weather review for March 1
(sure glad I'm teaching in Texas at the moment)

Snow came in later then expected, with the first flake falling just after one this morning. I didn't actually observe the first flake, for it brought many wind blown friends. Temperatures have been varying all night, ranging from two to twelve degrees. Winds from the East are driving snow through every crack of the building, though I think that is the only point of accumulation. At last observation, I didn't see any of this snow actually sitting on the observation deck, as hurricane force winds have escorted it off the summit, though I'm not worried. We'll reacquaint ourselves soon enough, once the winds shift back to our prevailing west to northwest direction, blowing the snow from one end of the mountain, back to the other.
March 1, 2005 summit report --- http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/index.php 


Entitlements Endings to the Western World
The U.K., like the rest of the developed world, has a pension-funding crisis. A pay-as-you-go system that was easy and cheap to finance when there were lots of workers and fewer retirees than now -- with shorter life expectancies -- is groaning under the strain as fewer workers support more retirees for longer.  Luckily for Britain, it has a couple of things going for it that its neighbors on the Continent can only wish for. The most important is extensive private, funded pension systems that still support many British workers in retirement. For these workers, contributions made to a defined-benefits pension system over the years have been invested on their behalf, and when they retire they will draw, in theory, a fixed sum based on their salary before retirement.  We say "in theory" because the British defined-benefit funds have come under considerable strain themselves of late. Post-bubble lethargy in the stock market is partly to blame, but a major culprit is one of Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown's stealth tax hikes since Labour took office in 1997. In his first budget in 1997, the chancellor eliminated a 20% tax credit that pension funds enjoyed on dividends paid to the funds.

"Wrong-Way Tories," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110962946093366264,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 
Bob Jensen's unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm


Days of AK-47s:  Are revolutions a permanent way of life in Africa?
It is a surprise when some states collapse. But the gradual unwinding of Nigeria is happening in a very public manner. The collapse of this giant -- the continent's most populous state, whose 137 million citizens account for approximately 20% of all people south of the Sahara -- may soon be the most pressing issue in Africa.  President Olusegun Obasanjo was first elected in 1999 as Nigeria transitioned to multiparty democracy after the disastrous five-year rule of Gen. Sani Abacha. He won another term in 2003 in elections that had numerous irregularities and remain a source of bitterness. Mr. Obasanjo has also had to confront Nigeria's disastrous economic decline and its extraordinary corruption. Although he retains a good reputation in the West -- in part due to U.S. and European fears that highlighting Nigeria's many problems will only undermine a leader with good intentions -- he has often been indecisive in the face of threats to the very fabric of the country.
Jeffrey Herbst, "The Ticking Time Bomb That's Nigeria," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963165703166333,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


How to keep people poor for a longer period of time
The annual budget speech in India has typically been more than an accounting statement. It is seen as the government's all-encompassing reform program for the year. Ideally then, this year's budget speech should have stressed the need to reduce the inordinately large role of government in the country's economic sphere. It could have included measures such as liberalizing limits on foreign direct investment, increasing the pace of privatization and deregulating the labor market.  However, given India's political climate, there was never much prospect of such a free-market agenda. The Congress-led coalition government is reliant on communist parties to remain in power. And last year's surprise national election results have, for some strange reason, weakened the faith of India's political class in good economics.
Ruchir Sharma, "Keeping Out Bad Ideas in India," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963215352066349,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Remember that you heard this first from the LA Daily News on February 27, 2005
Marriage Is About More Than Sexuality
Los Angeles Daily News, Feb. 27


Oestrogen and progesterone:  Small sample, big result
Looking at 62 women - half taking the combined pill, oestrogen and progesterone - researchers found that those on the pill had twice the incidence of depressive symptoms as those not taking it. None of the women had a history of depression.  Levels of depression were assessed by each woman and an interviewer at two-month intervals. The women on the pill had a depression rating of 17.6, compared with 9.8 in the others.  "To our surprise, on re-interview we found that women who were on the pill had higher levels of depression than women who were not on the pill, and it was significantly higher," said the director of The Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, Jayashri Kulkarni. She said a larger study would investigate the effects of the type of pill, duration of use and dosage levels.
Amanda Dunn, "Depression emerges as the pill's downside," Sydney Morning Herald, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/28/1109546799438.html 


Why Business People Speak Like Idiots
Here's the kind of guff that we've all had about enough of (and if you've already had more than enough, feel free to skip ahead): "Technological innovation, globalization, complex regulation and increased accountability at the senior management and board level have all combined to significantly change the landscape of risk management today. To help address these issues, our security professionals deliver services to address the various elements of security and trust associated with communicating, transacting and accessing in this environment."

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots (Free Press, 175 pages, $22) aims to put prose like that -- especially the spoken version of it -- out of its misery. Good idea.
Barbara Wallraff, "Assessing the Parameters Of Issue-Driven Discourse," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005, Page D9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110964096311766617,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Newt Gingrich (a professor turned politician)  thinks it's time to get rid of tenure
I'm  glad he didn't have tenure while in Congress?

According to a report on The National Review's Web site, Gingrich on Friday said that the Ward Churchill controversy shows that "you don't need tenure in this country anyway." Gingrich said that there are "75 whacked-out foundations that would hire him for life." More broadly, Gingrich reportedly told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute: "We ought to say to campuses, it's over. We should say to state legislatures, why are you making us pay for this? Boards of regents are artificial constructs of state law. Tenure is an artificial social construct. Tenure did not exist before the 20th century, and we had free speech before then. You could introduce a bill that says, proof that you're anti-American is grounds for dismissal." There are lots of arguments about tenure, of course, and plenty of critics of the tenure system are not seeking to squelch controversial ideas. Some younger scholars see tenure protecting professorial deadwood in jobs they covet. Princeton's president, Shirley Tilghman, once published an article (which she disavowed after getting her current job) suggesting that the tenure system hurt female academics because of the overlap in scholars' lives between the period for winning tenure and having children. But Gingrich's statement that free speech existed prior to tenure is worth examining.
Scott Jaschik, "Ward & Newt & Tenure," Inside Higer Ed, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/ward_newt_tenure 

And if you want to learn more about the future (in his dreams) President of the United States, the place to begin is as follows:
Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract for America, by Newt Gingrich (Regnery Publishing, 320 pp., $27.95)


Student selection and pricing structure of higher education
One confusing thing about the higher education industry is the conflict between social goals and economic choices. The trend toward universal access to higher education has led to the notion that everyone should be able to find a route into higher education that matches interest, preference, ability and economic circumstance. This in turn has focused attention on the student selection and pricing structure of higher education, a topic of infinite interest, controversy, and confusion.

John V. Lombardi, "Reality Check Who Gets In, What It Costs," Inside Higher Ed, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/reality_check__2 


Might be better to let the bag sag
Already wondering about how to fit into that bathing suit? Thinking about an extreme diet? Think again.
Barry Wolcott, MD, "Extreme Weight Loss," WebMDHealth --- http://my.webmd.com/content/article/89/100184.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_td_01 

There is also a bipolar disorder questionnaire at http://my.webmd.com/webmd_today/home/default 


BrainGate
Nagle, 25, is the first patient in a controversial clinical trial that seeks to prove brain-computer interfaces can return function to people paralyzed by injury or disease. His BCI is the most sophisticated ever tested on a human being, the culmination of two decades of research in neural recording and decoding. A Foxborough, Massachusetts-based company called Cyberkinetics built the system, named BrainGate.
Richard Martin, "Mind Control," Wired Magazine, March 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/brain.html?tw=wn_tophead_5 


Primary care versus specialty care
Quad/Graphics has organized health care by using primary-care physicians for navigating and negotiating both illness and the health-care system for their employees ("Radical Surgery: One Cure for High Health Costs," WSJ, page one, Feb. 11). This contrasts to our present dominant health-care system driven by a physician-payment system that uses Current Procedural Terminology codes for episodic encounters.  Paying for episodic encounters makes sense for specialty care but not for continuity of care where intimate knowledge of patients is the primary goal as an essential of care. Our health-care system needs a physician-payment system that integrates both functions. The results as reported strongly suggest that Quad/Graphics has put in place a workable and prototypic model. If this holds true, the task becomes how to generalize this to others: the young, the old, the unemployed, the uninsured and the underinsured.
John C. Peirce, M.D., M.A., M.S., "Physicians Who Negotiate Illness and Health System," The Wall Street Journal,  February 28, 2005; Page A17 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110955954467465621,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 
Jensen Comment:  You can read about Current Procedural Terminology at http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/3113.html 


AIDS antiviral therapies
As a group, AIDS antiviral therapies have extended lives of individual patients by as much as 15 years, for a collective two million years of life saved in the U.S. since such drugs came into use in the late 1980s, said Rochelle Walensky of Harvard Medical School. She said her study with co-workers at Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, Yale, Cornell and Boston University represents "an underestimate" of the drugs' benefit.  Despite more than 20 drugs on the market and many more in the pipeline, far too few patients are now able to access needed treatment, U.S. health statisticians said Friday.
Marilyn Chase, "AIDS Scientists Cite Modest Gains," The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2005, Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110955131006765463,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Also see "New Therapies Boost AIDS Arsenal," Wired News, February 26, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66731,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6 


Having an 800 pound gorilla living next door can be unsettling
That Southeast Asians -- above all the Vietnamese and the Indonesians -- would regard China's rise with a weary eye is to be expected. Vietnam has historically feared domination by its former overseer. Indonesia has always suspected that China would use the large and successful ethnic Chinese community as a fifth column. Singapore is leery, too.  But in the past few months China has managed to alienate its Northeastern neighbors as well. Even South Korea -- where the fascination with things Chinese was growing apace with economic dependency -- has been put off by a series of mishandled events. Chinese security goons raided and broke up a press conference in Beijing by a group of South Korean parliamentarians last month. Later, brushing aside a plea from Seoul, China sent back to North Korea a poor, 72-year-old South Korean POW from the 1950-53 war who had managed to escape after decades in the gulag.  And, of course, China's claim that a chunk of North Korea is historically Chinese has not gone down well at all. Some South Korean intellectuals are beginning to ponder how salutary China's rise is for the long-term health of the Korean nation.
Michael gonzalez, "Fear and Loathing in East Asia," The Wall Street Journal,  February 28, 2005; Page A17 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110954572850965312,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 


Praise the Lord
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who heads a body overseeing international accounting-standards setters, rejected calls by the European Union for a greater say in how these rules are crafted.  Speaking in Brussels before a group that advises the European Commission on accounting issues, Mr. Volcker said representation on the International Accounting Standards Board, the body that crafts the rules, shouldn't be based on "national, political or sectoral interests."
David Reilly, "Volcker Rejects EU Plan for IASB," The Wall Street Journal, Page February 28, Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110954949853865424,00.html?mod=home%5Fwhats%5Fnews%5Fus 


The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.
Anatole France

Think Bloomingdales:  A victory for New York City
Bowing to intense pressure from neighborhood and labor groups, a real estate developer has just given up plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a mall in Queens, thereby blocking Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City. In the eyes of Wal-Mart's detractors, the Arkansas-based chain embodies the worst kind of economic exploitation: it pays its 1.2 million American workers an average of only $9.68 an hour, doesn't provide most of them with health insurance, keeps out unions, has a checkered history on labor law and turns main streets into ghost towns by sucking business away...
Robert B. Reich, "Don't Blame Wal-Mart," The New York Times, February 28, 2005
Jensen Comment:  Vermont has also banned Wal-Mart, which is one of the reasons why the roadways are clogged with stuffed green-license-plate cars and trucks returning home from New Hampshire.  Why don't Vermonters stay home and shop in their own villages' stores?


What happened to "stretch suits" now that I need them?
The man of the house is spending more money on his wardrobe. This spring, men will be able to pick from broadened selections of red, black and brown candy-striped shirts, and many stores will offer the new stretch suits.
Flashback, The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 1963
Jensen comment:  No mention is made that beads and sandals were also popular in 1963


A bit of history:  Who were our allies in the WW II era?
France was not an ally, for the Vichy government of France aligned with its German occupiers. Germany was not an ally, for it was an enemy, and Hitler intended to set up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, for it was intent on owning and controlling all of Asia. Japan and Germany had long-term ideas of invading Canada and Mexico, and then the United States over the north and south borders, after they had settled control of Asia and Europe.  America's allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia, and that was about it. There were no other countries of any size or military significance with the will and ability to contribute much of anything to the effort to defeat Hitler's Germany and Japan, and prevent the global dominance of Nazism. And we had to send millions of tons of arms, munitions, and war supplies to Russia, England, and the Canadians, Aussies, Irish, and Scots, because none of them could produce all they needed for themselves.
Forwarded by Dick Haar, February 28, 2005
Jensen:  During the ensuing Cold War era and for the Gulf War, we had a few more allies, some of whom were former enemies.


And he awoke to a mess
I have this uncle, Rip Van Garver, who just woke up after sleeping for 30 years. Some people think he slept so long because he was exhausted from working so hard as a political activist during the '60s and early '70s. Personally, I just think he found a comfy pillow. Regardless, here's the transcript of our first conversation: Me: Uncle Rip, how are you feeling? Rip: I'm okay. But I really need to brush my teeth. What year is it? Me: 2005. Rip: Wow. I've got a library book I better return pronto. So, nobody blew up the world. I...
Lloyd Garver, "Caught Napping? Jewish World Review, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0205/garver1.asp 


This does not mean that eating it will make you live longer
Ancient Chinese craftsmen used a secret ingredient to keep their structures standing through the centuries: sticky rice.  The legend that rice porridge was used in mortar to make robust ramparts is believed to have been verified by archaeological research in the north-western province of Shaanxi, the state news agency Xinhua reported.  During maintenance work on the city wall of the provincial capital, Xi'an, workers found plaster remnants on ancient bricks were hard to remove.  A chemical test showed the mortar reacted the same as glutinous rice.
"Stick around," Sydney Morning Herald, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/28/1109546800854.html 


"Morally Bankrupt," The New Republic, February 25, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/TNRbankruptcy 

We are beginning to wonder if the debate over Social Security privatization is a mere GOP diversionary tactic: Get Democrats to commit all their resources to a knockdown drag-out over retirement benefits, then quickly ram through a host of items off the business lobby's wish list. Exhibit A is the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act--the latest name for a bill that Congress has been rejecting since the late '90s--which the Judiciary Committee approved last week and looks set for passage in the coming weeks.

Bankruptcy laws are supposed to balance the interests of creditors with debtors as well as balance society's interest in encouraging people to take risks (such as taking out a loan to start a business) with its interest in ensuring that the risks they take are not foolish ones (such as borrowing money to play the ponies). U.S. bankruptcy laws have generally done a good job of striking this balance and have thus contributed to an economy that is among the most entrepreneurial in the world. What's more, they have codified a progressive and long-standing American value: the belief in second chances.

By these measures, the bankruptcy bill is a catastrophe. Under the current system, bankruptcy courts have broad discretion to decide who can file for Chapter 7, which allows debtors to erase their obligations after forfeiting a state-determined percentage of their remaining assets, and Chapter 13, which requires strict repayment according to court-ordered schedules. Judges base their decisions as much on why the debt was accrued as on income; this way people who come into debt through no fault of their own can get a fresh start, while a judge can decide that a careless gambler must pay what he owes. But the new bill would replace judicial discretion with a means test on household income--those above a certain level would be forced to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy--dismantling the system's ability to discriminate among worthy and unworthy debtors.

Continued in the article


Loss of a Great Economist to a Fire
The world lost a great economist last week, when David F. Bradford succumbed to injuries suffered in a fire. David was the father of modern consumption tax philosophy, and the most important contributor of the last few decades to serious thinking about fundamental tax reform.  When people think of replacing the income tax with a consumption tax that can achieve whatever level of progressivity one prefers, they think of two main models. The first, sometimes called a consumed income tax, structurally resembles our present system for taxing individuals, except that people get unlimited savings accounts, like IRAs, contributions to which may be deducted while withdrawals are taxed. During his time at the Treasury Department in the 1970s, David developed what is still by far the best prototype for such a system: the so-called "Blueprints" cash flow tax that he discussed in detail in his landmark study, "Blueprints for Tax Reform."  The other main prototype, involving a business-level as well as an individual-level tax, has as its best-known exemplar the Hall-Rabushka flat tax (after the economists Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka), which I believe David helped inspire. He then used the flat tax as a starting point for developing what he called the "X-tax," a better-designed version that could be more progressive than the flat tax, if desired, and that did a better job of handling problems such as transition from the existing income tax and rate changes between taxable years.
Daniel Shaviro, "David Bradford," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005, Page A18 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110964406044966694,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Part of a message received from a friend on March 1, 2005
This is a letter that friend received from a top administrator at Purdue University.  I assume PAA stands for the Purdue Alumni Association.

Dear XXXXX,

Thank you for your email, and for your consideration of our request to support PAA. The alumni association does receive a percentage of the total amount of charges submitted by our alumni who use the card. We are precluded by contractual arrangements from disclosing the percentages or amount but I can tell you that this is a significant revenue source for the alumni association.

The revenue from this program is used in a variety of ways to support the programs and services offered to our alumni and members. These funds help support our outreach efforts such as alumni clubs, student recruitment events, Purdue on the Road events. In addition these funds help support the Faculty Incentive Grant program to assist in faculty development, Diversity Grants to support diverse programming efforts and Legacy events that highlight Purdue students whose parents are graduates of Purdue as well.

In addition to the financial support is another way to market Purdue throughout the world. Every time someone pulls the card out of their wallet they are marketing Purdue for us.

I am more than happy to answer any further questions you might have and thank you for your email. It is very important for our alumni to be informed about our programs and I appreciate your thoughtful questions.

Best wishes,

YYYYY
Purdue University
 

Jensen Comment
One of my friends forwarded the above message.  It reflects what is commonplace now among alumni associations of colleges.  These associations promote a particular credit card company and receive revenue for this service on purchases of alumni and students.  I suspect it is not unethical as long as alumni and students are aware of all facts in the situation.  The letter above does not mention that alumni associations generally forward more than names and addresses to credit card companies and possibly other vendors.  I have some concerns when they forward social security numbers without express written consent for alumni.  I also have concerns when alumni are not aware of how or who is receiving confidential information from alumni associations.

I have written previously about this general practice at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 
I think the credit card companies want the home addresses and social security numbers of all alumni and students so that FICO ratings can be investigated before inviting an alumnus or student to apply for a University of ZZZZZ  credit card.


An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-03-03-05.htm 


Barry Cushing passed away on March 1, 2004.
It is a great sadness to me, because Barry was once one of my doctoral students. I am grateful for our last evening together in Orlando last August. Barry led an exemplary life as an accounting educator/researcher and as a human being. This is a great loss.
His Web page is at http://home.business.utah.edu/~actbec/ 


I love it and use it all the time.  If some module has it wrong, users can easily fix it up themselves.
Jimmy Wales wanted to build a free encyclopedia on the internet. So he raised an army of amateurs and created the self-organizing, self-repairing, hyper-addictive library of the future called Wikipedia --- http://www.wikipedia.org/ 
Daniel H. Pink, "The Book Stops Here," Wired Magazine, March 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html?tw=wn_tophead_4 
Jensen Comment:  When I tried adding my own modules., Jimmy wrote back (seriously) that he liked the material didn't have enough hard drive to put up my long modules.  He thought I was just too verbose.  Can you believe that?  (Don't answer, please.)
Now I'm even more grateful for the generosity of Information Technology Services (ITS) at Trinity University and my good friends with big servers in the Computer Science Department.  Please get well and hurry back Gerald Pitts.
(I operate out of more than one server here at Trinity.  And please, no jokes about hogs from Iowa.)


No, surely not in my case
In the early '90s, psychiatrists and clinicians were beginning to hear of a new medical term, "internet addiction." At first, this was met with a lot of skepticism and denial, however, it became evident that the more people logged on to cyberspace, the more they got hooked.  The 10 Symptoms You Need To Watch Out For:
AskMen.com --- http://www.askmen.com/fashion/body_and_mind/16_better_living.html  

This report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, authored by Lee Rainie and John Horrigan, takes a critical look at how the Web has mainstreamed into our lives, which is certainly the case in my life.
Internet: The Mainstreaming of Online Life ---  http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/Internet_Status_2005.pdf


Beware of your tax preparer:  Just say no to loans based upon anticipated tax refunds
A refund-anticipation loan is a bank loan, short-term borrowing based on the amount you expect from your federal tax refund. It is also a popular marketing tool for the big tax-preparation companies, appealing especially to people living from paycheck to paycheck.  In some limited circumstances, refund-anticipation loans can be beneficial. But for most people, "they're completely unnecessary, an extremely expensive drain on expected refund money," said Jean Ann Fox, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America.  "It's money out of the pockets of the working poor," Fox said.  The federation and the National Consumer Law Center have been leading the campaign against refund-anticipation loans for several years, with some success. Fees have dropped and disclosures have improved.  But that doesn't change the fact that these so-called instant refunds, with interest rates to make usurers blush, are an expensive way to get use of your own money for a few extra days.
Kevin G. Demarrais, "Quick cash back comes at a cost:   Have a bit of patience, and enjoy your whole tax refund," Houston Chronicle, February 27, 2005 --- http://www.chron.com/CDA/umstory.mpl/business/3058554 
Bob Jensen's threads on consumer frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm 


Just another settlement day at Merrill Lynch
Bucking a spate of previous rulings favorable to the securities industry, arbitrators ordered Merrill Lynch & Co. to pay a Florida couple more than $1 million for failing to disclose that its analysts had conflicts of interest in recommending stocks.

Jed Horowitz, "Merrill Ordered to Pay 2 Clients Over Analyst Conflicts on Stocks," The Wall Street Journal,  March 1, 2005; Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110962110354266151,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 
Jensen Comment:  Merrill Lynch has one of the worst fraud records on Wall Street.  Eliot Spitzer once claimed he had enough smoking guns to bring down Merrill Lynch if he chose to do so.  You can read more by searching for "Merrill" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm 


FTC Annual Fraud Report
The FTC of the US has released its Annual Fraud Report, in which, among other things, it reports an increase in identity theft, amounting to losses of as much as $548 million in the US alone.
FTC: Identity theft, online scams rose in '04 - Computerworld
Gerald Trite's Business Blog, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.zorba.ca/blog.html 

Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

FTC helpers if suspect someone else has become you --- http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/idtsummary.pdf 

FTC helpers in getting your credit report and FICO score --- http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/credit/index.html 

FTC consumer warnings --- http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/consumer.htm 


Does employee blogging activity pose a threat to enterprise security? According to Alyn Hockey, director of research at Clearswift, it does, and on two fronts.  "Blogging has definitely emerged as a potential security threat," Hockey says. "Especially when practiced by disgruntled or malicious employees. But simple carelessness is also a factor. They don't necessarily have to have bad intentions to do some damage to a company's brand and reputation."
John K. Waters, "Blogging: New threat to enterprise security?" ADT Newsletter, March 3, 2005 --- http://newsletters.101com.com/sdg/n.asp?pc=HWEB03&nl=23,38,44,36 
Bob Jensen's threads on blogging are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 


Blame it on us baby boomers!
Alan's implying that I'm going to be collecting more than you working stiffs can afford.  
Common now, you can work harder than you've been working:  Push that barge and lift that bail

"I fear that we may have already committed more physical resources to the baby-boom generation in its retirement years than our economy has the capacity to deliver. If existing promises need to be changed, those changes should be made sooner rather than later. We owe future retirees as much time as possible to adjust their plans for work, saving, and retirement spending. They need to ensure that their personal resources, along with what they expect to receive from the government, will be sufficient to meet their retirement goals.
Testimony of Chairman Alan Greenspan Economic outlook and current fiscal issues Before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives March 2, 2005

My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm


Once again, blame it on us baby boomers!
Bodiford experienced what many Americans may soon face: a shortage of physicians that makes it hard to find convenient, quality health care. The shortage will worsen as 79 million baby boomers reach retirement age and demand more medical care unless the nation starts producing more doctors, according to several new studies.  The country needs to train 3,000 to 10,000 more physicians a year — up from the current 25,000 — to meet the growing medical needs of an aging, wealthy nation, the studies say. Because it takes 10 years to train a doctor, the nation will have a shortage of 85,000 to 200,000 doctors in 2020 unless action is taken soon.  The predictions of a doctor shortage represent an abrupt about-face for the medical profession. For the past quarter-century, the American Medical Association and other industry groups have predicted a glut of doctors and worked to limit the number of new physicians. In 1994, the Journal of the American Medical Association predicted a surplus of 165,000 doctors by 2000.
"Medical miscalculation creates doctor shortage," USA Today, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050303/1a_cover03.art.htm 


Note to AARP:  Australians seem to like their form of private account social security
Clare says the people least likely to shift are those in industry or public defined benefit funds, where many receive above the super guarantee from their employers plus other benefits.  People who are happy with their fund and elect to keep it when they change jobs will be among the main drivers of choice. That is, they will exercise choice by rejecting their new employer's default fund. With about 20 per cent of the workforce changing jobs each year, this is a significant group.
"A switch in time," Sydney Morning Herald, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/01/1109546861995.html 


Robin Square Tape
Comedian Robin Williams said it all when he walked on stage with a piece of white tape over his mouth.  Williams was to have performed a song lampooning conservative critic James Dobson, whose group had criticised cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants for appearing in a video it branded "pro-homosexual." . . . Marc Shaiman, who wrote Williams' original routine, said he decided to withdraw the material after ABC raised objections that would have led to him re-writing 11 of 36 lines. ABC declined to comment.
"Censorship at Oscars irks many," Aljazeera, March 1. 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AA763FF7-03FC-40F4-AD8C-53A449F3CE5C.htm 


Phoenix, Oregon Citizen Square Tapes
In wake of Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich's ban on state employees speaking to two Baltimore Sun staffers and an Ohio mayor's prohibition on city employees speaking to the local Business Journal, a small town Oregon mayor has announced that all media contact with town officials or employees must be made through her office.
"Another Government Official Bans Contact with Press," Editor and Publisher, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000825822 


We would hate to have Senator Byrd be remembered as a champion of minority rights movement
At 9:51 on the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert C. Byrd completed an address that he had begun fourteen hours and thirteen minutes earlier. The subject was the pending Civil Rights Act of 1964, a measure that occupied the Senate for fifty-seven working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey, the bill's manager, concluded he had the sixty-seven votes required at that time to end the debate. . . . Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the thirty-seven years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.
"Civil Rights Filibuster Ended," U.S. Senate, June 10, 1964 --- http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Civil_Rights_Filibuster_Ended.htm 

There's that N-word again
A pair of Jewish groups accused Sen. Robert Byrd on Wednesday of making an outrageous and reprehensible comparison between Adolf Hitler's Nazis and a Senate GOP plan to block Democrats from filibustering. A GOP senator called for Byrd to retract his remarks. Byrd spokesman Tom Gavin denied that Byrd, D-W.Va., had compared Republicans to Hitler. He said that instead, the reference to Nazis in a Senate speech on Tuesday was meant to underscore that the past should not be ignored....
Alan Fram, "GOP Jewish Group Critizes Byrd's Remarks," MyWay, March 2, 2005 --- http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050303/D88J6OG00.html 

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed outrage at the remarks of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who suggested that some Republican tactics on judicial nominations were similar to Adolf Hitler's use of power in Nazi Germany. In remarks from the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Byrd compared a Senate rule cutting off debate on nominations to Hitler's use of constitutional means to push legislation through the German Reichstag at the start of the Nazi era. Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement: "It is hideous, outrageous and offensive for Senator Byrd to...
"Senator's Hitler Comparison on Judicial Nominees 'Offensive and Insensitive'," Anti-Defamation League, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4660_52.htm 

Jensen Advice:  
"Dear Senator Byrd, Refrain from the N-word.  Please call Republican Senators Little Eichmans!"


Like it or not, military bashing has a downside
CNN saw its prime-time ratings drop sharply in February, falling further behind Fox News. CNN's ratings dipped 16 percent overall and 21 percent in prime time during February, according to Nielsen Media Research, as some of the cable news channel's biggest stars lost viewers. Fox News was the only one among the four cable news networks to post ratings gains during the month. Fox News is owned by News Corp., which is The Post's parent company. In 2002, Fox News surpassed CNN in the ratings and has been the leader ever since. Fox saw its ratings...
"CNN Sinking in Fox Hole," New York Post, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.nypost.com/business/22209.htm 
Also see http://www.variety.com/VR1117918742.html 


Paint the red states blue:  John's going to learn from Republicans
Democratic vice presidential candidate and former senator John Edwards will be among visiting fellows at Harvard University's Institute of Politics this spring, the school announced yesterday. Edwards, 51, of North Carolina ran for the Democratic nomination for president before being chosen as U.S. Sen. John Kerry's running mate last year. He will join U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) and Michael Deaver, international vice chairman of Edelman Worldwide and former deputy chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan. Typically, visiting fellows meet with various student groups to discuss topical issues and their experiences in public and...
"Ex-Kerry running mate to join Harvard as fellow," Boston Herald, March 3, 2005 --- http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=71250 


A not so pleased Walt Mossberg
So, I've been looking for a simple, reasonably priced product that includes all the hardware and software needed to do these tasks, and can be easily operated by mere mortals. I thought I'd found it when I came across a seemingly simple $49 gadget from ADS Technologies called Instant Music -- a small white box specifically built to turn LPs and tape cassettes into digital files.
Walter Mossbert, "Digitizing Your LPs and Tapes:  ADS Gadget Falls Short In Converting Old Music; The Jim Croce Test," The Wall Street Journal,  March 2, 2005; Page D8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110971919612167604,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


Would  beleaguered Vermont taxpayers also vote for raising taxes to fund their own Vermont Guard?
Fifty-two communities in Vermont are, in effect, determining their own foreign policy today — voting on a referendum that would urge state leaders to stop sending the state's National Guard (search) troops to war. The resolution would also ask President Bush to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. The issue was raised across the state at Vermont's annual Town Meeting Day (search), where residents usually gather to vote on local issues. But the Washington Times reports that the referendum is part of a growing anti-war sentiment across the state including in Brattleboro, Vermont, where officials removed the phrase "freedom is...

Brit Hume, Fox News, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,149189,00.html 


Holy Scary!  The manual on how to end civilized civilizations 
Doesn't Bin Laden get it?  He's also educating his enemies if and when he or his cohorts cease power.  
Nobody can be secure from this type of terrorism among fanatics on any side of a dispute.

In the year since the September 11 attacks, few more chilling documents have emerged than "Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants," a how-to terrorism manual that investigators believe has been used by followers of Osama bin Laden.  The 180-page volume, seized from the Manchester, England home of a bin Laden disciple, offers jihad members guidance on subjects such as assassination, forging documents, and preparing poisons in its 18 chapters. The terrorism manual was placed into evidence last year by prosecutors during the federal trial of four men accused of involvement in the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (the below English translation was also placed in evidence). All four defendants were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
"Bin Laden's Terrorism Bible," The Smoking Gun --- http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/jihadmanual.html 

While TSG has previously published small excerpts from this terror bible, we now present the entire document, a remarkable window into bin Laden's network of cold-blooded fanatics.

Title, Opening Pages, And Introduction (11 pages)

First Lesson: General Introduction (4 pages)

Second Lesson: Necessary Qualifications And Characteristics For The Organization's Member (7 pages)

Third Lesson: Counterfeit Currency And Forged Documents (3 pages)

Fourth Lesson: Organization Military Bases "Apartments-Hiding Places" (4 pages)

Fifth Lesson: Means of Communication And Transportation (15 pages)

Sixth Lesson: Training (3 pages)

Seventh Lesson: Weapons: Measures Related To Buying And Transporting Them (5 pages)

Eighth Lesson: Member Safety (5 pages)

Ninth Lesson: Security Plan (12 pages)

Tenth Lesson: Special Tactical Operations (7 pages)

Eleventh Lesson: Espionage (1) Information-Gathering Using Open Methods (10 pages)

Twelfth Lesson: Espionage (2) Information-Gathering Using Covert Methods (15 pages)

Thirteenth Lesson: Secret Writing And Ciphers And Codes (17 pages)

Fourteenth Lesson: Kidnapping And Assassinations Using Rifles And Pistols (23 pages)

Fifteenth Lesson: Explosives (13 pages)

Sixteenth Lesson: Assassinations Using Poisons And Cold Steel (8 pages)

Seventeenth Lesson: Interrogation And Investigation (15 pages)

Eighteenth Lesson: Prisons And Detention Centers (2 pages)


Another scary sign of the times
Juvenile offenders were infrequent arrivals to Texas' death row until the 1990s, when escalating juvenile violence and a new breed of young killer prompted a severe reaction from the criminal justice system. Only four Texas juvenile offenders were executed for crimes committed in the 1970s. Ditto for the 1980s, though one inmate from that decade remains on death row. The turbulent 1990s saw a different story. An explosion of juvenile crime, including a huge increase in juvenile homicides, brought the gloves off. Most juvenile offenders currently on Texas' death row — 25 of 28 — committed their crimes in that...
Mike Tolson, Houston Chronicle, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1354194/posts 

The gangs of New York are getting younger and younger. Concerned prosecutors across the city are warning that the city's violent street toughs are recruiting a new generation of baby-faced followers. The rise of teen gangs was highlighted this month by the shooting death of Bronx football star Fernando Correa, who had refused to join a local gang. But across the city, children younger than 10 are being forced to choose sides, prosecutors and law enforcement sources told the Daily News. "It's been building. There are rumblings in the elementary schools," said a law enforcement source. "Everybody says they're wanna-bes....
Elizabeth Hayes, "Nine-year-olds forced into gangs:  Elementary schools now in the clutches as toughs extend recruiting," New York Daily News, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/284825p-243953c.html 


Engine Out Over the North Pole
A British Airways 747 that flew from Los Angeles to England after one of its four engines failed during takeoff has set off a controversy over the risk of flying 10 hours with a dead engine.  Passengers heard the pops, and people on the ground saw sparks flying out from beneath the wing. A British Airways 747 had an engine fail during takeoff in Los Angeles 10 days ago.  But instead of returning to the airport to land, Flight 268 continued on across the U.S, up near the North Pole, across the Atlantic -- all the way to England.  The flight, with 351 passengers on board, didn't quite make it to London, its scheduled destination. It eventually made an emergency landing in Manchester, England, setting off a controversy over the risk of flying 10 hours with a dead engine hanging under the wing.
"Crossing the Atlantic With a Dead Engine," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005, Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963519929666421,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


Perish the Thought:  I think foundations should be diverting more money away from universities and into schools like this.  It's time to get more serious about the future of many young people who can fill the biggest labor voids in America.
Students have flocked for years to the College of Lake County in Grayslake to tinker with refrigerators, learn how to repair cars and hone their accounting skills.  But now, thanks to a new $36.4 million state-of-the-art technology building, they're doing it with some of the latest technology available, including high-tech equipment that can scan car computers.  "We're teaching them the systems they're going to need when they go out and work," said Lourdene Huhra, dean of the business division. "Our equipment is as good as the equipment they'll use on the job."  The building opened in mid-January and is designed to provide a central location for programs offered by the college's business and engineering, math and physical science divisions.
"College rolls out high-tech facility," Chicago Tribune, February 27, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/TribFeb27 


Would you please repeat what you just said
Ear-wax-removal kits claim to soften excessive ear wax if you place three to five drops of the carbamide peroxide solution in your ear twice daily for as many as four days. But listen up: That ear-wax-removal kit you can buy over-the-counter could cause more problems than it solves. . . I don't believe in self-irrigation," says Stephen Epstein, an ear specialist who runs the Ear Center in Wheaton, Md. The removal kits require a consumer to perform a "relatively blind procedure," since a person can't see exactly what he's doing, he says. Moreover, he says, if an infection ensues, you might end up needing two or three visits to the doctor and a course of antibiotics. Dr. Epstein says he sees three to five people a month who have tried the kits with poor results. Sometimes, the solutions irritate the ear canal, causing itching or inflammation. At worst, the wax could run deeper into the ear, leaving residue on the eardrum.
Gintautas Dumcius, "Removing Wax From Your Ears," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005; Page D6 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963135300766318,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 
Jensen Comment:  The article goes on to report that not all experts agree with Stephen Epstein.


After the adverse publicity, I wonder if his speaking fees have increased or decreased?
Administrators (University of Wisconsin --- Whitewater) wrestled with the decision to host Churchill, as Hamilton and several other schools canceled appearances. It was decided to go forward as planned only when it was determined that the event could be held safely, and after an exchange of letters with Churchill in which he said he expected to be paid his $4,000 honorarium even if the event was shelved, and that he would use some of the money to come and speak on another occasion to those who wanted to hear him.
"Wisconsin university prepares for Churchill," Rocky Mountain News, March 1, 2005 ---  http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3584230,00.html  
Bob Jensen's threads on Ward Churchill are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyChurchill.htm 

I've been invited to speak at hundreds of universities, but no university has ever paid me as much as $4,000. (Sigh!)  Just as of late, as fate would have it, I'm beginning to envision  little eichmans in the accounting profession.  I also know a couple of auditors who resemble Rudolf Hess.


It would help if you put it on your passport
. . . we identify as “totalitarian radicals,” “anti-American radicals,” “leftists,” “moderate leftists” and “affective leftists.”  (The latter includes mostly entertainment figures whose politics are emotionally rather than intellectually based in a way I will get to below.) We have arranged the grid this way, even though we think it feeds certain illusions, to accommodate those who expressed anguish over the grid in its original format where there were no such...
"Defining the Left," y David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine.com, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=17190 


Treading softly but surely on pros in college sports:  Many more basket weaving diplomas expected
College sports programs tiptoed Monday into an uncertain new world of academic accountability, as the National Collegiate Athletic Association unveiled a complex system for monitoring the classroom progress of Division I athletes and gave the public its first glimpse at how individual colleges fared under the new standards.  The system could eventually punish institutions that fail to keep their athletes moving toward a degree. But no penalties are attached to this first year's reports, and the NCAA has modified the system in recent weeks in ways that delay or soften the potential blows against sports programs.
Doug Lederman, "New Way to Keep Score," Inside Higher Ed, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/new_way_to_keep_score 


Not treading so softly on college athletics:  Sometimes you can't even pay to have an article published
As a student in a new investigative journalism course at Rutgers University last fall, Fraidy Reiss dove headlong into the assignment to write two articles exploring subjects at the university. Her first piece, about Rutgers's system for evaluating teachers, was the lead story in the student-run Daily Targum one day last October.  For her second article, Reiss explored a set of programs and services available only to Rutgers athletes, including special sections of a communications course, financed by an alumnus, and a bevy of tutors and monitors to help athletes with their work and make sure they go to class, among others.  The instructor in the investigative journalism course worked with her on the article, as did student editors at The Targum, which helps sponsor the class. The article garnered an A+ grade in the course, and Targum editors spent weeks trying to help her shape the piece for publication, and paid $250 to cover the costs of an open records request she filed for reports on athletes' grades.  But this month, the newspaper's editors told Reiss that they would not run the article, saying it was too one-sidedly critical of the sports program. Frustrated, Reiss decided (with the help of an alumnus critical of the Scarlet Knight sports program) to try to publish the article as an advertisement in The Daily Targum. But last week, the newspaper rejected the ad, too.
Doug Ledgerman, "Hitting Too Close to Home," Inside Higher Ed, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/hitting_too_close_to_home 
Jensen Comment:  The Targum and university officials are  probably adding fuel to the fire.  By rejecting both the article and the advertisement, the rejection publicity itself will motivate every student to read the article.  Furthermore, folks around the world will be eagerly awaiting when this article when and if it appears on the Web.  


Say what?  Another victim of television and Viagra
Britain's big pub companies are trying to reinvent the traditional British pub, best known for its fireplace, bad food and warm beer. The reason: Britons are drinking less beer these days, and even less at the pub.  To further entice post-office customers, the Case offers a $1 discount on coffee or tea if they linger in the pub. To beef up the offer, Mr. Senior last year spent about $3,200 on a professional coffee machine. "I told him he was mad to spend that," Mrs. Senior says. Yet, coffee sales have since jumped to about $380 a week from about $100 previously, she says. "We've got to sell everything we can," Mr. Senior says. "If you want an ice cream or a hot chocolate, we've got to be able to supply it. There are very few places left where you can sell beer full stop."
Jensen Comment:  The pubs are becoming after-hours post offices and mini-marts.  I think I preferred the old-style dark and quiet pubs with charcoal burning fireplaces, cockney accents, and bad food.


Mum's the Word:  I bet they still whisper to their mistresses and friends on Wall Street
Fewer U.S. companies are offering earnings guidance to investors and analysts, a survey found. Just 55% of firms offered guidance last year, down from 72% in 2003.  Those Providing Forecasts Fell Last Year to 55% From 72%; Drawback for Smaller Investors?
Gregory Zuckerman, "CEOs Turn Mum About Projecting Earnings," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110964376210666684,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 


Mum's not the word in Blog land
Some eight million Americans now publish blogs and 32 million people read them, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. What began as a form of public diary-keeping has become an important supplement to a business's online strategy: Blogs can connect with consumers on a personal level -- and keep them visiting a company's Web site regularly.
Riva Richmond, "Blogs Keep Internet Customers Coming Back," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005; Page B8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963746474866537,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 
Bob Jensen's threads on Weblogs and blogs are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 


Optic nerve hypoplasia
Opthalmologists are baffled by the rising prevalence of a rare condition called optic nerve hypoplasia, which can cause visual impairment or total blindness in babies.  "It used to be so rare that people would trade slides of the few known cases," says Michael Brodsky, a pediatric neuro-ophthalmologist at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. Since the 1970s, however, diagnoses of optic nerve hypoplasia have escalated. Dr. Borchert says he alone has seen at least 500 victims, and he estimates there are thousands of cases nationwide. Hard numbers on children who are blind or visually impaired are difficult to obtain. But, says Dr. Brodsky, "these cases are now filling up our clinics."
Kevin Helliker, "Pediatric Puzzle: A Sharp Increase In Infant Vision Problem Baffles Doctors," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005; Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963006386166280,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


Just think of the interest that's piling up at $2,877 per hour each 24 hours of each of seven days of every week
U.S. authorities announced one of the largest individual criminal tax cases ever, accusing a Washington telecommunications businessman of failing to pay about $210 million in taxes.  A federal grand jury in Washington returned a 12-count indictment last Wednesday under seal that charged Walter Anderson, 51 years old, with a plan to evade federal and District of Columbia taxes.  Mr. Anderson was arrested Saturday at Washington Dulles International Airport after he stepped off a flight from London.  The indictment alleges Mr. Anderson earned nearly $450 million through investments and offshore operations that he established to make it appear as if he wasn't personally earning the money, the Justice Department said.
"Man Is Accused Of $210 Million Tax Evasion," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005, Page D2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963908825166585,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


What has life expectancy risen to in the United States?
Life expectancy in the U.S. climbed to a record in 2003, as deaths from heart disease and cancer declined.  According to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, average life expectancy rose to 77.6 years in 2003 from 77.3 years in 2002.
Jennifer Corbett Dooren, "Americans' Life Expectancy Rose to Record High in 2003," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2005; Page D8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963558261366439,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 
Jensen Comment:  Medicare has significantly extended the life expectancy of a citizen in the U.S. while it significantly lowers the expected life of the United States itself.
Bob Jensen's unfinished essay on entitlements is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 


War Shortages
General Motors Corp. will offer to repurchase new cars bought by dealers from its five divisions. This is to reduce the "wild" trading that might result if dealers had to reduce stocks involuntarily and prevent cars from falling into "bootlegger" hands.
The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 1942 


The Vioxx fallout hits multiple sclerosis patients.
Tysabri had received accelerated approval from the FDA just three months ago because clinical trials had shown it to be twice as effective as alternative therapies in preventing flare-ups of MS, which is a degenerative and eventually fatal disease. Tysabri is also easier to take than alternative treatments, and tolerated by a subset of MS patients who can't take the others at all.  But for the indefinite future everyone will have to do without because two of the thousands of patients who've received Tysabri developed a rare neurological disorder. Those two patients happened to also be on another immuno-suppressive MS treatment called Avonex. There is no reason to believe that Tysabri has caused this disorder when used alone.  There's plenty of blame to go around here, starting with the trial lawyers and their climate of fear. Congressmen who demagogue about non-existent FDA safety "lapses" aren't much better. But we're also disappointed with CEOs who imagine they're doing patients and shareholders a favor with such rash decisions. In retrospect, Merck CEO Ray Gilmartin only strengthened the hand of the lawyers by withdrawing Vioxx when the FDA would have been content with relabeling.
"Drug Twilight Zone," The Wall Street Journal,  March 2, 2005; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110972765984167851,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


New oxymoron:  Hungarian wedding
"Most Hungarian Adults Single for the First Time in History, Report," Weird News, March 1, 3005 --- http://snipurl.com/HungarianWeddings 


Hungarians should seek out marriage proposal consulting that seems to lead to more nuptials in the U.S.
This is just the sort of anxiety that sends men hot-footing off to companies such as the Massachusetts website 2propose.com, run by Paul Alden, a former wedding photographer.  Like its rivals, such as anexclusiveengagement.com or anamazingproposal.com, the site offers a range of services, from 100 proposal concepts for $US9.99 ($12.70) to a more expensive tailored service in which proposal co-ordinators sort out a specific plan and arrange it all.  Ideas in the basic package include painting "Marry me" on bowls at a bowling alley, hiring out the Magic Kingdom Rose Garden at Disneyland and getting yourself delivered to your beloved's door inside a box.  Some of the 3000 people who register on the site each month opt for something far more elaborate, says Alden. He mentions a man who arranged for a fake television crew to ambush him and his girlfriend as they took a carriage around Central Park and then "film" him going down on one knee.  Another client remembered his girlfriend being upset at not being able to land near a beautiful waterfall in Hawaii as they flew over in a helicopter on holiday. Alden's company tracked down the only pilot licensed to land at the spot. He brought them down, produced a picnic and, when they got back to the airport, the couple were taken by limo to a restaurant where they were serenaded by a violinist. Total cost: about $US3750, not including the air fares to Hawaii.
"Popping the question goes professional," Sydney Morning Herald, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/02/1109700540627.html 


Let's hope that single parents in Hungary don't go by way of those in the U.K.
The reasons for this moral decline are as clear as the aforementioned statistics are bleak. As James Bartholomew argues in his recent book "The Welfare State We're In" (Politico's, 2004), the blame rests squarely on the growth of the welfare state, which has removed personal responsibility in large areas of people's lives and substituted dependency on the state and the rule of the bureaucrat. The state is complicit in the breakdown of the family; consider Mr. Bartholomew's example of how the state has promoted single-parent families by taxing married couples -- and abolishing the marriage allowance -- while giving increasing amounts of money to single parents.  No wonder, then, that from 1972 to 1992 the proportion of children living with a lone parent tripled to 21% from 7%. The link with rising crime is reflected in one shaming statistic: One-third of the people in U.K. prisons spent time in an orphanage at some time in their childhood. One prison governor, on being asked how many of the inmates had formerly been taken into foster care, replied: "Nearly all of them."  Indeed, the collapse of the traditional nuclear family has hit the poorest classes quite disproportionately, with nearly a quarter of girls whose fathers were unskilled workers becoming teenage mothers, mostly outside marriage. Divorces have risen sevenfold since 1960, and these also have been much more common among the poor.
Russell Lewis, "Unruly Britannia," The Wall Street Journal (Europe), March 3, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110980295622868708,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


What giant search engine turned ten years old?  It's almost reached puberty.
Which web powerhouse was started by two Stanford geeks as a simple search page with a silly name and became the biggest thing on the internet? Nope, not Google. Try again. The invisible giant turns 10.  Still, the adulation must rankle the folks at a certain company (Google) just down the road in Silicon Valley - another search engine founded by two precocious Stanford grads with a cute name, colorful logo, and simple homepage. The indignity is all the greater when you consider Yahoo!'s numbers: 165 million registered users, 345 million unique visitors a month, $49 billion market cap, and a 62 per­cent increase in revenue last quarter, bringing 2004 total revenue to $3.6 billion. Yahoo! makes more money and has more patents, services, and users than Google; it even has its own yodel. Given its recent blowout financial results and the expected continued explosion of online advertising, Yahoo! may very well be the most valuable business on the Web. And yet, as Jerry Yang and David Filo's startup celebrates its 10th anniversary March 2, Yahoo! is the biggest consumer Internet company you may almost never think about.
"The UnGoogle (Yes, Yahoo!)," Wired Magazine, March 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/yahoo.html?tw=wn_tophead_4 


Hero cat finds a home in Bangor --- now it has to learn English
A little Iraqi has a new home in Maine. H.P. the cat was adopted by National Guard troopers serving with the 152nd Field Artillery Battalion. Spc. Jesse Cote said the cat was starving and toothless when they found it. But the GI's were able to nurse H.P. back to health. The cat ate and slept with the soldiers and even helped them. Cote said H.P. would be the first to react to mortar fire and was their warning of incoming.
"Iraqi Cat Who Helped U.S. Troops Finds American Home," ClickOnDetroit, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.clickondetroit.com/family/4241748/detail.html 


One woman's solution to long-term care
The 82-year-old Marin County woman cannot walk and says she has no place to go, so she has remained planted in a hospital bed at Kaiser Permanente San Rafael Medical Center for the past year.  Despite every effort by Kaiser officials to get her out, Nome has refused to leave or pay the $3,090 a day that the hospital charges to put her up. She said she will continue squatting at Kaiser until a place is found in Marin where she can live and get the treatment she requires.  "When you pay Kaiser insurance month after month for 50 years like I have, you expect to be treated like a good patient and a human being," Nome said the other day from her hospital bed. "If I had known that Kaiser would take me for only a couple of days and then would expect my family to take care of me, I would have paid my family what I paid for insurance."
Peter Fimrite, "OVERSTAYING HER WELCOME Disgruntled patient hasn't budged from hospital for a year," The San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 2005 --- http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/01/MNG76BII1M1.DTL 


One home invasion intruder put away for life
Chelsea (Alabama, Shelby County) man shoots armed intruder to death after being tied The Associated Press An armed, masked intruder was shot to death by a Chelsea man who managed to free himself after he was tied up and his wife held at gunpoint during a robbery in their home, Shelby County authorities said. Sheriff Chris Curry said a female accomplice was arrested while attempting to flee the scene. Sheriff's officers did not immediately release the name of the man who killed the intruder during the home invasion about 2 a.m. Sunday. The suspected burglar...
Birmingham Times, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1353390/posts 


This might replace one-sheet teaching evaluations
What you say or do when teaching, you may be on Candid Camera or student Web sites

Brick Township school officials might ban cell phones after a student's phone cam videotaped a teacher's outburst. Students said the teacher began yelling when students failed to show respect to the national anthem. The tape was posted on several independent Web sites.
"Teacher's Outburst Caught On Camera Student Shoots Teacher On Cell Phone Camera," NBC, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.nbc10.com/news/4245196/detail.html 


The Heavier Side
Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener, the Father of Cybernetics
, by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman. Basic Books, 423 pages, $27.50.  

It is hardly the greatest scientific mystery of the 20th century, but it is a riddle just the same: why did Norbert Wiener - gray eminence of gray matter, inventor of cybernetics, founding theorist of the information age - abandon his closest young colleagues just as they were about to embark on an exciting new collaboration on the workings of the brain?
Cornelia Dean, "A Brilliant Mind and an Anguished Life," The New York Times, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/science/01book.html
Jensen Comment:  

Jensen Comment:  Now the Lighter Side
Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), US mathematician. The archetype of the genius and absent-minded professor.

http://dalido.narod.ru/NW/NW-quote5.html 

http://snipurl.com/WeinerTime

http://people.cornellcollege.edu/ltabak/publications/articles/wiener.html 

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Wiener_Norbert.html 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/Wiener.html 

http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/199.html 

http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=9224 

http://www.angelfire.com/co/1x137/cybros.html 

The list actually seems endless


Female assistant professors earn on average 91 percent of what their male counterparts earn.
Scott Jaschick quoting a report by Yale graduate students, "Larry Summers Isn't Alone," Inside Higher Ed, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/larry_summers_isn_t_alone 
Jensen Comment:  I didn't investigate the 91 percent claim, but I suspect this is just one more way of using statistics to mislead.  Graduate students of Yale should be above such an unethical tactic.  My guess is the following:  Salaries and benefits of new hires of females are probably as high or higher than salaries and benefits of male hires in all respective disciplines.  I really doubt that there is gender discrimination within any discipline.  Even within the highest paying disciplines, such as computer science, I suspect that all women hired in Ivy League schools are getting no less than their male counterparts at the assistant professor level.  

The discrepancy in pay arises between disciplines, not between men versus women.  Some disciplines have a much higher supply of applicants making it possible (although many do not view as politically correct) to land top assistant professors at lower salaries.  In other disciplines such as computer science, the number of male and female applicants is so small and so competitive that higher offers must be made to land a top candidate, female or male.  In the discipline of accountancy, my guess is that there is a much higher proportion of female PhD graduates than in computer science.  These females are getting assistant professor offers equivalent to their male counterparts, and those offers are higher than in most other disciplines because there are so few male and female accountancy doctoral students across the world.  

I would be shocked of there is serious  gender discrimination at the hiring level in major universities.  Reasons why there are so many doctoral graduates in some disciplines and such a shortage in others are very complex.  I suspect many find accounting and computer science more boring even if the pay is better.  I do know of several professors of accounting who got doctoral degrees in other areas (e.g., one in German Literature and several in Economics) who admitted to me that, after discovering both the hiring opportunities and salary differentials, they earned a second doctoral degree in accountancy.  Of course there are some other accounting professors who for one reason or another are now teaching in other disciplines.

I might add that within the "broad" profession of accountancy the same type of gender pay differentials arise.  But the difference lies within the type of accountancy (such as clerical versus ERP auditing) rather than gender bias per se.  A top ERP auditor is going to get a better offer than a clerk whether that auditor is male or female.

March 1, 2005 reply from Richard C. Sansing [Richard.C.Sansing@DARTMOUTH.EDU

A competing hypothesis that is similar to yours in spirit is that if more experienced faculty earn more and the percentage of female hires is increasing over time, the same 91% figure could be true even though after controlling for both discipline and experience, men and women have the same level of earnings.

The study, which is at:

http://www.yaleunions.org/geso/reports/Ivy.pdf 

reports an unconditional mean of 91%, which controls for neither discipline nor experience. However, it reports similar disparities when controlling for rank (full, associate, assistant), so I suspect that controlling for experience wouldn't change the analysis much.

As for your comment, "Graduate students of Yale should be above such an unethical tactic.", I strive to avoid attributing to malice anything that ineptitude can also explain.

Richard C. Sansing 
Associate Professor of Business Administration 
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth 100 Tuck Hall 
email: Richard.C.Sansing@dartmouth.edu 


"Accounting Firms Hiring Thousands of '05 Grads," SmartPros, February 23, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47148.xml 

Feb. 23, 2005 (SmartPros) — The job market for 2005 college graduates is predicted to be the best since 2000, according to Michigan State University's annual Recruiting Trends survey. The top employers include several accounting and consulting firms.

The survey respondents are ranked according to the projected number of hires from college recruiting for the Class of 2005. The top 20 employers, followed by their projected number of hires, are:

1 - Enterprise Rent-A-Car--7,000 
2 - PricewaterhouseCoopers--3,170
3 - Ernst & Young LLP--2,900 
4 - Lockheed Martin--2,863 
5 - KPMG--2,240 
6 - Sodexho, Inc.--2,050 
7 - Fairfax County Public Schools--1,600 
8 - Accenture--1,540 
9 - Northrop Grumman--1,266 
10 - United States Customs & Border Protection--1,200 
11 - Target--1,127 
12 - United States Air Force--1,095 
13 - Raytheon Company--1,000 
14 - Microsoft--970 
15 - JPMorgan Chase--810 
16 - Procter & Gamble--569 
17 - Liberty Mutual--545 
18 - Grant Thornton--500 
19 - Bank of America--413 
20 - United States Air Force Personnel Center/DPKR--400

According to the survey, economic sectors showing strength this year include: retail, wholesale, transportation (not including airlines), health services, entertainment and real estate.

February 28, 2005 reply from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU

Bob,

One can describe the reason for Accenture's needs for accountants in ONE word: outsourcing.

The following is from www.accenture.com  webpage:

Outsourcing

Application Outsourcing 


Business Process Outsourcing Accenture Finance Solutions-Accenture HR Services-Accenture

 Learning-Accenture Procurement Solutions-Accenture Business Services for Utilities-Accenture eDemocracy Services-Navitaire-Accenture Insurance Services 


Infrastructure Outsourcing

Jagdish S. Gangolly, 
Associate Professor 
School of Business & NY State Center for Information Forensics & Assurance 
State University of New York at Albany BA 365C, 
1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222 
email:
j.gangolly@albany.edu 

March 1, 2005 messages from Bob Jensen and Chuck Johnson

I hope Professor Johnson doesn’t mind if I share this with you. I suspect this is partly conjecture on his part, but it is somewhat more than conjecture. His reasoning makes sense to me. Apparently Enterprise has a different business model than other car rental firms.

There may be some fast food chains with similar models.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Kenneth Johnson [mailto:kjohnson@GeorgiaSouthern.edu]  
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 10:25 AM 
To: Jensen, Robert 
Subject: Re: Accounting Firms Hiring Thousands

Bob,

FYI, EnterpriesRent-a-Car's hiring of so many college graduates is driven by the firm's basic business model. Enterprise has thousands of small offices. When business volume at a particular location reaches a certain point a new office is created a few miles away. The way I understand it, each new hire does everything, from: taking reservations, serving customers, picking up and dropping off customers, and even washing cars. Their favorite hire is a graduate of modest academic achievement but with lots of extracurricular activities and good people skills. I learned all of this from a strategic management textbook I taught out of a few years ago; Enterprise was a side-bar mini-case.

BTW, the way I read it, the 7,000 figure cited in the 2000 Michigan State University's annual Recruiting Trends survey was total college graduates, not just accountants.

Thanks for the constant stream of interesting stuff.

Chuck Johnson

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting careers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers  


We only have the happiness we have given.
Édouard Pailleron
Jensen Comment:  Misery is another thing entirely.


Proposal for Teaching Only and Imported Universities
Proposals by the federal Education Minister, Brendan Nelson, to create greater diversity, specialisation and competition within the university sector are radical, even revolutionary. Given the present unsatisfactory situation, this is no bad thing. Dr Nelson's suggestions - heresies, say some - would redefine and broaden the term "university". Universities could be either teaching-only or research-intensive institutions, the way would be cleared for more private and small universities, including some specialising in a single discipline or vocation (for example law or medicine or hospitality), and overseas universities would be encouraged to establish Australian campuses. This would require the Commonwealth and the states to agree to big changes in the present protocols that oblige universities to offer at least three disciplines and to undertake both teaching and research.
"Dr Nelson's daring new prescription," Sydney Morning Herald, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/06/1110044262150.html 


The real embarrassment will be when it fits
Stanford University:  Transplanting human brain cells into mice

It will look like any ordinary mouse, but for US scientists a tiny animal threatens to ignite a profound ethical dilemma.  In one of the most controversial scientific projects conceived, a group of university researchers in California's Silicon Valley is preparing to create a mouse whose brain will be composed entirely of human cells.  Researchers at Stanford University have already succeeded in breeding mice with brains that are 1 per cent human cells. In the next stage they plan to use stem cells from aborted human foetuses to create an animal whose brain cells are 100 per cent human.  Professor Irving Weissman, who heads the university's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology, believes the mice could produce a breakthrough in understanding how stem cells might lead to a cure for diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.  The group is waiting for a key US Government sponsored report, due this month, that will decide how much science can blur the distinction between man and beast.
"Mouse will have brain of human," Sydney Morning Herald, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/06/1110044258297.html 


Canadian researchers add new meaning to "giving the finger."
The length of a man’s fingers can reveal how physically aggressive he is, according to new research.  The shorter the index finger is compared to the ring finger, the more boisterous he will be, University of Alberta researchers said.  But the same was not true for verbal aggression or hostile behaviours, they told the journal Biological Psychology after studying 300 people’s fingers. The trend is thought to be linked to testosterone exposure in the womb.  There is known to be a direct correlation between finger lengths and the amount of the male hormone testosterone that a baby is exposed to in the womb. In women, the two fingers are usually almost equal in length, as measured from the crease nearest the palm to the fingertip. In men, the ring finger tends to be longer than the index.  Other studies looking at finger length have suggested that, in men, a long ring finger and symmetrical hands are an indication of fertility, and women with a longer index finger are more likely to be fertile.  One study found boys with shorter ring fingers tended to be at greatest risk of a heart attack in early adulthood, which was linked to testosterone levels.
"Short index finger shows men are as hard as nails," Scotsman, March 4, 2005 --- http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=239982005 


I thought March was a brilliant poet, especially his narrative verse in The Wild Party (which I longingly referred to over four decades when the urge to be a narrative poet whispered at me.  March always reminded me that I did not have the talent for narrative verse, and I humbly returned to writing about accountancy).
I suspect most of my literary friends will scoff at March's works, and for them I inserted the above module.

If you were looking for a young man with a great literary life in front of him in 1928, you'd have been hard-pressed to find a better candidate than 29-year-old Joseph Moncure March. His narrative in verse The Wild Party, a tale of Manhattan hedonism and the tragic hipsters who indulge in it, had been published that spring in a limited edition, achieving an immediate following and brisk sales. (A musical adaptation will open this month at the Fitzgerald Theater). The book even got banned briefly in Boston, bringing March something every writer craves—a prominent but not damaging censorship battle.
Tim Cavanaugh, "After the Party," Rake Magazine, March 2005 --- http://www.rakemag.com/coals/detail.asp?catID=58&itemID=20510 
Jensen Comment:  Cavanaugh says March had a "half-brilliant career," which I guess is not all that unique in either literary or scientific circles.  By the way, I don't think you can download a free copy of The Wild Party online.  The fact that it was briefly banned in Boston in 1928 shows how times have changed in society.


New Treatment for Type 2 Diabetes (Previously known as “noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus” (NIDDM))
A popular treatment for sleep apnea may also help people with type 2 diabetes, according to a study published in the Feb. 28 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers found that treating sleep apnea with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) not only helped the 25 participants sleep better, but also significantly reduced their blood sugar (or glucose) levels when administered for at least four hours a day. Lower glucose levels can help reduce a diabetic's risk of developing late-stage complications including cardiovascular and kidney disease.
"A Sleep Treatment's Dual Benefits," MSNBC, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7077622/site/newsweek/ 
Jensen Comment:  Type 2 diabetes is becoming an epidemic among adults.  It is important to test for it regularly and aggressively follow physician diet, exercise, and drug plans.  Otherwise it can lead to blindness, sexual malfunction, loss of limbs, and death.

Tips to Help You Sleep from MSNBC on March 3 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7077618/site/newsweek/ 


Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa:  Beyond Capitalism
The other night, upon accepting the 2005 Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute, a bastion of inside-the-Beltway conservatism, the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa gave a speech extolling liberalism. Not, he hastened to explain, the contemporary American version, but liberalism in its older sense, an outlook predicated on "tolerance and respect for others," the basic elements of which are "political democracy, the market economy, and the defense of individual interests over those of the state."  This liberalism, which requires private property, free markets, and the rule of law, has little in common with the statist mutation that goes by that name in the U.S. One of classical liberalism's central insights, Vargas Llosa noted, is that "freedom is a single, unified concept. Political and economic liberties are as inseparable as the two sides of a medal." By contrast, self-styled liberals in the U.S. tend to view economic liberty with indifference, if not hostility, leaving its defense to conservatives.
Jacob Sullum "Free to B&B," ReasonOnLine, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/sullum/030405.shtml 

"Confessions of a Liberal," by Mario Vargas Llosa, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.22053,filter.all/news_detail.asp 

Because liberalism is not an ideology, that is, a dogmatic lay religion, but rather an open, evolving doctrine that yields to reality instead of trying to force reality to do the yielding, there are diverse tendencies and profound discrepancies among liberals. With regard to religion, gay marriage, abortion and such, liberals like me, who are agnostics as well as supporters of the separation between church and state and defenders of the decriminalization of abortion and gay marriage, are sometimes harshly criticized by other liberals who have opposite views on these issues. These discrepancies are healthy and useful because they do not violate the basic precepts of liberalism, which are political democracy, the market economy and the defense of individual interests over those of the state.

For example, there are liberals who believe that economics is the field through which all problems are resolved and that the free market is the panacea for everything from poverty to unemployment, marginalization and social exclusion. These liberals, true living algorithms, have sometimes generated more damage to the cause of freedom than did the Marxists, the first champions of the absurd thesis that the economy is the driving force of the history of nations and the basis of civilization. It simply is not true. Ideas and culture are what differentiate civilization from barbarism, not the economy. The economy by itself, without the support of ideas and culture, may produce optimal results on paper, but it does not give purpose to the lives of people; it does not offer individuals reasons to resist adversity and stand united with compassion or allow them to live in an environment permeated in humanity. It is culture, a body of shared ideas, beliefs and customs--among which religion may be included of course--that gives warmth and life to democracy and permits the market economy, with its competitive, cold mathematics of awarding success and punishing failure, to avoid degenerating into a Darwinian battle in which, as Isaiah Berlin put it, “liberty for wolves is death to the lambs.” The free market is the best mechanism in existence for producing riches and, if well complemented with other institutions and uses of democratic culture, launches the material progress of a nation to the spectacular heights with which we are familiar. But it is also a relentless instrument, which, without the spiritual and intellectual component that culture represents, can reduce life to a ferocious, selfish struggle in which only the fittest survive.

. . . 

Then it will not be necessary to talk about freedom because it will be the air that we breathe and because we will all truly be free. Ludwig von Mises’ ideal of a universal culture infused with respect for the law and human rights will have become a reality.

Continued in the article


The writings of Francis Fukuyama closely parallel the above message by Mario Vargas Llosa
The distant origins of the present volume lie in an article entitled “The End of History?” which I wrote for the journal The National Interest in the summer of 1989. In it, I argued that a remarkable consensus concerning the legitimacy of liberal democracy as a system of government had emerged throughout the world over the past few years, as it conquered rival ideologies like hereditary monarchy, fascism, and most recently communism. More than that, however, I argued that liberal democracy may constitute the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and the “final form of human government,” and as such constituted the “end of history.” That is, while earlier forms of government were characterised by grave defects and irrationalities that led to their eventual collapse, liberal democracy was arguably free from such fundamental internal contradictions. This was not to say that today’s stable democracies, like the United States, France, or Switzerland, were not without injustice or serious social problems. But these problems were ones of incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equality on which modern democracy is founded, rather than of flaws in the principles themselves. While some present-day countries might fail to achieve stable liberal democracy, and others might lapse back into other, more primitive forms of rule like theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal of liberal democracy could not be improved on.

Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, 1992 --- http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/fukuyama.htm 
Jensen Comment:  I recently saw mention made a lecture by Fukuyama at the University of Chicago that had the title something to the the effect "Fifteen Years After the End of History."  I used Fukuyama's original "End of History" book years ago in a First Year Seminar.


Slavery Lives On
A ceremony during which at least 7000 men, women and children in Niger in West Africa were to be freed from slavery has been cancelled at the last minute by the Government.  The BBC News website quoted a spokesman for the Government's human rights commission as saying Saturday's planned ceremony had been cancelled because slavery did not exist in Niger. The Government had been a co-sponsor of the event.  In a country where at least 43,000 people are thought to be slaves, the practice was made illegal only last May. A new law made owning slaves punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
"Thousands of slaves see their chance of freedom slip away," Sydney Morning Herald, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/06/1110044260807.html 
Jensen Comment:  It will be interesting to see if and when this law is ever enforced.


United Nations (read that United Nepotism)
The Biggest Scam in History

The U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal is the biggest scam in the history of humanitarian aid. And it's Kofi Annan's fault. 
Claudia Rosett, "Blame Game, The New Republic, February 16, 2005 --- https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20050221&s=rosett022105

What a complicated web we weave:  Proud Canada Company Linked to U.N. Oil for Food Scandal
But the Fox News story wasn’t prompted by an announcement from Power of some billion-dollar takeover or the appointment of a new senior executive. It was something altogether different: the revelation that the man handpicked by the UN secretary general last April to probe the UN’s scandalized Oil-for-Food program, Paul Volcker, had not disclosed to the UN that he was a paid adviser to Power Corp., a story which had originally been broken by a small, independent Toronto newspaper, the Canada Free Press. Why did the highest-rated cable channel in the U.S. care? Because the more that Americans came to know about Oil-for-Food, which has been called the largest corruption scandal in history, the more the name of this little-known Montreal firm kept popping up. And the more links that seemed to emerge between Power Corp. and individuals or organizations involved in the Oil-for-Food scandal, the more Fox News and other news outlets sniffing around this story began to ask questions about who, exactly, this Power Corp. is. And, they wanted to know, what, if anything, did Power have to do with a scandal in which companies around the world took bribes to help a murderous dictator scam billions of dollars in humanitarian aid out of the UN while his people suffered and starved?
Kevin Steel, "How Montreal's Power Corp. found itself caught up in the biggest fiasco in UN history," Canada Free Press, March 5, 2005 --- http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover030505.htm 
Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 


Moral Hazard:  Should the media pay criminals for interviews?
The BBC's board of governors have rebuffed a call by culture secretary Tessa Jowell to investigate the corporation's controversial decision to pay £4,500 for an interview with the convicted burglar shot by Tony Martin. Ms Jowell said she understood the "disquiet and unease" caused by the reported payment, which has been attacked by politicians from all sides and described by the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, as "disgusting".
John Plunkett, "BBC governors won't investigate burglar payment row," Guardian, March 7, 2005 --- http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1432251,00.html 


Separate but equal?
Black boys may have to be taught in separate classes from their white peers to help them do better at school, according to the race relations watchdog.  "If the only way to break through the wall of attitude that surrounds black boys is to teach them separately for some subjects, then we should be ready for that," he said. "A tough new strategy would compel black fathers to be responsible fathers.  "If they can't be bothered to turn up for parents' evening, should they expect automatic access to their sons?"
"Call for separate classes for black boys," Guardian, March 7, 2005 --- http://education.guardian.co.uk/racism/story/0,10795,1432149,00.html 


Purge of conservatives at Colorado University?
Mitchell taught at the Hallett Diversity Program for 24 straight semesters. That is, until he made the colossal error of actually presenting a (gasp!) diverse opinion, quoting respected conservative black intellectual Thomas Sowell in a discussion about affirmative action.  Sitting 5 feet from a pink triangle that read "Hate-Free Zone," the progressive head of the department berated Mitchell, calling him a racist.  "That would have come as a surprise to my black children," explains Mitchell, who has nine kids, as of last count, two of them adopted African-Americans.  People say liberals run the university. I wish they did," Mitchell says. "Most liberals understand the need for intellectual diversity. It's the radical left that kills you."  So Churchill may play the part, but Mitchell is the true dissenter at CU.  Why did he stay this long?  "I stay to create enthusiasm and love for history," Mitchell says. " And I am successful at that. I love the classroom, and I love my students."  Once, president Hoffman promised increased intellectual diversity at CU - not a purge of conservatives.  Another promise broken.
David Harsanyi, "A CU prof deserving of sympathy," Denver Post, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~31908~2748616,00.html 

Also see "Heretics in the Academy?:  On campuses across the country, conservative professors face a sea of hostility and ideological bias," by Jennifer Jacobson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A8-A11.


Fighting a conservative virus in the Cal student body
Fighting for the right to be right Political affiliation jeopardizes conservative student's office The intolerant atmosphere that conservatives at Cal face has, once again, been blatantly demonstrated by our elected officials. Judicial Council nominee Amaris White appeared before the ASUC Senate last Wednesday, for her confirmation hearing. After the Senators voted in favor of White’s appointment, they found out about her conservative affiliation. This prompted senators who had confirmed her to seek a reversal in their decision. As elected officials, it is the ASUC's responsibility to represent the student body and as such must allow Amaris White to serve on...
Amaury Gallais and Andrew R. Quinio. "Fighting for the right to be right Political affiliation jeopardizes conservative student's office," California Patriot, March 5, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse 


This would never happen at Cal
Conservative students at the University of Texas at Austin planned to pass out cookies and cake Wednesday to celebrate Texas Independence Day. But rumors that they were planning another activity -- a "hunt" for illegal aliens -- led hundreds of students to protest.  In January, the University of North Texas chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas held just such an event. Some students wore orange shirts that said "Illegal Immigrant" on one side and "Catch Me If U Can" on the other. Other students chased them and those who "caught" an immigrant won prizes. The state chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas posted photos of the event on its Web site.
Scott Jaschik, "The Latest in Conservative Political Theater," Inside Higher Ed, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_latest_in_conservative_political_theater 
Jensen Comment:  Sounds more like a vigilante group than a student group.  The Young Conservatives of Texas Web site is at http://www.yct.org/ 


March 3, 2005  message from Tristin McHugh

Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 6:29 PM 
To: Jensen, Robert 
Subject: protest songs of the sixties

Dear Dr. Richard Jensen:

Hello my name is Tristin McHugh an eighth grader at Diablo View Middle School Clayton, California. In my Core class I'm doing a big research project on protest songs of the sixties, and what led up to it. If you could please send me some information on this subject that would be great.

The Vietnam War and songs really interest me, so if you can send me stuff, that's awesome, but if you can't, that's OK, too.

Thank you for your time and efforts.

Sincerely, 
Tristin McHugh

March 4, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Here are a few to look at (not all are from the 1960s):

http://www.brownielocks.com/sixtieswarsongs.html  
The music is great to listen to in some of these, especially Written on the Wind

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/music/protest.html

http://www.brownielocks.com/sixtieswarsongs.html 

You might be interested in my essay at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm

Hope this helps,
Bob Jensen


A great site for young people:  In 1928 it was for farm children.  Now it's for all children of the world.
FFA is a positive example of what works in education.  The National FFA Organization is a dynamic youth organization that changes lives and prepares students for premier leadership, personal growth and career success  Today, almost half-a-million student members are engaged in a wide range of agricultural education activities, leading to more than 300 professional career opportunities. Student success remains the primary mission of FFA.
The National FFA Organization --- http://www.ffa.org/ 


A great site for old people (while it lasts for free online)
Business Week's Free Video on Aging --- http://businessweek.feedroom.com/iframeset.jsp?ord=656106 
Scientists are exploring ways to extend life and slow aging 
Catherine Arnst, "Forever Young," Business Week, March 4, 2005

There are other video modules on current news headlines at http://businessweek.feedroom.com/iframeset.jsp?ord=271262 


I keep telling you that you should listen to Norwegians
An economics textbook by James D. Gwartney and Richard L. Stroup cites the interesting case of drunk driving in Norway, "the country that has the toughest drunk-driving laws in the Western world. Drinking a single can of beer before driving can put a first offender in jail for a minimum sentence of three weeks. These drivers lose their licenses for up to two years and often get stiff fines as well. Repeat offenders are treated even more harshly. These laws are far more Draconian than those of the United States. And the results?  "1. One out of three Norwegians arrives at parties in a taxi, while nearly all Americans drive their own cars. 2. One out of 10 Norwegian party-goers spends the night at the host's home; Americans seldom do. 3. In Norway, 78% of drivers totally avoid drinking at parties, compared to only 17% of American drivers."
K. Ravi Nair (an economics professor), "Sober Norway, Land Of the Safe Driver," The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2005 -- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110972852841667887,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 
Jensen Comment:  And here's the best ploy of the Norseman male on the date:  "Is it all right if I stay over?  Otherwise I might have to spend three weeks in jail and lose my driving license."  

Which brings me to my favorite Ole and Lena yoke:

Ole was talking with his brother Sven, who lived next door, when Sven said, "Ya know Ole, you and Lena should really get some new curtains." 

"Vhy's dat?" Ole asked. 

"Vel last night I saw you and Lena, vel ... doing you know .. in bed." 

Ole thought for awhile, then said, "Ha-ha Sven, da yoke's on you! I vasn't even home last night!  I been in Stavanger."

For Sven, Ole, and Lena stories, try the following:
       http://www.newnorth.net/~bmorren/olelena.html  (with music)


Q: Is it true that if credit-card disputes go longer than 60 days, they must be resolved in favor of the card holder?
A: Card issuers must adhere to certain procedures when resolving disputes or the card holder automatically wins, but an exact 60-day time limit isn't one of them. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act, the creditor must acknowledge a card holder's letter pointing out a billing error within 30 days and either fix the bill or tell the customer why the bill is correct within two billing cycles and not longer than 90 days. During this period, the issuer also cannot release damaging information about the card holder to another creditor or credit bureaus. If the issuer fails to follow the rules, it loses the right to collect the disputed amount, and related finance charges, up to $50, even if the bill was correct.
Currie Smith," Credit-Card Disputes, The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2005; Page D1--- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110981567203569105,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 
Jensen Comment:  For more information on the Fair Credit Billing Act go to http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcb/fcb.pdf 


How to Fix The Tort System
Does this mean there's no case against the tort system? Not at all. Just that the strongest evidence of plaintiffs' lawyer misconduct doesn't rest on broad economic data. Rather, the real crisis lies in the proliferation of specific types of bogus cases -- ones in which nobody has been injured, no malfeasance has occurred, or regulators have already taken care of the problem. Despite their claims of being selfless safety advocates, plaintiffs' attorneys in 2005 are analogous to chief executives in 1999: Most of the players are making an honest living. But an unacceptably high percentage of them are stretching the rules.  BusinessWeek's four-part solution to the problem is based on a set of pragmatic principles, with some parallels to those being used to clean up Corporate America. Like CEOs, lawyers should, first of all, be paid for performance. They shouldn't be allowed to take home multimillion-dollar paychecks if clients get pennies. Second, they shouldn't be able to cash in when they're merely piling on to government crackdowns. Third: When attorneys break the rules, the punishment should sting. These days, lawyers who file frivolous suits barely get their wrists slapped. These simple reforms would eliminate the most abusive cases while preserving the rights of victims. In the rare cases where they did not go far enough, such as asbestos, a far more radical change -- exiting the courts altogether -- may work better.

"How to Fix The Tort System," Business Week (Four-Part Series), March 14, 2005 --- http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_11/b3924601.htm?campaign_id=nws_insdr_mar4&link_position=link1 

low percentage of people who truly benefit from class actions
The single most scandalous thing about the American tort system is the low percentage of people who truly benefit from class actions. It's no mystery why this happens. Defendants want to keep redemption rates low -- and many plaintiffs' lawyers don't care. Their fees are set when deals are signed and pegged to a high theoretical number of claimants. And judges are way too busy to bird-dog settled disputes. This distorted set of incentives produces unintelligible award notices buried deep in newspapers, burdensome forms to fill out, and short claim periods.  Solution: Reverse the economics of class-action settlements. Plaintiffs' lawyers should be paid after victims collect their money -- not before. This would have two benefits. First, it would make lawyers more aggressive about getting the word out to class members. Second, and more important, it would filter out a high percentage of the system's silliest claims. One of the main reasons people don't bother to collect class-action benefits is that they don't perceive any injury in the first place.

"Pay for Performance," Business Week (Four-Part Series), March 14, 2005 --- 
 http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/03/reform/index_01.htm 


Why not ask me?  I've got theories on everything
"We are nowhere close to an accurate, purely physical theory of everything," Penrose told Nature earlier this year.  Indeed, Penrose's newly published 1,099-page treatise -- The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe -- expends little ink ruminating over what is not known. Rather, The Road to Reality is as rigorous and exhaustive a map to the "theory of nearly everything" as a reader could hope to find today.
Mark Anderson, "Penrose: The Answer's Not 42," Wired News, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66751,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 


Bob and Jennie:  We've got almost all the symptoms
In the early '90s, psychiatrists and clinicians were beginning to hear of a new medical term, "internet addiction." At first, this was met with a lot of skepticism and denial, however, it became evident that the more people logged on to cyberspace, the more they got hooked.The 10 Symptoms You Need To Watch Out For:
AskMen.com --- http://www.askmen.com/fashion/body_and_mind/16_better_living.html


What professions perhaps have the most inside (economic) track to legislators in the U.S.?
The center found that the number of legislators and their spouses employed in education--including elementary and secondary schools, colleges, and educational associations--was exceeded only by the number of legislators and their spouses employed in the legal system.  In higher education, about 7 percent of legislators or their spouses were affiliated in some way with an institution or organization.  The study found that one-third of lawmakers who had a personal stake in higher education also sat on their legislature's education committee.  Leah Rush, the center's director of state projects, says lawmakers often cite state ethics laws in saying that the public is protected from conflicts of interest.  But this report "takes the window dressing off of these ethics laws," she says.
Joseph Gidjuis, "Sudy Questions Economic Ties Between Colleges and State Lawmakers," The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 8, 2005,  Page A26.


This university's piggie-lobbyist went to market, this ...
The investment seems to be paying off. In the NIH budget article, for instance, the reporters noted that Congress actually doubled the NIH's funding between 1999 and 2003. Similarly, according to the College Board's Trends in Student Aid 2004, total inflation-adjusted federal student aid—which ultimately ends up in the pockets of colleges and universities—more than doubled between the 1993-94 and 2003-04 academic years, totaling more than $81 billion in 2003-04.  The most direct payoff, however, has been in higher education "pork"—projects earmarked for specific schools rather than awarded through competitive grants—which, according to the Chronicle, rose from $296 million in 1996 to over $2 billion in 2003. How do colleges and universities get such projects? "Members of Congress...choose recipients...based on their own judgments, often after lobbying by the colleges seeking the money," according to the newspaper.
"Pork U., "Higher ed's scramble for federal cash," ReasonOnLine, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/hod/nm030105.shtml 
Jensen Comment:  Read what Ohio University economist Richard Vedder has to say in Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much


Only the winners decide what were war crimes.
Gary Wills


Japanese reactionaries are using the "abduction issue"?
A spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland in a statement Saturday scathingly denounced the moves of the Japanese reactionaries to institute the "Day of Tok Islet" and the remarks of the Japanese ambassador to south Korea that Tok islet belongs to Japan as a very dangerous behavior fully revealing their brigandish nature and shameless ambition for territorial expansion and a heinous move to seize part of the inalienable territory of Korea. He said: The Japanese reactionaries have become so brazenfaced as to make a claim to Tok Islet, while insisting that it belongs to Japan. This is a rash act which can be committed only by the political gangsters and rogues who are utterly indifferent to history and international law. We can never allow the Japanese reactionaries to insult the Korean nation and grab part of the inalienable land of Korea. All Koreans should wage a more resolute struggle to shatter Japan's moves to grab the islet and force it to apologize and compensate for its past crimes. Japan would be well advised to properly understand the ever mounting anti-Japanese sentiment of the Korean nation and its bitter hatred, stop acting rashly and discontinue at once its brigandish moves to grab the islet.
"Japan's Ambition for Territorial Expansion Assailed," North Korea News, March 5, 2005 --- http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2005/200503/news03/07.htm#8 


The ACLU wants crosses removed from all government property, but firmly draws a line on cemeteries and, I assume, museums.  If exceptions are to me made who should decide where to draw the line --- http://www.aclu.org/info/info.cfm?ID=14684&c=248#3_8 
In the grand scheme of things, I think this is one of those things that is out of perspective given all the problems of the world.

Remove religious monuments from public property:  Is it the name of religion or history?
When the epic was done, DeMille went into publicity overdrive. He funded the Fraternal Order of Eagles' promotion of Ten Commandments displays. One of the monuments landed on the grounds of the Texas capitol where -- fast forward -- a homeless lawyer happened upon it and took his protest all the way to the US Supreme Court.  The tale of the Texas monument was one of two Ten Commandment cases heard Wednesday. The other was about the framed copies of the biblical Decalogue placed in some Kentucky courthouses. The Supremes will have to decide whether putting the commandments in public spaces amounts to a state endorsement of religion, or whether it is merely an acknowledgment of their historic influence on the law.  In the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, ''I bet that 90 percent of the American people believe in the Ten Commandments, and 85 percent couldn't tell you what they all are."  The whole Ten Commandments furor is fueled by religious conservatives and then handed to lawyers who offer a secular defense. In this case, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott defended the 6-foot stone bearing the words ''I am the Lord thy God" by saying it was just one presence in a ''museum-like" setting filled with homages to other ''historical influences." Kentucky's Matthew Staver defended the displays that were meant to illustrate ''America's Christian heritage" by saying they were merely a part of an historic tableau.  The historic cover story for a religious message tells you just what sort of a mess we are in. As Douglas Laycock of the University of Texas Law School says, ''The court has said that the government cannot endorse religion, and the government keeps doing it anyway. Then religious groups are forced to defend it in court by saying it isn't religion at all -- it's about the foundations of American law or it's an historical landmark."

Ellen Goodman, "Monuments to God or history?" Boston Globe, March 6, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/03/06/monuments_to_god_or_history/ 


Keeping church and state separate in public schools may not be easy
Muslims want to ensure their children grow up with values Six Islamic groups, accounting for 70% of Germany's Muslims, plan to unite under one umbrella to push for having Islam taught in public schools. The groups want to ensure that Islam can be taught in German in public schools to better integrate children and prevent misinterpretations. It is vital to resolve this problem and ensure that Islam is enrolled in school curriculums, said Nadeem Elyas, president of the central council of Muslims, one of the groups. "If we don't, the next...
"German Muslims want Islam in class," Aljazeera, March 2, 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/719395FB-338E-4C18-8B03-2B70789FDBA3.htm 


U.S. Population Explosion
The 1970 U.S. Census placed America's population at about 200 million people. Shortly thereafter, the bipartisan Rockefeller Commission issued a report that concluded that there would be no public benefit to further U.S. population growth. In the ensuing 35 years, U.S. population has swelled by 50 percent and we stand on the brink of surpassing 300 million people. How did this astounding population explosion occur? A new study published by the Federation for...
"Immigration Drives Rapid U.S. Population Growth," FairUS, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.fairus.org/media/media.cfm?id=2638&c=34 


Bad science frightening the poor:  Better to let them continue to be hungry and maybe starve?
Activists are again trying to frighten poor people in developing countries by claiming the U.S. is poisoning them with genetically modified food. Never mind that 280 million Americans have been eating biotech-enhanced crops for nearly a decade with zero evidence that it has caused anyone so much as a sniffle or a bellyache.
Ronald Bailey, "Attack of the Killer Crops? Activists still trying to scare poor farmers with bad science," ReasonOnLine, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/rb/rb030205.shtml 

Brazil Passes Law Allowing Crops With Modified Genes
After months of delays and heated debate, legislators passed a biotechnology law late Wednesday night by a vote of 352 to 60. The bill had pitted farmers and scientists against environmental and religious groups. Besides lifting a longstanding ban on the sale and planting of gene-altered seeds, the legislation also clears the way for research involving human embryonic stem cells that have been frozen for at least three years
Todd Benson, "Brazil Passes Law Allowing Crops With Modified Genes," The New York Times, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/business/worldbusiness/04gene.html 
Jensen Comment:  I also hope Brazil launches a major stem cell research initiative since the U.S. is dragging its Republican feet.


An entirely new definition of bankruptcy:  What you don't know about a pending bill might hurt you
"Most of the credit cards that end up in bankruptcy proceedings have already made a profit for the companies that issued them," said Robert R. Weed, a Virginia bankruptcy lawyer and onetime aide to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.  "That's because people are paying so many fees that they've already paid more than was originally borrowed," he said.  In addition, some experts say, the changes proposed in the Senate bill would fundamentally alter long-standing American legal policy on debt. Under bankruptcy laws as they have existed for more than a century, creditors can seize almost all of a bankrupt debtor's assets, but they cannot lay claim to future earnings.  The proposed law, by preventing many debtors from seeking bankruptcy protection, would compel financially insolvent borrowers to continue trying to pay off the old debts almost indefinitely . . . Debate about the bill continued Thursday, with the Republican-controlled Senate refusing to limit consumer interest rates to 30%. The vote was a bipartisan 74 to 24 to kill a proposed amendment by Sen. Mark Dayton (news, bio, voting record) (D-Minn.). Senate passage of the bill is expected next week.
Peter G. Gosselin, "Credit Card Firms Won as Users Lost," The Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/LAtimesMarch4 
Bob Jensen Comment:  I think bankruptcy has been abused by rip off artists and the law needs to be changed.  This pending bill, which most likely will pass, however got high jacked by the rip off artists called credit card companies.

 

Surprise! Surprise!  Fat butts are always more protected in Washington DC.
The bankruptcy legislation being debated by the Senate is intended to make it harder for people to walk away from their credit card and other debts. But legal specialists say the proposed law leaves open an increasingly popular loophole that lets wealthy people protect substantial assets from creditors even after filing for bankruptcy.  The loophole involves the use of so-called asset protection trusts. For years, wealthy people looking to keep their money out of the reach of domestic creditors have set up these trusts offshore. But since 1997, lawmakers in five states - Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, Rhode Island and Utah - have passed legislation exempting assets held domestically in such trusts from the federal bankruptcy code. People who want to establish trusts do not have to reside the five states; they need only set their trust up through an institution in one of them.
Gretchen Morenson, "Proposed Law on Bankruptcy Has Loophole," The New York Times, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/business/02bankrupt.html 


Bob Jensen's threads on credit card company dirty secrets are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 


This isn't corny:  Poets v. U. of Iowa Press
The University of Iowa is known for its Writers' Workshop, so it's no surprise that the University of Iowa Press builds on that literary reputation with annual prizes for poetry and short fiction.  In recent weeks, an anonymous Web site has begun a campaign against the press, arguing that it favors entries with connections to the university. The Web site, Poetry, calls itself "the poetry watchdog" and boasts of its role "exposing the fraudulent 'contests,' tracking the sycophants, naming names."  The Web site is urging poets to send letters to consumer advocates, state officials and the university's president, and to lawyers who might help with a class action lawsuit (based on Foetry's view that participants are duped into paying the $20 entry fee, unaware that they may have little chance of winning if they don't have Iowa ties).  At the Iowa Press, officials are astonished to find themselves under attack by an army of poets and poetry fans -- most of them anonymous.
Scott Jaschik, "Poets v. U. of Iowa Press," Inside Higher Ed, March 4, 2005 --- http://insidehighered.com/insider/poets_v_u_of_iowa_press 


Dark clouds move in over Auburn's sensational football season
But when black educators at Auburn and black legislators in Montgomery didn't like the answers they received to questions about those who lost their jobs, matters deteriorated. Alabama's black legislative caucus has called for black athletes to boycott the university, with a leader of the boycott effort calling Auburn "one of the most racist universities in the world."  And the Rev. Al Sharpton is now getting involved, saying that he will mobilize his supporters to back the boycott of a university with "a history of blatant discriminatory practices."  All of this activity is taking place as the university released a long-awaited report on efforts to promote diversity. And that report follows a letter from black faculty and students leaders demanding that the president do more to recruit and retain minority students and faculty members. The general feeling among many black scholars is that Auburn is terrified of the boycott, suggesting that some of the university's leaders are more concerned about black people who can hold a ball than those who hold doctorates.
Scott Jaschik, "Race, Sports and Professors," Inside Higher Ed, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/race_sports_and_professors 


Raising the bar for a free education
In an effort to outdo its rivals, Yale University said yesterday that it would no longer require parents earning less than $45,000 a year to pay anything toward their children's educations.  Harvard announced a similar program last year, freeing parents who earn $40,000 or less from paying anything, and the change helped raise its applications to record levels. Several of Yale's other competitors, including Princeton, have taken a slightly different approach by no longer requiring loans for low-income students, and they also believe the move helped increase applications.
Greg Winter, "Yale Cuts Expenses for Poor in a Move to Beat," The New York Times, March 4, 2005 ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/education/04yale.html 

Also see http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/yale_plays_catch_up_on_financial_aid 

But this does not solve our larger problem:  What about the ones who don't go on to school?
Job Sprawl and the Spatial Mismatch between Blacks and Jobs ---  http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20050214_jobsprawl.pdf 


New technologies for the deaf and blind
The isolated world of deaf-blind impaired people is slowly being cracked open by new devices, from hockey pucks that rattle to beds that shake sleepers awake. And an age-old technique - the eyes and ears of others who intervene to help them communicate - is also being used to greater effect. "Just so many opportunities have opened because of intervention," says Sayer, who lives in Winnipeg. Many people like her need interveners "to be able to go out, even leave their homes - to do our shopping," she said
Eric Shackleton, "Isolated world of deaf-blind being cracked open by new technologies," Canadian Press, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.canada.com/technology/news/story.html?id=d1bc4012-08f4-4a3f-aca3-04401dbb07d7 


Mysterious mental abilities
"Mirror neurons promise to do for neuroscience what DNA did for biology," neurobiologist V.S. Ramachandran of the University of California, San Diego, has written, explaining "a host of mental abilities that have remained mysterious."

Sharon Begley, "How Mirror Neurons Help Us to Empathize, Really Feel Others' Pain," The Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2004, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110989327130070064,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 


When you really need to think, sniff the roses
New research suggests people with synesthesia may be better problem solvers. Tasting sounds and smelling colors could be good for cognition.  Neuroscientists think the condition occurs because certain regions of the brain "cross-activate" at the same time. So the tone perception center, for example, may be linked with the taste perception center. And studying synesthetes is giving clues to the working of the brain, one of the most complex structures in the universe.  "Synesthesia shows how many variations in normal brain function are possible," said Michaela Esslen, of the department of neuropsychology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Rowan Hooper, "Rainbow Coalition of the Brain," Wired News, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66770,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5 


Brain Tissue Bank
A brain tissue bank that will allow researchers to study sudden deaths from a variety of causes is to open in Edinburgh.  During a two-year project starting on Wednesday, a group of researchers are to collect healthy and diseased tissue samples that will help them study drug abuse, epilepsy, severe asthma, cot death and suicide and other conditions.
"UK home to first brain bank," Aljazeera, March 2, 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ADEEA091-EFB7-4093-844D-7620460E05FB.htm 
Jensen Comment:  There may be a technical problem with defining a "healthy" brain when you consider alcohol usage, aging differentials (male vs. female), etc.  However, researchers will apparently identify "healthy" by some definition in contrast to "severe" abnormalities.


Please don't put Nancy Soderberg's brain tissue under the "healthy" category of the Brain Bank
There's always hope that this might not work.  
(with reference to positive change in the Middle East while the Republicans are still in power.)
Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" featuring Jon Stewart" March 1, 2005
This clip might eventually be available at http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/videos_corr.jhtml?p=stewart 
Jensen's Comment:  This is a Comedy Central show, but if you watch the segment you have to believe she's serious.  Even Jon Stewart buried his head in his hands and tried to hide.

Clinton aide Nancy Soderberg is the author of The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471656836.html " (foreword by Bill Clinton, blurb by Madeleine Albright)


Oh No!  How can there be tantalizing signs of change before Bush departs in 2008?
There's always hope that this might work. 

The Arab world is beginning to show tantalising signs of change. But it is too early to talk of a year of revolutions, as the three prime exhibits being used to make the case for democracy—Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine—are in many ways special cases.
"Something stirs," The Economist, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3722882 


Is it possible for a "dim-bulb" to turn into shining light?  
Nick Gillespie was right to pooh-pooh the view that "[a]t every step of his career, [George W.] Bush has been written off as a lightweight and a loser, a dim bulb whose grasp exceeds his reach and whose I.Q. is stuck somewhere in the high double digits." I once referred to him as a "cretin," and the laugh is surely on me, though this was in the context of a successful endorsement. Like Ronald Reagan in Eastern Europe, Bush has shown in the Middle East that simple, indeed simplistic, ideas can go a long way when expressing the frustration and anger of populations afflicted with tyrannies refusing to accord them even minimal respect.
Michael Young, "Free at Last?  Some Arabs welcome American democratic browbeating," ReasonOnLine, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/links/links022405.shtml 


Arab reforms must come from within
Some argue that introducing political reform to the Arab world is not a choice but an imperative given that Arab governments are interested in bringing their nations up to speed with the rest of the world.
  Amr Musa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, tells Aljazeera.net in an exclusive interview that reforms must come from within.
Aljazeera, March 2, 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/967715B8-276C-4708-AC08-7FD102E13BA7.htm 


First estimate $400 billion, Revised estimate $1.2 trillion:  Where were the accountants?
The administration's last official ten-year cost projection—that the new Medicare law would cost $534 billion over ten years—was deservedly controversial. The administration hid the estimate while publicly touting a much lower estimate ($400 billion). Thus most observers were suspicious when the president's budget was released last week.  The latest estimate, which projected the cost of just the drug benefit, was much higher: $1.2 trillion over 10 years. This is not directly comparable to the previous projection, for a number of reasons. First, it is a gross figure that does not include offsets that will accrue to the Treasury. Accounting for these brings the 10-year cost projection for the drug benefit to a net $725 billion.
"A Billion Here, a Billion There:  Fuzzy math on the Medicare prescription drug benefit," ReasonOnLine, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/hod/mc022805.shtml 
My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm


The Medicaid Diet Plan for all 50 States
State governors ended their winter meeting without resolving differences with the Bush administration over how to curb spending on Medicaid.  Many governors said they support some facets of the Bush plan to revamp the joint federal-state health-care program for the poor -- especially proposals to give states greater ability to provide slimmer benefits to some Medicaid recipients and charge them higher co-payments when they go to the doctor or fill a prescription.
Sarah Lueck, "Governors Balk at Medicaid Plan," The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2005; Page D8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110969167792867064,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


Add this one "One Time Incident Warnings" highlighted recently by Janet Jackson, Ward Churchill and Lawrence Summers.  (Michael Jackson doesn't count since he's allegedly a repeat offender.)
But just a few weeks later, more than 300,000 people have signed the petition, which reads, in part, "We, the undersigned, are disgusted with Ashlee Simpson's horrible singing and hereby ask her to stop." Decker has given numerous interviews, and has even gone on national television to discuss her Web site,
( http://www.StopAshlee.com ).  Being an Ashlee Simpson non-fan has become a full-time job for Decker. "I was not expecting anywhere near this," says Decker, 18, who lives in New York City. "It's crazy. "Ever since Simpson's disastrous appearance on "Saturday Night Live" late last year, she has been the focus of a bunch of controversy--and criticism. On the show, she was caught lip-syncing on camera, something she blamed first on her band, then on acid-reflux disease. And in an incident almost as famous, she was booed during her performance in January at the Orange Bowl.
"Forgive and forget? Ashlee Simpson's blame game enrages some, makes others shrug." Chicago Tribune, March 1, 2005 --- http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0502280305mar01,1,2778714.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed 


Who's Bible is it?
There are several questions that might occur to anyone who opens a Bible. How, for instance, did its separate books come to be written? Who decided to put them together? And why do Catholics and Protestants have different Bibles? Although Jews and Christians believe their collections of Scripture to be inspired -- in other words, ultimately composed -- by God, a great deal of human industry clearly went into them. How are we to measure this human element and account for it? It is such questions that Jaroslav Pelikan sets out to answer in "Whose Bible Is It?" (Viking, 274 pages, $24.95), an engaging and highly readable survey of biblical scholarship that tells a fascinating and complex story.
George Sim Johnston, "The Battle of the Book," The Wall Street Journal,  March 2, 2005; Page D9


Capitalism roaring in a former communist-leaning nation
There is growing acceptance of India as a successful high-growth story. Growth has steadily accelerated from 1980 onwards. And this has been achieved simultaneously with nearly 60 years of faithful adherence to democratic norms and traditions. The enshrining of democratic principles in a newly independent country might have involved some initial "fixed costs." But democracy is the only legitimate and stable foundation for a society. India, having paid those "fixed costs," now appears to be reaping the dividends.
P. Chidambaram, "A Passage to Prosperity," The Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2005, Page A14 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110989798197470243,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 
My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm


The Vioxx fallout hits multiple sclerosis patients.
Tysabri had received accelerated approval from the FDA just three months ago because clinical trials had shown it to be twice as effective as alternative therapies in preventing flare-ups of MS, which is a degenerative and eventually fatal disease. Tysabri is also easier to take than alternative treatments, and tolerated by a subset of MS patients who can't take the others at all.  But for the indefinite future everyone will have to do without because two of the thousands of patients who've received Tysabri developed a rare neurological disorder. Those two patients happened to also be on another immuno-suppressive MS treatment called Avonex. There is no reason to believe that Tysabri has caused this disorder when used alone.  There's plenty of blame to go around here, starting with the trial lawyers and their climate of fear. Congressmen who demagogue about non-existent FDA safety "lapses" aren't much better. But we're also disappointed with CEOs who imagine they're doing patients and shareholders a favor with such rash decisions. In retrospect, Merck CEO Ray Gilmartin only strengthened the hand of the lawyers by withdrawing Vioxx when the FDA would have been content with relabeling.
"Drug Twilight Zone," The Wall Street Journal,  March 2, 2005; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110972765984167851,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Confidential Privileges of Bloggers?
If the court, in Santa Clara County, rules that bloggers are journalists, the privilege of keeping news sources confidential will be applied to a large new group of people, perhaps to the point that it may be hard for courts in the future to countenance its extension to anyone.  "It's very serious stuff," said Brad Friedman, who describes himself as an investigative blogger (his site is bradblog.com). "Are they bloggers because they only publish online? I think you have to look at what folks are doing. And if they're reporting, then they're reporters."
Jonathan Glater, "At a Suit's Core: Are Bloggers Reporters, Too?," The New York Times, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/technology/07blog.html 


All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.
Maurice Maeterlinck

Pavlov's Welfare State
It is stunning that anyone could continue to claim that Europe still sets the global standard for social justice when 19 million people across the EU are unemployed. Instead of facing the reality of globalization, many so-called social leaders prefer to impose an intolerable burden on Europe's young by encouraging governments to run unsustainable budget deficits in the futile hope of a painless Keynesian recovery. These self-styled social missionaries are in fact ideologically bound to the 19th-century industrial age. While there may have been a time when working less, vacationing more, retiring earlier and demanding higher pay irrespective of economic realities was justified, today we urgently need a more contemporary notion of what constitutes good social policy.
Ann Mettler, "Pavlov's Welfare State," The Wall Street Journal,  March 3, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110980327751868732,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


A Tale of Two Models
In practice, for at least three decades now, the net adjustment has invariably been one way -- in favor of labor. This is how the intricate system of entitlements of European welfare states has gradually been built up. Translated into moral terms, "social justice" was being done. No one thought of asking whether social justice can cut both ways and if it could, why it always cuts only one way.  As was to be expected, reality in due course caught up with the European model, causing it increasingly to backfire in the face of the politicians who still pretended to steer it. Above all else, the model radically stifles the demand for labor, generating a seemingly incurable, endemic unemployment that for years has stuck at around 10% in the major euro-zone economies that still believe in the model, while it is only 4%-5% in Britain and other European users of the rival "liberal" model.  This is a fact even French politicians recognize, although they refuse to accept responsibility for it. It does not, in itself, warrant an article in The Wall Street Journal. But it has intriguing implications that perhaps do, for they have not so far been openly discussed.  Built-in unemployment around 10% is caused by two features of the European model. One is the weight of vast schemes of social insurance financed via payroll taxes, whose cost is greater than their value to the insured wage-earner. Hence the cost of wages exceeds their value and the demand for labor stays chronically deficient.  The other, perhaps less powerful, cause is job protection. Labor laws, meaning well, make the shedding of labor so difficult and expensive that employers are afraid of taking the risk of hiring. They either resort to short fixed-term jobs or just make do with the staff they have. Both these features of the European model -- social insurance and job protection -- are, of course, meant to favor labor over capital. But in practice, they do the exact opposite.
Anthony De Jasay, "A Tale of Two Models," The Wall Street Journal (Europe), March 2, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110971966576567617,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 
Jensen Comment:  It's against the law to throw live bodies overboard to save lives --- http://www.cise.ufl.edu/class/cgs3065/reginavdudley.html 

-Dudley and Stephens 1884 –unwillingness to recognize starvation of group as justification or excuse for murder of one to save the larger group. –Can’t be a justification because it is not morally right to take a life to save yours or even a group? –Can’t be an excuse either because it is just too difficult to calculate who should live and die and would set dangerous precedent? So pass the buck to the executive authorities re the exercise of mercy and keep the law “pure” as an expression of human morality?
"CRIMINAL LAW (ESAU) OUTLINE #18:  SECTION SIX: DEFENCES: JUSITIFICATIONS AND EXCUSES --- http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/law/Courses/esau/criminal/chap18.html 
Jensen Comment:  But creating unemployment in one sector to the betterment of other sectors is not really the same as extermination of the unlucky sector.  The problem of today is one of redeploying the other sector, and that's no easy problem since the age and abilities of the troubled sector usually become huge hurdles in redeployment.  There are no easy answers here, but something has to be done to save a sinking ship.


Who get hurt worst in building tariff walls:  In the short term it's the poorest nations of the world
Restrictive standards simply protect some producers at the expense of others and the most likely to be hit in the case of coffee are the very poorest producers in Africa and Asia. . . The European Union is amongst the worst organisations in this regard. In protecting our own farmers with subsidies of about $2 a day for keeping a cow we are harming third world farmers who have to live on less than that.
Ian Whyte, "Myths of Fairtrade goods hurt the poorest," The Scotsman, March 2, 2005 --- http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=228722005 


Waiting for Godot:  Waiting and Waiting and Waiting
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was conveniently out of the country when the news hit yesterday that that the country's unemployment figure rose to over 5.2 million, or 12.6%, a new post-war record. One would have to go back to 1932, the year before Hitler came to power, to find more Germans out of work.  In the past, Europe's left has had two prescriptions for low growth: cheap money and deficit spending. But the European Central Bank's mandate is to preserve price stability. Besides, with real interest rates around zero and inflation right at its 2% target, the ECB is doing already enough to boost the economy. And though some in Mr. Schröder's Social Democratic party want a government investment program, New Deal-type policies have been largely discredited in Germany.  What really needs to be done -- cutting taxes and red tape and making the labor market more flexible -- has been discussed ad nauseam in the German media. Why is it then not being done? Simply because of a lack of political courage. Tackling issues such as Germany's iron rules on dismissals would pit the chancellor against those 38 million who still have a job in order to help those nine million without work. Better to blame the malaise on exogenous factors, such as euro strength or high oil prices, and promise a better tomorrow via overly optimistic growth forecasts that need constant downward revisions.
"Waiting for Godot," The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110971818698567568,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


And while we're on the subject of sinking ships
There's an obscure branch of mathematics known as "catastrophe theory," which looks at how a small perturbation in a previously stable system can suddenly produce dramatic change. A classic example of the theory is the way a bridge, after bearing immense weight for many years, can suddenly collapse because of a new stress.  We are now watching a glorious catastrophe take place in the Middle East. The old system that had looked so stable is ripping apart, with each beam pulling another down as it falls. The sudden stress that produced the catastrophe was the American invasion of Iraq two years ago. But the Arab power structure has been rotting. And what's bringing it down is public anger.
David Ignatius, " 'Glorious Catastrophe' in the Middle East,"  The Washington Post,  March 2, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110971872291267585,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Let's get rid of the International Monetary Fund:  Lend to deadbeats at your own risk
This week the jury came in. The completion of the Argentine bond restructuring offer, executed without the intermediation of the fund, makes the case that the SRDM is more an invention of an overgrown bureaucracy in search of a mission than a necessary addition to the world financial system.  Indeed, the Argentine restructuring is good ammo for those who want to close the fund: 30 years after the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement and the end of the balance-of-payments crises under a gold exchange standard, the IMF can still find no meaningful role other than as a political slush fund for the G-7 major industrial nations.
Mary Anastasia O'Grady, "Argentina's Lessons for Global Creditors," The Wall Street Journal,  March 4, 2005; Page A15 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110989847475270265,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Not much profit from looking inward
GE expects to get as much as 60% of its revenue growth from developing countries over the next decade, Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt said in the company's annual report, making a major shift from the past decade.  After nearly four years of reshaping the company through $60 billion in acquisitions of financing, water treatment, security systems, bioscience businesses and a movie studio, Mr. Immelt said in his letter to shareholders, "we have prepared to make our own growth in a slow-growth, more volatile world."
Kathryn Kranhold, "GE Pins Hopes on Emerging Markets:  Strategy Is Major Shift From Reliance on the West; Big Rivals Echo Approach," The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2005; Page A3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110972499521267783,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us 

A week after President Bush toured Europe to try to patch up the tattered trans-Atlantic relationship, the American car industry is embarking on its own charm offensive. Whether Detroit will make more headway than Washington is anybody's guess.  Cadillac, a unit of General Motors, and the Dodge unit of DaimlerChrysler unveiled new cars at the Geneva Motor Show on Tuesday that they hope will lead a fresh push into the European market.
"Europe, Meet Cadillac and Dodge," The New York Times, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/business/worldbusiness/02car.html 


Who's the Randroid of this outfit?
Referring to the followers of Ayn Rand as "Randroids"  was probably not the nicest way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the author's birth. But it was positively kind by contrast with the really strange honor being paid to her soon by her devotees. They are all set to publish a volume that will document, at great length, how Rand coped with a private, and fairly humiliating, part of her life.
Scott McLemee, "This, That and the Other Thing,"  Inside Higher Ed, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/intellectual_affairs__9 


Things are looking up
At The Cloud Appreciation Society we love clouds, we're not ashamed to say it and we've had enough of people moaning about them. Read our manifesto and see how we are fighting the banality of ‘blue-sky thinking’. If you agree with what we stand for, then join the society for free and receive your very own official membership certificate and badge.  March's Cloud of the Month is the stratus – a cloud that can prove more of a challenge to appreciate than any of the others.
The Cloud Appreciation Society --- http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/ 


Rentals are much cheaper than during the past two decades
A village which was submerged 35 years ago in northern Portugual has reemerged due to the worst drought in recent decades  ... 
"Drought Causes Sunken Portuguese Village to Reemerge," Designerz, March 3, 2005 --- http://science.news.designerz.com/drought-causes-sunken-portuguese-village-to-reemerge.html?d20050303 


Why does one case in the U.S. get so much more publicity than this?
More than 60 alleged paedophiles go on trial in Angers, France, in one of the country's biggest court cases.
"Child sex trial opens in France," BBC News, March 3, 2005 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4313747.stm 


Not a happy time for the academy.
University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman announced Monday that she is resigning amid a football recruiting scandal and a national controversy over an activist professor who had compared victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to a Nazi.  Hoffman, who has been president for five years, told the Board of Regents in a letter that her resignation is effective June 30 or whenever the board names a successor.
SI.com, March 7, 2005  --- http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/football/ncaa/03/07/cu.hoffman.ap/index.html?cnn=yes 

Hoffman said last week that Churchill would not be fired if the review turns up only inflammatory comments, not misconduct.

The furor over Churchill erupted in January after he was invited to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Campus officials discovered an essay and follow-up book by Churchill in which he said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were a response to a history of American abuses abroad, particularly against indigenous peoples.

Among other things, he said those killed in the trade center were "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi plans to exterminate Jews. The college canceled Churchill's appearance, citing death threats and concerns about security.

Jensen Comment:  A review of Ward Churchill's speeches and writings is being conducted to determine if the professor overstepped his boundaries of academic freedom and whether that should be grounds for dismissal.  

Purge of conservatives at Colorado University?
Mitchell taught at the Hallett Diversity Program for 24 straight semesters. That is, until he made the colossal error of actually presenting a (gasp!) diverse opinion, quoting respected conservative black intellectual Thomas Sowell in a discussion about affirmative action.  Sitting 5 feet from a pink triangle that read "Hate-Free Zone," the progressive head of the department berated Mitchell, calling him a racist.  "That would have come as a surprise to my black children," explains Mitchell, who has nine kids, as of last count, two of them adopted African-Americans.  People say liberals run the university. I wish they did," Mitchell says. "Most liberals understand the need for intellectual diversity. It's the radical left that kills you."  So Churchill may play the part, but Mitchell is the true dissenter at CU.  Why did he stay this long?  "I stay to create enthusiasm and love for history," Mitchell says. " And I am successful at that. I love the classroom, and I love my students."  Once, president Hoffman promised increased intellectual diversity at CU - not a purge of conservatives.  Another promise broken.
David Harsanyi, "A CU prof deserving of sympathy," Denver Post, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~31908~2748616,00.html 

Also see "Heretics in the Academy?:  On campuses across the country, conservative professors face a sea of hostility and ideological bias," by Jennifer Jacobson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A8-A11.

Bob Jensen's threads on Ward Churchill are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyChurchill.htm 


We need to make better choices.
And we like to know that our seafood choice is the best one we can make for a healthy marine environment.  Our oceans are in crisis.  We need to make better choices.
"Best Fish Guide," Forest & Bird, http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/bestfishguide/index.asp 


From the left side of the world:  Rural people of the south
This site provides access to 1800 of approximately 12,000 images from the Ulmann Photograph Collection. The images were scanned prior to the development of local standards and information provided about each image is sketchy and sometimes inaccurate. Staff from Special Collections and University Archives are in the process of reviewing the images and correcting information.
The Doris Ulmann Photograph Collection http://libweb.uoregon.edu/catdept/digcol/ulmann/index.html 


I like the way these films are categorized with a short commentary accompanying each title.  There is a religious bias in these selections and in the commentaries.
"Colson's List of 50 Insightful Films," Prison Fellowship, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.pfm.org/Content/ContentGroups/BreakPoint/Columns/At_the_Movies/Other_dates1/Colson_s_List_of_50_Insightful_Films.htm


Some interesting tips on day-to-day living 
"Everyday Cheapskate," Jewish World Review --- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/cheapskate1.asp 


"The 10 greatest rock'n'roll myths:  From strange deaths to blood transfusions and dubious fish-related practices, it's time to debunk the tallest tales." by Graeme Thomson, Gurardian, February 20, 2005 --- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1415153,00.html 


"The Climate Debate: When Science Serves the State," by N. Joseph Potts, Ludwig von Mises Institute, March 2, 2005 --- http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1755 

United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) sponsors adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by most industrialized nations around the world, with estimated costs of legally binding compliance estimated at over $150 billion per year. The chief promotional artifact in the proceedings, the "hockey stick" historical temperature chart of IPCC Third Scientific Assessment Chapter Lead Author Michael Mann , is shown to be based on a computer program that produces hockey sticks from over 99 percent of ten thousand samples of random noise fed to it. Stephen McIntyre, retired Canadian minerals consultant, demonstrates numerous other defects and distortions in both the data and statistical methodology, ultimately the subject of a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal of February 14 and a follow-up editorial on February 18.

Anyone sent to jail on that last one? That biggest one, by far? No.

Any charges? No, and none anticipated.

Lawsuits? None yet (possible reason: too many plaintiffs).

Any bankruptcies? Certainly not of the IPCC, nor of the tax-funded agencies that paid for the research that culminated in the hockey stick.

What about the auditor? There is no auditor. No audits? No, except for the self-funded undertaking of McIntyre and partner Ross McKitrick, and Dr. Mann has cut them and apparently everyone else off from further information on the mysterious process that "proved" an episode of global warming in the Twentieth Century and pointed to human activity as the guilty party.

Congressional action? Well, the US Senate has declined to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but that’s about it.

Government investigation? Despite the fact that the US government funded eleven out of the twelve "Funded Proposals" cited in Dr. Mann’s curriculum vitae , it neither conducts audits of the results reported nor requires that information be made available to others for conducting audits at their own expense and initiative.

But the Kyoto Protocol remains in force and legally binding.

Government and science have found each other, and the spawn of this marriage look set to destroy global wealth on a scale that will render the greatest of history’s wars trivial by comparison. The ultimate outrage of all this is that the people who are subjected to the ravages of the wrong-headed policies promoted by these self-seekers are taxed to pay for the production of this junk science to begin with.


 Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm S. Forbes
All too often some of us probably clutter the open mind.


Now you should probably download Google's free Desktop Search for finding documents within your own computer.  The product has emerged from Beta testing with more new features.  But first read about security and then decide.
While the beta only indexed Microsoft Outlook e-mail and Internet Explorer Web browsing history, the latest release also can search e-mail from the Mozilla Thunderbird and Netscape clients and browsing history from the Firefox and Netscape browsers, Google announced.  To make more desktop data searchable, the latest release adds indexing support for the full text of PDFs to existing support for Microsoft Office formats. It also indexes the metadata of video, images and audio, such as titles or artist information.  To make more desktop data searchable, the latest release adds indexing support for the full text of PDFs to existing support for Microsoft Office formats. It also indexes the metadata of video, images and audio, such as titles or artist information.  "With regard to users, we have tens of thousands of applications and file types they want to search," said Nikhil Bhatla, a Google product manager. "We've addressed the top requests and most popular applications, and the best way to address [this] is by making desktop search available for developers to write plug-ins
Matt Hicks, "Google Moves Desktop Search Out of Beta," eWeek, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1772568,00.asp 

You can read more about security at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1735080,00.asp 

I downloaded a free version of the program from http://desktop.google.com/ 

Yahoo also has a desktop search program, but I don't think it is as sophisticated as the new one from Google.  You can read more about this at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 

 


Did you know there is battle raging between neo-Malthusians and Cornucopians?
Jared Diamond, a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, tells the story of the Greenland Norse in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, published earlier this year, and asks, Why did the colonists raise cattle at all? His answer is depressing: because in Scandinavia, cows were proof of wealth. Diamonds thesis, traced from Easter Island to modern Los Angeles, is that environmental strategies that work for a society at one time and place may be maladapted when circumstances change. If people wont adopt new strategies, if their environment is fragile and deteriorates, their society collapses.  Diamond is famous for an earlier book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, which won the Pulitzer Prize by arguing that European civilization triumphed through geographical luck. Collapse has become a sensation, too. But at 575 pages, Collapse is long, life is short, and most commentators have grappled not so much with the book itself as with shadows of the book in particular, with a simplistic summary Diamond published in the New York Times on New Years Day, 2005, titled "The Ends of the World as We Know Them."  Environmentalists liked the summary and, therefore, Collapse, because they thought it served the cause; likening our own time to the periods preceding previous historical collapses, Diamond declared, "We can't continue to deplete our own resources as well as those of much of the rest of the world." Conservative commentators have been uniformly hostile to what they think the book is about; they complain that Diamond does not understand "the tragedy of the commons "that is, the phenomenon whereby commonly shared resources are undervalued and, very frequently, ruined by those who use them. In short, Collapse has been drafted into the battle between neo-Malthusians, who believe our economic life is wickedly destructive and must be constrained by governments, and Cornucopians, who think wealth can grow indefinitely and who adore the unfettered power of markets.
Jason Pontin, "Lets Go Dutch, MIT's Technology Review, April 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/04/issue/editor.asp?trk=nl 


Differences among nations loom far larger than you might have imagined
Each country reveals its own preoccupations, usually born out of its peculiar history and current circumstances. Leave it to the Dutch, for example, to pour computer modeling resources into the management of water and soilendeavors without which the Netherlands very existence would be imperiled. The United States has measured the value of R&D projects largely by their potential for adding to the nervous nations power to fight wars and defend against terrorist attack. In Germany, home of the worlds first superhighways and some of its most storied carmakers, its no surprise to see projects aimed at making driving safer and smarter.  In all, our reporters identified more than two dozen emerging technologies or ideas about innovation as vital to the futures of these seven countries. But even those innovations that most directly address urgent regional needs prove to have application for the entire planet.
Herb Brody (editor), "What Matters Most Depends On Where You Are," MIT's Technology Review, April 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/04/issue/feature_gp.asp?trk=nl 


One Theory on WMDs
Russia Moved Iraqi WMD Charles R. Smith Thursday, March 3, 2005 Moscow Moved Weapons to Syria and Lebanon According to a former top Bush administration official, Russian special forces teams moved weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq to Syria. "I am absolutely sure that Russian Spetsnatz units moved WMD out of Iraq before the war," stated John Shaw, the former deputy undersecretary for international technology security. Story Continues Below According to Shaw, Russian units hid Saddam's arsenal inside Syria and in Lebanon's Bekka valley. "While in Iraq I uncovered detailed information that Spetsnatz units shredded records and moved all...
Newsmax, March 5, 2005 ---  http://www.newsmax.com/  


Using Google for Identity Theft
Teams of hackers surfed the Web at Seattle University yesterday, harvesting Social Security and credit card numbers like a farmer cutting wheat. In less than an hour, they found millions of names, birth dates and numbers -- cyberburglar tools for the crime of identity theft -- using just one, familiar Internet search engine: Google. But these were the good guys -- members of a somewhat secretive organization of computer security pros, forensic cybercops, prosecutors and federal agents called Agora. The group decided to lift the curtain of secrecy for a day to sound a warning about the dangers of "Google...
Paul Shukovsky, " 'Good guys' show just how easy it is to steal ID Elite teams of computer gurus hack into Google and find loads of credit card numbers and sensitive information," Seattle Post Intelligencer, March 5, 2005 --- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/214663_googlehack05.html 


The Selling of the Curriculum?
Through a family foundation, they created the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a research organization that regularly releases studies that criticize colleges in North Carolina for lack of rigor, too much excitement over trendy disciplines and wasting taxpayer funds. Pope publications mix serious analysis with a lot of mocking -- and individual faculty members are frequently the target.  So when faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill heard that the Pope family was talking to administrators about a multi-year grant to support study of Western civilization, many were upset. Seventy-one faculty members signed an open letter in The Daily Tar Heel complaining that the negotiations have been conducted secretly, in a manner that is "disrespectful to the faculty," and urging that the talks be suspended.  Bernadette Gray-Little, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the lead negotiator over the proposed gift, did not respond to a request for an interview. But in a letter to The Daily Tar Heel, she said that the proposed Pope grant has received more public discussion and more faculty input than similar grants. And she insisted that there were no unusual conditions attached.
Scott Jaschick, "The Selling of the Curriculum?" Inside Higher Ed, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_selling_of_the_curriculum 


India truly realizes the importance of education
The Indira Ghandi National University in India now has 1 million students. Twenty percent of all Indian students are in distance education programs, and the Indian policy is to raise that to 40 percent. So this is a different kind of phenomenon, far from the phenomenon of online learning. I don't mean innovation isn't like that. People do things, and then they discover the consequences were not exactly what they expected.

THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING http://ctl.stanford.edu (as forwarded to me by Jagdish Gangolly)


When bashing the French, a few things should be kept in mind
France has a glorious military tradition and has troops serving in the field in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Africa and Haiti. In Kosovo, 3,000 French soldiers are deployed side by side with 1,800 American soldiers; in Afghanistan, our forces are also operating side by side as are our ships in the Gulf of Oman and reconnaissance aircraft in Djibouti. Our intelligence services and special forces also cooperate closely and appreciate working together.  France is a driving force in European integration and in strengthening European defense. It is encouraging its partners to do more and better in assuming their responsibilities for security issues in Europe and the world. It is making an exceptional effort regarding its own defense budget.
Michele Alliot-Marie, "Let Us Be Partners," The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111024396859873017,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


The word "f__king" doesn't mean anything.  It's just a figure of speech.
Martin Lawrence in the movie Bad Boys II --- http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/badboys2/site/ 
Jensen Comment:  Maybe so.  It was used in nearly every third line of dialog in this movie, is not in my desk dictionary, and turns me off whether I hear it in a movie or when spoken by students and faculty (yes faculty) on campus.  The Web definitions include "sexual intercourse," "informal intensifier," and a "colloquial intensifier."  But it was used in Bad Boys II so often that it didn't intensify anything.  When used in a great movie called Human Stain, it was used very infrequently and did indeed  intensify.  The problem with youth today is that they don't understand the role of linguistic intensifiers.  I blame a major part of this on Hollywood's failure to understand the same thing.  In general, it's use degrades the speaker and his/her audience.


This is probably overkill, but I do support the idea of being to selectively order cable channels
While their announcement has outraged the telecommunications industry and civil libertarians, most observers believe their idea stands little chance of progressing through Congress. More intriguing, however, is the possibility that the cable and satellite indecency news will resurrect the issue of offering consumers a la carte options for selecting cable channels.  The brouhaha began on Tuesday, when Senator Ted Stevens, (R-Alaska), head of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, declared that he wanted to apply the same standards of decency that govern the content of over-the-air television and radio to pay cable and satellite television.  "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air" broadcasters, he told the National Association of Broadcasters, according to several wire reports. "There has to be some standard of decency."  On Wednesday, Stevens got support from the other side of the Hill when House Representative Joe Barton (R-Texas), head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee agreed with him.
Eric Hellweg "Indecent Proposal," MIT's Technology Review, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/wo/wo_hellweg030405.asp 


One in five teens and adults in the U.S. have genital herpes.
Do our students know this?  The rise in "hanging out" sometimes leads to oral sex without intercourse.
Unsuspecting ways to get genital herpes and, by the way, experts say it will never go away

Most people know that women can get genital herpes from unprotected intercourse. After all, it affects one in five teens and adults. But receiving oral sex is also a significant risk. Oral sex can transmit HSV-1, the virus that causes cold sores, and can cause genital herpes.  Research shows that women who receive oral sex are nine times as likely to get genital herpes.  Women should be sure that their partners are not showing any sign of a cold sore. Early signs include a small area of tingling or numbness in the lips -- even without a visible sore. This is a sign that the virus is active and can be transmitted.
Brunilda Narario, "Genital Herpes From a Surprising Place," WebMDHealth, March 5, 2005 --- http://my.webmd.com/content/article/101/106359.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_td_01 


She says the undergraduates are eager for sex but don't know much about it
She went on to get a master's degree in human sexuality education from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in sexology from Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia, with a thesis on women's first experiences of sexual intercourse and the implications of this for sex education. She later became head of Curtin's sexology program, where she launched a master of forensic sexology, and although she's now moved to Bond, she still supervises some postgraduate students there.  In her books and on her website, she habitually refers to herself as Dr Gabrielle, or Gabrielle Morrissey PhD, presumably to reassure readers that, despite all the references to peckers and boobs, she is a serious academic.  Still, she has had her share of awkward moments. In the acknowledgments in Urge, she writes: "Dad, please skip over the oral sex chapter, please, please."  "I don't think he did," she sighs over the phone from her home in Brunswick Heads, near Byron Bay
"Under Covers," Sydney Morning Herald, March 5, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/03/1109700593110.html 


All health plans should at least be as good as Medicare on preventative maintenance
The new year brought changes in Medicare benefits: a one-time "Welcome to Medicare" physical exam, cardiovascular screening, and diabetes screening -- all part of a new emphasis on prevention and early detection, all designed to provide seniors with better care and a higher quality of life. In addition, there will be more changes in drug coverage. How will this affect you? Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mark B. McClellan, MD, PhD, joined us on Jan. 25 to answer your questions about Medicare coverage
"Medicare Update 2005," WebMDHealth, January 25, 2005 --- http://my.webmd.com/content/chat_transcripts/1/105396.htm?z=1728_00000_0007_qp_02 


Hitler's A-Bomb:  So close and yet (fortunately) so far
Adolf Hitler had the atom bomb first but it was too primitive and ungainly for aerial deployment, says a new book that indicates the race to split the atom was much closer than is believed.  Nazi scientists carried out tests of what would now be called a dirty nuclear device in the waning days of World War II, writes Rainer Karlsch, a German historian, in his book Hitler's Bomb, to be be published this month.  Concentration camp inmates were used as human guinea pigs and "several hundred" died in the tests, conducted on the Baltic Sea island of Rugen and at an inland test in wooded hill country about 100 kilometres south of Berlin in 1944 and early 1945.
Ernest Gill, "Hitler won atomic bomb race, but couldn't drop it," Sydney Morning Herald, March 5, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/04/1109700677446.html 



Academic Leadership Awards
The Carnegie Corporation of New York on Friday awarded the first three of its new $500,000 "Academic Leadership Awards" to the presidents of Carnegie Mellon  (Jared L. Cohon) and Northwestern Universities (Henry S. Bienen) and the University of Chicago (Don M. Randel).The awards, designed to honor campus chief executives who have "demonstrated an abiding commitment to liberal arts and who have initiated and supported curricular innovations," go to the presidents "for their academic priorities."

"Grants for Presidents," Inside Higher Ed, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/quick_takes_grants_for_presidents_frat_charges_pay_cutback 
 


Most of the "luxuries" are on the not-for-profit campuses
For-profit institutions also try to maximize their revenue. But in addition to maximizing revenue, for-profit schools want to minimize their expenses. That's why they don't have any football stadiums or massage therapists. Simply, maximum revenue and minimum expenses yield maximum profit.  That does not mean, as their critics suggest, that they will necessarily exploit their students. The only way for-profit schools can maximize their revenue, after all, is by bringing in as many students as possible. They can't, therefore, reduce expenses to any point below which they can provide the education students are willing to pay for. Kirp's discussion of DeVry helps confirm this. "Instruction is more intense than in most community colleges and regional universities ... and it is often better as well." Moreover, "graduates do get hired ... DeVry's proudest boast has been that within six months of graduation, 95 percent of graduates are working, and not behind the McDonald's counter but at jobs with a future."  Are for-profit schools perfect? Hardly. As their critics regularly point out, for-profit education's past is checkered by scams and frauds. And it still has troublemakers. In January, "60 Minutes" aired an expose on questionable practices at Career Education Corporation, which runs 82 for-profit campuses. But general hostility to for-profit education, its past, and the ongoing scrutiny it receives as a result force for-profit schools to police themselves.
Neal McCluskey, "Don’t Blame the Market," Inside Higher Ed, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/don_t_blame_the_market 


Some major IT acronymns:  How many can you define? --- Webopedia --- http://www.webopedia.com/ 

  1. OEM
  2. RAID
  3. VPN
  4. OSI Model
  5. phishing
  6. Telnet
  7. MAC address
  8. API
  9. VGA
  10. DVI
  11. ODBC
  12. DNS
  13. router
  14. ASIC
  15. Token Ring


More important, which newer ones are left out like RFT or RFIT or RFID --- http://availabletechnologies.pnl.gov/securityelectronics/rftags.stm 

Will Viagra's RFID tags will play Bolero and old Sinatra recordings?

In an effort to combat drug counterfeiting and protect patients, Pfizer has announced a new initiative to use radio frequency identification (RFID) tags that will enable wholesalers and pharmacies to authenticate all Viagra sold in the United States.
"Viagra tablets will soon have small radio frequency tags," News-Medical-Net --- http://www.news-medical.net/?id=6324 
Jensen Comment:  I was thinking of an antenna joke and decided against it.


PhD:  Purchased higher Degree
The dean of administration at the College of the Ozarks has resigned, a year after he was enmeshed in a controversy involving the legitimacy of his doctoral degree, the News-Leader of Springfield, Mo., reported Thursday. College officials declined to comment on the resignation of Larry Cockrum, the newspaper reported.
Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/quick_takes_epa_fine_a_dean_resigns 
Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mills are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill 


Hush up Bill!  She's first got to worry about being re-elected to the U. S. Senate from a blue state
Maybe it's natural for Bill Clinton to be bragging on his wife's chances to become the next president, but some of his friends wish that he'd just shut up.They say that Bubba's cheering is distracting from Hillary's efforts to show that she isn't an old style liberal.'It's counterproductive,' says one insider, 'at a time when she's quietly building a voting record that is closer to Sen. John McCain than Ted Kennedy.'
"Shushing Bubba," U.S. News and World Report, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/050314/whispers/14whisplead_2.htm 


Mohamed Khodr's Opinion of the Mayor of London
No politician has ever had the courage to pen such a column although many have privately expressed your sentiments. Those, like me, who do write on such matters are excluded from the mainstream press and thus toil in the world of virtual reality, the internet. The world agrees with you but is too cowardly to speak out. I wholeheartedly pray that your courage has opened the door for others to overcome their "Anti-Semitic" fears and do justice to the suffering of the Palestinians, victims of the Sykes-Picot, Balfour Declaration, the Cold War, Zionism, the Holocaust, and the surrender of American foreign policy to the "elite Zionist experts" in Washington D.C. who understand the "Arab/Muslim" mind given America's naiveté and ignorance..
Mohamed Khodr, "To Ken Livingstone, With Gratitude, Love and Admiration," Aljazeerah, March 5, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/aljazeerahMarch5 
Jensen Comment:  Ken Livingstone is the Mayor of London --- http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/mayorbiog.jsp 


Take that Larry Summers:  IT's a woman's world
Women seem to be giving men a run for their money in every profession today. This holds true even in the technology sector, which was till recently dominated by the male fraternity. In fact, technology seems to be creating new-age careers for women in sectors ranging from the number-crunching banking to the research-oriented medicine. Says Jayanthi Sivaswami, associate professor, International Institute of Information Technology (Hyderabad), "Around 31 per cent of the workforce in India today constitutes of women, of which 19 per cent are in the IT sector." Sivaswami was speaking at a panel discussion on 'Technology enables new-age careers...
"IT's a woman's world," Rediff, March 5, 2005 --- http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/mar/05woman.htm 


Lessons From the Edge
Much of traditional academe doesn't know what to make of for-profit higher education. Is it to be emulated or feared? Gary A. Berg, dean of extended education at California State University Channel Islands, studied the sector -- and received extensive access to University of Phoenix administrators and faculty members. The result is Lessons From the Edge: For-Profit and Nontraditional Higher Education in America, recently published as part of the American Council on Education/Praeger Series on Higher Education.  The article contains Berg's answers to some questions about his research and his book:
Scott Jaschik, "Lessons From the Edge," Inside Higher Ed, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/lessons_from_the_edge 
 

How have for-profit higher education changed traditional universities? 
I think they have probably accelerated a general trend, rather than changed the course in American higher education at this point. Central components of the for-profit model such as increased use of part-time faculty, intensive formats, standardization, distributed and distance learning formats, an emphasis on assessment are all increasingly used in traditional universities. For-profits have come to symbolize the great transformation that is occurring in higher education, but are not the sole cause.

Gary A. Berg, "Lessons From the Edge," Inside Higher Ed, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/lessons_from_the_edge 


Distance education is easier to assess
Yet assessing quality may be easier with an electronic course, Patrick said, because so many measures can be tracked, including the number of times students and teacher interact. That's not as transparent in a traditional class, she said, because "the door is shut."

"Distance learning becoming part of school life," CNN, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/03/03/distance.education.ap/index.html 
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 


It's too darn easy to alter the letter F into B?  With artistic talent, why Photo Shop it into an A?
. . .many mentioned the ease of altering report cards and transcripts using desktop publishing software like Adobe Photoshop, which allows students to capture a school's seal off its Web site and paste it into a file to create an official-looking document.  One administrator told of a student who was caught forging his report card when the nearby Kinko's called the school to report that a student had left a copy of his grades on the copier. One principal said he had heard of students forging transcripts with generic-embossed seals to avoid paying for official transcripts.
Jensen Harrumph:  Students are really taking a chance on getting caught for artfully doctoring the transcript of their dreams.  In fact that's really stupid.  Why not order a professionally generated transcript from Back Alley Press? ---  http://www.backalleypress.com/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mill frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill 


Q: If I am considering buying a new laptop, should I wait until the new 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking standard is available? If I purchase a laptop now, should I buy one with an external wireless card so I can easily upgrade to the new standard later?
A: If you need a new laptop now, I wouldn't wait, even though the new "n" flavor of Wi-Fi promises to be faster and to have much better range than the current "a," "b," and "g" versions. I have no idea when the "n" standard will make it into the marketplace, since it's still in the hands of a standards committee, and such bodies tend to move slowly.  I would also note that the new standard is almost certain to be backwards-compatible with the current wireless chips sold as internal equipment on today's laptops. So it isn't as if a laptop purchased now with built-in Wi-Fi will be useless when the new standard emerges. In fact, based on my testing of the so-called pre-N Wi-Fi gear made by Belkin, some of the new standard's range and speed improvements will still be attainable, even with older chips in your laptop.
Walter Mossberg, "Waiting for Wireless," The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2005, Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110980770284968899,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 


Q: I am ready to leave Hotmail and switch to another free mail service. I tried to set up a Google "Gmail" account, but was unable to find any sign-up page on their Web site. What are my best choices for setting up a new free e-mail account?
A: At the moment, Gmail is available only to new users who have been invited to join by existing members. That's why you couldn't simply sign up. The main attraction of Gmail is that it offers one gigabyte of mail storage free, a huge amount for an online e-mail service. So, if you know somebody who is a Gmail user, you might try to get invited.  Overall, I prefer Yahoo Mail among the free online competitors. I find it's easy to navigate, reliable, and packed with useful features. And, for a modest $20 a year, you can boost your Yahoo mail storage to two gigabytes from the standard 250 megabytes, and get some other added services as well.
Walter Mossberg, "Q&A," The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2005, Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110980770284968899,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 


Say what?  NHL games might become intramural sports matches if purchased by a bottom feeder
Wall Street buyout firm part of joint proposal made to owners. National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman reportedly invited Bain Capital Partners LLC and Game Plan International to make a 30-minute presentation to league owners on Tuesday. TORONTO - A Wall Street buyout firm and a sports advisory company reportedly made a joint proposal to buy all 30 NHL teams for as much as $3.5 billion. Bain Capital Partners LLC and Game Plan International, both based in Boston, made the offer in a 30-minute presentation to NHL owners on Tuesday in New York, sources told the Toronto Star and The...
"Report: $3.5 billion offer to buy all NHL teams," MSNBC, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7073831/ 


Drug Warning:  Note that Asian-Americans are specifically targeted
The cholesterol drug Crestor is being relabeled to add a warning that starter doses should be reduced in Asian-Americans and some other patients.

"Warning for Cholesterol Drug," The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2005, Page D4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110979071346968482,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


Q: What are the most commonly cited cases in law?
A:  See Yale Law School's "The Curiae Project" at http://curiae.law.yale.edu/ 

 
Most Commonly Cited Cases
 
Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Lochner v. New York (1904)
Hammer v. Dagenhart (1917)
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937)
Brown v. Board of Education I (1954)
Baker v. Carr (1962)
-> view complete rankings...
Most Frequently Viewed Cases
 
Brown v. Board of Education I (1954)
Marbury v. Madison (1803)
San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez (1973)
Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
Brown v. Board of Education II (1955)
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Baker v. Carr (1962)
Lochner v. New York (1904)
Schenck v. United States (1919)

If you’re looking for an extreme example of bad ethics in your courses, this is it!
But some of the latest in hunting tech pushes the ethical envelope, and some states are outlawing high-tech innovations that game managers feel give hunters an undue advantage.  A San Antonio entrepreneur recently created an uproar with a Web site, www.live-shot.com , that aims to allow hunters to shoot exotic game animals or feral pigs on his private hunting ranch by remote control, with the click of a mouse, from anywhere in the world.  "The idea of sitting at a computer screen playing a video game and activating a remote controlled firearm to shoot an animal is not hunting," said Kirby Brown, executive director of the Texas Wildlife Association, a hunters' group. "It's off the ethical charts."
Jeff Bernard, "In Hunting, Tech Pushes Envelope of What's Ethical," MIT's Technology Review, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/ap/ap_2030405.asp?trk=nl 
Jensen Comment:  This is even worse than hunting wolves or other wild game with aircraft.  Not only is it not sporting, it can become a tool for terrorists.  Lee Harvey Oswald could've been in Siberia on November 22, 1963 if this technology was available.  I realize that the Air Force can do this now, but I don't think there's a USAF Live-Shot Web site.  The popular “smoking gun” in court just went up in smoke.


Accounting usually gets them in the end
Remember the SCO mouse that roared when suing IBM and Linux

SCO says it missed the filing deadline over issues relating to the accounting of its common stock and equity compensation plan. As a result of adjustments to its accounting, SCO will be restating its earnings for the first three quarters of 2004, BusinessWeek has learned. While the restatements won't change its net loss or cash balance for that year, they are likely to reduce its cash position by $500,000 or more in fiscal year 2005, says an insider. . . What once looked like a mortal threat to Linux appears to be fading. As a result, the suit has become a nonfactor in corporate buying decisions. "I can't imagine how this will go anywhere," says Alex Dietz, chief information officer at Acxiom, a Little Rock consumer-data-analysis company that uses Linux.
"A Linux Nemesis on the Rocks SCO's lawsuit is floundering -- and now the struggling software company faces regulators' scrutiny and questions about its management," Business Week, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005033_4497_tc119.htm 
Jensen Comments
The independent auditor for SCO is KPMG.
A SCO Versus IBM Website is at http://sco.iwethey.org/ 


The Anti-PHishing Working Group is an international association dedicated to the elimination of fraud and identity theft on the internet from phishing, pharming and spoofing. Their site contains up-to-date reports on the extent of such activities.Anti-Phishing Working Group
From Gerald Trite's Blog, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.zorba.ca/blog.html 
Bob Jensen's threads on phishing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#Phishing 


Social Security is a lot more than FDR envisioned when he started a national pension plan
But the program has a multitude of other objectives, moving money every which way. An essential reason for the decline in old-age poverty, for example, is that older generations - which paid lower payroll taxes - have received transfers from younger generations, who have paid higher taxes to get the same or even lower levels of benefits.  Social Security aims to protect women who stay out of the work force to raise children, offering spousal and survivor benefits that depend on the earnings of the working spouse. And the program's disability insurance favors workers in tougher jobs, mainly at the lower end of the income spectrum.  Social Security's income redistribution includes some unintended quirks. Survivor benefits are regressive, favoring people whose spouses were high earners. And the nation's changing demographics have created a patchwork of winners and losers that, to some extent, has overridden the system's original purpose of favoring the poor.  That's because Social Security is more generous to people who have more time to collect benefits, like women, who are expected to live three years longer than men, on average, after retirement, and whites, who, after reaching 65, are expected to live a year and a half longer than blacks.
Eduardo Porter, "Who Wins in a New Social Security?" The New York Times, March 6, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/business/yourmoney/06view.html 


When you gotta go, you don't gotta go
Do we not? The trouble is, if we have, why do I not remember a student ever leaving the classroom to go to the bathroom during my own college years? (Much less sleeping or eating.) Once during graduate school I remember a student was asked to leave, because he would not stop talking to the person next to him. He left immediately. The rest of us could not have been more shocked than if he had got up suddenly and squatted in front of his chair.  During my more than 30 subsequent years as a professor I remember a few students pleading bodily necessity in asking permission to leave. The first was a male, who basked in his boldness after he asked. I told him, "sure, you can go, but don't come back." Then it seemed he didn't have to go so urgently after all. I insisted, saying that I couldn't live with either his urethra or his anus on my conscience. The rest of the class laughed. Those were the days.
Terry Caesar, "Purely Academic Going to the Bathroom," Inside Higher Ed, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/purely_academic 


Lifestyle Changes:  What hotel rooms do you like best (in terms of rooms rather than settings)?
In fact, the room isn't in a hotel at all. It's one of seven test guest rooms that sit unused, night after night, in the depths of Marriott International Inc.'s headquarters.  The rooms are part of Marriott's effort to capitalize on a decade of research and tens of millions of dollars to figure out what guests want.  They also illustrate how hotel operators are catering to a new generation of travelers whose trips are equal parts work and play, and who more than ever yearn for the comforts of home even when they're thousands of miles away.
"Building a better hotel room," Boston Globe, March 6, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/03/06/building_a_better_hotel_room/ 
Jensen Comment:  I thought the whole point was to make hotel rooms dreary and uncomfortable so that guests spend more time in the stores, bars, restaurants, and conference meetings where it's easier to sleep.

Why not just model the rooms after the world's most expensive hotel (or so we're told by Barb Hessel) --- http://www.dagbladet.no/ 


One woman's take on Martha before she served her time
The characters in your trial (who rather acted as character witnesses) may seem uniquely rotten, as if Lady Luck heaped all the putrid apples in your aproned lap. Not true. Open any psychology textbook; you'll find profiles of each and every one, which means you'll meet them all again. Repeatedly. As long, that is, as you're You (a Forbes-listed, high-society kitchen Picasso) and people are People (parasitic ass-kissers hoping your ilk will choke to death on a drumstick). Forgive me—my cynicism is indelicate. But judging from your megalomaniac fibbing (yes, yes, I know, the investigation was petty in light of the mighty Martha brand name), and genuine horror at the Lilliputians who dared rat you out (the only one-woman conglomerate in human history!)...well, your judgment seems a little off.
Elizabeth Koch, "Martha On the Inside:  Jailhouse advice for the domestic diva," ReasonOnLine, October 7, 2004 --- http://www.reason.com/martha/oct7.shtml 


Now schools need to hire guards for the bathrooms as well as teachers
A couple filed a lawsuit Friday against the Anchorage School District, saying their 6-year-old son was sexually assaulted by a classmate after the boys were left unattended in a school bathroom. The lawsuit seeks damages and changes to district policies regarding how students and staff are trained to handle sexual assaults and how students are monitored. The lawsuit doesn't name the family or the child's school, to protect confidentiality, said attorney Dennis Maloney, who is representing the plaintiffs. The district has 40 days to respond to the lawsuit. "I will not dispute the fact the incident occurred," Superintendent...
"Parents sue school district over rape of 6-year-old," Juneau Empire, March 6, 2005 --- http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/030605/sta_20050306008.shtml 


Modern Day Bullies
Cyberbullies, mostly ages 9 to 14, are using the anonymity of the Web to mete out pain without witnessing the consequences. The problem — aggravated by widespread use of wireless devices such as cellphones and BlackBerrys — is especially prevalent in affluent suburbs, where high-speed Internet use is high and kids are technically adept, says Parry Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.org, an online safety group.  “Some kids can't wait to get home so they can continue taunting,” says Aftab, who is also an Internet lawyer.  “Maybe we need to protect kids from one another online as much as we shield them from dangerous adults.”  Often, the social cruelties escape the notice of schools, which focus on problems on campus, and of parents, who are unaware of what their kids are doing online.
Jon Swartz, "Schoolyard bullies get nastier online:  Hurtful messages can hit kids anytime, anywhere," USA Today, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050307/1a_cover07.art.htm 


Small Business Helpers from Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2005 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2005/news_web.htm 

Food for Thought
www.businessownersideacafe.com
“A fun approach to serious business” is the tag line here, with lively graphics and laid-back narrative that punch up its material. The Small Biz Tax Center helps clarify IRS tax and recordkeeping requirements and gives tips for start-up business owners. The CyberSchmooz “lobby” opens onto message forums on e-commerce, marketing and working at home. The Your Biz section includes a “fridge” full of business forms, e-mail protocols, marketing tips and even yoga instructions.

Small Company, Big Resources
www.allbusiness.com
From forms for consulting and confidentiality agreements to advice on sales and marketing or using the Internet, this Web stop offers guidance to CPAs who advise start-ups and small businesses. The Business Plans section has articles such as “Common Business Plan Mistakes for Startup Companies,” while the Small Business Advice section provides tax basics. Users also can tap into an FAQ section or a business glossary or sign up for a free e-newsletter.

A Dear Abby for Small Business
www.score.org
Since first listed here in June 2003, this site has added resources to its Business Toolbox section including a gallery of downloadable templates for bank loan applications, business plans and sales forecasts, as well as expanded links to such small business topics as finance, franchising and international trade. The Learning Center has a list of tips for business planning, marketing, public relations and office management.

Bob Jensen's small business helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness 


I wasn't sure if I was reading about a resort or a diversity-optimized college campus on the Oregon coast
FOR REASONS OF HEALTH & SAFETY OCEAN HAVEN CANNOT ACCOMMODATE SMOKERS, PETS, FOLKS TRAVELING IN A HUMMER, OR FOLKS WHO VOTED FOR BUSH & HIS NATURE DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES
Ocean Haven on the Oregon Coast --- http://oceanhaven.com/htmls/practices.html 
And for those living guest, I think you have to take your own sewage back home where it belongs.


Jokes from night TV --- http://www.newsmax.com/liners.shtml 
Jay Leno says "Hillary would make a good president but not a good intern."


These are sources you might look at when tracking the resignation of the president of Colorado University and the saga of Ward Churchill and his little eichmans:

CBS4 Denver --- http://news4colorado.com/cuscandal 

She says it's the budget rather than her bad boys
The president of the University of Colorado, Elizabeth Hoffman, resigned Monday after struggling with a football recruiting scandal and a firestorm over a professor who likened some Sept. 11 victims to Nazis . . . She said in a telephone interview that the Churchill case was not the impetus for her resignation, but that it had become a distraction that was hindering her ability to address what she called a more serious problem, a budget crisis at the university over a shortage of state financing.  "It was becoming increasingly difficult to be strong on the issues that were important in the long run because it kept coming back to questions about me," Dr. Hoffman said, "so I decided I had to take my future, my job, off the table." Dr. Hoffman, 58, was named the university's president on Sept. 1, 2000, after serving as provost at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Kirk Johnson, "University President Resigns at Colorado Amid Turmoil," The New York Times, March 8, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/national/08colorado.html 

Bob Jensen's threads on Ward Churchill --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyChurchill.htm 


Egads!  Is this what you call filling in where schools fail?
The College Board will administer its revised college-admissions test to thousands of high-school juniors for the first time on Saturday, and the test has generated a bonanza of new study aids. "The new SAT has led to a flurry of new products because all publishers are starting new -- there's a new thing to compete over," says Justin Kestler, a founder of SparkNotes LLC, a division of Borders Group Inc.  Adds Jon Zeitlin, manager of college-prep programs for Kaplan Inc., a unit of Washington Post Co.: "We've been on a product-creation jag for months."  Test-prep giant Princeton Review Inc., which isn't affiliated with Princeton University, has developed software that delivers test questions, including critical-reading passages, to cellphone screens -- then grades the answers and sends the results home to Mom and Dad. Its chief competitor Kaplan has software for a cellphone or a Palm device: Order up easy, medium or hard questions in reading, writing or math.  Texas Instruments Inc. is programming all of its latest graphing calculators with SAT math and vocabulary drills. And SparkNotes has its test-prep eye on the ubiquitous iPod. "We're trying to figure out how to do it in audio," says Mr. Kestler. "It's the next big killer application."
June Kronholz, "To Tackle New SAT, Perhaps You Need A New Study Device:  Test-Prep CDs, Puzzles, Cellphone Software Hit A June Market of Nonreaders," The Wall Street Journal, March 8. 2005, Page A1  --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111024562510773081,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 

Jensen Comment
College admission tests serve many purposes, not the least of which is to guide students into what to learn in school.  One of the failings of our schools and the college tests is the failure to test and motivate students toward understanding personal finance.  Why is this important?  Personal finances are a major cause of suicide and divorce.  Sometimes I don't think teachers really are concerned about the tragedies of life that affect nearly all people later in life from the very poor to the very rich.  Our graduates mess of their lives because they mess up their personal finances and/or allow themselves to be screwed by credit card companies, finance companies, brokers, financial advisors, and banks (yes and banks).

Please read the following:
"Survey: Students Not Taught Basic Finance," Ben Feller, SmartPros, March 7, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47289.xml 

And then look at the following:

March 4, 2005 message from a staff member at Trinity University

Think of the many people whose lives might be saved and whose marriages might be more successful if they understood the basics of who to keep out of digging themselves into financial holes and how to stop digging once they're in those holes.

Bob Jensen's threads on the dirty tricks of credit card companies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 


Free credit report offers seem to flood the Internet these days. Most companies claiming to give you a free credit report are really looking to sell you something in the long run, such as a credit monitoring service or identity-fraud protection.

So, stop surfing around online for a free credit report, most of the offers you will find are not really free. If you do not qualify for a free credit report, you are still better going straight to the actual credit bureaus and just paying the $8 that a credit report costs. Knowing what your credit file says about you is priceless.
"Free Credit Report Offers... Are They Really Free? - Consumer Alert," AccountingWeb, March 3, 2005 ---  http://www.accountingweb.com/item/100593 

Free credit report offers seem to flood the Internet these days. Most companies claiming to give you a free credit report are really looking to sell you something in the long run, such as a credit monitoring service or identity-fraud protection. Once you purchase the service, you will be given a copy of your credit report, usually from just one of the major credit bureaus. Since there are three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Transunion, and Equifax), you will not see the complete picture if you do not receive a report from each one.

Other websites that sell credit reports are resellers for the real credit bureaus and exist to make a profit. Some of these websites are very useful if you intend to pay, and are very convenient as a centralized place to obtain a 3-in-1 report with a personalized account that you can return to at anytime to order more reports; however, you will not receive anything for free.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 you are entitled to a free credit report if your application for credit, insurance or employment is denied because of information provided by a credit reporting agency (CRA). The company that you applied to must provide you with a denial notice which will contain the name, address, and phone number of the CRA that was used. You must request your report within 60 days of receiving the notice of the action. In addition, you are entitled to one free report a year if (1) you are unemployed and plan to look for a job within 60 days, (2) you are on welfare, or (3) your report is inaccurate because of fraud.

Residents of Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and Vermont already have a right to one free report per bureau each year because of laws enacted by those states. However, a new Federal provision enacted in 2003, grants access to free credit reports to all consumers in every state.

Free Annual Credit Reports Available to Everyone

According to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, every consumer is entitled to one free credit report each year. The final rule on this Act issued by the Federal Trade Commission in June 2004, provides for a centralized source from which consumers can obtain their credit reports from each of the three credit bureaus.

The centralized source is becoming available in cumulative stages, over a period of nine months, rolling-out from west. The rollout began in December 2004 and will be complete by September 1, 2005. Western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming) became eligible on December 1, 2004;

Midwestern states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) will become eligible on March 1, 2005; Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas ) will become eligible on June 1, 2005; Eastern states (Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia), Puerto Rico, and all U.S. territories will become eligible on September 1, 2005.

So, stop surfing around online for a free credit report, most of the offers you will find are not really free. If you do not qualify for a free credit report, you are still better going straight to the actual credit bureaus and just paying the $8 that a credit report costs. Knowing what your credit file says about you is priceless.

You can read more about free credit reports at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/credit/ycr_free_reports.htm 

I agree with the habit of spending within one’s means.  But there still is a question of stupid spending within one’s means.  For example, should families really spend extra for an entirely new car even if they can make the payments?  And do they understand the car’s financing --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudDealers.htm


It is dangerous to be right when the established authorities are wrong
Voltaire



My Snow Bird
After 18 inches of new snow on March 8 and enormous winds, the drifts in our driveway were ten feet or higher.  Ed Clough had to plow three times each day to keep up with it.  The snow subsided on March 9, but Erika was in a lonely whiteout due to the winds on I-93 when she went down to Manchester on March 9.  She took off on March 10 and should be in San Antonio by noon.   Here's a March 9, 2005 weather summary from Mt. Washington where most of the snow blows off the summit --- http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/today.html 

  Conditions at 5:00 a.m. on March 9  
    Weather: Light snow with blowing snow and freezing fog  
    Temperature: -20°   Visibility: 25 feet  
    Wind Chill Index: -60°F   Relative Humidity: 100%  
    Wind: Northwest at 94 gusting to 105 MPH   Station Pressure: 22.57" and rising  
    Ground Conditions: 13" of snow and ice  

Since he lives in a humble home (without running water when he was a child) within walking distance of our retirement home, I just had to brag about Bode
Winning races or crashing through fences, charming the hordes of kids in Europe who adore him or peevishly dismissing the ski journalists who annoy him, astounding veteran skiers with his otherworldly skills or infuriating his coaches with his bullheadedness, Bode Miller has arrived on top of the skiing world.
David Leon Moore, "Brash American poised to win skiing crown:   Bode Miller's style wows fans, puts elusive title in reach," USA Today, March 9, 2005 Page 1A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050309/1a_cover09.art.htm 

Also see "Breaking down the points race," USA Today, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050309/pointsbox.art.htm 

American Bode Miller and Austrian Benjamin Raich are battling to win the men's World Cup overall title. Entering Thursday's downhill, Miller has a 52-point lead over his archrival:

 

Bode Miller Place Points
Overall 1st 1,348
Downhill 2nd 538
Slalom 19th 100
Giant slalom 3rd 340
Super-G 2nd 370
Benjamin Raich
Overall 2nd 1,296
Downhill 28th 93
Slalom 1st 502
Giant slalom 1st 363
Super-G 5th 238

 


Forget Ward Churchill:  An A- term paper topic can get you kicked out of graduate school
Supporting corporal punishment is one thing; advocating it is another, as Mr. McConnell recently learned. Studying for a graduate teaching degree at Le Moyne College, he wrote in a paper last fall that "corporal punishment has a place in the classroom." His teacher gave the paper an A-minus and wrote, "Interesting ideas - I've shared these with Dr. Leogrande," referring to Cathy Leogrande, who oversaw the college's graduate program.  Unknown to Mr. McConnell, his view of discipline became a subject of discussion among Le Moyne officials. Five days before the spring semester began in January, Mr. McConnell learned that he had been dismissed from Le Moyne, a Jesuit college.
Patrick E. Healy, "College Expels Student Who Advocated Corporal Punishment," The New York Times, March 10, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/nyregion/10paddle.html 


How not to raise kids in the modern age
Flagstaff, Ariz., is a clean and safe mountain town where most people partake in mentally and physically healthy activities far from the glaring fluorescent lights of Wal-Mart. The behavior illustrated in your page-one article "Attention, Shoppers: Bored College Kids Competing in Aisle 6" (Feb. 23) isn't representative of the values of most residents of Flagstaff or my generation. Concerned elders write about the problem with kids and cynicism these days. When my kid says, "Mom, I'm bored! What should I do?" I won't reply, "Well, honey, why don't you and your friends go play in Wal-Mart." Children need something more to live for, something beautiful to believe in. Is there anything left in this society to value besides production and consumption?
"Don't Mall Children's Need for the Beautiful," The Wall Street Journal,  March 10, 2005; Page A17 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111042348170375543,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 
My Answer:  Take away the computer/television and make them sit alone or together at home or in the yard until they get so bored they have to use their own imaginations.  What's wrong with having to overcome boredom on your own?

The USA's children live in an increasingly heavy stew of media, spending about 6½ hours a day mostly watching TV, using computers and enjoying other electronic activities. And they are spending relatively little time reading or doing homework, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey reported Wednesday.
Marilyn Elias, "Electronic world swallows up kids' time, study finds Children plugged in about 6½ hours a day," USA Today, page 1A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050310/1a_bottomstrip10.art.htm 


Maybe this is the result of the Wal-Mart Kid Generation:  
What are the odds a ninth grader will graduate from college on schedule?

Other countries are doing a better job, the report says. Fifteen countries have higher graduation rates from high school than does the United States, where the rate is 73 percent. At the higher education level, countries like China and India are making significant progress in educating thousands of scientists and engineers at a time that many programs at American colleges struggle to find qualified applicants.  The report identifies other key problems:  4 of 10 college students fail to graduate within six years. One-fourth of low-income students in the top quartile of academic ability and preparation fail to enroll in college within two years of their graduation from high school. While the percentages of minority and low-income students who enroll in higher education is increasing, a majority of minority students fail to graduate.
"A Nation's Colleges at Risk," Inside Higher Ed, March 10, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/a_nation_s_colleges_at_risk 

In a graphic called "Our Leaky Educational Pipeline," the report notes that for every 100 9th graders:

  • 68 graduate from high school on time.
  • 40 enroll immediately in college after graduation.
  • 27 are still enrolled for their sophomore year.
  • 18 graduate from college on time.

“Opt-Out” Disclosures in Pre-Screened Credit Card Offers
I had a couple of inquiries about "The Effectiveness of “Opt-Out” Disclosures in Pre-Screened Credit Card Offers."  You will find these at various sites (do a Google search on Opt-Out Disclosures).  So I went to the FTC site, a site that I implicitly trust on issues of deception and fraud, and found a report at http://www.ftc.gov/reports/prescreen/040927optoutdiscprecreenrpt.pdf 
The bottom line is that these opt-out alternatives are far from being perfectly effective and the layered notice approach is probably the most effective.   I would not give out privacy information to any sites that I do not know are legitimate in this era of ID theft.

Bob Jensen's threads on consumer fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm 
The best site on consumer fraud is the FTC site at http://www.ftc.gov 


I'm generally not in favor of long-term care insurance, but you should make up your own mind independently of the pitch you get from a financial planner or salesperson who make a lot of money selling you the contract.
Depending on where you live, it can be more. (See state rankings here.) Compute the cost of a nursing-home stay -- the average is about 2.4 years -- with the help of calculators at Web sites such as Smartmoney.com (smartmoney.com/insurance/longtermcare/) and Long Term Care Quote (ltcq.net). If your assets won't cover bills, or could leave a spouse struggling financially, long-term insurance may be the right choice for you.
"Buying Long-Term-Care Insurance," The Wall Street Journal,  March 10, 2005; Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111042232368775507,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 
Jensen Comment:  The first move should be to carefully read http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/services/apact/apact05.htm 
Then seriously think about setting aside your own fund for this purpose and leave out the middle person fees.


It's probably too soon to tell about effectiveness of identity theft insurance.
Last year, Allstate Corp. began offering identity-theft insurance in Texas and a few other states as a $30 rider on its homeowner and renter policies. The spadework is contracted out to Kroll Inc., a risk-consulting company. "We take a lot of the work of identity restoration off the shoulders of victims," says Troy Allen, vice president for fraud solutions at Kroll. "It's very time-consuming and difficult and frustrating."
"ID stolen? Call a privacy gumshoe," The Christian Science Monitor, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0309/p12s01-stin.html 
Jensen Comment:  First read the document at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2004/11/041104coninfosysprivimpassess.pdf 
Then take a look at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#IdentityTheft 


Now is the time to think about a new kind of computer mouse
As you can see, the PRO acts as a base for your keyboard with the rollerbar and buttons about an inch from the space bar. Since the bottom of the keyboard is intended to be flush with the docking station, you'll need to have the common, straight-edged keyboard to fit snugly. Fancy, curved keyboards need not apply here, since you'd have to stretch your thumbs an extra distance, which defeats the purpose. With your keyboard docked, you can rest your hands on the PRO's rubber wrist pads while controlling your cursor with the rollerbar that spins up and down, and slides left and right. The rollerbar can also act as a left click when pressed down gently. Below the rollerbar are your buttons and a scrolling wheel.
Jeremy Atkinson, "The Ergonomic-Friendly RollerMousePRO," Extreme Tech, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1772699,00.asp 
Jensen Comment:  The second page of this review has some good pictures.


Newer treatments for epilepsy
Science has dispelled many myths about epilepsy -- most importantly the myth that people with epilepsy will always suffer seizures. In fact, with treatment, between 70% and 80% of people with epilepsy are seizure free for at least two years.
WebMDHealth --- http://my.webmd.com/content/article/98/104690.htm?z=1728_81000_4259_qp_06 


 

Arab Americans
Think About It:  They worked hard to get to America, and they worked hard once they got here

About 41% of Arab residents have a college degree, compared with 24% of other US residents, the Census Bureau said in its first detailed socio-economic report on the nation's Arab population.   About 64% of residents with Egyptian ancestry had a college degree, the highest among Arab groups, followed by Lebanese (39%) and Palestinians (38%).
"Census finds Arabs integrated in US," Aljazeera, March 9, 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E7CF4D8B-C5AE-4555-9460-082846467131.htm 
Jensen Comment:  Some Arab residents are our leading university teachers and researchers.  Others are probably not give a chance to perform at they're very best.  If they apply for work, let's try to look beyond their long and sometimes strange sounding names.

 


I didn't want to "forget" this one
In the medical journal Neurology, Bennett and colleagues describe 180 elderly Catholic clergy, participants in the Religious Orders Study of ageing and dementia who agreed to annual mental tests beginning in 1993 and brain autopsy when they died.  At the time of death, 37 had mild cognitive impairment, 83 had dementia, and 60 had no cognitive difficulties.  Of the 37 with mild cognitive impairment, 23 showed brain pathology consistent with probable or definite Alzheimer's disease, and 12 had areas of brain tissue due to loss of blood supply, the investigators report.  Moreover, even among the 60 individuals without cognitive impairment, 28 showed evidence of probable or definite Alzheimer's disease.
"Mental decline linked to Alzheimer's," Aljazeera, March 9, 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E9079052-FFAD-480D-AE48-661887A88699.htm 


Mount Holyoke Dumps the SAT
Mount Holyoke College, which decided in 2001 to make the SAT optional, is finding very little difference in academic performance between students who provided their test scores and those who didn't.  The women's liberal arts college is in the midst of one of the most extensive studies to date about the impact of dropping the SAT -- a research project financed with $290,000 from the Mellon Foundation.  While the study isn't complete, the college is releasing some preliminary results. So far, Mount Holyoke has found that there is a difference of 0.1 point in the grade-point average of those who do and do not submit SAT scores. That is equivalent to approximately one letter grade in one course over a year of study.  Those results are encouraging to Mount Holyoke officials about their decision in 2001.
Scott Jaschik, "Not Missing the SAT," Inside Higher Ed March 9, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/not_missing_the_sat 
Jensen Comment:
These results differ from the experiences of the University of Texas system where grades and test scores differ greatly between secondary schools.   Perhaps Mount Holyoke is not getting applications from students in the poorer school districts.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book04q4.htm#60Minutes 

For a more general discussion of a "Fair Test" see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#AdmissionTesting 


It can be expensive to tease about gays
After years of legal fights, a former administrator at New York University has won a $2 million jury award in a case in which he charged the institution with anti-gay bias.  Mark A. Taylor was director of external affairs at NYU's medical school in 1994, when a biography of Leonard Bernstein, by Humphrey Burton, identified Taylor as the last love in the late composer's life. According to Taylor, the book was passed around the office, with passages about him marked. He also said that Peter Ferrara, a colleague, called him a "pansy" and made jokes about his sexuality.  Subsequently, Ferrara was promoted to become Taylor's boss and in 1997, Taylor's job was eliminated. The university attributed the elimination to a reorganization. Taylor sued for job discrimination.  Prior to losing his job, Taylor was "repeatedly humiliated with malicious and petty gossip and no one at NYU stepped in to do anything," said Michael G. O'Neil, his lawyer. "My client went from being well regarded and respected to being a laughingstock."  The jury that heard the case awarded Taylor $300,000 in back pay, $700,000 for lost future pay, and $1 million for his pain and suffering. O'Neil said that Taylor needed the money after finding it difficult to obtain good jobs after he lost his post at NYU.
Scott Jaschik, "$2 Million in Anti-Gay Bias Case," Inside Higher Ed, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/2_million_in_anti_gay_bias_case 


Summers time in the American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association has become the latest group to take on Harvard's president -- releasing a statement Tuesday stating that there "is substantial research that provides clear and compelling evidence that women, like men, flourish in science, just as in other occupational pursuits, when they are given the opportunity and a supportive environment." . . . "For example, objectively assessed math and scientific ability differences between males and females have changed substantially over the past three decades. In the United States they have become non-significant and in some other countries, the United Kingdom, for example, girls' performance exceeds that of boys at all levels of schooling," the sociologists said. "That gender differences in these abilities have shifted so substantially over such a short period of time makes it impossible for biological changes to have been influential. This period, however, was one in which girls' access to school courses, counselor encouragement, career opportunities, and role models changed (and improved) significantly -- but not their biology."
Scott Jaschik, "Sociology Lecture for Summers," Inside Higher Ed, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/sociology_lecture_for_summers 

March 10, 2005 message from Paul Williams
Mostly on the subject of hacking into the Harvard Business School's admission records to check on admission status, but a bit more on Lawrence of Absurdia.

Not so long as there are 57 credits whose content teaches that ethical considerations are for the weak-minded. Harvard is being a bit hypocritical. It certainly hasn't resisted the creation of a culture of success where the pressure to get into the "best" schools is so intense that hacking into the records to find out what your status is is probably the least of the sins being committed by people frantic to get into an elite school. Duke University, to its eternal credit, forgave one of its more famous students for breaking into the office of the dean of the law school (the old fashioned way of hacking) to get an early read on the results of final exams. He later went on to become president of the United States. Think what might have happened had Duke kicked him out of the law school (said with tongue firmly in cheek). 

Not to resurrect the Larry Summers debate, but Boston Magazine has just published an article, "Lawrence of Absurdia" available at http://www.bostonmagazine.com/ArticleDisplay.php?id=517  that speculates from Summers past behavior that he might suffer from Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism.


Why Women Leave I.T. 
Women represent nearly half the workers in the U.S. -- 46.6 percent. However, they always have been underrepresented in I.T. Even more discouraging is the fact that the percentage of women working in I.T. jobs is not growing but dropping. That is bad news indeed for employers seeking hard-to-find technical candidates and the women who might otherwise fill those well-paying jobs. "Skill obsolescence is the number one issue for I.T. workers," Professor Deb Armstrong of the University of Arkansas told NewsFactor. And it turns out, according to a study by Armstrong and her colleagues, that certain facts of women's lives make staying ahead of the game harder than it is for men.
Kimberly Hill, "Why Women Leave I.T.," NewsFactor Network, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Why-Women-Leave-I-T-&story_id=31000 


Have you run out of ideas for gifts?  Here's the possible answer to your dilemma.
Sure, a computing purse and scarf set may seem like the stuff of science fiction. But these devices, part of next generation of wearable computers, could become commonplace within a few years. Unit shipments of such wearable computers -- purses, watches, shirts -- should rise from 261,000 last year to 1.39 million in 2008, according to the tech research firm IDC.
Olga Kharif, "Wearable Computers You Can Slip Into The latest generation of these ever-smarter garments look like ordinary clothes, not something only a cyborg would don," Business Week, March 8, 2005 --- http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005038_5955_tc119.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on ubiquitous computing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm 


Takes more than getting rid of pets:  This is especially troublesome in inner cities up north like NYC and Chicago
"These data confirm that cockroach allergen is the primary contributor to childhood asthma in inner-city home environments," added Kenneth Olden, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which helped fund the study.  "However, general cleaning practices, proven extermination techniques and consistent maintenance methods can bring these allergen levels under control."Cockroaches produce allergic reactions from their saliva, fecal material, secretions and cast off skin.
"Allergy study: Roaches worse than furry pets," CNN, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/03/09/roaches.allergens.reut/index.html 


Researchers identify a protein critical for achieving pregnancy. As the first such discovery, the finding could lead to non-hormonal contraception or male infertility treatments.
Kristen Philipkoski, "Sperm Protein Seals the Deal," Wired News, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66837,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6 


In some academic performance evaluations, service now receives a small weighting of less than 10% when compared to what the university considers the big drivers of success:  Research and Teaching.
Pursuing academic engagement necessitates radically rethinking "service" and "knowledge," finding innovative mechanisms to organize and leverage academe's intellectual capital to transform lives for the benefit of society. It requires us to acknowledge that a university's collective wisdom is among its most precious assets -- anchored to, but not in competition with, basic research and disciplinary knowledge -- and that part of the significance of such wisdom is tied to its use.  While redefining and implementing more robust notions of service and knowledge will be arduous, the payoff could be enormous. Fortunately, there is a movement afoot at many public research institutions across the nation, a movement to bring higher education out of the 19th into the 21st century. With rising tuition, limited access to the nation's best universities, and increasingly complex social problems, many recognize that the need for public institutions to find meaningful ways to serve the citizens of their states is more important than ever. Universities must fulfill a social compact with their states.  At my own institution, the University of Texas at Austin, a critical mass of faculty embrace this compact: academics best described as "intellectual entrepreneurs," citizen-scholars supplying more than narrow, theoretical disciplinary knowledge. They exemplify academic engagement, taking to heart the ethical obligation to contribute to society, to both discover and put to work knowledge that makes a difference.
Richard A. Cherwitz, "Intellectual Entrepreneurship: The New Social Compact By," Inside Higher Ed, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/intellectual_entrepreneurship_the_new_social_compact 


Scholastic Notes on Your Computer:  Have you thought about speaking out while you are studying or reading?
For some doctors, the prospect of trading in their paper-based patient files for electronic-medical-record systems means big changes in their work, and they and their staffs can't afford the initial slowdown as they learn to enter and deal with digitized patient information. But what if speech-recognition technology was good enough to actually understand and digitize not just a doctor's words to include in medical records, but the medical lingo held in them? A startup tech vendor led by George Newstrom, the former secretary of technology for Virginia under Gov. Mark Warner, is making plans for such technology to be one of the many tools for getting more doctors using electronic records.
"Voice-Technology Startup Aims To Get Doctors Using E-Records," Information Week, March 8, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/SpeakUp 


Virus threat to mobile phones 
A new mobile phone software virus started spreading this week via messages containing photos and sounds, the first of its kind and a threat to cellphones globally, data security firms said Tuesday.  The Commwarrior. A virus tries to replicate itself by sending multimedia messages to people on the phone's contacts list, and also tries to do the same via Bluetooth wireless connections with other devices, eventually draining the battery.
"New virus found in phone messaging," CNN, March 8, 2005 --- http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/08/technology/personaltech/mobile_virus.reut/index.htm 


Little Red Riding Hood doesn't know it's the really big bad wolf
As the Social Security debate heats up, it pays to watch the political sleight-of-hand. The latest gimmick to emerge, cleverly marketed as a potential bipartisan compromise and "victory" for the White House, is the notion of "add-on" personal investment accounts.  Under President Bush's proposal, individuals would be able to divert part of their payroll taxes into personal accounts that they would own. That idea is apparently too shocking for many in Congress and the AARP, however, so instead they're proposing new accounts that would be financed by other tax revenue -- that is, by other taxpayers. In short, they want to create a new entitlement to "add" to all the old ones. If this is what is going to count as Social Security "reform," count us out.
" 'Adding-On' Entitlements," The Wall Street Journal,  March 9, 2005; Page A20 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111033447404774285,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 

Sound farfetched? 
Imagine a government that has stopped providing national defense, halted criminal prosecutions, canceled mail delivery and abandoned its highways and parklands. This government, in fact, does nothing but write benefit checks and pay interest on its debts — and still runs an annual deficit.  Sound farfetched?  Actually, that prospect is just three decades off if U.S. government benefit programs grow at current rates and the size of government relative to the economy stays constant.  Social Security is partly to blame for this dire outlook. Without changes, its costs will rise from about 20% of federal spending to 30% in the next 25 years.  But by far the biggest culprit is the exploding cost of health care, particularly Medicare, the government's insurance program for seniors. Medicare has grown 23-fold in the past three decades, from $13 billion in 1975 to $295 billion this year. It is on a trajectory that will soon rocket it past Social Security to the upper stratosphere of unaffordability. In 25 years, it will rise from 13% of federal spending to almost 40%.  As a problem for the U.S. economy and future retirees, exploding health care costs dwarf Social Security. By focusing exclusively on the latter, President Bush is overlooking the bigger problem. This is akin to getting a car tuned up when its transmission is shot and its engine has locked up.
"Medicare's mounting troubles dwarf Social Security's woes:   Washington ignores bigger problem of exploding health care costs," USA Today, March 9, 2005, Page 10A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050309/edit09.art.htm 

My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm


Tired of teaching?  Write and essay and fire it off to the Board of Trustees
The University of Colorado's review of Ward Churchill's scholarship has been delayed, perhaps until Monday, partly to allow lawyers time to craft a buyout offer, according to a person close to the process. The original March 3 deadline for the Churchill review has been pushed back twice now as a three-member committee of CU administrators wrestles with his writings, including an essay comparing some 9/11 victims to Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Tuesday, Churchill's attorney, David Lane, said he is "not at liberty" to discuss any talks he might have had with the university on a buyout proposal. He said again, however,...
Dave Curtin, "CU delays Churchill review," Denver Post, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2751963,00.html 
Bob Jensen's threads on Ward Churchill are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyChurchill.htm 


Where's Chief Churchill?
Claims of Indian heritage aren't rare these days, particularly in the South, where laws and attitudes stigmatizing nonwhites have waned. In polls, more than 40% of Southerners now say they have an Indian ancestor. In fact, says John Shelton Reed, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, white Southerners are likelier to claim an Indian than a Confederate forebear. But the Apalachee stand out because of their hidden epic of survival -- and because of the modest couple who have brought them to light.
Tony Horwitz, "Apalachee Tribe, Missing for Centuries, Comes Out of Hiding:  The Indians' Tragic History Is Documented by Chief; A Push for Recognition," The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111032889711474126,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 

 


Doctors have the millennia-old Hippocratic Oath. Pharmacists, mathematicians and even football coaches all have codes of ethics.  Not investment bankers.
Investment banking is a vexing area to police. Bankers sit in the crucible of the economy: doling out loans; hammering out contracts; and counseling companies on the sensitive topics of mergers and acquisitions, among other things.  It is in these areas that ethical lapses can occur, with bankers using confidential information from one client to benefit another, or failing to fully outline the drawbacks of a particular transaction to guarantee a big payday. Many on Wall Street say the vast majority of bankers are ethical ones, but nearly all will admit they can lose or win fees based on how far they are willing to go.  Given the million of dollars in profits that also can be personally earned from one or two banking transactions, the "pressure on behavior is sometimes too great to bear," writes Gerald Rosenfeld, chief executive officer of investment bank Rothschild North America, in the book.  Instead of trying to create a rule for every ethical permutation, a potential code "should have basic principles with respect to who you're accountable to, and what your priorities are between yourself, your client and your regulators," says Mr. Rohatyn, the former managing director of investment bank Lazard who now heads his own firm, Rohatyn Associates.  "It's really something that has to be embedded in an organization all the way up and down," he says. "Ultimately, it has to be instinctive."  When asked, some of Wall Street's leading investment banks say they welcome the idea of a code. For now, the list of supporters includes Citigroup, Credit Suisse Group's Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs Group, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.  Since it is now simply a vague recommendation, exactly what it would contain remains to be seen. But a code could include principles for handling conflicts of interest, behavioral guidelines for dealing with clients and competitors, and some recognition of a banker's duty to society at large.  Writing such a code could face an uphill fight. Deep in the trenches, some Wall Street bankers displayed an instinctive skepticism.
Dennis K. Berman, "Does Wall Street Finally Need An Ethics Code?," The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111040943044975189,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 
Jensen Comment:  Lawyers have codes of ethics;  Just goes to prove that it takes more than a codification.


Flashback
The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2000

Knocking aside valuation, interest-rate and psychological barriers like tenpins, the Nasdaq Composite Index rolled through the 5000 mark yesterday. It is a crowning milestone in investors' unprecedented love affair with technology stocks.

January 9, 2005 --- Nasdaq Composite Index =  1525  (and rolling much slower)


Top 10 Corporate Hate Sites
To honor these quixotic champions, we spent hours trawling the Web looking for the very best corporate hate sites. After checking out more than 100 sites with names like dontflycontinentalairlines.com and fordlemon.com, we rated the best of them on a scale from one to five in six different categories: ease of use, frequency of updates, number of posts, hostility level (angrier is better), relevance, and entertainment value (Hey! Angry and funny!).
Charles Wolrich, "Top Corporate Hate Web Sites," Forbes, March 8, 2005 --- http://www.forbes.com/technology/2005/03/07/cx_cw_0308hate.html 

And the best of the worst is built on a cracked foundation
KB Homes KBhomesucks.com --- http://www.kbhomesucks.com/ 
(Complete with videos)

No pay is our way
PayPal Sucks, aka No PayPal, is an anti paypal site to expose the nightmare of doing business "the paypal way."
PayPal (part of eBay) Paypalsucks.com --- http://www.paypalsucks.com/ 

I wouldn't shake these hands
Allstate Insurance Allstateinsurancesucks.com --- http://www.allstateinsurancesucks.com/ 
DOI data helps rank Allstate as # 2 Bad Faith Insurer

Under the new name of Microsuck
After four years of being known primarly as [ahem]Microsoft.com, the flagship site of the Microsoft Eradication Society now sports a new, slightly more family-friendly name: Microsuck. And if you've come here expecting the old Microsuck website, we regret to inform you that it is no more. After laying dormant for a while, the previous owners offered it for sale to us. We couldn't resist.

Microsoft MS-Eradication.org --- http://www.ms-eradication.org/ 
Microsuck --- http://www.ms-eradication.org/newsite.shtml 

Bad ingredients in your financial happy meal
You'll also learn why the posters refer to American Express's (known as Threadneedle in Europe, United Kingdom (UK)) financial plans as a financial plan Happy Meal. Just like McDonald's Happy Meal, AEFA's financial plan happy meal always consists of the same items: Annuity, VUL, AXP Funds, and disability insurance.
American Express Amexsux.com --- http://www.amexsux.com/ 

This is really a complaint forum with links to complaint forums for other large chains of stores
Wal-Mart WalMart-Blows.com --- http://walmart-blows.com/ 

Among the claims:  50% of the bills are incorrect (I've got some myself so I believe it)
Verizon Verizonpathetic.com --- http://www.verizonpathetic.com/ 

October 20, 1998 to the present:  Complaints = 4,911; Replies = 66
UAL (parent of United Airlines) Untied.com --- http://www.untied.com/ 

Inside look
Ever wondered why your packages arrive at your door step crunched, smashed, broken, snapped and crushed?  You've probably never been inside a UPS facility and witnessed the package smashing first-hand. You've probably never watched a truck get unloaded, where the packages are thrown out the back door onto the conveyor belts and then thrown into the back door of another truck. But I have.
United Parcel Service UnitedPackageSmashers.com --- http://www.unitedpackagesmashers.com/ 
Jensen Comment:  We have a lot of package shipments, and I’ve had more damaged parcels from the USPO.

There was a tenth site that went dark about the time this article was published


It's called the CNN Gag Order, but somebody's not listening
Tuesday morning's editorial meeting included a warning to employees not to leak complaints about the network. TVNewser has obtained an excerpt from the editorial meeting notes, as they are sent by Sue Bunda: "Jon [Klein] started the meeting by reminding everyone that the editorial meeting is sacrosanct....what is said in this meeting should not be leaked outside the company. He reminded everyone that leaking will get a person fired if they are caught...Jon has an open door and called the idea of leaking complaints foolish when any employee can approach him in person, on the phone, via email. He is...
"TVNewser Post Provokes Warning To CNN Employees: 'What Is Said In This Meeting Should Not Be Leaked Outside The Co.'," MidiaBistro, March 9, 2005 ---  http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ 


It's called the former Rutgers Gag Order
Amid a barrage of criticism, Rutgers University on Tuesday reversed an earlier decision restricting students in an investigative journalism course from exploring topics at the university.  John Pavlik, chairman of the journalism and media studies department, had mandated in January that students in the Investigative and In Depth Reporting class at Rutgers limit their work to off-campus subjects. He had made that decision, in part, because of complaints from colleagues and officials in other departments about some of the articles students in the course had written, including one on alleged special treatment of athletes that The Daily Targum, Rutgers's student newspaper, had declined to publish.  Inside Higher Ed's article last week on the Rutgers controversy prompted a barrage of criticism of the department's decision. One local newspaper columnist blasted the decision in a column called "The Sting of Rutgers Censorship." Officials at Temple and Columbia Universities challenged Pavlik's contention that Rutgers was following their lead in barring journalism students from writing about on-campus issues.  And the Society of Professional Journalists said last week that it would set up a fact finding panel to explore the issue.
Doug Lederman, "Reversing Course at Rutgers," Inside Higher Ed, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/reversing_course_at_rutgers 


Customer vs. Bank of America
According to a report in The Register, Joe Lopez, a small businessman from Florida, alleges that Bank of America was negligent because it failed to protect his account from compromise through known risks. He regularly used the bank's online services to send and receive money from the U.S. and Latin America, but last April he discovered an unauthorized wire transfer for $90,348 sent to a bank in Latvia. When he became aware of the fraud, he notified the police, and when the Secret Service performed a forensic examination of his PCs, they uncovered an infection by a Trojan called Coreflood.
Donald Smith, "Customer vs. Bank of America: Who's to blame?"  Search Security, February 25, 2005 --- http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/columnItem/0,294698,sid14_gci1062440,00.html 


What are the best foods to serve a burglar?
Police say thieves often cannot resist tucking into a snack after breaking into a home, and traces of saliva on the food remains can yield a telltale signature of the criminal's DNA.  A handful of hungry crooks have been caught and jailed this way over the past decade, a phenomenon that has prompted curious scientists to wonder which foods may yield the best saliva sample.  Forensic researchers Heather Zarsky and Ismail Sebetan of the National University in La Jolla, California, organised a dinner party for 13 people, the British weekly New Scientist reports.
"A bite can bait a burglar," Aljazeera, March 10, 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9030541B-1315-4C3D-A9E9-FFA489043776.htm 

The menu
On the menu were pizza, corn on the cob, chicken wings, ribs, chocolates, cheese, apples and carrots.


Just another day on the Merrill Lynch fraud beat
Merrill Lynch & Co. was fined a total of $13.5 million by regulators for failing to supervise four brokers in New Jersey who helped a hedge fund rapidly trade in and out of mutual funds and variable annuity investment accounts to the detriment of other investors.  Three brokers in Merrill's Fort Lee office and one with lesser responsibility in another New Jersey branch allegedly helped hedge fund Millennium Partners LP rapidly trade in and out of 521 mutual funds and 40 variable annuity accounts despite policies at Merrill and some of the funds to discourage such trading, known as market timing, the regulators said. Merrill fired three of the brokers in October 2003.
Jed Horowitz, "Merrill Fined In Market-Timing Case:  Firm to Pay $13.5 Million; 4 Accused of Rapid Trading To Aid Millennium Partners," The Wall Street Journal,  March 9, 2005; Page C15 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111029865794273529,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 

Bucking a spate of previous rulings favorable to the securities industry, arbitrators ordered Merrill Lynch & Co. to pay a Florida couple more than $1 million for failing to disclose that its analysts had conflicts of interest in recommending stocks.
Jed Horowitz, "Merrill Ordered to Pay 2 Clients Over Analyst Conflicts on Stocks," The Wall Street Journal,  March 1, 2005; Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110962110354266151,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 
Jensen Comment:  Merrill Lynch has one of the worst fraud records on Wall Street.  Eliot Spitzer once claimed he had enough smoking guns to bring down Merrill Lynch if he chose to do so.  You can read more by searching for "Merrill" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm 


Hacking Harvard:  No fair peeking
Harvard Business School will reject 119 applicants who followed a hacker's instructions and peeked into the school's admission site to see if they had been accepted, the school's dean said.  "This behavior is unethical at best -- a serious breach of trust that cannot be countered by rationalization," Kim Clark said in a statement Monday. "Any applicant found to have done so will not be admitted to this school."
"Harvard Rejects Applicants Who Peeked into Admissions Computer," MIT's Technology Review, March 8, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/ap/ap_030805.asp?trk=nl 


It started out as just a few malcontents in third world countries, but now the threat has hit the big time. Phishing joins numbers running, drug smuggling and currency fraud as yet another tool of organized crime.
Phishing, which first appeared more than 10 years ago, has grown from humble roots to become the international electronic crime of choice for amateurs and professionals alike.  In its simplest form, phishing involves sending out fake e-mail messages that ask recipients to enter personal information, such as bank account numbers, PINs or credit card numbers, into forms on Web sites that are designed to mimic bank or e-commerce sites.
Dennis Fisher, "Phishing Is Big Business," eWeek, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1772523,00.asp 

 

Bob Jensen's threads on phishing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#Phishing 

 


Question
"What can be done to prevent, postpone, or correct the vision loss at early stages of cataracts?"

 

Answer
For otherwise healthy people, limiting sun exposure, wearing UV blocking eyewear, and consuming a balanced diet rich in antioxidants are probably the wisest ways to help prevent or delay cataracts.
"Dr. Lloyds Guide to Better Eye Care," WebMDHealth --- http://my.webmd.com/content/pages/15/96152.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_td_01 

 


Take the power from the Supreme Court and give it back to the House of Commons
Mother of Slain RCMP Officer: “It’s Time to take our Liberal Attitude to Task” RED DEER, Alberta, March 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The mother of one of the four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers who were shot dead during a drug bust in Alberta Thursday, spoke to the media Saturday with a powerful message for Prime Minister Paul Martin. “It is time that our government take a stand on evil,” Colleen Myrol said Friday from in front of her home in Red Deer, Alberta. “The man who murdered our son and brother was a person who was deeply disturbed and...“Prime Minister Paul Martin, we depend on you and we expect you to change the laws and give the courts real power,” she said. “Give the power back to the police. Take the power from the Supreme Court and give it back to the House of Commons. We are a good country. Brock knew that. He loved the RCMP and all it stood for.”
"Mother of Slain RCMP Officer: 'It’s Time to take our Liberal Attitude to Task'," Life Site, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/mar/05030703.html 
 


Outsourcing may not be the best way to save money
A new Gartner Study shows that Outsourcing may not be the best way to save money. In fact, 80% of the companies that outsource to save money will fail to do so. Of course, there might be other valid efficiency based reasons to outsource. Gartner: Outsourcing costs more than in-house | CNET News.com
From Jerry Trites' blog on March 9, 2005 --- http://www.zorba.ca/blog.html 
See http://news.com.com/Gartner+Outsourcing+costs+more+than+in-house/2100-1022_3-5600485.html?tag=nefd.pop 

 


The following add appealing to spring break students appeared in Business Week's MBA Express, March 9, 2005


South Padre Island, Texas. Located in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast south of San Antonio, the island offers great fishing, windsurfing, and sun-bathing. Throw out your line in the Gulf, and you just might reel in an 800-pound marlin or wahoo.

Jensen Comment:  I don't think spring breakers are casting out for fish.


Possible new assurance service clients for CPA firms
A number of major international charities are opening their doors for the first time to outside inspectors, allowing them to certify that donations are spent as advertised.  The charities say they hope thorough inspections and a new industry seal of approval will assuage public fears of donations being misused. The nonprofits are also trying to keep ahead of a movement in Congress to impose regulations on the fast-growing but largely unsupervised world of nongovernmental organizations.
Michael M. Phillips, "Big Charities Pursue Certification To Quell Fears of Funding Abuses," The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2005; Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111033202546074217,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 

Bob Jensen's threads on charity frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#CharityFrauds

You can read more about assurance services at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#AssuranceServices 

 


Big Brother really is watching you 
The man marched down the street in daylight, armed with a paintball rifle that had been converted to shoot with lethal force. He
then blasted a newly installed camera in hopes of freeing the drug-ridden neighborhood from police surveillance. But the shooter's image was saved on the camera's hard drive. "All it did was get him arrested," chuckled New Orleans' chief technology officer, Greg Meffert. "The camera immediately notified the police and tracked him until he was caught." And when they got him, they found he was wanted on a murder arrant.
Mary Foster, "N. Orleans Installing Surveillance Cameras," SFGate, March 8, 2005 --- http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/03/08/national/a110248S39.DTL 


 

Rape Protest in Pakistan
Thousands of women rallied in eastern Pakistan on Monday to demand justice and protection for a woman who said she was gang-raped at the direction of a village council, after a court ordered the release of her alleged attackers. The victim, Mukhtar Mai, also attended the rally in Multan, a major city in the eastern province of Punjab. Waving signs and chanting, the demonstrators, many of them from nearby villages, joined the rally. Organizer Farzana Bari said more than 3,000 women were at the event. "We will fight for justice for Mukhtar Mai," the women chanted during...
Kansas City Star, March 8, 2005

 


 

Don't toot your own horn in France
But that's not the way the musicians' unions in Germany and France see it. Mr. Mertens of the Deutsche Orchestervereinigung, or German orchestra union, says people like Mr. Hartung are engaging in "unfair competition" that "jeopardizes European jobs." According to this view, orchestra directors bringing in low-wage East European musicians to play to West European crowds are exploitative profiteers who are mistreating their workers and harming their West European counterparts at the same time. In other words, putting on a tour in small towns that can't afford a French opera company and giving work to eager musicians from the east is a lose-lose proposition.
Brian M. Carney, "Show Stopper," The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111031869846473836,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

 


 

Where's Jane?
No one will be asking "Where's Jane?" in a few weeks, when her autobiography, "My Life So Far," arrives with the kind of fiercely controlled, all-fronts media campaign politicians can only dream of. Her publisher, Random House, will not release the book to reporters or critics in advance, . . . Yet her influence on the popular culture has been so enormous that it would be foolish to dismiss her as just another actress trying for a comeback; after all, she has set a path American society has followed more than once. Her political activism, unusual for a movie star in the 70's, is now so common she seems like the template for contemporary celebrity. Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Arnold Schwarzenegger might have had very different careers without her. Today only the most bubble-headed pop stars are expected not to comment on world events.
Caryn James, "Where's Jane Fonda? On Yet Another Journey," The New York Times,  March 8, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/movies/08fond.html 

 


 

Don't crowd her
The Monterey Aquarium's popular great white shark is now a killer, having taken down one of its Outer Bay tank-mates two weeks ago and inflicting a 5-inch gash in the tail of another soupfin shark on Monday. But aquarium officials believe the 88-pound, well-fed white shark wasn't hunting its neighbors -- only reflexively chomping when it was startled by an accidental collision with the slower-swimming sharks. There are no plans to move the female great white, although officials may relocate two remaining soupfin sharks to avoid potential clashes in the million-gallon tank. "The white shark and the soupfins are tending...
Alan Gathright, "Aquarium attack called accident Great white shark chomped on tail of its tank-mate," San Francisco Chronicle, March 9, 2005 --- http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/09/BAGG1BMH9B1.DTL 

 


 

Would donating the land to the Feds really serve their purpose?
The Mount Soledad cross must go, the San Diego City Council said yesterday. The 16-year saga of whether the cross would stay on public land in La Jolla came to an emotional conclusion last night as the council voted 5-3 to reject a last-ditch effort to keep it in place. The vote capped a six-hour public hearing that attracted 350 people, most of them Christians who urged the council to donate the cross and surrounding land to the federal government so it possibly could remain where it has stood since 1954. But the cross now must be moved to comply...
Matthew T. Hall, "No clemency for cross," The San Diego Union Tribune, March 9, 2005 --- http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050309/news_7n9cross.html 
 



Hissy fits and real progress
Susan Estrich is playing a dog-eared victim card and in doing so reveals herself as well behind her curves. Three-fourths of American women between 25 to 34 are in the workforce, up from half in 1975. A report by the World Future Society finds that Generation Xers and their younger counterparts in the millennial generation toil in a workplace that is all but "gender-blind." Fully 57 percent of American college students are women.  The old-boy school of the entrepreneurial world has given way to the "new girl" school, with women more and more starting their own shops and companies. Life insurance companies sell more policies to women than to men. As women continue to draw on experience and education, they're accelerating their numbers in upper management, too. Top salaries for women are not yet as high as those for men, but women's salaries have been rising faster in America for 30 years. Trends suggest that the average woman's income may exceed that of the average man within a generation.
Suzanne Fields, "Hissy fits and real progress," Jewish World Review, March 10, 2005 --- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/fields031005.asp 


Forwarded by Debbie Bowling

Hackers commandeered a database owned by information industry giant Lexis Nexis, gaining access to the personal files of as many as 32,000 people, company officials said Wednesday.  Federal and company investigators were looking into the breach at Seisint, which was recently acquired by Lexis Nexis and includes millions of personal files for use by such customers as police and legal professionals.
Ellen Simon, "U.S. Citizens' Data Possibly Compromised," ABC News, March 9, 2005 --- http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=565298 


Eight hours in bed, seven for sleep, one for ____________ (think of something that will help you sleep more soundly such as reading accounting books, watching TV commercials, ?)
Seven hours of sleep is plenty for most people. Much more than that isn't good for you. In fact, people who regularly sleep more than eight hours a night tend to die sooner.  A bit less won't hurt you. But less than five hours' sleep, night after night, takes a toll.  Sleeping late once in a while won't hurt. Neither will getting too little sleep every so often. But don't make a habit of it. Sleeping well is as important to your health as eating well.
"What's a Good Night's Sleep?," WebMDHealth, March 9, 2005 --- http://my.webmd.com/content/article/71/81370.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_td_01 


March 9, 2005 message from Paula
Just wanted to let you know that the new Homeland Security Bill has passed. Things will be different now and Internet surfing will be tracked by what the FBI calls a "non-intrusive method." The FBI says you will not notice anything different.
For a demonstration, click on the link below...

Homeland Security --- http://users.chartertn.net/tonytemplin/FBI_eyes/ 


Church Versus State
A federal appeals court in Washington endorsed the use of federal AmeriCorps money to place young teachers in religious schools. The decision reversed a lower court judge who said the program crossed the constitutional line separating church and state.  The AmeriCorps program trains participants, offers them $4,725 in financial aid and has them teach needy children in secular and religious schools. The participants fulfill a service requirement of 1,700 hours by teaching secular subjects, though they may also teach religious courses. The American Jewish Congress, which brought the case, argued that federal money was being used improperly to pay for teaching Christian values.
"Appeals court reverses ruling on AmeriCorps," USA Today, March 9, 2005, Page 8A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050309/a_capcol09.art.htm 

 


This concerns a hilarious essay generating site noted by David Albrecht.
Message from Charlie Betts [cbetts@COLLEGE.DTCC.EDU

His web site ( http://radioworldwide.gospelcom.net/essaygenerator/ ) does more than generate funny essays. Among other things it also has a proverb generator. I tried the word "accounting" several times and got the following responses (among others)

"An accounting in time saves nine." 
"No use crying over spilt accounting." 
"Two wrongs do not make an accounting." 
"Better the accounting you know than the accounting you don't."

The last one is my favorite and can be taken several ways, but I'm not sure how original it is. I think I've heard it used before as an argument against the acceptance of International Accounting Standards and against almost any accounting change proposed by the FASB.

Charlie Betts 
"America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete does in a whole week." Evan Esar (or at least some professional athletes)

Charles M. Betts DTCC, 
Terry Campus 
100 Campus Drive 
Dover DE 19904
cbetts@college.dtcc.edu  


Forwarded by Auntie Bev
What me mudder said vs. what me fadder said --- http://txc.net.au/~mapie/memudder.htm 


Cleaning Up Corporate Japan
Is Japan Inc. finally moving toward more responsible corporate governance? After last week's arrest of Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, owner of the country's major railway, hotel and resort conglomerate Seibu group, there's at least reason to believe that the government is finally demanding more accountability from its corporate leaders.  Mr. Tsutsumi, former chairman of Seibu railway and its holding company, Kokudo, was arrested on Thursday on charges of insider trading and falsification of documents. While his guilt of these charges is still to be determined, the Japanese press has not held back from criticizing the politically influential Mr. Tsutsumi and his business empire, portraying them as powerful symbols of corporate Japan's lack of transparency and disregard for shareholder interests.
"Cleaning Up Corporate Japan," The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111040748350775119,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

Bob Jensen's rotten to the core threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm 


Forwarded by Don Mathis
The National Consumer Law Center placed an emphasis on divorce as a primary causal factor in their testimony before Congress in 1998: the average bankruptcy occurs “because of the convergence of consumer debt, job loss and divorce ... when a family splits up, the pressure of running a household with less total income is impossible.” They also cite downsizing, economic dislocation, income disruptions and underemployment as major factors.  The President of Easton Bank and Trust Company not only emphasized the problem of divorce in his congressional testimony, but also pointed out the real reason why banks want bankruptcy reform in the first place: “The industry has long understood, and since 1997, testified before both the House and Senate that many factors such as divorce, lack of health insurance etc. all play a role in causing bankruptcy. We cannot and would not underwrite for these types of factors—can you imagine if on the credit application, we asked about such matters?”
Robert R. Usher, "Mensnewsdaily.com," March 9, 2005 --- http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/u-v/usher/2005/usher030905.htm 


"How Banks Pretty Up The Profit Picture:   Playing with loan-loss reserves can produce deceiving earnings," Business Week, February 21, 2005 --- http://yahoo.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_08/b3921110_mz020.htm 

Last year the banks had an easy way to juice their profits. All they had to do was allocate a little less money to loan-loss reserves -- the money they set aside to cover bad debt. As the economy has improved and defaults have slowed, many decided they didn't need as much in reserve as they did in 2003, and presto, their earnings per share would rise a few cents.

But investors who assume the profits are humming and decide to buy bank stocks could be in for a shock. In 2005 many banks won't have this profit source. Some have already pared loan-loss reserves as much as they reasonably can, analysts say. "A lot of banks may do this from time to time to meet estimates," says Brian Shullaw, senior research analyst at SNL Financial in Charlottesville, Va.

The trouble with whittling away the reserves is that as banks write more loans, they will have to replenish the reserves. Plus, if credit conditions worsen as economic growth slows and interest rates rise, they will need to set aside even more, eating further into profits.

Do a little digging, and the current numbers don't look so great. Detroit's Comerica Inc. (CMA ) had one of the largest drops in its loan-loss reserves relative to total assets, according to a study of large banks' fourth-quarter earnings done by SNL for BusinessWeek. Not only did Comerica fail to add money in the fourth quarter, it also extracted $21 million from the pot. That gave it an extra $98 million in income, or 57 cents a share, that it didn't have last year. The bank beat analysts' earnings estimates by 10 cents. Comerica Chief Credit Officer Dale Greene says muted loan growth, coupled with major improvement in credit quality, justify the move.

Others, such as Citigroup (C ), garnered a few extra cents from replenishing reserves by a smaller amount than before. But it was enough to help them beat analysts' earnings estimates by a penny or two. Citi Chief Financial Officer Sallie L. Krawcheck said in a Jan. 20 conference call that the reserving process was done in mid-quarter based on a mathematical formula. She noted: "We as a company work very hard to systematize the process around rigorous analytics."

Of course, banks can't just shift funds around willy-nilly. Accounting rules dictate that they have to justify decreases in loan-loss allowances, for example by citing substantial improvement in credit trends. This past quarter, a bevy of bank earnings releases cited fewer nonperforming loans, improving asset quality, and a stronger underlying global economy as reasons for smaller loan-loss provisions. Bill Lewis, leader of the U.S. banking practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, notes that subjectivity is often involved, but "most banks, in light of heightened regulatory scrutiny, are more precise in their estimation methodologies today than they have been in the past."

Maybe so, but even if the decreases in reserves are perfectly justifiable, there are still problems with this common industry practice. Besides cutting reserves to the core, banks "are increasing the cyclicality of earnings," says Richard Bove, a banking analyst at Punk, Ziegel & Co. "When bad times come, you know they are going to be increasing the size of the reserves." Already, Citi's Krawcheck has warned analysts not to expect substantial reductions in provisions in the future.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on banking misdeeds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm 


March 16 --- Happy St. Urho Day
Some say the truth is stranger than fiction. They obviously have never heard about St. Urho, (pronounced oorlho) the patron ''saint'' of Finland.  Not to be outdone by St. Patrick's Day celebrations on March 17, St. Urho's Day is celebrated the day before, giving participants an additional 24 hours to pursue the fun. While cynics may claim the holiday is bogus, most folks good-naturedly join in the festivities. Although St. Urho's Day originated in Minnesota, every state in the union recognizes St. Urho's Day.  As with most legends, the origins of St. Urho's Day are unclear, and details of his reputed heroics freely change in the telling. There is a traditional story and more modern versions, but by most accounts, the holiday has been celebrated for only about 50 years. To add ''authenticity'' to the tale, a statue of St. Urho stands in Menahga, Minn. He holds a pitchfork with a giant grasshopper impaled in its tines and a plaque below recounts this bizarre folk tale:  A long, long time ago, before the last glacial period when the climate was warmer, wild grapes grew in profusion in the country known as Finland. Archaeologists made this discovery by studying scratches on the bones of giant bears that once roamed Northern Europe. The Finnish farmers were threatened by a plague of grasshoppers  Our brave young hero, St. Urho, came to the rescue, waved his pitchfork and in a loud, threatening voice, commanded the grasshoppers, ''Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, menetaalta hiiten'' which in English loosely translates to ''Grasshopper, grasshopper, get outta here, now.'' And like St. Patrick, who is credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland, St. Urho banished the grasshoppers from the vineyards of Finland and saved the country from ruin.
Kathy Antoniotti "St. Urho Day, fact or fiction," McCall.com, March 14, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/StUrho 


Some college songs to sing on St. Orho Day
"March Madness," by Mark J. Drozdowski, March 11, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/march_madness 

I also noticed that some songs reference other schools. Penn mentions Harvard's and Yale's colors, while neighboring Swarthmore, in its memorable "Hip, Hip, Hip, for Old Swarthmore," adds Cornell and Haverford to the mix. Lafayette promises to "dig Lehigh's grave both wide and deep, wide and deep," and "put tombstones at her head and feet, head and feet."  But Illinois manages to offend the most with this ballad:

     Don't send my boy to Harvard, a dying mother said,
     Don't send my boy to Michigan, I'd rather he were dead.
     But send my boy to Illinois, 'tis better than Cornell,
     and rather than Chicago, I would see my boy in hell.

Many songs reveal their age. Cal Tech implores its football team to "smash the line of our old enemy," yet no longer fields a football team. The only things they smash these days are atoms. Harvard students still play "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard" even though the university now enrolls more women than men.  


The Academic Bill of Rights Poster Child Can't Be Found
A criminology course at the University of Northern Colorado is the setting for one of David Horowitz's favorite stories.  As he tells it, a required essay on a mid-term exam was for students to "explain why George Bush is a war criminal." A student submitted an essay on why Saddam Hussein was a war criminal and she received an F.  But a number of blogs and columns have noted in recent days that neither the student nor the professor can be found. Links set up from Horowitz's writings on the subject to Colorado legislative hearings where he says the incident was discussed feature no discussion of the incident.  Mano Singham, director of Case Western Reserve University's Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education, spent some trying to track down the course and the student, and wrote about the experience for The Plain Dealer, finding no evidence of any such incident at the university in question or in Colorado legislative records.  "So does this mysterious professor actually exist? Did this incident actually happen? It is hard to say no for certain, since that involves proving a negative. But there are some characteristics of urban legends that this story shares, in particular the absence of details (names, places, dates) that enable one to pin it down to anything concrete," Singham wrote. "Given that Horowitz and his group have shown no scruples in the past about naming people in academia that they dislike, their sudden coyness in this particular case is a little surprising."  Many professors believe that the "Academic Bill of Rights," proposed by Horowitz and his supporters in many state legislatures, would encourage harassment of professors and monitoring of their views. But Horowitz has repeatedly justified the legislation by pointing to examples -- like the alleged Northern Colorado student -- to say that legislation is needed.  A good compilation of the online discussions and evidence in the case was posted Friday on the blog Cliopatria by Jonathan Dresner, an assistant professor of East Asian history at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Dresner found it "particularly odd" that "Horowitz's own site has links which appear to be citations but which go to hearings in which the testimony in question clearly doesn't appear."
Scott Jaschik, "The Poster Child Who Can't Be Found," Inside Higher Ed, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_poster_child_who_can_t_be_found 

Because while a Northern Colorado spokeswoman acknowledged Monday that a complaint had been filed, she also said that the test question was not the one described by Horowitz, the grade was not an F, and there were clearly non-political reasons for whatever grade was given. And the professor who has been held up as an example of out-of-control liberal academics? In an interview last night, he said that he's a registered Republican.  In addition, the university was able to directly refute other statements made by Horowitz supporters. For instance, Students for Academic Freedom, a group that backs Horowitz, on Monday posted an articleon its Web site (which was then widely posted by conservatives on other Web sites) with the headline "University of Northern Colorado Story Confirmed." The article, among other things, said that the professor in the course had been unable to produce any copies of the test questions. But the university has had the test the entire time -- and the question isn't the way it has been described by Horowitz.
Scott Jaschik, "Tattered Poster Child," Inside Higher Ed, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/tattered_poster_child 


APR (Academic Performance Rate)
Just another NCAA sham that allows big-bucks schools to ignore top athlete scholarship

We should perhaps celebrate any change in popular culture that appears to support academic success, even if the motives of the NCAA focus more on commercial viability than academic integrity. At the same time, we should always recognize the fundamental conflict that exists between the all-too-human demand for competitive sports excellence that drives the NCAA and the less visible and less intense requirement that our students be students, even when they serve athletics, a concern of faculty and many other observers. Some institutions, more interested in the competition than the student, will likely find ways to evade much of this legislation through soft courses and majors, overly zealous academic advising and similar maneuvers. At the same time, a few of the semi-pro players in high school may decide that they should skip the collegiate experience altogether.  One thing is for sure, the NCAA franchising operation will continue its highly compensated, cautious and commercially successful management of the entertainment quality of the college sports enterprise, and the academics will find a way to adjust.
John V. Lombardi, "Reality Check," Inside Higher Ed, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/reality_check__3 

Now if we could only have the same success in the male NFL, NBA, NHL, and professional baseball.
But even as they increasingly look to play in the WNBA, college women tend to view professional basketball not as a final destination, but as one component of a life that will continue beyond the court. It doesn't pay big, so many female athletes play for the love of the sport and as a way to fund graduate or medical school.
Amy Merrick, "Stepping Stone," The Wall Street Journal,  March 14, 2005; Page R8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111038775601474739,00.html?mod=todays_us_the_journal_report 


An 83-year history project at Princeton University
In 1943, Princeton University decided to publish the complete papers of Thomas Jefferson. Compiling his notes and letters in chronological order and publishing them in bound volumes, the Papers of Thomas Jefferson project now is up to Jefferson's 1801 inauguration, with eight years of his presidency and 25 years of his life still ahead.  The project is taking so long that Monticello, Jefferson's Virginia estate, has taken over editing the papers from the third president's retirement years. Still, the two teams say they won't wrap up the project until perhaps 2026, taking 83 years, which is as long as Jefferson lived . . . It certainly wasn't supposed to take this long. A congressional commission, at the height of World War II, proposed publishing Jefferson's papers and hired Julian Boyd, a Princeton historian, as the first editor. Mr. Boyd, who brought the project to New Jersey, predicted it would take 15 or 20 years.  But "he had no idea how many documents would be assembled" -- 70,000 photocopies from 900 libraries and collections, says Barbara Oberg, the current editor, who arrived seven years ago in the middle of Vol. 28, just as the project was reaching the end of Jefferson's term as secretary of state.
June Kronholz, "Why a Life's Work Is Taking Princeton So Long to Document:  Unfinished Jefferson Project Is Now in Its 63rd Year; Yale's Ben Franklin Slog," The Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2005; Page A1--- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111085059678779477,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 


Bye Bye Hank!
At the helm of American International Group Inc., Maurice Greenberg was under mounting pressure. Regulators were applying increasing heat over a transaction AIG did with a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a deal they considered possibly misleading to AIG investors.  Mr. Greenberg, known as Hank, resisted the pressure with the same tenacity he displayed in nearly four decades running what has become the world's largest insurer. But then, in the past week, came the tipping point. The regulators -- relying on nearly 1,000 pages of e-mails and phone-call records -- gave AIG's independent directors an analysis providing new details of the deal and Mr. Greenberg's role in it. And some of that was in conflict with or missing from his statements on the matter.
Monica Langley and Theo Francis, "How Investigations of AIG Led To Retirement of Longtime CEO:  Spitzer's and SEC's Close Look At Big Trove of Documents Put Pressure on the Chief Greenberg: 'I'll Get Going Now'," The Wall Street Journal,  March 15, 2005; Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111084108330679173,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Also from The New York Times --- • Video: The Times's Gretchen Morgenson

How did AIG use insurance contracts to sell accounting fraud?
Steven Gluckstern and Michael Palm figured out how to minimize insurers' risk and give customers an accounting edge and a tax break: Multiyear contracts in which the premiums covered most if not all of the potential losses -- but refunded much of the unclaimed money at the end of the contract.  Buyers loved the policies because they could offset losses with loan-like proceeds without disclosing liabilities that would muddy their bottom lines. And the premiums were tax deductible.  Such policies became among the industry's hottest products. Now, two decades later, they are the focus of multiple state and federal investigations into companies suspected of using them to manipulate earnings. And this week, those probes helped topple Mr. Greenberg as chief executive, although he will remain chairman. His company sold one policy later declared a sham by federal authorities and itself bought another -- now the focus of intense scrutiny -- from Berkshire Hathaway Inc., where Messrs. Gluckstern and Palm got their start.  "If used improperly, these contracts can enable a company to conceal the bottom-line impact of a loss and thus misrepresent its financial results," says the Securities and Exchange Commission's Mark Schonfeld, who is overseeing the agency's probe of such policies as the head of its Northeast office.
Ianthe Jeanne Dugan and Theo Francis, "How a Hot Insurance Product Burned AIG:  An Unlikely Duo's New Approach Called 'Finite Risk Insurance' Was a Hit -- Until Inquiries Began," The Wall Street Journal,  March 15, 2005; Page C1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111084339061279243,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 
Bob Jensen's threads on "rotten to the core" insurance rackets can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm#MutualFunds 


Symptoms include "excessive and sometimes fraudulent risks
Add to the growing number of recently diagnosed diseases in America the Icarus Syndrome. This malady, discovered by a law professor, is said to affect corporations in particular. The symptoms include "excessive and sometimes fraudulent risks." The disease has attacked corporate America not only in our own scandal-plagued times but, it seems, since about 1873.  Icarus in the Boardroom (Oxford University Press, 250 pages, $25) is an attempt to alert public-health officials, so to speak, to the dangers of this contagion. David Skeel, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, labels all sorts of apparently admirable traits -- "self-confidence, visionary insight, the ability to think outside the box" -- as potential Icaran qualities, full of danger. They "may spur entrepreneurs to take misguided risks," he writes, "in the belief that everything they touch will eventually turn to gold." Fortunately, he offers a number of cures, ranging from small doses of regulation to massive doses of regulation.  And little wonder. What is most interesting about "Icarus in the Boardroom" is the vast divide it reveals -- between American lawyers who study corporations and, well, everybody else. Following common sense and economic logic, most people view corporate risk-taking and corporate fraud as different things: Fraud involves lying; risk-taking does not. As in the case of Enron and WorldCom, fraudulent executives often misstate how much risk their investors will assume.  For academic lawyers such as Mr. Skeel, however, it seems that risk-taking and fraud are points on a continuum. Risk-taking quickly fades into "excessive" risk-taking, which then morphs into fraud. Mr. Skeel never says just how we are to distinguish acceptable risks from the excessive and fraudulent kind. Apparently, though, lawmakers and regulators will figure out a formula, for it falls to them, in Mr. Skeel's view, "to prevent risk-taking that edges toward market manipulation or fraud."
Jonathan R. Macey, "A Risky Proposition," The Wall Street Journal,  March 15, 2005; Page D8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111083993718979142,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 
Bob Jensen's "Rotten to the Core" threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm 


I think Philip Bennett should move to China and try out that nation's free speech and democratic realities
"I don't think US should be the leader of the world . . . I think China is the best place in the world to be an American journalist right now." Philip Bennett, Editor of Washington Post  --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200503/10/print20050310_176350.html 

The People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese communist dictatorship, announced today that it would merge with the Washington Post, to publish "an accurate newspaper of global significance called The Wa-Po Daily."  Washington Post Managing Editor Philip Bennett will oversee news-gathering operations for The Wa-Po Daily, under the guidance of "an unnamed committee of Chinese truth advocates."  The first hints of the media marriage emerged from an interview Mr. Bennett granted to People's Daily correspondent Yong Tang, in which the veteran American newsman drew no moral distinction between the Chinese and American expressions of democracy and accused the Bush administration of lying and limiting freedom of the press.
Scott Ott, "Chinese Daily-Washington Post Merger Boosts Credibility," Scrapple Face, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/002112.html 

China's Communist Party maintains its monopoly on political power by delivering benefits to its 1.3 billion people, in line with governments worldwide. It also guards its turf jealously by ensuring that watchful party officials sit in every corner of society deemed a potential threat to that monopoly. This entails everything from "officially sanctioned" religious organizations and political parties to sports groups, chambers of commerce, university departments and farm collectives.  Groups viewed as a threat are quickly batted down, as seen with official crackdowns on Tibetan monks, Falun Gong practitioners, separatist Muslims in the country's west and Internet essayists. A recently published list of banned gatherings, which included an amateur singing club, a pigeon lovers group and a dozen people holding a ceremony to bless a new building, shows how jittery the party can be.  Police, cybercops and vaguely worded national security laws are among the bluntest weapons in the party's arsenal. At least as effective are the demotions and other subtle threats that engender self-censorship.  Communist leaders have read their history and are well aware that as least as many Chinese dynasties have fallen to internal rot, complacency and corruption as to barbarian threats beyond the Great Wall.  That's where the Hu and Wen campaign for enhanced discipline comes in. With 68 million members, or an all-time high of 5.2% of China's population, the Communist Party is bloated and increasingly unfocused.
Mark Magnier, "Flip Side to Fame in China," Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/ChinaMarch14 


Question
What is the latest, often illegal, craze on campus?

Answer
Serious Gambling
For Michael Sandberg, it started a few years ago with nickel-and-dime games among friends. But last fall, he says, it became the source of a six-figure income and an alternative to law school.Mr. Sandberg's is an extreme example of a gambling revolution on the nation's college campuses. Mr. Sandberg calls it an explosion, one spurred by televised poker championships and a proliferation of Web sites that offer online poker games.  Experts say the evidence of gambling's popularity on campus is hard to miss. In December, for example, a sorority at Columbia held its first, 80-player poker tournament with a $10 buy-in, a minimum amount required to play, while the University of North Carolina held its first tournament, a 175-player competition, in October. Both games filled up and had waiting lists. At the University of Pennsylvania, private games are advertised every night in a campus e-mail list.
Jonathan Cheng, "Ante Up at Dear Old Princeton: Online Poker Is a Campus Draw," The New York Times, March 14, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/CampusGambling 


The Great Game
This analysis of chess history synthesized in my mind with my extensive experience of playing against computers. For over 50 years, back to the earliest days of computing, chess has been recognized as a unique cognitive battleground. The world watched my matches with "Deep Blue," "Fritz," and "Junior" as man-versus-machine competitions and a way to see how computers "think." To me they were also helpful in revealing how humans make decisions. These computers looked at millions of positions per second, weighing each one to find the mathematically best moves. And yet a human, seeing just two or three positions per second, but guided by intuition and experience, could compete with the mighty machines.  The nature of the decision-making process is little explored and I have become fascinated with the possibility of using my expertise to illuminate these questions. I am currently working on a book on how life imitates chess, that will be released this fall in America by Penguin. It examines the unique formulae people use in thinking and problem-solving. For example, the way hope and doubt affect how we process information, or the way we perform in a crisis. I hope it will also serve as a guide to improving these processes.  Over the past several years I have made a number of speeches on the topic of chess themes in life, particularly in business thinking and strategy. The response has been overwhelming and enlightening and I am extracting a number of valuable parallels. For example: the difference between tactics and strategy; how to train your intuition; and maintaining creativity in an era of analysis. In particular, the topic of intuition is intriguing. When I analyzed a 1894 world championship game between Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz, I also looked at their post-game analysis and the comments of other top players of the day. They all made more mistakes in analysis than the players had made during the game! The intuitive decisions of the players during the game were correct in most cases, and more often so than when they had all the time in the world to analyze later.
Gary Kasparov, "The Great Game," The Wall Street Journal,  March 14, 2005; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111076463398178318,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

I believe my talents and experience can be useful in the political realm. There is something to be said for a chess player's ability to see the whole board. Many politicians are so focused on one problem, or a single aspect of a problem, that they remain unaware that solving it may require action on something that appears unrelated. It is natural for a chess player, by contrast, to look at the big picture. Zbigniew Brzezinski recently wrote on geopolitics as "The Grand Chessboard" and the analogy persists in many ways. There is no single solution to a chess game; you must consider every factor to produce a complete strategic solution.  Like everyone, I am dismayed by the long list of problems facing the world today. I am more concerned about the even longer list of proposed solutions and how many of them are considered by their proponents to be exclusive. Instead of looking at the whole board, they are focusing too narrowly and as a result devise narrow solutions. Our leaders must be able to think more ambitiously.
Gary Kasparov, "The Great Game," The Wall Street Journal,  March 14, 2005; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111076463398178318,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Number of people who read the paper online now surpasses the number who buy the print edition
Consumers are willing to spend millions of dollars on the Web when it comes to music services like iTunes and gaming sites like Xbox Live. But when it comes to online news, they are happy to read it but loath to pay for it.  Newspaper Web sites have been so popular that at some newspapers, including The New York Times, the number of people who read the paper online now surpasses the number who buy the print edition.  This migration of readers is beginning to transform the newspaper industry. Advertising revenue from online sites is booming and, while it accounts for only 2 percent or 3 percent of most newspapers' overall revenues, it is the fastest-growing source of revenue. And newspaper executives are watching anxiously as the number of online readers grows while the number of print readers declines.
Katherine Q. Seelye, "Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?" The New York Times, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/business/media/14paper.html


Bush administration's gradual, flexible strategy for reconstructing Afghanistan 
One man's journey from feared warlord to bland bureaucrat illustrates how the U.S. has adopted a gradual, flexible strategy for reconstructing Afghanistan since ousting the Taliban government in 2001.  Mr. Khan has made the journey from feared warlord to bland bureaucrat thanks to the Bush administration's gradual, flexible strategy for reconstructing Afghanistan since ousting the Taliban government in 2001. Rather than trying to force radical change overnight, the U.S. has been patient. It has avoided confrontations with tribal elders and warlords -- letting them until recently keep their private militias and weapons and even paying the salaries of their fighters -- while building a credible central government in Kabul.  The strategy has meant that reconstruction here slogs ahead at a slow pace. But it has also helped contain support for the insurgency still being waged by remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda.
David S. Cloud, "Afghan Warlords Slowly Come In From the Cold," The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2005, Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111077025608878404,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 
Jensen Comment:  Now if we could only think of a way for Afghans to make a sustainable living outside of opium production.


Fraudulent Health Clinics and Doctors:  What happened to ethics?
A group of health clinics and doctors paid thousands of people across the U.S. to undergo unnecessary surgery so they could defraud insurers out of tens of millions of dollars, a lawsuit alleges.  Twelve Blue Cross and Blue Shield health-insurance plans sued a group of Southern California health-care clinics, physicians and others they say are involved in the elaborate scheme.  The scope of the alleged fraud is vast. The insurers claim the clinics paid recruiters to enlist patients in 47 states, then transported the people to California where they underwent unnecessary and sometimes dangerous outpatient procedures.
"Blue Cross Groups Sue Clinics, Doctors, Claiming Insurance Fraud," The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2005; Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111076460482378314,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 
Bob Jensen's threads on medical and drug company frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#PhysiciansAndDrugCompanies 


Amazon Pays $27.5 Million To Settle Securities Suit
Amazon.com Inc. disclosed Friday it has agreed to pay $27.5 million to settle an investor lawsuit alleging securities violations by its officers and directors.  According to its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Seattle-based Internet retailer said it reached a settlement with plaintiffs lawyers in March. The company expects most, if not all, of the settlement will funded by its insurers.  The complaint was filed by stock and bond holders in August 2003. It alleges that Amazon officers and directors made false or misleading statements from Oct. 29, 1998, through Oct. 23, 2001, about the company's business, financial condition and future prospects, among other things.
"Amazon Pays $27.5 Million To Settle Securities Suit," The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2005, Page B9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111054778856777083,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace


So which is it? Highly sensitive to the value of the dollar, or not?
Many economic commentators argue that the trade deficit somehow results from low saving and the federal budget deficit. But reducing the budget deficit can't really help the trade deficit. To shrink the budget deficit, the government must either spend less or tax more, withdrawing demand from the U.S. economy. Purchases of all goods, foreign and domestic, would fall. Since imports make up only about 15% of GDP, the biggest decline of purchases would be domestic, resulting in only a marginal decline in imports relative to the drop in GDP.  Trying to increase household saving (i.e., reduce consumer spending) would help no more. To meaningfully lessen the trade deficit by saving, Americans would need to focus their spending reductions specifically on foreign goods -- highly unlikely in a nation with 85% of its spending on domestic goods and services.  Nor does the dollar need to fall -- and the trade deficit doesn't necessarily fall when the dollar does. Analysts who criticize low saving and the budget gap also often admit the dollar is undervalued in purchasing power, yet they say it must fall further to alleviate the trade deficit. But for a weak dollar to have any impact on imports, the amount of imports must fall by more than the dollar does.  If the dollar falls by 20% and the number of goods imported falls by 20%, the sum of dollars sent abroad remains the same: Americans purchase fewer imported goods, but spend more on the ones they do buy. Not one new U.S. job is created, while prices rise for American consumers and businesses. Oddly, if demand for imports is relatively inflexible, the trade deficit actually increases with a weaker dollar; Americans just pay more for the same goods. Unless imports fall disproportionately more than the dollar (or exports rise), a lower exchange rate will help neither our trade deficit nor our employment.  Increased exports do help both the trade deficit and U.S. employment, but a weaker dollar is a mixed blessing for U.S. exporters. While it makes completed American goods cost less abroad, the cost of production may rise when they include foreign parts or materials.  Stronger Asian currencies would be no more likely to significantly reduce the trade deficit, given the large differences in wage costs. American manufacturers might find that a 20% decline in the dollar wouldn't lead them to switch purchase of parts from Asian to U.S. suppliers, if the ones from Asia cost 40% less today. The cost of U.S. imports, and U.S. exports using those same parts, would just rise.  The key question is how much aggregate purchases of both U.S. imports and exports might change with the dollar. If imports fall in pace with the dollar and exports rise, the trade deficit would shrink with a lower dollar. But if purchases are less elastic -- if people and businesses continue to buy roughly the same amounts of foreign goods and services even as dollar prices change -- the trade deficit could actually be reduced by a stronger dollar.

So which is it? Highly sensitive to the value of the dollar, or not?  Not -- at least not enough.
Frank and Dan Newman, "Trade Deficit Trickery," The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2005; Page A17 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111076511677178324,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Written at an introductory and somewhat humorous level
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ECONOMICS: Artful Approaches to the Dismal Science
by E Ray Canterbery (Florida State University) ---  http://www.worldscibooks.com/economics/4079.html 

A Brief History of Economics illustrates how the ideas of the great economists not only influenced societies but were themselves shaped by their cultural milieu. Understanding the economists' visions — lucidly and vividly unveiled by Canterbery — allows readers to place economics within a broader community of ideas. Magically, the author links Adam Smith to Isaac Newton's idea of an orderly universe, F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to Thorstein Veblen, John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath to the Great Depression, and Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities to Reaganomics.

Often humorous, Canterbery's easy style will make the student's first foray into economics lively and relevant. Readers will dismiss "dismal" from the science.
Contents:

  • Feudalism and the Evolution of Economic Society
  • Adam Smith's Great Vision
  • Bentham and Malthus: The Hedonist and the "Pastor"
  • The Distribution of Income: Ricardo versus Malthus
  • The Cold Water of Poverty and the Heat of John Stuart Mill's Passions
  • Karl Marx
  • Alfred Marshall: The Great Victorian
  • Thorstein Veblen Takes on the American Captains of Industry
  • The Jazz Age: Aftermath of War and Prelude to Depression
  • John Maynard Keynes and the Great Depression
  • The Many Modern Keynesians
  • The Monetarists and the New Classicals Deepen the Counterrevolution
  • Economic Growth and Technology: Schumpeter and Capitalism's Motion
  • The Many Faces of Capitalism: Galbraith, Heilbroner, and the Institutionalists
  • The Rise of the Casino Economy
  • The Global Economy
  • Climbing the Economist's Mountain to High Theory
  • The Future of Economics

This is a more technical and humorless introduction to economics
ECONOMICS WITH CALCULUS by Michael C Lovell (Wesleyan University, USA) --- 
http://www.worldscibooks.com/economics/5523.html
 

This textbook provides a calculus-based introduction to economics. Students blessed with a working knowledge of the calculus will find that this text facilitates their study of the basic analytical framework of economics. The textbook examines a wide range of micro and macro topics, including prices and markets, equity versus efficiency, Rawls versus Bentham, accounting and the theory of the firm, optimal lot size and just in time, monopoly and competition, exchange rates and the balance of payments, inflation and unemployment, fiscal and monetary policy, IS-LM analysis, aggregate demand and supply, speculation and rational expectations, growth and development, exhaustible resources and over-fishing. While the content is similar to that of conventional introductory economics textbook, the assumption that the reader knows and enjoys the calculus distinguishes this book from the traditional text.
Contents:

  • Production Possibilities
  • Supply and Demand: Where do Prices come from?
  • Maximizing Satisfaction
  • The Business Enterprise: Theory of the Firm
  • Market Structure
  • Distribution: Who Gets What?
  • Monitoring Economic Performance
  • GDP Accounting and the Multiplier
  • Money, Prices and Output
  • Dynamics, Expectations and Inflation
  • Growth and Development

The Capital Structure Conundrum
FOCUS ON FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT by Ivan K Cohen (Richmond University, UK)

Focus on Financial Management by Ivan Cohen offers a concise, enthusiastic and highly focused approach to introducing finance to both undergraduates and MBAs. It closely integrates practical applications and the underlying financial concepts so that the reader gets a clear picture of theory and how it can be applied in practice.

The book has been carefully crafted and classroom-tested to provide an easy-to-read textbook that will engage the student and instructor alike. It has been designed to be used by students of business, finance and economics, and is equally accessible to students in other areas, such as engineering. It requires no preliminary knowledge of finance.
Contents:

  • Introducing Finance
  • The Financial Environment
  • Value: Finance Foundations
  • Sources of Finance: Debt
  • Sources of Finance: Equity
  • Investment Appraisal: Capital Budgeting, Investment Appraisal: Risk
  • The Cost of Capital
  • The Capital Structure Conundrum
  • Extending the Focus: Some Applications

I think Harvard overreacted
At 12:15 a.m. on Wednesday, March 2, a visitor to an online forum posted instructions for exploiting some sloppy Web page coding at ApplyYourself.com, a company based in Fairfax, Va., that, among other things, handles applications for some of the country's most elite business schools, including Harvard Business School.  "I know everyone is getting more and more anxious to check status of their apps to HBS, given their black box," wrote the individual, known only as "brookbond," referring to applications to Harvard Business School. Harvard's decisions are to go out on March 30. "So I looked around their site and found a way. Here are the steps."  Precisely 119 Harvard applicants followed those steps, which required them to log in to their application accounts with the school and, using some creative copying and pasting from the Web page's source code (something any Web surfer is free to do), create an address that would access their application decision - if one had been made.  About 100 applicants to other business schools at M.I.T., Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Dartmouth and Duke, which also use the ApplyYourself.com service, made use of the recipe as well. Some applicants saw rejection letters. Others saw nothing. . . . But many online commenters (NYT spelling error) thought the ethics of the incident were more nuanced.  "I might feel differently if I knew that the applicants were aware that they were breaking the rules," Edward W. Felten, a professor of computer science at Princeton University, wrote in his Web log. "But I'm not sure that an applicant, on being told that his letter was already on the Web and could be accessed by constructing a particular U.R.L., would necessarily conclude that accessing it was against the rules." . . . Mr. Henderson is still awaiting word from a couple of other schools and, in the meantime, has poured his disdain for Harvard into a line of T-shirts that seek to "Free the HBS 119." He said three of the shirts had been sold as of Saturday. 
Tom Zeller Jr., "Not Yet in Business School, and Already Flunking Ethics," The New York Times, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/technology/14harvard.html 


Bad PR for the UAW:  The union should worry more about similar behavior of its own members
The UAW no longer will allow Marine reservists who work out of a base in Detroit to park at the Solidarity House lot if they have foreign cars or display pro-Bush bumper stickers. Marines driven out of UAW lot The union says Marines in foreign cars, displaying Bush stickers unwelcome. By Eric Mayne / The Detroit News Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery DETROIT -- The United Auto Workers says Marine reservists should show a little more semper fi if they want to use the union's parking lot. The Marine Corps motto means "always faithful," but the union says some reservists working out of a base on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit have been decidedly unfaithful to their fellow Americans by driving import cars and trucks.  So the UAW International will no longer allow members of the 1st Battalion 24th Marines to park at Solidarity House if they are driving foreign cars or displaying pro-President Bush bumper stickers.
Free Republic, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1362379/posts 
While we are at war, I think this is bad PR to deny marines what would otherwise be a courtesy if they just drove American cars (which probably has over 50% foreign components anyway).  Besides, some "foreign" vehicles like Toyota trucks are built in both the U.S. and Japan.  

Update on March 16, 2005
Facing intense criticism, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger reversed his decision to ban Marine Corps reservists driving foreign cars or displaying pro-President Bush bumper stickers from parking at the union's Solidarity House headquarters in Detroit.  "I made the wrong call on the parking issue, and I have notified the Marine Corps that all reservists are welcome to park at Solidarity House as they have for the past 10 years," Gettelfinger said in a statement.
"Marines snub UAW olive branch:  Reservists will park elsewhere, although union admits mistake banning nonunion cars, Bush stickers," Detroit News, March 16, 2005 --- http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0503/15/A01-117640.htm 


If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia. 
Margaret Atwood, Canadian writer as quoted by Matt Labash in "Welcome to Canada," The Great White Waste of Time, 03/21/2005, Volume 010, Issue 25 --- http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/349tpijp.asp 


The prospects of oil prices dropping back below $40 per barrel now appear to be running neck and neck with Michael Jackson getting Babysitter of The Year Award.  Delta Air Lines, which up until this latest spurt in fuel prices was heading out of the financial woods, has warned that it may not have sufficient liquidity to meet its needs in 2005. Translating that: they're running out of cash. Reason: skyrocketing fuel costs are draining the airline's coffers. Fast. Delta is just the first to sound the alarm.
The Boyd Group, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.aviationplanning.com/asrc1.htm 


The Bush Train Wreck
One of my favorite George Bush malapropisms is from the 2000 election campaign: "They have miscalculated me as a leader." He meant, of course, that people had miscalculated if they thought he was not a leader.The president's difficulties with off-the-cuff speech have led to all sorts of assumptions about his intellectual confusion and worse. But there is nothing confused about this president's agenda. At this point in his presidency, he has fielded the most focused agenda in modern times, to great effect. His success rate in major policy activities is nothing less than astounding. No wonder he has never vetoed...

Bryan D. Jones, "The Bush Train Wreck," The Seattle Times, March 13, 2005 --- http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002205731_sundaybryan13.html 


By distributing adult films, corporations like DirecTV and Marriott essentially pay porn actors to have sex
The accused Upper East Side madam says she should get a slide — because big companies promote prostitution all the time and are never prosecuted. By distributing adult films, corporations like DirecTV and Marriott essentially pay porn actors to have sex, no less so than a pimp or madam pays a prostitute to have sex with a john, the millionaire reasons. If those companies aren't prosecuted, she says, neither should she be. The legal argument has been filed on behalf of Jenny Paulino, 44, arrested in December after a raid on her alleged American Beauties escort service and brothel at...
Laura Italiano, "Alleged Madam's 'Firm' Defense," The New York Post, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/41079.htm 


Setting a bad example for its students:  Plagiarized from Alabama A&M University
A federal judge on Friday blocked the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools from revoking the accreditation of Edward Waters College while the institution pursues a due process lawsuit against the association.  In December, the regional accrediting group said that it had revoked the Florida college's accreditation, citing documents Edward Waters officials had submitted to the association that appeared to have been plagiarized from Alabama A&M University, another historically black institution.
Doug Lederman, "Staying Alive," Inside Higher Ed, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/staying_alive 
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 


The Arab press makes more sense sometimes than the European press
However, it is unfathomable to think that the Pentagon would have ordered a deliberate assassination of a Western reporter under such high-profile circumstances.  While the idea of the Italian government funding the insurgency and further supporting the new cottage industry of kidnapping runs counter to US policy in Iraq, in this instance the money had apparently already been paid.  In other words, there was nothing to be gained by attacking the Italian rescue vehicle.  And as events have proven, in terms of public relations and international politics, the Americans stood to lose everything by doing so since Italy is one of the few European members of US President George Bush's "coalition of the willing" with a tangible troop commitment of some 3000 soldiers in Iraq.  The attack against Sgrena has only re-ignited the strong anti-war and anti-American sentiments which existed in Italy, and Prime Minister Berlusconi will be hard-pressed by public protests to bring home the Italian contingent.
Scott Taylor, "Hostage bungle: Chaos, not conspiracy," Aljazeera, March 10, 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9F3D082E-919F-4C0E-AD2E-7541EC22B048.htm 


Remember the oil crisis back when Jimmy Carter was president of the U.S.
The nation has a hidden treasure that could help Americans painlessly weather the interruption of oil from Iran. It is an underground cache of 80 million barrels that the Energy Department has been stowing away in empty salt caverns on the Gulf Coast.
The Wall Street Journal, March 15, 1979


March 17 --- Erin go Braugh

Definitions http://www.faqfarm.com/Q/What_does_'Erin_go_braugh'_mean 

Music --- http://www.ireland-information.com/irishmusic/eringobragh.shtml 

Screen savers --- http://twilightbridge.ezthemes.com/pcenhance/ss/spotlight.phtml?St.PatricksDay 

Games etc. --- http://groups.msn.com/FriendsofIrishMusicandCraic/stpatricksdaygamestoplay.msnw 


When are you justified in lying?
I posed your questions to our ethics professor, Rick Shreve. He would apply the standards presented in Sissela Bok's book, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life and conclude that "Bob's" lies did not satisfy any of the three criteria that Bok provides for a justifiable lie. [In brief, they are: A white lie "That's a nice tie you have on today"; a lie in a setting in which lying is an accepted norm "That's my final offer"; or a setting in which one could justify physical violence to attain the same ends that the lie attains.]
Jensen Comment:  The above quotation was Richard Sansing's (Dartmouth) email reply on the AECM to a scenario (too long to print here) involving a lie.  "The name "Bob" is a hypothetical person and has nothing to do with the Bob as in Jensen.  I have a somewhat more legal take on lying.  As in most legal disputes, I apply the test of damages.  Who is hurt by the lie and by how much?  For example, suppose a 20-year old student has both a fake ID (for partying purposes) and a genuine ID (for driving purposes) and that the genuine ID gets lost on a trip.  Using the fake ID to board an aircraft simply to avoid the delay (and possible ticket cost) of waiting for for a replacement of the lost genuine ID card benefits the student without any real harm to anybody else if it is relatively certain no security personnel might be sanctioned (a big if).  On domestic flights at the present time, the chances having to show the ID after boarding the aircraft are very nearly zero.  Of course there is the risk of getting caught when first showing the fake ID, but this may be a risk the student feels is justified in these circumstances.  Using the fake ID to drink in a bar, on the other hand, could harm the owner of the bar (e.g., by causing the loss of a liquor license).  Thus lying to simply avoid the cost and delay of boarding an aircraft differs from lying to drink alcohol.   This runs into the dilemma of the categorical imperative of Kant's moral order on whether the justification in the case of one student boarding an aircraft at one time should extended to universal law for all travelers.  Clearly a universal law justifying commonplace fake IDs would be self defeating.  And thus I am faced with a dilemma of rare versus commonplace (universal law) use of fake IDs to board aircraft merely due to the loss of a genuine ID.  There are no simple answers, but I personally still apply the legal test in a case-by-case situation.  I personally believe in situational ethics.  "Who could possibly be hurt in this instance and by how much?"  It's very difficult to apply universal law in all circumstances.  For example, the law "thou shall not kill" in my mind does not apply in absolutely all circumstances such as in the case of shooting a hostage taker just prior to his killing of scores of school children.  You can read more about Kant's moral order at http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/5i.htm 


PhDs really are brainier 
The brain imaging showed that in older adults taking memory tests, more years of education were associated with more active frontal lobes -- the opposite of what happened in young adults. The researchers believe that education strengthens the ability to "call in the reserves" of mental prowess found in that part of the brain.
Scott Jaschik, "The Payoff for Those Long Years Earning a Ph.D.," Inside Higher Ed, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_payoff_for_those_long_years_earning_a_ph_d 


Most top college basketball players are not brainier
The Knight panel, which since 1989 has been pushing changes aimed at restoring integrity to big-time college sports, has proposed that teams be disqualified from NCAA championship play if they failed to graduate at least half of their athletes within six years of enrolling.  The panel's study found that 42 of the 65 teams that qualified for this year's tournament would fail to meet that standard, based on the latest four-year graduation rates submitted by the institutions -- and many fared much worse. Twenty of the 65 graduated less than 30 percent of their players, and 11 of 65 graduated less than 20 percent.
Doug Lederman, "March Badness," Inside Higher Ed, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/march_badness 


Domestic Partner Benefits Becoming Commonplace in Corporate America
It seems corporate America is more concerned about recruiting and retaining talented employees than it is about the lifestyle choices those employees make outside of work. Charlotte Observer reported that more than 60 percent of the Fortune 100 companies are now offering health benefits to same-sex couples, even as national debate on the issue rages on.  According to a recent survey conducted by Robert Half Management, 1,400 CFOs, ranked "recruiting and retaining qualified staff" as the third top priority for success in 2005, just behind "growing revenue" and "controlling expenses," the Observer reported.  Duke Energy, a conservative utility based in the South, found that offering domestic partner benefits "has been shown to aid in both attracting and retaining employees," Duke Chairman and CEO Paul Anderson said in a news release last week.
"Domestic Partner Benefits Becoming Commonplace in Corporate America," AccountingWeb, March 10, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100654 


European National Heath:  three of four people with high cholesterol were not receiving a statin
Prof. Oliver Schoeffski, chair for health management at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, found severe undertreatment of many illnesses across Europe, including in Germany. For instance, three of four people with high cholesterol were not receiving a statin.  According Dr. James Cleeman, coordinator of the National Cholesterol Educational Program in the U.S., statins are cost effective even at $100 a month because heart disease costs "hundreds of billions of dollars." Treatment for high cholesterol demonstrates how Germany fails to balance lower cost with better treatment. Some 1.8 million Germans take Pfizer's Lipitor, sold there as Sortis. Numerous studies have demonstrated that Sortis lowers cholesterol and thereby reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes, even among high-risk populations suffering from diabetes and hypertension.
Doug Bandow, "Saving Pfennige, Costing Lives," The Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111092651697380405,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Europeans Jumping Ship
In fact, more Europeans are now taking the dramatic step of emigrating than at any time since the 1950s. The Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics recently produced a study showing that the country was facing a new problem: mass emigration of white middle-class families. It seems Holland is losing nearly 50,000 middle-class citizens a year.  This Dutch exodus is mirrored by developments in countries like Germany and France. In Germany, middle-class emigration has risen by nearly 30% in the past few years, from 100,000 in 2001 to 127,000 in 2003. This "white flight" partly explains why, in 2003, the total German population shrank for the first time since the end of World War II. The number of French men and women living in the U.K., which is closer to the American Dream than the European Model, has grown exponentially in the last decade, from 100,000 registered migrants in the mid-1990s to more than 300,000 last year.
Joshua Livestro, "The Heidi Dream," The Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111092673665780414,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Spring thaw thins the ice for Harvard's president
After weeks of simmering discontent over the leadership style of the president of Harvard, Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will consider a resolution of a lack of confidence in him at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday (I think today).   It will also consider a statement expressing the faculty's regret over Dr. Summers's remarks about women in science at a January conference, as well as "aspects of the president's managerial approach," which many faculty members call autocratic and stifling of open discussion.  The statement says that the faculty "appreciates the president's stated intent to address these issues" and that it intends to be collegial as well as assert its role in governance . . . Several faculty members said they did not expect the vote of no confidence to pass. "I think President Summers has shown a great willingness to think about his leadership style and to try to adapt and take into account areas where a number of people had some concerns," said Lawrence F. Katz, a professor of economics and a longtime supporter of Dr. Summers.
Sara Rimer, "Harvard Faculty Voting Tuesday on Confidence in President," The New York Times, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/education/15harvard.html 

Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers suffered an unexpected blow to his already rocky tenure last night, as faculty at the elite institution's largest teaching unit voted in favor of a motion expressing no confidence in his leadership.  During the latest of several such meetings, Harvard's arts-and-sciences faculty attending voted 218 to 185 in favor of a resolution stating simply: "The faculty lacks confidence in the leadership of Lawrence H. Summers." Eighteen faculty members abstained from the vote. Under university rules, the proposition needed the votes of a majority of faculty attending the meeting to pass . . . The vote of no confidence, believed to be the first in Harvard's history, comes at a time when Mr. Summers appeared to be making headway in his efforts to tamp down the turmoil that erupted in January after the former Treasury secretary told a conference on work-force diversity that innate gender differences could help explain why fewer women achieve high-level academic careers in science and math.  Those comments led presidents of other leading universities to speak out against his views. On campus, the turmoil quickly spread to involve an array of complaints ranging from faculty input on major university decisions to Mr. Summers's disputes with Cornel West, a prominent African-American professor who eventually left Harvard for Princeton University.  The referendum on Mr. Summers's leadership was largely symbolic, because only the university's governing board, the Harvard Corporation, has the power to remove the president, and it has issued a statement of support for him. Members of the secretive board couldn't be reached for comment, and a Harvard spokesman said the corporation didn't have any additional comment.
Robert Tomsho and John Hechinger, "Harvard President Is Given a Vote Of No Confidence," The Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2005; Page A3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111091360378480164,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 

Also see http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/16/education/16harvard.html

Also see http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/lost_confidence 


Liberal faculty versus students at Harvard:  Summers Garners Applause At Mather
Five hours after receiving a stern censure from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), University President Lawrence H. Summers received a round of applause from undergraduates in Mather House last night. Summers arrived nearly 30 minutes late to the Mather event, but House Master Sandra Naddaff nonetheless welcomed the president with open arms, a glass of Diet Coke, and a fresh slice of cheese pizza. “I could use some sustenance,” Summers said. “I’ve had a long day—and I’m not going to talk about that.”  Instead, Summers launched into a wide-ranging talk outlining his overarching vision for the future of the University—leaving little doubt that, despite calls for his resignation, the president is in it for the long haul.  Battling back yawns at the beginning of his speech, Summers shed his suit jacket—and his look of fatigue—as he reiterated his call for curricular reforms aimed at bolstering the quality of undergraduate science instruction.  But Summers also sought to defuse criticism that he prioritizes the hard sciences over the humanities. Historically, he said, Harvard has been “more successful in training people and developing skills in the humanities...than we have been in the sciences.”  “The sense is not that science is more important at all,” Summers said. “It’s an area where we have a longer way to go.”
Daniel J. Hemel, "Summers Garners Applause At Mather," The Crimson, March 16, 2005 --- http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article506467.html

How well do senior faculty know students?
A chorus of [students] complained about the poor quality of academic advising and a lack of interaction between students and tenured professors.

When Summers asked the crowd whether “two senior faculty know you well,” barely a quarter of students raised their hands.  “There are a surprising number of students who would like to have more contact with senior faculty—and a surprising number of senior faculty who would like to have more contact with students,” Summers observed.  After the hour-long conversation, students praised Summers’ openness.  “I think he was receptive to student concerns,” said Rita Parai ’07. H. Francis Song ’06 added that Summers “showed more sensitivity to students’ needs than I expected.”
Daniel J. Hemel, "Summers Garners Applause At Mather," The Crimson, March 16, 2005 --- http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article506467.html

I think the vote of no confidence in Lawrence Summers is a wonderful thing. Harvard continues to discredit itself with the American public. The faculty is trapped. If Summers resigns, this extraordinary example of political correctness will come back to haunt Harvard, and the entire academy, for years. But if Summers hangs on, the faculty itself will have been humiliated--checked by the very fact of public scrutiny. Either way, Harvard is tearing itself apart. So long as the public simply writes of [sic] the academy, the mice can play. But the intense public scrutiny in this case puts the captains of political correctness into a no-win situation. Like the closely watched Susan Estrich fiasco, this battle is doing lasting damage to the cultural left. As they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Stanley Kurtz, The National Review, March 16, 2005 --- http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_03_13_corner-archive.asp#058358 


I wonder if it was a statue of Larry Summers?
Fairbanks' largest ice sculpture came tumbling down late Sunday night with a ground-shaking crash that was heard but not seen. The Fox Icescraper, the 150-foot tall tower of ice built by John Reeves next to the Steese Highway eight miles north of Fairbanks, collapsed at around 10:45 p.m. after developing a significant lean over the weekend. "It woke me up out of a dead sleep," said Ben Ballard, . . .
Tim Mowrey"Fox ice tower falls," Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~2763420,00.html 


Sex and Character
There are many great books. And of weird books, the number is countless. Yet, paradoxically enough, there are not that many great weird books.  Sex and Character by Otto Weininger is one of them. The appearance next month of a definitive English translation, published by Indiana University Press, is a major cultural event - one that is, arguably, at least several decades overdue.   First published in Vienna in 1903, Sex and Character is the product of a tortured genius. Or at least the work of someone remarkably devoted to playing that role. The author was 23 years old when it appeared. In its first incarnation, the book was Weininger's dissertation -- a more or less scientific account of the physiology of gender differences.  In revising it, Weininger created a mixture of psychological introspection, neo-Kantian epistemology, and Nietzschean cultural criticism, along with a heavy dose of  anti-feminist polemic. Toward the end of the book, Weininger seasoned the stew with a few dashes of anti-Semitic vitrol. Then, a few months after seeing the manuscript through the press, he went to the house where Beethoven died and killed himself. This did not hurt sales. And it sure did clinch the "tortured" part. The double impact of Weininger's work and his suicide created a sensation, and not just in Austria. The list of Weininger's admirers reads like a survey course in Western culture from the early 20th century. The most perfunctory roundup would include James Joyce, Karl Kraus, Robert Musil, Arnold Schoenberg, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.   An unsigned English version of Sex and Character appeared in 1906, prepared by someone whose qualifications for the job evidently boiled down to possessing (1) a German dictionary and (2) the willingness, when necessary, to hazard a guess. The title page proclaimed this an "Authorized Translation" -- though it's still not clear who, if anyone, authorized it, and in any case the English edition omits whole sections of the original text. Ludwig Wittgenstein called the 1906 translation "beastly." But it is the one we monolingual Europhiles have had to rely on for almost a century. (Excerpts from it are available online, who knows why.) 
Scott McClemee,  "Sex and the Single Genius," Inside Higher Ed, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/intellectual_affairs__12 


India swings on the Laffer curve
Its economy is growing at a rapid rate, the Mumbai stock market is performing well, tax revenues are flowing steadily into New Delhi, and the government is now planning to compete with Beijing in contracting for oil supplies to feed India's growing appetite for energy.  How did this most unexpected rags-to-riches story come about?  One clear reason can be found in a headline in Bloomberg's financial network on 11 January 2005, over a story by Andy Mukherjee writing from Singapore:  "India's Tax Plan May Again Bet on Laffer Curve."  I was most pleased to read that Finance Minister P Chidambaram is hinting at a "massive" change in the country's tax system, slashing tax rates on personal and corporate incomes in a second gamble on "the Laffer Curve", which Chidambaram mentions by name as an idea he has embraced with enthusiasm.
Jude Waniski, "India swings on the Laffer curve," Aljazeera, March 7, 2005 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/19C56AC9-1B19-4096-9068-79F9A2C8CDB5.htm 

You can read more about the Laffer curve at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve 

Also see http://www.vistech.net/users/rsturge/laffercu.html 


Do you really believe he won't ever drink again?
Having a vanity plate the reads "TIPSY" may not be such a good idea after all. Josiah Johnson, of Argusville, N.D., is in trouble for drunken driving. He figures his TIPSY plate might have tipped off the deputy who busted him. Police say Johnson had a blood-alcohol level twice the legal limit after he left a sports bar in Moorhead. Johnson said the TIPSY plate was meant to describe the way an old Jeep rode, and he kept the plate when he got a Chevy Silverado. Johnson said he has learned his lesson and will never drink and drive again.
"TIPSY License Plate Owner Pulled Over For Drunken Driving," ClickOnDetroit, March 16, 2005 --- http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/4289598/detail.html 


Open Season on Kittie Cats:  Give granny a shotgun so she can kill Sylvester before he gets Tweety Bird
Wisconsin is considering allowing the hunting of cats. Not cougars or mountain lions or tigers on the loose but putty-tats: Sylvester the cat. Morris the cat. Garfield. The aim is to prevent the mass-killing of birds by cats, mostly of the feral — i.e., wild — variety. In other words, some people want to give granny a shotgun so she can kill Sylvester before he gets Tweety Bird.
Jonah Goldberg, "First, kill the cats," Jewish World Review, March 16, 2005 --- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/jonah031605.asp 


Social Networking:  What is "The Facebook" for college students?
They say it's lonely at the top. But David J. Skorton, the president of the University of Iowa, has a nice support group -- 994 strong, and growing every day.  Skorton has a profile in "The Facebook," an online "social network" service that students nationwide have flocked to since it was started last year. The Facebook, like Friendster and similar services, lets participants set up profiles of themselves and link those profiles to their friends' profiles, their friends' friends' profiles, etc. The Facebook focuses on college students, and is open only to participants with e-mail addresses at the growing number of colleges that are part of the network.  Most students use Facebook for fun, to organize parties, find dates or stay in touch with friends. Participants' profiles display their friends in the system, so it's easy to see who is well connected on a given campus. Skorton was encouraged to sign up by two of those who are now among his nearly 1,000 friends: Lindsay Schutte, president of the student government at Iowa, and Josh Skorton, the president's son and a student at Stanford.
Scott Jaschik, "A President With a Lot of Friends," Inside Higher Ed, March 16, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/a_president_with_a_lot_of_friends 


Would you like an order of fries with your government education loan?
The seven campuses of the Business Career Training Institute shut down at the end of last week, leaving students confused and regulators angry in Oregon and Washington State.  BCTI, as it was known, promoted itself as a school to prepare people for jobs in the technology industry. But state officials questioned whether it was doing that.  An Oregon investigation found that the BCTI advertising was misleading and that many of the graduates who found jobs -- after paying more than $20,000, typically with federal student loans, for the program -- ended up in the fast food industry or in other positions unrelated to the supposed training.
Scott Jaschick, "Trade School Chain Shuts Down," Inside Higher Ed, March 16, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/trade_school_chain_shuts_down 
Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mill frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill 


So much for the new SAT being "new"
Some students apparently felt lucky Saturday. One of the final practice essay questions used by the Princeton Review test prep service, in the weeks leading up to the SAT, was about whether majority rule is always correct -- the topic that was on the actual test. A spokeswoman for the Princeton Review said some parents were concerned that their children might have somehow had access to the test in advance, and called Princeton Review on Monday, only to be told that the test materials the service uses are "really accurate."  The Princeton Review spokeswoman also said that about 70 percent of the test questions were "recycled" from a 2002 test. "So much for the new SAT being 'new,' " she said.
Scott Jaschik, "Multiple Choice," Inside Higher Ed, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/multiple_choice 


Statistical Snapshot
The report, Postsecondary Institutions in the United States: Fall 2003 and Degrees and Other Awards Conferred: 2002-03, is among the studies that the department's National Center for Education Statistics releases each year that, taken together, provide a statistical portrait of higher education. This study focuses on how many institutions there are (and what kind), what they charge, and how many degrees and certificates they award.
Doug Lederman, "Statistical Snapshot," Inside Higher Ed, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/statistical_snapshot 


Say what?  A new word "wedgied" into Webster's Dictionary
Wedgie, a teenager's locker-room nightmare, has made it into the dictionary. Webster's New World College Dictionary based in Cleveland said wedgie was among its new additions to its latest edition. The new edition will carry this listing: wedgie: noun. a prank in which the victim's undershorts are jerked upward so as to become wedged between the buttocks. The dictionary also carries the tradition wedgie definition of a type of shoe. "`Wedgie' was always a part of the high school terminology that you sort of never thought about later," said Editor in Chief...
"'Wedgie' Added to Webster's Dictionary," Washington Times, March 15, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/wedgieMarch15 


The European Commission has a "chronically sordid" accounting system
The European Commission has a "chronically sordid" accounting system and is still unable to keep track of the EU's £73billion budget after a decade of financial scandals, according to a top EU insider.  An internal email obtained by The Telegraph paints an ugly picture of an autocratic body with an "incestuous esprit de corps" that uses its bureaucratic muscle to "trash" any official who dares to question its methods.  It said the Budget Directorate was in "persistent denial of the real nature and depth of problems" it faced, choosing "cavity filling solutions where root canals were called for".  The note was written by the former director-general of the commission's Internal Audit Service, Jules Muis, who retired last year after attempting to spearhead the EU's reform drive.  He said the Budget fiefdom relied on non-qualified accountants to manage funds, allowing it to "get away with" practices that breached its own laws. It operated a "perverse incentive structure" that rewarded staff if "they managed not to discover financial malfeasance".
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "EC's 'sordid accounting' damned in email from top auditor," The Daily Telegraph, March 15, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/ECaccounting


Kansas Abortion Clinics Fight Data Request
Two Kansas clinics are opposing efforts by the state's attorney general to obtain the medical records of more than 80 women who received late-term abortions in 2003. The attorney general, Phill Kline, has argued that he is looking for evidence of child rape and violations of a state law restricting abortions performed after 22 weeks of pregnancy. But clinic supporters contend Kline is on a fishing expedition that invades patients' privacy and is making a calculated effort to hamper the clinics from performing abortions. Kline's push for medical records, backed by a judicial subpoena, is the strongest move yet by...
Peter Slevin, "Kansas Abortion Clinics Fight Data Request:   Criminal Inquiries Trump Issues of Privacy, State Says," Washington Post, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35009-2005Mar14.html 


Say what?  "Israelis are "legitimate targets" for Palestinian terrorists"
Police have decided not to charge a controversial Muslim leader under Canada's hate-crime laws for suggesting on a television talk show last fall that all adult Israelis are "legitimate targets" for Palestinian terrorists. Investigators with Halton Region police said that while the comments by Dr. Mohamed Elmasry "were described by many as [a] hate crime," they did not meet the legal definition. "Although the comments would be considered distasteful to many, in this context they do not constitute a criminal offence," police said in a news release. "The comments were made during a free-flowing discussion between subject-matter experts who were...
Chris Wattie "Saying Israelis are 'legitimate targets' not a hate crime police: Elmasry talk show case," National Post, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=845a6d55-2da6-47d7-a1fe-9a17610b62a8 


Bad Grades for Teacher Education in America's Universities
American colleges and universities do such a poor job of training the nation's future teachers and school administrators that 9 of every 10 principals consider the graduates unprepared for what awaits them in the classroom, a new survey has found.  Nearly half the elementary- and secondary-school principals surveyed said the curriculums at schools of education, whether graduate or undergraduate, lacked academic rigor and were outdated, at times using materials decades older than the children whom teachers are now instructing. Beyond that, more than 80 percent of principals said the education schools were too detached from what went on at local elementary and high schools, a factor that made for a rift between educational theory and practice.  "I thought there were problems in the field," said Arthur E. Levine, president of Teachers College at Columbia University, who is to release the findings in a report today. "But I didn't realize the depth of the problems."  In the report, Dr. Levine - who when interviewed described the program at his own school as strong but "absolutely not" ideal - said he and other experts who worked on the study had focused their efforts on finding education schools capable of producing excellent principals, superintendents and other administrators. They found none in the entire country.
Greg Winter, "Study Finds Poor Performance by Nation's Education Schools," The New York Times, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/education/15teach.html


Freezing Out Identity Theft
In an effort to combat the rapidly escalating outbreak of identity-theft crimes, a handful of states including California and Texas have passed legislation that allows consumers to put a "security freeze" on their credit history.  Some 20 other states this year have considered or are considering adopting similar laws, which make it nearly impossible for criminals to use stolen information to open bogus new accounts. The measures are so effective because once frozen, a merchant is unable to review an applicant's credit history. Lacking such information, most companies refuse to open a new account, greatly devaluing stolen personal data. . . Currently, federal law does allow consumers to put a fraud "alert" on their files. If an alert pops up when someone applies for credit, the bank or merchant is supposed to try to verify an individual's identity. But the alert doesn't close off this access to credit histories. Instead, it merely warns the cellphone store or the credit-card issuer to take extra care with any new customer using a particular name.  No federal law gives all consumers the right to freeze their credit entirely, which keeps merchants from being able to look at it at all. (Companies with a pre-existing relationship with someone can generally still get access to their frozen credit files.)
Jennifer Saranow and Ron Lieber, "Freezing Out Identity Theft:  Potent State Laws Let Consumers Bar Access to Credit Reports, But Not Without Headaches," The Wall Street Journal,   March 15, 2005; Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111084275620679216,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

Texas law is limited
But in some states, legislators are fighting identity theft by proposing laws that give consumers the right to lock up their credit files with a security freeze. A security freeze lets you decide who gets to see your credit record, which prevents thieves from obtaining credit using your identity.  Texas has enacted such a law, but only for consumers who have already been victimized by identity theft. SB 100 would expand that right so that all consumers could look up their credit files with a security freeze.
Consumers Union --- http://snipurl.com/SecurityFreezeTexas 

Instructions for filing a security freeze in Texas are at http://www.law.uh.edu/peopleslawyer/SecurityFreeze.html 

Also see http://www.idtheftcenter.org/vg124.shtml 

Bob Jensen's threads on identity theft are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#IdentityTheft 


Fidel's Fortune
He didn't make it into the billionaire category, but Fidel Castro nonetheless earned an honorable mention on Forbes magazine's annual list of the World's Richest People out this month. And why not? With a net worth of $550 million, this is one bit of media recognition that El Jefe actually deserves.  According to Forbes, the Cuban leader committed to "socialism or death" has made a killing from a "web of state-owned businesses" -- all of which have no competition in the worker's paradise. Castro's most profitable operations include a convention center, a retail conglomerate and a company called Medicuba that sells pharmaceuticals made on the island, reports the magazine. Not mentioned are Cuba's biggest exports -- seafood, tobacco, sugar and nickel -- which, as El Maximo Lider of the communist regime, Fidel naturally benefits from too.
"Fidel's Fortune," The Wall Street Journal,  March 15, 2005; Page A20 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111084691636579380,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 


20th century's most influential practitioner of the horror story
For a man who didn't believe in the afterlife, H.P. Lovecraft sure is having a remarkable one. Few people had heard of him when he died at the age of 46 on this date in 1937, and fewer still had read the stories he sold to tacky pulp magazines. Nowadays, however, Stephen King and just about everybody else in the know recognizes him as the 20th century's most influential practitioner of the horror story -- a claim he arguably clinched last month with the publication of his best works in a definitive edition.
John J. Miller, "H.P. Lovecraft: 68 Years Dead And More Influential Than Ever," The Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2005; Page D8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111084042433479156,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

Jensen Comment:  The online works of H.P. Lovecraft are at http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/ 


Big Amazon has the patent for watching you
That's one key feature, anyway, of a system Amazon has invented to gather clues about customers' gift-giving habits in order to suggest future gifts and reminders. The company was granted a patent last week for the system, which also profiles gift recipients and guesses their age, birthday and gender.  Amazon says it hasn't put the "systems and methods" covered by the patent to use, so it isn't monitoring customer review pages yet. But that fact gives little comfort to consumer advocates, who have hounded Amazon for years over its customer-profiling practices.
Alorie Gilbert, "Privacy advocates frown on Amazon snooping plan, CNET News, March 14, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/deu7 


Jews vs. Catholics in the stem cell debate
Monday night at dinner, I ask Austriaco if he sees a Catholic-Jewish difference on these questions. He does, particularly among theologians. Jews follow diffuse commentary, he says; Catholics follow streamlined authority. Jews trust intuition; Catholics trust reason. "You don't have as clear a definition of boundaries as we have," he observes. This is why Catholics have an easier time getting over the yuck factor. "We say, 'Yeah, it looks yucky.' But I'm a molecular biologist. We make tumors in the lab all the time. For a Catholic, if I can articulate what I'm doing, it's not yucky."
William Saletan "Oi Vitae:  Jews vs. Catholics in the stem cell debate," Slate, March 7, 2005 --- http://slate.msn.com/id/2114733/ 


How to lie with statistics:  The Washington Post does it this way
In yet another example of biased Washington Post reporting (my partner Pat Hynes rightly skewered Mike Allen's "Tom DeLay's issues have GOP Worried" story earlier), their latest poll showing bad news for President Bush's Social Security reform plan is a joke. So, as we have so many times before we're going to show you how the MSM - in this case The Washington Post presents data in a misleading way so that it fit their desired outcome. Nowhere has this been more true than in the recent polls about Social Secruity, and the latest Post poll is yet another striking...First, take a look at the nature of the respondents. It's 1,001 "randomly selected adults" (much the same tactic used by the fraudulent New York Times and AP polls on Social Security which we exposed) . That's the extent of the Post's description of respondents. Nowhere is mentioned how many of the respondents were even "registered voters" (let alone likely ones), the party identification of the voters, their ages, geographical location or income levels. All of those factors would have an impact on the outcome of the poll.  Thus, there is no way for the reader to know if this is a "rigged" sample made up of ardent liberal from the northeast, or if it reflects a true opinion of the American people. One thing is certain - it sure doesn't give the reader an actual idea of what the ELECTORATE might do to lawmakers who support or oppose the plan, given that statistically between 30-40% of the "adult" respondents don't even vote in Presidential elections. The number of non-voters in this poll will be even higher in the 2006 elections.
"Calling "Bulls**t" On The Washington Post, Pt. II-We Skewer Yet Another MSM Poll," Ankle Biting Pundits, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.anklebitingpundits.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1253&mode=nested&order=1&thold=0 


Europeans Grow More Intolerant of Immigrants
Europeans are becoming more intolerant of immigrants and one in five want them sent home, a study released Tuesday by the European Union racism watchdog showed. The study, based on pan-EU opinion surveys between 1997 and 2003, found a significant increase in support for the view that there were limits to a so-called multicultural society. There was also a significant increase in the minority of people who supported repatriating immigrants, to 20 percent, the study said, without providing the scale of either increase. "The European Union is confronted with intolerance and discriminatory attitudes toward minorities and migrants," Beate Winkler, head...
Marcus Kabel, "Europeans Grow More Intolerant of Immigrants-Study," Reuters, March 15, 2005 --- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=4&u=/nm/20050315/wl_nm/rights_europe_dc 


Diverse positions among worshippers having the same God
The leadership of the Presbyterian Church recently decided to encourage its governing body to promote divestment from companies that do business with Israel. Shortly thereafter, the Anglican church, the Lutheran church and the World Council of Churches (WCC, with 347 member denominations world-wide) followed suit with the explanation that divestment "(is) a new way to work for peace, by looking at ways to not participate economically in illegal activities related to the Israeli occupation." (1) These churches are among those often referred to as "mainline" churches.  The most problematic issue of this new “mainline” posture is that it is clearly intended to support the Arab terror war against Israel; and to justify that support, church spokespersons make use of false information about the conflict.  A review of factual information about the conflict and the nature of divestment reveals that the mainline churches have stood up in favor of a process that is illegal, irrational, immoral, biased against Israel and in favor of Israel’s enemies, and consciously oblivious to the transparent lies of divestment proponents. Moreover, by supporting divestment, they ignore the real threats of global terrorism which seeks, among other things, the destruction of all other forms of religion in the world, including Christianity. The mainline churches' stand, therefore, is quite literally self-destructive.
David Meir-Levi, "Mainline Christian Anti-Semitism," Front Page Magazine, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17308 


Diverse positions among worshippers having the same Allah
Throughout the West, Muslims are making new and assertive demands, and in some cases challenging the very premises of European and North American life. How to respond? Here is a general rule: Offer full rights — but turn down demands for special privileges. By way of example, note two current Canadian controversies. The first concerns the establishment of voluntary Shar'i (Islamic law) courts in Ontario. This idea is promoted by the usual Islamist groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Canada and the Canadian Islamic Congress. It is most prominently opposed by Muslim women's groups, led by Homa Arjomand, who fear that the Islamic courts, despite their voluntary nature, will be used to repress women's rights.
Daniel Pipes, "Which privileges for Islam?" Jewish World Review, March 15, 2005 --- http://jewishworldreview.com/0305/pipes2005_03_15.php3 


Forwarded by Debbie Bowling
Scientists discover green tea's cancer-fighter Spanish and British scientists have discovered how green tea helps to prevent certain types of cancer.
http://g.msn.com/0MNBUS00/2?http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7187847&&CM=EmailThis&CE=1


Elders with shaky hands can have a steady mouse
IBM is expected to unveil the product today, a mouse adapter that filters out the shaking movements of the hand to enable a user to navigate a PC screen more smoothly.  The device is plugged between the mouse and the PC and works like the stabilization systems found in many camcorders.
Benjamin Pimentel, "Helping hand for those with shaky hands IBM to unveil mouse adapter to steady cursor," San Francisco Chronicle, March 14, 2005 --- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/14/BUGCIBO7E01.DTL&type=tech 


Adding pasted notes to Web pages
In 2001, Microsoft bought Web page markup technology from a company called E-Quill but hasn't incorporated any of its features into Internet Explorer. The iMarkup toolbar, which debuted to rave reviews in 2000, hasn't gotten much buzz since. You can still get iMarkup—a 30-day trial is free and it costs $39.95 if you want to keep it after that. One screenshot says it all: You can highlight parts of a page, post sticky notes, draw freehand, and insert arrows, links, file attachments, and sound bites. Taking notes on the Slate home page won't change what other surfers see. But when you revisit the page, iMarkup will remember what you wrote and slap your notes atop the live site. In one simple step, you can e-mail your annotations (or a screenshot of your annotations) to a friend. Using a free iMarkup plug-in, they can then view your notes overlaid atop the live site.
Paul Boutin, "The new technique that will change blogging forever," Slate, March 15, 2005 --- http://slate.msn.com/id/2114791/ 


Family of Slain Protester Sues Caterpillar
The parents of a 23-year-old activist killed while trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home is suing Caterpillar Inc., the company that made the bulldozer that ran over her.  The federal lawsuit, which lawyers said would be filed here Tuesday, alleges that Caterpillar violated international and state law by providing specially designed bulldozers to Israeli Defense Forces that it knew would be used to demolish homes and endanger people.
Elizabeth M. Gillespie, "Family of Slain Protester Sues Caterpillar," Guardian, March 15, 2005 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4867950,00.html 


An what if the El Paso company outsources its New Jersey contracts?
New Jersey lawmakers passed a bill this week that would ban all state contract work from being performed outside the country. Acting Governor Richard Codey is expected to sign the measure, which would be the first of its kind in the U.S. and no doubt bring joy to the hearts of CNN's Lou Dobbs ("Outsourcing America") and protectionists everywhere . . . And all for a measure that is bound to end up costing more local jobs than it protects. If the state contractor's costs rise because it has to dismiss its low-cost overseas workforce, it will either have to drop the state contract, accept lower profits, or lay off other workers. As an alternative, a state contractor who can't use workers in India would still be able to outsource jobs to workers in a more business-friendly state like Texas. Can someone explain why New Jersey taxpayers should feel so much better about paying more to hire workers in El Paso as opposed to paying less to hire them in Bangalore?
"Outsourcing New Jersey," The Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111093749293380715,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
Mahatma Gandhi




The United Nations celebrates International Women's Day --- http://www.un.org/events/women/iwd/2005/ 


From UCLA:  Archive of American Folk Medicine --- http://www.folkmed.ucla.edu/ 


Nations from Europe to Eastern Asia are on a fast track to pass the United States in scientific excellence and technological innovation.
For more than half a century, the United States has led the world in scientific discovery and innovation. It has been a beacon, drawing the best scientists to its educational institutions, industries and laboratories from around the globe. However, in today’s rapidly evolving competitive world, the United States can no longer take its supremacy for granted. Nations from Europe to Eastern Asia are on a fast track to pass the United States in scientific excellence and technological innovation. The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation has developed a set of benchmarks to assess the international standing of the United States in science and technology. These benchmarks in education, the science and engineering (S&E) workforce, scientific knowledge, innovation, investment and high-tech economic output reveal troubling trends across the research and development (R&D) spectrum. The United States still leads the world in research and discovery, but our advantage is rapidly eroding, and our global competitors may soon overtake us.
"THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY: IS THE UNITED STATES LOSING ITS COMPETITIVE EDGE?" THE TASK FOR C E ON THE FUTUR E OF AME R I CAN INNOVAT ION, February `6, 2005 --- http://www.futureofinnovation.org/PDF/Benchmarks.pdf 


Reinvigorating the Humanities: Enhancing Research and Education on Campus and Beyond
Association of American Universities --- http://www.aau.edu/
Founded in 1900, the Association of American Universities (AAU) initially consisted of the fourteen universities that offered the Ph.D. degree. Currently their number includes 60 American universities and two Canadian universities. The AAU's overall mission is to develop national policy positions of primary relevance to academic research and graduate and professional education. Of course, the organization's work also extends to other germane areas, including timely discussion of undergraduate education. On the AAU site, visitors can learn about the organization's most recent work, read about its positions on intellectual property issues, and peruse the latest AAU newsletters. The section of the site dedicated to internally produced reports will be of great interest to some, as it contains helpful work on such topics as "Reinvigorating the Humanities: Enhancing Research and Education on Campus and Beyond"

Quoted from the Scout Report on March 17. 2005 

Defining a new role for the humanities in the university and in society
More recently, the humanities have been caught in a conflict between over-simplified aristocratic and democratic notions of liberal arts education. Under the former, the liberal arts are viewed as being distinctly not useful; under the latter, they are seen as providing ideas of value to all citizens. Indeed, scholars and university administrators need to bear in mind the value of the humanities in the education of all of a university’s students, the usefulness of this knowledge in the professional lives of those students, and society’s need for a common base of understanding and an educated citizenry. Recently, those closely involved with the humanities —scholars, university administrators, academic society officials, and others—have begun separate reexaminations of established traditions and expectations, leading perhaps to defining a new role for the humanities in the university and in society. This report is intended to further prompt that reexamination of the humanities on university campuses, to identify steps that some institutions already have taken, and to propose future action.
I quoted the above from the Executive Summary at http://www.aau.edu/issues/ExecSumm.pdf 
You can get more details from http://www.aau.edu/issues/humanities.cfm 

Reinvigorating the Humanities: Enhancing Research and Education on Campus and Beyond - pdf - April 22, 2004
 http://www.aau.edu/issues/humanities.cfm  
 
  • Note: This report can be downloaded in its entirety -- which could take considerable time -- or by selecting individual sections below.

Reinvigorating the Humanities by downloadable section:

  • Executive Summary and Table of         Contents - pdf
  • Part I: The Role and Status of the         Humanities at AAU Universities - pdf
  • Part II: Recommendations and Ongoing         Activities at AAU Universities - pdf
  • Part III: Appendicies
              small arrow  Additional Examples -
    pdf
              small arrow  The Humanities Support                 Infrastructure -
    pdf
              small arrow  University of Toronto's                 Humanities Campaign -
    pdf
              small arrow  AAM Position Statement on                 University Museums and                 Collections -
    pdf
              small arrow  References -
    pdf

     
  • Index - pdf

 


University of California researchers surveyed thousands of faculty members throughout the system’s campuses on the number of hours they spent providing care of any sort for their families. They previously released general data confirming conventional wisdom: that women have more care burdens than men.  But additional data presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for Higher Education compared hours spent on care by male and female faculty members of the same age groups, and with the same status of being a parent or not being one.  The following table shows that while gaps are minimal between men and women without children, they are significant for men and women with children:

Hours Spent on Family Care, by Age

Democragraphic group Under 34 34-38 38-42 42-46
Women with children 37 43 38 34
Men with children 25 21 23 19
Women without children   6 10   7   8
Men without children   8   7   7 10

Marc Goulden, a researcher for the University of California, said that the data pointed to a shortcoming of many policies adopted by colleges to help parents. The policies tend to focus on the time demands on new parents, but ignore the reality that time demands are as great or greater when kids start to grow up as when they are babies.
Scott Jaschik, "Unequal Burden," Inside Higher Ed, March 21, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/21/care 


Breakthrough in adult (as opposed to embryonic) stem cell research
Experiments have shown adult stem cells isolated from the olfactory mucosa have the ability to develop into many different cell types if they are given the right chemical or cellular environment," explains Mackay-Sim.  New nerve cells, glial cells, liver cells, heart cells, muscle cells -- all were grown in a dish from stem cells from the human nose. Establishing the versatility of these adult stem cells was in itself a significant scientific achievement, but the Griffith University team's experiments also uncovered a raft of additional advantages.  For starters, such cells are easily harvested. The research team's doctor, prominent Brisbane ear, nose and throat specialist Chris Perry, was able to extract them from consenting patients - and later from the scientists themselves - by simply spraying the inside of the nose with a local anaesthetic and then removing a sample no bigger than a grain of pepper.  The harvested stem cells were not only readily available but proved to be astonishingly easy to grow in the laboratory, with millions of them forming within weeks. Down the track, once all the required trials are carried out - which could take at least another five years - it might well be possible for a healthy person to have his olfactory stem cells harvested, a mildly uncomfortable process that takes barely 10 minutes, grown in a lab and then frozen for injection years later into -- to give just one example -- the withered muscles of a heart after a heart attack.
Wayne Smith, "Sweet Smell of Success," The Australian, March 22, 2005 --- http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12616654^28737,00.html 


More nonprofit colleges may be purchased by for-profit institutions
Sean Gallagher, a senior analyst at Eduventures, which does research on the education industry for investors and colleges, said he is not surprised to see an institution like Saint Mary’s turn to a place like Regis to take over adult education programs. “Higher education is scalable and larger providers have a huge advantage in marketing and online education,” he said.  “It’s just very difficult to develop a curriculum and manage and market it” in adult education, when you are a small college, Gallagher said.  Eduventures — which counts both Regis and Phoenix among its clients — has predicted that more nonprofit colleges may be purchased by for-profit institutions. That happened this month when Bridgepoint Education, a for-profit higher education company, bought the Franciscan University of the Prairies.  But he said the same factors that prompt that prediction may also apply to places like Regis that are big enough to compete with the larger for-profit institutions.  Officials at Saint Mary’s said they were drawn to Regis because it is a nonprofit institution. And Husson, the Regis administrator, said that the university’s traditional emphasis on values and ethics shapes all its programs.
Scott Jaschik, "How to Compete," Inside Higher Ed, March 18, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/18/regis 
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education programs are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 


Neil J. Salkind, a professor and a book agent, offers advice on how to get a publisher interested --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/03/21/salkind 


What is the current bid for the solutions manual and test bank of your chosen textbook?
Wiley officials declined to release the names of those who were sued. But they said that settlements have been reached with students at Arizona State, Northeastern, Pennsylvania State and Wayne State Universities; the Universities of Florida and Wisconsin at Madison; and several University of California campuses.  “This is a new form of cheating and copyright violation with a Malthusian growth cycle,” said Roy S. Kaufman, legal director of Wiley. Students somehow obtain the materials, copy them and then distribute several copies, which are in turn copied and sold, he said.  Even with Wiley’s efforts of the past few months, sales of the materials are rampant, he said.  On eBay, you can find these materials by searching for “solutions manual;” there are choices of texts in many fields and from many publishers. Science and engineering fields seem to be particularly hot sellers, with bids for the materials related to many books standing at more than $100.
Scott Jaschik, "A New Form of Cheating," Inside Higher Ed, March 18, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/18/cheating 


Vietnam Chronicles:  Separating Fact from Fiction
The Vietnam War suffered famously from such home-front confusion, and from policy confusion too. Thus "Vietnam Chronicles" (Texas Tech University Press, 917 pages, $50) is especially welcome -- for what it tells us about Vietnam, of course, but also for what is says about the myth-making and misperceptions that surround any war. The book consists primarily of recently declassified transcriptions of the weekly intelligence updates at U.S. military headquarters in Saigon -- officially, at Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV).
James Schlesinger, "Where Myth Trumped Truth,"  March 18, 2005; Page W6 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111110094318983000,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal 


Surge in undocumented immigrants
The nation's undocumented immigrant population surged to 10.3 million last year, spurred largely since 2000 by the arrivals of unauthorized Mexicans in the United States, a report being released Monday says.  The population of undocumented residents in the United States increased by about 23 percent from 8.4 million in the four-year period ending last March, according to the analysis of government data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a private research group.  That equates to a net increase of roughly 485,000 per year between 2000 and 2004. The estimate was derived by subtracting the number of unauthorized immigrants who leave the United States, die or acquire legal status from the number of new undocumented immigrants that arrive each year.  The prospect of better job opportunities in the United States than in their native countries remains a powerful lure for many immigrants, said Pew center director Roberto Suro, pointing to a reason often cited by other researchers.
Genaro C. Armas, Associated Press, March 21, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/immigrantsMarch21 

Civil rights and immigrant activists say a handful of bills in the Legislature unfairly target foreign nationals, but sponsors of the legislation claim they're just trying to slow the flow of illegal immigrants into Tennessee.  One proposed law would require drivers license exams be given only in English, and another would deny public benefits such as TennCare and driving certificates to foreign nationals. One bill would prohibit immigrants from getting any state government services if they cannot show they're in the country legally.
WBIR, March 21, 2005 --- http://www.wbir.com/news/news.aspx?provider=KNS&storyid=24208 


Iraqi Business Women's Association
I am explaining all of this so you, the reader, may understand how brave a woman like Tammy is. Tammy, of course, is an alias. She is Iraqi.  Tammy is President of the Iraqi Business Women Association (IBWA). The objective of the association is to assist Iraqi women in realizing their ambitions. Iraqi women (who live within the "red zone") are trained how to start and run their own business. They learn how to use the computer, how to type resumes, speak better English and so much more. It is a non-profit organization founded in 2003.  I had my first meeting with Tammy a few weeks ago. She went through tremendous circumstances just to meet me. The purpose of the meeting was to find out more about her organization and in what ways I could help.  We decided what they could use the most is proved and solid advice from American women. Real women in real jobs. Real women in real businesses. Real women in real careers. Giving them the opportunity for their minds to be opened to the plethora of opportunities awaiting them, possibilities of being: doctors, lawyers, store owners, restaurateurs, owning and operating manufacturing plants, salons, distributorships,...and doesn't the list goes on?
William D. Hodges, "Iraqi Business Women's Association," Free Republic, March 21, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1367174/posts 
Jensen Comment:  Many Iraqi's, men and women, are being especially brave in their efforts to bring a new freedom and a new economy to Iraq.


Corruption Scandal in France
Senior allies of President Jacques Chirac -- including four former ministers -- were among nearly 50 people who appeared in court in Paris at the start of one of France's biggest ever political corruption trials.  A total of 47 defendants -- including politicians, party officials, and representatives of some of France's biggest building companies -- are accused of fixing public works contracts in the Paris region in order to obtain illegal party funding.  One of several financial scandals to come to light from Chirac's long tenure to 1995 as mayor of Paris, the affair centres on kickbacks worth more than 70 million euros (93 million dollars) allegedly paid by the building firms in order to secure bids to renovate secondary schools around the capital.  Under a secret arrangement that lasted from 1989 to 1997, companies funnelled back two percent of the money paid by the regional Ile-de-France council, with 1.2 percent going to Chirac's Rally for the Republic (RPR) and its ally the Republican party (PR), and 0.8 percent going to the Socialists (PS), according to the prosecution.
"Chirac allies among 47 accused in major French corruption trial," AFP, March 21, 2005 --- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1511&e=5&u=/afp/20050321/wl_afp/francejusticepolitics_050321142150 

Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 


Texas lawmaker proposes ban on cheerleading since it is contradictory to sexual abstinence
"It's just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they're shaking their behinds and going on, breaking it down," said Edwards, a 26-year veteran of the Texas House. "And then we say to them, 'don't get involved in sex unless it's marriage or love, it's dangerous out there' and yet the teachers and directors are helping them go through those kind of gyrations."  Under Edwards' bill, if a school district knowingly permits such a performance, funds from the state would be reduced in an amount to be determined by the education commissioner.
April Castro, "Lawmaker Seeks to End 'Sexy' Cheerleading," Washington Times, March 18, 2005 --- http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/S/SUGGESTIVE_CHEERLEADING?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME 


The Psychology Department:  Where the hard and the soft sciences overlap is still pretty soft
For all its flaws, neuroimaging is here to stay. No self-respecting psych department can afford to forgo it. Of the dozen or so new faculty members recently hired by his department, says Phillip Shaver, chairman of psychology at the University of California, Davis, 10 use primarily neuroimaging. Economists, political scientists and sociologists are not far behind. As with all powerful tools, let the user beware.
Sharon Begley, "While Brain Imaging Offers New Knowledge, It Can Be an Illusion," The Wall Street Journal,  March 18, 2005; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111110678590183261,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 


Accounting to the rescue
Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea has offshore oil and gas fields and related pipelines it is currently developing with international partners, led by BP. Central Asia's Kyrgyzstan depends on gold mines, the largest of which is owned by Canadian-based Centerra Gold, for about 10% of its GDP. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has financed these projects and is among the international and local entities encouraging greater transparency and improved governance in state and private enterprise across the region.  These two young states are at the vanguard of a fledgling movement among poor nations with valuable hydrocarbon and mineral wealth to publish the revenues received from their multinational partners. It is much hoped that greater transparency and accountability in the resource sector will enhance reform in other aspects of these countries' transition to market economies based in well-functioning democracies.  Revenue reporting is vital in combating corruption and what is known as the "resource curse." Many countries seemingly blessed with oil, gas, precious metals and minerals and other high-value nonrenewable resources have suffered macroeconomic destabilization from huge and rapid inflows of resource revenues, particularly for oil and gas. Some governments have squandered such revenues. This is easily done when taxes and royalties paid to government by mining and logging companies are not reported publicly via the legislature as would be normal in developed democracies.  Experience shows that citizens of such countries can end up worse off than previous generations when corrupt elites use the revenues to stifle necessary reforms, to suppress dissent and to promote their own ethnic groups and cronies. The result, as seen in parts of Africa in particular, can be civil unrest, even outright war.
Jean Lemierre, "Beating the 'Resource Curse' With Transparency," The Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2005, http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111110016176782969,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 
Bob Jensen's threads on revenue reporting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/eitf01.htm 


The condition of large tails in the distribution is known as leptokurtosis.
I bet you really wanted to know this about return distributions:  This means that there are more frequent large negative outliers than there are large positive outliers.
Return distributions can be described by what are known as "moments" of the distribution. Most market participants understand the first two moments of a distribution: they identify the mean and variance of the distribution. Often in finance, it is assumed that the returns to financial assets follow a normal, or bell-shaped, distribution. However, this is not the case for credit-risky assets. Credit-risky assets are typically exposed to significant downside risk associated with credit downgrades, defaults, and bankruptcies. This downside risk can be described in terms of kurtosis and skewness. Kurtosis is a term used to describe the general condition that the probability mass associated with the tails of a return distribution, otherwise known as "outlier events," is different from that of a normal distribution. The condition of large tails in the distribution is known as leptokurtosis. This means that the tails of the distribution have a greater concentration of mass (more outlier events) than what would be expected if the returns were symmetrically distributed under a normal distribution. The skew of a distribution is also measured relative to a normal distribution. A normal distribution has no skew--its returns are symmetrically distributed around the mean return. A negative skew to a distribution indicates a bias towards downside exposure. This means that there are more frequent large negative outliers than there are large positive outliers. This indicates a return profile biased towards large negative returns.
Mark J.P. Anson, Frank J. Fabozzi, Moorad Chaudhry, and Ren-Raw Chen, Credit Derivatives:  Instruments, Applications, and Pricing, (Wiley, 2003, ISBN: 047146600X, Page 15)


Question
What do you ask (newly admitted MBAs to the Sloan School at MIT) students to do before they get to campus? 
Answer
We have an admit Web site, where the school loads different information for incoming students. We offer advice on many aspects of the program -- from recommended business attire to summer reading material. We have them fill out Meyers-Briggs and Career Leader self-assessment tests, and we review them in a day-long seminar during orientation.
"What Sets Sloan MBAs Apart:  Career Development Director Jacqueline Wilbur hails MIT's B-school grads for their intelligence and quirky individuality," Business Week, March 16, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/SloanNewMBAs 


I won't raise my glass to this one!
Alcohol consumption accounted for 1,715 deaths among traditional-age college students in 2001, according to a study released Thursday by the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.  That represents an increase of about 6 percent (after being adjusted for the rise in the number of college-age people) from the 1,575 alcohol-related deaths three years earlier, in 1998, according to the study, which was published in the latest edition of the Annual Review of Public Health.  The study also found a sharp rise in the proportion of students aged 18 to 24 who acknowledged driving drunk, to 31.4 percent in 2001 from 26.5 percent in 1998. That represents an increase in the number of students who drove drunk over that three-year period to 2.8 million, from 2.3 million.
Doug Lederman, "Death by Drinking," Inside Higher Ed, March 18, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/18/alcohol 


The minority pool among GMAT takers is just not big enough
Like Murphy, most of the latest round of B-school applicants are now receiving acceptance -- or rejection -- letters for this fall. And as the offers go out, the level of minority enrollment is a pressing concern for administrators at top schools. Enrollment of Asian Americans is strong, at around 15% to 25% for top MBA programs. But overall enrollment of under-represented minorities -- African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans -- has remained flat at about 10% at accredited business schools, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business."OUTDATED TERM." That figure is way below those groups' share of the population. Recruiting African Americans, who comprise 12% of the U.S. population and only about 7% of the U.S. B-school student body, is particularly difficult. Although the number of nonwhites taking the GMAT has steadily increased in recent years, the number of African Americans taking the exam dropped slightly in 2003, according to the Graduate Management Admissions Council. And some B-school insiders fear the effort to correct the balance is about to get even more difficult.
Francesca Di Meglio, "Building a Fire Under the Melting Pot:  Top B-schools are doing their best to boost the number of minority applicants. Trouble is, there just aren't enough to go around," Business Week, March 16, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/MeltingPot 


Goodnight, Peter. Goodnight, Tom. Goodnight, Dan.
Until Ted Turner ruined it. The networks' business model never had room in its schedule for long-form news coverage. By the time Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw retired, they were Lears in a dying kingdom, overrun by barbarian talk-show hosts and Internet bloggers.  Are we better off? The political diversity the networks ludicrously refused to admit as a problem is now everywhere. Cable, notably FOX, has democratized and leveled the opinion field. For all the pious right-mindedness that gushed out of the three networks, Barbara Walters and Lesley Stahl never had a snowball's chance of sitting in those anchor chairs, while now most of cable's anchors seem to be women.  In the golden age of the network Anchorman, TV news was often pompous, wrong and yes, waaay too liberal. But for all this, it brought -- it forced -- the world's most liberal standard of free speech and discussion into some rather dark and closed places. It was about this time that the United Nations -- chockablock with dictators -- started holding conferences on America's "cultural imperialism." In no small part, they meant Dan, Peter and Tom and their probing camera armies.  This week, when grand images poured out of Lebanon of a million people massed against an occupier, it was reported by whichever cable anchor was on shift that hour. News itself rules the kingdom now, so there's no longer much call for an Anchorman Chronicles. Goodnight, Peter. Goodnight, Tom. Goodnight, Dan.
Daniel Henninger, "Lifting Anchor: The Last Chronicle Of Dan Rather," The Wall Street Journal,  March 18, 2005; Page A12 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111110324952483100,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Former Ernst & Young Tax Advisors:  Caught in the Middle of a Post-Sarbanes Client Tug-a-War
Carolyn Campbell says she decided it was time to leave accounting firm Ernst & Young when she realized she would have to build a new client base largely from scratch if she stayed.  Ms. Campbell, 35 years old, is an accountant whose specialty is advising large companies on local and state taxes. For most of her career, the Big Four firm's audit clients supplied the bulk of her work. But those jobs are harder to come by. Amid concerns of conflicts of interest, more public companies are cutting back on giving other, lucrative "nonauditing" assignments to their independent auditors amid concerns of conflicts of interest. That means less work for consultants employed by Big Four firms. In some cases, Ms. Campbell says, Ernst told her that longtime audit clients were off-limits ... So in October Ms. Campbell, an 11-year Ernst veteran, left her position in Houston as a senior tax manager to work for Alvarez & Marsal LLC, a consulting firm that doesn't do audits. "I think I had a better opportunity working for a nonaccounting firm," she says.  Now she is one of 13 former Ernst consultants at the center of a lawsuit that Ernst filed last month in a New York state court in Manhattan, accusing Alvarez & Marsal of raiding its tax and real-estate divisions' personnel, poaching its clients, interfering with its business and misappropriating confidential information.  Alvarez says it hasn't engaged in any improper conduct and argues that the suit is a sign of the accounting industry's struggle to adjust to the post-Enron Corp. world.
Jonathan Weil, "In Post-Enron World, Accounting Firms Fight Over the Pieces," The Wall Street Journal,  March 18, 2005,  Page C1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111109239427082751,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 
Bob Jensen's threads on auditor independence and professionalism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#Professionalism 


The new Foucault Society
The Foucault Society is involved in the study and application of Michel Foucault's ideas within a contemporary context and to open up a discourse to the widest possible audience.  The Society's new website serves as a resource for information, news, and events. It is designed to serve as a means of exchanging ideas about the works of Michel Foucault.
 Foucault Society --- http://www.foucaultsociety.org/

I dream of the intellectual destroyer of evidence and universalities, the one who, in the inertias and constraints of the present, locates and marks the weak points, the openings, the lines of power, who incessantly displaces himself, doesn't know exactly where he is heading nor what he'll think tomorrow because he is too attentive to the present.
Michel Foucault, "The End of the Monarchy of Sex" from Foucault Live: Interviews, 1966-1984, tr. John Johnston, ed. Sylvere Lotringer (New York: Semiotext(e), 1989), p. 155.


The English have been watching too much U.S. television:  Take a flying leap in legal lotto
A teenage criminal who received £567,000 in compensation after falling through a roof while trespassing boasted about his wealth yesterday, saying that he was looking forward to buying "a few houses and a flash car".   I deserve this money and I don't care what anybody says about me," he said. "I'm going to buy a big house so I have a place to live with me mum when she gets out of jail. I might buy a few houses - I'll buy whatever I want." He added: "The papers just call me a yob and a thug because I've been done for robbery and assault but those were just silly stupid little things, like.  "I want to spend my money the way I want without people interfering and I want to have a prosperous future."
Peter Zimonjic, "I'll buy houses and a flash car, says yob awarded £567,000, Telegraph-News, March 2, 2005 --- http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/20/nyob20.xml


The United Nations celebrates International Women's Day --- http://www.un.org/events/women/iwd/2005/ 


From UCLA:  Archive of American Folk Medicine --- http://www.folkmed.ucla.edu/ 


Nations from Europe to Eastern Asia are on a fast track to pass the United States in scientific excellence and technological innovation.
For more than half a century, the United States has led the world in scientific discovery and innovation. It has been a beacon, drawing the best scientists to its educational institutions, industries and laboratories from around the globe. However, in today’s rapidly evolving competitive world, the United States can no longer take its supremacy for granted. Nations from Europe to Eastern Asia are on a fast track to pass the United States in scientific excellence and technological innovation. The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation has developed a set of benchmarks to assess the international standing of the United States in science and technology. These benchmarks in education, the science and engineering (S&E) workforce, scientific knowledge, innovation, investment and high-tech economic output reveal troubling trends across the research and development (R&D) spectrum. The United States still leads the world in research and discovery, but our advantage is rapidly eroding, and our global competitors may soon overtake us.
"THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY: IS THE UNITED STATES LOSING ITS COMPETITIVE EDGE?" THE TASK FOR C E ON THE FUTUR E OF AME R I CAN INNOVAT ION, February `6, 2005 --- http://www.futureofinnovation.org/PDF/Benchmarks.pdf 


Reinvigorating the Humanities: Enhancing Research and Education on Campus and Beyond
Association of American Universities --- http://www.aau.edu/
Founded in 1900, the Association of American Universities (AAU) initially consisted of the fourteen universities that offered the Ph.D. degree. Currently their number includes 60 American universities and two Canadian universities. The AAU's overall mission is to develop national policy positions of primary relevance to academic research and graduate and professional education. Of course, the organization's work also extends to other germane areas, including timely discussion of undergraduate education. On the AAU site, visitors can learn about the organization's most recent work, read about its positions on intellectual property issues, and peruse the latest AAU newsletters. The section of the site dedicated to internally produced reports will be of great interest to some, as it contains helpful work on such topics as "Reinvigorating the Humanities: Enhancing Research and Education on Campus and Beyond"

Quoted from the Scout Report on March 17. 2005 

Defining a new role for the humanities in the university and in society
More recently, the humanities have been caught in a conflict between over-simplified aristocratic and democratic notions of liberal arts education. Under the former, the liberal arts are viewed as being distinctly not useful; under the latter, they are seen as providing ideas of value to all citizens. Indeed, scholars and university administrators need to bear in mind the value of the humanities in the education of all of a university’s students, the usefulness of this knowledge in the professional lives of those students, and society’s need for a common base of understanding and an educated citizenry. Recently, those closely involved with the humanities —scholars, university administrators, academic society officials, and others—have begun separate reexaminations of established traditions and expectations, leading perhaps to defining a new role for the humanities in the university and in society. This report is intended to further prompt that reexamination of the humanities on university campuses, to identify steps that some institutions already have taken, and to propose future action.
I quoted the above from the Executive Summary at http://www.aau.edu/issues/ExecSumm.pdf 
You can get more details from http://www.aau.edu/issues/humanities.cfm 

Reinvigorating the Humanities: Enhancing Research and Education on Campus and Beyond - pdf - April 22, 2004
 http://www.aau.edu/issues/humanities.cfm  
 
  • Note: This report can be downloaded in its entirety -- which could take considerable time -- or by selecting individual sections below.

Reinvigorating the Humanities by downloadable section:

  • Executive Summary and Table of         Contents - pdf
  • Part I: The Role and Status of the         Humanities at AAU Universities - pdf
  • Part II: Recommendations and Ongoing         Activities at AAU Universities - pdf
  • Part III: Appendicies
              small arrow  Additional Examples - pdf
              small arrow  The Humanities Support                 Infrastructure - pdf
              small arrow  University of Toronto's                 Humanities Campaign - pdf
              small arrow  AAM Position Statement on                 University Museums and                 Collections - pdf
              small arrow  References - pdf

     
  • Index - pdf

 


University of California researchers surveyed thousands of faculty members throughout the system’s campuses on the number of hours they spent providing care of any sort for their families. They previously released general data confirming conventional wisdom: that women have more care burdens than men.  But additional data presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for Higher Education compared hours spent on care by male and female faculty members of the same age groups, and with the same status of being a parent or not being one.  The following table shows that while gaps are minimal between men and women without children, they are significant for men and women with children:

Hours Spent on Family Care, by Age

Democragraphic group Under 34 34-38 38-42 42-46
Women with children 37 43 38 34
Men with children 25 21 23 19
Women without children   6 10   7   8
Men without children   8   7   7 10

Marc Goulden, a researcher for the University of California, said that the data pointed to a shortcoming of many policies adopted by colleges to help parents. The policies tend to focus on the time demands on new parents, but ignore the reality that time demands are as great or greater when kids start to grow up as when they are babies.
Scott Jaschik, "Unequal Burden," Inside Higher Ed, March 21, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/21/care 


Breakthrough in adult (as opposed to embryonic) stem cell research
Experiments have shown adult stem cells isolated from the olfactory mucosa have the ability to develop into many different cell types if they are given the right chemical or cellular environment," explains Mackay-Sim.  New nerve cells, glial cells, liver cells, heart cells, muscle cells -- all were grown in a dish from stem cells from the human nose. Establishing the versatility of these adult stem cells was in itself a significant scientific achievement, but the Griffith University team's experiments also uncovered a raft of additional advantages.  For starters, such cells are easily harvested. The research team's doctor, prominent Brisbane ear, nose and throat specialist Chris Perry, was able to extract them from consenting patients - and later from the scientists themselves - by simply spraying the inside of the nose with a local anaesthetic and then removing a sample no bigger than a grain of pepper.  The harvested stem cells were not only readily available but proved to be astonishingly easy to grow in the laboratory, with millions of them forming within weeks. Down the track, once all the required trials are carried out - which could take at least another five years - it might well be possible for a healthy person to have his olfactory stem cells harvested, a mildly uncomfortable process that takes barely 10 minutes, grown in a lab and then frozen for injection years later into -- to give just one example -- the withered muscles of a heart after a heart attack.
Wayne Smith, "Sweet Smell of Success," The Australian, March 22, 2005 --- http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12616654^28737,00.html 


More nonprofit colleges may be purchased by for-profit institutions
Sean Gallagher, a senior analyst at Eduventures, which does research on the education industry for investors and colleges, said he is not surprised to see an institution like Saint Mary’s turn to a place like Regis to take over adult education programs. “Higher education is scalable and larger providers have a huge advantage in marketing and online education,” he said.  “It’s just very difficult to develop a curriculum and manage and market it” in adult education, when you are a small college, Gallagher said.  Eduventures — which counts both Regis and Phoenix among its clients — has predicted that more nonprofit colleges may be purchased by for-profit institutions. That happened this month when Bridgepoint Education, a for-profit higher education company, bought the Franciscan University of the Prairies.  But he said the same factors that prompt that prediction may also apply to places like Regis that are big enough to compete with the larger for-profit institutions.  Officials at Saint Mary’s said they were drawn to Regis because it is a nonprofit institution. And Husson, the Regis administrator, said that the university’s traditional emphasis on values and ethics shapes all its programs.
Scott Jaschik, "How to Compete," Inside Higher Ed, March 18, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/18/regis 
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education programs are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 


Neil J. Salkind, a professor and a book agent, offers advice on how to get a publisher interested --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/03/21/salkind 


What is the current bid for the solutions manual and test bank of your chosen textbook?
Wiley officials declined to release the names of those who were sued. But they said that settlements have been reached with students at Arizona State, Northeastern, Pennsylvania State and Wayne State Universities; the Universities of Florida and Wisconsin at Madison; and several University of California campuses.  “This is a new form of cheating and copyright violation with a Malthusian growth cycle,” said Roy S. Kaufman, legal director of Wiley. Students somehow obtain the materials, copy them and then distribute several copies, which are in turn copied and sold, he said.  Even with Wiley’s efforts of the past few months, sales of the materials are rampant, he said.  On eBay, you can find these materials by searching for “solutions manual;” there are choices of texts in many fields and from many publishers. Science and engineering fields seem to be particularly hot sellers, with bids for the materials related to many books standing at more than $100.
Scott Jaschik, "A New Form of Cheating," Inside Higher Ed, March 18, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/18/cheating 


Vietnam Chronicles:  Separating Fact from Fiction
The Vietnam War suffered famously from such home-front confusion, and from policy confusion too. Thus "Vietnam Chronicles" (Texas Tech University Press, 917 pages, $50) is especially welcome -- for what it tells us about Vietnam, of course, but also for what is says about the myth-making and misperceptions that surround any war. The book consists primarily of recently declassified transcriptions of the weekly intelligence updates at U.S. military headquarters in Saigon -- officially, at Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV).
James Schlesinger, "Where Myth Trumped Truth,"  March 18, 2005; Page W6 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111110094318983000,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal 


Surge in undocumented immigrants
The nation's undocumented immigrant population surged to 10.3 million last year, spurred largely since 2000 by the arrivals of unauthorized Mexicans in the United States, a report being released Monday says.  The population of undocumented residents in the United States increased by about 23 percent from 8.4 million in the four-year period ending last March, according to the analysis of government data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a private research group.  That equates to a net increase of roughly 485,000 per year between 2000 and 2004. The estimate was derived by subtracting the number of unauthorized immigrants who leave the United States, die or acquire legal status from the number of new undocumented immigrants that arrive each year.  The prospect of better job opportunities in the United States than in their native countries remains a powerful lure for many immigrants, said Pew center director Roberto Suro, pointing to a reason often cited by other researchers.
Genaro C. Armas, Associated Press, March 21, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/immigrantsMarch21 

Civil rights and immigrant activists say a handful of bills in the Legislature unfairly target foreign nationals, but sponsors of the legislation claim they're just trying to slow the flow of illegal immigrants into Tennessee.  One proposed law would require drivers license exams be given only in English, and another would deny public benefits such as TennCare and driving certificates to foreign nationals. One bill would prohibit immigrants from getting any state government services if they cannot show they're in the country legally.
WBIR, March 21, 2005 --- http://www.wbir.com/news/news.aspx?provider=KNS&storyid=24208 


Iraqi Business Women's Association
I am explaining all of this so you, the reader, may understand how brave a woman like Tammy is. Tammy, of course, is an alias. She is Iraqi.  Tammy is President of the Iraqi Business Women Association (IBWA). The objective of the association is to assist Iraqi women in realizing their ambitions. Iraqi women (who live within the "red zone") are trained how to start and run their own business. They learn how to use the computer, how to type resumes, speak better English and so much more. It is a non-profit organization founded in 2003.  I had my first meeting with Tammy a few weeks ago. She went through tremendous circumstances just to meet me. The purpose of the meeting was to find out more about her organization and in what ways I could help.  We decided what they could use the most is proved and solid advice from American women. Real women in real jobs. Real women in real businesses. Real women in real careers. Giving them the opportunity for their minds to be opened to the plethora of opportunities awaiting them, possibilities of being: doctors, lawyers, store owners, restaurateurs, owning and operating manufacturing plants, salons, distributorships,...and doesn't the list goes on?
William D. Hodges, "Iraqi Business Women's Association," Free Republic, March 21, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1367174/posts 
Jensen Comment:  Many Iraqi's, men and women, are being especially brave in their efforts to bring a new freedom and a new economy to Iraq.


Corruption Scandal in France
Senior allies of President Jacques Chirac -- including four former ministers -- were among nearly 50 people who appeared in court in Paris at the start of one of France's biggest ever political corruption trials.  A total of 47 defendants -- including politicians, party officials, and representatives of some of France's biggest building companies -- are accused of fixing public works contracts in the Paris region in order to obtain illegal party funding.  One of several financial scandals to come to light from Chirac's long tenure to 1995 as mayor of Paris, the affair centres on kickbacks worth more than 70 million euros (93 million dollars) allegedly paid by the building firms in order to secure bids to renovate secondary schools around the capital.  Under a secret arrangement that lasted from 1989 to 1997, companies funnelled back two percent of the money paid by the regional Ile-de-France council, with 1.2 percent going to Chirac's Rally for the Republic (RPR) and its ally the Republican party (PR), and 0.8 percent going to the Socialists (PS), according to the prosecution.
"Chirac allies among 47 accused in major French corruption trial," AFP, March 21, 2005 --- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1511&e=5&u=/afp/20050321/wl_afp/francejusticepolitics_050321142150 

Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 


Texas lawmaker proposes ban on cheerleading since it is contradictory to sexual abstinence
"It's just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they're shaking their behinds and going on, breaking it down," said Edwards, a 26-year veteran of the Texas House. "And then we say to them, 'don't get involved in sex unless it's marriage or love, it's dangerous out there' and yet the teachers and directors are helping them go through those kind of gyrations."  Under Edwards' bill, if a school district knowingly permits such a performance, funds from the state would be reduced in an amount to be determined by the education commissioner.
April Castro, "Lawmaker Seeks to End 'Sexy' Cheerleading," Washington Times, March 18, 2005 --- http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/S/SUGGESTIVE_CHEERLEADING?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME 


The Psychology Department:  Where the hard and the soft sciences overlap is still pretty soft
For all its flaws, neuroimaging is here to stay. No self-respecting psych department can afford to forgo it. Of the dozen or so new faculty members recently hired by his department, says Phillip Shaver, chairman of psychology at the University of California, Davis, 10 use primarily neuroimaging. Economists, political scientists and sociologists are not far behind. As with all powerful tools, let the user beware.
Sharon Begley, "While Brain Imaging Offers New Knowledge, It Can Be an Illusion," The Wall Street Journal,  March 18, 2005; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111110678590183261,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 


Accounting to the rescue
Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea has offshore oil and gas fields and related pipelines it is currently developing with international partners, led by BP. Central Asia's Kyrgyzstan depends on gold mines, the largest of which is owned by Canadian-based Centerra Gold, for about 10% of its GDP. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has financed these projects and is among the international and local entities encouraging greater transparency and improved governance in state and private enterprise across the region.  These two young states are at the vanguard of a fledgling movement among poor nations with valuable hydrocarbon and mineral wealth to publish the revenues received from their multinational partners. It is much hoped that greater transparency and accountability in the resource sector will enhance reform in other aspects of these countries' transition to market economies based in well-functioning democracies.  Revenue reporting is vital in combating corruption and what is known as the "resource curse." Many countries seemingly blessed with oil, gas, precious metals and minerals and other high-value nonrenewable resources have suffered macroeconomic destabilization from huge and rapid inflows of resource revenues, particularly for oil and gas. Some governments have squandered such revenues. This is easily done when taxes and royalties paid to government by mining and logging companies are not reported publicly via the legislature as would be normal in developed democracies.  Experience shows that citizens of such countries can end up worse off than previous generations when corrupt elites use the revenues to stifle necessary reforms, to suppress dissent and to promote their own ethnic groups and cronies. The result, as seen in parts of Africa in particular, can be civil unrest, even outright war.
Jean Lemierre, "Beating the 'Resource Curse' With Transparency," The Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2005, http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111110016176782969,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 
Bob Jensen's threads on revenue reporting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/eitf01.htm 


The condition of large tails in the distribution is known as leptokurtosis.
I bet you really wanted to know this about return distributions:  This means that there are more frequent large negative outliers than there are large positive outliers.
Return distributions can be described by what are known as "moments" of the distribution. Most market participants understand the first two moments of a distribution: they identify the mean and variance of the distribution. Often in finance, it is assumed that the returns to financial assets follow a normal, or bell-shaped, distribution. However, this is not the case for credit-risky assets. Credit-risky assets are typically exposed to significant downside risk associated with credit downgrades, defaults, and bankruptcies. This downside risk can be described in terms of kurtosis and skewness. Kurtosis is a term used to describe the general condition that the probability mass associated with the tails of a return distribution, otherwise known as "outlier events," is different from that of a normal distribution. The condition of large tails in the distribution is known as leptokurtosis. This means that the tails of the distribution have a greater concentration of mass (more outlier events) than what would be expected if the returns were symmetrically distributed under a normal distribution. The skew of a distribution is also measured relative to a normal distribution. A normal distribution has no skew--its returns are symmetrically distributed around the mean return. A negative skew to a distribution indicates a bias towards downside exposure. This means that there are more frequent large negative outliers than there are large positive outliers. This indicates a return profile biased towards large negative returns.
Mark J.P. Anson, Frank J. Fabozzi, Moorad Chaudhry, and Ren-Raw Chen, Credit Derivatives:  Instruments, Applications, and Pricing, (Wiley, 2003, ISBN: 047146600X, Page 15)


Question
What do you ask (newly admitted MBAs to the Sloan School at MIT) students to do before they get to campus? 
Answer
We have an admit Web site, where the school loads different information for incoming students. We offer advice on many aspects of the program -- from recommended business attire to summer reading material. We have them fill out Meyers-Briggs and Career Leader self-assessment tests, and we review them in a day-long seminar during orientation.
"What Sets Sloan MBAs Apart:  Career Development Director Jacqueline Wilbur hails MIT's B-school grads for their intelligence and quirky individuality," Business Week, March 16, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/SloanNewMBAs 


I won't raise my glass to this one!
Alcohol consumption accounted for 1,715 deaths among traditional-age college students in 2001, according to a study released Thursday by the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.  That represents an increase of about 6 percent (after being adjusted for the rise in the number of college-age people) from the 1,575 alcohol-related deaths three years earlier, in 1998, according to the study, which was published in the latest edition of the Annual Review of Public Health.  The study also found a sharp rise in the proportion of students aged 18 to 24 who acknowledged driving drunk, to 31.4 percent in 2001 from 26.5 percent in 1998. That represents an increase in the number of students who drove drunk over that three-year period to 2.8 million, from 2.3 million.
Doug Lederman, "Death by Drinking," Inside Higher Ed, March 18, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/18/alcohol 


The minority pool among GMAT takers is just not big enough
Like Murphy, most of the latest round of B-school applicants are now receiving acceptance -- or rejection -- letters for this fall. And as the offers go out, the level of minority enrollment is a pressing concern for administrators at top schools. Enrollment of Asian Americans is strong, at around 15% to 25% for top MBA programs. But overall enrollment of under-represented minorities -- African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans -- has remained flat at about 10% at accredited business schools, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business."OUTDATED TERM." That figure is way below those groups' share of the population. Recruiting African Americans, who comprise 12% of the U.S. population and only about 7% of the U.S. B-school student body, is particularly difficult. Although the number of nonwhites taking the GMAT has steadily increased in recent years, the number of African Americans taking the exam dropped slightly in 2003, according to the Graduate Management Admissions Council. And some B-school insiders fear the effort to correct the balance is about to get even more difficult.
Francesca Di Meglio, "Building a Fire Under the Melting Pot:  Top B-schools are doing their best to boost the number of minority applicants. Trouble is, there just aren't enough to go around," Business Week, March 16, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/MeltingPot 


Goodnight, Peter. Goodnight, Tom. Goodnight, Dan.
Until Ted Turner ruined it. The networks' business model never had room in its schedule for long-form news coverage. By the time Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw retired, they were Lears in a dying kingdom, overrun by barbarian talk-show hosts and Internet bloggers.  Are we better off? The political diversity the networks ludicrously refused to admit as a problem is now everywhere. Cable, notably FOX, has democratized and leveled the opinion field. For all the pious right-mindedness that gushed out of the three networks, Barbara Walters and Lesley Stahl never had a snowball's chance of sitting in those anchor chairs, while now most of cable's anchors seem to be women.  In the golden age of the network Anchorman, TV news was often pompous, wrong and yes, waaay too liberal. But for all this, it brought -- it forced -- the world's most liberal standard of free speech and discussion into some rather dark and closed places. It was about this time that the United Nations -- chockablock with dictators -- started holding conferences on America's "cultural imperialism." In no small part, they meant Dan, Peter and Tom and their probing camera armies.  This week, when grand images poured out of Lebanon of a million people massed against an occupier, it was reported by whichever cable anchor was on shift that hour. News itself rules the kingdom now, so there's no longer much call for an Anchorman Chronicles. Goodnight, Peter. Goodnight, Tom. Goodnight, Dan.
Daniel Henninger, "Lifting Anchor: The Last Chronicle Of Dan Rather," The Wall Street Journal,  March 18, 2005; Page A12 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111110324952483100,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Former Ernst & Young Tax Advisors:  Caught in the Middle of a Post-Sarbanes Client Tug-a-War
Carolyn Campbell says she decided it was time to leave accounting firm Ernst & Young when she realized she would have to build a new client base largely from scratch if she stayed.  Ms. Campbell, 35 years old, is an accountant whose specialty is advising large companies on local and state taxes. For most of her career, the Big Four firm's audit clients supplied the bulk of her work. But those jobs are harder to come by. Amid concerns of conflicts of interest, more public companies are cutting back on giving other, lucrative "nonauditing" assignments to their independent auditors amid concerns of conflicts of interest. That means less work for consultants employed by Big Four firms. In some cases, Ms. Campbell says, Ernst told her that longtime audit clients were off-limits ... So in October Ms. Campbell, an 11-year Ernst veteran, left her position in Houston as a senior tax manager to work for Alvarez & Marsal LLC, a consulting firm that doesn't do audits. "I think I had a better opportunity working for a nonaccounting firm," she says.  Now she is one of 13 former Ernst consultants at the center of a lawsuit that Ernst filed last month in a New York state court in Manhattan, accusing Alvarez & Marsal of raiding its tax and real-estate divisions' personnel, poaching its clients, interfering with its business and misappropriating confidential information.  Alvarez says it hasn't engaged in any improper conduct and argues that the suit is a sign of the accounting industry's struggle to adjust to the post-Enron Corp. world.
Jonathan Weil, "In Post-Enron World, Accounting Firms Fight Over the Pieces," The Wall Street Journal,  March 18, 2005,  Page C1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111109239427082751,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 
Bob Jensen's threads on auditor independence and professionalism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#Professionalism 


The new Foucault Society
The Foucault Society is involved in the study and application of Michel Foucault's ideas within a contemporary context and to open up a discourse to the widest possible audience.  The Society's new website serves as a resource for information, news, and events. It is designed to serve as a means of exchanging ideas about the works of Michel Foucault.
 Foucault Society --- http://www.foucaultsociety.org/

I dream of the intellectual destroyer of evidence and universalities, the one who, in the inertias and constraints of the present, locates and marks the weak points, the openings, the lines of power, who incessantly displaces himself, doesn't know exactly where he is heading nor what he'll think tomorrow because he is too attentive to the present.
Michel Foucault, "The End of the Monarchy of Sex" from Foucault Live: Interviews, 1966-1984, tr. John Johnston, ed. Sylvere Lotringer (New York: Semiotext(e), 1989), p. 155.


The English have been watching too much U.S. television:  Take a flying leap in legal lotto
A teenage criminal who received £567,000 in compensation after falling through a roof while trespassing boasted about his wealth yesterday, saying that he was looking forward to buying "a few houses and a flash car".   I deserve this money and I don't care what anybody says about me," he said. "I'm going to buy a big house so I have a place to live with me mum when she gets out of jail. I might buy a few houses - I'll buy whatever I want." He added: "The papers just call me a yob and a thug because I've been done for robbery and assault but those were just silly stupid little things, like.  "I want to spend my money the way I want without people interfering and I want to have a prosperous future."
Peter Zimonjic, "I'll buy houses and a flash car, says yob awarded £567,000, Telegraph-News, March 2, 2005 --- http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/20/nyob20.xml


It is easy to ask questions about technology; it is more difficult to ask the right questions. Only by asking the right question will we get the right answer.
Diana Oblinger --- http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm05211.asp




This is a nice and concise software review for creating Web pages and Web sites

Click here to view the Comparison Chart. (pdf) ---
http://i.cmpnet.com/techlearning/archives/2005/03/05.03.Reviews_chart%20only.pdf


New Cell Phone Virus
Two weeks ago, antivirus companies discovered CommWarrior, the first significant mobile-phone worm to be released "in the wild." The previous phone viruses you might have heard about were all pretty harmless. Cabir, which also made the news last month, uses Bluetooth to hop from one phone to others physically nearby. As Slate explained, that technique limits the virus's ability to spread quickly—for Cabir to propagate, it has to be within 30 feet of a vulnerable Bluetooth phone. CommWarrior is far more contagious. When it invades your phone, the worm rifles through your contacts list and mails a copy of itself to victims as a "multimedia message." That's a classic social-engineering trick: When a message comes from a friend, you're much more likely to open it and get infected. Besides passing itself along to the next guy, CommWarrior doesn't do much. The virus' only payload is a flashing message—"OTMOP03KAM HET!"—that translates as "No to brain-deads!" in Russian.
Clive Thompson, "The Perfect Worm: Coming soon, a cell-phone virus that will wreck your life,"  Slate, March 22, 2005 --- http://slate.msn.com/id/2115118/

 


Is your university missing out on an opportunity for a $1,000,000 science teacher?
Because the emphasis of the Hughes awards is on programs that could be spread nationally, the impact may be seen soon on campuses without their own “million dollar professors.” And if you missed out last time, there’s a chance to join that elite group. The institute is now
accepting nominations for a second group of awards — again, up to 20 people will receive $1 million.  For a good example of how $1 million can change things, talk to Jo Handelsman, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. With her grant, she is focusing on two projects, both of which involve evangelizing on new approaches to science education that will be felt far from Madison. One project involves changing how graduate students and postdocs learn to teach, so that they start their careers with better techniques than they experienced as undergraduates. The other project involves an intense Madison seminar over the summer to help teams of professors learn to revamp their introductory biology courses.
Scott Jaschik, "A Scientific (Teaching) Revolution," Inside Higher Ed, March 23, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/23/hughes

Education lags technology:  "The enemy is us"
Meanwhile, we’ve reached a critical juncture in our institutional commitments to educational technology. Advances in networking and software design finally allow educators to do far more than merely automate the traditional lecture course. Over the last several years, higher education leaders have outfitted their campuses with fat pipelines and high-speed connectivity. Increasingly, their students come to campus equipped with the latest in commercially available PCs and laptops. Hard drives are bigger, graphics accelerators speed up 3D image display, and faster processing chips simulate real-world physics with relative ease.
Marilyn M. Lombardi, "Standing on the Plateau," EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 40, no. 2 (March/April 2005): 68–69 --- http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm0528.asp


Education in the distant future
I believe we are headed to a more individualized and learner-centered model of higher education. I envision students having a voluminous menu of postsecondary education options and mixing and matching among these options throughout their adult lives. I see the combination of brain research and software development producing learning materials and pedagogical methods geared to each student’s learning style. And I suspect the profusion of learners choosing among the plentitude of postsecondary options, each offering education in its own fashion, will cause those of us in higher education to deemphasize degrees in favor of competencies. At the same time, I worry that colleges and universities will be left out of these changes because our governance processes are so slow and the new technologies represent such a sharp departure from the notion of the personalized education of the ideal college—described in 1871 by U.S. President (and Williams College alumnus) James A. Garfield as having Mark Hopkins, the nineteenth-century president of Williams College, on one end of a log and a student on the other.
Arthur Levine, "All That Glitters," EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 40, no. 2 (March/April 2005): 8–9 --- http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm0525.asp


Educators should place a higher priority on interdisciplinary perspectives
In 1981, Boyer, who was then president of the Carnegie Foundation, and Levine, who would become president of Teacher's College at Columbia University, argued that educators place a higher priority on interdisciplinary perspectives and move to more holistic teaching methods. They asserted that intellectual and social forces were pushing faculty to become narrowly committed to their core disciplines at the expense of undergraduate education.
Rita Jordan, Professor and Head, Department of Management, U.S. Air Force Academy, AACSB eNewsline --- http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/enewsline/Vol-4/Issue-3/dc-jordan.asp 


Some accounting professors may want to dust off their old green eyeshades
"We beg, we borrow, we steal, we grovel, we scour the world" to find accountants with five-plus years of experience in public accounting, says Mark Friedman, New York-based managing director and head of U.S. experienced recruitment at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Hiring across the board at the firm is running nearly 30% above the levels of last year, he says.   Recruiters estimate that pay is up 10% or more. The base salary for a junior partner with 10 to 12 years' experience, one recruiter says, is $500,000. Experienced team leaders can command 20% more than a year ago, as can those with expertise in forensic accounting, in which accountants look for financial missteps and figure out how to fix what went wrong.
Suzanne McGee, "CPA Recruitment Intensifies As Accounting Rules Evolve," The Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2005; Page B6 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111145137773485691,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Bob Jensen’s threads on accountancy careers are at


"Next-Generation Educational Software: Why We Need It and a Research Agenda for Getting It," by Andries van Dam, Sascha Becker, and Rosemary Michelle Simpson, EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 40, no. 2 (March/April 2005): 26–43 --- http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm0521.asp

The dream of universal access to high-quality, personalized educational content that is available both synchronously and asynchronously remains unrealized. For more than four decades, it has been said that information technology would be a key enabling technology for making this dream a reality by providing the ability to produce compelling and individualized content, the means for delivering it, and effective feedback and assessment mechanisms. Although IT has certainly had some impact, it has become a cliché to note that education is the last field to take systematic advantage of IT. There have been some notable successes of innovative software (e.g., the graphing calculator, the Geometer’s Sketchpad, and the World Wide Web as an information-storage and -delivery vehicle), but we continue to teach—and students continue to learn—in ways that are virtually unchanged since the invention of the blackboard.

There are many widely accepted reasons for the lack of dramatic improvement:

  • Inadequate investment in appropriate research and development of authoring tools and new forms of content
  • Inadequate investment in the creation of new dynamic and interactive content that takes proper advantage of digital hypermedia and simulation capabilities (as opposed to repurposed print content) at all educational levels and across the spectrum of disciplines
  • Inadequate investment in appropriate IT deployment in schools (e.g., although PCs are available in K-12, there are too few of them, they are underpowered, and they have little content beyond traditional “drill-and-kill” computer-aided instruction, or CAI; at the postsecondary level there is more availability of computers and software, plus routine use of the Internet, but still a dearth of innovative content that leverages the power of the medium)
  • Inadequate support for teacher education in IT tools and techniques and for the incorporation of IT-based content into the curriculum
  • The general conservatism of educational institutions

Despite this disappointing record, we remain optimistic. The dramatic advances in hardware technology, especially during the last decade, provide extraordinary new capabilities, and the desire to “do something” to address the need for lifelong, on-demand learning is finally being widely recognized. The ubiquity and accessibility of the Internet has given rise to a new kind of learning community and environment, one that was predicted by Tim Berners-Lee in his 1995 address to the MIT/Brown Vannevar Bush Symposium1 and that John Seely Brown elaborated into the rich notion of a learning ecology in his seminal article “Growing Up Digital: How the Web Changes Work, Education, and the Ways People Learn.”2 There is great hope that this emergent learning environment will in time pervade all organizations, binding learners and teachers together in informal, ever-changing, adaptive learning communities.

Here we will first recapitulate some well-known technology . . . 

Continued in article


There is an apparent disconnect between the culture of library organizations and that of Net Gen students
The University of Southern California’s Leavey Library logged 1.4 million visits last year.1 That remarkable statistic illustrates how much a library can become part of campus life if it is designed with genuine understanding of the needs of Net Generation (Net Gen) students. This understanding relates not just to the physical facility of the library but to all of the things that a library encompasses: content, access, enduring collections, and services. Libraries have been adjusting their collections, services, and environments to the digital world for at least 20 years. Even prior to ubiquitous use of the Internet, libraries were using technology for access to scholarly databases, for circulation systems, and for online catalogs. With the explosion of Internet technology, libraries incorporated a wide array of digital content resources into their offerings; updated the network, wiring, and wireless infrastructures of their buildings; and designed new virtual and in-person services. However, technology has resulted in more modernization than transformation. There is an apparent disconnect between the culture of library organizations and that of Net Gen students. This chapter will explore how libraries might better adapt to the needs of Net Gen students in a number of specific areas.
"Net Generation Students and Libraries," by Joan K. Lippencott,  EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 40, no. 2 (March/April 2005)
 


You can forward your own slang
A monster online dictionary of the rich colourful language we call slang... all from a British perspective, with new slang added every month. If you are unable to immediately find the term you are looking for, try the slang search. A short essay giving an outline of the parameters of this site and brief information on slang can be accessed on the introduction page ---  http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/index.htm
(Forwarded by David Coy)


Reducing pollution is a priority in China
A solar-energy collecting tube invented by a professor at Tsinghua University could make solar power more practical. The glass vacuum heat collector has an aluminum nitride coating that absorbs solar energy. Each of the coating’s multiple layers absorbs a different wavelength of light, turning it into heat. The collector can capture 50 to 60 percent of incoming solar energy, which can then be used to heat water or air. Tsinghua has applied for more than 30 patents on the device, which is already offered commercially in China, Switzerland, Japan, and Germany.  In another energy efficiency project, the research group for clean-energy automobiles at the College of ­Automotive Engineering at Shanghai Tongji University is developing what it calls the “Chunhui” (or “Spring Sunlight”) series of cars, which have independent electric drives for each of their four wheels. The Chunhui cars are powered by lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel cells; their only emission is water vapor.
Elsie Chan, "China," MIT's Technology Review, April 2005 --- http://www2.technologyreview.com/articles/05/04/issue/feature_gp_china.asp?trk=nl

Also see "Nuclear Power Is the Answer To China's Energy Needs ," by Canice Chan, The Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111144723579485592,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep


Just another day on the fraud beat
The Securities and Exchange Commission slapped Time Warner Inc. with a $300 million fine, its second-biggest fine in history, and issued a stinging rebuke of the company's conduct, capping a three-year investigation into accounting practices at the media titan . . . The SEC yesterday filed a complaint against Time Warner, at the same time it announced the settlement, that charged Time Warner with overstating online advertising revenue and the number of AOL's Internet subscribers, as well as aiding and abetting three other securities frauds. It also charged Time Warner with violating a cease-and-desist order against the America Online division issued in 2000.  "Some of the misconduct occurred while the ink on a prior commission cease-and-desist order was barely dry," said SEC Director of Enforcement Stephen M. Cutler in a statement. "Such an institutional failure calls for strong sanctions."
Julia Angwin, "SEC Fines Time Warner $300 Million," The Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2005; Page A3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111142076929485150,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Bob Jensen's threads on revenue accounting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/eitf01.htm


Median GMAT scores in accredited institutions --- http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/enewsline/Vol-4/Issue-3/dd-mediangmatchart.asp 


It may no longer be based solely on merit at Cal:  Top finalists may not get scholarhips
Faculty committee at the University of California says that the way the National Merit Scholarship Program chooses winners is unfair and that its practice of giving scholarships regardless of need is "contrary to U.C. standards and philosophy."  Eligibility for merit scholarships is determined solely by scores on the Preliminary SAT exam, formally the PSAT/NMSQT. Of more than 1.3 million 11th-grade students who take the exam each year, about 16,000 are chosen as Merit semifinalists. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a nonprofit company in Evanston, Ill., then uses student essays, high school records, recommendations from school principals and scores from a second test, the SAT, to reduce the pool to 15,000 finalists.
Karen W. Arenson, "Faculty Panel at Cal Faults Way to Pick Merit Scholars," The New York Times, March 22, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/education/22merit.html?oref=login


From the land of the not-so-free
Yet another battle in the ongoing war between Chinese authorities and Internet freedoms has culminated with Beijing's Tsinghua University online-discussion forum being closed to non-students. Off-campus users, such as alumni, made up a large portion of the site's visitors, so the decision's impact will not be small. But this incident just shows once again that Chinese netizens will not be easily defeated.  What is most notable about this recent repression attempt has been the Chinese reaction: The restriction of Tsinghua's forum has been followed by reports of protests, both virtual and real. Messages protesting the closing off of the forum have spread through the Chinese blogosphere, and there are photos circulating on the Internet that claim to be of protests by Tsinghua students.
"Another Chinese Internet Battle," The Wall Street Journal,  March 23, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111153019822086799,00.html?mod=opinion%5Fmain%5Feurope%5Fasia


Tax craziness in Michigan
The better course would be for Michigan legislators to approve tax cuts for manufacturers, dump the job-destroying tax hikes, and balance the state budget with spending restraint. Better yet, they could finish the job that was started under previous Governor John Engler of phasing down, and eventually phasing out, the SBT.   In the meantime, there's a perverse logic in Ms. Granholm's belief that her plan will create new jobs by cutting taxes on the industries that are laying off workers and raising taxes on the professional service industries that actually are hiring them. The Granholm plan may well keep Michigan Number One -- in high taxes, business relocations, and job losses.

"Michigan Is for Taxers," The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2005; Page A14 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111153958769787116,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion


Tune in digitally at MSU
The campus radio station at Michigan State University now broadcasts digital, high-definition signals, making it one of the first university stations to use the emerging technology. Currently there are about 200 primarily commercial stations around the United States broadcasting high-definition signals, which are much clearer than analog signals. High-definition receivers are finding their way into homes and cars, and major broadcasting companies are reportedly considering upgrading another 1,500 stations to use digital transmitters. Digital transmissions also add a data component that can include information such as song title or cover art from a song’s album. Gary A. Reid, general manager of Michigan State’s station, said he looks forward to experimenting with the data signal to learn what uses might be appropriate or valuable to the community, such as campus news, sports scores, or weather. Michigan State bought the digital transmitter when its analog transmitter was failing, and Reid said the digital transmitter, which cost $90,000, cost only about $20,000 more than a comparable analog unit.
Chronicle of Higher Education --- http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i15/15a03102.htm
Also see http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm0524.asp


The French will be utterly exhausted
After weeks of angry debate and street protests, French lawmakers effectively dismantled the country's 35-hour workweek by voting to allow employers to increase working hours.  The National Assembly yesterday approved a bill permitting employers to negotiate deals with staff to increase working time by 220 hours a year in return for better pay. The bill effectively clears the way for the gradual erosion of the 35-hour week, a flagship policy of the former Socialist-led government that gave many people more time off but added to concerns about France's declining competitiveness.
Associated Press, "French No Longer Entitled to 35-Hour Workweek," The Wall Street Journal,  March 23, 2005; Page A13 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111150639516786335,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one


Forget steroid abuse among athletes:  The bad addiction is donuts
Miami Heat star Shaquille O'Neal will testify before a Congressional committee investigating rumors of widespread doughnut abuse in the National Basketball Association, the chairman of the committee confirmed today.  With a new study showing that 200 out of 426 NBA players are overweight, the probe into doughnut abuse is "long overdue" said Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee.
Andy Borowitz, "Krispy Kreme calls government hearings a ‘witch-hunt’," Jewish World Review, March 23, 2005 --- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0305/borowitz032305.php3


Not so carefully researched
Begin with the simplest errors of fact. The aggregate value of global trade was not $4 billion when President Clinton took office; it was $4 trillion, according to the OECD. The Palestinians have not had "several" prime ministers since 2003; they've had two. Richard Perle has never been a member of the Bush administration. The Iraqi National Museum was not significantly looted in April 2003; Britain's leftist Guardian newspaper put paid to that legend in 2003. Israelis did not support the dovish Geneva Accords by 53.3%; the actual figure was 31%, while a plurality of 38% opposed them. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 not 1989. Trivia, really, but when Ms. Soderberg snickers about how candidate Bush struggled through a foreign-policy pop quiz in 2000, one is compelled to snicker back.   Next are larger, but equally basic, errors of analysis. "It is now believed that [Abu Musab] Zarqawi operates independently, and even in competition with bin Laden." She must have missed Zarqawi's declaration of fealty to Osama bin Laden in October. (Bin Laden certainly noticed it: He recently ordered Zarqawi to widen the scope of his efforts beyond Iraq.) "While [Ahmed] Chalabi was popular in certain powerful circles in Washington, he had virtually no support in Iraq." Funny, then, that Mr. Chalabi did well enough in January's elections to be in serious contention for the premiership. "The war in Iraq drew the Bush administration's focus away from Afghanistan during the critical two years following the overthrow of the Taliban, making the job there infinitely harder." Infinitely? Ten million Afghan voters missed that nuance.

Brett Stephens' review of The Superpower Myth, by Nancy Soderberg (John Wiley & Sons, 404 pages, $27.95), The Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111144763489585598,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep


Five children in critical condition with kidney failure may have picked up a rare infection at petting zoos, health officials said.
"State Probes Kidney Failure In Children After Petting Zoos," Local6.com, March 23, 2004 --- http://www.local6.com/news/4309606/detail.html


Put it in writing in the form of a living will or advance medical directive.
There is a lesson for all of us in the tragic Schiavo case: if you want to exclude politicians from the end-of-life decisions you and your family must make regarding a terminally-ill loved one or, as in the case of Terri Schiavo, a family member who has suffered a catastrophic accident; if you don't want to be used as a political cause celebre by political and religious organizations - express your end-of-life views to your family and loved ones and, better, put it in writing in the form of a living will or advance medical directive.
"ACLU of Florida Welcomes Judge Whittemore’s Ruling in the Schiavo Case," ACLU, March 22, 2005 --- http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=17800&c=27
Jensen Comment:  In spite of my not agreeing with the ACLU on some issues, this is good advice.  And it's important for all adults to declare their wishes at any age rather than wait until they are senior citizens.


Murder and Rape in the Name of Honor?
Known cases of murder and rape committed to protect a family's honour are on the rise across Europe, forcing police to explore the reasons behind such crimes and how to stop them, officials said  At a two-day conference in London, British police spearheaded a campaign to fight so-called honour-based violence, typically committed against women to protect a family's reputation. The problem is greatest in Islamic communities in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, but it has spread as families migrate, bringing their traditional values with them.
"Cases of 'honour crimes' on the rise across Europe: British police," Yahoo News, March 22, 2005 --- http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050322/wl_uk_afp/britaincrimeislam


We will provide the sniper rifles and cannons to kill us
Fifteen years ago, Osama bin Laden sent one of his operatives to the United States to buy and bring back two-dozen .50-caliber rifles, a gun that can kill someone from over a mile away and even bring down an airplane.   In spite of all the recent efforts to curb terrorism, bin Laden could do the same thing today, because buying and shipping the world’s most powerful sniper rifle is not as difficult as you might think
Ed Bradley, "Buying Big Guns? No Big Deal," CBS Sixty Minutes, March 23, 2005 --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/18/60minutes/main681562.shtml


Make every word a hyperword?
A researcher at University College London wants to change the basic functioning of the Web, allowing readers of Web pages to change those pages—similar to wikis—and making every word a “hyperword.” The Liquid Information project is the brainchild of Frode Hegland, who is collaborating with Doug Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse. Hegland's vision of the Web is one in which consumers of content can also be producers of content. Users would be able to make connections, add links, and change the way information is presented. On an example page, Hegland has modified a CNN Web page such that users can hover over any word to display a menu of choices, including getting a definition of the word, performing a Google search for the word, and highlighting instances of the word in various colors. Hegland said that we need to replace the current Web, which consists of “handmade, one-way links” with what he calls “deep legibility” so that users can “make connections, explicit or otherwise.” Hegland conceded that a Web like the one he envisions would require smart users. But, he added, “people are pretty smart. The days of baby steps when everything is shown to users are over.”

Wired News --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66382,00.html



Archives of Tidits:  Tidbits Directory --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

 




Humor of the Week

Forwarded by Paula

To commemorate her 69th birthday on October 1, actress/vocalist Julie Andrews made a special appearance at Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall Julie for the benefit of the AARP.  One of the musical numbers she performed was "My Favorite Things" from the legendary movie "Sound Of Music."   
The lyrics of the song were deliberately changed for the entertainment of her "blue hair" audience.   
 Here are the lyrics she recited:

Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string,
These are a few of my favorite things..

Cadillacs and cataracts and hearing aids and glasses,
Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the pipes leak,
When the bones creak,
When the knees go bad
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets, and corn pads for bunions,
No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,
Bathrobes and heat pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Back pains, confused brains, and no fear of sinnin',
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin',
And we won't mention our short shrunken frames,
When we remember our favorite things.

When the joints ache,
when the hips break,
When the eyes grow dim,
Then I remember the great life I've had,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Ms. Andrews received a standing ovation from the crowd that lasted over four minutes and repeated encores.

Forwarded by Barb Hessel

A man, his wife, and his mother-in-law went on vacation to the Holy Land. While they were there the mother-in-law passed away. The undertaker told them, "You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here in the Holy Land for $150.00." 

The man thought about it for a minute and then told him he would just have her shipped home. 

The undertaker asked, "Why? Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your mother-in-law home, when it would be wonderful to spend only $150.00 to have her buried here?" 

The man said, "A man died here 2000 years ago, he was buried here and three days later he rose from the dead. I just can' t take that chance."


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

PARENT - Job Description

This is hysterical. If it had been presented this way, none of us would have done it!!!!

POSITION : Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma

Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa

JOB DESCRIPTION : 
Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an, often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities! Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES : 
The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION : 
None. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE : 
None required unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION : 
Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS : 
While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life if you play your cards right.


Forwarded by Neal Hannon

(apologies to Sam Cooke)

Bernie’s “Wonderful World”

Don’t know much about ac-coun-ting 
Don’t know much about the SEC 
Don’t know much about the techie stuff 
Don’t know what an adjusting entry is for

But I do know one and one is two 
And I just want …to be with you 
What a wonderful world it would be

Don’t know much about the quarterlies 
Don’t know much about the finance team 
Don’t know much about missing billions 
Don’t know what an auditor’s report means

But I do know that I bought more stock 
Even when the price was sinking fast 
What a wonderful world it’s supposed to be

Now, I don’t claim to be an A student 
I just was trying to coach 
But maybe by being an A student baby 
I could win an appeal for me


Forwarded by Don Mathis

Very clever stuff...no doubt it was thought up by a bored engineer...

1. Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter = Eskimo Pi

2. 2000 pounds of Chinese soup = Won ton

3. 1 millionth of a mouthwash = 1 microscope

4. Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement = 1 bananosecond

5. Weight an evangelist carries with God = 1 billigram

6. Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour= Knotfurlong

7. 365.25 days of drinking low calorie beer = 1 Lite year

8. 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling

9. Half a large intestine = 1 semicolon

10. 1,000,000 aches = 1 megahurtz

11. Basic unit of laryngitis - 1 hoarsepower

12. Shortest distance between two jokes - a straight line

13. 453.6 graham crackers = 1 pound cake

14. 1 million phones = 1 megaphone

15. 1 million bicycles = 1 megacycles

16. 365.25 days = 1 unicycle

17. 2000 mockingbirds = two kilomockingbirds

18. 10 cards = 1 decacard

19. 52 cards = 1 deckacard

20. 1 kilogram of falling figs = 1 fig Newton

21. 1000 grams of wet socks = 1 literhosen

22. 1 millionth of a fish = 1 microfiche

23. 1 trillion pins = 1 terrapin

24. 10 rations = 1 decaration

25. 100 rations = 1 C-ration

26. 2 monograms = 1 diagram

*27. 4 dimes = 2 paradigms

28. 2.4 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital = 1 I.V. League


Forwarded by Cindy

Jacques Chirac, the French Prime Minister, was   sitting in his office wondering what kind of   mischief he could perpetrate against the United   States when his telephone rang.   

"Hallo, Mr. Chirac!" a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down at the Harp Pub in County Sligo, Ireland. I am ringing to inform ya that we are officially declaring war on ya!" "Well, Paddy," Chirac replied, "this is indeed important news! How big is your army?"

"Right now," said Paddy, after a moment's calculation, "there is meself, me cousin Sean, me next door neighbor Seamus, and the entire dart team from the pub. That makes eight!"

Chirac paused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have one hundred thousand men in my army waiting to move on my command."

"Begorra!" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring ya back!"    

Sure enough, the next day, Paddy called again. "Mr.   Chirac, the war is still on. We have managed to get   us some infantry equipment!"    "And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" Chirac asked.

"Well, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy's farm tractor." Chirac sighed, amused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 6,000 tanks and 5,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I've increased my army to one hundred fifty thousand since we last spoke."

Saints preserve us!" said Paddy. "I'll have to get back to ya."

Sure enough, Paddy rang again the next day. "Mr. Chirac, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We've modified Jackie McLaughlin's ultra-light with a coople of shotguns in the cockpit, and four boys from the Shamrock Pub have joined us as well!"

Chirac was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100 bombers and 200 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to two hundred thousand!"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" said Paddy. "Again I'll have to ring ya back."

Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Top o' the mornin', Mr.Chirac! I am sorry to tell ya that we have had to call off the war."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Chirac. "Why the sudden change of heart?"     "Well," said Paddy, "we've all had a long chat over   a bunch of pints, and decided there's no foo-kin way   we can feed two hundred thousand prisoners."


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

THE CASTAWAYS

There were two men shipwrecked on this island. The minute they go on the island one of them started screaming and yelling, "We're going to die! We're going to die! There's no food! No Water! We're going to die!"

The second man was propped up against a palm tree and acting so calmly it drove the first man crazy.

"Don't you understand? We're going to die!

The second man replied, "You don't understand, I make $100,000 a week."

The first man looked at him quite dumbfounded and asked, "What difference does that make? We're on an island with no food and no water! We're going to DIE!"

The second man answered, "You just don't get it. I make a $100,000 a week and I tithe ten percent on that $100,000 a week. My pastor will find me!"


Fowarded by Paula

FOR ALL YOU LEXOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS) 

1. A bicycle can't stand alone because it is two-tired. 

2. What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway.) 

3. Time flies like an arrow -- Fruit flies like a banana. (I think Groucho Marx said that one.) 

4. A backward poet writes inverse. 

5. In a democracy, it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your count that votes. 

6. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion. 

7. If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed. 

8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress. 

9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat minor. 

10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds. 

11. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered. 

12. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart. 

13. You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it. 

14. Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under. 

15. He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key. 

16. Every calendar's days are numbered. 

17. A lot of money is tainted. 'Taint yours and 'taint mine. 

18. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat. 

19. He had a photographic memory that was never developed. 

20. A plateau is a high form of flattery. 

21. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. 

22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end. 

23. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall. 

24. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine. 

25. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she'd dye. 

26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis. 

27. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses. 

28. Acupuncture is a jab well done. 

29. Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.


Forwarded by Dick Haar

A MAN is at work one day when he notices that his co-worker is wearing an earring. This man knows his co-worker to be a normally conservative fellow and is curious about his sudden change in fashion sense.

The man walks up to him and says: "I didn't know you were into earrings."

"Don't make such a big deal, it's only an earring," he replies sheepishly.

His friend falls silent for a few minutes, but then his curiosity prods him to say: "So, how long have you been wearing one?"

"Ever since my wife found it in my truck."


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

MONA LISA'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"This you call a smile, after all the money your father and I spent on braces?"

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS' JEWISH MOTHER:
"I don't care what you've discovered, you still could have written.'

MICHELANGELO'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Why can't you paint on walls like other children? Do you know how hard it is to get that schmutz off of the ceiling?"

NAPOLEON'S JEWISH MOTHER (clean version):
"All right, if you're not hiding your report card inside your jacket, take your hand out of there and show me!"
Jensen Comment:  My former neighbor (Alma Short) in the country outside Tallahassee once found a note from her son in the mail box.  It read:  "Dear Momma, This is my report card.  Thanks for all you've done for me.  I've run away from home."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Again with the hat! You can't wear a baseball cap like the other kids?"

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Next time I catch you throwing money across the Potomac, you can kiss your allowance good-bye!"

THOMAS EDISON'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Of course I'm proud that you invented the electric light bulb. Now turn it off and go to sleep already!"

PAUL REVERE'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"I don't care where you think you have to go, young man, midnight is long past your bed-time!"

ALBERT EINSTEIN'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"But it's your senior photograph! Couldn't you have done something with your hair?"

MOSES' JEWISH MOTHER:
"That's a good story! Now tell me where you've really been for the last forty years!"

BILL CLINTON'S JEWISH MOTHER: 
"At least Monica was a nice Jewish girl!"


Forwarded by Barb Hessel

Flying Lutern Airlines

Velcome to da Lutern Airlines! Da latest air service to sprout up in Minnesnowta vit service to Visconsin, Nort Dah-kota and sometimes Sout Dah-kota.

Ve are a no-frills airline. We are all in da same boat on Lutern Air, vair flying is an uplifting experience, so velcome aboard. I am Lena Ingvist, yer flight attendant and stewardess, tew. As you know, dere is no first class on Lutern Airlines, airflight tew tousand tventy tew.

Meals are pot luck: rows one tru 6 ver to bring da lefsa; 7 tru 15, da salad, 16 tru 21, da main hot- dish, and 22-30 da rømmegrøt.

Ve vill be singing 99 bottles uv beer on da vall, so basses and tenors pleess sit in da rear of da aircraft, and remember everyvun is responsible for der own baggage. All fares are free-vil offering and the plane vil not land until da budget is met.

Direct yer attention to yer flight attendent who vill acqvaint yew wit da safety system aboard this Lutheran Tvin Yet 599.

"Okay, den listen up; I'm only gonna say dis vunce. In da event of sudden loss uv cabin pressure, I am frankly gonna be real surprised, so vill Captain Olson, becuz ve vill be flying right around 2 tousand feet, so loss of cabin pressure vud probly indicate the Second Coming or somting of dat nature, so I vuldn't bodder vit dem little masks on dem rubber tubes. Yer gonna have bigger tings to vorry about dan yust dat. Just stuff dose tings back up in der littl holes. Probly da masks fell out because of turbulence, which to be honest vit yew, ve've been flying at 2 tousand feet and dat is sort of like driving across a plowed field, but after a vile, you vill get used to it.

In da ewent of a vater landing, I'd say yust fergit it. Start saying Da Lord's prayer and yust hope you have time to git to da part about forgive us our sins as ve forgive dose who sint against us (vich some people say "tresspass against us", vich isn't right., but den, vat can ya dew?)

Use uf cell phones is strictly forbidden, not becuz dey interfere vit the planes navigational system, vich, by da vay, is "seat of the pants all da vay." No, cell phones is a pain in da wazoo, and if God had meant yew to use dem, he vould have put yer mout on da side of yer head, so stow dose suckers!

Ve're gonna start lunch, buffet style vit da coffee pot up front.  First, ve'll have da hymn sing; hymnals are in da seat pocket right  in front of yew. Don't take yers wit you ven you go or I am going to be real upset wit yew, and I ain't kiddin' eeder!"

 So lets say grace:

 "Come Lord Jesus, be our gest, and let dese gifts tew us be blest.
Fadder, Son and Holy Ghost,
May ve land in Dulut or pretty clos."

 Amen

 Tanks for flying Lutern Airlines, flight tew tousand tventy tew.


Forwarded by Dick Wolff 

Texas Versus Heaven --- http://www.houstonillini.org/a_texas_story.htm 
Doesn't mention a thing about home owners' insurance.


Forwarded by a friend

The Guys' Rules

At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down. Finally, the guys' side of the story.

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!


In the U.S. St. Pat's day is a bigger deal than in Ireland

Forwarded by Dick Haar

 
McQuillan walked into a bar and ordered martini after martini, each time removing the olives and placing them in a jar.

When the jar was filled with olives and all the drinks consumed, the Irishman started to leave.

"S'cuse me", said a customer, who was puzzled over what McQuillan had done, "what was that all about?"

"Nothin', said the Irishman, "my wife just sent me out for a jar of olives!"

*******************************************************

An Irishman arrived at J.F.K. Airport and wandered around the terminal with tears streaming down his cheeks. An airline employee asked him if he was already homesick.

"No," replied the Irishman "I've lost all me luggage!"

"How'd that happen?"

"The cork fell out!" said the Irishman.

*****************************************************


An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut.

The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?"

"Just water," says the priest.

The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?"

The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"

***********************************************


Two Irishmen were sitting at a pub having beer and watching the brothel across the street.

They saw a Baptist minister walk into the brothel, and one of them said, "Aye, 'tis a shame to see a man of the cloth goin' bad."

Then they saw a rabbi enter the brothel, and the other Irishman said, "Aye, 'tis a shame to see that the Jews are fallin' victim to temptation as well."

Then they see a catholic priest enter the brothel, and one of the Irishmen said, "What a terrible pity...one of the girls must be dying.

*************************************

 Three Irishmen, Paddy, Sean and Seamus, were stumbling home from the pub late one night and found themselves on the road which led past the old graveyard..

"Come have a look over here," says Paddy, "It's Michael O'Grady's grave, God bless his soul. He lived to the ripe old age of 87."

"That's nothing," says Sean, "here's one named Patrick O'Toole, it says here that he was 95 when he died."!

Just then, Seamus yells out, "Good God, here's a fella that got to be 145!"

"What was his name?" asks Paddy.

Seamus stumbles around a bit, awkwardly lights a match to see what else is written on the stone marker, and exclaims,

"Miles, from Dublin."

***************************************************

Irish Predicament

Drunk Ole Mulvihill (From the Northern Irish Clan) staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional box, sits down but says nothing.

The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention but the Ole just sits there.

Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall.

The drunk mumbles, "ain't no use knockin, there's no paper on this side either."

***************************************************

 
Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady's after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears.

He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?"

She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. My husband passed away last night."

The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, did he have any last requests?"

She says, "That he did, Father..."

The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?"

She says, "He said, 'Please Mary, put down that damn gun!'

Forwarded by Paula

An Irishman by the name of O'Malley proposed to his girl on St. Patrick's Day. He gave her a ring with a synthetic diamond. The excited young lass showed it to her father, a jeweller. He took one look at it and saw it wasn't real. The young lass,on learning it wasn't real, returned to her future husband and protested vehemently about his cheapness.

"It was in honor of St. Patrick's Day," he smiled. "I gave you a sham rock."


Forwarded by Dick Haar

Colonoscopies... A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male), while he was performing their colonoscopies:

1. "Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!"

2. "Find Amelia Earhart yet?"

3. "Can you hear me NOW?"

4. "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

5. "You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married."

6. "Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?"

7. "You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out..."

8. "Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!"

9. "If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!"

10. "Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity."

11. "You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?"

12. "God, Now I know why I am not gay."

And the best one of them all...

13. "Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there!


Jokes from night TV --- http://www.newsmax.com/liners.shtml  


The Unofficial Dave Barry Website --- http://www.davebarry.com/gg/misccol.htm 
It's worth a look, believe me it's worth a look
.




And that's the way it was on March 22, 2005 with a little help from my friends.

 

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 

Jesse's Wonderful Music for Romantics (You have to scroll down to the titles) --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/

Free Harvard Classics --- http://www.bartleby.com/hc/
Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

 

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/ 

 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting newsletters are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#News 

News Headlines for Accounting from TheCycles.com --- http://www.thecycles.com/business/accounting 
An unbelievable number of other news headlines categories in TheCycles.com are at http://www.thecycles.com/ 

 

Jack Anderson's Accounting Information Finder --- http://www.umsl.edu/~anderson/accsites.htm

 

Gerald Trite's great set of links --- http://www.zorba.ca/bookmark.htm 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

The Finance Professor --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/about/aboutFP.html 

 

Walt Mossberg's many answers to questions in technology --- http://ptech.wsj.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Household and Other Heloise-Style Hints --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#Hints 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

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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March 1, 2005

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on March 1, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

For earlier editions of New Bookmark s go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.  Think it over 
http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/Flash/Think_It_Over.swf

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Pictures from the war ---  http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf 
New pictures from the war --- http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1291780/posts 
Also see some troops who'd rather be home <http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf>

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take - but by the moments that take our breath away."
Big Mud Puddles and Sunny Yellow Dandelions 
(turn up your speakers)
http://members.shaw.ca/mcinnes-hume/mud_puddles__dandelions.htm




Quotations of the Week --- Click Here for Quotations

Humor of the Week --- Click Here for Humor 
(Includes 10 things Bob Jensen did that you have never done and probably never would do)

My threads on "Hypocrisy in Academia and the Media" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 

My  “Evil Empire” essay --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm

My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 




February 18, 2005 message from Joanne Tweed [ibridges@san.rr.com
Joanne is 76 years old!

Hi Bob,

America's seniors are being cheated of their life's savings by securities Broker/Dealers. 
SENIORS AGAINST SECURITIES FRAUD http://seniorsagainstsecuritiesfraud.com  offers supportive educational links and solutions. Please consider linking.

Most Sincerely,
Joanne Tweed

It's been proven, there is life after death
Identity theft isn't among the risks of medical treatment -- such as infection -- listed on the standard release form that patients sign. But there's evidence that identity thieves are starting to target medical patients. 
Kevin Helliker, "A New Medical Worry: Identity Thieves Find Ways To Target Hospital Patients," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2005, Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110902598126260237,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

Just this weekend, the University of Chicago Hospitals reported that a former employee had stolen identity information from as many as 85 patients. In recent years, rings of thieves stole the identities of more than 15 such patients in Iowa, 30 in Minnesota and nearly 50 in Indiana. During the past two years, the state of Michigan has prosecuted more than 20 cases involving medical-patient identity theft, many involving multiple victims, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox says.

Hospital patients are vulnerable in part because they are unlikely to detect anything amiss. Some may never leave the hospital. A team of alleged identity thieves arrested in 2003 in New Jersey were targeting the terminally ill, according to police.

Continued in article

The institutions, which offer fraudulent degrees in exchange for cash and little or no academic work, crop up overnight and disappear nearly as fast, when consumer complaints rise or law enforcement officials catch the scent. State and federal lawmakers yearn to crack down on these "colleges," but because they're hard to define and hard to nail down, there's often little they can do.
"New Tools to Take On Diploma Mills:  Regulating diploma mills is a little like herding cats," Inside Higher Ed, February 2, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/new_tools_to_take_on_diploma_mills 
Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mills are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill 

"Few companies have to tell when identity thieves strike:  Consumers don't learn they're in danger — until the bills arrive," USA Today, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050228/edit28x.art.htm 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received 246,570 identity theft complaints last year, and the problem actually is much worse: 9.9 million people (about one in every 30 Americans) were victims of identity theft in a one-year period starting in spring 2002, according to an FTC survey. Thieves use the data to get credit cards, pilfer bank accounts and take over identities for future thefts.

Several factors give them the upper hand:

•Companies hide break-ins. Many companies react as ChoicePoint did initially. They keep quiet after computers are hacked, fearing lawsuits and damaged reputations.

•Police are busy elsewhere. Local police are often reluctant to pursue cases. The amounts, while large to an individual, seem small compared with other monetary crimes. Often the consumer lives in one state, the thief in another. Federal authorities can act, but only about 1 in 700 cases of identity theft resulted in a federal arrest in 2002, according to Avivah Litan, a cybercrime expert with the Gartner research firm.

•Oversight is weak. Identity theft is a relatively new crime and, outside of California, governments haven't yet geared up to address it. The rising industry of data brokers has little oversight, and rules for financial institutions aren't up to the task.

The good news is that the ChoicePoint breach is prompting several states, including Georgia, New Hampshire, New York and Texas, to consider bills patterned on the California notification law. Several U.S. senators are pushing a federal law.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on identity theft and phishing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 

Bob Jensen's threads on Identity Theft --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#IdentityTheft




Cheers!
Forbes, February 10, 2005,  has a slide show on the top foods to fight depression --- http://www.forbes.com/home/health/2005/02/10/cx_mh_0210health_ls.html 
The article is by Amanda Schupak and Matthew Herper and is based on a new study from Harvard's McLean Hospital

As with any diet recommendations, it pays to read the warnings, especially with respect to the sugar products that might cheer you up (certainly in my case) while they also shorten your life (knowing that can be depressing).  Here is a listing of the Top Five Antidepressant Foods in rank order, but you should go to the Forbes slide show or better yet the Harvard study and read the fine print.

  1. Molasses --- like sugar beets, molasses is high in uridine that can increase cytidine (whatever?) levels in the brain.
  2. Salmon (especially wild salmon) --- omega-3 fatty acids
  3. Sugar beets --- like molasses can increase cytidine levels in the brain.
  4. Tofu or soy mild --- amino acids and omega-3 fatty acids
  5. Walnuts --- source of alpha linolenic acid (whatever?)

You can read more of the details in "Do Some Foods Battle Depression?" by Miranda Hitti, February 10, 2005 ---  http://my.webmd.com/content/article/100/105789.htm?printing=true 
She concludes as follows:

If you suspect that you are depressed, seek professional help. Diet may be one piece of the puzzle, but depression is too serious to handle on your own. An abundance of help is available, from diet and exercise to medication and counseling. All you have to do is ask.


I repeat a popular module from the February 20, 2005 edition of New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q1.htm#022005 

Forbes Magazine has a slide show on the ten "Best Age-Defying Foods."  However, it is a frustrating slide show because of distracting advertising pop-ups.  I endured the frustration in order to provide you with a list of the "best" foods.  

For serving sizes and suggestions for preparation, you must watch the slide show or go to the original JAFC study (which I don't think is online.)

This listing was ranked in order by the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in December 2004.

  1. Small red beans
  2. Blueberries
  3. Red kidney beans
  4. Pinto beans
  5. Cranberries
  6. Artichoke hearts
  7. Blackberries
  8. Dried prunes
  9. Raspberries
  10. Strawberries

You can read Vanessa Gisquet's commentary on why these help keep you young at http://www.forbes.com/home/health/2005/02/02/cx_vg_0202feat_ls.html 


Surprise! Surprise!  Texans are the big losers!
I honestly think there's more than weather to blame, especially after you factor in relatively low labor costs north of the Rio Grande.

"The Most Expensive States To Insure Your Home 2005," Sara Clemence, Forbes, February 25, 2005  --- http://www.forbes.com/home/realestate/2005/02/25/cx_sc_0225home.html 

Texas is tops--at least when it comes to homeowners' insurance costs.

You might guess that California, where houses go skidding down mountains, are torched by wildfires or get rattled by earthquakes, would be the most expensive place to insure a house. Or Florida, which was hammered by no fewer than four major hurricanes last year.

But in Florida, the most recent data available from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) shows that the average homeowners' premium was $786 in 2002. The average in Texas was 58% higher. California didn't even make the top ten.

The hitch? In those damage- and destruction-prone states, earthquake, hurricane and flood insurance policies are sold separately, and not factored into the ranking. Yet in other states, more mundane weather events can create actuarial nightmares.

Several years ago, when Bob Hunter left Northern Virginia to become Commissioner of Insurance in Texas, he found that his insurance bill had doubled even though he'd bought a similar home.

"Since I was commissioner, I asked [the company] to produce the data underlying the rates," Hunter says. "The thing that was really different was hail and wind. The risk of natural disaster was much greater. That caused maybe 90% of the difference in the rates, between Northern Virginia and Austin."

Weather is a major factor in determining the cost--and cost range--of homeowners' insurance, says Don Griffin, a vice president at Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), a trade association whose members write about 40% of the property and casualty insurance policies in the United States.

"Insurance is really based on looking at the past," says Griffin. When determining premiums, insurers look at claim trends on a broad basis, such as state and regional levels, and as closely as a ZIP code or even a street. Companies then begin with an average price for premiums, depending on how expensive it has been to fill claims in a location.

If you have a wood-framed house in an area without fire coverage, you will pay more than someone who lives in a brick house next to the fire station, Griffin explains. But, brick doesn't respond well to earthquakes, tending to crack and crumble, so near the San Andreas Fault the potential damage would be greater.

The cost of real estate and rebuilding are also taken into account, which is one reason insurance is more expensive in cities than in rural areas (though that probably doesn't hold true if you live on a barrier island).

"If building material is in short supply or there isn't an abundance of skilled labor, that's going to factor in," says Kip Diggs, spokesman for Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm Insurance, the largest home insurance underwriter in the country.

In general, homeowners' insurance costs are leveling off, says Loretta Worters, spokeswoman for the New York-based Insurance Information Institute.

One reason is that people are maintaining their homes better, she says. Mold damage claims haven't been as costly as insurers had predicted.

Bob Hunter, who is now director of insurance for Consumer Federation of America (CFA), points out that for years premiums had increased at around the annual inflation rate. According to CFA, in 2001 homeowners' insurance rates went up by a median 7%, and in 2002 by a median 13%. Reasons include dropping interest rates and a stock market slump, he says. Both mean it's harder for insurance companies to make money on their investments.

The increases dropped back down last year, to around 4% or 5%, says Hunter. "This year we're talking back around inflation."

But if you live in Texas, Florida or any of the states with the expensive homeowners' premiums, don't start packing your bags for Wisconsin--the state with the least expensive premiums--just yet. Not every resident has to pay at the top rate. Plenty depends on how elaborate a policy you choose, and even where you live within a particular state. In Oregon, costs are similar whether you're in Portland or Coos Bay, Hunter says. In Maryland, State Farm charges nearly twice as much in Montgomery County, which butts against Washington, D.C., as in Frederick County, which is one county north. Other companies have different premium scales in the same area.

"Insurance companies do charge very significantly different prices," Hunter says. "You can easily pay 50% more if you go to the wrong company."

That's why it pays to shop around and do some background research. Most states have free insurance-buyers' guides, and the NAIC offers complaint ratios, as well as licensing and financial information for different companies on its Web site ( http://www.naic.org/ ). Besides that, you don't necessarily get what you pay for.

"Our research shows that you don't have to pay more to get good service," Hunter says. "Some of the least-expensive companies have the best service."


Homicide Rates Nationally and Internationally

Question
If you exclude nations at war, what nations have the highest versus the lowest homicide rates?
What European nation has the highest (lowest) homicide rate?
What states in the United States have the highest homicide rates.

Answers
In spite of hearing a lot about murder rates in large U.S. cites (mostly in the blue states politically), the highest murder rates are in the southern states according the the FBI.--- http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/sh20031119ar01p1.htm 

Other answers are given at Gun Site on October 18, 2003 --- http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html 

International Homicide Rate Table (Death rates are per 100,000)

 
Country Year Population Total Homicide Firearm Homicide Non-Gun Homicide % Households With Guns
South Africa 1995 41,465,000 75.30 26.60 48.70 n/a 
Colombia 1996 37,500,000 64.60 50.60 14.00 n/a 
Estonia 1994 1,499,257 28.21 8.07 20.14 n/a 
Brazil 1993 160,737,000 19.04 10.58 8.46 n/a 
Mexico 1994 90,011,259 17.58 9.88 7.70 n/a 
Philippines 1996 72,000,000 16.20 3.50 12.70 n/a 
Taiwan1 1996 21,979,444 8.12 0.97 7.15 n/a 
N. Ireland 1994 1,641,711 6.09 5.24 0.85 8.4
United States2 1999 272,691,000 5.70 3.72 1.98 39.0
Argentina 1994 34,179,000 4.51 2.11 2.40 n/a 
Hungary 1994 10,245,677 3.53 0.23 3.30 n/a 
Finland3 1994 5,088,333 3.24 0.86 2.38 23.2
Portugal 1994 5,138,600 2.98 1.28 1.70 n/a 
Mauritius 1993 1,062,810 2.35 0 2.35 n/a 
Israel 1993 5,261,700 2.32 0.72 1.60 n/a 
Italy 1992 56,764,854 2.25 1.66 0.59 16.0
Scotland 1994 5,132,400 2.24 0.19 2.05 4.7
Canada 1992 28,120,065 2.16 0.76 1.40 29.1
Slovenia 1994 1,989,477 2.01 0.35 1.66 n/a 
Australia 1994 17,838,401 1.86 0.44 1.42 19.4
Singapore 1994 2,930,200 1.71 0.07 1.64 n/a 
South Korea 1994 44,453,179 1.62 0.04 1.58 n/a 
New Zealand 1993 3,458,850 1.47 0.17 1.30 22.3
Belgium 1990 9,967,387 1.41 0.60 0.81 16.6
England/Wales4 1997 51,429,000 1.41 0.11 1.30 4.7
Switzerland5 1994 7,021,000 1.32 0.58 0.74 27.2
Sweden 1993 8,718,571 1.30 0.18 1.12 15.1
Denmark 1993 5,189,378 1.21 0.23 0.98 n/a 
Austria 1994 8,029,717 1.17 0.42 0.75 n/a 
Germany6 1994 81,338,093 1.17 0.22 0.95 8.9
Greece 1994 10,426,289 1.14 0.59 0.55 n/a 
France 1994 57,915,450 1.12 0.44 0.68 22.6
Netherlands 1994 15,382,830 1.11 0.36 0.75 1.9
Kuwait 1995 1,684,529 1.01 0.36 0.65 n/a 
Norway 1993 4,324,815 0.97 0.30 0.67 32.0
Spain 1993 39,086,079 0.95 0.21 0.74 13.1
Japan 1994 124,069,000 0.62 0.02 0.60 n/a 
Ireland 1991 3,525,719 0.62 0.03 0.59 n/a 
Country Year Population Total Homicide Firearm Homicide Non-Gun Homicide % Households With Guns

Notes:

  1. Number of homicides: Ministry of Interior, National Police Administration (link not always active), Taiwan.
    Population: As of April 1999, Government Information Office, Taiwan.
    Gun Homicides: Central News Agency, Taipei, November 23, 1997.
  2. Total homicide rate and firearm homicide rates are from FBI Uniform Crime Report(1999).
  3. The United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation reports Finland's gun ownership rate at 50% of households.
  4. Percent households with guns includes all army personnel.
  5. Percent households with guns excludes East Germany.

Sources:

Homicide data for Colombia, Philippines, and South Africa are from the United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation .

Population figures for Colombia, Philippines, and South Africa are estimates based on UN data.

Data for the remainder of the countries, except as noted above: International Journal of Epidemiology 1998:27:216.

Column "% Households With Firearms": Can Med Assoc J, Killias, M (1993), except United States (Gallup [2000] and Harris [2001] polls.)

Note:
Argentina, Brazil, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Mexico, Mauritius, Slovenia, Portugal, and South Korea are classified as upper-middle-income countries by the World Bank. GunCite does not know the classification for Colombia, South Africa and the Philippines. The remainder are considered high-income countries.


We're hot stuff!

Accenture is a consulting firm that dramatically broke away from Andersen long before Andersen imploded.  I found it interesting that Accenture is now in the Top 20 in terms of hiring needs for accounting graduates.  Deloitte is not in the Top 20 in spite of getting some new huge audits such as Fannie Mae.

I also found it interesting how so many other non-accounting firms have such great needs for accounting graduates.  The top employers include several accounting and consulting firms, and the number one hiring company is a surprise to me.  Does each accountant oversee a single car? 

"Accounting Firms Hiring Thousands of '05 Grads," SmartPros, February 23, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47148.xml 

Feb. 23, 2005 (SmartPros) — The job market for 2005 college graduates is predicted to be the best since 2000, according to Michigan State University's annual Recruiting Trends survey. The top employers include several accounting and consulting firms.

The survey respondents are ranked according to the projected number of hires from college recruiting for the Class of 2005. The top 20 employers, followed by their projected number of hires, are:

1 - Enterprise Rent-A-Car--7,000 
2 - PricewaterhouseCoopers--3,170 

3 - Ernst & Young LLP--2,900 
4 - Lockheed Martin--2,863 
5 - KPMG--2,240 
6 - Sodexho, Inc.--2,050 
7 - Fairfax County Public Schools--1,600 
8 - Accenture--1,540 
9 - Northrop Grumman--1,266 
10 - United States Customs & Border Protection--1,200 
11 - Target--1,127 
12 - United States Air Force--1,095 
13 - Raytheon Company--1,000 
14 - Microsoft--970 
15 - JPMorgan Chase--810 
16 - Procter & Gamble--569 
17 - Liberty Mutual--545 
18 - Grant Thornton--500 
19 - Bank of America--413 
20 - United States Air Force Personnel Center/DPKR--400

According to the survey, economic sectors showing strength this year include: retail, wholesale, transportation (not including airlines), health services, entertainment and real estate.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting careers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers  


A new way to teach math:  But does it add up?
A group of disadvantaged Bay Area high school students who learned mathematics by discussing open-ended problems in mixed-ability groups outperformed wealthier teenagers placed in tracked, traditional classes, according to a new School of Education study.

"How urban high schoolers got math." by Lisa Trei, Stanford Alumni Newsletter, February 2, 2005 --- http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/february2/boaler-020205.html 

A group of disadvantaged Bay Area high school students who learned mathematics by discussing open-ended problems in mixed-ability groups outperformed wealthier teenagers placed in tracked, traditional classes, according to a new School of Education study. Their performance on state-mandated tests, however, was less encouraging.
Jo Boaler, an associate professor of education, followed about 700 students in three Bay Area high schools from 1999 to 2004 as they studied mathematics from 9th through 12th grade. Boaler, a specialist in mathematics education, wanted to learn how different teaching methods affected student learning. The National Science Foundation supported the five-year project.
 
The results surprised Boaler. Students from a school called "Railside," a pseudonym for an urban school with a 77 percent Latino, African American and Asian/Pacific Islander population, entered freshman year achieving at significantly lower levels in mathematics than students at the other two Bay Area schools, according to the study's tests. These more affluent schools included "Hilltop," the pseudonym for a rural school with a half white, half Latino population, and "Greendale," a school in a coastal community with an almost all-white student body. Unlike Railside, where teachers had designed a reform-oriented program, students at Hilltop and Greendale were placed in tracked classes mostly using conventional teaching methods involving demonstration and individual practice, she said.
Within two years, Boaler said, Railside students were "significantly outperforming" the students at the other two schools in tests designed by the study. By junior year, 54 percent of Railside students said they enjoyed math "all or most of the time," compared to 29 percent of students at the other schools, she said. Furthermore, although white students at Railside performed at higher levels than Latinos at the start of freshman year, this disparity disappeared by the end of sophomore year.
 
The study found no gender differences in performance in any of the tests the students took at any level. Female students made up half of the advanced classes at Hilltop, 48 percent at Greendale and 59 percent at Railside. By 12th grade, 41 percent of all Railside students were taking calculus, Boaler said, compared with about 27 percent of seniors at the other two schools.
 
Keith Devlin, a consulting professor in mathematics, said the study's results do not surprise him. "Good teaching is not just about teaching the tools, but teaching students how to use the tools," he said. "Learning math is about developing our mental capacity to a point [that] when faced with a new problem involving mathematical thinking, we know how to go about solving it. You can't get away from drill, rote and practice, but then you have to develop the skills for using the tools well."
 
Boaler attributes Railside's success to reform-oriented instruction and teachers dedicated to promoting equity. "The more [teachers] opened up the ways of being mathematical, the more kids were able to contribute," she said. "Put simply, when there are many ways to be successful, many more students are successful."
Boaler noted the results include a caveat: Although Railside students performed well on the study's tests as well as end-of-year exams administered by the high school district, they fared relatively poorly on the state's standardized tests.
 
"Indeed, the performance of the Railside students on the state tests is closer to the schools decided by the state to be 'similar schools' in demographics than it is to the other more wealthy schools in our study," Boaler wrote in a paper delivered last July at the International Conference on Mathematical Education. "This phenomenon speaks more to the biased nature of the tests than it does to any inadequacy in the students' understanding, in my view."
Boaler argues that the state tests gauge English-language comprehension as much as mathematical competency. "The tests use complicated terminology, terms that kids have never heard of and, when you put them into schools like this one with [English] language learners and minority kids, they don't do well," she said. "For example, kids came out of these tests asking, 'What's a soufflé?'"
 
Brad Osgood, a professor of electrical engineering with a courtesy appointment in education, does not question Boaler's results. However, he added, if the study's findings do not match up with the state's, each party may have to find middle ground. "You need technical skills, there's no doubt about that," he said. "But no curriculum is a replacement for inspired teaching. If this helps teachers get excited, that's a good thing."
In Boaler's view, the greatest outcome is that Railside's teaching methods are leaving lasting results. Out of 105 seniors interviewed at the end of the study, all said they wanted to pursue mathematics courses in college—compared with 67 percent of the students who learned traditional math. In addition, 39 percent of Railside students said they planned a future in mathematics compared with just 5 percent of those from the other schools. "The mathematics teachers at Railside achieved something important that many other teachers could learn from—they gave students from disadvantaged backgrounds a great chance of success in life and taught them to love mathematics," she said. "That's very important because there is a critical shortage of people who are mathematically qualified."
 
How Railside succeeded
According to the study, Railside students succeeded for a variety of reasons:
  • Students of mixed abilities were placed in classes together. While Hilltop and Greendale split students into algebra, remedial algebra and geometry, Railside placed all incoming students into heterogeneous algebra classes. 
  • The teachers used an approach designed at Stanford called "complex instruction," to ensure that group work succeeded while countering social and academic status differences. "What you [often] see in schools in California is a lot of group work that doesn't work well—one student does all the work and the others sit there," Boaler said. That did not happen at Railside. 
  • The teachers created working environments where many dimensions of mathematical work were valued, allowing for several possible paths to a solution. Students were given several ways to contribute to solving problems. In addition to achieving high grades for correct answers, they were graded for asking good questions, rephrasing problems, explaining ideas, being logical, justifying methods and bringing different perspectives to a problem. 
  • Railside uses block scheduling, developing 90-minute-long lessons for courses that last half a school year instead of a full academic year with hour-long classes. In most U.S. high schools, Boaler explained, math courses take one year, beginning with algebra, followed by geometry, advanced algebra and pre-calculus. If students fail at any point they are knocked out of that sequence and have to retake a course, which limits their options before graduating. In contrast, Railside students can take two mathematics classes a year if they want to.
"This organizational decision has a profound impact upon the students' opportunities to take higher-level mathematics courses," Boaler said. "[It's] part of the reason that significantly more students at Railside took advanced-level classes than students at the other two schools."

Continued in article


Mozart won't make you smarter
Scientists have discredited claims that listening to classical music enhances intelligence, yet the pursuit of this so-called "Mozart effect" has exploded over the years, says Chip Heath, PhD '91, an associate professor of organizational behavior

"Dubious 'Mozart Effect' remains music to many Americans' ears," by Marina Krakovsky, Stanford Alumni Newsletter, February 2, 2005 --- http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/february2/mozart-020205.html 

Scientists have discredited claims that listening to classical music enhances intelligence, yet this so-called "Mozart Effect" has actually exploded in popularity over the years.

So says Chip Heath, an associate professor of organizational behavior who has systematically tracked the evolution of this scientific legend. What's more, Heath and his colleague, Swiss psychologist Adrian Bangerter, found that the Mozart Effect received the most newspaper mentions in those U.S. states with the weakest educational systems—giving tentative support to the previously untested notion that rumors and legends grow in response to public anxiety.

"When we traced the Mozart Effect back to the source [the 1993 Nature journal report titled 'Music and Spatial Task Performance'], we found this idea achieved astounding success," says Heath. The researchers found far more newspaper articles about that study than about any other Nature report published around the same time. And as the finding spread through lay culture over the years, it got watered down and grossly distorted. "People were less and less likely to talk about the Mozart Effect in the context of college students who were the participants in the original study, and they were more likely to talk about it with respect to babies—even though there's no scientific research linking music and intelligence in infants," says Heath, who analyzed hundreds of relevant newspaper articles published between 1993 and 2001.

Not only had babies never been studied, but the original 1993 experiment had found only a modest and temporary IQ increase in college students performing a specific kind of task while listening to a Mozart sonata. And even that finding was proved suspect after a 1999 review showed that over a dozen subsequent studies failed to verify the 1993 result. While many newspapers did report this blow to the Mozart Effect, the legend continued to spread—overgeneralizations and all. For example, Heath cites a 2001 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that refers to "numerous studies on the Mozart Effect and how it helps elementary students, high school students, and even infants increase mental performance." In truth, none of these groups had been studied, says Heath.

So why did the Mozart Effect take such a powerful hold in popular culture, particularly in reference to babies and children? Heath and Bangerter surmised that the purported effect tapped into a particularly American anxiety about early childhood education. (Bangerter, who was doing research in Stanford's psychology department during the study, had been struck by Americans' obsession with their kids' education. For example, he saw that a preschool near the Stanford campus had the purposeful name "Knowledge Beginnings," whereas a preschool near a university in Switzerland was called "Vanilla-Strawberry." The latter made no lofty claims about its educational goals.) Concern about education was so great, in fact, that several U.S. states actually passed laws requiring state-subsidized childcare centers to play classical music or giving all new mothers a classical music CD in the hospital.

To test their hypothesis that the legend of the Mozart Effect grew in response to anxiety about children's education, Heath and Bangerter compared different U.S. states' levels of media interest in the Mozart Effect with each state's educational problems (as measured by test scores and teacher salaries). Sure enough, they found that in states with the most problematic educational systems (such as Georgia and Florida), newspapers gave the most coverage to the Mozart Effect.

"Problems attract solutions," explains Heath, and people grappling with complex problems tend to grasp for solutions, even ones that aren't necessarily credible. "They can be highly distorted, bogus things like the Mozart Effect," says Heath, adding that similar patterns occur in our culture's fixation on fad diets and facile business frameworks.

Heath's analysis also found that spikes in media interest generally corresponded to events outside of science—particularly state legislation and two pop psychology books, The Mozart Effect and The Mozart Effect for Children.

Lest Heath's own findings spawn overgeneralizations, he's quick to point out that the Mozart Effect is a particular type of legend. "The Mozart Effect points out a solution, whereas urban legends point out a problem." The prevailing but untested thinking about urban legends holds that they spread by tapping into public anxiety. But Heath says that even if the Mozart Effect succeeded by suggesting a solution to an anxiety, it's not clear why legends that create anxiety would spread. Why, for example, would people circulate stories about rat meat in KFC meals or about the perils of flashing your headlights at motorists driving without their lights on. "I'm still skeptical about the anxiety approach to urban legends," he cautions.

Continued in article


"Creative Accounting for Medicaid," by Sarah Lueck, The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005, Page A4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110920698133662704,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 

Bush Budget Proposal Targets Loopholes That States Use to Garner More Federal Funds 

When the nation's governors go to the White House on Monday, they are likely to deliver a blunt message to President Bush: Keep your hands off our Medicaid loopholes.

In his latest budget request, Mr. Bush took aim at an array of strategies that he says states use to improperly inflate their Medicaid costs and thus qualify for more federal matching funds for the state-federal health program for the poor. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt called the tactics, long a source of friction between Washington and the states, the "seven harmful habits of highly desperate states." By outlawing many of them, the administration figures, it could save $40 billion over 10 years in the fast-growing program.

But the states are fighting back and their governors will make their case in the coming White House meeting during their conference in Washington. Carol Herrmann, who is head of Alabama's Medicaid program and considered one of the most effective state officials in procuring federal funds, says states' use of creative accounting methods, "is exactly what all of us do when we do our income taxes every year: We looked at the law and used the law to our advantage." In Alabama, she says, the extra federal funds have been spent on better prenatal care for poor women -- care that couldn't be provided if the funds disappeared.

Officials in other states agree. The maneuvers used by some states to draw down more federal dollars often are hatched by the most ingenious and entrepreneurial people in state government, the equivalent of Wall Street investment bankers. They pursue new ways to raise money -- not because it fattens their salaries but because it pumps federal taxpayers' money into the Medicaid systems in their states.

 


February 27, 2005 message from Barry Rice [BRice@LOYOLA.EDU
(In regards to the role of PwC in ensuring the integrity of voting outcomes in the Oscar voting outcomes in Hollywood)

Denny, et al-

This reminds me of a story I shared with my students for many years. When I was moving to Baltimore in 1967, I interviewed with all six of the Big Eight firms that had offices here at the time. I received offers from all six (they needed staff badly!) and wanted to make an objective decision. Therefore, I prepared a spreadsheet with the names of the firms at the top and criteria for selection down the side. I rated each firm on each point, added up the score and Price Waterhouse came out on top, so I accepted their offer.

The way this relates to the Oscars is that deep down, I always wondered if I subconsciously biased the ratings so that PW would come out on top. Reason: It was the only Big Eight CPA firm name that the folks (including my parents) in my little home town of 300 in southwestern Virginia might have known. Why would they know PW? Because of the Academy Awards! Guess I'll never know the truth. But my three years experience with PW was invaluable to me in the classroom.

Another reason I look forward to tonight's broadcast is to see how they hide the fact that the Kodak Theatre is in the middle of a shopping mall in Hollywood! My wife and I took a tour of the theatre in November of 2003. It was quite educational. And, while they would not let us take pictures inside, I have posted six we took at www.barryrice.com/hollywood . The one with the Polo Ralph Lauren banner makes the point best that the red carpet will pass through the shopping center and up the steps to the theatre. Ah, showbiz!

Barry Rice AECM List Owner

E. Barry Rice Director, Instructional Services 
Emeritus Accounting Professor 
Loyola College in Maryland 

BRice@Loyola.edu  


Make Interactive Web Pages Out of Excel Spreadsheets

You can make an interactive Web page out of your Excel page quickly and easily using alternatives that are already in Excel, although users may be required to use Internet Explorer rather than other browsers.  

One of the main advantages is that users of your spreadsheets do not have to take as many security risks (especially the risks of being infected with nasty macro viruses) that plague downloading of Excel files.  I will talk about how to make interactive Web pages in the bottom half of this message.

I will begin with a message from Richard Campbell describing his use of the new Excelsius software.  I’ve not used this software as of yet.  Richard has not yet answered my question about whether browsers other than IE can read Excelsius.  I assume that they can.

February 18, 2005 message from Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU

Excelsius is a software program that turns Microsoft Excel files into interactive charts and simulations. It is available at www.infommersion.com. These tutorials are based on the "Quickstart" tutorial that Infommersion has on their website.

I thought the best way to learn Excelsius would be to create a series of Flash-enabled set of tutorials based on your Quickstart pdf file.

Please look at the following links and let me know what you think.

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsius03/excelsius01.htm

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsius03/excelsius02.htm

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsius03/excelsius03.htm

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsius03/excelsius04.htm

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsius03/excelsius05.htm

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsius03/excelsius06.htm

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsius03/excelsius07.htm

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsius03/excelsius08.htm

Here is the final Excelsius-output from that tutorial.

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/excelsiusqs/excelsiusqs.html

I also own the accountingebooks.com web site.

Thanks.

Richard J. Campbell
mailto:campbell@rio.edu

February 18, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Looks great Richard. Thank you for telling us about this software.

Question Will Excelcious run on any browser? If so, it has an edge over Excel's built in interactive (DHTML) web page options.

I might remind readers that some interactivity is available from Excel itself, and it's quite easy to use.

My tutorial on this is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/dhtml/excel01.htm 

My video tutorial is the ExcelDHTML.wmv file at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5342/ 

One drawback of the interactive version that Microsoft built into Excel is that it will not run in all browsers. In fact, I'm not certain that it will run in any browser other than Internet Explorer.

I assume Excelcious will run on most browsers.

Bob Jensen


Most of you, including me are not into music theory.  However, most of you have musician friends who might want to know about this clever site.

I've had feedback from several faculty in Trinity University 's Music Department who reported back that they liked this site.

Musictheory.net --- http://www.musictheory.net/ 
This was started by a high school senior.


February 17, 2005 message from Bob Jensen

I call your attention to Page 4 of the Spring 2005 newsletter called “The Accounting Educator” from the Teaching and Curriculum Section of the American Accounting Association --- http://aaahq.org/TeachCurr/newsletters/index.htm 

The current Chair (Tomas Calderon) has a piece about “reflection” which is nice to reflect upon. There are abstracts of papers in other journals that relate to education, and an assortment of teaching cases.

Marinus Bouman has a nice piece entitled “Using Technology To Integrate Accounting Into The Business Curriculum.” Interestingly, the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas no longer has courses in Principles of Accounting (or Marketing or Finance). You should read Bouman’s article to find out what took the place of these principles courses in a daring curriculum experiment.

Since I teach accounting theory, I found Bob Clusky’s paper “Where’s Accounting Theory) quite interesting. Even more than AIS, “Accounting Theory” is a phrase still in search of a definition.

Tim Fogerty has a piece on Distance Education. It is somewhat negative in tone, but Tim seems to sigh that the march forward is inevitable and the current boundries of education from one program or one institution will evaporate as students seek courses and modules from anywhere in the world. I might take issue with some of his conclusions such as testing and/or assessment, but this is not the time or the place for that. See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 

There is much, much more of interest in this 32 page newsletter. Go to http://aaahq.org/TeachCurr/newsletters/index.htm 

Page 4 describes a forum to be headed up by Tim Fogarty (Case Western) and Call for Papers in which the last paragraph reads as follows:

******************************* 
Issues in Accounting Education, in conjunction with the Teaching & Curriculum Section of the AAA has asked me to edit a dedicated forum with an expected publication date of Spring 2006. I would like to extend an opportunity to accounting educators to submit essays for this issue. Proposed pieces for inclusion should be 25 pages (double spaced) or less. Submissions will be peer-reviewed with an emphasis on clarity and strength of ideas. The deadline for the first drafts is March 1, 2005. There would also be an opportunity to discuss these ideas in a CPE session at the AAA meeting in San Francisco. 
*****************************

Bravo to Thomas, Tim, and other volunteers who are continuing the momentum of this essential section of the AAA! This is the lifeblood of why we are in this profession.

Bob Jensen

February 17, 2005 message from Bob Jensen

Note the following paragraph that I wrote in my previous message:

*********************
Marinus Bouman has a nice piece entitled “Using Technology To Integrate Accounting Into The Business Curriculum.”  Interestingly, the
Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas no longer has courses in Principles of Accounting (or Marketing or Finance).  You should read Bouman’s article to find out what took the place of these principles courses in a daring curriculum experiment.
*******************

 The simulation pedagogy used in the "Business Foundations" course at the Walton College seems to be quite related to the BAM pedagogy --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm#UVA000

The more I think about this, the more I think that the Walton College as evolved, I assume quite independently, into something quite similar to what Jack Wilson (a physicist) pioneered at Rensselaer well over a decade ago.  Core courses (such as physics) in the general curriculum at Rensselaer were taken from the curriculum and replaced with technology-based “studio” learning.  The University of Arkansas is doing something similar in relying upon technology when taking the core courses, such as Principles of Accounting, out of business education. 

The following is taken from http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Studio1

Studio classroom= An application of computer technology pioneered by Jack M. Wilson at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute for replacing large lecture courses with students working in pairs in front of computer screens where they interactively tackle problems and issues rather than listen to or passively watch lectures in front of a mass lecture section. The only lecture comes at the beginning and end of class where the instructor commences or wraps up the learning session. The "studio" is a combination lab and electronic classroom. 

 

Dr. Wilson now serves as the President of the University of Massachusetts system.  He had been serving as the Vice President for Academic Affairs of the University of Massachusetts System and is the founding Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UMassOnline,  the University of Massachusetts Virtual University.  As Vice president he was responsible for the coordination of the academic programs in research and teaching throughout the five campus system. As CEO of UMassOnline he worked with the five physical campuses, Amherst , Lowell , Boston , Worcester , and Dartmouth to provide online access to the programs of the University of Massachusetts

Jack Wilson was one of the early pioneers in education technologies and learning.  He is now CEO and founder of UMass Online .

Dr. Wilson, also known as an entrepreneur, was the Founder (along with Degerhan Usluel and Mark Bernstein), first President, and only Chairman of LearnLinc Corporation (now Mentergy), a supplier of software systems for corporate training to Fortune 1000 Corporations.  In early 2000. LearnLinc merged with Gilat Communications, (GICOF) which also acquired Allen Communication from the Times Mirror group.  The Gilat-Allen-LearnLinc combination forms a powerful "one stop shopping" resource for E*Learning that is now the Mentergy unit of Gilat Communications.  (The LearnLinc Story).

Dr Wilson was the J. Erik Jonsson '22 Distinguished Professor of Physics, Engineering Science, Information Technology, and Management and the Co-director of the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at Rensselaer .  After coming to Rensselaer in 1990, he served as the 

·    Dean of Undergraduate Education, 

·    Dean of Professional and Continuing Education, 

·    Interim Provost, 

·    Interim Dean of Faculty, and as the 

·    Founding Director of the Anderson Center for Innovation in Undergraduate Education.  

In these roles, Wilson led a campus wide process of interactive learning and restructuring of the educational program, known for the design of the Studio Classrooms, the growth of the Distributed Learning Program, the creation of the Faculty of Information Technology, and the initiation of the student mobile computing (universal networked laptop) initiative

The Studio Classrooms at Rensselaer replaced large sized core courses taught by traditional lecture pedagogy with student teams responsible largely for teaching themselves using computer-aided and interactive course materials --- http://www.rpi.edu/dept/NewsComm/WNCTW/ad7.html 

Welcome To Interactive Learning
Roll up your sleeves and take a seat in the
Rensselaer studio classroom. Classes of about 60 students are engaged at wired workstations - utilizing cutting edge tools like Web-based technologies, full-motion video, computer simulation, and other laboratory resources. An instructor and teaching assistant move from workstation to workstation observing and coaching. Notes are taken with a simple mouse click, as students download files and class materials onto their required laptops. It's an innovative blend of discussion and skill-building, high-tech inquiry and problem-solving - preparing scholars to succeed in the new business world. It's all part of Interactive Learning at Rensselaer .

More Studios Than Hollywood
Interactive Learning is more than just a concept at
Rensselaer ; it's a working reality. The approach has been infused throughout all of our undergraduate disciplines in more than 25 studio classrooms with more being built all the time. In the LITEC studio classroom, students build remote-controlled cars in a project-based, team environment. In the Circuits Studio, students develop and test their own circuits. The Collaborative Classroom, funded by the National Science Foundation, serves as a testbed for using computer technology to collaborate on design projects. At Rensselaer , knowledge and application are seamlessly intertwined.

Teaching How We Teach
Rensselaer 's revolutionary model for education has been talked about, honored, and emulated. We earned the first Pew Charitable Trust Award for the Renewal of Undergraduate Education and the first Boeing Outstanding Educator Award, among others. Last year, we were named to administer an $8.8 million Pew-funded program to bring educational innovation to other universities in this country: The Center for Academic Transformation. Literally hundreds of institutions have visited Rensselaer to learn how we teach.

No Stopping Now
Of course, the very thinking that enabled
Rensselaer to initiate Interactive Learning is the same mindset that keeps us pressing forward. Rensselaer 's Anderson Center for Innovation in Undergraduate Education was founded 11 years ago with the continuing mission of making Rensselaer a leader in innovative pedagogy. More recently, the Rensselaer Academy of Electronic Media has become the spawning ground for highly creative visualization software that enables students to learn scientific and engineering principles in ways never before possible. We continue to look for new and better methods to evolve education - meeting the present and future needs of our students, professors, and global businesses. Because solving real-world challenges is our mission and our passion.

For a summary short summary see http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/News15/text4.html . (See also Electronic classroom)


From the Scout Report on February 17, 2005

Commercialism in Education Research Unit --- http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/ceru.htm 

The Arizona State University’s College of Education has a distinguished record of conducting important research through its numerous research centers and institutes. One of these groups is the Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU), which was formerly located at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The CERU conducts research about commercial activities in schools, and its staff members are “guided by the belief that mixing commercial activities with public education raises fundamental issues of public policy, curriculum content, the proper relationship of educators to the students entrusted to them, and the values that the schools embody.” The CERU is directed by Professor Alex Molnar, and visitors to the site will want to look through the various sections dedicated to their publications and annual reports. Educational administrators and policy-makers will want to hone in on the resources area, which provides access to helpful information on current guidelines for commercial activities in schools and news about pending litigation in this arena.


MiniLyrics 3.3.137 http://www.philocode.com/minilyrics/index.htm 

No doubt there are many readers of the Scout Report who will find this little handy application quite useful, and more than a bit fun while at work or school. MiniLyrics 3.3.137 is a song lyrics viewer that displays the lyrics of the currently playing song timed with the music in a host of different media players, including Winamp, RealPlayer, iTunes, and Windows Media Player. The application also has some nice visual effects and has a song database that continues to expand daily. This version of MiniLyrics is compatible only with Microsoft Windows 2000 or newer.


February 24, 2005 message from Richard J. Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU

Camtasia is still very good, but a very good alternative / supplement is Macromedia's www.macromedia.com  Captivate (formerly Robodemo), which I used to record the Excelsius simulations that I posted to the list earlier. Captivate also allows Scorm / aicc compliant quiz capability. I posted a link earlier a quiz on Sarbanes-Oxley that was created in Captivate. The ability to create complex simulations is quite possible.

An advantage in using Camtasia is in recording full-motion screen capture video. Camtasia can record Webex live class presentations, whereas Captivate can not.

Captivate has the capability to create cross-platform demos. I am pretty sure you can generate Linux output. Camtasia has multiple output formats, but not Mac unless you have Ensharpen.

I have an idea for an audit simulation using Toolbook and Flash. If anybody has a sample audit case, I would be willing to create a proposal for the KPMG case proposal. Actually, it would be analogous to the "Auditing Alchemy" case of PWC. If anyone is interested contact me off-list.

Richard J. Campbell 
School of Business 
University of Rio Grande Rio Grande, OH 45674

Bob Jensen's tutorials on Camtasia are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 


Harvard's Power Struggle

I will always remember the words of a rather autocratic president of a university who said:  "I don't manage people.  I manage their budgets."  I'll bet you didn't think that Larry Summers' troubles at Harvard had far more to do with accounting than with women in science.   (I say "had" because the media focus over his words about women have overtaken his real troubles.)

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on February 25, 2005

TITLE: Harvard Clash Pits Brusque Leader Against Faculty 
REPORTER: Robert Tomsho and John Hechinger 
DATE: Feb 18, 2005 
PAGE: A1 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110867816104958196,00.html  
TOPICS: Managerial Accounting

SUMMARY: The article describes reactions to Harvard President Larry Summers's comments made at a conference on workforce diversification. The article mentions other factors contributing to strife between President Summers and his faculty, including Harvard's Responsibility Center Management (and accounting) system.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) In what forum did Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers make his comments about different individuals' relative abilities with math and science disciplines? Would you characterize his statements as provocative, or something else? How would do you feel about the president of your college or university expressing pre-determined notions of your abilities based on your gender?

2.) How did the presidents of other Ivy League institutions react to President Summers's comments? Why must senior leaders of all organizations consider the impact of any public statement on those that he or she manages?

3.) In the article, the author expresses the view that faculty, department chairs, and deans at Harvard University are particularly powerful under their system of Responsibility Center Management, called "every tub on its own bottom" in the article. What is this system of management and accounting? (Hint: you may find a discussion of Harvard's system through a web search that should uncover the following site, among others: http://www.hno.harvard.edu/guide/underst/under2.html 

4.) How does this management and accounting system result in decentralization of power?

5.) Why do faculty members feel they should wield particular power in an academic setting? How does this view differ from attitudes in the corporate world? Why do some constituents feel that colleges and universities would be better off adopting some business attitudes and techniques?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island


"Attacking a Major Cause of Strokes," by Thomas M. Burton, The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2005, Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110902515366060203,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

Less-Invasive Surgical Procedure Adds Option to Treatment Mix For Widespread Heart Problem

A new surgical procedure is showing promise in treating a potentially lethal heart-rhythm problem called atrial fibrillation.

Choosing the best course of treatment for atrial fibrillation, a heart flutter that afflicts 2.2 million Americans, has long been a medical quandary. Now, the emergence of the new procedure has the potential to alter the decision-making calculus for patients.

Atrial fibrillation persists without symptoms in some people, who often get diagnosed by chance after a routine EKG. Others suffer terribly, experiencing exhaustion, shortness of breath, sweating and even fainting spells. Still others find their discomfort comes and goes.

Symptoms or not, atrial fibrillation can be extremely dangerous. Over the years, blood pools in these people's hearts, forms clots and often can lead to devastating, even deadly, strokes. One-fifth or more of the nation's 700,000 strokes arise from this condition.

So far, the treatments available for atrial fibrillation, which is caused by misfiring electrical currents within the heart, have had significant drawbacks. Anticoagulant drugs to prevent strokes can cause dangerous bleeds. Open-heart surgery to redirect the aberrant electricity is highly effective, but it is major surgery and carries an estimated 2% death rate. A less-invasive procedure known as catheter ablation is simpler but may not be as effective as surgery.

The dilemma of which to choose is especially acute for younger patients in their 40s, 50s and 60s. They may not want to be on blood-thinning medications the rest of their lives, which can force them to give up active hobbies like skiing where they could be injured and suffer serious bleeding.

While surgery does cure most people, "would you actually open somebody's chest for that reason alone?" says University of Calgary cardiologist D. George Wyse.

The latest option holds promise for solving that dilemma, at least for many patients. The new operation, performed for the first time in the U.S. recently at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital by surgeon Patrick M. McCarthy, is a simpler version of the classic surgery for atrial fibrillation, known as a "Maze" procedure.

Dr. McCarthy says that while this alternative has no U.S. track record yet, experience in Europe suggests its success rate will rival that of traditional Maze surgery, at about 90%. Dr. McCarthy, one of the world's pre-eminent heart surgeons, was recruited last year from the Cleveland Clinic to head up Northwestern's fast-growing cardiac-surgery department.

Continued in article


Question
It was drilled (literally) into me in grade school that already was one word and all right was two words.  Increasingly, I'm seeing the word "alright."  Has this somehow become proper in English?

"Making Sure The Kids Are Alright," by Sarah Tilton, The Wall Street Journal, February 18, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110868127889058337,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal 

Bob Jensen

February 21, 2005 reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

Bob, for all the glitz and glimmer of technology, there is still a lot to be said for hardcopy ink-and-paper books.

I looked in my trusty Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, copyright 2001, and on page 41, I find an entry for “alright”, described as an adjective, an adverb, and an interjection. It’s definition is, and I quote, “disputed spelling of ALL RIGHT” (caps in original). There are also separate entries for “all-right”, and “all right”.

I was taught that any word appearing as an entry in a dictionary could legitimately be used in communication -- as opposed to illegitimate, but still effective, communication!

But I was also taught that there is a difference between legitimate communication and “proper English”. Proper English is what you use in English class when the teacher is grading you. Legitimate communication is probably good enough for almost (pun intended) everything else.

I see the word “tonite” used a lot in formal communication, and it does not have its own entry in the dictionary, although “nite” does. Also the word “gotta” has its own entry, as in “When you gotta go, you gotta go”. And finally, if you read the etymologies, you notice that a lot of words (albeit, alone, along, also, altogether, etc.) originated as “all” plus another word.

I guess these changes are what gives language it’s “life”, and makes us gray-hairs feel even older than our arthritis already (pun intended) does.

David R. Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University


History Channel: Audio and Video --- http://www.historychannel.com/broadband/ 
Bob Jensen's history links are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History 


St. Petersburg 1900: A Photographic Travelogue --- http://www.alexanderpalace.org/petersburg1900/index.html 


Question
Are increased disclosure standards and transparency always a good thing if generating and attestation costs are ignored?

Answer
I generally think so, but Jim Mahar's blog raises some interesting points on February 17, 2005 --- 

Thursday, February 17, 2005

SSRN-Disclosure Standards and Market Efficiency: Evidence from Analysts' Forecasts by Hui Tong

SSRN-Disclosure Standards and Market Efficiency: Evidence from Analysts' Forecasts by Hui Tong:

Short version: increased transparency reduces need (and hence profitability) of analysts. Therefore following increased disclosure rules, the number of analysts falls. Overall the net effect of increased transparency rules is unclear.
The author "examine[s] the effect of transparency by focusing on the interaction between
public information availability and private information acquisition"

With this in mind, Tong examines what happens when countries adopt stricter disclosure requirements that increase transparency. Of course, you know my basic stance that transparency is good. But Tong makes me re-examine that position. My conclusion? Transparency is still good, but increasing transparency is not without its costs.

Longer version: Unintended consequences...often when one thing changes, other things (that at first were seen as unaffected) change as well. This is one danger of static analysis: we might overestimate the benefits of some change.

Hui Toing "examine[s] the effect of transparency by focusing on the interaction between
public information availability and private information acquisition"

Rather than using spreads (a transparency measure used by previous researchers), Tong " considers how international standards affect analysts forecasts of listed companies earnings, where the accuracy (dispersion) of these forecasts is used as a measure of information accuracy (dispersion)."

Tong finds "that disclosure standards enhance forecast accuracy directly but at the same time reduce the number of analysts per stock (the variable that serves as my proxy for private investments in information). The net effect of disclosure standards on forecast accuracy and dispersion thus ranges from weak to nonexistent"

That is really an important insight! But I maintain that increasing transparency is still good even if dispersion is not significantly increased, this same level is being achieved with fewer analysts (and hence lower costs--of course this assumes that the regulations that increased the transparency are not more costly than the cost of employing the analysts, but that topic will have to wait) .

Suggested Citation

Tong, Hui, "Disclosure Standards and Market Efficiency: Evidence from Analysts' Forecasts" (March 8, 2004). AFA 2005 Philadelphia Meetings. http://ssrn.com/abstract=641842

This is a good, albeit controversial, article that CEOs won't want to read.

"'SOX' It To Them," by Paul Schaafsma, Financial Engineering News --- http://www.fenews.com/fen41/law_and_fe/law_and_fe.html# 

Despite these and other drawbacks, with compliance around the corner the sky has not fallen. While admittedly expensive to implement, examination of some of the claims CEOs have made about the cost of compliance leaves one scratching his head. One publicly traded company with $300,000 in earnings estimated that it would cost $250,000 to comply and is therefore de-listing. Earnings of $300,000? What about the other costs of being a publicly traded company? Further, several companies with less than $4 billion in revenues have predicted that more than 20,000 staff hours are needed to comply; however, a well-respected company with more than $35 billion in revenues estimates it will need 5,000 staff hours to comply. Just what may have been going on before that now requires 20,000 hours to address? And with information technology consultants, law firms and accounting firms attacking the compliance issue as a business opportunity on par with Y2K, many companies are simply spending too much.

In addition to making companies more transparent and executives more accountable, many companies will reap additional benefits. For example, many companies have multiple business units with varying standards of financial reporting. Smart companies have used compliance as an opportunity to get a standardized financial reporting system in place across a company’s business units.

And like a residual benefit of the Y2K scare, many companies have updated and standardized their company’s finance software to help in the compliance process. In addition to minimizing the chance and therefore the costs of a compliance issue, the operational benefits of having standardized, updated financial software will accrue cost savings long into the future. Moreover, smart companies have used their need to update their financial reporting software as an opportunity to upgrade and standardize additional software, such as their ERP systems.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's thread on SOX are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudProposedReforms.htm 


Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G8 Countries: 2004 Description: This report shows how the U.S. education system compares to other major industrialized countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russian Federation, United Kingdom) in four areas: (1) the context of education; (2) preprimary and primary education; (3) secondary education; and (4) higher education. This report is an update of the 2002 G8 Report, and is part of a series to be published in alternate years.
"Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G8 Countries: 2004," --- http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005021 

The report itself is 95 pages, so a lot of data and tables are not mentioned in this summary.

Question
What nation has the highest percentage of 18-29-year-olds enrolled in higher education?

Answer (see Page 10 of the report)
The U.S. with about 25% in 2001.  Females exceeded males in all nations except Germany.

I would have guessed a higher percentage college students in Education.  The Education numbers seem low to me except for Canada.  The study report below doesn't isolate business, but previous studies would indicate 20-25% buried in the 44% figure for the U.S.  In other nations, the business studies are often buried under economics and/or engineering.  

I will probably pull some other tidbits out of this report at a later time.


What We Study --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/what_we_study 

The United States leads major industrialized nations in the study of the social sciences, business and law. But Germany and Japan are ahead substantially in engineering.

Those are results from data released Friday by the National Center for Education Statistics. The report compares statistics from industrialized nations on all levels of education.

For higher education, one part of the report compares how many "first university degrees" gained by citizens in each country were awarded in various fields. Here are the results for 2001:

% of First Degrees in:

Canada

France

Germany

Italy

Japan

U.K.

U.S.

Social sciences, business and law

36

38

27

42

40

27

44

Humanities and arts

15

23

16

13

19

21

17

Science

12

18

11

  8

  3

21

11

Engineering

  8

12

20

18

19

11

  7

Education

14

  2

  9

  3

  6

  5

  8

Other

15

  8

17

16

13

16

13

The report also found that while the United States was a leader in terms of the number of foreign students enrolled, other nations exceeded the U.S. in terms of the percentage of enrolled students who were from other countries. Here are the numbers for 2001:

 

France

Germany

Italy

Japan

Russia

U.K.

U.S.

Foreign enrollments

147,402

199,132

29,228

63,637

64,103

225,722

475,169

% of students who are foreign

7.3

9.6

1.6

1.6

0.9

10.9

3.5

 


Yes, men's and women's brains are different. But new research upends the old myths about who's good at what. A tour of the ever changing brain

"Who Says A Woman Can't Be Einstein?" by Amanda Ripley, Time Magazine (Cover Story), February 27, 2005 --- http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050307/story.html 

There was something self-destructive about Harvard University President Larry Summers' speech on gender disparities in January. In his first sentence, he said his goal was "provocation" (rarely a wise strategy at a diversity conference). He called for "rigorous and careful" thinking to explain the gender gap among top-tier tenured science professors. But he described his pet theory with something less than prudence. The most likely explanations, he said, are that 1) women are just not so interested as men in making the sacrifices required by high-powered jobs, 2) men may have more "intrinsic aptitude" for high-level science and 3) women may be victims of old-fashioned discrimination. "In my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described," he announced.

Cue the hysteria. The comments about aptitude in particular lingered, like food poisoning, long after the conference ended. For weeks, pundits and professors spouted outrage and praise, all of which added up to very little. Then came the tedious analysis of faculty-lounge politics at Harvard, as if anyone outside Cambridge really cared.

The rest of us were left with a nagging question: What is the latest science on the differences between men's and women's aptitudes, anyway? Is it true, even a little bit, that men are better equipped for scientific genius? Or is it ridiculous—even pernicious—to ask such a question in the year 2005?

It's always perilous to use science to resolve festering public debates. Everyone sees something different—like 100 people finding shapes in clouds. By the time they make up their minds, the clouds have drifted beyond the horizon. But scientists who have spent their lives studying sex differences in the brain (some of whom defend Summers and some of whom dismiss him as an ignoramus) generally concede that he was not entirely wrong. Thanks to new brain-imaging technology, we know there are indeed real differences between the male and the female brain, more differences than we would have imagined a decade ago. "The brain is a sex organ," says Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist who became famous in the 1990s for her study of Albert Einstein's brain. "In the last dozen years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of studies that have found differences in the brain. It's very exciting."

But that's just the beginning of the conversation. It turns out that many of those differences don't seem to change our behavior. Others do—in ways we might not expect. Some of the most dramatic differences are not just in our brains but also in our eyes, noses and ears—which feed information to our brains. Still, almost none of those differences are static. The brain is constantly changing in response to hormones, encouragement, practice, diet and drugs. Brain patterns fluctuate within the same person, in fact, depending on age and time of day. So while Summers was also right that more men than women make up the extreme high—and low—scorers in science and math tests, it's absurd to conclude that the difference is primarily because of biology—or environment. The two interact from the time of conception, which only makes life more interesting.

Any simplistic theory. . .


Forwarded by Amy Dunbar on February 18, 2005

From The Chronicle of Higher Education's Daily Report

HARVARD UNIVERSITY'S PRESIDENT, Lawrence H. Summers, released a transcript on Thursday of the remarks he made in January in which he suggested that women might be underrepresented in the top tiers of science and mathematics because of innate differences of ability from men.

If you are interested in a transcript of Remarks at NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce Lawrence H. Summers Cambridge, Mass. January 14, 2005

http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html 

Summers also released his letter to the faculty, dated Feb. 17, 2005.

http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/facletter.html 

The New York Times reaction on February 18, 2005 is at http://snipurl.com/summertimeFeb18 


February 25, 2005 message from Richard C. Sansing [Richard.C.Sansing@DARTMOUTH.EDU

--- Robert Jensen wrote:

I don't think Larry Summers' intent was to insult women, although his total message was stupid for a person in his elite position.

--- end of quote ---

I hesitate to respond because I won't have AECM access from early this afternoon until Sunday evening, but here goes.

What, specifically, do you find "stupid" about what Summers said? I offer some choices below.

A. His premise is wrong. Summers' argument stems from his observation that in many settings, the variance-- not the mean, the variance--of measures of characteristics for men are significantly higher than the measures of the same characteristics for women.

B. His premise is irrelevant. Measurement error in "performance" systematically increases the variance-- not the mean, the variance--of male performance measures relative to female performance measures, even though the underlying variability of these characteristics are the same.

C. His logic is faulty. Summers argued that if male characteristics are more highly variable than female characteristics, they will be over-represented in the tails of the population as a whole, whether the tail involves the best scientists or the worst mass murderers.

D. Summers is stupid in the sense that Galileo was stupid. He dared to present conjectures based on empirical observations that those with the power to harm him were unwilling to believe.

E. None of the above. Correct answer is_____________.

Richard C. Sansing 
Associate Professor of Business Administration 
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth 
email:
Richard.C.Sansing@dartmouth.edu 

Bob Jensen's reply on February 25, 2005

Hi Richard,

I think it is dumb for someone in a responsible position of leadership (President of Harvard?) to resort in public to unfounded and possibly hurtful conjecture. Physical differences between men and women at the level of scientific aptitude in higher education cannot automatically be inferred to have biological causes.  He should've provided some research to back up such a claim.  Also there really isn’t much of a practical point to seriously discuss biological conjectures in the forum where he raised the issue.  It debases common sense about gender.

Even if he was advocating affirmative action hiring policies in a handful of elite schools, this is not going to solve underlying problems such as that of increasing female interest in becoming physicists.  And it's insulting to imply that women scientists be hired at Harvard because they're women who   would lose out otherwise to better male scientists. 

Galileo's experiments could be replicated.  Summers had no hard data to back up his conjectures.  His men and women of science at Harvard should have advised him on this topic before he shot from the hip in a public forum. 

I don't think any of his own scientists would have advised that he not revise his speech. 

I take that back.  Those that wanted Summers to get out of Dodge probably would've whispered that women really do have smaller brains --- which by the way is a fact pound-for-pound.  Alas, the male brain also ages faster than the female brain.  I think that's about as far as I can dig into biology off the top of my rapidly aging brain.

Bob Jensen

February 25, 2005 reply from Richard C. Sansing [Richard.C.Sansing@DARTMOUTH.EDU

--- Bob Jensen wrote:

Physical differences between men and women at the level of scientific aptitude in higher education cannot automatically be inferred to have biological causes. He should've provided some research to back up such a claim.

--- (Sansing) Where did he make the claim that you ascribe to him? He offered the possibility of innate differences--not on average, but at both tails---as one of three hypotheses to explain gender differences in outcomes with which he was concerned. He also conjectured that innate differences was second in importance of these. See

http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html 

that Amy Dunbar posted here recently to read what he said.

--- (Jensen) Also there really isn't much of a practical point to seriously discuss biological conjectures in the forum where he raised the issue. It debases common sense about gender.

--- (Sansing) So your answer is 'C'? Apart from your "common sense," what sort of measurement error would induce higher variability in male performance measures? Rememeber, questioning the stationarity of the earth debased common sense about planetary motion centuries earlier.

--- (Jensen) Summers had no hard data to back up his conjectures.

--- (Sansing) So your answer is 'A'? Well, informal talks do not come with citations. He said:

"It does appear that on many, many different human attributes- height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means- which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population."

I don't know whether his claim is true or false, but I have yet to see it rebutted by any of his many critics. Have you?

Richard C. Sansing 

February 25 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Richard,

Are you supporting his conclusions on from your own scientific or philosophical interpretation of his remarks?  The point is that he made unsupported conjectures about "innate differences" that are not supported in science.  And as a term paper, I hardly think his remarks in total (those remarks just weren't about women) would get a passing grade, although possibly it would at Harvard due to unchecked grade inflation.  What grade would you assign to his "term paper?"

The point is that he made conjectures about "innate differences" that are not supported in science.

Consider the following quote (NYT, February 12, 2005) from three presidents of leading universities:

In a highly unusual move, the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and Stanford University have written an essay critical of remarks last month by Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers that biological differences may help explain why fewer women than men succeed at the top ranks of science and engineering.

''Speculation that 'innate differences' may be a significant cause of underrepresentation by women in science and engineering may rejuvenate old myths and reinforce negative stereotypes and biases," they wrote.

. . .

Summers has apologized several times for remarks he made at a conference Jan. 14. ''I was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women," he wrote in a Jan. 19 letter to the Harvard community. He also set up two task forces that are charged with quickly recommending concrete ways to recruit more female professors and provide them better support at the university.

 

These presidents called his conjectures "myths" whereas I merely called them unsupported conjectures --- same difference I guess.  Summers has not offered any supporting evidence.  I'm no authority on innate differences between men and women and make no pretense of being an expert.  I do respect the opinions of some leading scientists.

See "Gender isn't in the science equation" by a biologist, university professor, former campus chancellor and now University of California provost --- http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/10777501.htm?1c 

Bob

February 25, 2005 reply from Richard C. Sansing [Richard.C.Sansing@DARTMOUTH.EDU

Bob,

I have offered no opinion on any of the three hypotheses that Summers spoke of.

I object to Summers being characterized as "stupid" when he offers hypotheses based on data and remarks upon their implications. I have yet to see any of this critics, including you, either correctly state his argument or offer a sensible critique of it.

Part A of his syllogism, that performance measures for men exhibit higher variance than performance measures for women, is either true or false. I don't know the answer, but I have not heard any of his critics grasp its significance, much less rebut it. The sources you refer to in your post, such as "Gender isn't in the science equation" make no reference to the critical distinction between the mean and variance of male and female performance. Certainly when I think of "old myths and stereotypes" I think of mean differences, which Summers explicitly assumed away in his remarks.

Part B of his syllogism is that higher male variance in performance measures cannot be explained by measurement error certainly seems plausible, and again has not been disputed by his critics.

Part C is difficult to dispute. If two normal distributions have the same mean and different variances, the distribution with higher variance will have more weight in the tails.

I have not seen one part of his argument challenged. Only the conclusions are challenged.

David Fordham got it right. The answer is 'D'.

I attach no more weight to Summers apology than I do to Galileo's recantation of the Copernican hypothesis.

As advertised, I will not have AECM access again until Sunday evening.

Richard C. Sansing Associate 
Professor of Business Administration Tuck School of Business at 
Dartmouth email:
Richard.C.Sansing@dartmouth.edu 

February 25, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

There are no facts, but only interpretations.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 

I guess what I would call "stupid" in Summers' remarks is the implicit assumption of random draws with or without fat tails from a normal distribution.  Summers is the overlooking of the fact that the normal distribution is asymptotic over both male and female populations.  I conjecture that in the case of science skills it is impossible to predict whether the farthest out Harvard faculty candidate will be male or female even if there are many more males in the upper end of the distribution.  The draw among the top candidates is not a random draw.

My point here is that one does not make individual hiring decisions is not a random event among those selected as viable candidates.  It may well be true that across all universities, there will be more X hires than Y hires in science.  But in any one elite university such as Harvard, one would not expect that statistical outcomes of X and Y groups matter much at all.  Only the best of both X and Y are going to seriously be considered for employment.  Variance doesn't matter so much as long as there are some Y candidates are at the extreme upper part of the scale.  At Harvard faculty applications are not going to arise at random from either the X or the Y groups.  I don't think any statistical inferences from grouped statistics are going to be relevant, because applying to be among the elite of elite science faculty at Harvard is not a random draw from a grouped population or even a subset of that population in the upper 1% of the group.  

If there are 2 women among the selected top 10 physics candidates, the odds are not 20% that a woman will be hired at Harvard.  Assuming no gender bias whatsoever, the odds that the very top candidate will be female or male is impossible to derive from past statistical studies.  There are too many unknown variables at the individual level in a single elite university at a single point in time.  The best bet available, at the level of an individual, is a 50% chance that the top candidate is a woman.

Hiring elite scientists at an elite university is about as far from statistical inference as one can get.  This may not be the case across 1,000 grouped universities, but it certainly is the case a single elite school like Harvard.  Hence I think it is stupid to argue distribution tails in terms of Harvard's need for science faculty.

What is also rather confusing is why President Summers picked on science faculty..  Why did he single out women in science?  Why not women faculty in the Harvard Business School which I suspect off the wall is even more male dominated than Harvard's science faculty?  Why not choose male underrepresentation in Schools of Education or Humanities?  

Bob Jensen

February 27, 2005 reply from Richard C. Sansing [Richard.C.Sansing@DARTMOUTH.EDU

I guess what I would call "stupid" in Summers' remarks is the implicit assumption of random draws with or without fat tails from a normal distribution. (snip) The draw among the top candidates is not a random draw.

--- end of quote ---

I don't think anyone thinks candidate selection is a random draw.

Here is my interpretation of Summers' remarks. Suppose a population is made up of two normally distributed subpopulations, A and B, of equal size.

Let E[A] = E[B] and Var[A] > Var[B]. If we take one draw from each subpopulation and grant tenure to the higher observation, we are just as likely to tenure an A-type as a B-type.

But of course tenured professors at Harvard are not (we hope!) random draws from the population at large with respect to whatever characteristics Harvard uses to award tenure. So now suppose we draw 1,000 observations from the entire population, and grant tenure to the highest observation. It is likely that the highest observation will be from subpopulation A; and the more selective we are (that is, the greater the number of observations) the more likely the highest observation will be an A-type. (The same is true of the lowest observation, course.)

And that is not stupid at all; in fact it is a quite clever way of reframing the issue to show that the problem of under- representation of B-types at the extremes of the population is driven by the variance, not the mean, so all the studies that examine whether E[A] = E[B] are of little help in understanding why Harvard's tenured faculty have few B-types.

Richard C. Sansing 
Associate Professor of Business Administration 
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth 
email:
Richard.C.Sansing@dartmouth.edu 

February 27, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

That's the "economist" explanation that I think was also given in the Washington Post.

However, the hiring of a physicist or the granting of tenure is a multivariate phenomenon. How can you talk about variance at all in a multivariate setting where most of the variables are not even quantifiable? Variance is calculated on at least an interval scale (with possibly different means) or a ratio scale (with all means transformed to zero). In both cases, cardinality is assumed.

I would contend that any assumption of single-variate cardinality is a typical economist approach of assuming away the real world.

The proportion of female/male physics professors at Harvard is now 1/8. That does not say anything about the proportion that will apply to an elite school like Harvard. It also says nothing about the "quality" of those that are viable candidates. Harvard could just as easily end up with a 5/4 ratio or a 0/9 ratio of those that filter through the subjective criteria of being a "viable" candidate for a new hire.

Suppose the ratio turns out to be 0/9 in Harvard's case because not one single woman even applied. This may be entirely due to socialization factors rather than inherent abilities. If, as some would like us to believe, women physicists are inherently as good as men but have lower confidence, then the explanation is not based on ability at all and certainly not on inherent biological ability differences. In this case the explanation would not lie in the variance based upon ability. It would be a more complex reason that has nothing to do with ability.

I think I see your point Richard. But I think it is a typical economic theory explanation that assumes away the real world. Larry Summers is an economist. He oversimplified a complex real world using an economist's myopia. In his defense, he repeatedly stated that "he could be wrong." He may have been correct as an economist but he was both wrong and stupid as a principal agent.

What was stupid is that being the President of Harvard he has been given great power and image of authority. He is not as free as Bob Jensen or Richard Sansing to shoot from the hip or make wild conjectures. His audience assumes that he's authoritative and supported in his conclusions by scholars (employees) who work under him. He's far more of an agent than your or me and has an agency responsibility to his institution as a whole. He needs to be much more cautious when conjecturing as a principal agent.

Form an economics standpoint, we might also argue that there are more externalities in the speeches of university presidents than in speeches by lowlife faculty. If I make a conjecture about physicists nobody is stupid enough to think that I'm speaking for the Physics Department at Trinity University. No such claim can be made for the President of Trinity University even if he makes a disclaimer from the start (which of course is required of all government workers such as officials of the SEC). Even the Director of the SEC has to be cautious after making a disclaimer, because there are possible externalities when he/she speaks after making such a disclaimer.

Larry Summers is not a stupid man. He just did a stupid thing and perhaps should be forgiven. His problem is lies in holding the confidence of his Board, his faculty, and his student body. This one incident did not start his troubles at Harvard and probably will not end it, although it may be the first frost of "summer."

 


The chilling effect on free inquiry may harm everyone or so some say

The reaction to this controversy from outside higher education brings into relief professors' tone deafness as to how non-academic figures interpret such comments. It came as little surprise that neoconservative iconoclast Andrew Sullivan defended the Harvard president. But so too did the liberal editorial pages of The Washington Post and, less enthusiastically, The Boston Globe.The Post concluded that if "Summers loses his job for the crime of positing a politically incorrect hypothesis -- or even if he pays some lesser price for it -- the chilling effect on free inquiry will harm everyone."
K.C. Johnson, "Summers Beyond Harvard," Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/summers_beyond_harvard 




Quotes of the Week

Frosting on the cake costs more in Maryland
As is the case in many states, politicians and educators in Maryland want more undergraduates to finish in four years. So the regents of the University System of Maryland last week adopted a series of new policies designed to encourage that.  The headlines in Maryland focused on the possibility of tuition surcharges for those who exceed certain numbers of credit hours. But the Board of Regents may have more influence with another policy it adopted for its 13 colleges, which collectively enroll nearly 130,000 students.
"The Maryland Blend," Inside Higher Ed, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_maryland_blend 
Jensen Comment:  This article then goes into a strong case for lifelong learning via distance education, which is a medium that is especially advanced in the higher education system in Maryland.


A really bad case of hate at Carnegie Mellon University:  Is this academic freedom?
An appearance by Malik Shabazz at Carnegie Mellon University last week has infuriated Jewish students, who say he not only devoted a university lecture to attacking them, but broke university rules and asked that Jewish students identify themselves as Jews before a hostile audience.  A columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who managed to stay at the appearance when other journalists were forced to leave, wrote: "Shabazz travels with a retinue of young men and women in jackboots, arm patches and berets. One wandered about with a nightstick. Another snapped photos of white people in the audience.... Try to imagine Farrakhan in Nuremberg."  Shabazz could not be reached for comment Monday. Nor could members of the black student group that organized the appearance. Carnegie Mellon officials said that they tried to persuade the students not to invite Shabazz, who has been criticized as an anti-Semite not only by Jewish organizations but by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the university decided that its commitment to free expression meant that the students were given the final say.
"Hate at Carnegie Mellon," Inside Higher Ed, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/hate_at_carnegie_mellon 


A new way of transmitting a flood of information
Want to stay up on the latest news but think Google News is dry and boring? For something a little more visual, try 10x10. The site lets viewers scour the top headlines using photos, which combine to create a broad snapshot of the world every hour on the hour.  News at a glance has never been so literal, thanks to information architect Jonathan Harris, 25, creator of the site. 10x10 takes the most common words from major news outlets like BBC World Edition and New York Times International and couples them with pictures. The site lets users interactively search for the top stories by scrolling over pictures and the words associated with them.
David Cohn, "A Fluid Look at the News," Wired News, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66612,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3 
Jensen Comment:  Click on This is Now at http://www.tenbyten.org/ 
My picture isn't there this morning. (sigh)
Some things about this site are clever, but I have a hard time recognizing many of the pictures.  I also find some that have a picture with blank news.  Might we call these "empty headed?"  There's room for improvement here.


College students are more articulate than expected
Linguists fear that instant messaging and e-mail are responsible for language deteriorating. Others find the medium allows more people to write and report college students are more articulate than expected.

Kristen Philipkoski, "The Web Not the Death of Language," Wired News, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66671,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4 


No More Medicaid in Mississippi
Medicaid will no longer exist in the state of Mississippi as of Feb. 28, due to the state’s overspending. This change in health care is causing problems for many citizens depending on the free medicine. According to Michael Boland, a physician at the Baptist Memorial Hospital, as many as 1,500 patients will be affected just from his office alone. Patients have been notified of this situation and are not happy about the change. “They are poor people who can’t afford medicine,” Boland said. Boland is sympathetic to his patients who are stuck in the middle of a bad situation and...

Victoria Hiles, "State to drop Medicaid," The Daily Mississippian, February 18, 2005 --- http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/18/42158af9eaf80 
Recall that Tennessee cut way back on Medicaid to avoid bankruptcy.


And you think you're a prolific writer?
To make a case for Mr. Galbraith, now 96, you would have to emphasize the quantity theory of books. His four-dozen average out to a book every two years, including two huge bestsellers, "The Affluent Society" and "The New Industrial State." Paul Samuelson, a Nobel laureate himself, once characterized Mr. Galbraith as "America's foremost economist for noneconomists." It was meant as a put-down, but Mr. Galbraith's royalties must have taken the sting out of it.

Dan Seligman, "Celebrity Central Planning," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2005, Page D10 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110903646601960498,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 
Jensen Comment:  Richard Parker has a new biography on the life, politics, and economics of Harvard's most famous economic professor --- http://snipurl.com/JKGparker 
Two of the world's most famous debaters were John Kenneth Galbraith (liberal) versus William F. Buckley (conservative).  They toured the world with their dog and pony shows, often putting one another down with sharp wits and sharp tongues.  Buckley had a higher opinion of the intelligence and influence of JKG than most economists --- http://www.rationalexplications.com/blog/archives/000212.html 


Soaring demand for economics professors
The growing quest for economic talent is largely a response to market forces. Economics is the leading major at many top schools, including Harvard, where 15% of undergraduates major in the subject. Universities figure top-name professors will help recruit the brightest students.
Timothy Aeppel, "Economists Gain Star Power:  Hot Demand Lifts Salaries, As Elite Universities Seek Big Names," The Wall Street Journal,  February 22, 2005; Page A2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110902759512460268,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 


A Culture of Deceit
Of all my recent columns, none has drawn as positive a response as "Saving the Air Force" (PostOpinion, Feb. 11). It wasn't a brilliant piece. Just a case of the emperor having no clothes. The tone of the comments from those in uniform and veterans was that it's high time someone called the Air Force to account for the way it brushes aside strategic reality and common sense to buy what it wants, rather than what our security challenges demand. And there's broad disgust at the service's recent procurement scandals.  We're engaged in a deadly, long-term struggle of beliefs with Islamist terrorists, but the Air Force has been hawking a war with China to justify buying the F/A-22 air superiority fighter.

Ralph Peters, "A CULTURE OF DECEIT," New York Post, February 21, 2005 --- http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/40196.htm 


Glass Elevator Shooting for the Moon:  There're no buttons for the first 3,650,000 floors.  
Views are terrific!
From Mars the cable will look like a string on the Earth's balloon.

Bradley C. Edwards, president and founder of Carbon Designs Inc., is the driving force behind the space elevator, a purportedly safer and cheaper form of transporting explorers and payloads into space. Although the idea has appeared in both technical and fictional literature for decades, the drive to bring it to reality belongs to Edwards. A cable extending from the Earth’s surface to outer space is kept under tension by the competing forces of gravity on Earth and the outward rotational acceleration of the planet in space. Once the cable is aloft, the elevator will be ascended by mechanical means.
"Elevator Into Space," February 21, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1347760/posts 


If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true!
Federal tax deductions that people receive for paying local and state taxes have quietly started to vanish for many households.  The culprit is a once-obscure federal tax provision known as the alternative minimum tax, which was created in 1969 to ensure that a relatively small number of wealthy people did not use loopholes to avoid paying taxes.  But it is increasingly being applied to families with incomes of $75,000 to $250,000 a year who claim relatively high deductions - like the ones for property taxes, state and local income taxes - and the exemption for children. When it does apply, it cancels some of those deductions.
David Leonhardt, "Case of Vanishing Deductions: Alternative Tax Called Culprit, The New York Times, February 21, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/NYTtaxFeb21


You've got to understand that fuel prices soared in Minneapolis:  Coaches in shorts gotta keep warm somehow!
Southern Methodist University holds a special, and ignominious, place in National Collegiate Athletic Association history, as the group's most-punished sports program and the only institution ever to receive the "death penalty."  In one fell swoop, the University of Minnesota could become SMU's equal.  The university's athletics department announced Friday that it had suspended two men's tennis coaches with pay after concluding an investigation into possible wrongdoing in the tennis program. Minnesota said that it had turned over the results of its investigation to the NCAA, and that it expected the association to begin its own inquiry tomorrow.  The NCAA placed Minnesota on probation for four years in 2000 and imposed a set of other penalties on the men's basketball program.

"More Trouble in Minnesota," Inside Higher Ed, February 21, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/more_trouble_in_minnesota 


Colby College students get lectured and loosened on Friday nights
At many colleges, concern about alcohol abuse has led to complete bans on consumption on campus.  Colby College has announced a different approach: It has added beer and wine to the menu of the campus dining hall on selected Friday nights. Only students of legal drinking age can consume. Alcohol-related programming -- such as a lecture by the owner of the Allagash brewery about his Belgian-style beers -- also has been added in the dining halls.

"Educational Drinking," Inside Higher Ed, February 15, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/educational_drinking 


It Cost More Than Peanuts:  Nobel Peace Prize Winner Now Armed With Torpedoes
The USS Jimmy Carter enters the Navy's fleet as the most heavily armed submarine ever built, and as the last of the Seawolf class of attack subs that the Pentagon ordered during the Cold War's final years. The $3.2 billion Jimmy Carter will be commissioned Saturday, signaling the end of an era in submarining and more uncertain times for the multibillion-dollar industry.
"USS Jimmy Carter to Be Commissioned," ABC News, February 19, 2005 --- http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=514435 


Three cheers for Satan
In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth and populated the Earth with broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow and red vegetables of all kinds, so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives. Then using God's great gifts, Satan created Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream and Krispy Kreme Donuts. And Satan said, "You want chocolate with that?" And Man said, Yes!" and Woman said, "and as long as you're at it, add some sprinkles." And they gained 10 pounds. And Satan smiled.

"In the Beginning," Free Republic, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1348505/posts 

What did you say his name is?
Yet he was also part of a century-old tradition in American letters, the tradition of Mark Twain, Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby, comic writers who mined the human comedy of a new chapter in the history of the West, namely, the American story, and wrote in a form that was part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention, and wilder rhetoric inspired by the bizarre exuberance of a young civilization. No one categorization covers this new form unless it is Hunter Thompson's own word, gonzo. If so, in the 19th century Mark Twain was king of all the gonzo-writers. In the 20th century it was Hunter Thompson, whom I would nominate as the century's greatest comic writer in the English language.
Tom Wolfe, "The 20th Century's Greatest Comic Writer in English'," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2005, Page D10 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110903593760860492,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

One of Satan's success stories
The next time I saw Hunter was in June of 1976 at the Aspen Design Conference in Aspen, Colo. By now Hunter had bought a large farm near Aspen where he seemed to raise mainly vicious dogs and deadly weapons, such as the .357 magnum. He publicized them constantly as a warning to those, Hell's Angels presumably, who had been sending him death threats. I invited him to dinner at a swell restaurant in Aspen and a performance at the Big Tent, where the conference was held. My soon-to-be wife, Sheila, and I gave the waitress our dinner orders. Hunter ordered two banana daiquiris and two banana splits. Once he had finished them off, he summoned the waitress, looped his forefinger in the air and said, "Do it again." Without a moment's hesitation he downed his third and fourth banana daiquiris and his third and fourth banana splits, and departed with a glass of Wild Turkey bourbon in his hand.

Tom Wolfe, "The 20th Century's Greatest Comic Writer in English'," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2005, Page D10 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110903593760860492,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


Who are the Wall Street's bonus babies?  Bet on white and male!
Overwhelmingly they are involved in securities and investments, according to an analysis of Census and other data. They either help make markets, make sales, make deals, or give advice ? brokers, investment bankers, traders, financial analysts, financial advisers, portfolio managers, and a few chief executive officers.  Finance-related jobs are significantly better paying than other positions;  93% of those making over $347,000 are white while 86% are male.
Andrew Beveridge, "Wall Street Bonus Babies," Gotham Gazette, January 2005 --- http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/demographics/20050128/5/1306 


Report Scolds Colleges
"Many academic leaders feel compelled to chase revenues and rankings rather than to focus their efforts on providing a high-quality education," says the report, "Correcting Course: How We Can Restore the Ideals of Public Higher Education in a Market-Driven Era," issued by the Futures Project, a higher education research group based at Brown University.  The report scolds colleges for spending money on things of limited educational value, while not investing enough money in teaching and in student aid for those from low-income families. "Institutions of all kinds of have splurged on state-of-the-art computer labs, luxury dormitories, and sparkling new gymnasiums to lure the best, brightest and most affluent students," the report says. "Financial aid packages are increasingly used as a competitive tool, designed to reduce the sticker price for students with high test scores and GPAs, rather than to ease the burden for those with financial need."

"The Drive for Revenues and Rankings," Inside Higher Ed, February 18, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_drive_for_revenues_and_rankings 


We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't, it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.
Jassamyn West as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-02-17-05.htm 

Avoid Conclusions That Might be Harmful to Business Interests
The issue of integrity in science, academia, and public life is nothing new. However, the events of recent weeks perhaps argue for a renewed examination of what constitutes scientific, academic, and political integrity. The IP has in mind recent revelations that more than 200 scientists working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been pressured by management to alter their findings on endangered species in order to avoid conclusions that might be harmful to business interests; revelations that a high-visibilty, activist professor at the University of Colorado may have embellished the facts in some of his published work; and the recent revelation that the cost of the Medicare drug benefit is turning out to be much higher than originally claimed by those in the Bush Administration who pressured a civil service actuary to low ball the estimate that was given to Congress at the time the plan was up for a vote.

Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-02-17-05.htm 


Early Roots of Academic Freedom
This year marks the 50th anniversary of The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States by Richard Hofstadter and Walter P. Metzger, published by Columbia University Press. It has long been out of print. But circumstances have had the unfortunate effect of making it timely again. Locating a copy is worth the trouble, and once you do, the book proves just about impossible to put down . . . On the final page of The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States, his collaborator writes, "One cannot but be but be appalled at the slender thread by which it hangs.... one cannot but be disheartened by the cowardice and self-deception that frail men use who want to be both safe and free." It is a book worth re-reading now -- not as a celebration, but as a warning.

Scott McLemee, "Academic Freedom, Then and Now," Inside Higher Ed, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/intellectual_affairs__5 


Wanted:  More Gays
Five years after Britain lifted its ban on gays in the military, the Royal Navy has begun actively encouraging them to enlist and has pledged to make life easier when they do. The navy announced Monday that it had asked Stonewall, a group that lobbies for gay rights, to help it develop better strategies for recruiting and retaining gay men and lesbians. It said, too, that one strategy may be to advertise for recruits in gay magazines and newspapers. Commodore Paul Docherty, director of naval life management, said the service wanted to change the atmosphere so...

Sarah Lyall, The New York Times, February 22, 2005


National health care has its own problems
The family of a 94-year-old widow who died days after a 34-hour wait on a hospital trolley have spoken of their upset at the way she way treated. Bernard Edwards' aunt Phyllis was suffering from pneumonia when she arrived at casualty at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Her family said she lay for hours among drunk patients and others with minor injuries, and died a few days later. A hospital spokesman said pressures at the unit remained "significant". Mr Edwards, from Cardiff, said he complained repeatedly but staff were unable to find a bed for her
"Late widow's 34 hours on trolley," BBC News, February 22, 2005 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4287073.stm 


They weren't working solely in their clients' best interest.
The study was instigated by Steven D. Levitt, a self-described "rogue economist" who has applied the analytical tools of his trade to everything from sumo wrestlers to drug-dealing gangs; his work is cataloged in the forthcoming book "Freakonomics," written with Stephen J. Dubner.  Professor Levitt had fixed up and sold several houses in Oak Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. When working with real estate agents, he said, "I got the impression they weren't working solely in their clients' best interest."
Daniel Gross, "Why a Real Estate Agent May Skip the Extra Mile," The New York Times, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/business/yourmoney/20view.html 
Jensen Comment:  Steven Levitt is a terrific economics professor at the University of Chicago.  You can get a list of his publications at http://www.src.uchicago.edu/users/levit/ 
Over the course of the history of America, real estate fraud has been the most prevalent kind of fraud.  See Bob Jensen's history of fraud in America at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm 


We knew this back on the farm:  The longer you sit in an outhouse, the less it smells.
Now she thinks she has come up with just about the perfect material for taking the stink out of sludge - sludge itself. She starts with fertilizer pellets that the New York Organic Fertilizer Company in the Bronx makes from the city's treated sludge.
Anthony DePalma, "Secret Weapon Against the Smell of Sludge?" The New York Times, February 21, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/science/21sludge.html


Our Forgotten Goddess
The history of libertarianism has played out in the catacombs of standard American intellectual history. And so, even after an age of feminist theory and history, it is little noted that in 1943 three foundational documents of modern libertarianism were issued, as the journalist John Chamberlain put it, by “three women—Mrs. [Isabel] Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand—who, with scornful side glances at the male business community, had decided to rekindle a faith in an older American philosophy. There wasn’t an economist among them. And none of them was a Ph.D.”

Brian Doherty, "Our Forgotten Goddess," ReasonOnLine, February 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/0502/cr.bd.our.shtml 
This is a review of The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America, by Stephen Cox, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 418 pages, $39.95.


The Juche Philosophy Is an Original Revolutionary Philosophy
Leader Kim Jong Il's famous work "The Juche Philosophy Is an Original Revolutionary Philosophy" was brought out in booklet by the Sweden-Korea Friendship Association. The work, published on July 26, Juche 85 (1996), makes a scientific analysis of the limitation of the time when the preceding philosophy was set out and the originality of the Juche philosophy. It clarifies the idea that the Juche philosophy serves as a revolutionary philosophy and a political philosophy of the Workers' Party of Korea and principled issues arising in studying and explaining the Juche philosophy.
"Kim Jong Il's Work Published in Sweden," Korean News, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2005/200502/news02/19.htm#1 


"There is no one biological parameter that clearly defines sex," added Dr. Eric Vilain of the University of California, Los Angeles, whose research suggests gender is genetically hard-wired into the brain before birth — regardless of which genitalia develop.
"Mommy, Am I A Boy Or A Girl?" CBS News, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/18/tech/main675080.shtml 


Pretending you know more than you do, pretending you are more important than someone else
Cox liked the rhythm of life in Maine. He would take time off, mid-morning, to cut flowers from the garden outside his office. He liked its philosophy of life, too: "Maine culture derided pretense," he writes, "pretending you know more than you do, pretending you are more important than someone else."

Russ Smith in a WSJ (February 18 review of the review of the following book.--- http://snipurl.com/JournalismMatters JOURNALISM MATTERS By Peter W. Cox (Tilbury House, 384 pages, $20)


Harvard's Slobbering Dog
Our Rottweiler, Larry, has been very confrontational since we moved him back to Cambridge from Washington a few summers ago. He's not nice around the kids, and even worse with the staff in our office. He attacks anything that comes near him, and it's ceasing to be endearing. He's also developed some bad manners: He slobbers all over the place, and he's messy when he eats. What would you recommend? Would castration help?

Carl, Cambridge, Mass., as reported in the Boston Globe, February 18, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/02/18/larry_means_well/ 

In a last ditch effort to save his job, Harvard University President Larry Summers today compared female professors of math and science to Nazis, in a fashion reminiscent of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill's characterization of 9/11 victims. "Female math and science professors form a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire," Mr. Summers said, paraphrasing Mr. Churchill. "These little Eichmanns drive the mighty engine of profit to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved - and they do so both willingly and knowingly." The Harvard faculty greeted the statement with a standing...
ScrappleFace, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/002080.html 
Jensen Comment:  I don't need you on this one Richard Sansing.


This has got to be bull
Australian scientists have cloned the world's first cow using a new research method called serial nuclear transfer (SNT), Xinhua reports.  The Hostein-Friesian calf, named Brandy, created by scientists at the Monash Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne and the Genetics Australia Cooperative, was born just before last Christmas.
"World's first cow cloned using new technique," Webindia.com, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=67379&cat=Science 


Lure of the Campus:  After losing an election, Gore went to Columbia University.  John Edwards went to UNC
John Edwards, former U.S. senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have opened a "Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity." Housed in the law school, the center will be directed by Edwards, a newly minted "university professor," and will include an advisory committee of senior UNC faculty from multiple disciplines. A UNC Chapel Hill news release asserted that the center would be a "nonpartisan initiative." According to The Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper, university trustees had been briefed on negotiations with Edwards and "voiced their wish that the initiative be nonpartisan."...

Tom Ashcroft, Charlotte Observer, February 19, 2005 


Forged and manipulated scientific facts 
Panel says professor of human origins made up data, plagiarized works A flamboyant anthropology professor, whose work had been cited as evidence Neanderthal man once lived in Northern Europe, has resigned after a German university panel ruled he fabricated data and plagiarized the works of his colleagues. Reiner Protsch von Zieten, a Frankfurt university panel ruled, lied about the age of human skulls, dating them tens of thousands of years old, even though they were much younger, reports Deutsche Welle. "The commission finds that Prof. Protsch has forged and manipulated scientific facts over the past 30 years," the university said.
..
FreeRepublic, February 19, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1346676/posts 


Fired by Google
The blog ( http://99zeros.blogspot.com ), which Jen naively thought would mainly interest his friends and family, became extremely popular. (Its single-day record is about 60,000 unique visitors.) This was a far cry from Jen's previous technically-oriented blog, which he published while working for 18 months at Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) Corp.'s Redmond, Washington, headquarters before moving to San Francisco to join Google. He quickly found out there is a large audience in the so-called blogosphere interested in a view of life inside Google.
Juan Carlos Perez, InfoWorld, February 16, 2005 --- http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/02/16/HNgoogleblog_1.html 


A lesser threat
The European view was perhaps best summed up by Mr. Bush's host on the first leg of his trip, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, who wrote in an op-ed piece in the Financial Times in February 2003: "As long as we Europeans feel threatened, the use of war and weapons can more or less be justified....As long as Soviet divisions could reach the Rhine in 48 hours, we obviously had a blood brotherhood with our cousins overseas. But now that the Cold War is over, we can express more freely our differences of opinion."  Al Qaeda and its ilk, in other words, are not, at least in Mr. Verhofstadt's view, a threat on the order of the Soviet tanks once arrayed on the eastern end of the Fulda Gap. Of course, as George Melloan notes in a related commentary, there was no unanimity of opinion in Europe on how to face that threat even then.

"Explaining the War," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110904106408260564,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Bloggers are a "lynch mob" of "salivating morons"
Blog flap. Here's the retroframing: Some mainstream media fell back on their traditional view of bloggers as inaccurate, upstart nobodies who dare to criticize their betters. Last week, for instance, the New York Times, which had looked the other way for two weeks, ran a story dripping with disdain. Headlined "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters," it offered a simple-minded view of bloggers as wild conservatives out to collect liberal scalps. The story was laced with quotes assuring us that bloggers are a "lynch mob" of "salivating morons," fanning fears of "the growing power of rampant, unedited dialogue" on the Internet (as opposed to the completely reliable and unrampant reports in mainstream media).
John Leo, "Making media accountable," Jewish World Review, February 21, 2005 --- http://cweb.jewishworldreview.com/cols/leo022105.asp 


Europe Teems With Web Dailies That Twit the Mainstream Press
The Web is a sprawling space that has spawned new breeds of digital press gadflies like the Rojos and an assortment of self-appointed cybermonitors of the conventional news media in Europe. Across the world, their sharp comments can provoke an array of reactions: amusement, insults, public outrage, blunt legal threats. Yet these Web sites and Web logs, or blogs, are scoured by policy makers and the political elite.  "It's a phenomenon that has grown very much," said Mónica Ridruejo, a former member of the European Parliament who runs her own media consulting firm, Dragonaria, in Madrid. "People like to see the scoops there, and everyone talks about them at lunchtime."
Doreen Carvajal, "Europe Teems With Web Dailies That Twit the Mainstream Press," The New York Times, February 21, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/business/worldbusiness/21rags.html 


Say what? Common Cause?
The governor did get sharp questions from the group over his proposal to reform the incumbent-protection gerrymander imposed on California in 2001. But his plan also collected a surprise endorsement from the liberal group Common Cause. Leaving town, Mr. Schwarzenegger could claim not only that he faced down entrenched elected officials of his own party, but also had reached across the ideological divide.

John Fund, "Political Diary," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110904145277260575,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


New News at Emory University
Although she said the Wheel has expanded its coverage of “gay news” this year, she thinks gay students need advocacy as much as attention. Her publication, referred to as E.Vo, has received the blessings of many top administrators, including University President James W. Wagner, as well as support from the student-run Media Council.  Then there is The Emory Phoenix, an online publication marketing itself as Emory’s version of Atlanta’s alternative tabloid Creative Loafing and offering a limitless space to students who want to write magazine-length feature stories. College senior Paul Forrest, who conceived of the project last fall along with several of his friends, said about 50 students have expressed interest in joining the Phoenix, which plans to post its first stories on www.emoryphoenix.com  next week.

Robbie Brown, "Student journalists plan to launch 2 newspapers," The Emory Wheel Online, February 18, 2005 --- http://www.emorywheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/18/42152992b3b69 


Painting the Red States (read that Evangelicals) Blue
Mr. Dean said at a press conference after his acceptance speech that he would be embarking on a nationwide party-rebuilding crusade to reach out to pivotal parts of the electorate that the Democrats have been losing, including Catholics and evangelicals, whose support has been a key factor in the Republicans' victories, particularly in rural America. "We are definitely going to do religious outreach. We're definitely going to reach out to the evangelical community," he said.
Donald Lambro, "Dean: Democrats will 'stand up for what we believe', reach out to evangelicals," Insight on the News. February 17, 2005


Painting the Red States (read that pro life) Blue
Say What?  Is this consistent with her previous position on this controversial issue?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York says abortions, ideally, should be performed "only in very rare circumstances."
Dick Pohlman, ""Dems reworking abortion message," Biloxi Sun Herald, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/10946467.htm 
Jensen Comment:  I personally preferred the previous Democratic Party position on abortion.


Painting the blue states pale
Massachusetts was once a favorite of the national environmental movement, passing some of the country's strongest laws to protect its air, water, and land. But today, after 15 years of budget cuts, it is failing to deliver key services. Across the state, the results are apparent: almost $800 million in deferred park maintenance, a shortage of rangers and environmental police officers in state parks, and less attention to identifying hazardous waste sites, keeping streams and rivers clean, monitoring mercury contamination, and cutting levels of acid rain.
Beth Daley, "Green movement pales in Bay State," Boston Globe, February 21, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/02/21/green_movement_pales_in_bay_state/ 


As Johnnie Carson would say, "That must've been really inexpensive."
"British Historian Discovers Couple Married 81 Years, a Record," Weird News, February 17, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/Married81years 


This time the U.S. army is not involved
The standoff in Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkariya region, was the latest in a series of confrontations between law-enforcement authorities and alleged extremists in the volatile North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya.  Last month, security forces killed seven alleged Islamic extremists in the same city in a two-day battle with members of the so-called Yarmuk group.

"Russia forces 'surround militants'," CNN, February 19, 2005 --- http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/19/russia.militants.ap/index.html 


For Dick Tracy Wannbees
Compared with other Palm devices, the Wrist PDA isn't so hot: It runs the older Palm OS 4 and offers less than eight megabytes of memory, specs comparable to four-year-old models. (Had it shipped last summer as originally planned, it might not have looked quite as archaic.)

Anthony Zurcher, "Wrist PDA, More Novelty Than Utility," The Washington Post, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37123-2005Feb19.html 


The left side can get away with this
Howard Dean said that the only way the Republicans could get so many African Americans to turn up at an event like this was if they invited the hotel staff.

Michael Gowenda, "Loose-lips Dean fires up both sides of politics," The Sydney Morning Herald, February 19, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/18/1108709439177.html 


Federal Workers Have a Savings Plan
The personal investment accounts that are the centerpiece of the Bush administration's Social Security proposal would be modeled after a popular federal retirement savings plan that offers a mix of index funds with microscopic administrative fees.  The Thrift Savings Plan is similar to the 401(k) plans many private companies offer their employees. More than 3.4 million federal civilian employees, postal workers and members of the armed services participate in the plan, which had more than $152 billion in assets at the end of 2004.  There are two reasons the federal plan is an appealing role model for personal savings accounts, benefits experts say. (From USA Today)
Tennesean.com, February 5, 2005 --- http://tennessean.com/business/archives/05/01/65265212.shtml?Element_ID=65265212 


Don't you wish life were like that?
In the Woody Allen movie "Annie Hall" a character is sounding off about the Canadian media theorist Marshall MacLuhan when the subject himself appears and says: "Excuse me, I'm Marshall MacLuhan. You know nothing of my work." Woody Allen then turns to the audience and asks, "don't you wish life were like that?"

"An 'Annie Hall' Moment," The Wall Street Journal, February 18, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110867882251758232,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Expensive Sketch Pads:  Do you suppose their wives will one day sell this art in garage sales?
A strip club in Idaho has found an artful way to prance past a city law that prohibits nudity. On its "art club nights", the Erotic City strip club charges $US15 ($19) for a sketch pad, pencil and a chance to see naked women dancers.  In 2001 the Boise City Council passed an ordinance banning total nudity in public unless it had "serious artistic merit" - an exemption meant to apply to plays, dance performances and art classes. "We have a lot of people drawing some very good pictures," said Erotic City's owner, Chris Teague, who has posted drawings around the club.
"The Art of Getting Naked," Sidney Morning Herald, February 19, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/18/1108709439267.html 


It is nothing to die; it is frightful not to live.
Victor Hugo

From the Opinion Journal on February 18, 2005

The Grim Reapers 
"U.S. Sees Dead People on Farm Subsidy Roles"--headline, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 16

But Aren't They in the Same Boat?
"Husband Banned From Rowing With Wife"--headline, ITN, Feb. 16

What Would Experts Do Without Panda Poo?
"Panda Poo Excites Experts"--headline, Xinhua Online, Feb. 17


"School for Scandal," The Economist, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3667863 

A stout defence of the virtues of economics from a publication called The Economist would hardly be a surprise. But, in fact, this is not necessary to refute the claim that business schools are responsible for moral turpitude at the top of corporate America. As it happens, most of the erstwhile corporate leaders currently appearing in the dock never went near one (see article), whereas many acknowledged champions of business ethics, such as Lou Gerstner at IBM, did.

What's more, many of the top business schools have taken steps to offset any ethically desensitising influence there may have been in their MBA coursework. They have greatly expanded their teaching of business ethics—some by introducing special courses, others in more memorable ways. Tuck School of Business, for example, persuades an ex-convict to come every year to tell its MBA students of his regrets.

Continued in the article.

Big momma's watching you
New monitoring devices will enable parents to keep close tabs on how their teenagers are behaving behind the wheel -- whether they're driving recklessly, whether they're wearing seat belts, and whether they are really going to the library like they promised.
Michelle Higgins, "A Back-Seat Driver For Your Teen's Car," The Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/BigMomma 
Jensen Comment:  I'm more worried about the kids monitoring Grandpa's driving.

 


Breaking up is hard to do
We brought in four females from a Swedish zoo because two years ago a couple of males separated when we introduced a female.
"Swedish tempress penguins fail to attract new males at German zoo," Weird News, February 21, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/GayPenguins 

 


Say what?  Wasn't job loss the center of the debate in the last presidential election?
What?! The fact of the matter is, the most successful companies are outsourcers. And a Dartmouth study found that outsourcers are the bigger job creators.  Since 1992, America has lost 361 million jobs, but during that same time, it also gained 380 million jobs — millions more than it lost.
John Stossel (ABC News Co-anchor), "Outsourcers are the bigger job creators?" Jewish World Review, February 23, 2005 --- http://cweb.jewishworldreview.com/0205/stossel.php3 


Where's Iraq?
"40 Percent of Japanese University Students Can't Find Iraq on a Map," Weird News, February 23, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/IraqSomewhere
Jensen Comment:  This was no small survey.  This was 40% of 3,773 college students.

 


 

Diefenbach knows where Iraq is on the map
A Midland man was trained to fight an armed enemy before heading to Iraq. Army 1st Lt. Alex Diefenbach ended up fighting poverty and need among the embattled country's children. Diefenbach, 25, started Operation Iraqi Children's Assistance Network, a nonprofit charity that has collected 20,000 tons of school supplies and other goods and more than $10,000 since last April. The relief campaign has spread from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit to four provinces in north central Iraq. "Just being in the country, you see the need to help in anyway you can," said Diefenbach, who last...

Mlive.com, February 23, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/IraqChildrenFeb23 

 


Canada's affirmative action in the extreme:  Whites should not apply
... the Correctional Service of Canada is disqualifying candidates for parole officer jobs because they're white. An Ontario job-seeker received a rejection letter recently, advising that only aboriginals and visible minorities need apply. "Please be advised that effective immediately the Ontario region of the Correctional Service of Canada is no longer maintaining an inventory for parole officer applications from the general public," the Feb. 19 letter reads. "Due to staffing resources we will continue to accept applications from aboriginal and visible-minority candidates only." CSC is committed to having a "skilled, diversified workforce reflective of Canadian...
Kathleen Harris, " No whites need apply:  Correctional Service restricts job applications," Toronto Sun, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/02/23/939636-sun.html 

 


I can't say I blame them.  I did the same thing.
Physics is among the most male-dominated of disciplines. And while commentators bandy about many possible causes -- discrimination, the lifestyle tradeoffs required by graduate school or the academic workplace, and, controversially, innate aptitude -- the problem seems most directly attributable to female students abandoning physics in droves between high school and college.  So concludes a report issued last week by the American Institute of Physics, which found that the relatively small proportion of female faculty members in the field occurs not because of a "leaking" pipeline within academe, but because of the small proportion of women who choose to study physics after 12th grade.
"Data, not Speculation, on Female Scientists," Inside Higher Ed, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/data_not_speculation_on_female_scientists 

 


Carnegie-Mellon first denies then admits helping to pay for the Shabazz anti-Semitic presentation
Cohon went on to say that even though the university did not want to sponsor Shabazz's appearance "in large part because of the inflammatory nature of the past rhetoric of the speaker," it was appropriate to allow the student group to bring him anyway. "Allowing activity that one has vigorously discouraged may strike some as hypocritical, though it is at the core of the intersection of freedom and responsibility," Cohon wrote.  And while Cohon said the actual speech was "filled with hateful and hurtful rhetoric," he said it "was also not in keeping with the history of the Spirit Organization nor, we firmly believe, of the values of its collective membership, nor its intent in sponsoring the speaker."
"Paying for Shabazz," Inside Higher Ed, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/paying_for_shabazz 

The following module is quoted from http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits022205.htm 

A really bad case of hate at Carnegie Mellon University:  Is this academic freedom?
An appearance by Malik Shabazz at Carnegie Mellon University last week has infuriated Jewish students, who say he not only devoted a university lecture to attacking them, but broke university rules and asked that Jewish students identify themselves as Jews before a hostile audience.  A columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who managed to stay at the appearance when other journalists were forced to leave, wrote: "Shabazz travels with a retinue of young men and women in jackboots, arm patches and berets. One wandered about with a nightstick. Another snapped photos of white people in the audience.... Try to imagine Farrakhan in Nuremberg."  Shabazz could not be reached for comment Monday. Nor could members of the black student group that organized the appearance. Carnegie Mellon officials said that they tried to persuade the students not to invite Shabazz, who has been criticized as an anti-Semite not only by Jewish organizations but by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the university decided that its commitment to free expression meant that the students were given the final say.
"Hate at Carnegie Mellon," Inside Higher Ed, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/hate_at_carnegie_mellon 

 


 

What would Woody Allen say about this?
Certainly the dominant note of the event (a gathering "in celebration and mourning," as a few speakers put it) was to insist that Derrida's work deserved more serious notice than it had received in the American press following his death in September. In welcoming the audience, Peter Goodrich, a professor of law at Cardozo, noted that people who were "unimpeded by any knowledge of what they're talking about" evidently felt an especially passionate urge to denounce Derrida. Although no speaker mentioned it as such, the most egregious example was undoubtedly the obituary in The New York Times -- a tour de force of malice and intellectual laziness, by someone whose entire knowledge of Derrida's work appeared to have been gleaned from reading the back of a video box for the Woody Allen film Deconstructing Harry.
Scott McLemee, "Defending Derrida By Scott," Inside Higher Ed, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/intellectual_affairs__6 

 

Here's what Woody Allen would say!
In the Woody Allen movie "Annie Hall" a character is sounding off about the Canadian media theorist Marshall MacLuhan when the subject himself appears and says: "Excuse me, I'm Marshall MacLuhan. You know nothing of my work." Woody Allen then turns to the audience and asks, "don't you wish life were like that?"
"An 'Annie Hall' Moment," The Wall Street Journal, February 18, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110867882251758232,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

 


Subsidizing the super rich:  Where your hard-earned tax dollars end up
What do David Rockefeller, Ted Turner and Scottie Pippen have in common, aside from being rich and famous? Each has received more than $200,000 in federal farm subsidies in the past decade, according to a study by the Environmental Working Group.
"Family Farmers?" USA Today, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050223/editbox23.art.htm 

 


Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again
I have worked as a college instructor for 15 years. During the past five years, I've had to adapt my lectures to address the damage done to students as a result of years of receiving accolades just for showing up to class. Students' responses to criticism have ranged from crying “You hate me!” to obstinate proclamations of “I prefer to do it my way.”  Personally, I don't give a rat's backside for talent, genius or a stuffed résumé. The students who are successful are the ones who can adapt and are resilient when their work stumbles.  However, these are acquired traits in an education system where failure is a four-letter word and, as such, is never addressed.

Sheryl Young, "Students who succeed are willing to fail repeatedly," USA Today, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050223/letfeat23.art.htm 


Just another day on my fraud beat
California's insurance commissioner said yesterday that he was investigating several insurers that appeared to be overcharging home buyers for title insurance, then splitting the excessive fees with the people who had steered them the business.  The commissioner, John Garamendi, said he had subpoenaed the records of two title insurers, Fidelity National Financial and LandAmerica Financial Group. More subpoenas would be served soon, he said, including some to financial services companies and real estate firms that have title insurance companies.
Mary Williams Walsh, "California Examines Title Insurers in Fee Splitting," The New York Times, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/business/23title.html 

 

This seems like a good time to repeat an earlier tidbit.

 

They weren't working solely in their clients' best interest.
The study was instigated by Steven D. Levitt, a self-described "rogue economist" who has applied the analytical tools of his trade to everything from sumo wrestlers to drug-dealing gangs; his work is cataloged in the forthcoming book "Freakonomics," written with Stephen J. Dubner.  Professor Levitt had fixed up and sold several houses in Oak Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. When working with real estate agents, he said, "I got the impression they weren't working solely in their clients' best interest."
Daniel Gross, "Why a Real Estate Agent May Skip the Extra Mile," The New York Times, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/business/yourmoney/20view.html 
Jensen Comment:  Steven Levitt is a terrific economics professor at the University of Chicago.  You can get a list of his publications at http://www.src.uchicago.edu/users/levit/ 
Over the course of the history of America, real estate fraud has been the most prevalent kind of fraud.  See Bob Jensen's history of fraud in America at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm 


I'd be willing to bet big money that you didn't know this.
United Kingdom regulators warned that banks need to strengthen their back-office systems and risk controls to keep up with the swift expansion of the $5.44 trillion credit-derivatives market.  The credit-derivatives market has grown explosively in recent years, starting from almost nothing in the mid-1990s and increasing to an estimated $5.44 trillion by 2004, according to Deutsche Bank figures. The most common kind of credit derivative is the credit-default swap, which works like an insurance policy to transfer the risk that a company will default on its debt.
Tom Marshall, "Credit Derivatives Stir Risk Concerns For British Banks." The Wall Street Journal,  February 23, 2005; Page C5 --- http://snipurl.com/CredDeriv
Jensen Comment:  A credit derivivative contract that allows for the use of a derivative instrument to transfer credit risk, for a fee, from one party to another. And then you ask, what is a derivative instrument?  And then I say, scroll down at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm#D-Terms 

 


 

Rotten Apples in the NCAA Barrel:  Should these be our heroes on Saturdays?
Thirty of the 117 colleges that play in Division I-A, the NCAA's top competitive level -- better than one in four -- were punished by the association's Committee on Infractions from 2000 to 2004, a review of the NCAA's database on major infractions shows.  Many of the nation's most prominent sports programs are among them, including Miami, Colorado, USC, Auburn, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan and Nebraska. (The association actually punished Division I-A colleges 32 times during that time period, as two sports programs -- the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and the University of Washington -- were cited twice for rule breaking.)

"The NCAA Dishonor Roll," Inside Higher Ed, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_ncaa_dishonor_roll 
The Major Infraction Database is at https://goomer.ncaa.org/wdbctx/LSDBi/LSDBi.MajorInfPackage.MI_Search_Input?p_Cmd=Go_Search 

 


It's an outrage:  The courts are not your friend when your identity's been stolen
The recent security breach at data aggregator ChoicePoint that exposed at least 145,000 consumers to identity theft and renewed a call for regulation of the data industry will likely leave victims of the breach twice bitten -- first from the identity theft itself and second from thwarted attempts to recover damages for their losses if they decide to seek recourse.  Legal experts say that people who suffered losses as a result of the breach will find it difficult to get compensation from ChoicePoint for selling their personal data to con artists, even if the victims can prove that ChoicePoint was negligent in screening customers who purchased their data. That's because courts have been unwilling to penalize companies when victims of identity theft are not their direct customers.
Kim Zetter, "ID Theft Victims Could Lose Twice," Wired News, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66685,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 

 


Chilling Development from Google
Remember Microsoft's failed "Smart Tag" technology, which took over Web pages and added links to Microsoft servers? Well now, Google has released similar stuff, called AutoLink. It's bad news, as the popular search engine attempts to hijack Web pages for its own profit. Do you really want Google taking over your Web page, to the detriment of the person who actually created it? Our story presents a balanced look at what I consider a chilling development from what's becoming the Microsoft of the Internet. Plus, we have details on Google's latest technology facility, due to open in Oregon.

Matt Hicks, "Google's Tool Bar Links Stir Debate," eWeek,  February 18, 2005 --- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1766764,00.asp 

 


 

A university becomes a business
Few university presidents have a hard-core business style quite like Drexel's Constantine Papadakis. But critics say the university's financial focus conflicts with other values that might improve the school's academic standing.  Drexel Tries Online Classes And Fancy Marketing.  But few university presidents have a hard-core business style quite like Dr. Papadakis's. He has deployed sophisticated marketing tactics, tried to improve productivity by digitizing coursework and has beefed up the 114-year-old institution by taking over a troubled medical school. He has quintupled the university's endowment to $470 million, doubled undergraduate enrollment to 9,800 and recorded an $83 million surplus in 2004 on revenue of more than $500 million.
Bernard Wysocki, Jr., "How Dr. Papadakis Runs a University Like a Company," The Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2005; Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110912375606461666,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 


Did you expect miracles? 
At the Heritage Foundation, budget analyst Brian Riedl notes that Bush's budget does not get a handle on swelling entitlement.
Jonathan Rauch, "Revive Gramm-Rudmann:  A bad idea whose time has come again," ReasonOnLine, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/rauch/021305.shtml 
Bob Jensen's essay on entitlements is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 


Radical shift away from the humanities
"Phasing out Greek would be, and indeed has already been, taken by undergraduates, alumni, and outside writers as a sign, at the very least, that Brandeis is engaged in a radical shift away from the humanities," the panel said in its report, a copy of which was obtained by Inside Higher Ed. It added that eliminating the study of ancient Greek would have "profoundly negative consequences" on the classics program at the university, making it impossible for any undergraduates at the university to apply to graduate programs in the field.  Similarly, the faculty panel rejected proposals to phase out the linguistics major and a graduate program in musical composition, and to reduce the size of the physics department.

"A Rebuke for Brandeis Administrators," Inside Higher Ed, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/a_rebuke_for_brandeis_administrators 

 



"Minimum compliance" to "investor driven":  I'll believe this only when I see it with my own eyes
The mind-set of financial reporting should ideally evolve from "minimum compliance" to "investor driven." This was an overarching theme from preparers, auditors, regulators, standards setters, and users of financial reports who made presentations at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' (AICPA) National Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments in early December 2004.

"A Word From Accounting's Powers That Be," SmartPros, February 22, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47054.xml 

 


China is edging up in technology research
Microsoft’s Advanced Technology Center (ATC) opened in November 2003 with 20 employees and a couple of projects. By late last year, after receiving more than 30,000 résumés from around China and sparking keen demand among Microsoft’s business divisions, it had around 100 employees, with some 17 major projects and scores of minor ones on its books; this year, the ATC is set to double in size. In the next few years, the center expects to be the key technology transfer point for a host of new products, from Web-search technologies to mobile applications and home entertainment systems. On the strength of these innovations, Hongjiang Zhang, the center’s charter director, hopes to provide a powerful alternative to Microsoft’s traditional strategy of creating products in the U.S., spiraling into Europe, and then adapting them for the Chinese market. “China is still emerging, but China is no longer just a follower,” he says. “They are starting to lead.”
Robert Buderi, "Microsoft: Getting from 'R'," MIT's Technology Review, March 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/issue/brief_microsoft.asp?trk=nl 

 


 

The U.S. is losing its technology lead
Now these clouds on the horizon may be converging into something like a perfect storm, according to a troubling report released last week by the American Electronics Association. The report argues that the US standing in technology is slipping, and that the nation is in danger of losing its advantage in fields it has long dominated.

Robert Weisman, "US could see its advantage in technology slip away," Boston Globe, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/02/20/us_could_see_its_advantage_in_technology_slip_away/ 


Promises! Promises!
After an earthquake destroyed the city of Bam in Iran in 2003, world governments pledged $1.1 billion in aid. How much of that, according to Iran’s government, was actually sent?
Economist.com --- http://www.economist.com/diversions/quiz/mark.cfm?date=22%2DFEB%2D05&single=true 
Answer:  $17.5 million, which works out to about 1.6%
On February 22, 2005 Iran was unfortunately hit with another deadly earthquake --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/international/middleeast/23iran.html


Victim of a Wal-Mart Gunfight
Winn-Dixie and 23 of its U.S. subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 reorganization late Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, a company news release said.
CBS News, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/22/ap/business/main675468.shtml 

 


A billion here and a billion there;  Pretty soon you're talking some real money
The world's wealthiest countries agreed on Tuesday to increase aid to the world's poorest nations by raising their contributions to the World Bank's international development program to $34 billion from $23 billion.

Elizabeth Becker, "Wealthiest Nations to Increase Aid to Poorest," The New York Times, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/business/worldbusiness/23trade.html 

 


Woofy's living higher on the hog
A federal jury awarded more than $300,000 to a mentally ill woman whose apartment complex refused to let her have a dog. The verdict in favor of Joyce Grad, who suffers from severe bipolar disorder, acknowledges the role of pets in improving the quality of life for the mentally ill. "I feel vindicated," Grad said Tuesday, four days after an eight-member U.S. District Court jury reached its unanimous verdict. The jury deliberated 5 1/2 hours over two days before awarding $14,209 in actual damages and $300,000 in punitive damages to Grad. "A lot of people...
Mlive.com, February 23, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/woofyApt

 


Who should us simple folk believe?

Some 19,000 of the world's scientists and experts on climatology have signed declarations saying that blaming rising CO2 levels on mankind is garbage – junk science at its worst – and they insist that all the available evidence proves their contention.
"The Myth of Greenhouse Gases," Free Republic, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1349258/posts 

 

My scientist friends scream Bah Humbug!
Since it was published four years ago, the "hockey stick" temperature graph has been used by hundreds of environmentalists, scientists and policy makers to make the case that the industrial era is the cause of global warming. Now, a semiretired Canadian mining executive is raising doubts about the graphic's veracity.

Antonio Regalado, "In Climate Debate, The 'Hockey Stick' Leads to a Face-Off," The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2005, Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110834031507653590,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 

 

This is what the EPA has to say --- http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html 


Lunatic data of the day
“Medical costs lead more people to bankruptcy,” proclaimed one headline. “Half of personal bankruptcies caused by medical bills,” announced another. These headlines referred to a report about medical bills and bankruptcies. It was featured – with a great sense of urgency – in TV, radio, magazine, and newspaper stories across the nation. The idea that medical costs incurred by people who have little or no insurance caused half the bankruptcies in the United States was alarming to those who heard the news, just as it was meant to be. The source of this shocking announcement was an article published in...
"Farenheit 98.6" Free Republic, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1349252/posts 

 


Religions that grant licenses to slaughter:  This professor's billed as the "Liberal Lunatic of the Day"

His conclusion reveals deep anti-American and anti-Judeo-Christian beliefs. "Genocides and holocausts arise out of unchecked zeal, unquestioned duty, and silent acquiescence. They are fueled by blind belief, personal fear, and a sense of superiority that gives license to slaughter. Both the United States under Bush and its clone under Sharon exemplify the presence of racism resulting in genocidal devastation as they impose their respective wills on Iraqis and Palestinians."
Quotes from William A. Cook, "Liberal Lunatic of the Day," Free Republic, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1349255/posts 

 


They wouldn't give two bits for Bob Jensen
A student at Ohio State University decided to protest policies there by putting the institution's president, Karen Holbrook, up for auction on eBay, the Associated Press reports. The posting was removed Monday, after bidding had hit millions of dollars.  Some enterprising college students are applying the eBay concept to items students would want to buy and sell. College Junktion offers a range of items, including textbooks, dorm furniture, digital music, clothing, and "other junk."
"Quick Takes: Auctioning Presidents and Other College Goods," Inside Higher Ed, February 22, 2005 --- 
http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/quick_takes_auctioning_presidents_and_other_college_goods 

 

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Erika Jensen was driving home from one of her shopping trips in Northern New Hampshire when she saw an elderly neighbor walking on the side of the road.

Feeling sorry for the woman trudging up the mountain road in the cold, Erika stopped the car and asked Mrs. O'Leary if she would like a ride up Sugar Hill.

With a word or two of thanks, she got in the car.

After resuming the journey and a bit of small talk, Mrs. O'Leary noticed a brown box on the seat behind Erika.

"What's in the box?" Asked Mrs. O'Leary?. Erika looked back at the brown box and said, "It's a bottle of wine. I got it on eBay for my husband."

Mrs. O'Leary was silent for a moment, and then said, "Good trade."

Erika chuckled to herself at the moment.  But when she got home she seriously commenced to search until she found a headline reading "Christie's to Auction Computer Relics."

That gave her an idea, so she read on at http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/22/technology/cyberspace_sale/index.htm 


They're going to miss us when we're gone
Impending baby boomer retirements, a widening skills gap driven by declining educational standards, and outdated and ineffective approaches to talent management are combining forces to produce a "perfect storm" that threatens the global business economy, according to new research.

"Deloitte:  Talent Crisis Looms," SmartPros, February 22, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47090.xml 


Massachusetts may miss them when they're gone
The decline in permanent, fulltime professors at UMass-Amherst, accompanied by increased numbers of temporary and parttime teachers, echoes a national trend on college campuses. Nationwide, the number of full-time, temporary faculty grew by one-third from 1998 to 2001, and almost half of all college faculty are now part-time teachers, according to the American Association of University Professors.  In Massachusetts, while enrollment has held steady at the state's flagship campus, it has lost almost 200 permanent, full-time professors in the last decade. This 19-percent decline in tenured and tenure-track faculty has damaged educational quality and threatens the university's reputation, according to faculty union leaders. Last week, they launched a campaign to educate the public about the changes, and challenged university trustees to join them.
Jenna Russell, "Full-time faculty cuts reverberate at UMass," Boston Globe, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/02/22/full_time_faculty_cuts_reverberate_at_umass/ 

 


What is a "Professor of Practice?"  Is this a form of outsourcing in academe?
Many of the colleges that are increasingly relying on professors off the tenure track are creating new positions for them: "professors of practice." These full-time positions typically involve only teaching and qualify for multiple-year contracts and benefits.  "Professors of practice" typically enjoy more pay, benefits and job security than many other adjuncts, but they are not eligible for tenure. And that poses a problem for the American Association of University Professors, which has traditionally argued that almost all faculty members should be either up for tenure or have already earned it.  In light of the growth in these "professors of practice," the AAUP decided to review the issue, and its Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure has published a report on the new faculty model. That report -- about which the association is seeking comments -- sharply criticizes the approach as posing dangers to academic freedom.
"Holding Out for Tenure," Inside Higher Ed, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/holding_out_for_tenure 


Is this our national health plan?  The government will soon pick up half of the nation's medical bills
Growth in health-care spending will continue to slow, but federal, state and local governments will be picking up nearly half of all U.S. health costs within a decade, a shift that largely reflects Medicare's new prescription-drug coverage, federal analysts forecast. Government will pay 49% of health costs by 2014, up from 46% currently, according to the agency that runs Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly and disabled. The government's portion has been rising steadily, from 43% in 1980 and 38% in 1970.
Sarah Lueck, "Government Is Likely to Pay 49% Of All U.S. Health Costs by 2014," The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005; Page A4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110918230012762231,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 
Bob Jensen's unfinished essay on "The Pending Collapse of the United States" is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 


Don't trust your corporate pension plan:  CEOs lie with Congressional blessings
Weak disclosure rules, critics say, allow companies to paint a sometimes distorted picture that can keep employees, investors and regulators in the dark until it is too late. The PBGC, which guarantees defined-benefit pension plans covering 34 million workers, often doesn't pay the total pension benefits promised by employers; it currently assumes up to about $45,000 a year for each employee who retires at age 65.  Employee advocates say toughening disclosure rules could help pressure companies to keep promises to employees. If struggling companies come clean quickly about funding problems, the thinking goes, employees, unions and investors can put the heat on executives to make up shortfalls. Public fights over underfunded pensions can give companies black eyes in the marketplace.
Michael Schroeder, "Fuzzy Pension Math: Funding Shortfalls Can Be Hard to See," The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005, Page C5 --- http://snipurl.com/PensionFuzzy 


Those poor, poor elderly millionaires
Medicaid was established in 1965 with the worthy aim of providing medical care for the poor; it was never intended as a middle-class entitlement or as inheritance protection for the children of well-off seniors. Yet the latter is precisely what has happened -- to the point that sheltering assets and income to qualify for Medicaid is now as routine as writing a will.
"Medicaid for Millionaires," The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110920966481062758,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion


Don't trust your Medicaid accountants
In his latest budget request, Mr. Bush took aim at an array of strategies that he says states use to improperly inflate their Medicaid costs and thus qualify for more federal matching funds for the state-federal health program for the poor. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt called the tactics, long a source of friction between Washington and the states, the "seven harmful habits of highly desperate states." By outlawing many of them, the administration figures, it could save $40 billion over 10 years in the fast-growing program.
Sarah Lueck, "Creative Accounting for Medicaid," The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005, Page A4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110920698133662704,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 


Flipping Frauds
Among the more common schemes seen by IRS criminal investigators is property flipping that involves false statements to lenders. (On its own, flipping -- in which a buyer pays a low price for property and then resells it quickly for much more -- is legal.) Also on the list: the use of two sets of settlement statements and the use of fraudulent qualifications, as when a real-estate agent helps a buyer fabricate an employment history or credit record.

Ray A. Smith, "Real-Estate Boom Means a Boom In Real-Estate Fraud, IRS Says," The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/REfraudFeb24 
Bob Jensen's threads on real estate frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm#RealEstateFraud 


I wonder if this is where our first "Invisible Man" emigrated from?
First invisible galaxy discovered --- http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050223_dark_galaxy.html 


Trust in the Cardinal
Multidisciplinary researchers will perform basic science and technology research to aid the Department of Homeland Security in identifying and thwarting terrorist threats to the nation. 
Stanford University has been named the first Regional Visualization and Analytics Center to perform basic science and technology research to assist the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in identifying and thwarting terrorist threats to the nation. The announcement was made Feb. 7 by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which operates DHS's National Visualization and Analytics Center (http://nvac.pnl.gov/), or NVAC, in Richland, Wash."University Named First Regional Center for Terrorism Research," Alumni Newsletter, February 7, 2005 --- http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/february9/hanrahansr-020905.html 


The end of history fifteen years after the end of history

Where I cannot follow Sachs is in his sunniness about salvation. He is in earnest about "ending poverty in our time"--specifically, "by the year 2025." This is also the goal set in a report released last month by the United Nations Millennium Project, led by Sachs. "I reject the plaintive cries of the doomsayers," he writes in the book, "who say that ending poverty is impossible." But economic injustice does not have only economic causes. My Augustinian heart tells me that Sachs's understanding of policy is deeper than his understanding of experience. Is one a doomsayer for saying that poverty will not be ended even though it must be fought? About other evils Sachs is less utopian: He admits that terrorism and infectious diseases "cannot be eliminated entirely." But his defense of the Enlightenment--he is right: when one billion people live on less than $1 a day and 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 a day, two cheers for Condorcet!--is unfortunately too innocent of the shadows, too lacking in what used to be called, before the end of history, a tragic sense of life. (At the University of Chicago last week, Francis Fukuyama gave a lecture called "The End of History Fifteen Years Later.")
Leon Wieseltier, "The Ends," The New Republic, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050228&amp;s=diarist022805 
This is a commentary on a book by Russell Jacoby called Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age --- http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023112/0231128940.HTM  --- 

He does not say exactly why, except that he wants his dream back. And for what ails America he recommends (I swear) the vaporizings of Gustav Landauer, the anarchist mystagogue and Jewish revolutionary who was murdered by a fascist mob in Munich in 1919. (So far Landauer has influenced American life quite differently in the person of his grandson, the exquisitely accommodationist Mike Nichols.) So the spoilers of America have nothing to fear from this utopian.
Leon Wieseltier, "The Ends," The New Republic, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050228&amp;s=diarist022805 


Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again
After Jacques Derrida twice failed the entrance exam for Ecole Normale Superieure, the hothouse for the country's intellectual elite, before gaining admittance in 1952.

In a statement (following the death of Jacques Derrida), Jacques Chirac, the French president, announced the death "with sadness,"calling Derrida "one of the major figures in the intellectual life of our time," whose work was "read, discussed, and taught around the world."
Scott McLemee, "Derrida, a Pioneer of Literary Theory, Dies," The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 22, 2004, Page A1.

"He acquired a whole new life in the academy in the last 15 years or so," said John D. Caputo, a professor of religion and humanities at Syracuse University, and the author of The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion (Indiana University Press, 1997).  "He began to talk about what he called 'the undeconstructible.'...The idea that deconstruction could be carried out in the name of something undeconstructible--you just didn't hear from literary folks.  But in his later work, he began to talk about the undeconstructibility of justice, of democracy, of friendship, of hospitality."
Scott McLemee, "Derrida, a Pioneer of Literary Theory, Dies," The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 22, 2004, Page A19.

Conservatives owe Derrida an apology
Anyone curious about the implications of deconstructive thought for academic administration might take a look at Derrida's lectures and memos in Eyes of the University, published last year by Stanford University Press. "I believe," he announces, "in the indestructability of the ordered procedures of legitimation, of the production of titles and diplomas, and of the authorization of competence." (I do believe some conservatives owe Derrida an apology.)
Doug Lederman, "Derrida's Wake," Inside Higer Ed, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/intellectual_affairs__7 


 

Governor Dummer Academy, a boarding school in Newbury, Mass., is changing its name to Governor Academy so as to put a stop to the "dumb and Dummer" jokes, the Associated Press reports. The AP quotes one alum who's happy about the decision:
Opinion Journal, February 23, 2005
That's Okay Governor.  Beaver College did the same thing a few years ago.  What became its new name? --- http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/11/20/embarrassingbeaver.ap/ 

 

Question
Who was the original Governor Dummer?

 

Answer --- http://www.mass.gov/statehouse/massgovs/wdummer.htm 
William Dummer (1677-1761)
Acting Royal Governor of Massachusetts
1723-1728, 1729-1730

 


The Wall Street Journal makes a dumber decision
Nevertheless, the Journal faces an intractable problem. Because you have to subscribe to access both current news articles and the archive, the Journal is leaving only a faint footprint in cyberspace. As with The New York Times, which insists that readers register to view news and pay $3 per article in the archive, the Journal barely shows up on Google or any other search engine. I googled "Enron" -- an issue the Journal covered exhaustively, and which two of its reporters even wrote a book about -- and not one article appeared within the first 25 pages (250 results.)  Then I rigged the test by plugging in "Wall Street Journal" and "Enron" and still struck out (although I did pull up a couple of Journal stories specially edited for high school classes.) If you can input the name of your publication into a search engine and not come up with any stories, you must be digitally tone-deaf.
Adam L. Pennenberg, "Whither The Wall Street Journal?" Wired News, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66697,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4 

 


"It's not a hardship to drive it. It's fun." 
George Shultz, former secretary of state, referring to his Toyota Prius, a hybrid car that uses much less gasoline than a conventional vehicle, at the second annual summit of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research February 11.

 


 

Jefferson's General Religion
Madison conceded it wasn't always easy "to trace the line of separation" between religion and government. But excessive zeal at either extreme just inflames the other. Our rights were never meant to be understood or enjoyed in the absence of common sense and tolerant restraint.
Peter Berger teaches English in Weathersfield, VT.  His essay entitled "Jefferson's General Religion.," is made available by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-02-24-05.htm 

 


Can there be too much kindness?  Jan Morris says no.
But what about these, as electoral slogans? VOTE TORY: THE PARTY OF KINDNESS, or KINDNESS: LABOUR'S WAY, or PUT YOUR X WHERE KINDNESS IS. There is no context in which the idea of kindness could not play, in my opinion, a winning role. The kinder the party, the greater its majority would be. Kissing babies has always been a messy and unconvincing duty of electoral candidates: extending the same emotion as a political manifesto, preferably with a more sincere enthusiasm, could sway the opinions of millions.  And I would go further. I believe in kindness as a commercial or touristic asset, too. Try these: THE KIND COUNTRY, or WISCONSIN CHEESE: FROM THE LAND OF KINDNESS, or OREGON, WHERE THE KINDNESS COMES FROM, or (hedging one's bets rather) WELLS FARGO, THE KIND SMART BANK.In short, I believe there to be, latent in the idea of kindness, a great abstract weapon only waiting to be brandished: grander than mere religion, far nobler than greed, more convincing than any political creed, Labour or Tory, Republican or Democratic.
Jan Morris, "Vote Kindness, The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005; Page A14 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110921026211362779,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

 


Bush's Harshest Critics
U.S. President George W. Bush is about to wrap up his fence-mending tour in Europe, and it seems that both sides have been sincere in their desire to improve at least the atmospherics in the trans-Atlantic relationship.  The same cannot be said about Europe's media. A study by Media Tenor -- a German-based international media research institute -- shows that leading European newspapers and TV stations still produce twice as many negative statements about the U.S. as positive ones (even if that criticism slightly decreased from December to January).  The finding that European coverage can be more critical of the U.S. than even the Arab media mirrors results of previous Media Tenor studies. In 2003, Media Tenor published a report about four weeks of news coverage during the Iraq war that showed German television in particular covered U.S. military actions more critically than Al Jazeera.

Markus Rettic and Wolfgang Stock, "Bush's Harshest Critics," The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110919784258562455,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Privatization and Deregulation Will Help India Grow
India's unfulfilled economic potential is largely the result of highly inefficient regulations and policies. While the reforms of the 1990s have done away with the "license raj," the "inspector raj" is alive and strong. International surveys show that Indian managers spend 50% more of their time dealing with government officials than Chinese managers and three times more than the average manager in a member state of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Corporate surveys show that in some Indian states, government officials visit as many as 43 factories a year.  India also has one of the most rigid labor markets in the world. Such rigidity deters corporate growth and investment. It is also one of the main reasons why 85% of Indian employees work in the informal sector, which is outside the reach of such laws but plagued by low productivity and pay. Not by coincidence, those Indian states with the most rigid labor laws also have the lowest corporate investment and some of the highest rates of urban poverty.

Dominique Dwor-Frecaut, "Privatization and Deregulation Will Help India Grow," The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110919824220462464,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Surprise! Surprise!  52 out of 56 economists can be wrong  (Did you ever wonder why they're not rich?)
In The Wall Street Journal's February economic-forecasting survey, 52 of 56 economists thought that the yield on the 10-year Treasury note would be higher at the end of the year than the current 4.27%. The average forecast called for a year-end yield of about 5%.  But those predictions of a selloff in the bond market suggest that a selloff isn't likely to occur, says Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein strategist James Montier.
Justin Lahart, "Two Economists Walk in a Bar ...," The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/economistsFeb24 

 


Standing by the Mac, well sort of
No, and no. I stand by my view that the Mac is an excellent computer, and that switching to the Mac is a very good way for mainstream consumers to avoid the viruses and spyware that are now plaguing Windows users. Most consumers who use Windows at home and in very small businesses are good candidates for switching. But every product, no matter how good, has some drawbacks and disadvantages. And, for some groups of Windows users, the Mac's drawbacks may outweigh its pluses.
Walter Mossberg, "Standing by the Mac," The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2005; Page B5 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110919553626862418,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

 


 

The world is shrinking in certain contexts
In the hip science of ultrasmall nanotechnology, fantastical future possibilities like rampaging nanorobots capture the most attention, but the first fruits of the field have been more mundane: tiny bits of mostly ordinary stuff that just sit there. . . Nanotechnology, nanoparticles and all of the other nano words derive from nanometer, a billionth of a meter, or about one 25-millionth of an inch. That is far smaller than the world of everyday objects described by Newton's laws of motion, but bigger than an atom or a simple molecule, particles ruled by quantum mechanics.
Kenneth Chang, "Tiny Is Beautiful: Translating 'Nano' Into Practical," The New York Times, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/science/22nano.html
Bob Jensen's threads on nanotechnology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm 

 


Painting over with white
Holly Jackson thought she had a straightforward writing project when she was assigned to write an entry on Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins for the African American National Biography, a project forthcoming from Oxford University Press.  But Jackson, a Ph.D. student at Brandeis University, ended up finding out that Kelley-Hawkins has no business being in the African American National Biography. The 19th century novelist was white. Jackson details her discovery in an article in The Boston Globe, which may prompt quite a bit of revision in parts of the literary world.
"Loose Cannon," Inside Higher Ed, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/loose_canon 


Please say it isn't so in Norway
Welfare cheats on the rise.  More than 300 persons were charged with cheating Norway's welfare system last year. Officials are trying to crack down on a rising trend."Welfare fraud is a crime," says Arild Sundberg, director of the Norwegian social security system known as Rikstrygdeverket. "We're reacting swiftly to swindlers and have little tolerance."The 308 persons charged in 2004 are alleged to have cheated the system to the tune of NOK 46 million (about USD 7.5 million).Most of the abuse came in the form of accepting sick pay while continuing to work on the side.
"Welfare Cheats on the Rise in Norway," Free Republic, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1350189/posts 

 


A genomewide scan of male sexual orientation
Information about the article, "A genomewide scan of male sexual orientation" by B. Mustanski, et al, published in the March 2005, issue of Human Genetics --- 
http://www.drthrockmorton.com/article.asp?id=129
 

 

Warren Throckmorton, PhD (Reviewed by Durwood Ray, PhD, Professor of Biology, Grove City College) Information about the article, "A genomewide scan of male sexual orientation" by B. Mustanski, et al, published in the March 2005, issue of Human Genetics. In part.... "It is important to note what the study did and did not do: From our reading of the published report, here is what we believe the study did: • The researchers found 3 locations in the genome where self-identified gay and bisexual brothers share DNA sequences between 8-12.5% greater than expected by chance. • In one location, 7q36, the...
"
Q&A," Free Republic, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1350187/posts 

 


I've not ordered one just yet, but I'm thinking . . . still thinking . . . I wonder?
Men, are you tired of the time, trouble and expense of having a girlfriend? Irritated by the difficulty of finding a new one?  Eberhard Schöneburg, the chief executive of the software maker Artificial Life Inc. of Hong Kong, may have found the answer: a virtual girlfriend named Vivienne who goes wherever you go.

Keith Bradsher, "Sad, Lonely? For a Good Time, Call Vivienne," The New York Times, February 24, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/VirtualFriend 


Say What?  Are liberals in academe listening to Ted Kennedy?
"We're in some areas of confrontation, but my own sense is that this president knows how to work with Democrats. He worked with Democrats in Texas. I worked with him on No Child Left Behind."

Time Magazine, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1030924,00.html )

In fact, just such a momentous law has been passed and is now being implemented. But as painful as it is for me, a progressive Democrat, to acknowledge, it was a conservative Republican president who passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), and it is traditionally Democratic education groups and activists who decry the law as intrusive federal meddling. And true to the confusing and peculiar politics of education reform, instead of embracing the laudable goals of NCLB-and joining in a bipartisan effort to repair its flaws-the institutional players in education and their allies have put their energy into fighting it. To veterans of the education wars at the state level, this peculiar political situation comes as no surprise. In state battles over reforming schools, liberal and conservative labels have lost their meaning. Instead, the battle lines are drawn between those who are willing to take on powerful institutional interests and contemplate systemic change and those who are not.
Mark Roosevelt, "Real reform By Mark Roosevelt," Boston Globe, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1030924,00.html 


Educating the Next Generation
Today's students have different expectations and skills with regard to technology, and colleges sometimes fail to meet those expectations or understand what those skills mean, according to a new e-book.  The e-book, the first published by Educause, is Educating the Net Generation. It is available free on the organization's Web site.  Diana G. Oblinger, a vice president of Educause and co-editor of the book, answered some questions about its themes in an e-mail interview. 
Oblinger concludes:  "What we hope this book will do is encourage colleges and universities to think about who their current generation of learners are and the implications for courses, curricula, services and support. There is no one right answer for everyone. And, there are many things we don't yet understand. But as more institutions explore the implications we'll all be able to do a better job making learners successful."
Scott Jaschick, "'Educating the Net Generation'," Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/educating_the_net_generation 


For those who thought Ted Williams was crazy when he made a death wish
Other microbes have been discovered in similar frigid environments, sometimes clinging to pockets of liquid water in ice packs. And some microbes survive in ice as spores, but they need to be cultured to bring them to life.  NASA described the newfound critter as "the first fully described, validated species ever found alive in ancient ice."
"Creatures Frozen for 32,000 Years Still Alive," MSNBC News, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7019473/ 


The chilling effect on free inquiry may harm everyone or so some say
The reaction to this controversy from outside higher education brings into relief professors' tone deafness as to how non-academic figures interpret such comments. It came as little surprise that neoconservative iconoclast Andrew Sullivan defended the Harvard president. But so too did the liberal editorial pages of The Washington Post and, less enthusiastically, The Boston Globe.  The Post concluded that if "Summers loses his job for the crime of positing a politically incorrect hypothesis -- or even if he pays some lesser price for it -- the chilling effect on free inquiry will harm everyone."
K.C. Johnson, "Summers Beyond Harvard," Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/summers_beyond_harvard
Jensen Comment:  Balony!  He behaved irresponsibly as President of Harvard University.  Only unchecked grade inflation at Harvard can save his job.


With respect to Dean Karnazes who ran 262 miles in 75 hours and is shooting for a 300 mile run
People who run distances they ought to be driving aren't necessarily superior athletes.  They are actually a bit freaky physically, born with the kind of biomechanics that can take repeated pounding . . . "Ultra marathoners eventually burn fat, and women have a higher percentage of body fat than men do, giving them more endurance.  They also benefit from the hormone estrogen which may act like an antioxidant, preventing their muscles from breakdown.
Bill Saporito, :Born to Run---For 300 Miles," Time Magazine, February 28, 2005, Page 61 --- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1029875,00.html 


This site also has some great links to professorial blogs.
I'm always relieved when students drop.  I hate giving out low grades.

These and other comments regarding dropping of a course --- http://www.cheekyprof.com/archives/2005/02/theyre_starting.php 

Also see "Cut-rate parasite A traveling professor's guide to missing the point" at http://journey-man.blogspot.com/ 


By Any Other Name:  Sounds a bit like the titles of old Russian Commissars 
The Arizona Republic reports that the Scottsdale school district is adopting fancy new titles for many of its employees. Barbara Levine, who "used to be known as the receptionist," is now the "Director of First Impressions," which we guess means she's allowed to ignore anyone she already knows who comes into the office. The bus driver is now called the "Transporter of Learners," and the assistant superintendent for elementary schools is (take a breath) "Executive Director for Elementary Schools and Excelling Teaching and Learning."
Opinion Journal, February 24, 2005


Not so free speech in Iran
Iranian authorities have recently clamped down on the growing popularity of weblogs, restricting access to major blogging sites from within Iran.  A second Iranian blogger, Motjaba Saminejad, who also used his website to report on bloggers' arrests, is still being held.
"Iran jails blogger for 14 years," BBC News, February 23, 2005 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4292399.stm 


Where is there a line in the sands of ethics?
But at the time, Dr. Hitchcock faced a state ethics inquiry into accusations that she offered to steer a campus construction contract to a developer, who in exchange would pay to endow a university professorship that she could fill once she left her job as college president, according to state officials familiar with the ethics review.

Michael Slackman, "Case of Former SUNY Official Points to Ethics Law Loophole," The New York Times, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/25/nyregion/25ethics.html 
Jensen Comment:  Steering construction in exchange for funding her professorship is clearly unethical.  However, what if she was a full professor who merely had friends or family fund her professorship that would live on long after she departed from the university?  I know of at least two instances where this has happened, and in both of those cases I don't think it was wrong.  If Professor Lazy Dumb did this, I would probably have concerns.  But in the instances I know of these were highly competent and valuable faculty members.  Also millions more were given to the university beyond the portions devoted to fund the endowed chairs.  My conclusion is that this is a case of situational ethics except in egregious violations like that alleged in the case of Dr. Hitchcock.

Related Links
"Questions at SUNY Albany on Why Ex-President Left," by Al Baker and Michael Slackman, The New York Times, February 26, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/26/nyregion/26ethics.html

"Case of Former SUNY Official Points to Ethics Law Loophole," by Michael Slackman, he New York Times, February 26, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/25/nyregion/25ethics.html 


64.75 million years late with Lamisil
After a meteor slammed into the Earth 65 million years ago, "the great dying" began, decimating life in the oceans and killing off the dinosaurs -- with mysteriously little effect on mammals. Conjecture over what did in the reptiles has long fascinated everyone from school children to paleontologists, but a new theory suggests that a less earth-shaking possibility could have played a role.  "The forests went out. The fungi proliferated, and the Earth became a giant compost pile. An enormous number of spores were released," said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, an infectious disease researcher who proposed last month that air thick with fungal spores after the meteor hit could have overwhelmed animals' immune systems, causing sickness and death. If he's right, the large numbers of warm-blooded mammals and birds that survived the mass extinction might have had a natural advantage -- body temperatures too hot for fungal infections to take hold.
Carolyn Y. Johnson, "Were the dinosaurs done in by fungus?" Boston Globe, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/02/22/were_the_dinosaurs_done_in_by_fungus/ 


Inmates Running Asylum'
A report into the imminent collapse of Media Lab Europe, a research center jointly owned by the Irish government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, describes an environment of managerial and financial chaos.  Media Lab Europe, a pet project of Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, closed this month after the government and MIT couldn't agree on who should foot the mounting bill for its survival.

"Report: MIT's Doomed Media Lab Europe Suffered from 'Inmates Running Asylum'," MIT's Technology Review, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/ap/ap_022405.asp?trk=nl 


Need to study a  long argument between the lovers?
It would be foolish to fault a Danielle Steel novel for its conventions. Writing romance novels is her métier. Not the kind with the steamy clichés -- throbbing loins, moaning ecstasies -- but novels with glossy characters of barely one dimension.  The best episode in "Impossible" is a long argument between the lovers, in which the occasionally sockless artist is petulant and shrill. Like many arguments in novels -- there is a truly great one in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped" -- it has the ring of truth. Not much else does here. 

Stuart Ferguson when reviewing Daniell Steele's latest book Impossible in The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2005 
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110929104337163815,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal 


Don't buy red-state chocolates or shop at Wal-Mart:  Does Labor's Tom really want to force those hourly U.S. workers into unemployment and loss of employer health plans by losing out to foreign makers of chocolate?  Tom Larken has heretofore always been the champion of U.S. workers and their unions.  Think of how many workers would be thrown out of work if Wal-Mart failed because of a Democratic Party boycott.  Isn't this called cutting off your nose to spite your face?

No more kisses This Valentine's Day, Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, encouraged the romantic sweethearts in his party not to buy chocolates from three of the nation's biggest chocolate producers: Hershey, Nestle and Mars. After all, he warned, all three are "red" companies — purportedly supporters of President Bush and his policies. It's not just Hershey's Kisses that Democrats were asked to give up. Outback Steakhouse is similarly a target of the left, as are hundreds of Wal-Mart stores that are "not so blue." And Democrats are pumping Hess "blue gasoline" these partisan days. "You may have voted blue, but...
Washington Times, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20050224-110953-1486r 
As quoted from Free Republic on February 25, 2005

Jensen Comment:  Not to Worry:  Wal-Mart profits are still ringing up at $20,000 per minute as Iowa's Tom goes unheeded --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/business/yourmoney/27count.html 


She's not clueless
"I always knew that Hunter was going to die before me," Anita Thompson, 32, said of her 67-year-old husband.
Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 25


And in this corner, weighing in at 244 lbs we have Judge Droolmouth
Judges Wrestle With Procreation and Gays
Headline, Associated Press, Feb. 24


Or mostly so
A new book says Abraham Lincoln was gay or mostly so, and it's impossible to understand America's 16th president without accepting that.  The disagreement over Lincoln's sexuality pries into perhaps the least-known, most private aspect of one of history's most scrutinized figures.  It also spotlights the obscure field of historiography--the study of history and how it is written.  Historiographers know history sees the past through the prism of a current society's beliefs.  What is notable now, they say, is how fractured the current society's beliefs are.  Drawing to the fore one set of those beliefs, the subject of the disagreement, C.A. Tripp's posthumously published "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln," was the culmination of gay and lesbian activism and scholarship in the 1990s, said Illinois State Historian Thomas Schwartz.  "This book," he said, "would be written sometime, by someone."  For gay and lesbian scholars, Tripp's 2005 book shines brightly, calling into question heterocentric tellings of the past.
James Janega, "Book trying to `out' Lincoln sparks civil war of words," Chicago Tribune, February 26, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/LincolnFeb26 


One "Little Eichmann"
My brother Chris was a 1985 graduate of the University of Colorado, the father of three young children and a compassionate, respectful and generous man. He stood in defense of our environment, volunteered his time and money in support of human rights, and gave unselfishly to help disadvantaged, vulnerable members of our society. He spoke openly against unjust government policies, and followed a private ethic of compassion.
Chris was also a U.S. government Treasury bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald, and therefore by your definition was a "little Eichmann." At 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, you claim that my beautiful...

"An Open Letter to Ward Churchill: My Brother, the 'Eichmann'," by Michael Faughnan, September 11 Victims for Peaceful Tomorrows, February 16, 2005 --- http://pt.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=506 
Bob Jensen's essay on "The Evil Empire" is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm 


I won't comment on this one --- it sort of speaks for itself

Welcome to DiscoverTheNetwork. 
This site is a "Guide to the Political Left." It identifies the individuals and organizations that make up the left and also the institutions that fund and sustain it; it maps the paths through which the left exerts its influence on the larger body politic; it defines the left's (often hidden) programmatic agendas and it provides an understanding of its history and ideas.  The site is made up of two principal data elements along with a powerful search engine to locate and explore the information stored. The first of these elements is a database of PROFILES of individuals, groups and institutions, which can be accessed through the heptagram on the home page, or the DTN DIRECTORY on the navigation bar. The PROFILES provide thumbnail sketches of histories, agendas and (where significant) funding sources. More than 1,500 such groups and individuals have already been delineated in the PROFILES sections of this base. The information has been culled from public records readily available on the Internet and other sources, whose veracity and authenticity are easily checked.  The second data element of this site consists of a library of articles, which analyze the relationships disclosed in the database and the issues they raise. These analyses are drawn from thousands of articles, both scholarly and journalistic, that have been entered into the base and linked in the TEXT columns that appear on the PROFILE pages. The judgments that inform these analyses are subjective, reflecting informed opinion about the matters at hand. In every case possible, their authors and sources are identified so that users of the database can form their own judgments and opinions about the reliability and value of the analyses.  DiscoverTheNetwork is an ambitious undertaking that would not have been possible before the creation of the Internet with the storage capacities and data linkage features that digital space affords and that such an undertaking requires. As a result of the information that these technologies make available, a user of this site can follow the networks described in the database to arrive at a new understanding of the forces that define our social reality and shape our collective futures.
A Guide to the Political Left --- http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/ 

As we expected, the left has not taken the news presented on our site well. A pro-Islamic jihad writer for Alex Cockburn’s CounterPunch regards it naturally as  “David Horowitz’s Smear Portal” and objects to our linking noble champions of social justice like himself with the “resisters” in the Sunni triangle he supports.  But other, less politically deranged exponents of the leftist persuasion have also weighed in with objections to these inclusions. This article is by way of answering their complaints.
David Horowitz, "In Denial: The Left’s Reaction to DiscoverTheNetwork" --- http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/Articles/In%20Denial.htm 


Elements of Moral Philosophy
A good little book to supplement any business/accounting ethics text that does a wonderful job of explaining moral philosophy e.g., what is utilitarianism, ethical egoism, virtue ethics, etc. is James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy. Novels, which we in accounting never consider as texts, are useful, too. Martha Nussbaum, in her legal ethics seminars, has used Charles Dickens, Hard Times as a text. This novel is particularly relevant to accounting; we have more than our fair share of Thomas Gradgrinds among our ranks.

Email message from Paul Williams [williamsp@COMFS1.COM.NCSU.EDU


A Journalism Prize or GOP Payola?
The Bradley Foundation, which recently gave the syndicated columnist its Bradley Prize, is an independent entity "devoted to strengthening American democratic capitalism and the institutions, principles and values that sustain and nurture it." But it has GOP ties, and some are concerned that the size of the prize creates conflicts when journalists win it.
David Aster, "Is George Will's $250,000 Prize Yet More Payola?" Editor and Publisher, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000817846 


Is it the policy or the practice that's in error?
The problem, says Elaine Donnelly with the Center for Military Readiness, is that the Army is placing female soldiers in formerly all-male forward support companies. For the first time, she says, women would serve side-by-side with forces fighting on the frontlines. And that, she says, “violates DOD policy on co-location."
Melissa Charbonneau, "The Reality of Women in Combat," CBN, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/050223a.asp 
Jensen Comment:  In Iraq at the moment the debate is probably pointless.  There is no front "line."  Or put in another way, everywhere is a frontline.


Designed for Another Age (like Windows)
Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates opened a two-day education summit here yesterday by telling the nation's governors and leaders of the educational community that US high schools are obsolete and need radical restructuring to raise graduation rates, prepare students for college, and train a workforce that faces growing competition in the global economy. ''Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age," said Gates, whose philanthropic foundation has committed nearly $1 billion to the challenge of improving high schools. ''Until we design them to meet the needs of this century, we will...

Ben Feller, "Calling High Schools Obsolete, Microsoft Chief Urges Restructuring," Boston Globe, February 27, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/BglobeFeb27  

The governors of 13 states with more than one-third of the nation's students said Sunday that they were forming a coalition to improve high schools by adopting higher standards, more rigorous courses and tougher examinations.  Unless the nation takes drastic measures on high schools, they said, the United States will lose its competitive position in the world economy.
Robert Pear, "Governors of 13 States Plan to Raise Standards in High Schools," The New York Times, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/politics/28govs.html


Say What?  Are critical liberals in academe listening to (or blaming) Ted Kennedy?
"We're in some areas of confrontation, but my own sense is that this president knows how to work with Democrats. He worked with Democrats in Texas. I worked with him on No Child Left Behind."

Time Magazine, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1030924,00.html )

In fact, just such a momentous law has been passed and is now being implemented. But as painful as it is for me, a progressive Democrat, to acknowledge, it was a conservative Republican president who passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), and it is traditionally Democratic education groups and activists who decry the law as intrusive federal meddling. And true to the confusing and peculiar politics of education reform, instead of embracing the laudable goals of NCLB-and joining in a bipartisan effort to repair its flaws-the institutional players in education and their allies have put their energy into fighting it. To veterans of the education wars at the state level, this peculiar political situation comes as no surprise. In state battles over reforming schools, liberal and conservative labels have lost their meaning. Instead, the battle lines are drawn between those who are willing to take on powerful institutional interests and contemplate systemic change and those who are not.
Mark Roosevelt, "Real reform By Mark Roosevelt," Boston Globe, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1030924,00.html 


In the good old Summers time
The rest of us were left with a nagging question: What is the latest science on the differences between men's and women's aptitudes, anyway? Is it true, even a little bit, that men are better equipped for scientific genius? Or is it ridiculous—even pernicious—to ask such a question in the year 2005? It's always perilous to use science to resolve festering public debates. Everyone sees something different—like 100 people finding shapes in clouds. By the time they make up their minds, the clouds have drifted beyond the horizon. But scientists who have spent their lives studying sex differences in the brain (some of whom defend Summers and some of whom dismiss him as an ignoramus) generally concede that he was not entirely wrong. Thanks to new brain-imaging technology, we know there are indeed real differences between the male and the female brain, more differences than we would have imagined a decade ago. "The brain is a sex organ," says Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist who became famous in the 1990s for her study of Albert Einstein's brain. "In the last dozen years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of studies that have found differences in the brain. It's very exciting."
Amanda Ripley, "Who Says A Woman Can't Be Einstein?" Time Magazine (Cover Story), February 27, 2005 --- http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050307/story.html 


Loans to very poor people
Last year, a panel of judges from Wharton joined with Nightly Business Report, the most-watched daily business program on U.S. television, to name the 25 most influential business people of the last 25 years. On that list was Muhammad Yunus, managing director of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and a pioneer in the practice of microcredit lending.  Grameen Bank received formal recognition as a private independent bank in 1983 and, as of this month, had dispersed close to $5 billion in loans to four million borrowers, 96% of them women. Grameen's strategy is to offer miniscule loans to very poor people, giving them the means to generate income and work their way out of poverty. Yunus was featured in a book entitled, Lasting Leadership: Lessons from the 25 Most Influential Business People of Our Times, co-authored by Knowledge@Wharton and Nightly Business Report. He was recently interviewed by NBR's Linda O'Bryon while attending the World Health Congress in Washington, D.C.  
"Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the World's Poorest Citizens, Makes His Case," Public Policy and Management, Wharton --- http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1147.cfm 


Educating the Next Generation
Today's students have different expectations and skills with regard to technology, and colleges sometimes fail to meet those expectations or understand what those skills mean, according to a new e-book.  The e-book, the first published by Educause, is Educating the Net Generation. It is available free on the organization's Web site.  Diana G. Oblinger, a vice president of Educause and co-editor of the book, answered some questions about its themes in an e-mail interview. 
Oblinger concludes:  "What we hope this book will do is encourage colleges and universities to think about who their current generation of learners are and the implications for courses, curricula, services and support. There is no one right answer for everyone. And, there are many things we don't yet understand. But as more institutions explore the implications we'll all be able to do a better job making learners successful."
Scott Jaschick, "'Educating the Net Generation'," Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/educating_the_net_generation 


A serious punishment for Ward Churchill would be to make him continue to teach and conduct research year in and year out for the miserable faculty raises in academe.  If CU prefers a more harsh punishment, he should be made Chair of the Faculty Senate.  If Mr. Churchill gets a buyout offer of $10 million, then I'm going to write a hurried essay plastered with swastikas.   "Dear Dr. Brazil:  I'll quickly settle for a mere 5% of the targeted capital campaign funds in our current fund drive at Trinity University."
Internal discussions at Colorado University are centering on a buyout offer to controversial professor Ward Churchill in order to quell the tempest caused by his characterizations of victims of Sept. 11, 2001, as "little Eichmans" and to avoid a costly, drawn-out lawsuit, the Denver Post reports. David Lane, Churchill's attorney said he had not yet received word of such an offer, but he would consider it. "If they offer $10 million, I would think about it. If they offer him $10, I wouldn't," Lane said. As WorldNetDaily reported, Churchill has most recently come under fire for making an Indian-themed serigraph...
"University considering Ward Churchill buyout:   Daily publicity over controversial professor, faculty protests damaging school's reputation," World Net Daily, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43065 

200 Professors at CU can find better uses for $10 million
A full-page ad taken out by 200 University of Colorado faculty members calls for the school to drop an inquiry into the writings of professor Ward Churchill.  The 200 faculty members' statement defends Churchill's "right to speak what he believes to be the truth" based on academic freedom rules designed to prevent faculty members from being fired for unpopular views.
"CU faculty protest Churchill inquiry," Rocky Mountain News, February 26, 2005 --- http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3579112,00.html 

The Price of Fame
KCNC-TV Channel 4 in Colorado recently approached Churchill and tried to query the wannabe Indian on whether he had broken a copyright law by making a mirror image of an artist's work and selling it as his own.  When the "work" of Churchill is placed beside that of renowned artist Thomas E. Mails and the two look like mirror images.
(you can compare yourself using the link below).  . . . Churchill later emerged with a convoluted explanation on how it was not his fault that no one knew the image was "an orignial artwork by me after Tomas Mails."  Huh? Is he saying he just copied (and sold) it and believed that was okay?
"Ward Churchill, a Mirror Image," The National Ledger, February 26, 2005 --- http://www.nationalledger.com/scribe/archives/2005/02/ward_churchill_6.shtml 

If CU suspected he was not truthfully a Native American, would they have hired Mr. Churchill for a tenure track position without holding a doctoral degree?
Churchill claims to be Indian to emphasize his own anti-American agenda. He has used a life-long fabricated association with Indians to create a political career, which he otherwise could never have achieved. In view of such fraud, it is high time to examine just how one is identified as an Indian these days,...
David Yeagley, "Ward Churchill Exploits Indians," FrontPageMagazine, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17172 
Jensen Comment:  Why can't we all be Native American?  Mr. Churchill doesn’t believe in blood quantum requirements anyway. “You don't measure identity by either pounds or percentage points unless you're some kind of Nazi,” he said in 1994.


Colorado Governor Bill Owens has much bigger things to worry about than Ward Churchill
States have been adopting tax and spending limits since the 1970s and 28 now have them on the books. Some are more restrictive than others, but Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (also known as Tabor), passed in 1992, is considered the gold standard. And no wonder. The measure, which limits increases in state spending to inflation and population growth and returns surplus revenues to taxpayers, ushered in Colorado's most prosperous decade ever.  Between 1997 and 2000, Coloradans received $3.25 billion in Tabor rebates. And far from wrecking the economy as opponents predicted, Tabor freed up capital in the private sector to create jobs and boost productivity. Between 1992 and 2002, the average Colorado family paid some $16,000 less in state taxes than in the decade prior to Tabor's implementation; private-sector jobs in the state doubled; and government growth was kept in line with inflation and population growth . . . Now Mr. Owens is working with the Democratic Legislature to undo Tabor, and he's using the same excuses he once excoriated. Tabor limits spending to the previous year's level, plus inflation and population growth. This means that recession years "ratchet down" state spending levels and force politicians to make tough decisions, which is what they're paid to do.
"Rocky Mountain Revenue Grab," The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110955828721165586,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Having Second Thoughts
The Dutch have rejected liberalism in response to Islamic immigration. Some say they are now too hardline. So what can the rest of Europe learn from their crisis? Not long ago, Holland prided itself as being the most tolerant and welcoming country in Europe for immigrants and asylum seekers. It had the credentials to prove it. So many have settled there, ethnic "minorities" are often in a majority. In the great Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague, the newcomers already outnumber the native Dutch among under-20-year-olds. They will soon be an absolute majority. Although the slump that followed...

Brian Moynahan, The Times, February 27, 2005 (not available free online)


Germany's Top Five Economists With Six Opinions
Put five economists in a room, on Winston Churchill's arithmetic, and you get five opinions—unless one is Keynes, when you get six. In Germany the sums have usually been simpler: you get just two opinions, with four economists sharing one point of view, and the fifth a token Keynesian, sent by the trade unions. Yet German economists are becoming more like their peers abroad. The typical specimen is becoming more empirical, pragmatic and ready for controversy, after a period when he was usually long on theory and reluctant to criticise colleagues.  This change has now reached the pinnacle of Germany's “five wise men”, the country's council of economic experts. Earlier this month, a public dispute erupted among the five (actually they are four men and one woman). What is more, they are likely to pick as their next chairman Bert Rürup, a hands-on, down-to-earth academic. This could have an influence on policy, for the underlying row among the five wise men was really about how to get the economy growing again. One of them, Peter Bofinger, even called for wage increases in line with productivity growth.
"Four wise men and a woman," The Economist, January 20, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/diversions/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3577819 
Jensen Comment:  Rumor has it that economist and Harvard President Larry Summers was visiting in Berlin when he recommended a title for this article.


OEM?  I think not!
Short for original equipment manufacturer, which is a misleading term for a company that has a special relationship with computer producers. OEMs buy computers in bulk and customize them for a particular application. They then sell the customized computer under their own name. The term is really a misnomer because OEMs are not the original manufacturers -- they are the customizers.
Webopedia --- http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/O/OEM.html 
Bob Jensen's technology glossary is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm 


Why did we break up AT&T in the first place?
But that is not the whole story because industry rationalization can easily be confused with industry concentration. Some would argue whether this is just a matter of degree. But degrees count. Clearly, there is a threshold where the bad outweighs the good. The leading indicators are not a mystery: Concentration will promote size for size's sake and geographic dominance. After initial job cuts which are the byproduct of combining corporate structures, concentration inflates bureaucracy, reduces pricing competition, limits innovation and works to frustrate effective regulation. The result is that the technological backbone of our country will have no safety net, no margin for error. The announced mergers of SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI are cases directly on point.  If the mergers are approved, the new companies would dwarf their nearest competitors and control 79% of the business/government segment -- one of the most lucrative in our industry. The reality is that this scale, pricing power and overall market clout make it extremely unlikely that any other player can grow market share. Odds are these behemoths would not compete head-to-head in most local markets but would instead flex their muscles to squeeze out smaller competitors, emptying the playing field.
Dick Notebaert, "Don't Create a Duopoly," The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110954561778665306,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Would you like an order of French Funs with your burger?
The French do not expect their politicians to be as pure as driven snow. They accept a degree of untruth. What turns them off is being taken for fools.  Yet another element came into play as Mr. Gaymard ended up looking stupid himself -- the equivalent of a jewel thief who persists in denials as the cops pull stolen necklaces and rings from his swag bag. The more his wife protested that they had no regular household servants, apart from the nanny for their eight children, the more people chortled, particularly when it became known that, as well as the 600-square-meter flat off Champs Elysées, Mr. Gaymard had three parking places in a nearby garage.  Seeing that his minister had gone over the line, Mr. Chirac was noticeable in his silence. Brutal political reality came into play. Things are not going well for the president. His supporters did badly in regional and European elections last year. There is a substantial current for a "no" vote in the referendum due to be held this summer on the European Union constitution. On the day Mr. Gaymard went, unemployment crossed the 10% threshold, making a mockery of government job pledges.
Jonathan Fenby, "An Exemplary Scandal," The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110954365079965276,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


The 50% number may help explain some of the obesity epidemic in the U.S.
It should also be noted that increased competition from restaurants---about
50% of US food dollar is now spent at restaurants--has also played a major role.

Jim Mahar when bemoaning the bankruptcy of Winn Dixie, FinanceProfessorBlog, February 23, 2005 --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/ 


Women in Physics Match Men in Success
Only about one-eighth of the physics professors at Harvard are women, a statistic that might seem to support the recent assertion by its president, Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, that fewer women than men are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. He also suggested that a difference in "intrinsic aptitude" between the sexes might help explain the disparity.  A report released Friday by the American Institute of Physics offers a contradictory conclusion: after they earn a bachelor's degree in physics, American women are just as successful as men at wending their way up the academic ladder.  Physics continues to be the most male-dominated field among the sciences. Men hold 90 percent of physics faculty positions, and earned 82 percent of the doctoral degrees in 2003.
Kenneth Chang, "Women in Physics Match Men in Success," The New York Times, February 22, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/science/22phys.html 


Their prayers are answered:  But it won't play in Rome
The Church of England's General Synod has voted by a huge majority to clear the way for the ordination of women priests. The Church of England has been debating the issue for 10 years and the final go-ahead is still some years away.
"Synod says 'yes' to women priests," BBC News, February 26, 2005 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/26/newsid_2516000/2516299.stm 


In particular, watch the video of what brought down one of the oldest banks in England
Ten years ago this week, the rogue trader Nick Leeson fled Singapore after realising he could no longer hide his trading losses of more than $1bn (that's billion)
BBC News Interview With Leeson, February 23, 2005 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4288271.stm 

Bob Jensen's threads on derivative financial instruments frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds 


Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again
All of which creates a huge problem: how exactly should a hyper-competitive society deal with its losers? It is all very well to note that drunkards and slackers get what they deserve. But what about the honest toilers? One way to deal with the problem is to offer people as many second chances as possible. In his intriguing new book “Born Losers: A History of Failure in America” (Harvard), Scott Sandage argues that the mid-19th century saw a redefinition of failure—from something that described a lousy business to something that defined a whole life.  Yet one of the striking things about America is how valiantly it has resisted the idea that there is any such thing as a born loser. American schools resist streaming their pupils much longer than their European counterparts: the whole point is to fit in rather than to stand out. American higher education has numerous points of entry and re-entry. And the American legal system has some of the most generous bankruptcy rules in the world. In Europe, a bankrupt is often still a ruined man; in America, he is a risk-taking entrepreneur.  American history—not to mention American folklore—is replete with examples of people who tried and tried again until they made a success of their lives. Lincoln was a bankrupt store-keeper. Henry Ford was a serial failure. At 40, Thomas Watson, the architect of IBM, faced prison. America's past is also full of people who came back from the brink. Steve Jobs has gone from has-been to icon. Martha Stewart has a lucrative television contract waiting for her when she comes out of prison.
"An Ode to Failure," The Economist, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3690977 


I'm praying these lawsuits don't succeed
Conservative public interest groups with ties to Christian organizations filed lawsuits Tuesday seeking to invalidate the $3 billion stem cell research institution approved by California voters in November.  One lawsuit alleges the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine violates state law because it's not governed exclusively by the state government, and the committee that controls the research money it will dole out isn't publicly elected.  The institute was created by California voters when they approved a $3 billion bond to fund stem cell research over the next decade. Proposition 71 was passed by 59 percent of voters.
Paul Elias, "Lawsuits Filed to Invalidate California's $3 Billion Stem Cell Institute," MIT's Technology Review, February 24, 2005 --- http://www2.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/ap/ap_2022405.asp 


Leave it to the Canadian's to focus on the flawed hockey stick evidence of global warming
It took six years and several sacked scientific journal editors before doubt was thrown on the hockey stick. Last year Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick discovered a fundamental flaw in the computer program which produces the hockey stick. It seemed, whatever random data it was fed, the program almost always produced a hockey stick.  The Canadians couldn't get their work published by a scientific journal but they put it on the web for all to see.  "That discovery hit me like a bombshell," wrote Richard Muller in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review. "Suddenly the hockey stick, the poster-child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics." Eureka!  The voices of dissenters have been silenced for too long so all power to Crichton for bypassing the gatekeepers and going straight to the people. You can only suspect the pendulum of environmental thought might be swinging back towards the rational, collecting the odd Greenpeace jaw as it goes.
"Tide turns on the green-mongers," Sidney Morning Herald, February 27, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/26/1109180160492.html 
Jensen Comment:  This article also discusses fist fights and waning public patience for the antics of Greenpeace.


I imagine advertisers are furious
Jack William Pacheco came up with a plan to keep his neighbors from learning about his recent arrest on suspicion that he possessed methamphetamine -- he snapped up every copy of the local newspaper.  "I have a whole garage full of newspapers," Pacheco said, estimating he bought 500 to 600 copies on Wednesday from gas stations, convenience stores, and coin-operated news racks.  That afternoon, circulation officials at The Chowchilla News discovered there were no copies of the weekly paper for sale anywhere in the city. The paper prints 700 copies a week.
"Man Buys Every Copy of Hometown Paper to Hide Drug Arrest," Editor and Publisher, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000817354 


America:  The land of supposed free speech
Watch out!  Michael Moore may be seeking interviews as well.

The Business Journal of Youngstown, Ohio, which has been battling Mayor George McKelvey's ban on city employees talking to the twice-monthly paper, finally took legal action with a lawsuit Thursday that accuses the mayor of violating the paper's First Amendment rights.  The paper filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, asserting the newspaper's rights were being violated by McKelvey and the city of Youngstown. "The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the mayor's ban on city employees talking to The Business Journal about any city business," the paper said in a statement. "It seeks a preliminary injunction to prohibit McKelvey from enforcing the policy until the court decides the merits of the case."
Joe Strupp, "Youngstown, Ohio, Biz Journal Sues Mayor Over Ban," Editor and Publisher, February 24, 2005 --- http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000817138 
A similar lawsuit filed by The Sun of Baltimore, which challenged a directive from Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich ordering state employees not to speak with two Sun reporters, was dismissed by a judge last week.


Liberal Lunacy:  I couldn't find a research reference for the 59% figure.
I want you to remember that George Bush and 59% of all Americans believe in Armageddon, just the way that we believe in Justice. I want you to remember that there is no time. It may already be too late. I want you to remember these things because it is only at the bottom of our despair it is only by touching that bottom that we can find its exit and emerge again into the possibility of enlightened, meaningful, even spiritual, action.
Rafael Renteria, "“Look in the Mirror, Ward Churchill and White America” --- http://www.liberallunacy.net/ 
Jensen Comment:  I guess Rafael means that 59% of all Americans want the Christian evangelists to forcefully defeat the Arabs and the Jews and the Chinese and the French and the rest of the world defending a high hill in the Middle East.  Now that might be a tougher task than training the Iraqi security forces and getting the U.S. Army's tired butt home from Iraq. Armageddon is the geographic location given in the book of Revelation (16:16).  Named after the hill near the town of Megiddo in Palestine which, because if its strategic location overlooking major military and trade routes, was the site of many ancient battles and probably some to come in the future.  But I doubt if Christian crusaders will be leading the charge.   Since Rafael sits in prison for killing a cop, he probably won't be helping defenders fight off the 59% of Americans who storming up the hill at Armageddon.  More than 59% of Americans want the U.S. Army to return home as quickly as possible from Iraq and let us live in peace.  I think we can contain bands of our own lunatics who take Revelation (16:16) literally to a point where they're training in the woods to do battle in Megiddo.  Remember that if you take Armageddon literally, you won't be allowed to win at some other site like Beijing or Bombay.
Bob Jensen's threads on "The Evil Empire" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm 


When warning labels just won't do the job
Rental housing owners predict that numerous rental units will be taken off the market and boarded up, with their occupants forced into homelessness, if the Greensboro City Council adds lead-based paint to the city's housing code. And they say that landlords able to keep their houses open will almost certainly have to raise rent prices substantially, forcing still more people into homelessness. During the past 10 years, dangerous levels of lead have been diagnosed in the blood of at least 7,000 children. Eradicating lead "is a noble goal," said Gary Wegner, past president of the Greensboro Landlord Association....
Stan Swofford, "Lead Fix May Hurt Rentals, Renters," News-Record, February 27, 2005 --- http://www.news-record.com/news/local/landlords_022705.htm 


Happy V-Day:  Please no candy, flowers, or romantic dinners
Here's one woman's opinion

One need not look further than the ill-conceived "V-Day" campaign to demonstrate just how downright bizarre feminism has become. Basically, V-Day is an alternative feminist holiday to that evil celebration of love on St. Valentines Day. So instead of candy, flowers, and romantic dinners on February 14th, feminists are organizing events to celebrate the vagina. That's right, an entire day for females across the nation to focus on their genitalia. Isn't it the entire antithesis of feminism to reduce women (and therefore their value) down to nothing more than their genitalia? How in the world does that prevent the sexual objectification of women?
Kay R. Daly, "Feminist Follies," GOPUSA, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/kdaly/2005/krd_02281.shtml 

 




Humor of the Week

She's right about all ten.  I've never done those.

Ten Things... --- http://crazyphd.blogspot.com/ 

That I've done that you probably haven't. As seen at jo(e)'s , profgrrrrl's, and probably a bunch of other places, too. And, I should note, that like profgrrrrl I found this exercise difficult because, well, most of my "crazy" things I'm sure others have done. But not these ones! (Well, maybe you have, but I did my best....)
  1. Watched the sun set over the Adriatic Sea, a glass of wine in hand, while standing on the balcony of a Hapsburg palace.
  2. After almost having a head-on collision with a cop car, being involved in a Dukes-of-Hazzard-like car chase that ended with the driver of the vehicle suddenly turning off the road into a dirt driveway, turning off the car's lights, and running (accompanied by his friend in the passenger seat) into the woods. My friend and I were in the backseat. Stupidly crouching down hoping that the cops would drive by. They did.
  3. Saw John F. Kennedy, Jr. riding his bike in Central Park on my first visit to New York City.
  4. Fell through a glass coffee table after consuming a great deal of watermelon soaked in Everclear. And not only didn't I need stitches, but I somehow got away without even a scratch.
  5. The Roommate Switch.
  6. Had a beer with Paul Muldoon at an outdoor cafe in Italy.
  7. During the span of one academic conference, acquired not one but two "conference boyfriends," with each never getting wise about the other.
  8. When eight years old, called Judy-Garland-As-Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz a "dick" because she got captured by the Wicked Witch of the West, thus sparking the first and last extended discussion of penises that I would have with my mother.
  9. As a senior in high school, was named the runner up for The Journalism Education Association National High School Journalist of the Year.
  10. Smoked marijuana in the "beer garden" of a pub in Dublin, in plain sight of all, with colleagues, knowing full well that I had to give a paper at 9 AM the next morning.

She's right about all ten.

10 things I've done that you probably haven't:
(seen so many places, I won't bother to list them all)
From http://thedroolfactory.com/ 

1. Seen someone get thrown out of a moving vehicle then hit by another.
2. Moved to Serbia and lived there for two years.
3. Gotten Brian Orser's autograph (becuase why would you want to?)
4. Talked to my chocolate cookie dough.
5. Stuck my hand inside a running vaccuum.
6. Driven to Montreal, eaten McD's, and returned home. Whole Trip.
7. Had a snake coiled around my waist, under my shirt, and up and out my shirt sleeves.
8. Seen THREE men 'whip it out' and pee on an OC Transpo bus.
9. Helped Alexei Yashin pick out some tylenol.
10. Drank an entire bottle of whiskey without noticing that it wasn't the coke I thought it was.


Ten things Bob Jensen's done that they've never done

1.  Zoomed (drunk) out of our garage on my son's "Big Wheel" in front of a 78-year old baby sitter whom I'm supposed to be driving home.  My lawyer friend Tom Brown, who really never drank very much, is literally standing on his head in the front lawn with his legs pointed toward the moon.  (That was way back when when I was on the faculty at the University of Maine).

2.  Waited for an extra twenty four hours on a battleship (USS Wisconsin just outside Norfolk) helping to search seamen's sea bags for the admiral's flag (the two-star flag of Admiral Park) which had been replaced mysteriously in the night by a flapping pair of panties high above our sixteen inch bombardment guns.  (That was way, way, way back when on our return from Chile.)

3.  Helped carry, along with three other midshipmen, Admiral Park into a liberty boat so we could get him back to the ship (a long time ago in Panama when Admiral Park partied a bit too long).

4.  Watched the smoke rising from the sides of a battleship in the locks of the Panama Canal where the sides of the locks were only a few inches beyond each side of the ship.

5.  Listened to rifle shots from Castro's revolution while sipping on cubalibras on the beach at Guatama Bay.

6.  Missed the target drone every day for six days running in anti-aircraft during firing drills in the Caribbean.  (Actually this was not a rare event.  Hitting a target drone would've been a rare event in the U.S. Navy in those days.)

7. Fed my basset hound (Andy, the last dog of my life ) one can of dog food and later found seven piles of you know what on our cherished Tabriz.  He somehow manufactured more than eight pounds of that stuff out of one twelve ounce can of dog food. (That was way, way back when when I was on the faculty at Michigan State University).

8.  Had all five strands of the girth break at the same time while galloping a racing horse.  (That was back when when I was on the faculty at Florida State University and raised a couple of saddle horses).

9.  Had the top of my Oldsmobile convertible fly off in a freak wind while I was driving late at night alongside the San Francisco Bay (that was when I was still a student at Stanford).

10.  Felt the wet nose of a cow on my bare back while I was parked (not quite as naive as Johnnie Carson) with a girl friend in a pasture in Iowa late one hot summer night.  The startled cow then jerked back, caught her horns inside the roof of the car, and ripped out the headliner.  Try to picture me the next morning "explaining" what happened to Dad's car.  It was even worse than the time I had to wake up a farmer and call Dad to come help us in a cornfield about twenty miles from home when my old car's battery went dead.  (That was way, way, way back when I was in high school, long before the days of cell phones)  

Some more of Bob Jensen's tales about growing up are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm 


Dark and Stormy Night Contest Subject
the English Department of San Jose State University
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1347764/posts


Forwarded by Dick Haar

Stress Management

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water? "

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. "If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. "In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes. " He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. " "As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden."

"So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. " "Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it!

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.

* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

* Never buy a car you can't push.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.

* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

* We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Have an awesome day and know that someone has thought about you today. . . . . . . . . I did.


Homer, a handsome dude, walks into a sports bar around 9:58 PM. He sits down next to this blonde at the bar and stares up at the TV. The 10:00 news was on. The news crew was covering a story of a man on a ledge of a large building preparing to jump.

The blonde looks at Homer and says, "Do you think he will jump?" Homer says, "You know, I bet he'll jump."

"The blonde replied, Well, I bet he won't."

Homer placed $20 dollars on the bar and said, "You're on!"

Just as the blonde placed her money on the bar, the guy did a swan dive off of the building, falling to his death. The blonde was very upset and handed her $20 dollars to Homer and said, "All is fair. Here is your money."

Homer replies, "I can't take your money, I saw this earlier on the 5 o'clock news and knew he would jump."

The blonde replies," I did too, but I didn't think he'd do it again." Homer took the $20.


Forwarded by Paula

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Are you sexually active?
A: No, I just lie there.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: What is your date of birth?
A: July 18th.
Q: What year?
A: Every year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: How old is your son, the one living with you?
A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which. Q: How long has he lived with you?
A: Forty-five years.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up
that morning?
A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
Q: And why did that upset you?
A: My name is Susan.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he
doesn't know about it until the next morning?
A: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: And what were you doing at that time?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q:! She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: How was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Can you describe the individual?
A: He was about medium height and had a beard.
Q: Was this a male, or a female?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
A: Oral.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: D! o you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless
A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Erika Jensen was driving home from one of her shopping trips in Northern New Hampshire when she saw an elderly neighbor walking on the side of the road.

Feeling sorry for the woman trudging up the mountain road in the cold, Erika stopped the car and asked Mrs. O'Leary if she would like a ride up Sugar Hill.

With a word or two of thanks, she got in the car.

After resuming the journey and a bit of small talk, Mrs. O'Leary noticed a brown box on the seat behind Erika.

"What's in the box?" Asked Mrs. O'Leary?. Erika looked back at the brown box and said, "It's a bottle of wine. I got it on eBay for my husband."

Mrs. O'Leary was silent for a moment, and then said, "Good trade."

Erika chuckled to herself at the moment.  But when she got home she seriously commenced to search until she found a headline reading "Christie's to Auction Computer Relics."

That gave her an idea, so she read on at http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/22/technology/cyberspace_sale/index.htm 


Forwarded by Bob Overn

WHY ATHLETES DON'T HAVE REAL JOBS

Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model: "I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the kids to copulate me."

-------------------------------------------- 
New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season:
"I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first."

--------------------------------------------- 
And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skins say: "I'd run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl," Matt Millen of the Raiders said: "To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too."

--------------------------------------------- 
Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins:
"He treats us like men. He lets us wear earrings."

--------------------------------------------- 
Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann, 1996: "Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."

--------------------------------------------- 
Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh: "I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes." (now that is beautiful)

--------------------------------------------- 
Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach: "You guys line up alphabetically by height." And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, then line up in a circle."

--------------------------------------------- 
Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson hooking up again with promoter Don King: "Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."

--------------------------------------------- 
Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker: "That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."

-------------------------------------------- 
Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regime of heavyweight Andrew Golota: "He's a guy who gets up at 6 o'clock in the morning regardless of what time it is."

--------------------------------------------- 
Chuck Nevitt, North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice: "My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt." (I wonder if his IQ ever hit room temperature in January)

--------------------------------------------- 
Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player: "I told him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"

-------------------------------------------- 
Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D: "Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."

--------------------------------------------- 
Amarillo High School and Oiler coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips, Phillips responded: "Because she is too ugly to kiss good-bye."


Forwarded by Paula

Twenty-eight years ago, Herman James, a Tennessee mountain man, was drafted by the Army.

On his first day in boot camp, the Army issued him a comb. That afternoon, an Army barber sheared his head.

On his second day, the Army issued him a tooth brush. That afternoon, an Army dentist yanked several of his teeth.

On his third day, he was issued a jock strap. . . The Army is still looking for him.


Forwarded by Dick Haar

The Irish daughter had not been to the house for over 5 years. Upon her return, her father cussed her; "Where have you been all this time, you ingrate! Why didn't you write us; not even a line to let us know how you were doing? Why didn't you call? You little tramp! Don't you know what you put your Mammy through??!!"

The girl, crying, replied, "Sniff, sniff...Dad... I became a prostitute..."

"WHAT!!? Out of here, you shameless harlot! Sinner! You're a disgrace to this family - I don't ever want to see you again!"

"OK, Dad - as you wish. I just came back to give Mum this luxury fur coat, title deeds to a ten bed-roomed mansion, plus a savings account certificate for £5 million. For my little brother, this gold Rolex, and for you, Daddy, the spanking new Mercedes limited edition convertible that's parked outside, plus a lifetime membership to the Country Club ... (takes a breath) ... an invitation for you all to spend New Year's Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera, and....

"Now, what was it you said you had become?" the father interrupted.

Girl, crying again, "Sniff, sniff ... A prostitute, Dad... Sniff, sniff."

"Oh! Be Jesus! - you scared me half to death, girl! I thought you said a Protestant". Come here and give your Daddy a hug!"


Forwarded by Paula
Speakers on
Takes a minute to download after clicking on the link.
http://www.thestatenislandboys.com/All_da_Crap_is_here/Caroline.swf 


Bob Blystone’s pet orb weaver, Jennie, is presently unemployed and scrounges out a skimpy meal each day between the Chapman and Cowles buildings. The sad fact of the matter is that Jennie, like her old counterpart inside Chapman, will soon be replaced by technology. But for the moment we’re still your Web weaving friends.

“The Tangled Webs They Weave,” by Karen Epper Hoffman, “MIT’s Technology Review, February 21, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/wo/wo_hoffman022105.asp?trk=nl 

The silk is pound-for-pound five times stronger than steel and three times tougher than today's high-performance synthetic fibers used to make protective clothing. It's these and other properties unique to dragline silk -- the type of silk that spiders use to make the 'spokes' of their webs -- that makes it an ideal substance from which to make a host of lighter, stronger materials that are also tougher and have more stretch.

"Spider silk presents some very interesting possibilities to [create materials] with much better performance than what's out there," says Dr. Lewis.

Over the years, Lewis has carefully studied the genetic make-up of 36 different kinds of spiders -- there are more than 34,000 kinds of known spiders in the world -- that make orb webs big enough to study.

But the work was vastly more complicated than just picking the right spider types.

Extracting the silk from the spiders was difficult since spiders spin their webs using a protein substance that they produce in liquid form which then changes into a solid, a process that is still a bit of a mystery to scientists. On top of that, spiders produce up to six different kinds of silk, varying in strength and elasticity, and conditions are not the same for every kind of spider silk that's made.

Once the silk was captured, decoding its DNA confounded researchers since the proteins that make them up are "very repetitive" and similar to each other in nature, making it hard to sequence.

"It's like if I gave you an all-white 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with only four different kinds of pieces," says Dr. Lewis. "Putting it together was very laborious."

The payoff, though, will come when scientists can reproduce massive quantities of the silk. Within a few years, the medical field might be able to use spider silk-like material to make "ultra-fine sutures for cosmetic or eye surgeries" as well as artificial ligaments and tendons to replace failing ones, according to Lewis.

The lighter, tougher and more elastic fibers would be ideal for creating airbags that more effectively "absorb energy rather than smashing passengers back", or bulletproof vests for police and troops that are substantially lighter, thinner, and have more give.

In an earlier message, I gave you a link where Jennie sang that we have a friend in her. The above article explains one of the reasons she’s our friend.

Jennie sings “You've Got a Friend in Me” (Turn up your speakers) --- http://www.funnybunch.com/1/me1.swf 


Easter Egged --- 

http://media.euniverse.com/funpages/cms_content/2461/flyin_egg_fight.swf
 



And that's the way it was on March 1, 2005 with a little help from my friends.

 

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 

Jesse's Wonderful Music for Romantics (You have to scroll down to the titles) --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/

Free Harvard Classics --- http://www.bartleby.com/hc/
Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

 

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/ 

 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting newsletters are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#News 

News Headlines for Accounting from TheCycles.com --- http://www.thecycles.com/business/accounting 
An unbelievable number of other news headlines categories in TheCycles.com are at http://www.thecycles.com/ 

 

Jack Anderson's Accounting Information Finder --- http://www.umsl.edu/~anderson/accsites.htm

 

Gerald Trite's great set of links --- http://www.zorba.ca/bookmark.htm 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

The Finance Professor --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/about/aboutFP.html 

 

Walt Mossberg's many answers to questions in technology --- http://ptech.wsj.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Household and Other Heloise-Style Hints --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#Hints 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

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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February 20, 2005

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on February 20, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Questions
What was the average undergraduate grade at Harvard in 1940?
              Hint:  There had to be an unbelievable number of grades below a C grade.
What are the average grades (in 2003) in various universities, and in public versus private?  The graph is shocking!
I found Dartmouth's solution to grade inflation to be one of the most innovative without being as controversial as Princeton's solution.  Note that Dartmouth's solution is on a student's transcript for each course.
Bob Jensen's February 20 threads on grade inflation are shown below --- Click Here to skip straight to them!
(Also see Bill Walker's recollection of a different grading scale at Harvard 26 years ago)

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.  Think it over 
http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/Flash/Think_It_Over.swf

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Pictures from the war ---  http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf 
New pictures from the war --- http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1291780/posts 
Also see some troops who'd rather be home <http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf>

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take - but by the moments that take our breath away."
Big Mud Puddles and Sunny Yellow Dandelions 
(turn up your speakers)
http://members.shaw.ca/mcinnes-hume/mud_puddles__dandelions.htm




My communications on "Hypocrisy in Academia and the Media" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 

My  “Evil Empire” essay --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm

My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 




Quotes of the Week

Humanitarianism Terrorism:  Terrorists Must "Push On"
In his essay, Ward Churchill claims the terrorist attack can be seen as an act of "humanitarianism," as "medicinal," a "tonic," "reality therapy." Churchill predicts that the terrorists will continue to "push back." Churchill adds, "As they should. As they must. And as they undoubtedly will. There is justice in such symmetry."

Ari Armstrong, Boulder Weekly --- http://www.boulderweekly.com/libertybeat.html
Bob Jensen's threads on Ward Churchill are at --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm


Steven Levitt is a terrific analytical economics professor at the University of Chicago
Everything Bad is Good for You
--- http://snipurl.com/FreaksFeb21
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Mind Wide Open comes a groundbreaking assessment of popular culture as it's never been considered before: through the lens of intelligence.  Startling, provocative, and endlessly engaging, Everything Bad Is Good for You is a hopeful and spirited account of contemporary culture. Elegantly and convincingly, Johnson demonstrates that our culture is not declining but changing-in exciting and stimulating ways we'd do well to understand. You will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything --- http://snipurl.com/Freaks2 
Steven D. Levitt, a self-described "rogue economist" who has applied the analytical tools of his trade to everything from sumo wrestlers to drug-dealing gangs; his work is cataloged in the forthcoming book "Freakonomics," written with Stephen J. Dubner.  
Daniel Gross, "Why a Real Estate Agent May Skip the Extra Mile," The New York Times, February 20, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/business/yourmoney/20view.html 
Jensen Comment:  Steven Levitt is a terrific analytical economics professor at the University of Chicago.  You can get a list of his publications at http://www.src.uchicago.edu/users/levit/ 


The bourgeoisie can be termed as any group of people who are discontented with what they have, but satisfied with what they are
Nicolás Dávila

This one on the report card business schools seemed too important to pass up.  I think it relates to the points Dr. Brazil made in the quotation that I placed (with permission) in http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q1.htm#020805
(You have to scroll down some distance to find the
Brazil quotation.)

How the "worst CEO ever" gets punished.
Fiorina's obsession with Wall Street pushed much innovation to the side, and eventually led to a rather unsettling change in the HP work environment: the company's very first layoffs. When it was all said and done, 15,000 of the then 85,000 workers found themselves without a job by the end of 2003.

Brad King and Michelle Delio, "Worst. CEO. Ever," MIT's Technology Review, February 10, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/wo/wo_pontin021005.asp?trk=nl 
Jensen Comment:  Carly walks into the sunset with $42 million severance package in her backpack.  This is not a bad reward for the "Worst CEO Ever."  See an article by Eric Dash in The New York Times, February 12, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/business/12hewlett.html 

Students are Getting the General Idea from Carly and Her CEO Friends
Survey finds nearly three-quarters of students say it's very important to be very well off financially, while barely 40 percent say it's very important to develop a meaningful philosophy of life.  Students increasingly place a higher value on being very well off financially than developing a meaningful philosophy of life.
Stacy A. Teicher, "Survey: Freshmen in It for the Money," ABC News, February 12, 2005 --- http://abcnews.go.com/US/CSM/story?id=459348&page=1 

Today's Bourgeoisie
Education molds not just individuals but also common assumptions and conventional wisdom. And when it comes to the business world, our universities - and especially their graduate business schools - are powerful shapers of the culture.
The New York Stock Exchange's report on the pay package given to its former chairman, Dick Grasso, made clear the excessiveness of the compensation and the ineffectiveness of the safety controls that failed to stop it. What the report didn't provide, however, was an answer to an obvious question: Why did nobody on the exchange's board look at that astronomical sum and feel some personal responsibility to find out what was happening?  I can't read minds, but I think it's fair to say that to some extent the players in this drama - as well as those in the ones now being played out in courtrooms and starring former executives of Tyco, WorldCom and HealthSouth - have been shaped by the broader business culture they have worked in for so long. And, as with any situation in which we are puzzled by how a group of people can think in a seemingly odd way, it helps to look back to how they were educated. Education molds not just individuals but also common assumptions and conventional wisdom. And when it comes to the business world, our universities - and especially their graduate business schools - are powerful shapers of the culture.
Robert J. Shiller, "How Wall Street Learns to Look the Other Way," The New York Times, February 8, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/opinion/08shiller.html 
Bob Jensen's "Rotten to the Core" threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm 

Makes You Sick to Your Stomach
How Crooked Corporate Executives Get Away With Their Heists
As Conseco struggles to reclaim hundreds of millions of dollars in delinquent loans, it is discovering just how adept former executives can be at hanging on to their money. And, like other companies in its place, the insurer is getting increasingly aggressive in dunning its former executives.  Since he was ousted from Conseco in 2000, Mr. Hilbert has transferred some $100 million in assets to his wife, according to court filings by Conseco. The sum includes $20 million in cash and an interest in a Caribbean chateau. Phillip Fowler, an attorney representing Mr. Hilbert, says any transfers Mr. Hilbert made to his wife were "completely proper" and that Conseco isn't entitled to recover anything from Mrs. Hilbert. "Tomisue Hilbert owes not a dime to Conseco -- period," Mr. Fowler says.
"Playing Hide & Seek With Cash:  More Firms, Like Conseco, Find It's No Game Trying to Reclaim Bad Loans to Former Executives," by Joseph T. Hallinan, The Wall Street Journal,  February 9, 2005; Page C1--- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110790426901949318,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 
The former CEO of Conesco claims poverty but his wife pays the bills since his his company's loans of $248.2 million to him were transferred over to his wife before he declared bankruptcy.  

Bob Jensen's threads on how "white collar crime pays even if you get caught" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays 


If you help someone in trouble you can be sure that they'll remember it ... the next time they're in trouble.
H.V. Prochnow


God and Man at Harvard
Great minds ranging from Buckley to Belushi have turned time and again to the crucible of the university when looking to illuminate certain truths about American life. On the college campus, so the theory goes, one can find society's greatest preoccupations and concerns writ small. In his new memoir, Privilege, Ross Douthat, class of 2002, provides a warts-and-all portrait of his experience at Harvard, probing the mysterious allure of the most famous name in higher education from the unique perspective of a Catholic conservative on a campus generally geared toward the secular and the liberal. Douthat's desire to attend Harvard took root initially in a childhood wish to be as close as possible to Fenway Park. In time, this yen gave way to an adolescent preoccupation with test scores and class ranks, and then became a suitably complicated young-adult reality at the institution itself.  Ross Douthat, the author of Privilege, talks about the social and academic realities of a Harvard education.

"God and Man at Harvard," by Ross Douthat, The Atlantic, February 10, 2005 --- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200502u/int2005-02-10 

Amazon reports the following somewhat related books:


No wonder kids take the easy way out:  The era of work and sacrifice is long gone
The pressure for U.S. high schools to toughen up is growing. But when schools respond with stiffened requirements, as many have done by instituting senior projects, they often find that students and parents aren't afraid to fight back.
Robert Tomsho, "When High Schools Try Getting Tough, Parents Fight Back," The Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2005, Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110782391032448413,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 
In Duvall, Wash., Projects Required Months of Work -- Then Parental Protests Kicked In 


Some students just don't deserve an A grade even in these days of "runaway" grade inflation
A driver's education instructor was run over by one of her students and pinned beneath the car for 15 minutes, officials said.  Two cars driven by students collided on the DeKalb County Schools driver's education lot, then one of the students backed into Patricia Erwin, running her over.
ABC News, February 11, 2005 --- http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=493040 


Harvard's president doesn't get a passing grade even in these days of "runaway" grade inflation
In a highly unusual move, the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and Stanford University have written an essay critical of remarks last month by Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers that biological differences may help explain why fewer women than men succeed at the top ranks of science and engineering.  ''Speculation that 'innate differences' may be a significant cause of underrepresentation by women in science and engineering may rejuvenate old myths and reinforce negative stereotypes and biases," they wrote.  The signers are Susan Hockfield of MIT, a neuroscientist; Shirley M. Tilghman of Princeton, a molecular geneticist; and John L. Hennessy of Stanford, a computer scientist.

Marcella Bombardieri, "3 university chiefs chide Summers on remarks," Boston Globe, February 12, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/02/12/3_university_chiefs_chide_summers_on_remarks/ 


MIT earns a somewhat higher grade
It was MIT, of course, and not Harvard, that undertook this difficult process of institutional self-evaluation in the last decade. The study was initiated by women on the faculty, but it was supported by the administration. And changes have been made. I don't know how women are now faring in attaining rank and success there, but they have a new president and she's a woman, and that would seem to indicate a growing openness to women at the highest reaches of the university.
Anonymous, "Why My Provost Loves Larry Summers," Inside Higher Ed, January 21, 2005 --- http://insidehighered.com/views/why_my_provost_loves_larry_summers 


Question:  Where are the Women CEOs?
Carly Fiorina's departure from HP dramatically reduced the population of female CEOs. Despite gains in the rank and file, few women are in top management at tech companies.

Kristen Philipkoski, "Where Are All the Women?" Wired News, February 15, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/women/0,1540,66603,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 

Answer:  They're running an awful lot of smaller businesses?
Women-Owned Businesses Growing Twice National Average --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=99089 
The text of this article is also at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers 


There is always a right way; there is always a wrong way. The wrong way always seems more reasonable.
George Moore
This is especially true in economics.

Politicians speak for their parties, and parties never are, never have been, and never will be wrong. 
Walter Dwight (as forwarded by Aaron Konstam)

Jensen Comment
Robert Nozick was a radical leftist who became one of Harvard's renowned philosophers.  He's best known for scholarly advocacy of a minimalist state.  He was neither a Democrat nor a Republican.  Republicans are hypocrites.  They preach price competition but promote big government that protects and subsidizes anti-competitive oligopolies like agribusiness, oil companies, telecoms, armaments, etc.  Democrats want a maximal state with entitlements for health care, minimum wages, and welfare without any viable means of paying for their egalitarian dreams.  Robert Nozick advocated a minimal state but had a misunderstood view of caring for the poor.

Visions of a  minimal (Utopian) state versus the rights of the poor --- http://world.std.com/~mhuben/wolff_2.html
Bob Jensen prefers Milton Friedman's negative income tax solution for the poor (as long as there are heavy fraud controls) --- http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/NegativeIncomeTax.html 

After joining the faculty at Trinity University over twenty years ago, I discovered that our Steven Luper was one of Nozick's doctoral students.

Note from Jensen
For one year in a think tank overlooking the Stanford University campus, my office was across the wall from  Robert Nozick who had deeper thoughts than me.  Unlike today's superficial destructionists, he left us with a vision.

Nozick (1938-2002) was a professor of philosophy at Harvard University until his death. His first book, Anarchy, State and Utopia astonished the philosophical world and made the discussion of liberty and property rights respectable again in scholarly circles. A former radical leftist, Nozick was converted to the libertarian perspective as a graduate student, mostly through reading the works of F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman. Below is an interview with Nozick from 2001.  
"An Interview with Robert Nozick,"  by Julian Sanchez, July 26, 2001 --- http://www.lfb.com/index.php?action=help&helpfile=nozickinterview.html 
A slightly more printable version is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NozickInterview.htm 
I might note that Hayek favored price system economics but denied being a conservative --- http://www.geocities.com/ecocorner/intelarea/fah1.html 

Robert Nozick's Life and Death is described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick

Robert Nozick (November 16, 1938January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher and Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. His Anarchy, State, and Utopia provided a libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, published in 1971.

Nozick almost single-handedly made libertarian political philosophy respectable within mainstream academia with the 1974 publication of his now-classic Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which garnered a National Book Award the following year. Anarchy, State, and Utopia argues, among other things, that a distribution of goods is just, so long as the distribution was brought about by free exchanges by consenting adults and were made from a just starting position, even if large inequalities emerge from the process. Nozick appealed to the Kantian idea that people should be treated as rational beings, not merely as a means. For example, forced redistribution of income treated people as if they were sources of money (means). Nozick here challenges John Rawls's arguments in A Theory of Justice that conclude that inequalities must at least make the worst off better off in order to be morally justified.

Nozick, among the leading figures in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, made significant contributions to almost every major area of philosophy. In Philosophical Explanations, Nozick provides novel accounts of knowledge, free will, and the nature of value. The Examined Life, pitched to a broader public, explores love, death, faith, and the meaning of life. The Nature of Rationality presents a theory of practical reason that attempts to embellish notoriously spartan classical decision theory. Socratic Puzzles is a collection of papers that range from Ayn Rand and Austrian economics to animal rights, while his last production, Invariances applies insights from physics and biology to questions of objectivity in such areas as the nature of necessity and moral value.

Nozick was notable for his curious, exploratory style and methodological ecumenism. Often content to raise tantalizing philosophical possibilities and then leave judgment to the reader, Nozick was also notable for inventively drawing from literature outside of philosophy (e.g., economics, physics, evolutionary biology) to infuse his work with freshness and relevance.

Nozick died in 2002 after a prolonged struggle with cancer.


At least Karl Marx, Nozick, and Heilbroner had visions
The extreme left does seem to have abandoned any idea of creating 
a socialist utopia; today it is devoted solely to uncreative destruction
.
Opinion Journal, February 11, 2005
Bob Jensen's comments on this are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm 


Question:  Who is the all-time best selling author in economics?
Clue:  He was a socialist who eventually gave an F grade to socialism.
David Boaz, "The Man Who Told the Truth:  Robert Heilbroner fessed up to the failure of socialism." ReasonOnline, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/hod/db012105.shtml 

Robert Heilbroner, the bestselling writer of economics, died early this month at the age of 85. He and John Kenneth Galbraith may well have sold more economics books than all other economists combined. Alas, their talents lay more in the writing than the economics. Heilbroner was an outspoken socialist; if only a libertarian could write an introductory book on economics that could—like Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers—sell 4 million copies.

Reading some of Heilbroner's essays over the years, I admired his honesty about the meaning of socialism. Consider this excerpt from a 1978 essay in Dissent:

 

Socialism...must depend for its economic direction on some form of planning, and for its culture on some form of commitment to the idea of a morally conscious collectivity....

If tradition cannot, and the market system should not, underpin the socialist order, we are left with some form of command as the necessary means for securing its continuance and adaptation. Indeed, that is what planning means...

The factories and stores and farms and shops of a socialist socioeconomic formation must be coordinated...and this coordination must entail obedience to a central plan...

The rights of individuals to their Millian liberties [are] directly opposed to the basic social commitment to a deliberately embraced collective moral goal... Under socialism, every dissenting voice raises a threat similar to that raised under a democracy by those who preach antidemocracy.

Few socialists outside the Communist Party are willing to acknowledge that real socialism means trading our "Millian liberties" for the purported good of economic planning and "a morally conscious collectivity."

He was not entirely impervious to new evidence, however. In 1989, he famously wrote in The New Yorker:

"Less than 75 years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over: capitalism has won... Capitalism organizes the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism."

In The New Yorker again the next year, he reminisced about hearing of Ludwig von Mises at Harvard in the 1930s. But of course his professors and fellow students scoffed at Mises's claim that socialism could not work. It seemed at the time, he wrote, that it was capitalism that was failing. Then, a mere 50 years later, he acknowledged: "It turns out, of course, that Mises was right" about the impossibility of socialism. I particularly like the "of course." Fifty years it took him to grasp the truth of what Mises wrote in 1920, and he blithely tossed off his newfound wisdom as "of course."

Continued in the article


Our Students' Visions or Lack Thereof
Survey finds nearly three-quarters of students say it's very important to be very well off financially, while barely 40 percent say it's very important to develop a meaningful philosophy of life.  Students increasingly place a higher value on being very well off financially than developing a meaningful philosophy of life.
Stacy A. Teicher, "Survey: Freshmen in It for the Money," ABC News, February 12, 2005 --- http://abcnews.go.com/US/CSM/story?id=459348&page=1 

A New Yorker cartoon depicts a well-heeled, elderly gentleman taking his grandson for a walk in the woods. "It's good to know about trees," he tells the boy, before adding, "Just remember, nobody ever made big money knowing about trees."  If the man's advice was not inspired directly by the economist's rational-actor model, it could have been. This model assumes that people are selfish in the narrow sense. It may be nice to know about trees, it acknowledges, but it goes on to caution that the world out there is bitterly competitive, and that those who do not pursue their own interests ruthlessly are likely to be swept aside by others who do.
Robert H. Frank, "The Theory That Self-Interest Is the Sole Motivator Is Self-Fulfilling," The New York Times, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/17/business/17scene.html 


Charles Fourier Gets an F grade for his vision of utopia.  Between 1841 and 1847, the Brook Farm community attempted to start a utopian society patterned after the visions of Fourier.  Residents did not experience 120 years of unrestricted sexual delight.  At least that was never mentioned by Hawthorne.  Nathaniel Hawthorne spent time at Brook Farm and presented a fictionalized portrait of it in his novel, The Blithedale Romance.
Humanity now looks forward to Guaranteeism and eventually Harmony, the final stage when the sea will become lemonade, peaceable species of animals will evolve, and people will live to 144 years, of which 120 years will be spent in unrestricted sexual delight. Then the seesaw will tip and humanity will work its way backward to Confusion before beginning another life cycle. These eight stages would repeat themselves endlessly.
Charles Fourier --- http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id-163,pageNum-20.html  
Jensen Note:  Charles Fourier should not be confused with Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (who does get an A grade for good works in mathematics and physics).


Some A grades are assigned this week by The New York Times
A few days early, the New York Times offered valentines in its news pages to left-wing lawyer Lynne Stewart, convicted in court of aiding terrorists, and hailed by the Times because her "compassion is legendary." The Times also tossed rhetorical roses to hard-left Professor Ward Churchill, who wrote that the World Trade Center victims were like Nazis, "little Eichmanns," but which the Times described as a sad symbol of "academic expression under fire." The Times further described Churchill as a symbol of "supposed liberal bias in academia."
Times Watch, February 14, 2005 --- http://www.timeswatch.org/twarticles/2005/20050211.asp 
Bob Jensen's threads regarding Ward Churchill are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm 


Some F grades are assigned this week by the Media Research Center
"The Ten Worst Media Distortions of Campaign 2004," Media Research Center --- http://www.mediaresearch.org/projects/worst/welcome.asp 
"The Seventeenth Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting," Media Research Center --- http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/bestof/2004/welcome.asp 
Jensen Note:  The so-called Media Research Center tilts toward the right side of the world when highlighting what it perceives as liberal bias of the media.  Opposing viewpoints can be found in a large number of places, including Times Watch, and The Nation.


No A grades to 83.33% of search engine users.
They say they trust their favorite search engines, but there’s a distressing lack of understanding of how engines rank and present pages -- only 38 percent of users are aware of the distinction between paid or “sponsored“ results and unpaid results.“ And only one in six say they can always tell which results are paid or sponsored and which are not.“  The funny part about this last bit is, nearly half of users say they would stop using search engines if they thought the engines were being unclear about how they presented paid results.
David Appell, "Search Engines," MIT's Technology Review, February 11, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/blog.asp?blogID=1732&trk=nl 
Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


No A grades for 20% of Americans
On average, more than one in five Americans went on a recent drinking binge, and about one in 10 smoked marijuana in the previous year.
Donna Leinwand, "Study: 1 in 5 have binged on alcohol recently 14.6M have used pot in past month," USA Today, February 14, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050214/a_insidedrugs14.art.htm 

No A grades for UN Sanctions Inspectors
United Nations inspectors in Iraq spent their working hours drinking vodka while ignoring a shadowy nocturnal fleet believed to be smuggling goods for Saddam Hussein, an Australian former inspector has told a US Senate subcommittee.
"Senators told of UN sanctions team's daily drinking binges," Sydney Morning Herald, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/16/1108500157449.html 


Normally there's no reason to send more money to Washington than absolutely necessary. But after receiving a federal bailout for a fiscal "crisis" that never materialized, America's 50 state governments now find themselves benefiting from a revenue boom. So how about repaying the $20 billion handout they've received from the feds as part of the 2003 tax-cut deal?
"Now Give It Back," The Wall Street Journal,  February 15, 2005, Page A18 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110843009663454771,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


No A grades for The Chronicle of Higher Education
Mr. Jaschik and Mr. Lederman, along with Kathlene Collins, who worked at The Chronicle for 20 years, introduced last month an online publication, insidehighered.com. In doing so, Mr. Jaschik and Mr. Lederman, who are both editors, and Ms. Collins, who is the publisher, are trying to become the first significant competition in higher education publishing since the intellectual-if-gossipy Lingua Franca folded in 2001.And, in contrast to The Chronicle, which is a print publication that publishes its content online, insidehighered.com is an online-only publication. The three founders all cite the desire for their site to be as easily accessible and democratic as possible. Insidehighered.com is free, with no registration required; access to most of The Chronicle's articles requires a password that can only be obtained with a print subscription, which costs $82.50 a year.  "A big part of our model is to try and reach everyone in higher ed - it means that everyone can be part of the conversation," said Mr. Jaschik. "We want grad students, young professors, people at institutions without a lot of money, in addition to people at wealthier institutions and senior administrators."
Lia Miller, "New Web Site for Academics Roils Education Journalism," The New York Times, February 14, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/business/media/14education.html 


Only Southwest Airlines gets an A grade for airline Websites
The only site that worked without any significant hiccups for all of our tasks was Southwest's. Its front page was an eyesore, but it got the job done efficiently and quickly. It was the only airline to display all available fares on every flight. Most importantly, when we filed our request for a refund, we had our money back in two minutes flat.
"
Testing Out Airline Web Sites," by Sam Shechner, The Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2005; Page D5 --- http://snipurl.com/airlinesFeb15 


Flashback to 1965:  The last year of A grades for movie advertising
A growing number of newspapers scattered around the country have been cracking down on what they regard as offensive movie advertising. An ad in the Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman left out the name of the movie in question, Sex and the Single Girl.
"Financial Flashback," The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/ffFeb10 
For examples of how times have changed, go to http://www.reason.com/links/links122304.shtml 
Also see http://www.reason.com/re/011105.shtml 


If the rapist lives after being knocked unconscious at the foot of her bed, he'll probably sue for all she's worth!
The NRA has an answer here, but I won't elaborate on that answer (and I'm not in the NRA and haven't fired a gun since I was 12 years old unless you count an anti-aircraft gun on the USS Wisconsin battleship).

The maker of the Taser stun gun used by police and the military is planning to market a civilian model amid concerns about deaths and injuries from the device, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday.
"Stun gun maker to target home market amid safety concerns," USA Today, February 14, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050214/a_tasers14.art.htm 


The "bottom line, " "dynamism," and "nutritive" concepts in North Korean news
Our revolutionary ranks have achieved unbreakable comradely unity because profound trust is its bottom line. The history of the unity of our revolutionary ranks is characterized by the comradely trust and love. Herein lies its real significance. Leader Kim Jong Il's trust in the army and people provides eternal dynamism and precious nutritive elements for their life and struggle.
"Koreans Called Upon to Cement Single-minded Unity, KCNA --- http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2005/200502/news02/14.htm#7 

In case you missed it, here's where to download English-language news from North Korea --- http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm 
It pays to stay informed about both sides of any serious controversy.


Yet the reality is very different. North Korea poses a serious threat to the vital interests of each of the five other parties. It already possesses sufficient plutonium and highly enriched uranium to make -- or have already made -- anywhere from six to eight nuclear weapons, and has the missile capability to launch these over distances of up to 5,500 miles. Still more worrisome is the prospect that North Korea might sell nuclear materials to al Qaeda or other financially well-heeled terrorist groups. According to recent reports, North Korea may already have engaged in such transactions with Libya. Kim Jong Il's regime is so badly strapped for cash that its survival may depend on rapid access to substantial outside funding.  The case for a multilateral approach rests on the fact that the burden of dealing with that threat should be shared by the five countries because their separate and vital national interests are all at stake -- China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia, in addition to the U.S.
Charles Wolf, Jr., "The Multilateral Path To Disarming North Korea," The Wall Street Journal, February 16, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/NKorealFeb16 


Applying Nanotechnology to the Challenges of Global Poverty
First, the fabulous visions. Sociologist Bryan Bruns, a research associate at the Foresight Institute, talked about "Applying Nanotechnology to the Challenges of Global Poverty." Some 2.7 billion of our fellow human beings now live on less than $2 per day, with 1.1 billion of them living on less than $1 per day. Two billion have no access to electricity.  To illustrate what nanotech progress might do for the world's poor, Bruns imagined a potential Whole Earth Catalog for 2025, loaded with nanotech devices. He found low energy ultra-efficient water filtration systems that could purify any contaminated or saline water into fresh water suitable for drinking or irrigation. (An earlier presentation by Gayle Pergamit described a water filtration system using nanopore membranes now being developed by Aguavia, in which a six-inch cube of membranes could purify 100,000 gallons of water a day.)
Ronald Bailey, "Nanotechnology: Hell or Heaven?  Perhaps a little bit of both," ReasonOnline, October 27, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/rb/rb102704.shtml 


If it sounds too good to be true,
Bush's budget seeks domestic austerity not contemplated in years. The president said more than 150 programs he wants to eliminate or slash are not "achieving results." But Democrats howled worthy causes are being sacrificed for tax cuts.
J
ohn D. McKinnon and Jackie Calmes, "A 'Lean Budget' From Bush Cuts Mainly at Home," The Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2005, Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110778900458847685,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us 
The Sad Part:  Trims in Domestic Spending, Growth in Defense Promise Scant Change in Deficit 
"A Little Less Is Still a Lot The president's budget cuts aren't nearly deep enough," by Chris Edwards and Alan Renold, The Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2005.


It probably is too good to be true.
The president's new plan to cap agricultural subsidies makes great sense. Too bad Bush doesn’t really want it to pass.  The plan came out of nowhere; though the farm lobby got wind of the impending proposal last week, it was preceded by no widespread call for reform, no impending crisis, no congressional debate. Nor was there the usual folksy p.r. rollout of town-hall meetings and Midwestern stump speeches so typical of Bush's major initiatives, such as Social Security privatization. All of which suggests that the president is taking the idea none too seriously.

"Empty Trough," The New Republic, February 21, 2005 --- http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050221&amp;amp;amp;s=editorial022105 


Painting the Red States Blue
Senate Democrats will push President Bush to add up to $8 billion a year to the White House's war-spending bill to pay for more troops than Bush wants and more generous support for families and businesses affected by the war, former presidential contender Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Tuesday.
Tom Squitieri, "Dems want to add to military money Kerry leads push for extra $8B per year in measure," USA Today, February 16, 2005, Page 2A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050216/a_kerrydefense16.art.htm 


Jack Sprat could not eat at McDonalds but his wife loved the death-dealing French fries
McDonald's Corp. will pay $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the fast-food giant of failing to inform consumers of delays in a plan to reduce fat in the cooking oil used for its popular french fries and other foods.  BanTransFats.com, a nonprofit advocacy group, sued McDonald's in California state court in 2003, alleging the company did not effectively disclose to the public that it had not switched to a healthier cooking oil.

"McDonald's to Pay $8.5M in Trans Fat Suit," Chicago Tribune, February 12, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/TribFeb12 


Learning to live on less in retirement
What, then, do I lack? I will go to my grave lusting for granite kitchen countertops and built-in bookshelves in the family room. (My husband teases that after we've paid for some mandatory exterior painting we've contracted for, he'll investigate -- and reject -- those improvements.) It would have been gratifying to have donated more than a token sum to the tsunami victims. And just once I'd like to visit the veterinarian without gasping at the size of the bill.  All in all, however, I'm remarkably content. When we were more affluent, did I sink into bed at night and feel true gratitude for shelter, warmth and comfort? I don't think so. But I do now. After 60-plus years of living, it seems I finally understand the meaning of enough.
Ellen Graham, "The Joys of Scrimping:  Feeling anxious? Troubled? The frugal life can set you free," The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2005; Page R13 --- http://snipurl.com/frugalFeb14


Fascination with scandals
It is doubtful that Mr. Eisner, Disney's chief executive, is having much fun now. But for another group of executives, "DisneyWar" is seen as good news. Book publishers hope that Mr. Stewart's book and the upcoming "Conspiracy of Fools," a book about the scandal at Enron written by Kurt Eichenwald, a reporter for The New York Times, signal a return of a longtime industry staple: the best-selling business narrative.

Laura M. Holson, "Disney Book Is Good News for Publishers," The New York Times, February 16, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/business/media/14disney.html


"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take - but by the moments that take our breath away."
Big Mud Puddles and Sunny Yellow Dandelions 
(turn up your speakers)
http://members.shaw.ca/mcinnes-hume/mud_puddles__dandelions.htm


From the Rhetoric Society of AmericaThe Blogaria --- http://rsa.cwrl.utexas.edu/ 
Note that the calendar lets you pick a day of the month for archives at Blogaria.
Bob Jensen's thread on Weblogs and blogs are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 

The Blogora provides a collaborative space for connecting rhetoric, rhetorical methods and theories, and rhetoricians with public life. The Blogora is an initiative of the Rhetoric Society of America and is hosted by the Computer Writing and Research Lab, part of the Division of Rhetoric and Composition at The University of Texas at Austin. Standard disclaimer: Messages on this site are those of the writers; they do not express the views of the University of Texas or the DRC.


Say What?  Supposedly the most cogent arguments against the Iraq War
In teaching courses about political rhetoric over the years, I have discovered that students do not have a clear sense of the differing political positions out there in the world of partisan politics. If they listen to Rush Limbaugh, they believe that anyone who takes a position somewhere slightly to the left of George H.W. Bush is a "liberal." Most students don't know that the most cogent arguments against the Iraq War have generally been made from the "paleoconservatives" such as Patrick Buchanan and Justin Raimondo. Raimondo's website is an indispensable source of worldwide commentary on the war and on Middle East policy.

Under Rhetoric and Politics in The Blogaria, February 14, 2005 --- http://rsa.cwrl.utexas.edu/ 


Failures of the Middle East academic priesthood in the United States
As 2004 comes to a crashing halt, one of the groups that, arguably, most deserves to fly through the windshield is the Middle East academic priesthood in the United States. Reeling from tsunamis of infighting, the angry community recently received a Christmas rebuke from French scholar Gilles Kepel on the opinion page of the Financial Times of London.  Kepel wrote, "Middle East studies faculties across America are bogged down in political infighting, waging Internet offensives that from a scholarly perspective seem shallow and petty. This battle, over the 'right' and 'wrong' approaches to teaching the region's politics, history and culture, has already caused considerable damage to academia and is now jeopardizing U.S. ability to decipher a complex area in which America is deeply engaged."

Michael Young, "Field of Battle:  A Frenchman fries Middle East studies in the U.S.," ReasonOnline, December 29, 2004 --- http://www.reason.com/links/links122904.shtml 


One of my students brought to my attention an article on CNN.com about PricewaterhouseCoopers' work in counting the ballots for the Oscar winners. With the accounting fraud trials and too many other negative accounting-related stories, it's nice to see something positive being said about accountants. See: http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/09/oscarinsider.accountants.ap/index.html 
Denny Beresford, University of Georgia


What would Jesus advertise?
"Hit and Run," ReasonOnline, February 23, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/ 

A Christian radio station in Florida knows, and an ad from a Muslim group is right out. WTBN canceled and refunded a $300 ad buy promoting a Christian-Muslim symposium on Jesus at a local university because the spot did not "serve evangelical Christians," according to the station general manager.

The station is, of course, utterly free to reject any ads on any grounds it so chooses. But it is hard to see how simply inviting Christians to learn about Islam fails the station's stated mission. In fact that must be why station manager Christopher Gould jumped to the argument that the ultimate purpose of the ad was to convert Christians to Islam. Listen to the ad and decide for yourself --- http://www.cairfl.org/video/cair-fl_jesus_promo.wma 

Of course, a true test of the WTBN's policy would be for an evangelical Christian group to use the exact same language in an ad promoting a Christian-Muslim symposium on Jesus. Since the ultimate purpose of the ad would be to convert Muslims to Christianity that ad must get a green light.


Betting on China 
Business titans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett say America is on the decline, while China is the world's best bet. Their candid words should wake us up to the looming economic threat — and the need to respond now. By Ted C. Fishman, page 11A Bill Gates is betting on America's decline and putting his money on China's rise. Or so the Microsoft founder seemed to say last month at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. “I'm short the dollar,” he said. “The ol' dollar is going down.”
Ted C. Fishman, "Betting on China," USA Today, February 17, 2005, Page 11A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050217/oplede17.art.htm 
Bob Jensen's essay on the pending collapse of the U.S. is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm


Betting on China
If the 20th was the American century, then the 21st belongs to China. It's that simple, Ted C. Fishman says, and anyone who doubts it should take his whirlwind tour of the world's fastest-developing economy.

"Car Clones and Other Tales of the Mighty Economic Engine Known as China," by William Grimes, The New York Times, February 15, 2005 ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/books/15grim.html
This is a book review of China, Inc. by Ted C. Fishman --- http://snipurl.com/ChinaIndFeb15
Bob Jensen's essay on the pending collapse of the U.S. is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 


State of IT in Education
The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) has just released a comprehensive look at the state of IT networking in higher education. The study, “Information Technology Networking in Higher Education: Campus Commodity and Competitive Differentiator,” is based on survey responses from 517 CIOs and network directors in higher education, qualitative interviews with 12 higher education leaders about their view of the future of IT networking in higher education, and three in-depth case studies involving four U.S. institutions and SURF, a Dutch higher education and research partnership. This ECAR research study is designed to illuminate a host of current network management practices related to IT in higher education; opportunities for connectivity to external networks; the institutional context of organization, leadership and management; current and emerging technologies and converged networks; and the future of networking. A summary of the study's key findings is available to all, while the complete research study is accessible to ECAR subscribers and is available for purchase by nonsubscribers, online at http://www.educause.edu/ers0502/ 
T.H.E. Newsletter, February 16, 2005


Don't believe everything you read (I'm too easily sucked in due to my trusting nature)
A 2002 study directed by BJ Fogg, a Stanford psychologist, found that people tend to judge the credibility of a Web site by its appearance, rather than by checking who put it up and why. But it is much easier to produce a professional-looking Web site than a credible-looking book. The BBC was recently duped by a fake Dow Chemical site into broadcasting an interview with an environmentalist posing as a company spokesman.  That trusting nature is partly a legacy of the print age. If we tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the things we read in library books, it is because they have been screened twice: first by a publisher, who decided they were worth printing, and then by the librarian who acquired them or the professor who requested their purchase.
"Teaching Students to Swim in the Online Sea," The New York Times, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/weekinreview/13numb.html


The excesses of multicultural sensitivity
Cathy Young, "What "Happy Holidays"?  Raging Christmas nitwits will be back next year," ReasonOnline, December 28, 2004 --- http://www.reason.com/cy/cy122804.shtml 


Employee Loyalty Just Isn't What it Used to Be
A man may have found out firsthand just how nasty the competition is between the world's two biggest beermakers.  Isac Aguero, 24, said he was fired from his job with a Miller Brewing distributor, the same day a picture appeared in The Journal Times of Racine of him drinking a Bud Light, which is brewed by Anheuser-Busch Co.
ABC News
, February 11, 2005 --- http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=492470 


Say What?  Stereotyping African Americans
Once Joan Baez finished her minstrelsy riff, the audience, in which I did not see a single black person, went wild with applause and hoots and hollers. I have never felt so embarrassed for a bunch of "liberals" in my life. I wonder where Baez got her notions of how poor black country folk talk—she couldn't be stereotyping, could she?
Ronald Bailey, "Joan Baez and Me:  She gwine tell de folks how dat ol' missuh prez'dent be a debbil!" ReasonOnline, November 4, 2004 --- http://www.reason.com/links/links110404.shtml 
Bob Jensen's essay about hypocrisy in academia is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 


Taking the Fat out of Spam
One measure backed by advocates like Mr. Hutzler is already having a positive impact: "Port 25 blocking," which prevents an individual PC from running its own mail server and blasting out e-mail on its own. With the block in place, all outgoing e-mail must go through the service provider's mail server, where high-volume batches of identical mail can be detected easily and cut off.  Internet service providers are also starting to stamp outgoing messages with a digital signature of the customer's domain name, using strong cryptography so the signature cannot be altered or counterfeited. This is accomplished with software called DomainKeys, originally developed by Yahoo. It is now offered in open-source form and was recently adopted by EarthLink and some other major services. A digital signature is what we will want to see on all incoming e-mail.
Randall Stross,
"How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp," The New York Times, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/business/yourmoney/13digi.html 


You Can't Always Trust Insurance Companies Even When They're Obligated to Pay
Three years later, when she developed pronator teres syndrome, a painful nerve problem, in one arm and carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands and was no longer able to do her job, the policy premium of $519 a year seemed like the best money she had ever spent. But in 1997, after a year and a half of collecting $2,250 a month in benefits, the insurer, First Unum, stopped paying, even though Ms. Hurley's contract provided for lifetime benefits. For eight years, Ms. Hurley, with the help of a lawyer, has been fighting the company, now called UnumProvident, to have benefits reinstated. So far, she hasn't had much luck.  Over the last few years, televised reports of business practices and problems at UnumProvident, which is based in Chattanooga, Tenn., and is by far the nation's largest provider of disability insurance, have led to plenty of caution about disability policies in general. This is true of both independent agents and consumers, who pay an average of around $1,000 in annual premiums for policies. Brokers and financial planners sell practically all disability policies, except for the group disability insurance offered by employers, which costs policy holders, on average, about $200 a year. 
 
Michelle Leder, "Disability Insurance: Proceed With Caution," The New York Times, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/business/yourmoney/13disability.html 


"Free Money to Quit Your Job," 
"Free Money to Change Your Life," 
"Free Money for Entrepreneurs," 
"Free Money to Pay Your Bills": 
They are among the 100 or so works, often the size of telephone books and often with DVD and tape spinoffs, that Mr. Lesko has published over the last two decades.  But now the New York State government has given Mr. Lesko something free that he is not shouting about with glee: an accusation that his directories of government money sources offer far less than promised.

Joseph P. Fried, "Free Money? Sure. Heard of Food Stamps?" The New York Times, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/nyregion/13lesko.html 


Three from Information Week News on February 14, 2005

Technology And The Fight Against Child Porn Ironically, the proliferation of child pornography is fueled by the same trend that's enriching the lives of children around the world: advances in computer technology and the global reach of the Web. www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60400181  

Should Google Filter Its Image Database? Google doesn't filter pornographic images from getting into its index, nor does it monitor the images in the index. www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60400180 

++ New School Of Thought Universities are reaching a new generation with innovative programs that marry IT and other disciplines, including art, business, and biology. www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60400089  


Is your worst enemy your best friend?
The book - The Underminer:  The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life - seems to have hit a nerve in dog-eat-dog New York, where professional success is highly prized, and where "friends" are often after your job, your boyfriend and, especially, your apartment. The New Yorker extracted a chapter of the book, and the authors have been congratulated for giving a name to a social phenomenon that almost everybody seems to have experienced.
  New York magazine said the The Underminer captured "a classic New York phenomenon". The New York Observer said the book was "the voice of the friend we've all had" and "The writers have done humankind a favour by nailing the bastard."
Caroline Overington, "That extra weight suits you," Sydney Morning Herald, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/11/1108061873190.html 


Rand Redux
What's the secret of Rand's cultural staying power? At her best, notes Young, Rand provided "liberal capitalism with a moral foundation." That's no small feat in a world that, even after the fall of Nazism, communism, and other collectivist ideologies, still looks with suspicion on economic self-interest. Rand also celebrated the individual in a mass age, creating a series of memorable, compelling characters who embodied or emboldened the aspirations of millions in a time of often stultifying conformity, bureaucracy, and routinization.
Nick Gillespie, "Rand Redux:  Reason does Ayn Rand on her 100th birthday," ReasonOnline, March 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/0503/ed.ng.editors.shtml 


What Objectivism had to say about laughter
At the American Philosophical Association some years ago, the Ayn Rand Society devoted a session to exploring what Objectivism had to say about laughter. The key reference (apart, of course, from the writings of Ayn Rand, the source and gold standard of all Objectivist thought) was Aristotle. It seems that the Stagarite, despite being an ancient Greek, was the original philosophical voice of capitalism, rationality, selfishness, and all other noble things rhapsodized by the heroes in Ayn Rand's fiction.  The first is that we have only a very rough idea of what Aristotle thought about humor. We have only fragments of the second book of the Poetics, which analyzed comedy, just as the first book did tragedy. But the gaps in the historical record constituted a minor problem, all in all -- at least by contrast with the real challenge for any Objectivist seeking to philosophize about the human tendency to laugh. Of much greater difficulty was the fact that Ayn Rand did not possess a sense of humor.

Scott Mclemee, "Among the Randroids," Inside Higher Ed, February 10, 2005 --- http://insidehighered.com/views/intellectual_affairs__3 


France Legislates Values
A third reason why legislating mainstream values can be a problem rests on a more philosophical question: Is it advisable for a government to make laws for as many aspects of life as it can, or is it preferable often times just to allow society to regulate itself? The centralized French Jacobin state has tended to spawn laws like bacteria, so that state intervention is second nature to the French and far less controversial than it is in, let's say, Britain or the U.S. Indeed, one of the problems France continues to have with the European Union (itself a near-limitless fount of invasive and petty legislation) is that it's not quite sure how to dismantle its Etat providence (or providence state) without provoking an angry backlash from a population used to sucking on the Republic's ample teat.
Michael Young, "Up By Law:  France's misguided effort to legislate values," ReasonOnline, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/links/links012705.shtml 


At least they're now protected by Internet entanglements rather than hiding behind innocent children
Radical Islamic Web sites are encouraging their supporters to wage holy war online. Their exhortations underscore U.S. vulnerability to cyberterror.  Some of the recent messages have gotten alarmingly specific. They include detailed attack instructions and list as apparent potential targets e-mail addresses of Israeli political groups, police and government offices and politicians, including Natan Sharansky, the conservative cabinet member and former Soviet dissident who has become a favorite of President Bush.

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, February 10, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6940849/site/newsweek/ 


Granny Welcomes You to Wal-Mart
Facing cuts in retiree medical and dental benefits, many older people are returning to work to support themselves.  As numerous companies across the country withdraw retiree medical and dental benefits while others switch to less generous retirement plans, many aging workers who had expected to ease comfortably out of the labor force in their 50's and early 60's are discovering that they do not have the financial resources to support themselves in retirement. As a result, a lot more of them are returning to work.
Eduardo Porter and Mary Williams Walsh, "Retirement Turns Into a Rest Stop as Benefits Dwindle." The New York Times, February 9, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/NYTFeb9 


Ma Bell Welcomes You to Wal-Mart
Today, it is true, Mr. Armstrong's early acquisition bets seem prescient. He clearly understood that technology would converge, creating a demand for big pipes into homes that could deliver streams of Internet, phone and interactive-TV services. One has to wonder whether AT&T's fortunes, and the decisions of its executives, would have been different had its biggest competitor, WorldCom Inc., not been engaging in the largest accounting fraud in U.S. history.  Mr. Martin argues that this historical wild card cheated Mr. Armstrong of a fair chance to see his bet through. Still, he gives far more ink to AT&T's inability to explain the depth of its problems and its tendency to over-promise. "If I could do one thing over again, I would counsel resetting and lowering the expectations that piled up around Armstrong like a high wall from the beginning."
Rebecca Blumenstein, "The Bell Tolls," The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110800132842650904,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Sweden is Taking a Chance on Private Pensions
Soon, Marie-Louise Graveleij said, she will end her current work contract and decide whether she can afford to retire. The orange envelope she expects to receive within the next few weeks will contain a statement of her rights under a five-year-old restructuring of this country's still-generous state pension program that - like the changes President Bush wants to introduce in Social Security - includes a personal investment account.
Allen Cowell, "Sweden's Take on Private Pensions," The New York Times, February 12, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/business/worldbusiness/12pension.html
Jensen Comment:  When it comes to comparing economies, Sweden isn't comparable to most any other country.  It has neither Norway's oil nor Finland's skills in the electronics technology sector.  Nor does it have population, education, ethnicity, and poverty class problems of larger countries.  Sweden can afford, for the moment, generous health care and retirement benefits because it has the highest marginal tax rate among major nations.  But its economy is in deep trouble over the long-run because it has an enormous dependence on exports (high quality automobiles, construction equipment, military weapons, tools, etc.) from a land of very high labor costs and very high taxes.  I would recommend that Marie-Louise invest her personal investment account in a well-diversified international portfolio of equity funds.  And incidentally, this is why I recommend personal investment pension accounts for U.S. workers.  The U.S. economy is doomed, but those with a well-diversified international savings fund, after 2030, will have a better life in their golden years.
Bob Jensen's essay on entitlements is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 

For the most sensible explanation of the U.S. Social Security debate, see http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3650&sequence=0 


And I always thought this was an Italian pastime
You've got to hand it to the French. No people work as hard or as enthusiastically to avoid work.  For the past two years, politicians, business leaders and trade unions have labored overtime against France's mandated 35-hour workweek. Hundreds of thousands of union sympathizers capped a series of nationwide demonstrations by turning out Saturday, that sacred day of leisure, to denounce government plans to free up the workweek.

"French Labors No people work as hard or as enthusiastically to avoid work," The Wall Street Journal Europe, February 8, 2005 --- 
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110781635344448124,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep


AIDs in Russia
Michael Specter discusses the burgeoning problem of aids in Russia, and the wider demographic crisis that threatens the nation’s future. Here Specter talks to The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson about the connections between disease, democracy, and Russia’s place in the world.

The New Yorker --- http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?041011on_onlineonly01 


What happened to those famous Cuban Cigars?
Ban on smoking in Cuba begins:   Banning smoke in the land of Havanas http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4247667.stm 


Looking ahead is difficult, especially when the future is concerned.
Old Chinese saying.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.
Simone Signoret 

Never follow the beaten track, it leads only where others have been before.
Alexander Graham Bell

The more alternatives, the more difficult the choice.
Abbe' D'Allanival as quoted by Mark Shipiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-02-12-05.htm 
The context in Felice Prager's essay "Time for Electives" is that of offering students too many electives relative to the time and curriculum space to take those electives.


Craigslist:  Popular Online Classifieds
For people who have successfully used the online überclassifieds marketplace known as craigslist to buy something, sell something, get a job, find a date or anything else, there is often a sense that they're in on a secret.  In part that's because of craigslist's rudimentary design -- no graphics, and simple text layouts that look like they could have been done by a 12-year-old.  There is no question that craigslist, with more than 1.7 billion pageviews a month and a presence in nearly 100 cities worldwide, has changed the way many millions of people buy and sell things, meet people, and look for jobs and places to live. Yet at its core, it is just a classifieds service, and in many cases no wilder than what you might find in the ads in a New York or San Francisco alternative weekly newspaper.

Daniel Terdiman, "Wanted: Just About Everything," Wired News, February 8, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66530,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 
To go to Craigslist, click on http://www.craigslist.org/ 
Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


The way it should be whether they win or lose
For the majority of Americans who labor in relative obscurity for unexceptional pay, there is something immensely gratifying about the New England Patriots. They have the ninth lowest payroll of the NFL's 32 teams, few superstars and none of the tiresome prima donnas so common in professional sports these days.

"Workmanlike Winners," USA Today, February 8, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050208/edtwo08.art.htm 


Most Serious Challenges to Academic Freedom

The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses. . . . The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind.
Benno C. Schmidt, Jr., "The University and Freedom," speech to 92nd Street Y (New York: March, 1991), p. 1,3.
As quoted by Craig R. Smith in "Academic Freedom vs. Civil Rights:  A Special Report of the Center for First Amendment Studies California State University, Long Beach," March 2004 --- http://www.csulb.edu/~crsmith/acadfree.html 


Questions
What's the most insulting remark an editor can make when rejecting one of your submissions?
What's the most honest comment an instructor can make when grading a term paper?

Answer
"This Poo should be on Roo Poo!"
"Tasmanian paper made from 'roo poo'," BBC News, February 15, 2005 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4266857.stm 
Poo on Roo Poo means that what is put on the paper is equivalent to what's in the paper (kangaroo manure).


Amazing Parrot Video (I wonder if this one was somehow faked) http://media.animal.discovery.com/fansites/petstar/videogallery/season3/ep309_winner.html 


My Advice:  People just should not wait much longer to get old.
Benefits promised to a burgeoning retirement-age population under mandatory entitlement programs, most notably Social Security and Medicare, threaten to strain the resources of the working-age population in the years ahead,'' Greenspan said.  ``Real progress on these issues will unavoidably entail many difficult choices.
But the demographics are inexorable and call for action,'' he added.

"Greenspan Says Entitlement Programs Need Reform," Associated Press, The New York Times, February 16, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Greenspan.html
Bob Jensen's essay on entitlement is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm 
PS:  On February 16 Greenspan belatedly gave lukewarm support for Bush's Social Security reform plan.  Greenspan thinks that Bush's proposal is not enough.  Greenspan most likely will soon favor drastic cuts in benefits.  The red and blue states may become uniformly black and blue.


Scientists make schizophrenia breakthrough
Opening a window into the minds of people with schizophrenia, a direct link has been identified between the different structure of their brains and their inability to solve problems or plan properly.  Using MRI technology to measure brain function during a test to assess planning abilities and memory, researchers pinpointed the area most affected by schizophrenia - known as the pre-frontal cortex.  The breakthrough will help scientists develop a test to identify people at high risk of developing the disorder and to improve treatments for the one-in-100 Australians it affects.  Vaughan Carr, scientific director of the Neuroscience Institute of Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders research group, said: "The aim would be to identify people earlier and treat them to prevent or delay the onset of the disorder ... because the earlier you treat psychosis the better the outcome."  Due to its three-dimensional folding pattern, the pre-frontal cortex has long posed a challenge for scientists, Professor Carr said.  However, by using sophisticated "image warping" techniques, the researchers were able to create the image of an "average" brain using the MRI scans from 10 healthy young male volunteers and compare it to the brain scans of 10 young men who were experiencing their first episode of schizophrenia.

Ruth Pollard, "Scientists make schizophrenia breakthrough," Sydney Morning Herald, February 18, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/17/1108609351237.html 



Journalism that is inquisitive and intellectually honest, that surprises and unsettles, didn’t always exist.
It is that during the years of heavy shelling—through impeachment and the Florida recount and then the rough 2004 campaign—what they consider their compact with the public has been seriously damaged. Journalism that is inquisitive and intellectually honest, that surprises and unsettles, didn’t always exist. There is no law saying that it must exist forever, and there are political and business interests that would be better off if it didn’t exist and that have worked hard to undermine it. This is what journalists in the mainstream media are starting to worry about: what if people don’t believe in us, don’t want us, anymore?
Nicholas Lemann, "Fear and Favor:  Why is everyone mad at the mainstream media?" The New Yorker,  Issue of 2005-02-14 and 21 --- http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact1 
Jensen Comment:  This is a very long article looks at both sides of a very complicated problem for the media.  I worry about this because the media, not the military or the government, is our main line of defense.  Fortunately, there are outlets, especially blogs, for almost any viewpoint.  The issue with "mainstream" media arises whenever a source pledges political neutrality.  Honesty about non-neutrality makes one free.  Bill Moyers never took a neutrality pledge and was free to attack President X's policies and performances.  Whenever President X did something good, Bill Moyers had every right to remain silent.  The problem with his not pledging neutrality is that a large potential audience refused to tune into Bill Moyers.  Accordingly, they missed some wonderful productions by Moyers that were not at all political.  Dan Rathers, on the otherhand, repeatedly and vocally professed his neutrality and political independence.  When President X did something bad, one expected Dan to do an honest and excellent damnation of President X.  But the mantle of pledged neutrality is such that Dan Rathers is obligated to an honest and excellent praising of President X when something good transpires.  The public in on a witch hunt for hidden agendas of analysts and networks that pledge neutrality.  The Fox network is admittedly not neutral and is thus protected in the same way Bill Moyers is protected.  CNN proclaims neutrality but, in my viewpoint, has repeatedly violated its pledge.  Accordingly it paid a price in viewer ratings.  In an effort to recover, CNN stripped Eason Jordon of all his news managing power 17 months prior to the recent flap that supposedly got him fired (some say his "resignation" was not voluntary).

A flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck (Dan has a point here!)
Dan said:  "It is an obscene comparison. You know I am not sure I like it. But you know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around peoples' necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions.... And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism."
Matt Welch, "Song for Dan Rather:  No critic could hate Diamond Dan more than he hated himself...and the rest of us," ReasonOnline, November 29, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/links/links112904.shtml 


Boon to the multibillion-dollar pornography industry
While all sides agreed that the movies could be considered legally obscene, Judge Lancaster found that federal laws banning obscenity were unconstitutional as applied broadly to pornography distributors like Extreme Associates. The anti-obscenity laws "burden an individual's fundamental right to possess, read, observe and think about what he chooses in the privacy of his own home by completely banning the distribution of obscene materials," the judge wrote in a 45-page opinion.  The closely watched decision was a boon to the multibillion-dollar pornography industry, which has been fighting efforts by the Bush administration to crack down on what the government considers obscene material, particularly on the Internet.

Eric Lichtblau, "Justice Dept. Fights Ruling on Obscenity," The New York Times, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/17/politics/17porn.html


Ripples of the Summers' Remark
Saying higher education's long-standing tenure system isn't family friendly and harms the careers of women, a panel of university leaders called Thursday for colleges to make the traditional academic career path more flexible. Thursday's report, produced by the American Council on Education and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in conjunction with the panel of presidents, asks colleges to consider a number of policy changes, some of which are already being tested on various campuses. Among them: better childcare, and allowing women with young children more time to complete research before being evaluated for tenure. While women account for 51 percent of new doctorates awarded, they account for just 38 percent of university faculty and 28 percent at research universities, the authors noted.

"Report urges more flexibility for tenure system." Associated Press, CNN.com, February 11, 2005 --- http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/02/11/academia.women.ap/index.html  

Harvard Rules:  Lucky Timing for Richard Bradley
Richard Bradley's last book, a decidedly unauthorized biography of John F. Kennedy Jr., rode a wave of controversy to become a No. 1 best seller. But that kind of notoriety seemed like a far reach for his new one, "Harvard Rules," which hits the streets this week. A searing portrait of Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, it did not seem destined for big sales, in part because while academic politics are most notable for their low stakes, they generally have even lower public appeal.  Mr. Bradley returned to Harvard in 2003 to examine the tenure of Dr. Summers, 50, a former Treasury secretary who was hired in the fall of 2001. There were concerns at the time that undergraduate education at the college was slipping from its pre-eminent status and that plans for expansion were stalled by indecisiveness. In his book, Mr. Bradley writes that Dr. Summers succeeded in shaking up the institution, although not always in ways he intended.
David Carr, "Amid the Firestorm, a Portrait of Harvard," The New York Times, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/17/books/17bradley.html 


Tenure Harder to Get at Temple University
A new contract at Temple will make tenure harder to get -- and provide new benefits for full-timers off the tenure track

"Something for Everyone," InsideHigherEd, February 16, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/something_for_everyone 


Good News and Bad News
What looked like a good-news report on minorities in higher education was released Monday: The number of African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American and Native American students enrolled in college doubled during the past decade.  Troubling news, however, is found deeper in the report by the American Council on Education. For African-American men, an alarming gender gap is widening.

"Black men fall behind," USA Today, February 16, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050216/edtwo16.art.htm 


Today, Campus Progress, which is backed by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, opens a campaign to try to win back to liberalism the hearts and minds of American college students.
"The Fight for Students' Minds," InsideHigherEd, February 16, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_fight_for_students_minds 


Australian students soon might be allowed to unionize (and presumably strike)
Student organisations knew this moment was coming because voluntary student unionism has been the ideological pursuit of Liberal governments for more than a decade. Legislation is expected to go to the lower house of Parliament in the coming months, ready for presentation to the Senate after July 1, once the Government has full control of the upper house.
"The campuses have already spoken," Sydney Morning Herald, February 17 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/16/1108500157391.html 


What conversations are perhaps triggered by booze?
When the liquor starts to flow, what do Modern Language Association (MLA) attendees talk about?  Here's a report on some of Tuesday night's receptions (all information about drinks of choice is courtesy of bartenders)

"The Party Report," InsideHigherEd, December 29, 2004 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/mla/the_party_report 


Academic Bill of Rights for Higher Education
Last week, Ohio became the latest state where legislators introduced an "Academic Bill of Rights for Higher Education."  The bill seeks to impose on all private and public colleges and universities an administrative code allegedly designed to prohibit political and religious discrimination. It calls on the institutions to guarantee student access "to a broad range of serious scholarly opinion" and expose them to "a plurality of serious scholarly methodologies and perspectives." It insists that students "be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers" and prohibits discrimination on the basis of "political, ideological, or religious beliefs." Faculty members would be forbidden from using their classrooms "for the purpose of political, ideological, religious, or antireligious indoctrination"; and they would be barred from "persistently introducing controversial matter into the classroom ... that has no relation to their subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose." The bill extends its dubious protections to all student organizations, to the hiring and promotion process, and even to "professional societies formed to advance knowledge within an area of research."

"The New Repression of the Postmodern Right," David Steigerwald, InsideHigherEd, February 11, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/the_new_repression_of_the_postmodern_right 


Light Coming and Going?
Astronomers could be misinterpreting their observations of distant stars, suggest mathematicians.  Starlight may be bent in odd directions when it passes close to a rotating black hole, the researchers say, unexpectedly shifting its source's apparent position in the sky. The cause is a recently discovered phenomenon called negative refraction, which physicists are still struggling to understand.
"Black holes bend light the 'wrong' way," News@Nature.com, February 15, 2005 --- http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050214/full/050214-5.html 


Give Putin a Break 
"The Russian president has had a raw deal in the West." by Padma Desai, The Wall Street Journal, February 17,  2005 --- http://snipurl.com/RussiaFeb17 


This is touching.
Most art historians had always detected the style of Leonardo da Vinci in the mysterious painting The Adoration of the Christ Child, which is regarded as a gem of the Renaissance.  But there was never any proof. Now, a fingerprint discovered in the original paint may finally solve the puzzle.  Experts at Rome's Galleria Borghese, where the painting, widely known as the Tondo (Round), is housed, discovered the print after removing layers of varnish from the 500-year-old circular painting during restoration work last year.
Sophie Arie in Rome, "Fingerprint could solve da Vinci riddle," Sydney Morning Herald, February 17, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/16/1108500147797.html 


The Biggest Scam in History
The U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal is the biggest scam in the history of humanitarian aid. And it's Kofi Annan's fault.
Claudia Rosett, "Blame Game, The New Republic, February 16, 2005 --- https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20050221&s=rosett022105 
Bob Jensen updates on fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 


A Kiwi Business Man Takes the Reins at Oxford
When Oxford University appointed John A. Hood vice-chancellor last fall, the venerable institution made a sharp break with tradition. Although Hood, a New Zealander, attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship and holds a doctorate in engineering, he is the first vice-chancellor to come from outside Oxford's academic ranks. Hood worked in business for 19 years, running both the construction and pulp-and-paper arms of Fletcher Challenge, a New Zealand conglomerate. He became vice-chancellor of the University of Auckland in 1999.
"Capital and Gown at Oxford," Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/OxfordFeb8 


The Poetry Home Repair Model
Ted Kooser could be mistaken for an average guy except for one thing: He writes poetry. That activity sets him apart from most of his neighbors, since they, like most Americans, have very little time for the stuff. A resident of Nebraska and the first U.S. poet laureate from the Great Plains, Mr. Kooser takes a broadly inclusive approach to promoting poetry; even so, he harbors no illusions about its becoming the national pastime anytime soon.  Mr. Kooser captures this outsider-status neatly in "The Poetry Home Repair Model," his guide to aspiring poets and aspiring readers of verse. "If, at a neighborhood yard sale, you happened to find the original handwritten manuscript of T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land,'" he notes, "you could take it to every quick shop in your city and you wouldn't find a single person who would trade you ten gallons of gas for it."
David Yezzi, "Lessons of the Laureate," The Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110783374161348659,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


Hiding History
"The events, images, narratives and songs of Eyes on the Prize were not written, created or performed by the corporations who now have the copyrights under their lock and key," said Bruce Hartford, reading from a statement signed by the 20-plus members of the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement group.  "These folks are burying our history," said Jelinek, who spent three years in the South working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, spending some of that time ducking gunfire. "Copyright law was never meant to interfere with the public's right to know. We expected that the experiences would be in the public domain.... The people who are barring this will have to pay a price."
Katie Dean, "Putting Eyeballs on Copyright Law," Wired News, February 9, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,66550,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5 


Some people have good hobbits and others have bad hobbits or no hobbits at all
Australian scientists who believe they have found a new species of mini human fear a maverick Indonesian scientist who has locked away the priceless remains may never give them back.  The world of archaeology was stunned last October with the announcement of the discovery of a well-preserved skeleton of a fully grown female, barely a metre tall, in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. The discovery of the so-called "hobbit", after J.R.R. Tolkien's mythical characters, has turned common theories about human evolution on their head.
"Hobbit Remains Kept Out of Reach," The New Zealand Herald, February 12, 2005 --- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10010714 


There should be more chance encounters like this one.
"I had no idea who he was," recalled Brassard, then a 24-year-old prodigy and computer-science professor at the Universite de Montreal. "He just started talking nonsense about quantum physics."  The stranger turned out to be U.S. physicist Charles H. Bennett. Their chance meeting while attending a theoretical computer science conference would end up revolutionizing the art of code making, also known as cryptography.
Alison MacGregor, "Quantum leap A chance encounter between a computer-science professor and a physicist launches new field of quantum cryptography," The Gazette, February 11, 2005 --- http://www.canada.com/technology/story.html?id=deca9b6c-4f85-4475-87eb-1d2277bffaa0 


Richard Sansing pointed out my error. This is only satire!
Fred and Barney should be banned because they are virtually inseparable, are never seen wearing pants and live together in the suggestively-named town of Bedrock, complains a conservative activist.  The ongoing campaign against alleged gay icons in animated cartoons continued today as a newly formed conservative group demanded that television stations stop broadcasting "The Flintstones" at once.
Andy Borowitz, "Flintstones Are ‘Way Too Gay’," Newsweek, February 11, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6934878/site/newsweek/ 


Here's one that's not satire.
SpongeBob -- An editorial Saturday about children's literature and cartoons erroneously stated that James Dobson of Focus on the Family declared that SpongeBob SquarePants is a homosexual sponge. Instead, in a speech last month, Dobson criticized as pro-homosexual a tolerance video featuring SpongeBob, Big Bird and others.
This correction apparently appeared in the Los Angeles Times.  I read it in Editor and Publisher, February 10, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/LATimesFeb12 


Diversions Art Exhibit
This exhibit, based on the recently published book by the same name, traces MoMA's 75-year-old history from its humble origins on 57th Street in the Heckscher Building to its 21st-century incarnation of endless space and glass. Historical photographs, archival documents, many on public view for the first time, and a 45-foot projection screen showing visitors milling through the museum's new environs are on display.
"Diversions Art in Our Time: A Chronicle of the Museum of Modern," The Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110783422054748674,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


This might set a legal precedent for all colleges and universities.
It also might root out instructors who give high grades in hopes of higher student evaluations.

The student newspaper at Oklahoma State University has won a three-month fight to get records in an electronic format regarding the grades professors give students.  School officials say the names of the students will be blacked out.  Sean Hill, a journalism student and editor of The Daily O'Collegian, requested the information in November so he could compare the average grades of different sections of the same classes. The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City and the Tulsa World joined in the request.  School officials said at the time they would provide the records, but not in an electronic format. OSU spokesman Gary Shutt now says the school can provide records in the electronic format without jeopardizing student privacy and confidentiality.
Editor and Publisher, February 10, 2005 --- http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000798377 
Jensen Comment:  
Backed by studies such as the huge study at Duke and other colleges, I've long contended that student evaluations, when they heavily impact tenure granting and performance evaluation, present a moral hazard and lead to grade inflation across the campus.  But I'm wary of using data such as that described above to root out "easy" graders.  Some instructors may be giving out higher grades after forcing out weaker students before the course dropping deadline and/or by scaring off weak students by sheer reputation for being tough.  My solution, for the moral hazard of grade inflation caused by fear of student course evaluations, entails having colleges create Teaching Quality Control (TQC) Departments that act in strict confidentiality when counseling instructors receiving low student evaluations.  The student evaluations themselves should be communicated only to the TQC Department and the instructors.  Because of moral hazard, student evaluations should not be factored into tenure decisions or performance evaluations.  In order to evaluate teaching for tenure and performance evaluations, instructors should take turns sitting in other instructor courses with the proviso that no instructor sits in on a course in that instructor's department/school.  In other words, English instructors should sit in on accounting courses and vice versa.  This need not entail sitting in on all classes, and incentives must be provided for faculty to take on the added workload.  

I think that this coupled with a TOC confidential counseling operation will make good teachers even better as well as reduce bad teaching and grade inflation that has caused some schools like Princeton University to put caps on the number of A grades.  Corporations have Quality Control departments.  Why shouldn't colleges try improving quality in a similar manner?  The average course grade across many campuses is now a B+ to an A-.  Student evaluations are a major factor, if not the major factor, in giving a C grade a bad name.  I'm not saying that professors with high student evaluations are easy graders.  What I am saying is that weak or unprepared teachers are giving easy grades to improve their own students' evaluations.  Student evaluations are even more of a moral hazard when they are made available to students and the public at large.
You can read more about grade inflation and student evaluations at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation 


In the (Hobbit) Land 
The German hobbit's view of life is characterized by low expectations, constant emphasis on limits, nostalgia for the past, idealization of nature, and a deep-seated distrust of the workings of the market. When computers became affordable in the early 1980s, the German media discussed the new technologies from two points of view. First, computers were job-killers. Second, computers would lead to Orwellian surveillance of all citizens (the Green Party accordingly decided to boycott computers). When cell phones appeared, the danger of radiation from broadcast towers was the number one issue. The success of the Internet primarily triggered fears of being swamped with pornography and Nazi propaganda. Reproductive medicine? Frankenstein scientists are trying to clone people. Stem cell research? They're planning to use people for spare parts. Genetic engineering of plants? Monster tomatoes!
Dirk Maxeiner and Michael Miersch, "Willkommen to Hobbitland," The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110800735612451036,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 


The Second Enclosure Movement
Wark’s opus A Hacker Manifesto brings together England’s Enclosure Movement, Das Kapital, and the corporate ownership of information—a process that Duke University law professor James Boyle called “the Second Enclosure Movement”—to create a unified theory of domination, struggle, and freedom. Hacking is not a product of the computer age, writes Wark, but an ancient rite in which abstractions are created and information is transformed. The very creation of private property was a hack, he argues—a legal hack—and like many other hacks, once this abstraction was created, it was taken over by the ruling class and used as a tool of subjugation.

"Hack License," by Simson Garfinkel, MIT's Technology Review, March 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/issue/review_hack.asp?trk=nl 


Enough is Enough
A group of Harvard University alumni, upset at pay levels for managers of the school's $22.6 billion endowment, are calling for more use of the fund to benefit students, wider disclosure, and new restrictions on how the money is handled.  In a letter to Harvard President Lawrence Summers, 11 members of the Harvard class of 1969 asked that departing fund managers be disqualified from managing any portion of Harvard's endowment. The group also wants to eliminate any deferred bonuses for managers in the current year and says no manager should be paid more than Mr. Summers, who earned $529,000 in 2002-2003, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

"Harvard Pay Draws Alumni Ire," by Rachel Zimmerman, The Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2005, Page D2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110790422868449315,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


Significance of Quotation Marks --- http://snipurl.com/PricklyFeb10 
The Chicago Tribune declined to publish Monday's Prickly City  strip, which made a joke at Ted Kennedy's expense.   The Trib says it pulled the strip not out of sympathy to Massachusetts' senior senator but because Kennedy didn't actually utter the quote. Cartoonist Scott Stantis says his syndicate fouled up.  Stantis said he knew "They lied and people died" wasn't a direct quote from Kennedy. The cartoonist condensed and paraphrased what Kennedy had said into those five words, and didn't put them in quote marks before sending the strip to Universal. The syndicate, according to Stantis, inserted the quote marks.
Opinion Journal, February 9, 2005


The Droopy Drawers bill goes down in awestruck defeat!
"Underwear is called underwear for a reason," said Republican lawmaker John Reid before the lower house vote.  "Most of us would identify this as a coarsening of society."
"U.S. State's Bid to Outlaw 'Droopy Drawers' Defeated," Weird News, February 11, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/coarsening 
Jensen Comment:  The so-called Droopy Drawers bill has reference to popular low-riding jeans and shorts.  The bill was overwhelmingly passed by the Lower House and overwhelmingly defeated by the Upper House of the Virginia Legislature.  I suspect the Upper House had more old men, like yours truly, in need of titillation.  A psychology professor had to explain to me what the term "plumber's cleavage" means.


How to Lie With Statistics
Number Watch is devoted to the monitoring of the misleading numbers that rain down on us via the media. Whether they are generated by Single Issue Fanatics (SIFs), politicians, bureaucrats, quasi-scientists (junk, pseudo- or just bad), such numbers swamp the media, generating unnecessary alarm and panic. They are seized upon by media, hungry for eye-catching stories. There is a growing band of people whose livelihoods depend on creating and maintaining panic. There are also some who are trying to keep numbers away from your notice and others who hope that you will not make comparisons. Their stock in trade is the gratuitous lie. The aim here is to nail just a few of them.
Nmber Watch --- http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm 
Especially note the FAQs --- http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/FAQs.htm 
Some scientists assert that John Brignell does not practice what he preaches.  
Other comments and reviews are provided below.


My scientist friends scream Bah Humbug!
Since it was published four years ago, the "hockey stick" temperature graph has been used by hundreds of environmentalists, scientists and policy makers to make the case that the industrial era is the cause of global warming. Now, a semiretired Canadian mining executive is raising doubts about the graphic's veracity.

Antonio Regalado, "In Climate Debate, The 'Hockey Stick' Leads to a Face-Off," The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2005, Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110834031507653590,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 


Myanmar's improbable tsunami statistics and the casualty numbers game.
Kerry Howley, "Disaster Math," ReasonOnline, January 7, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/links/links010705.shtml 


Is this what we mean by "political incorrectness?"
A Tennessee state House member is distributing a flyer with the slogan "Voting for Bush is like running in the Special Olympics: Even if you win, you're still retarded," reports the Traditional Values Coalition. Republican challenger Dave Dahl says opponent, Democratic incumbent Craig Fitzhugh, has been passing out the flyers for two weeks from the Fitzhugh campaign office in Ripley, which also serves as the local headquarters for the Kedwards campaign, according to the coalition.
"TVC Condemns TN Democrat For Distributing Flyer Belittling Special Olympics Kids," National Values Coalition, October 24, 2004 ---  http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005752#chicken 


No!  This is not about the recent election in the United States
So here's the scenario. A conservative prime minister, much reviled by the liberal press and disliked personally by all the left-wing intelligentsia, sends hundreds of his country's troops to Iraq in support of the US operation there and in the next general election wins a victory far beyond expectations.
Opinion Journal, February 9, 2005


Business expenses need to pass strict IRS tests, no matter what kind of business entity you're operating.
Karen E. Klein, "Business Bills and Deduction Dilemmas," Business Week, February 10, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/BusWkFeb11 


An Embarrassing Message from the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q1.htm#RalphPeters 

What I wrote before February 12, 2005
Not a good image for a network that bills itself as "the most trusted name in news."
If Eason Jordan worked for CBS he'd have been fired for lack of evidence.   This also begs the question that, if it is so dangerous to accompany U.S. forces, why don't CNN  journalists accompany the terrorist forces on ambush missions where they'd be safe.

"... at least 10 journalists have been killed by the U.S. military, and according to reports I believe to be true, journalists have been arrested and tortured by U.S. forces."
Eason Jordan, CNN executive vice president

Breaking News on February 12, 2005
Eason Jordan, a senior executive at CNN, resigned on Friday night, citing a tempest he touched off during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  Mr. Jordan was then challenged by Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who was in the audience. Mr. Jordan then said that he had intended to say only that some journalists had been killed by American troops who did not know they were aiming their weapons at journalists.
Jacques Steinberg and Katherine Q. Seelye, "CNN Executive Resigns Post Over Remarks," The New York Times, February 12, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/business/media/12cnn.html 
And if you believe the sentence above, then I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona that you can buy cheap.

Mr. Jordan was a key guardian of CNN's hard-news tradition, instrumental in turning what was once dismissed as the "chicken noodle network" into a global powerhouse. Under Mr. Jordan, CNN built bureaus around the world at the same time the broadcast networks were slashing budgets and cutting back on international coverage.  But more recently, as the Time Warner Inc. unit fell in the ratings behind News Corp.'s Fox News and the executive suite acquired a revolving door, Mr. Jordan's stature at the network began to diminish. Once in charge of coordinating all of CNN's coverage world-wide, a management shakeup 17 months ago left him with the vague title of executive vice president and chief news executive, with no oversight of network operations.
Joe Flint, "Eason Jordan's Exit Is the Latest Indicator Of CNN's Challenges," The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2005, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110816444814952822,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Over a year ago, Eason Jordan did not get an A grade from CNN
Mr. Jordan was a key guardian of CNN's hard-news tradition, instrumental in turning what was once dismissed as the "chicken noodle network" into a global powerhouse. Under Mr. Jordan, CNN built bureaus around the world at the same time the broadcast networks were slashing budgets and cutting back on international coverage.  But more recently, as the Time Warner Inc. unit fell in the ratings behind News Corp.'s Fox News and the executive suite acquired a revolving door, Mr. Jordan's stature at the network began to diminish. Once in charge of coordinating all of CNN's coverage world-wide, a management shakeup 17 months ago left him with the vague title of executive vice president and chief news executive, with no oversight of network operations.

Joe Flint, "Eason Jordan's Exit Is the Latest Indicator Of CNN's Challenges," The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2005, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110816444814952822,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 


Some say CNN gave Eason an F grade and then fired him (CNN had all but done so previously)
Now people are wondering what it all means. Some people are claiming that Jordan was a victim of "McCarthyism" -- but as Austin Bay notes, that is a backward perspective. It was Jordan who was making unsubstantiated charges, a la McCarthy, not those who called for him to back them up.  What's more, as blogger Jeff Jarvis observed on Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources program today,
it was CNN that fired Jordan, not bloggers.

"Taking the Eason Way Out," MSNBC, February 14, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3395977/ 

The WSJ does not assign an F grade to Eason Jordan
I might add the The Wall Street Journal (February 14) is far less critical of "Easongate" than it is of "Rathergate."  I mean less critical to a point where maybe Eason should not have resigned so quickly 
"The Jordan Kerfuffle," The Wall Street Journal,  February 14, 2005; Page A18--- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110834650277353698,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

Some bloggers get A grades and some get F grades on a Variety of Blogging Topics
See "Mixing the Mob and the Media" at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6409077/ 

I might add the The Wall Street Journal (February 14) is far less critical of "Easongate" than it is of "Rathergate."  I mean less critical to a point where maybe Eason should not have resigned so quickly 
"The Jordan Kerfuffle," The Wall Street Journal,  February 14, 2005; Page A18--- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110834650277353698,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

 




You should probably forward this link to your personnel office!
New Education Department Web Site Helps Combat Problem of Diploma Mills --- http://www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation/ 
The state of Oregon, which keeps a running tally of the institutions, estimates that there are between 200 and 250 such 'schools' running at any one time

Wyoming's Diploma Mill Friendly

"Wyoming the home of online schools State law allows the operation of unaccredited facilities," by Mead Gruver, USA Today, February 9, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050209/a_wyoming09.art.htm 

“I just don't believe that the good should be thrown out with the bad,” she says. “I know how much money accrediting institutions charge universities and colleges — and I'm a little bit tired that they think they're the end-all.”

Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mills are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill 


United Nations (read that United Nepotism)
The UN oil-for-food program chief, under scrutiny for alleged corruption and mismanagement, blocked a proposed audit of his office around the same time he is accused of soliciting lucrative oil deals from Iraq, investigators said. A UN auditing team, which was severely understaffed, said running the $64 billion oil-for-food program was ''a high-risk activity" and a priority for review. But Benon Sevan denied the auditors' request to hire a consultant to examine his office in May 2001.
"Oil-for-food chief said to block audit," Boston Globe, February 13, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2005/02/13/oil_for_food_chief_said_to_block_audit/ 

The Biggest Scam in History
The U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal is the biggest scam in the history of humanitarian aid. And it's Kofi Annan's fault.
Claudia Rosett, "Blame Game, The New Republic, February 16, 2005 --- https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20050221&s=rosett022105 
Bob Jensen updates on fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 

We will probably never know the full truth of the United Nations' oil-for-food scandal. We will probably never see any of those implicated in the scandal punished. And that's just the way the U.N. wants it. 
David Frum, "The Scandal That is the United Nations," USA Today, February 16, 2005, Page 15A
The scandal that is the United Nations The oil-for-food debacle is merely a symptom. The very structure of the U.N. invites fraud and abuse — with no accountability. A world body could serve a vital role. This one, though, doesn't.


February 17, 2005 message from David Coy [dcoy@adrian.edu

Bob:

Here's a link to an article on identity theft and fraud from today's Washington Post.

David Coy 
Adrian College

*******************************

The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments: Shortcut to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30897-2005Feb16.html?referrer=email 

Bob Jensen's Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 


FCC Posts Lists of Sites That Send Spam to Cell Phones --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/ap/ap_2020805.asp?trk=nl 


"While Switching to Mac Will Improve Security, It Isn't for Everybody," Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal,  February 17, 2005; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110859297812556954,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Over the past year, I have advised readers who are fed up with the plague of viruses and spyware on Windows PCs that one way out of the mess is to switch to Apple Computer's Macintosh. There has yet to be a report of a successful, real-world virus for the Mac's current operating system, and there is little or no known spyware for the Mac.

I stand by that advice, and also by my positive reviews of recent Mac models, especially the impressive iMac G5. But, as I have noted in the past, switching to the Mac has downsides, and it isn't the best course for some groups of Windows users. So here's a brief guide to which types of users might find switching inadvisable.

In general, the best candidates for a switch to the Mac are those who use their computers overwhelmingly for common, mainstream consumer tasks. These include e-mail, instant messaging and Web browsing; word processing, spreadsheets and presentations; working with photos, home videos and digital music; and playing and creating CDs and DVDs.

The Mac is as good as Windows at these core tasks, and in many cases better. Still, you certainly shouldn't consider switching to the Mac if you are happy with Windows and you aren't much affected by viruses and spyware.

Even if you aren't happy with Windows, don't consider switching to the Mac if you are resistant to learning new ways of doing things. The Mac and Windows are close cousins, but there is a learning curve that comes with switching.

For instance, Apple uses a one-button mouse without a scroll wheel, which takes some getting used to. There are differences in the way menus and desktop windows behave. And the standard delete key on a Mac works like the backspace key, not the delete key, in Windows. Mac desktop keyboards have a second, Windows-type delete key, but Mac laptops lack one.

And don't consider switching if your budget covers only the cost of the Mac itself. There will usually be extra costs. To maintain compatibility with the Windows world, you will probably want a copy of the Mac version of Microsoft Office, which isn't included by Apple. And you may want a standard two-button, Windows-style mouse, which works fine on the Mac but isn't included.

Also, Windows users who rely on specialized business or technical software, or on custom software supplied by their employers, should be wary of switching. That's because the Mac can't run Windows software straight out of the box, and these kinds of specialized Windows programs are rarely available in Mac versions.

You can enable a Mac to run Windows programs by buying a $240 program from Microsoft called Virtual PC. It creates a pseudo Windows computer on a portion of a Mac's hard disk. But I don't recommend relying on Virtual PC if you use multiple Windows programs frequently, because it's slow and susceptible to the same viruses and spyware as a real Windows PC.

People who depend on their company's IT department to manage and support their home computers may find themselves locked into Windows. Most corporate computer staffs support only Windows and know little or nothing about Macs.

Continued in the article

"Mossberg's Mailbox," The Wall Street Journal, February 17, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110859678433657057,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Q: Is there software available that will automatically shut down my computer at a specified time each day?

A: Yes, there are multiple Windows programs that do this, though I haven't tested any of them, and so can't recommend one in particular. If you go to www.download.com, and type in "shutdown," you'll find a bunch of shutdown programs, some free and others modestly priced. Some of these utilities simply shut down the machine at a specified time. Others include elaborate options, such as performing certain clean-up tasks before the shutdown, or waking the computer from sleep at a certain time.

Q: Currently, I have three antispyware programs and two antivirus programs running on my PC. Is this overkill? Will the multiple programs interfere with each other's performance?

A: Yes and no. You can certainly keep multiple antivirus and antispyware programs around to perform manual scans of your system, initiated by you, one at a time. Especially in the case of antispyware software, one program may find evil stuff that another missed. This is less useful with the major antivirus programs, which are more mature and generally detect and remove the same things.

However, I would never have more than one antivirus program, or more than one antispyware program, actively running in autoprotect mode, where these programs are constantly active, and trying to block incoming traffic from the Internet that they suspect contains viruses or spyware. They will trip over each other and likely cause problems on your PC. For the same reason, I don't recommend running multiple firewall programs.

Q: What software do you recommend for zipping and unzipping files?

A: For compressing, or "zipping," files, or uncompressing files that have been zipped, I have always used and liked WinZip. It's available at www.winzip.com for $30, and is free to try for 21 days. There are also some free zipping and unzipping utilities, such as CoffeeCup Free Zip Wizard (www.coffeecup.com/zip-wizard), but I haven't tested them.

However, if you are using Windows XP, you don't need a separate zip/unzip utility. The operating system has the built-in capability to zip and unzip files.

Bob Jensen's updates on computer and network security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 




I call your attention to the Spring 2005 newsletter called “The Accounting Educator” from the Teaching and Curriculum Section of the American Accounting Association --- http://aaahq.org/TeachCurr/newsletters/index.htm

The current Chair (Tomas Calderon) has a piece about “reflection” which is nice to reflect upon.  There are abstracts of papers in other journals that relate to education, and an assortment of teaching cases.

Marinus Bouman has a nice piece entitled “Using Technology To Integrate Accounting Into The Business Curriculum.”  Interestingly, the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansa no longer has courses in Principles of Accounting (or Marketing or Finance).  You should read Bouman’s article to find out what took the place of these principles courses in a daring curriculum experiment.  The approach differs from the early "studio" experiments where some common core university pedagogies were drastically altered --- http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Studio1

Since I teach accounting theory, I found Bob Clusky’s paper “Where’s Accounting Theory) quite interesting.  Even more than AIS, “Accounting Theory” is a phrase still in search of a definition.

Tim Fogerty has a piece on Distance Education.  It is somewhat negative in tone, but Tim seems to sigh that the march forward is inevitable and the current boundaries of education from one program or one institution will evaporate as students seek courses and modules from anywhere in the world.  I might take issue with some of his conclusions such as testing and/or assessment, but this is not the time or the place for that.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

There is much, much more of interest in this 32 page newsletter.  Go to http://aaahq.org/TeachCurr/newsletters/index.htm

Page 4 describes a forum to be headed up by Tim Fogarty (Case Western) and Call for Papers in which the last paragraph reads as follows:

*******************************
Issues in Accounting Education, in conjunction with the Teaching & Curriculum Section of the AAA has asked me to edit a dedicated forum with an expected publication date of Spring 2006. I would like to extend an opportunity to accounting educators to submit essays for this issue. Proposed pieces for inclusion should be 25 pages (double spaced) or less. Submissions will be peer-reviewed with an emphasis on clarity and strength of ideas. The deadline for the first drafts is
March 1, 2005 . There would also be an opportunity to discuss these ideas in a CPE session at the AAA meeting in San Francisco .
*****************************

Bravo to Thomas, Tim, and other volunteers who are continuing the momentum of this essential section of the AAA!  This is the lifeblood of why we are in this profession.  


Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation 

Question
What was the average grade at Harvard in 1940?

Answer
In 1940, Harvard students had an unbelievable number of grades below a C grade.

http://www.thecrimson.com/fmarchives/fm_03_01_2001/article4A.html 

In 1940, more Harvard students had an average grade of C- than any other GPA.

By 1986, that C- had ballooned to a B+. Today more students receive As and Bs than ever before. And that’s about as far as the consensus on grade inflation goes. Harry R. Lewis ‘68, dean of the College, doesn’t even use the word without distancing himself from its connotations. “I think that by far the dominant cause of grade ‘inflation’ at Harvard,” Lewis writes in an e-mail message, “is the application of constant grading standards to the work of ever more talented students.”

Continued in article

The average grade in leading private universities in 1992 was 3.11.  
In 2002 it jumped to 3.26 on a four point scale.

Average undergraduate GPA for Alabama, California-Irvine, Carleton, Duke, Florida, Georgia Tech, Hampden-Sydney, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Nebraska-Kearney, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina-Greensboro, Northern Michigan, Pomona, Princeton, Purdue, Texas, University of Washington, Utah, Wheaton (Illinois), Winthrop, and Wisconsin-La Crosse. Note that inclusion in the average does not imply that an institution has significant inflation. Data on GPAs for each institution can be found at the bottom of this web page. Institutions comprising this average were chosen strictly because they have either published their data or have sent their data to the author on GPA trends over the last 11 years.
GradeInflation.com --- http://gradeinflation.com/ 

Grade inflation is emerging as the new leading scandal of higher education.
"The great grade-inflation lie Critics say that cushy grading is producing ignorant college students and a bankrupt education system," by Tom Scocca, The Boston Phoenix April 23 - 30, 1998 ---
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/98/04/23/GRADE_INFLATION.html 

It is important to look for counter arguments that it is dysfunctional to make students compete for high grades.  Probably best article that higher grades are not a leading scandal in higher education appears in the following article.
"The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation," by Alfie Kohn, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 8, 2002 --- http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/gi.htm 
Jensen's Comment:  Kohn's argument seems to boil down to a conclusion that it is immoral to make students compete for the highest grades.  But he fails to account for the fact that virtually all universities do make students compete for A grades.  There are simply a lot more winners (in some cases about 50%) in modern times.  How do he think this makes the very best students and the students who got B (good) grades feel?  

Dartmouth's Answer
On May 23, 1994 the Faculty voted that transcripts and student grade reports should indicate, along with the grade earned, the median grade given in the class as well as the class enrollment. Departments may recommend, with approval of the Committee on Instruction, that certain courses (e.g., honors classes, independent study) be exempted from this provision. Courses with enrollments of less than ten will also be exempted. At the bottom of the transcript there will be a summary statement of the following type: 'Exceeded the median grade in 13 courses; equaled the median grade in 7 courses; below the median grade in 13 courses; 33 courses taken eligible for this comparison.' This provision applies to members of the Class of 1998 and later classes.
"Median Grades for Undergraduate Courses" --- http://www.dartmouth.edu/~reg/courses/medians/index.html 

The Emperor’s Not Wearing Any Clothes
“But he has nothing on at all,” said a little child at last. “Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child,” said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. “But he has nothing on at all,” cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, “Now I must bear up to the end.” And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried the train which did not exist.
Hans Christian Andersen  New Suit," (1837) --- http://hca.gilead.org.il/emperor.html 

And many students get the highest grades with superficial effort and sometimes with humor
It may be hard to get into Harvard, but it's easy to get out without learning much of enduring value at all. A recent graduate's report by Ross Douthat
"
The Truth About Harvard," by Ross Douthat, The Atlantic, March 2005 --- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200503/douthat 

At the beginning of every term Harvard students enjoy a one-week "shopping period," during which they can sample as many courses as they like and thus—or so the theory goes—concoct the most appropriate schedule for their semesters. There is a boisterous quality to this stretch, a sense of intellectual possibility, as people pop in and out of lecture halls, grabbing syllabi and listening for twenty minutes or so before darting away to other classes.

The enthusiasm evaporates quickly once the shopping period ends. Empty seats in the various halls and auditoriums multiply as the semester rattles along, until rooms that were full for the opening lecture resemble the stadium of a losing baseball team during a meaningless late-August game. There are pockets of diehards in the front rows, avidly taking notes, and scattered observers elsewhere—students who overcame the urge to hit the snooze button and hauled themselves to class, only to realize that they've missed so many lectures and fallen so far behind that taking notes is a futile exercise. Better to wait for the semester's end, when they can take exhaustive notes at the review sessions that are always helpfully provided—or simply go to the course's Web site, where the professor has uploaded his lecture notes, understanding all too well the character and study habits of his seldom-glimpsed students.

Continued in article

Harvard University's grading policy is outlined at http://www.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/handbooks/instructor.2003-2004/chapter5/grading.html 
Also see http://www.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/handbooks/instructor.2003-2004/chapter5/rank_list.html 

Half the undergraduate students at Harvard get A or A- (up from a third in 1985)
Less than 10% get a C or below

All Things Considered, November 21, 2001 · Student's grades at Harvard University have soared in the last 10 years. According to a report issued Tuesday by the dean of undergraduate education, nearly half of the grades issued last year were A's or A-minuses. In 1985, just a third of the grades were A or A-minus. Linda Wertheimer talks with Susan Pedersen, Dean of Undergraduate Education and a Professor of History at Harvard University, about grade inflation.
Harvard Grade Inflation, National Public Radio --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1133702 
You can also listen to the NPR radio broadcast about this at the above link.

Can no longer reward the very best with higher grades
Students at Harvard who easily get A's may be smarter, but with so many of them, professors can no longer reward the very best with higher grades. Losing this motivational tool could, paradoxically, cause achievement to fall.

"Doubling of A's at Harvard: Grade inflation or brains?" By Richard Rothstein, The New York Times, December 5, 2001 --- http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeat_lessons20011205 

A Harvard University report last spring complained of grade inflation that makes it easier to get high grades. Now the academic dean, Susan Pedersen, has released data showing that 49 percent of undergraduate grades were A's in 2001, up considerably from 23 percent in 1986.

Colleges and high schools are often accused of tolerating grade inflation, because teachers have adopted lower standards and hesitate to confront lower-performing students. Critics warn that if grading is too easy, learning will lag.

But grade inflation is harder to detect than it seems.

Inflation means giving a higher value to the same thing that once had a lower one. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks price inflation, but it is not easy. Automobile
prices have gone up, but cars now have air bags and electronic ignitions. Consumers today pay more not only for the same thing but for a better thing. These factors are hard to untangle.

Grade inflation is similarly complicated. More A's could be a result of smarter students. Ivy League colleges compute an academic index for freshmen based on their College Board SAT and achievement test scores. Harvard's index numbers have been rising, and few students have numbers that were common at the low end of the class 15 years ago. So if students are more proficient, there should be more A's, even if grading is just as strict.

At Harvard, Dean Pedersen noted that students might study harder than before, perhaps because graduate schools are more competitive. Classes are now smaller, so better teaching could result in better learning. More A's would then reflect more achievement, not inflation.

What grades measure can also change. Harvard professors now say they demand more reasoning and less memorization. Whether or not this is desirable, higher grades that follow may not be inflationary. Government price surveyors face similar problems when products change: if consumers who once shopped at Sears now buy the same shirt at Nordstrom, are they paying more for the same thing (inflation) or for a different thing (more service)?

Dr. Pedersen agrees that higher grades may sometimes be given for the same work. But she doubts that inflation is the main cause of the rise in grades. Another dean, Harry R. Lewis, calculated that Harvard grades rose as much from 1930 to 1966 as from 1967 to the present, so the trend is not new. Neither are accusations of inflation: a Harvard report in 1894 also warned that grades of A and B had become too easy.

Grade inflation in high schools is elusive as well. RAND researchers found there was actually some national grade deflation from 1982 to 1992 — students with the same math scores got lower grades at the end of the period than at the start.

But seniors with similar scores on entrance exams (the SAT and ACT) now have slightly higher grades than before. Perhaps this inconsistency results from inflation affecting top students (those likely to take the exams) more than others. Or perhaps grades deflated from 1982 to 1992, but inflated at other times.

Since 1993, the State of Georgia has given free college tuition to students with B averages. Critics say grade inflation resulted because, with B's worth a lot of money, high school teachers now give borderline students a greater benefit of the doubt.

But if a promise of scholarships led students to work harder, higher grades would not signal inflation. And indeed, one study found that Georgia's black students with B averages had higher SAT scores than before the program began.

Even if inflation is less than it seems, rising grades pose a problem that rising prices do not. Prices can rise without limit, but grades cannot go above A+. When more students get A's, grades no longer can show which ones are doing truly superior work. This is called "grade compression" and is probably a more serious problem than inflation.

Students at Harvard who easily get A's may be smarter, but with so many of them, professors can no longer reward the very best with higher grades. Losing this motivational tool could, paradoxically, cause achievement to fall.

Continued in the article

Students get two grades from Harvey Mansfield at Harvard University
"The Truth About Harvard," by Ross Douthat, The Atlantic, March 2005 --- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200503/douthat 
Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation 

He paused, flashed his grin, and went on. "Nevertheless, I have recently decided that hewing to the older standard is fruitless when no one else does, because all I succeed in doing is punishing students for taking classes with me. Therefore I have decided that this semester I will issue two grades to each of you. The first will be the grade that you actually deserve —a C for mediocre work, a B for good work, and an A for excellence. This one will be issued to you alone, for every paper and exam that you complete. The second grade, computed only at semester's end, will be your, ah, ironic grade — 'ironic' in this case being a word used to mean lying —and it will be computed on a scale that takes as its mean the average Harvard grade, the B-plus. This higher grade will be sent to the registrar's office, and will appear on your transcript. It will be your public grade, you might say, and it will ensure, as I have said, that you will not be penalized for taking a class with me." Another shark's grin. "And of course, only you will know whether you actually deserve it." 

Mansfield had been fighting this battle for years, long enough to have earned the sobriquet "C-minus" from his students, and long enough that his frequent complaints about waning academic standards were routinely dismissed by Harvard's higher-ups as the out-of-touch crankiness of a conservative fogey. But the ironic-grade announcement changed all that. Soon afterward his photo appeared on the front page of The Boston Globe, alongside a story about the decline of academic standards. Suddenly Harvard found itself mocked as the academic equivalent of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.

You've got to be unimaginatively lazy or dumb to get a C at Harvard (less than 10% get below a B-)
Harvard does not admit dumb students, so the C students must be unimaginative, troubled, and/or very lazy.
It doesn't help that Harvard students are creatively lazy, gifted at working smarter rather than harder. Most of my classmates were studious primarily in our avoidance of academic work, and brilliant largely in our maneuverings to achieve a maximal GPA in return for minimal effort.
"
The Truth About Harvard," by Ross Douthat, The Atlantic, March 2005 --- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200503/douthat 

This may be partly true, but I think that the roots of grade inflation —and, by extension, the overall ease and lack of seriousness in Harvard's undergraduate academic culture —run deeper. Understanding grade inflation requires understanding the nature of modern Harvard and of elite education in general —particularly the ambitions of its students and professors. 

The students' ambitions are those of a well-trained meritocratic elite. In the semi-aristocracy that Harvard once was, students could accept Cs, because they knew their prospects in life had more to do with family fortunes and connections than with GPAs. In today's meritocracy this situation no longer obtains. Even if you could live off your parents' wealth, the ethos of the meritocracy holds that you shouldn't, because your worth as a person is determined not by clan or class but by what you do and whether you succeed at it. What you do, in turn, hinges in no small part on what is on your résumé, including your GPA. 

Thus the professor is not just a disinterested pedagogue. As a dispenser of grades he is a gatekeeper to worldly success. And in that capacity professors face upward pressure from students ("I can't afford a B if I want to get into law school"); horizontal pressure from their colleagues, to which even Mansfield gave way; downward pressure from the administration ("If you want to fail someone, you have to be prepared for a very long, painful battle with the higher echelons," one professor told the Crimson); and perhaps pressure from within, from the part of them that sympathizes with students' careerism. (Academics, after all, have ambitions of their own, and are well aware of the vicissitudes of the marketplace.) 

It doesn't help that Harvard students are creatively lazy, gifted at working smarter rather than harder. Most of my classmates were studious primarily in our avoidance of academic work, and brilliant largely in our maneuverings to achieve a maximal GPA in return for minimal effort. It was easy to see the classroom as just another résumé-padding opportunity, a place to collect the grade (and recommendation) necessary to get to the next station in life. If that grade could be obtained while reading a tenth of the books on the syllabus, so much the better.


Question
How do Princeton, Dartmouth and some other universities deal with grade inflation, at least ?

Princeton University takes a (modest) stand on grade inflation
"Deflating the easy 'A'," by Teresa Méndez, Christian Science Monitor, May 4, 2004 --- http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0504/p12s02-legn.html  

For an analysis of this see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation 


Answers as of 1996
The answers as of 1996 lie buried in the online article at http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_old/PAW95-96/11_9596/0306note.html#story4 

Are Students Getting Smarter?

Or are professors just pressured to give out more A's?

Students are getting smarter-or so it seems by the increasingly higher grades they're receiving. Last year, undergraduates earned 8 percent more A's than they did just seven years ago and more than twice as many as they did in 1969-70. In 1994-95, 41 percent of all grades awarded were A's and 42 percent were B's, according to the Office of the Registrar.

Princeton didn't invent grade inflation. According to Registrar C. Anthony Broh, it's a phenomena of private highly selective institutions. Yet at the same time as grades are creeping up at Princeton, undergraduate grades nationwide have been going down, according to a federal study released last October. The drop, said Clifford Adelman, a senior research analyst for the Department of Education, is due to a 37 percent increase in the number of people attending college.

Public colleges aren't experiencing grade inflation-a continual increase in the average grade, explained Broh-at the same rate as highly selective institutions, because their curricula are structured differently. Ohio State's curriculum, for example, is designed to weed out students, said Broh.
Princeton saw grades inflate in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The percentage of all grades that were A's jumped from 17 percent in 1969-70 to 30 percent in 1974-75. Students earned higher grades at Princeton and other institutions, in part, because of the Vietnam War. Students whose grade-point averages dropped too low were drafted, said Broh, "so faculty generally felt pressure" to give high marks.

The percentages among grades remain-ed fairly constant from the late 1970s through the early 1980s. In 1987-88, 33 percent of grades were A's. Since then, grades have risen at about the same rate as they did during the early 1970s. The primary reason for the jump, said Broh, is that professors feel some pressure from students to give higher grades so they can better compete for admission to graduate and professional schools.
Princeton's grade distribution is comparable to that of its peer institutions. At Dartmouth the percentage of all grades that are A's rose from 33 percent in 1977-78 to 43 percent in 1993-94, according to Associate Registrar Nancy Broadhead. At Harvard, the hybrid grade A/A- represented 22 percent of all grades in 1966-67 and 43 percent in 1991-92, said spokeswoman Susan Green. C's have virtually disappeared from Harvard transcripts, reported Harvard Magazine in 1993.
Students aren't the only ones who apply subtle pressure to professors. Several years ago, an instructor of linear algebra gave a third of the class C's, and there was "a big uproar," said Joseph J. Kohn *56, the chairman of the mathematics department. He received a "long letter" from a dean who suggested that that kind of grading would discourage the students.

Ten years ago, a third of a class earning C's was normal, said Kohn. Professors feel they're supposed to grade "efforts," not the product, he added.

Another reason for grade inflation, said Broh, is that students are taking fewer courses Pass/D/Fail, which since 1990-91 have been limited to one per term for each student. Therefore, students are earning more A's and B's and fewer P's.

Some observers believe that students are just smarter than they were 25 years ago, and they're working harder. The SAT scores continue to rise, noted Broh.

Even if a professor wanted to "deflate" grades, one person can't expect to "unilaterally try to reinvent grading," said Lee C. Mitchell, the chairman of the English department. One professor alone would be "demonized," if he or she tried to grade "accurately," said Clarence F. Brown, Jr., a professor of comparative literature. "The language of grading is utterly debased," he added, noting that real grading is relegated to letters of recommendation, a kind of "secret grading."
Not every professor and student on campus has succumbed to grade inflation, however. In the mind of Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science James Wei, a C is still average. Professors in the engineering school still regularly give grades below B's, though "students are indignant," he said.
According to Dean of the College Nancy Weiss Malkiel, the university periodically reviews grade distribution. The administration encourages faculty members to think carefully about grading patterns, but "we don't tell [them] what grades to give," said Malkiel.

Harvard isn't planning on doing anything about the shift in grades, said Green. Dartmouth, however, last year changed its grading policy. In an effort to assess student performance more effectively, report cards and transcripts now include not only grades, but also the median grade earned by the class and the size of the class. The change may also affect grade inflation, but it's too soon to tell if it has, said Broadhead.
In the end, perhaps grade inflation is inconsequential. As Kohn said, "The important thing is what students learn, not what [grades] they get." And as Dean of the Faculty Amy Gutmann told The Daily Princetonian, "There is no problem [with grade inflation] as long as grades reflect the quality of work done."

Chart:  The graphic is not available online
Infografic by Jeff Dionise; Source: Office of the Registrar

This chart, provided by the Office of the Registrar, shows the percentage of grades awarded over the last 25 years. The percentage of A's and B's increased markedly in the late 1960s and early 1970s and again since the late 1980s. The percentage of P's (pass) dropped dramatically in the early 1970s, in part because the Pass/D/Fail option lost favor among students for fear that those evaluating their academic careers would think they took lighter loads, said Registrar C. Anthony Broh. Also, the university now allows fewer courses to be taken Pass/D/Fail. The percentage of P's peaked in 1969-70, when students went on strike during the Vietnam War and sympathetic faculty gave them the option of receiving either a P or a normal grade. Many students opted for P's, said Broh.

Are Students Getting Smarter?
Or are professors just pressured to give out more A's?
The real issue isn't grade inflation, said Registrar C. Anthony Broh, it's grade "compression." Because most grades awarded are A's and B's, it's hard to differentiate between students at the top of a course.

 

February 21, 2005 message from Bob Jensen

Below is a message from the former Dean of Humanities at Trinity University. He’s now an emeritus professor of religion.

In particular, he claims Harvard had an A+ grade for recognizing the very top students in a course. I think Harvard and most other universities have dropped this grade alternative.

Second he claims that there was a point system attached to the grades. Note especially the gap in the point weightings between A- and B+ and C- and D+.

If this was used at Harvard for a period of time, it was dropped somewhere along the way. This is unfortunate because it created a means by which the top (A+) students could be recognized apart from those many A students and those average students (the median grade at Harvard is now A-). The point system provided a means of breaking down the many 4.0 gpa graduates at Harvard.

Harvard University's current grading policy is outlined at http://www.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/handbooks/instructor.2003-2004/chapter5/grading.html 

Also see http://www.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/handbooks/instructor.2003-2004/chapter5/rank_list.html 

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Walker, Wm O. 
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2005 3:50 PM 
To: Jensen, Robert Subject: RE: Bill Walker Question

Bob, all I know is what my son told me while he was an undergraduate student at Harvard (1975-1979). As I recall, the scale was the following:

15 A+

14 A

13 A-

11 B+

10 B

9 B-

7 C+

6 C

5 C-

3 D+

2 D

1 D-

They may have changed the system sometime during the past twenty-six years. I particularly like it because it not only gives the plus and minus grades but also makes a greater distinction between A- and B+ than between B+ and B, etc.

Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation 

 




The Wall Street Journal's New Video Center --- http://online.wsj.com/public/page/0,,8_0000,00.html 


Collision Video
This is a very old tale (sometimes alleged to be true) that is frequently used in speeches across the world (including an address by a plenary speaker in the last annual meeting of the American Accounting Association.)  A link sent by Paula Ward makes it possible to view the tale in a video
--- http://www.silva.se/kampanj/film/captain_win.wmv 


Amazing Parrot Video (I wonder if this one was somehow faked)
Note that you have to endure a dog food commercial before you can watch the parrot.

http://media.animal.discovery.com/fansites/petstar/videogallery/season3/ep309_winner.html


What we teach just won't float?

Quite a few of you out there, like me, are trying to teach analysis of financial statements and business analysis and valuation from books like Penman or Palepu, Healy, and Bernard.   The current task of valuing MCI illustrates how frustrating this can be in the real world and how financial statement analysis that we teach, along with the revered Residual Income and Free Cash Flow Models, are often Titanic tasks in rearranging the deck chairs on sinking models.  If you've not attempted valuations with these models I suggest that you begin with my favorite case study:

"Questrom vs. Federated Department Stores, Inc.:  A Question of Equity Value," May 2001 edition of Issues in Accounting Education, by University of Alabama faculty members Gary Taylor, William Sampson, and Benton Gup, pp. 223-256.

In spite of all the sophistication in models, it is ever so common for intangibles and forecasting problems to sink the valuation models we teach.  I have more to say about intangibles at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#TheoryDisputes 
My threads on valuation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm 

A question I always ask my students is:  What is the major thing that has to be factored in when valuing Microsoft Corporation?

The answer I'm looking for is certainly not product innovation or something similar to that.  The answer is also not customer loyalty, although that probably is a huge factor.  The big factor is the massive cost of retraining the entire working world in something that replaces MS Office products (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc.).  It simply costs too much to retrain workers in MS Office substitues even if we are so sick of security problems in Micosoft's systems.   How do you factor this "customer lock-in" into a Residual Income or FCF Model?  Our models are torpedoed by intangibles in the real world.

MCI's customer base is another torpedo for valuation models.  Here the value seems to lie in a "web of corporate customers."  And nobody seems to be able to value that.

"Valuing MCI in an Industry Awash in Questions," by Matt Richtel, The New York Times, February 9, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/business/09phone.html

Industry bankers and accountants are trying to answer just that: What is the value of MCI, a company for which Qwest Communications has already made a tentative offer of about $6.3 billion, and on which Verizon Communications has been running the numbers. Conversations between MCI and Qwest have been suspended since late last week, and Verizon has yet to make a formal offer, people close to the negotiations say.

Most analysts say MCI's extensive network assets in this country and Europe may have diminishing value because of the industry's continued capacity glut. Instead, they say, MCI's worth lies more in its web of corporate customers.

But as MCI's revenue continues to tumble, the real trick for the accountants is trying to forecast the future. Can the company meet its stated goal of achieving profitable growth as a telecommunications company emphasizing Internet technology before the bottom falls out of its traditional voice and data business?

Continued in article


What we teach just won't float?

Quite a few of you out there, like me, are trying to teach analysis of financial statements and business analysis and valuation from books like Penman or Palepu, Healy, and Bernard.   The current task of valuing Amazon illustrates how frustrating this can be in the real world and how financial statement analysis that we teach, along with the revered Residual Income and Free Cash Flow Models, are often Titanic tasks in rearranging the deck chairs on sinking models.  

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on February 11, 2005

TITLE: Amazon's Net Is Curtailed by Costs 
REPORTER: Mylene Mangalindan 
DATE: Feb 03, 2005 
PAGE: A3 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110735918865643669,00.html  
TOPICS: Financial Accounting, Financial Statement Analysis, Income Taxes, Managerial Accounting, Net Operating Losses

SUMMARY: Amazon "...had forecast that profit margins would rise in the fourth quarter, while Wall Street analysts had expected margins to remain about the same." The company's operating profits fell in the fourth quarter from 7.9% of revenue to 7%. The company's stock price plunged "14% in after-hours trading."

QUESTIONS: 
1.) "Amazon said net income rose nearly fivefold, to $346.7 million, or 82 cents a share, from $73.2 million, or 17 cents a share a year earlier." Why then did their stock price drop 14% after this announcement?

2.) Refer to the related article. How were some analysts' projections borne out by the earnings Amazon announced?

3.) One analyst discussed in the related article, Ken Smith, disagrees with the majority of analysts' views as discussed under #2 above. Do you think that his viewpoint is supported by these results? Explain.

4.) Summarize the assessments made in answers to questions 2 and 3 with the way in which Amazon's operating profits as a percentage of sales turned out this quarter.

5.) Amazon's results "included a $244 million gain from tax benefits, stemming from Amazon's heavy losses earlier in the decade." What does that statement say about the accounting treatment of the deferred tax benefit for operating loss carryforwards when those losses were experienced? Be specific in describing exactly how these tax benefits were accounted for.

6.) Why does Amazon adjust out certain items, including the tax gain described above, in assessing their earnings? In your answer, specifically state which items are adjusted out of earnings and why that adjustment might be made. What is a general term for announcing earnings in this fashion?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

--- RELATED ARTICLES --- 
TITLE: Web Sales' Boom Could Leave Amazon Behind 
REPORTER: Mylene Mangalindan 
ISSUE: Jan 21, 2005 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110627113243532202,00.html 

Bob Jensen's threads on intangibles are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#TheoryDisputes 

Bob Jensen's  threads on valuation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm 


"Offering Entire Degrees Online is One Key to Distance Education, Survey Finds,"  by Dan Carnevale, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 26, 2005, Page A1

The distance-education programs that offer entire degrees online are more successful than those that offer only a scattering of courses, a new survey has found.

The report, titled "Achieving Success in Internet-Supported Learning in Higher Education," was written by Rob Abel, president of a nonprofit organization called the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness.  The report was set to be released this week.

Mr. Abel says the organization wanted to find out what made a distance-education program successful and to share the information with other institutions.  The organization surveyed officials at 21 colleges and universities that it determined to be successful in distance education.  In their responses, college officials highlighted the need for such common elements as high-quality courses and reliable technology.

But what struck Mr. Abel as most important was that 89 percent of the institutions created online degree programs instead of just individual online courses.  Online degree programs lead to success, he says, because they tend to highlight a college's overall mission and translate into more institutional support for the faculty members and students working online.

"It's easier to measure the progress at a programmatic level," Mr. Abel says.  "The programmatic approach also gets institutions thinking about student-support services."

Of course, success is subjective, he says, and what may be deemed successful for one institution may not work at another.

But he found that some college officials believe distance education has not lived up to their expectations.  He hopes that some colleges will learn from institutions that have succeeded online.  "These particular institutions didn't see this as a bust at all," Mr. Abel says.  "Maybe that just means that they set realistic expectations."

SUCCESS STORIES

One of the institutions included in the report is the University of Florida, which enrolls more than 6,000 students in its online degree programs.  William H. Riffee, associate provost for distance, continuing, and executive education at the university, says Florida decided to move forward with a strong distance-education program because so many students were demanding it.

"We don't have enough seats for the people who want to be here," Mr. Riffee says.  "We have a lot of people who want to get a University of Florida degree but can't get to Gainesville."

The university does not put a cap on enrollments in online courses, he says.  Full-time Florida professors teach the content, and part-time faculty members around the country field some of the questions from students.

"We have learned how to scale, and we scale through an addition of faculty," Mr. Riffee says.  "You scale by adding faculty that you have confidence will be able to facilitate students.

Another college the organization deemed successful in distance education is Westwood College, a for-profit institution that has campuses all over the country, in addition to its online degree programs.  Shaun McAlmont, president of Westwood College Online, says some institutions may have trouble making the transition to online education because higher education tends to be slow to change.

"How do you introduce this concept to an industry that is very much steeped in tradition?"  he asks.  "You really have to re-learn how you'll deliver that instruction."

Mr. McAlmont, who has also spent time as an administrator at Stanford University, says non-profit institutions could learn a lot from for-profit ones when it comes to teaching over the Internet.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 


Some Trinity graduates have wanderlusts and also need an advanced degree to ease their way into a profession.  Here’s something Trinity faculty might advise students about.

"European B-Schools' New Allure," by Jeffrey Gangemi, Business Week, February 11, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/EuropeBschools 

Drawn by lower costs, upgraded curriculums, and accelerated schedules, students are gravitating to non-U.S. programs Rahul Colaco is a 31-year-old from India who completed his undergraduate studies at Mumbai University. He had excellent credentials for MBA programs. He had spent two years with KPMG Audit services and six years with Unilever's (UN ) Indian unit in finance and supply chain functions. Yet he chose Switzerland's IMD over several top American MBA programs -- and in so doing became part of a trend that has been gaining momentum for the last four years: When it comes to attracting international students, European B-schools are gaining ground on their older, more established U.S. rivals.

Enrollment numbers tell the tale. Oxford, IMD, Spain's ESADE, and France's INSEAD all have had a marked increase in enrollments from Chinese, American, and Indian students. Since 2001, enrollment at Barcelona-based ESADE has increased by 700% for Chinese students, 400% for Indians, and 150% for Americans. The increase over the same period at INSEAD and IMD was, respectively, 50% and 66% for Chinese students, 155% and 133% for Indians, and 91% for Americans at both schools.


Question
I don't particularly like my "controlcor."  What would be a better new word?

Needed:  A Meaningful "Controlcor" Term Between "Correlation" and "Causality"

We've always been uneasy with the term "correlation."  The connotation is that two research outcomes tend to move in the same or opposite directions in situations where the underlying causal mechanism is not understood, often due to missing variables and an overly simplified structural model such as a linear model in a nonlinear world or an assumption of cardinality in a discrete world.  It is sometimes used in conjunction with outcomes of a controlled experiment.  But we are not entirely comfortable with the word "correlation" since it is also used in uncontrolled situations such as the famous discovery of a relatively high correlation between the birth rate in Denmark and the number of stork nests.

We're relatively comfortable with the term "causation" as it is used in the natural sciences.  This generally has a connotation of discovery of the underlying process that generates an outcome.  At a very simple level, we know that waxing is the cause of behind the shiny appearance of Washington State apples in our grocery markets.  Advances in medicine discovered which bacteria and viruses cause particular diseases.  Advances in physics show the causal relationship of the the position of the moon and tidal flows on earth.

Generally we are less comfortable with the term "causation" in both behavioral research and the social sciences in general.  There's something to the old saying that "the physicists stole all the easy research problems."  One reason is that the processes being studied are so complex that all variables cannot be factored in, let alone be measured.  The other reason is the dynamics of the process being studied.  The mere discovery of a relationship may trigger changes in the process such that the relationship no longer exists.  For example, if someone discovered a relationship between a company's stock price and the position of the moon, the people who are losing millions because they did not know this will change their buying and selling behavior such that those who knew more about the moon can no longer exploit: moon ignorance.

I think we need a meaningful term such as "controlcor" that falls between correlation arising from outcomes that were not controlled experiments versus causation arising from a suitable understanding of the underlying process to a degree that with great confidence we can assert "A causes B in situation C."  I recently had a private conversation with a psychology professor regarding my mention of what might be termed a controlcor outcome.  She insisted that correlation is not causation.  I couldn't agree more, but then I think this experiment with two research groupings entails more than mere correlation.

Moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to be heart healthy but not driver healthy in some people.  New evidence is out about possible brain impacts.
Moderate alcohol consumption protects women from cognitive decline.  Can a drink a day prevent mental decline? The finding that older women who consume moderate amounts of alcohol score better on cognitive tests suggests that it can.
Roxanne Khamsi, "Booze boosts brainpower," News@nature.com, January 20, 2005 ---  http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050117/full/050117-10.html  
  

The above study entailed an experiment such that the findings were not exactly mere correlations among uncontrolled data.  But the underlying physiological process is not understood by medical researchers.  The outcomes are neither correlation nor causation.  Due to sample size and the splitting of groups, I would like to term these relatively high controlcor outcomes.

This leads me to one of the best articles that I've read in The Accounting Review in decades.  The reference is as follows:

"How Do Investors Judge the Risk of Financial Items?" by Lisa Koonce, Mary Lea McAnnally, and Molly Mercer, The Accounting Review, January 2005, pp. 221-241 --- http://aaahq.org/ic/browse.htm (not free online)

This paper proposes and tests a risk model that explains how investors perceive financial risks.  The model combines conventional decision-theory variables--probabilities and outcomes--with behavioral variables from psychology research by Slovic (1987), such as the extent to which a risky item is new, causes worry, and is controllable.  To test our model, we conduct two studies in which M.B.A. students judge the risk of a broad range of financial items.  Our results indicate that both the decision-theory variables and Slovic's (1987) behavioral variables are important in explaining investors' risk judgments.  Further, we demonstrate that information about the amount of potential loss outcome contained within mandated risk disclosures not only directly influences risk judgments, but also indirectly affects such judgments via its effect on some of Slovic's (1987) behavioral variables.  By identifying this unintended consequence of current risk disclosures, these results have the potential to influence the way accounting regulators, firm managers, and academic researchers think about risk disclosure.

I think that the writing up of this excellent study suffers from lack of a good word between correlation and causation.  For example, consider the quotation below from pp. 236-237:

That is, an insignificant Link 2 would show that a loss outcome is related to dread but that any unique variation in loss outcome is not risk-relevant (i.e., is random).  If, however, Link 1 retains its significance, then this finding would show that loss outcome is not only causally related to the dread variables, but also that it has its own unique variation that is causally related to risk judgments.

I think causation is too strong a word in this finding.  The variables embodied in "dread" in this study are not things that can be extracted from the process like apple wax or a virus in medical research.  Dread is a description of "something" suspected in the process, but it is neither a precise definition nor a contained set of variables that can be "causally" studied at a level that is typical in the natural sciences.  At the same time, this is a reported outcome of a controlled behavioral experiment such that the findings are are more than mere correlations.  This is a case where I think the "unique variation" is controlcor "related to risk judgments."

February 10 reply from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU

Bob,

It is amusing to hear all this talk about causation from positivists. It was Bertrand Russell, a positivist (he is probably better known as an analytic philosopher), who suggested that the word "cause" be banned from our lexicon. There are perennial debates between philosophers and even physicists regarding causation. It would be wrong to presuppose that there is general agreement regarding causality among the natural scientists.

Correlation is a measure of association, not causation. If a positivist is unwilling to unload that baggage but is willing to bite his/her tongue, he/she can look at structural equation modeling (used to be called path analysis in the good old days, but then SEM sounds better) to "measure" "causality".

Jagdish


No busing, gym classes, or school lunches
A Web-based school in Branson, Colo., has managed to enroll nearly 1,000 students, but its academic record is mixed

"Tiny District Finds Bonanza of Pupils and Funds Online," by Sam Dillon, The New York Times, February 9, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/ColoOnline 

With no grocery store or gas station and a population of 77 souls, this desert village seems an unlikely home for a fast-growing public school that has enrolled students from all across Colorado.

There are just 65 students attending Branson's lone brick and mortar school, but there are an additional 1,000 enrolled in its online affiliate. And with the state paying school districts $5,600 per pupil, Branson Online has been a bonanza. Founded in 2001, it has received $15 million so far.

The school district has used the money to hire everyone in town who wants a job, including the mayor, who teaches 15 students via e-mail. It has broadcast radio commercials statewide to recruit students and built a new headquarters here. But if the school has been financially successful, its academic record is mixed, and the authorities have put the school on academic probation.

Branson Online is one of at least 100 Internet-based public schools that local educators have founded nationwide in recent years, often in partnership with private companies, and many online schools share Branson's strengths and weaknesses, experts said.

Continued in the article


Eventually Even Computer Mice Will Be Out of Work Due to Technological Obsolescence

He says that Donoghue’s experiments have answered a crucial question that could not have been addressed in an animal study: would human motor neurons still fire up as they would in a healthy person after prolonged paralysis of the limbs? “This was an important reason to do this experiment in a human,” he says. “Now we know the cells still work.
"Implanting Hope,"  by David Ewing Duncan, MIT's Technology Review,  March 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/issue/feature_implant.asp?trk=nl 

Snap, crackle, pop. I’m listening to a brain talking in a language that seems unintelligible, a chorus of millions of neurons firing, sounding to my ear like the electrical fuzz of a shortwave radio between stations. Then comes a distinctive “pop.” I hear it again: “pop.” I am watching a video. The brain in question belongs to a bearded man sitting in a chair. The victim of a stabbing three and a half years ago, he is paralyzed from the neck down. The ventilator that allows him to breathe is gurgling. Matthew Nagle, a 25-year-old former high-school football star from Weymouth, MA, has a round, titanium pedestal protruding half an inch from his head on the right side near the crown.

On July 4, 2001, Nagle became involved in a melee at Wessagussett Beach in Weymouth. He remembers only that fists began to fly and that a friend was under attack. Someone shouted something about a knife, and Nagle blacked out. Later that night, when his father, a police detective, got a call from the police, he was told that his son would probably die. The 20-centimeter blade had severed the spine in his neck, leaving him paralyzed and on a respirator. Nagle survived, but after years of immobility and tedium, he agreed to take part in a clinical trial to determine whether or not a human could safely manipulate a computer cursor using a brain-computer interface (BCI).

Attached to the pedestal, surgically implanted beneath Nagle’s skull, is an array of electrodes on a chip contiguous to the part of his brain that controls motor ac­tivity. The chip is the size of a baby aspirin: its 100 tiny hair-thin electrodes pick up the electrical signals transmitted by the brain, each electrode capturing signals from a few nearby neurons. As demonstrated in a video I watched late last year, a square, gray plug is screwed onto the pedestal; the plug is attached by wires to a nearby computer. When Nagle’s neurons fire, the impulses are read and decoded by software that can interpret the electrical pops of sets of neurons. The computer reads Nagle’s thoughts—or at least the pops recorded by the electrodes—and deciphers a few simple commands spoken in the electrical language of the brain.

Continued in the article (which is a rather long article with multiple pages)

Note the debate:

Neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University, another expert in the field of BCI, dismisses the Nagle trial as a “stunt.” “There are other prosthetic devices and interfaces that can do these things,” he says. “To go with surgical intervention, you need to do something more profound. I think they skipped a couple of steps to make this ready for humans.” The electrodes, for instance, are susceptible to clogging with organic matter, he says. Indeed, to work properly, Nagle’s implant may have to be surgically replaced periodically. Nicolelis worries about setbacks for the field if something goes wrong, like an infection following surgery. Nicolelis plans to implant his own sensors in humans in the near future, but only for the purposes of academic research. He is critical of Cyberkinetics’ commercial motivations: he fears that the company is more concerned about cash and promoting its work than about delivering the greatest benefit to patients.

Other neuroscientists support Donoghue. “I think the time has come to do this in humans,” says Richard Andersen, a leading neuroscientist at the California ­Institute of Technology who is also about to conduct human research using implanted electrode devices developed by his lab. Neuroscientist Bill Heetderks, who headed the neural-prosthetics programs at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke until 2003 and oversaw grants to Donoghue, Nicolelis, and other major researchers, points out that the FDA approved the Cyberkinetics trials as safe and promising. He says that Donoghue’s experiments have answered a crucial question that could not have been addressed in an animal study: would human motor neurons still fire up as they would in a healthy person after prolonged paralysis of the limbs? “This was an important reason to do this experiment in a human,” he says. “Now we know the cells still work.”


February 8, 2005 message from Denise Nitterhouse

I'm sure you get the NY Times online as well, but I had to make sure you saw this.

EDITORIAL OBSERVER 
"Keeping Iowa's Young Folks at Home After They've Seen Minnesota," by VERLYN KLINKENBORG Iowa is proposing to end the state income tax for anyone under 30 to stem "brain drain." But it's not the taxes that drive away the young.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/opinion/09wed4.html?th 

Denise

Denise Nitterhouse, MBA, DBA 
School of Accountancy & Management Information Systems 
DePaul University 
1 East Jackson Boulevard, 
Chicago, IL 60604 

 dnitterh@depaul.edu

February 9, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Denise,

I was raised in Iowa, but I'd have to say the proposal you describe below sounds like some Iowa Aggie dreamed it up. What Iowa is saying is that while you're a low income "youngin jest get'n trained," you pay no income tax. But once you're trained and add value to society, Iowa's out to tap into your income.

Makes no sense, because at the age of 30 these trained folks might just move from Iowa to Nevada, Texas, New Hampshire, or some other state that does not tap into incomes via an income tax.

Of course that begs the question of why most folks, unlike me, don't flock to New Hampshire where there's no state income tax, no state sales tax, and a property tax about 1/3 per dollar of value relative to what I paid in property taxes in Texas. I don't have an answer to that, but I could not be more happy that all those folks don't move to New Hampshire --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm 

A lot of United States. folks are abandoning their home states and moving to Nevada. Babylon now has the highest population growth rate in the nation. I guess legalized prostitution is a bigger draw than the lower taxes in New Hampshire. That's an added incentive to vote against prostitution (and gambling) should such a wild idea ever be considered in our NH Yankee legislature.

Good to hear from you.

Bob Jensen


Knowledge needs to be shared as freely as possible.  I admire the way MIT now shares materials in over 100 courses across virtually all academic disciplines taught at MIT --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI 
MIT also generate publications like Technology Review for sharing knowledge --- http://www.techreview.com/

When I can, I also acknowledge some of the more popular sites where professors freely share their scholarship with the world.  In many instances people who use these sites just do not appreciate what a tremendous sacrifice is being made to share knowledge

Sharing Team of the Week
Steven L. Gilliam, Professor of Drama at Trinity University --- http://www.trinity.edu/sgilliam/ 

Today, he and his wife, Sam Carter Gilliam, collaborate as a husband and wife theatrical design team (SLG Design & Creative Talent) with designs throughout the United States.

Steve's Web site is among the most popular drama sites in the world.  What is nice is how much is shared with the world for no fee.  Especially note http://www.trinity.edu/sgilliam/showlinks.html 


Sharing Professor of the Week (a repeat acknowledgement with a "new" newsletter)

Since we are being hit with so many blogs these days, I like the idea of having a newsletter for a blog that provides a filtering of "the best from the blog."

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/ 

In particular, note the February 2005 announcement of Jim's renewed newsletter --- http://snipurl.com/MaharBlog .

Upon the request of many of you I have sort of brought back the newsletter. It is not going to replace the Blog but will be in a format that is more useful for some of you.

In fact, the newsletter will grow into a “best of” from the blog. So in that sense, this is the best of the past few months. I will try to do this on a monthly basis going forward.

It is shorter than the old newsletters, but I hope you find it useful. Again, if you do want to see this and much more, I encourage you to check out my blog: http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/ 

For Jim's latest news, go to  http://snipurl.com/MaharBlog 

Links to the many other wonderful things that Jim shares with the world are at http://www.financeprofessor.com/


Integrate Technology into Lesson Plans

"Better teaching with technology:  Program aims to help integrate technology into lesson plans, by Micholyn Fajen, The Des Moines Register, February 8, 2005 --- http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050208/NEWS02/502080339/1004 

Educators from two Waukee elementary schools will learn new ways to implement technology into classroom curriculum by participating in free training sessions through Heartland Area Education Agency.

Technology teams from both Brookview and Eason elementary schools will attend technology integration mentoring, part of a three-year-old Heartland program offered to area schools. This is Waukee's first time attending at the elementary level.

"The intent of the program is to provide participants with skills and strategies that prepare them to mentor other educators in the technology integration process," said Cindi McDonald, principal of Brookview.

Building principals and district administrators began instruction Wednesday. Meetings will continue into June.

The training will help educators learn to get the most of the technology they use.

"I've worked in six different districts and can say Waukee is very blessed to have a lot of hardware functioning here," McDonald said. "We have a commitment to have the computers, teachers and staff positioned in a way that we can make a difference."

Brian Pierce, technology teacher at Brookview Elementary in West Des Moines, hopes to gain more tactics that help him approach classroom teachers and show them how to integrate the skills into everyday learning.

"We have a mobile computer lab with 15 laptops teachers can pull into the classroom," Pierce said. "We want to optimize this lab with kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers and find curriculums and technological links to make that happen."

Some Brookview classrooms already integrate technology into their homework. Fourth-graders recently assigned a report of a famous person are researching information over the Internet and creating presentations on the computer.

Pierce is teaching the students how to drop their presentations into Power Point and will help them burn a CD so they can take the work home to show parents.

"We have some good and effective uses of technology here," McDonald said. "There are pockets of greatness, but we still need to build a common vocabulary among teachers. Our kindergarten through second grade still struggle in that area."

Three out-of-state technology consultants were brought in to teach the program and of 55 school districts in Heartland's region, 15 districts have teams that will attend, coming from as far as Carroll.

"We've had good responses from past participants," said Tim Graham, director of Heartland technology services. "This year we've modified the program to include administrators because teachers found they needed upper-level support of the programs. Administrators needed a better understanding of how important technology is in the classroom."

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on success stories in education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Success 


This is a rather interesting new sharing site for tracking technology investment alternatives --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/trindex/tri_mcdonald021105.asp?trk=nl 

Technology Review is an MIT publication.


National Environment Research Council --- http://www.nerc.ac.uk/ 


The reviews of science textbooks are rather interesting at http://www.sciencetextcentral.org/ 


February 14, 2005 message from Diane Graves

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/tutorials/copyright/

To all faculty:

I sent out this link a couple of weeks ago, and suggested it as a good source for information about when and how to use copyrighted multimedia in courseware. Several of you noted that the program asks you to confirm that you are a CUNY Baruch College professor before using the full program.

I wrote to the copyright staff at Baruch, and received their response last week. They welcome outside use of the product. They intentionally placed the site link on a shared EDUCAUSE “library” to make it available to other institutions. That language is provided to indicate the scope of Baruch’s attorneys’ ability to defend some one who uses the site to make decisions about copyright.

Thanks for sharing your concerns. I hope you find the site helpful!

Diane

Diane J. Graves, Professor & University Librarian
Elizabeth M. Coates Library, Trinity University
One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212


Debbie Bowling forwarded this link.

"New Tools Making Online Work Easier," by May Wong, ABC News, February 14, 2--5 --- http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=497393 

This scenario is all too familiar to office workers who collaborate electronically on projects: E-mails get passed around with differing versions of documents-in-progress attached. Instant messages whizz by. Web sites are cited, then lost. It's often a jumbled mess, with no central online location for shared data. There must be a better way.

A new crop of tools aims to help turn the Web be it on the public Internet or a company network into much more than a collection of documents one visits like a museum: Look, but don't touch.

The idea is to make it easy to quickly post and remove stuff from digital bulletin boards where the online communities of the future will gather to catch up and trade ideas, images and work.

"We're turning the Web into a conversation," said Glenn Reid, chief executive and founder of Five Across Inc.

Reid's startup and several other companies will offer their visions for accomplishing that on stage at the DEMO conference in Arizona, an annual showcase of tech innovation.

All are trying to address in one way or another an emerging trend of making the Web less disjointed and more democratized a richer, more organized forum for gathering and sharing information.

These companies, and many others, are all part of a growing industry specializing in what Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li calls "social media."

JotSpot Inc., a Palo Alto-based startup, is betting on Wikis, a type of Web page that can be edited by anyone.

Wikis could become a staging area of sorts for information, and JotSpot's new Web service targets businesses that want to give authorized users a common location in which to collaborate.

Co-workers can take a spreadsheet, build upon it, customize it, integrate data from the Web or e-mails and have all the information reside in one place on a Wiki Web site. Revisions are tracked and archived so nothing is ever lost.


From the Scout Report on February 11, 2005

We the People: Women and Men in the United States  http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/censr-20.pdf 

While the title of this paper may not immediately strike the casual reader as exciting, this rather well-written special report from the Census Bureau is worth taking a look at. Authored by Renee E. Spraggins, this 19-page report contains some quite interesting findings, and is based on information collected during the most recent census. Additionally, the report offers this information in the context of comparison with data collected from the 1970, 1980, and 1990 censuses. Some of the findings include the observation that the current trend towards women remaining single for a longer period persisted through the past several censuses. One finding that could have some interesting policy implications was that more older women than older men were living alone. Another particularly positive finding was that the educational attainment rate of women had continued to rise substantially over the past several decades. As with other reports issued by the agency, the document is amply illustrated by a host of figures and charts.


Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage --- http://www.folklife.si.edu/index.html 

Widely considered one of the most important centers of its kind, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is dedicated to "promoting the understanding and continuity of diverse, contemporary grassroots cultures in the United States and around the world". The Center is responsible for producing the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, coordinating the Folkways Recordings, and conducting ethnographic and cultural heritage policy-oriented research. First-time visitors to their site will want to begin by learning about the center's mission and recent work by perusing "The Center" section, then perhaps by learning about various internships and fellowships within the "Opportunities" area. Students and the general public will enjoy the various online exhibitions offered here in the "Explore Culture" area, as they cover subjects as diverse as mid-Atlantic maritime culture and the notion of what "borders" are.


Number Watch
This is a link that every professor should look at very, very seriously and (sigh) skeptically!


Number Watch is a truly fascinating site --- http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm 

This site is devoted to the monitoring of the misleading numbers that rain down on us via the media. Whether they are generated by Single Issue Fanatics (SIFs), politicians, bureaucrats, quasi-scientists (junk, pseudo- or just bad), such numbers swamp the media, generating unnecessary alarm and panic. They are seized upon by media, hungry for eye-catching stories. There is a growing band of people whose livelihoods depend on creating and maintaining panic. There are also some who are trying to keep numbers away from your notice and others who hope that you will not make comparisons. Their stock in trade is the gratuitous lie. The aim here is to nail just a few of them.

Number of the month
Book reviews
Links
FAQs (Jensen Comment:  Especially note the FAQ on averaging)
Contact Information
Comments and Suggestions
Sorry, wrong number! The first book of the web site  
The epidemiologists The NEW book of the web site
Bits and pieces
Guest papers
Home page

The Scout Report on February 11, 2005 has this to say:

John Brignell, Professor Emeritus from the Department of Electronics & Computer Science at the University of Southampton, is the author of this informal website "devoted to the monitoring of the misleading numbers that rain down on us via the media." Brignell says he aims to "nail" a few of the "Single Issue Fanatics (SIFs), politicians, bureaucrats, quasi-scientists (junk, pseudo- or just bad)," who use misleading numbers to write catchy articles or who try to keep numbers away from public notice. Since April 2000, he has been posting a "number of the month" as well as a "number for the year," which offer his commentary on media usage of misleading numbers and explanations for why the numbers are misleading. He also posts book reviews and an extensive list of online resources on statistics and statistics education. The FAQ section includes answers to some interesting questions, such as "Is there such a thing as average global temperature?" and some more basic questions such as "What is the Normal Distribution and what is so normal about it?" The Bits and Pieces section includes a variety of short articles on statistics and his definitions for some terms he uses on the website. Visitors are also invited to join the discussion forum (complete with a few advertisements) and view comments by others who want to discuss "wrong numbers in science, politics and the media." A few comments sent to Brignell and his responses are also posted online. This site is also reviewed in the February 11, 2005_NSDL MET Report. 

Jensen Comment:

     I'm getting some feedback from respected scientists that the site has good rules but then breaks its own rules when 
    applying the rules.

    I focused more on the rules themselves and found the site interesting.

    One that I liked were the statistics pages such as the one at http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/averages.htm

    Alas!  Even our statisticians with good rules lie with statistics.  I guess that alone makes this site interesting from an
     educational standpoint.

    Bob  

Bob Jensen's threads in assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm


Myanmar's improbable tsunami statistics and the casualty numbers game.
Kerry Howley, "Disaster Math," ReasonOnline, January 7, 2005 --- http://www.reason.com/links/links010705.shtml 


February 11, 2005 message from James Borden [james.borden@VILLANOVA.EDU

From Wired:

"Parents of elementary and middle school students in a small California town are protesting a tracking program their school recently launched, which requires students to wear identification badges embedded with radio frequency, or RFID, chips.

School superintendents struck a deal with a local maker of the technology last year to test the system to track attendance and weed out trespassers.

But students and parents, who weren't told about the RFID chips until they complained, are upset over what they say are surreptitious tactics ..."

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66554,00.html 

Jim Borden 
Villanova University

 


Darn:  I was hoping for prime rib and Yorkshire pudding!

Forbes Magazine has a slide show on the ten "Best Age-Defying Foods."  However, it is a frustrating slide show because of distracting advertising pop-ups.  I endured the frustration in order to provide you with a list of the "best" foods.  

For serving sizes and suggestions for preparation, you must watch the slide show or go to the original JAFC study (which I don't think is online.)

This listing was ranked in order by the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in December 2004.

  1. Small red beans
  2. Blueberries
  3. Red kidney beans
  4. Pinto beans
  5. Cranberries
  6. Artichoke hearts
  7. Blackberries
  8. Dried prunes
  9. Raspberries
  10. Strawberries

You can read Vanessa Gisquet's commentary on why these help keep you young at http://www.forbes.com/home/health/2005/02/02/cx_vg_0202feat_ls.html 

No mention is made, but I wonder if Beano funded the research behind these findings.

February 8, 2005 reply from Paul Williams [williamsp@COMFS1.COM.NCSU.EDU

The idea behind this diet is that you will get lots of exercise using the stairs because you dare not use the elevator.


And if the above foods make you live longer, here's how to enjoy your longer life! 

Vanessa Gisquet & Christina Valhouli Nothing says "I love you" like a night or two at a romantic hotel.  Sure, the cost for a couple days at the Ritz, including airfare, can easily exceed $5,000, but the gesture is almost certain to be appreciated. The decline of the dollar versus the euro notwithstanding, no one ever said that romance comes cheap.
"World's Most Romantic Hotels," Forbes --- http://www.forbes.com/home/travel/2005/02/10/cx_vg_0210feat_ls.html 

Cayo Espanto, Belize

Hotel Ritz, Paris

Le Sirenuse, Positano, Italy

The Point, Saranac Lake, New York (Former Rockefeller Mansion)

Dar Mimosas, Moroco

Four Seasons at Jimbaran Bay, Bali

La Villa Gallici, Aix-En-Province, France

The Bauer, Venice, Italy

The Inn at Irving Place, New York

Twin Farms, Barnard, VT

Mala Mala Game Reserve, South Africa


Saturday Night Live has some particularly good modules at http://snltranscripts.jt.org/02/02r.phtml 

In particular, scroll down to the one on plagiarism: “Teacher is well aware of students' history paper plagiarisms.”

Also see “Count Chocula Silver: Count Chocula (Jimmy Fallon) changes marketing approach to address seniors.”


"Report urges more flexibility for tenure system." Associated Press, CNN.com,  February 11, 2005 --- http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/02/11/academia.women.ap/index.html 

Saying higher education's long-standing tenure system isn't family friendly and harms the careers of women, a panel of university leaders called Thursday for colleges to make the traditional academic career path more flexible.

Ten prominent university presidents and chancellors were listed among the authors of a new report which comes amid renewed attention to the challenges of women in academia. Last month, a furor erupted over Harvard University President Lawrence Summers' remarks at a conference that explored why more women aren't attaining top jobs in the sciences.

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman called the Summers controversy "an elephant in the room" that has produced "tremendously more interest in the topic," though the panel's work began in 2003.

Summers drew fire from some Harvard faculty and alumni -- along with fellow academics -- for comments suggesting innate differences between the genders might partially explain why few women hold top scientific jobs, along with other factors such as family demands. Last week, Harvard announced the creation of two task forces to study gender inequities among its own faculty and in the pipeline of young scientists.

Thursday's report, produced by the American Council on Education and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in conjunction with the panel of presidents, asks colleges to consider a number of policy changes, some of which are already being tested on various campuses. Among them: better childcare, and allowing women with young children more time to complete research before being evaluated for tenure.

While women account for 51 percent of new doctorates awarded, they account for just 38 percent of university faculty and 28 percent at research universities, the authors noted.

Generally, academics have six or seven years to show their promise before coming up for tenure review, when they may be either granted lifetime employment or let go. The system can put enormous strain on young academics to publish research in early in their careers, typically in their 30s.

But that's also when many are having children, and the authors say too many women are dropping out of academic life. Universities, meanwhile, are not offering them opportunities to return later if they choose.

"Tenure is a bedrock principle at our university, but I think we also recognize the policies and practices on our campus that undergird the principle of tenure were developed in a different era," said William Kirwin, chancellor of Maryland's university system.

The report does not call for revolutionary changes to the tenure system, but it does urge more flexibility. For instance, Coleman said Michigan is considering allowing giving young faculty up to 10 years before tenure review.

One challenge is that there is no shortage of young academics eager for jobs, so universities have little incentive to extend benefits. But Coleman said schools have no choice if they are to retain talented women. And she rejected the notion that only by working extraordinarily long hours could academics produce the quality of work that merits tenure.

"I just don't buy that," she said.

Still, the presidents acknowledged policy changes alone would not be enough, calling on leaders to try to change the cultures of their schools.

France A. Cordova, chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, said her campus has offered benefits similar to those described in the report since the 1980s. But in a recent survey of faculty, "most people didn't know they existed, and those who did were afraid to take them."


Do you suppose some residents around Trinity University are stealing Trinity's broadband service to us on campus?  I haven't turned my laptop on in my nearby (one mile away apartment) because I do all my computing on campus.  When I happen to have my laptop in my apartment, I'm going to try to tap into Trinity's WiFi.

Note that you cannot always count on free broadband access from as far as 72 miles.  Also you have to hope that the guy you're stealing from leaves his modem on when you are in the mood to walk on the Web.

In the extended message below, David concludes as follows:

People forget that wireless is another name for radio, and radio is a broadcast medium. You don’t control where a radio signal goes the way you do a wire, and there are no wiretapping laws covering Part 15 FCC radio transmissions (which includes 802.11, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, RFID, and almost all other wireless networking in use today!)

I was blown away when I subscribed to Verizon DSL service, and they sent me a DSL modem which included a wireless router! With NO instructions on how to secure the router! Not even on the CD that came with the modem! The installation of the DSL modem was so simple my grandmother could have done it, but when she was finished, she would be offering free Wi-Fi access to her DSL line to anyone within range (…72 miles?)!

February 8, 2005 message from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

..... And the “300-foot range of the transmitter” claimed by the networking standards is an absolute farce. In Belgium, we couldn’t get more than 40 feet with stock antennas, but yet, I personally have been involved in experiments where we established solid links over 56 MILES (yes, that’s MILES) using standard 802.11 gear (albeit with a barbecue-grill-type dish antenna). We picked up dozens of networks across the valley in line with our 56-mile path, including the JMU COB wireless network (which I can’t even get in our own building’s basement!), at a distance of approximately 21 miles. I have a formal pub coming out this spring in QST magazine reporting on these distance experiments. In the meantime…

Check out page 10 of the following local newsletter:

http://cob.jmu.edu/fordham/MARA/backissue/Monitor2005-Jan.pdf 

We even tried 72 miles, but for various reasons, we weren’t quite able to make it: Check out page 9 of the February issue:

http://cob.jmu.edu/fordham/MARA/backissue/Monitor2005-Feb.pdf 

My “partners in crime” are Jason Armentrout, an 18-year-old home-schooled wiz kid who is a networking technician at Adelphia Cable, Bryan Daniels who is about 50 and the senior technician for Rockingham County Schools, Bob Van Fossen, a retired IBM networking engineer, Jim Lehman, a physics prof at JMU, Jay Suter a retired phone company engineer, and Gerry Brunk, a professor at Eastern Mennonite University. We are engaged only in perfectly legal experimentation, and it will scare your socks off to know the networks we’ve picked up that weren’t in any way protected!

People forget that wireless is another name for radio, and radio is a broadcast medium. You don’t control where a radio signal goes the way you do a wire, and there are no wiretapping laws covering Part 15 FCC radio transmissions (which includes 802.11, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, RFID, and almost all other wireless networking in use today!)

I was blown away when I subscribed to Verizon DSL service, and they sent me a DSL modem which included a wireless router! With NO instructions on how to secure the router! Not even on the CD that came with the modem! The installation of the DSL modem was so simple my grandmother could have done it, but when she was finished, she would be offering free Wi-Fi access to her DSL line to anyone within range (…72 miles?)!

Knowledge really is power!

David R. Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University

February 9, 2005 reply from omer [omer@UIC.EDU

I concur, the 300 ft varies significantly and irritatingly if it's in your house and movement from room to room causes major obstructions. I have been using 802.11g and find it much more tolerant than the 802.11b I have used in the past. Nonetheless it makes me less apt to sit in the office a home and instead roam around the house (scrounging for blueberries to extend my life but not my wireless)

February 9, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi David,

Your reply prompted me to contact my techie friends about whether nearby "outsiders" could get free broadband from our excellent campus WI-Fi system. The answer is yes, but they would have to first con (deceive) Trinity University into "giving them" a Trinity account. Probably the easiest way to do this is to find some poor student, groundskeeper, or faculty member to "rent" access for less than commercial broadband costs. Of course this kind of "renting" can get you fired or kicked out of school if you're a student

The Trinity network is currently using LEAP for our wireless authentication and encryption. You need a Trinity account login to access the wireless network. Otherwise you can see the network, but can't connect. We've also done our best to eliminate broadcasting the signal too far off of our property. Just as an FYI, a few of our neighbors have their own Wi-Fi access points, which our gear can detect.

Bob Jensen

February 9, 2005 reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

For those who are just getting their feet wet in wireless networking, here is a four-minute summary to get you started so you can follow along with the thread:

"Wi-Fi" is the certification earned by devices which are compliant with the 802.11 standard. The 802.11 standard defines what is essentially a wireless Ethernet LAN. In addition to Wi-Fi, we also have Bluetooth wireless connections, WAP wireless services, GSM, and a plethora of other wireless technologies, all very different from Wi-Fi, and each having its own applications, optimal uses, and security concerns.

Regarding interception of a wireless signal, I teach my students that there are four levels of potential threat.

The first level is mere detection that a wireless signal is there. Detection of a wireless signal is very simple, and can be done from an astounding distance from the transmitter. Bob said that Trinity has done as much as possible to prevent propagation of the signal off campus. A better term would be "minimize" propagation of the signal off campus. The only way to prevent a radio signal from traveling to the far reaches of the universe would be to cover the campus in a metal dome. But you can take measures to minimize the strength of the signal outside the area you want to cover. Given enough distance and enough directivity or "minimization" (called "attenuation") of power at the transmitter, you can reduce the strength of the signal (beyond a given perimeter) to where your signal cannot be differentiated from the background noise (generated by the millions of other transmitters on the same frequency) by today's state of the art receivers.

Capturing of the intelligence traveling on that wireless signal encompasses two more levels. You can *detect* a signal from much farther away than you can tell what is traveling on that signal. Think of an AM radio station... you can sometimes tell a station is there (detection), but you can't understand the words the announcer is saying (capture of the signal intelligence).

Another level also deals with capture of intelligence. This third level deals with understanding the message content. Again, going back to the AM radio station example: even if the radio signal is clear and you can understand the words the announcer is saying, if he is speaking Flemish or Welsh, you might not be able to understand the content of the message. This is the level where encryption comes in handy. For those old enough to remember Hogan's Heroes, "Mama Bear calling Papa Bear" is a form of encryption. So were the Navajo code talkers.

The fourth level is "connectivity". Let's say you know the language or encryption being used, and assume you even have your own AM radio transmitter and transmit a signal back to the radio announcer. He does not have to talk to you! And he certainly does not have to pass your message on to someone else if he doesn't want to. This is where MAC address authentication comes in handy. Every wireless device is programmed with its own (almost-)unique serial number. The base station (access point, disk-jockey, what have you) can be programmed to converse only with a list of approved MAC addresses. If your wireless card's MAC address is not on the approved list, you cannot "connect" to the wireless router (it will not talk to you or pass your messages on up the network), even though you might be able to hear and understand everything else the router is sending out.

In order for you to take advantage of your neighbor's wireless network, all four levels have to be in place. First, you have to be within detection range (level 1, very easy for anyone with a dish antenna,even from astounding distances). Second, you have to receive a signal strong enough to demodulate (a little harder, but still not too hard, and quite doable from miles away with a dish receiver antenna). Third, your neighbor has to have overlooked setting encryption (or maybe you have obtained access to the encryption method and its key). Not setting encryption is VERY common in today's consumer environment. Fourth, your neighbor has to have overlooked activating the MAC authentication (also a very common oversight in today's consumer environment).

If all four of those conditions are met, you can use his Internet connection, and most of the time he will not even know it!

One of the simplest ways of interrupting the four level sequence is to simply not broadcast the NAME (called "SSID") of your network. This will often "fool" the casual eavesdropper into believing he cannot fulfill the second level (the capture of the intelligence on the signal)... he can hear there is a transmitter there, but doesn't know the name or identity of the station he's listening to, so he doesn't know whom to address a transmission to.

A good (reasonably) secure wireless network operator will turn off SSID broadcast, AND will use encryption (WEP or WPA or WPA2), AND will use positive MAC address filtering. Very few homeowners or "average citizens" need more protection than this, and even most companies (except those with very desirable/sensitive data) don't need to worry too much beyond those three steps.

One OFT-overlooked limitation of the above: all of the above works ONLY for the wireless link! Just because you are using WEP encryption does not mean your communiqué is encrypted as it travels over the Internet! It only means the link from the base station (access point) to your computer is encrypted. Once the packet gets on the Infrastructure, you'd better be using some additional security measures beyond the ones I've described above.

Wireless is fascinating. It's a great hobby.

David R. Fordham 
PBGH Faculty Fellow 
James Madison University


February 13, 2005 message from  Stock Maven [research@stockmaven.com

Dear Bob, 

At http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbus.htm  please consider the inclusion of:

Stock Maven Investor's Glossary at http://www.stockmaven.com/glossary.htm 

or to our entire site at an appropriate place at yours:

Stock Maven http://www.stockmaven.com/  
Stock research center, real time quotes and news, live financial markets data, research tools to evaluate and track stocks of publicly held companies.

I would be very happy to also provide a link to your site at ours.

Best wishes, 
Yosef Cohen 
13 February, 2005 
Holon, Israel

February 13 reply from Bob Jensen
I added this glossary link to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbus.htm 


University of Virginia Online Visual History (Art, History) --- http://mcgregor.lib.virginia.edu/prints/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on history are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History 


Wit and wisdom of Tertullian

The Tertullian Project  --- http://www.tertullian.org/ 


No A grades for The Chronicle of Higher Education
Mr. Jaschik and Mr. Lederman, along with Kathlene Collins, who worked at The Chronicle for 20 years, introduced last month an online publication, insidehighered.com. In doing so, Mr. Jaschik and Mr. Lederman, who are both editors, and Ms. Collins, who is the publisher, are trying to become the first significant competition in higher education publishing since the intellectual-if-gossipy Lingua Franca folded in 2001.And, in contrast to The Chronicle, which is a print publication that publishes its content online, insidehighered.com is an online-only publication. The three founders all cite the desire for their site to be as easily accessible and democratic as possible. Insidehighered.com is free, with no registration required; access to most of The Chronicle's articles requires a password that can only be obtained with a print subscription, which costs $82.50 a year.  "A big part of our model is to try and reach everyone in higher ed - it means that everyone can be part of the conversation," said Mr. Jaschik. "We want grad students, young professors, people at institutions without a lot of money, in addition to people at wealthier institutions and senior administrators."
Lia Miller, "New Web Site for Academics Roils Education Journalism," The New York Times, February 14, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/business/media/14education.html 

February 14, 2005 reply from Ganesh M. Pandit [profgmp@HOTMAIL.COM

If I am not mistaken, it is only a matter of time before they will start requiring registration in some form and charging fees for "premium" services. Nobody can survive providing a free service, simply with a desire to reach everyone! :)

Regards, GMP

February 14, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Ganesh,

You may be correct, although some sites provide tons of free services due to judicious and lucrative advertising. Google is my best example.

Much depends upon how good a site is in attracting eyeballs. A leading higher education free site could attract a lot of attention from educators around the world which in turn would attract advertising from publishing firms, colleges, software firms, hardware firms, etc.

What will be interesting to me is whether InsideHigherEd will or even can block advertising from fraudulent diploma mills, of which there are over 200 operating at any one time that generate more graduate degrees than legitimate colleges. Incidentally, Google accepts advertising from diploma mills.

Bob Jensen


Good News and Bad News

"How To Talk When You Can't SpeakCommunicating with unconscious minds,"  by Clive Thompson, Slate, February 10, 2005 ---  http://slate.msn.com/id/2113353/ 

This week, Neurology published an unsettling study of two brain-damaged men who are "minimally conscious"—able to breathe on their own but otherwise generally unresponsive. When neuroscientists scanned the patients' brains as they played audiotapes of loved ones, the activity was strikingly normal. The visual cortex of one of the men even lit up in a way that suggested he was visualizing the stories that his relatives told. One of the researchers told the New York Times that they've repeated the experiment on seven more patients and found the same results.

If the study holds water, we may need to rethink how we treat the estimated 300,000 Americans who are regarded as unreachable. The good news is that there are ways to communicate with some patients who seem completely unconscious. Spying into the brains of the unresponsive—as well as the "locked in," patients who are fully conscious but paralyzed by diseases such as ALS—can create a vehicle for them to talk. This conceit is at the heart of brain-computer interfacing, a booming field in which scientists are crafting tools that translate mental activity into keystrokes, mouse movements, and even robotic control.

Now for the bad news: Brain-damaged, "minimally conscious" patients like the ones in the Neurology study may be so impaired that they're unable to communicate with the outside world. Neurologists can usually figure out for sure if the mind of a locked-in patient is functioning well; the challenge is in setting it free. Doctors have a harder time figuring out the mental state of brain-damaged patients, especially if they can't open their eyes. Since most of the brain interfaces that are in development require the subject's eyes to be open wide, a patient whose eyes are shut—at least for now—is pretty much rendered mute.


Forget it if there's no MCB online!

When and where is the cocktail/buffet reception?  And please offer MCB (martinis, crabmeat, and beef) rather than three kinds of beans with Beano dip.  Vote for the B2OSM acronym (Beans-to-Omer-Skip-Me).

Vicki Suter, Bryan Alexander, and Pascal Kaplan just do not understand why we go to meetings.  It's not the F2F part that's important.  It's the F2D (Free-to-Drink) and A2A (Away-to-Anywhere) acronyms that matter the most.  Seriously, however, this is an interesting article which may become reality when the airlines eventually make flying a luxury (like it was in the 1950s) rather than an affordable travel alternative for the proletariat (like it is now when the airlines are going down the tubes in fare wars). 

“The Future of F2F” is an extended version of “Social Software and the Future of Conferences—Right Now.” This online-only, Web bonus adds scenarios, real-life vignettes, and links to resources describing in more detail how new social software technologies can support face-to-face experiences such as conferences and meetings. More speculative ideas are explored, including how such software might provide a container for the social presence of remote participants and also for a shared, persistent cognitive space that can better support ongoing personal learning, as well as collective knowledge-building.
"The Future of F2F," by Vicki Suter, Bryan Alexander, and Pascal Kaplan," EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 40, no. 1 (January/February 2005) --- http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm0514.asp 

Consider the following scenario. The Association of Technology Enthusiasts decides that it can save a tremendous amount of time and expense—for itself and its membership—by eliminating its annual conference. Since its members come to the annual conferences for the thought-provoking presentations on applying technology to anything and everything, why disrupt members’ day-to-day routines by having them come to a conference at a distant location and stay at a costly hotel when existing technology can streamline the conference experience? And the streamlining process is so simple: all sessions that are scheduled to be presented at the annual conference will instead be posted on the association’s Web site. Members will be able to download any and all presentations. And these are not simply lecture notes or documents; these are full-featured videos of the presenters, including animated PowerPoint slides with voice-overs and with Web site links to additional references. The association’s members will have all the content they would have experienced at the conference, and more—because they won’t have to choose among overlapping conference sessions.

Continued in the article

Vicki Suter, Bryan Alexander, and Pascal Kaplan cannot possibly be referring to executive conferences where the purpose is E2E (Elbow-to-Elbow) rather than any serious effort to learn something.

At an executive conference the priority is not learning.  It’s more about rubbing elbows on your way to the  MCB!

Question
What's the difference between an academic conference and an executive conference?

Answer
To begin with, the registration fee at an executive conference is $3,500
Other differences are quoted below.
"Do All Things Digital" A Wall Street Journal Executive Conference --- http://d.wsj.com/ 

No bloviating panels.  (Bloviate means to orate verbosely and windily.)
No canned presentations.
(I suspect that also means no handouts.)
No conflict-laden analysts. 
No canned demos. 
And no PowerPoint allowed.


February 8, 2005 message from Paula Ward

A friend of mine who is a computer guru sent me this information. Did you know your computer screen attracts dust from the inside as well as the outside? I never gave it any thought, but I tried this link he sent me, and I am stunned at how much clearer my screen is now.

It may take a minute for this site to open, but it doesn't download to your computer. The difference is well worth it, it's streak-free anti-static protection, and best of all it's free!

Screen Clean <http://screenclean.j1media.com/lick.html


"Reading the President," The Wall Street Journal,  February 9, 2005; Page A10 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110791490122349641,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

What is perhaps surprising is news that the President is a big fan of "I Am Charlotte Simmons," Tom Wolfe's latest doorstop of an entertainment. Now, why is that?

One reaction is to raise an eyebrow that this supposed Puritan of a President should indulge such titillating fiction: Mr. Wolfe's book, which deals with the assorted undergraduate debaucheries of fictional Dupont University, contains a chapter-long sex scene. Or perhaps the President, whose twin daughters are real-life contemporaries of Charlotte Simmons, read the book out of fatherly concern. Or maybe Mr. Bush, a "Deke" man at Yale, just wanted to relive his Animal House days.

Our reaction is a little different. For starters, it's hard to credit the idea that Mr. Bush is a cretin when Mr. Wolfe is a favorite author. On the contrary, both men have succeeded largely because they are in touch with the kinds of cultural currents the liberal establishment rarely notices (or considers beneath notice). Mr. Wolfe himself noted just before the election that "I would vote for Bush if for no other reason than to be at the airport waving off all the people who say they are going to London if he wins again."

Continued in the article


 

An Embarrassing Message from the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave

The article below is extremely controversial.  I think it signifies an evil that most Americans do not want to be known for either now or in history books.  I also sympathize with troops that we do send into battle.  For the sake of image we should not replace their weapons with bags of marshmallows when they are in harm's way.

New York Post -- February 6, 2005

THE TRUTH ABOUT WAR

By RALPH PETERS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 6, 2005 -- IN San Diego on Tuesday, I had the privilege of sitting beside Lt.-Gen. Jim Mattis, a Marine who knows how to fight. We were on a panel discussing future war. And Gen. Mattis, a Marine to the marrow of his bones, spoke honestly about the thrill of combat. Mattis has commanded at every level. In Desert Storm, he led a battalion. In Afghanistan and then in Iraq, he led with inspiration and courage. Everyone on our panel had opinions about war, but that no-nonsense Marine knew more about it than the rest of us combined.

In the course of a blunt discussion of how our military has to prepare for future fights, the general spoke with a frankness that won the hearts of the uniformed members of the audience. Instead of trotting out politically correct clichés, Mattis told the truth:

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil . . . it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

The language wasn't elegant. But we don't need prissy military leaders. We need generals who talk straight and shoot straight, men who inspire. And I guarantee you that any real Marine or soldier would follow Gen. Mattis.

What was the media's reaction? A B-team news crew saw a chance to grab a headline at the military's expense (surprise, surprise). Lifting the general's remarks out of context, the media hyenas played it as if they were shocked to learn that people die in war.

Combat veterans are supposed to be tormented souls, you understand. Those who fight our wars are supposed to return home irreparably damaged.

HOLLYWOOD'S ideal of a Marine is the retired co lonel in the film "American Beauty," who turns out to be a repressed homosexual and a murderer. Veterans are sup- posed to writhe on their beds all night, covered in sweat, unable to escape their nightmares.

War does scar some men. Most vets, though, just get on with their lives — scratch a veteran looking for pity and more often than not you'll find a supply clerk who never got near a battlefield. And some who serve — the soldiers and Marines who win our wars — run to the sound of the guns, anxious to close with the enemy and kill him. They may not love war itself, but they find combat magnetic and exhilarating. They like to fight.

That's fine in movies featuring Brad Pitt as a mythical Greek hero. But God forbid that a modern-day Marine should admit that he loves his work.

Well, Marines and soldiers don't serve full careers because they hate their jobs. In peace or war, the military experience is incredibly rich and rewarding. And sometimes dangerous. Goes with the territory. But for most of the young infantrymen in Iraq, their combat experience will remain the highpoint of their lives. Nothing afterward will be as intense or exciting. And they will never make closer friends than they did in their rifle squad.

Gen. Mattis may have been unusual in his honesty, but he certainly isn't unusual in our history. We picture Robert E. Lee as a saintly father figure, but Lee remarked that it's good that war is so terrible, since otherwise men would grow to love it too much. He was speaking of himself. Andy Jackson certainly loved a fight, and Stonewall Jackson never shied from one. Sherman and Grant only found themselves in war.

WE lionize those who em braced war in the past, but condemn those who defend us in the present. George S. Patton was far blunter than Jim Mattis — but Patton lived in the days before the media was omnipresent and biased against our military.

The hypocrisy is stunning. Gen. Mattis told the truth about a fundamental human activity — war — and was treated as though he had dropped a nuclear weapon on an orphanage. Yet when some bozo on a talk show confesses to an addiction or a perversion in front of millions of viewers, he's lionized as "courageous" for speaking out.

Sorry. It's men like Jim Mattis who are courageous. The rest of us barely glimpse the meaning of the word.

We've come to a sad state when a Marine who has risked his life repeatedly to keep our country safe can't speak his mind, while any professor who wants to blame America for 9/11 is defended by legions of free-speech advocates. If a man like Mattis hasn't earned the right to say what he really believes, who has?

Had Gen. Mattis collapsed in tears and begged for pity for the torments war inflicted on him, the media would have adored him. Instead, he spoke as Marines and soldiers do in the headquarters tent or the barracks, on the battlefield or among comrades. And young journalists who never faced anything more dangerous than a drunken night in Tijuana tried to create a scandal.

FORTUNATELY, Lt.-Gen. Mattis has three big things going for him: The respect of those who serve; the Marine Corps, which won't abandon a valiant fighter to please self-righteous pundits whose only battle is with their waistlines; and the fact that we're at war. We need more men like Mattis, not fewer. The public needs to hear the truth about war, not just the crybaby nonsense of those who never deigned to serve our country.

In my own far humbler career, the leaders I admired were those who had the killer instinct. The soldiers knew who they were. We would have followed them anywhere. They weren't slick Pentagon staffers anxious to go to work for defense contractors. They were the men who lived and breathed the warrior's life.

Table manners don't win wars. Winning our nation's battles demands disciplined ferocity, raw physical courage — and integrity. Jim Mattis has those qualities in spades.

Semper fi, General.

Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern




Forwarded by The Happy Lady

If Abbot and Costello were around Today . . .

Abbott and Lou Costello's infamous sketch "Who's on first?" might have turned out something like this.....

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT . . .

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look in the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What have you got?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, lets just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".

COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight answers. OK, forget that.

Can I watch movies on the Internet?

ABBOTT: Yes, you want Real One.

COSTELLO: Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon What I watch is none of your business. Just tell me what I need!

ABBOTT: Real One.

COSTELLO: If it's a long movie I also want to see reel 2, 3 & 4. Can I watch them?

ABBOTT: Of course.

COSTELLO: Great! With what?

ABBOTT: Real One.

COSTELLO: OK, I'm at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What do I do?

ABBOTT: You click the blue "1".

COSTELLO: I click the blue one what?

ABBOTT: The blue "1".

COSTELLO: Is that different from the blue w?

ABBOTT: The blue "1" is Real One and the blue "W" is Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: But there's three words in "office for windows"!

ABBOTT: No, just one. But it's the most popular Word in the world.

COSTELLO: It is?

ABBOTT: Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many other Words left. It pretty much wiped out all the other Words out there.

COSTELLO: And that word is real one?

ABBOTT: Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn't even part of Office.

COSTELLO: STOP! Don't start that again. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer

COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT: One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

( A FEW DAYS LATER . )

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on "START"..........


Forwarded by Dick Haar

What I want in a man --- http://www.anonymomma.com/want.htm 


Redneck Valentine Poem:

Collards is green, my dog's name is Blue and
I'm so lucky to have a sweet thang like you.

Yore hair is like corn silk a-flapping in the breeze.
Softer than Blue's and without all them fleas.

You move like the bass, which excite me in May.
You ain't got no scales but I luv you anyway.

Yo're as satisfy'n as okry jist a-fry'n in the pan.
Yo're as fragrant as "snuff" right out of the can.

You have some'a yore teeth, for which I am proud;
I hold my head high when we're in a crowd.

On special occasions, when you shave under yore arms,
well, I'm in hawg heaven, and awed by yore charms.

Still them fellers at work, they all want to know,
what I did to deserve such a purdy, young doe.

Like a good roll of duct tape yo're there fer yore man,
to patch up life's troubles and fix what you can.

Yo're as cute as a June bug a-buzzin' overhead.
You ain't mean like those far ants I found in my bed.

Cut from the best cloth like a plaid flannel shirt,
you spark up my life more than a fresh load of dirt.

When you hold me real tight like a padded gun rack,
my life is complete; Ain't nuttin' I lack.

Yore complexion, it's perfection, like the best vinyl sidin'.
despite all the years, yore age, it keeps hidin'.

Me 'n' you's like a Moon Pie with a RC cold drank,
we go together like a skunk goes with stank.

Some men, they buy chocolate for Valentine's Day;
They git it at Wal-Mart, it's romantic that way.

Some men git roses on that special day
from the cooler at Kroger. "That's impressive," I say.

Some men buy fine diamonds from a flea market booth.
"Diamonds are forever," they explain, swave and couth.

But for this man, honey, these won't do.
Cause yor'e too special, you sweet thang you.

I got you a gift, without taste nor odor, more useful than diamonds...
IT'S A NEW TROLL'N MOTOR!!


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Subject: This sounds like the truth to me.

I looked over to my left and there was a woman in a brand new Cadillac doing 65 mph with her face up next to her rear view mirror putting on her eyeliner.

I looked away for a couple seconds and when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane, still working on that makeup.

As a man, I don't scare easily.

But she scared me so much; I dropped my electric shaver, which knocked the donut out of my other hand. In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel, it knocked my cell phone away from my ear which fell into the coffee between my legs, splashed, and burned Big Jim and the Twins, ruined the damn phone, soaked my trousers, and disconnected an important call.

Damn women drivers


Forwarded by Paula

CHINESE PROVERBS

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* 

Man who run in front of car get tired.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Man who run behind car get exhausted.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* 

Man with one chopstick go hungry.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Man who scratch butt should not bite fingernails.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Man who eat many prunes get good run for money.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

War does not determine who is right, war determine who is left.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Wife who put husband in doghouse soon find him in cat house.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It takes 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 fart in church sit in own pew.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Crowded elevator smell different to midget.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

These are entries to a Washington Post poetry competition, asking for a rhyme with the MOST romantic first line, but the LEAST romantic second line. The submissions are brutal!

I thought that I could love no other

Until, that is, I met your brother.

****************************

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.

But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head.

*****************************

Of loving beauty you float with grace

If only you could hide your face.

****************************

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;

This describes everything you are not.

****************************

I want to feel your sweet embrace

But don't take that paper bag off of your face.

****************************

I love your smile, your face, and your eyes

Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

****************************

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:

Marrying you screwed up my life.

****************************

I see your face when I am dreaming.

That's why I always wake up screaming.

****************************

My love, you take my breath away.

What have you stepped in to smell this way

****************************

What inspired this amorous rhyme?

Two parts vodka, one part lime.


Forwarded by Don Van Eynde

Subject: New Regulations for Employees Date: Effective Immediately

DRESS CODE: It is advised that you come to work dressed according to your salary. If we see you wearing $350 Prada sneakers & carrying a $600 Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially, and therefore you do not need a raise If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you can buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise. If you dress in-between, you are right where you need to be, and therefore, you do not need a raise.

SICK DAYS: We will no longer accept a doctor's statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to get to the doctor, you are able to come to work.

SURGERY: Operations are now banned. As long as you are an employee here, you need all your organs. You should not consider removing anything. We hired you intact, and it is your duty to stay that way. To have something removed constitutes a breach of employment.

PERSONAL DAYS: Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturday & Sunday. VACATION DAYS: All employees will take their vacation at the same time every year. The vacation days are as follows: Jan. 1, July 4 & Dec. 25

BEREAVEMENT LEAVE: This is not an excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or co-workers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend to the arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early, provided your share of the work is done.

ABSENCE DUE TO YOUR OWN DEATH: This will be accepted as an excuse. However, we require at least two weeks notice, as it is your duty to train your own replacement.

REST-ROOM USE: Entirely too much time is being spent in the rest-room. In the future, we will follow the practice of going in alphabetical Order. For instance, all employees whose names begin with 'A' will go From 8:00 to 8:10, employees whose names begin with 'B' will go from 8:10 to 8:20, and so on. If you're unable to go at your allotted time, it will be necessary to wait until the next day when your turn comes again. In extreme emergencies, employees may swap their time with a co-worker. Both employees' supervisors must approve this exchange in writing. In addition, there is now a strict 3-minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open and a photograph will be taken of the offender. After your second offence, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the "Chronic Offenders" category.

LUNCH BREAK: Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch as they need to eat more so they can look more healthy. Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure. Fat people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that's all the time needed to drink a Slim Fast and take a diet pill.

Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplation, consternation and input should be directed elsewhere.

Have a nice week.

The Management.


Do you know the official motto of your state?

KNOW YOUR STATE MOTTO

Alabama Hell Yes, We Have Electricity.

Alaska 11,623 Eskimos Can't Be Wrong!

Arizona But It's A Dry Heat.

Arkansas Literacy Ain't Everything.

California By 30, Our Women Have More Plastic Than Your Honda.

Colorado If You Don't Ski, Don't Bother.

Connecticut Like Massachusetts, Only The Kennedy's Don't Own It Yet.

Delaware We Really Do Like The Chemicals In Our Water.

Florida Ask Us About Our Grandkids, and Home Of The Early Bird Special

Georgia We Put The Fun In Fundamentalist Extremism.

Hawaii Haka Tiki Mou Sha'ami Leeki Toru (Death To Mainland Scum,Leave Your Money)

Idaho More Than Just Potatoes... Well, Okay, We're Not, But The Potatoes Sure Are Real Good

Illinois Please, Don't Pronounce the "S"

Indiana 2 Billion Years Tidal Wave Free

Iowa We Do Amazing Things With Corn

Kansas First Of The Rectangle States

Kentucky Five Million People; Fifteen Last Names

Louisiana We're Not ALL Drunk Cajun Wackos, But That's Our Tourism Campaign.

Maine We're Really Cold, But We Have Cheap Lobster

Maryland If You Can Dream It, We Can Tax It

Massachusetts Our Taxes Are Lower Than Sweden's

Michigan First Line Of Defense >From The Canadians

Minnesota 10,000 Lakes...And 10,000,000,000,000 Mosquitoes

Mississippi Come And Feel Better About Your Own State

Missouri Your Federal Flood Relief Tax Dollars At Work

Montana Land Of The Big Sky, The Unabomber, Right-wing Crazies, and Very Little Else.

Nebraska Ask About Our State Motto Contest

Nevada Hookers and Poker!

New Hampshire Go Away And Leave Us Alone

New Jersey You Want A ##$%##! Motto? I Got Yer ##$%##! Motto Right here!

New Mexico Lizards Make Excellent Pets

New York You Have The Right To Remain Silent, You Have The Right To An Attorney...

North Carolina Tobacco Is A Vegetable

North Dakota We Really Are One Of The 50 States!

Ohio At Least We're Not Michigan

Oklahoma Like The Play, But No Singing

Oregon Spotted Owl...It's What's For Dinner

Pennsylvania Cook With Coal

Rhode Island We're Not REALLY An Island

South Carolina Remember The Civil War? Well, We Didn't Actually Surrender Yet

South Dakota Closer Than North Dakota

Tennessee The Edyoocashun State

Texas Se Hablo Ingles

Utah Our Jesus Is Better Than Your Jesus

Vermont Ay, Yep

Virginia Who Says Government Stiffs And Slackjaw Yokels Don't Mix?

Washington We have more rain than you do

West Virginia One Big Happy Family...Really!

Wisconsin Come Cut The Cheese!

Wyoming Where Men Are Men... And The Sheep Are Scared


Forwarded by Dick Haar

A married couple was sitting in a fine restaurant when the wife looks over at a nearby table and saw a man in a drunken stupor. The husband asked "I notice you've been watching that man for some time now. 

Do you know him?" 

"Yes" she replied, "He's my ex-husband, and has been drinking like that since I left him seven years ago." 

"That's remarkable" the husband replied, "I wouldn't think anybody could celebrate that long." 

Services will be held at 2:30pm Saturday at Forever Green Mortuary.


She who laughs last might laugh last.

If I were Linda Stubbs, I would now run for Mayor.  She'd get my vote hands down.  
I also find her last name of interest.  The notorious tax fighter in the state of Texas is also named Stubbs, although there's probably no family relationship.

"Tax Official Suspended Over Tax Form Joke," SmartPros, February 7, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x46839.xml 

A Middletown, Ohio, tax superintendent has been suspended without pay for a week for trying to inject some humor in the city income tax filing instructions.

The attempt at humor by Linda Stubbs was called "misguided" by city Finance Director John Lyons.

The forms - with such lines as, "If we can tax it, we will," - were sent last week to all Middletown businesses and residents who pay city income tax.

Lyons said revised forms were sent out immediately at a cost to taxpayers of about $5,500.

Among the lines that city officials didn't think were very funny was this one:

"Free advice: if you don't have a profit in a five-year period, you might want to consider another line of work."

Middletown is about 25 miles northeast of Cincinnati.

"Tax Professional Suspended for Joking About Taxes," AccountingWeb, February 7, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100487 

The city has received messages from around the country showing support for Ms. Stubbs. One message came all the way from Romania and read: "Your humor was far from taxing, in fact it offered real tax relief! I loved your advice concerning 5 years without profit (how true)." At least one message suggested the penalty is too lenient and Ms. Stubbs should be fired from her job




Auntie Bev forwarded this letter of apology (admittedly not politically correct).

  http://www.catsprn.com/letter_of_apology.htm




And that's the way it was on February 20, 2005 with a little help from my friends.

 

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 

Jesse's Wonderful Music for Romantics (You have to scroll down to the titles) --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/

Free Harvard Classics --- http://www.bartleby.com/hc/
Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

 

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/ 

 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting newsletters are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#News 

News Headlines for Accounting from TheCycles.com --- http://www.thecycles.com/business/accounting 
An unbelievable number of other news headlines categories in TheCycles.com are at http://www.thecycles.com/ 

 

Jack Anderson's Accounting Information Finder --- http://www.umsl.edu/~anderson/accsites.htm

 

Gerald Trite's great set of links --- http://www.zorba.ca/bookmark.htm 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

The Finance Professor --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/about/aboutFP.html 

 

Walt Mossberg's many answers to questions in technology --- http://ptech.wsj.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Household and Other Heloise-Style Hints --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#Hints 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

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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February 8, 2005

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on February 8, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

For earlier editions of New Bookmark s go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.  Think it over 
http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/Flash/Think_It_Over.swf

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Pictures from the war ---  http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf 
New pictures from the war --- http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1291780/posts 
Also see some troops who'd rather be home <http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf>

Don't gross out your hosts in a foreign country!
Eating and Drinking Etiquette Quiz --- http://fekids.com/img/kln/flash/DontGrossOutTheWorld.swf 




My communications on "Hypocrisy in Academia and the Media" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 

My  “Evil Empire” essay --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm

My unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm




Quotes of the Week

General's Remarks:  Not a good image for America.
An Embarrassing Message from the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave --- Click here

Not a proud statistic for the United States
Rates of early death and disability that can be attributed to sexual behavior are three times higher in the United States than other so-called developed nations, a new study finds.  This finding precludes the AIDS epidemic in many African countries.

Amanda Gardner, "U.S. Leads in Sexually Transmitted Disease Rate," Wired News, January 28, 2005 --- http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=523654 

An Early Woman of Science
As the years passed, this passionate scientist, who had never taken a degree and lived most of the time on the farm where she had been born, accumulated eight honorary doctorates. She became a Fellow of the Royal Society and of St Hugh's College, Oxford. These honours were not always given without grumbles from the men in the labs. In an age of intense specialisation and professionalism in science, she appeared as a happy amateur and generalist. She was, in fact, a throwback to a different age, when gentlemen of means (and the Rothschilds had plenty of those) set up their own home laboratories and cabinets of curiosities, and pursued science for the sheer joy of it.

"Miriam Rothschild," The Economist, February 3, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3623112 

A9 is a good service with a lousy name
Amazon Elbows Into Online Yellow Pages Hiking the stakes in this hot field, the new service from its A9 unit features photo-rich listings that let you wander around near a destination

January 28, 2005 message from BusinessWeek Online's Insider [BW_Insider@newsletters.businessweek.com
The A9.com home page is at http://a9.com/?c=1&src=a9 
Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 

The 2004 Presidential election indicated that neither George Bush nor the Republican Party faltered in spite of the unpopularity of the war in Iraq , restrictions on stem cell research, and a succession of highly unbalanced government budgets.  What new development initiated by President Bush, however, may spell political doom for the Republican Party in forthcoming elections?
Paint the Red States Blue --- Howard Dean Will Cheer!
Bush May Commit Political Suicide:  Taking the Pork Out of Red State Pork

President Bush will seek deep cuts in farm and commodity programs in his new budget and in a major policy shift will propose overall limits on subsidy payments to farmers, administration officials said Saturday. Such limits would help reduce the federal budget deficit and would inject market forces into the farm economy, the officials said.  The proposal puts Mr. Bush at odds with some of his most ardent supporters in the rural South, including cotton and rice growers in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Robert Pear, "Bush Is Said to Seek Sharp Cuts in Subsidy Payments to Farmers," The New York Times, February 6, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/PorkFeb_6

Competition in the World Economy:  Throwing Deadly BRICs at the United States and Europe
Their report, "Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050," predicted that within 40 years, the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China - the BRICs - would be larger than the US, Germany, Japan, Britain, France and Italy combined. China would overtake the US as the world's largest economy and India would be third, outpacing all other industrialised nations.

"Out of the shadows," Sydney Morning Herald, February 5, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/04/1107476799248.html 
See "Pending Collapse of the United States" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm

Big Brother Has His Eye On You
An alternative crime-fighting approach would be to supplement the police presence by installing tiny closed-circuit television cameras on street lamps and buildings in order to monitor those areas of the city densely populated by college students, where rioting is likely to occur.  To maximize the effectiveness of surveillance, potential riot-areas must be blanketed with cameras. Their presence must be publicized throughout the academic community, so that students become completely aware of their presence.
"Keeping an eye -- and a camera -- on college students," by Jack Levin, Boston Globe, February 5, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/BigBrotherFeb_5 

Technology has become an essential part of who we take ourselves to be
As humanity and its technologies have progressed, they have also become more intertwined -- until the contemporary notion of self extends far beyond bone and sinew, into outer space and cyberspace. Technology has become an essential part of who we take ourselves to be, influencing our beliefs and desires, our plans and goals, our visions of what we are, have been, and might yet become.

Arun-Kumar Tripathi, "Technologically Mediated Lifeworld" Ubiquity: An ACM IT Magazine and Forum, vol. 5, issue 41, December 23-31, 2004 --- http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v5i41_tripathy.html 

Language is much more restless than life.
Manuel Seco
See "Hypocrisy in Academia and the Media" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 

Doing more than praying for a friend
As their growth slows, dating websites offer plenty of new options - from background checks to more detailed questionnaires.

Randy Dotinga, "Online dating sites aren't holding people's hearts," Christian Science Monitor, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0127/p11s02-stin.html 

Work is less boring than play.
Charles Baudelaire

From one cell to another cell
Europe Faces Its Terrorists:  Spain has arrested more than 130 Islamists since 3/11. 
From The Wall Street Journal Europe Jan 28 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/SpainJan_28 

Now you can ask that old Wal-Mart greeter:  "On what aisle can I find the mutual funds?"
Wal-Mart Stores didn't get to be the world's biggest retailer by giving up easily. So despite being twice thwarted by lawmakers in its efforts to buy a bank, it has quietly but tenaciously expanded its foothold in financial services.

"Wal-Mart, Your New Banker? It can't be or own a full-fledged bank -- yet -- but its partnerships and in-store financial services are giving the industry jitters," by Wendy Zellner, Business Week, January 27, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/WalMartJan_27 
 

Through the glass darkly
By coming to resemble what we are not, we cease to be what we are.
Ernst Jünger 

AIDS among infants, which only a decade ago took the lives of hundreds of babies a year and left doctors in despair, may be on the verge of being eliminated in the United States, public health officials say.
Marc Santora, "U.S. Is Close to Eliminating AIDS in Infants, Officials Say," The New York Times, January 30, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/NYTAIDS 

Find your own playing field
American companies spend too much time competing in narrowly defined industries and, as a result, face relentless downward pressure on profits, say W. Chan Kim and Reneé Mauborgne, professors at Insead, the French business school, and authors of a new book, "Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant" (Harvard Business School Press). 

William J. Holstein, "Finding a Sea Less Crowded," The New York Times, January 30, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/business/yourmoney/30advi.html 

Will religion spread across the new Eurabia?
The Western world, but Europe in particular, is the main battleground for the Islamists. Secret services regularly thwart terror attacks whose targets are on European soil. In the past few weeks, France, Germany and Italy separately uncovered alleged terrorist cells, including recruiters for the insurgency in Iraq.  But Europe is also the frontline for Islamists who have chosen a more "political" approach. Nearly five years ago, Sheik Yusuf Qaradhawi, star imam on the al-Jazeera news channel and president of the European Fatwa Council, was very clear: "With Allah's will, Islam shall return to Europe, and Europeans shall convert to Islam. They will then be able to propagate Islam to the world." This theologian -- widely listened to in the Arab world and in Europe -- doesn't think that the reconquest need be violent. For him, Islam as religion will pave the way. "I affirm that this time, the conquest will not be done by the sword but by proselytism and by ideology."
Caroline Fourest, "
The War for Eurabia," The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110729559310242790,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

Say what?
PARIS - Although a leading opponent of the U.S.-led war, French President Jacques Chirac told President Bush today he was satisfied with the organization of Iraq's elections and that the terrorists have been partly thwarted.  Foreign Minister Michel Barnier hailed Sunday's vote as ``an initial victory for the Iraqi people'' and ``a first important step which was indispensable for democracy and for the political process.''

Christine Olliver, "French president tells Bush he is satisfied with Iraq elections Christine Ollivier," The Star Tribune, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5213940.html 

Not so funny examples of the phrase "Take a Flying Leap"
The Golden Gate Bridge's stylish beauty masks a darker trait: the world's most famous suicide venue. More than 1,300 troubled souls have jumped to their deaths since the towering Art Deco span opened in 1937.

John Ritter, "Suicides tarnish the Golden Gate Filmed deaths renew debate over barriers on landmark," USA Today, January 31, 2005

Love Sickness May Be Just That
Weird News, February 6, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/lovesickFeb_6 

The Income Tax Collector's Lament
It can be called the paradox of plenty. Australians have never been richer - never owned more, never earned more - yet they think they are too poor to have children. New homes have never been bigger, yet Australians have fewer children to put in them. Australians, it may appear, want more of everything - except children. Despite a decade of strong economic growth and an approaching surfeit of jobs, our fertility rate is at an all-time low. There may soon be too few of us to turn the great engines of the economy, and the Treasurer, Peter Costello, is worried.

"Too poor for kids that's rich," Sydney Morning Herald, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/30/1107020254147.html 
Jensen Comment:  I might note that exponentially soaring population growth is an enormous problem elsewhere in the world --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 

But Not Too Dumb for a Drivers License
An "idiot" car thief who drove a stolen vehicle straight to a London police station to confess was told he was probably too stupid to jail.
"Too dumb for the clink," Sidney Morning Herald, February 6, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/06/1107476859326.html 

Rough Waters for Amazon.com The stock drops, profits weaken, online competition grows. And CEO Jeff Bezos' solution? Invest more in hopes of big gains down the road
Robert D. Hof, "Rough Waters for Amazon.com," Business Week, February 3, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/AmazonFeb_3 

Age of a Woman
Only last month we had the Kimberly Quinn saga played out in London, the spectacular public self-combustion of the British home secretary, David Blunkett, after the end of his long affair with Quinn. Sympathy for the 44-year-old Mrs Quinn (formerly Fortier, nee Solomon) quickly dissipated after it emerged she had embarked on her affair with Blunkett three months after her marriage to Stephen Quinn and concurrently had another lover, journalist Simon Hoggart. References began appearing in the Fleet Street press to "Bimberly Quinn". The social coup de grace was delivered by Michael Fortier, her first husband, who said Kimberly had a string of affairs during their marriage: "Even when she is lying in her grave, she'll be thinking if there is anybody more interesting she could have lying next to her." . . . Society is belatedly absorbing the reality that for every sexually potent male there is a sexually potent female, that for every sexually restless man there is a sexually restless woman. The great bull run in the divorce statistics helps underlie this. The idea that women are any less sexually needy or adventurous than men is a preposterousness we have had to endure for centuries, and ridiculous given that women are more sexually potent than men (that's a whole other subject). It is no coincidence that the dominant traditional streams of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition reserve all high offices for men, and God is portrayed as a man.

"New rules in the Age of Woman," Sydney Morning Herald, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/30/1107020258549.html 

An Outstanding Ruling
Sexual-performance drugs like Viagra will be covered by Medicare's new prescription benefit next year, along with medications for other conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease, Health and Human Services officials said.
"Medicare Plan to Cover Viagra," The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2005, Page D5 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110730408161543107,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

A Google browser would be a major shot across the bow of Microsoft.
As far as rumors go, the one about Google's move into the browser space is heating up. Ever since it was uncovered that the search company registered the URL gbrowser.com last April, Web chatter has been abuzz with the prospect of Google launching a browser to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Eric Hellweg, "Project Googlefox," MIT's Technology Review, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/wo/wo_hellweg013105.asp?trk=nl 

Bad English in of all places, England
"Where's the Verb?  Labour Slammed for Bad English," Europe News, February 6, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/BadEnglish 

The Price Aint Right
Fee increases usually prompt grumbling from eBay sellers, who insist they will peddle their wares elsewhere. But in the past, disgruntled sellers haven't had many other options. Now, though, there are several alternative auction sites.  Fee increases usually prompt grumbling from eBay sellers, who insist they will peddle their wares elsewhere. But in the past, disgruntled sellers haven't had many other options. Now, though, there are several alternative auction sites available, including Overstock.com Inc. and Bidville Inc. A new site, Waggle Pop, is set to launch in February.  In addition, small merchants can sell new and used goods on Amazon.com Inc.'s giant Web site. Yahoo Inc. has auctions and offers tools for building Yahoo-hosted Internet stores. Retailers also can hang out their own shingles in cyberspace and advertise using Yahoo's search engine or Google Inc. Search-engine advertisers pay to have their ad appear when a user searches a particular term, such as "cocktail shaker" or "wedding dress."

Mylene Mangalaindan, "Some Sellers Leave eBay Over New Fees," The Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110712696880940499,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

The Clintons claimed this was all Mickey Mouse
Analysts and investors gathering at the Walt Disney World resort here on Monday for the Walt Disney Company's annual conference will be buzzing about a book - but not one being published by Disney.  The book, "DisneyWar: The Battle for the Magic Kingdom," written by James B. Stewart, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work at The Wall Street Journal detailing the stock market crash of 1987, is being published by Simon & Schuster. It is said to have sections highly critical of Disney's departing chief executive, Michael D. Eisner. It is scheduled to go on sale March 7, and comes at a critical time for Mr. Eisner's No. 2, the Disney president, Robert A. Iger. Mr. Iger hopes to succeed Mr. Eisner and, so far, appears to be the front-runner . . . But Disney executives then had a decision to make: They could continue cooperating with Mr. Stewart or stop, said the two people.  Ending cooperation carried its risks. In the early 1990's, Mr. Stewart had been encouraged by a friend of former President Bill Clinton to write about the Whitewater scandal in what Bill and Hillary Clinton hoped would be a flattering portrait of the couple. The interviews with the Clintons never materialized and "Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries," released in 1999, was highly critical of the Clintons. The book became a best seller.

Laura M. Holson and Lorne Manly, "Much Ado About What's in a Disney Book," The New York Times, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/business/media/31disney.html 

Three Cheers (make that 2.5 cheers) for Our Nation's Lawyers.
It took lawyers and litigation to start the civil rights, environmental protection, disability rights and anti-smoking movements. Legislators wouldn't act until the lawsuits caused change and produced publicity that led to laws and other reforms. For example, lawsuits aimed at smoking did what Congress refused to do: slashed smoking rates and returned hundreds of billions of dollars to taxpayers.  USA TODAY opposes the suits, arguing for public education and personal responsibility. But expensive taxpayer-funded government educational campaigns weren't very effective in reducing smoking, race discrimination, sexual harassment or other behaviors, while lawsuits were. Face it, personal responsibility by itself simply hasn't worked for obesity any better than it did for smoking and the others, and it isn't likely to.
John F. Banzhaf III, "Lawsuits can fight fat Legal action is more effective than public education programs," USA Today, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050131/oppose31.art.htm 
Jensen's Paraphrasing of Portions of the Above Quotation:
For example, lawsuits aimed at preventing audit failures did what CPA firms internally refused to do: Make CPAs serious about incompetent auditing and unethical relationships with clients. Before the recent auditing scandals  (especially before Andersen's in-your-face lack of humility in the Waste Management scandal), Bob Jensen opposed lawsuits, arguing for auditor education and professional responsibility. But traditional college curricula and milk toast ethics policies weren't very effective in holding the line on auditor independence.  Face it, professional responsibility with caps on legal liability by itself simply won't work for auditors any better than it would for obesity, smoking and the others, and it isn't likely to.  Caps on liability make it profitable to be incompetent and, perhaps, even fraudulent.  The temptations for unrestrained sweet sugar, succulent fat, nicotine, and CPA client complicity and/or audit cost cutting are too irresistible.

The Curse of Receiving an Award:  An Award May Come Back and Bite You on the Butt
Now here's his counterpart at Foster's, Robert Porter in the spotlight, "resigning" for breaching the grog shop's rules on staff share trading.  Porter, as vice-president of IR (he held a similar gig at Foster's takeover target Southcorp before that) is believed to have flogged 20,000 Foster's shares just before Christmas. Since then, the brewer's stock has fallen about 12 per cent, with boss Trevor O'Hoy pulling the top on his $3.1 billion hostile bid on January 17.  So is it becoming a case of the curse of the Investor Relations Awards, with Porter last year "highly commended" in the Best Investor Relations Officer for an ASX Top 100 company category? Oh dear.
Christine Lacy, "Curse of Investor Relations Award," Sydney Morning Herald, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/30/1107020256567.html 

Few people knew Marlon better than Tarita
The memoirs of Marlon Brando's Tahitian former wife have hit bookshelves in France, lifting the lid on the secretive actor's troubled life and the suicide of their daughter Cheyenne.  Marlon, My Love, My Suffering by Tarita Teriipaia details the tortured 43-year relationship the pair struck up when Brando landed in Tahiti in late 1960 to film Mutiny on the Bounty, in which Teriipaia was cast as his love interest.  The Oscar-winning star of The Godfather and On the Waterfront, who died in July 2004 at the age of 80, is depicted as a volatile tyrant who could be physically and mentally cruel one moment, tenderly loving the next.  Teriipaia, 63, said she told the actor she was writing her life story to get over the traumas of the past. Publisher XO Editions plans an initial print run of 50,000 for France and is in talks to translate the book."Brando's ex-wife.
tells all," Sydney Morning Herald, February 1, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/01/1107020335156.html 

Just When You Think the U.S. is GW "Bush League" and Europe Has Better Welfare Policies
A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services" at a brothel in Berlin faces cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.  Prostitution was legalised in Germany two years ago and brothel owners - who must pay tax and employee health insurance - were granted access to official databases of job seekers.  The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe. She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile" and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did she realise she was calling a brothel.  Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month, to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest level since reunification in 1990.  The Government considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars.
Clare Chapman in Berlin and John Garnaut, "No job no excuse for turning down sex work," Sydney Morning Herald, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/30/1107020262141.html 

The Oldest Trade Rebranded
Can a bordello really be sold as a resort destination? Nevada is the only state in the union where brothels are legal, but prostitution is by no means a hallowed trade. Brothels are usually seedy affairs, tucked discreetly away from churches, town halls and the like (or so somebody we met in a bar once told us). But Lance Gilman, who owns both the Wild Horse bordello and the trademark for the Mustang Ranch, is building a sex village—complete with museum and souvenir shop.
"Sex, souvenirs and non-smear lipstick," Economist, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3600013 

For a good time phone 555-1234
A London push to clamp down on prostitution by blocking calls to numbers on cards left in phone booths has run into opposition from cell phone companies.  
David Pringle, "Why a London Pol Thinks These Ladies Shouldn't Get Calls," The Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110773987680447356,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 
He'd asked cell phone companies to hang up on prostitutes; fake cards, CEO numbers.

Actions speak louder and pay better than mere words
When the Taiwanese President, Chen Shui-bian, visited the Solomon Islands last week, he held a media conference in which he denied that his nation used "chequebook diplomacy" to gain recognition in the region. Then the local journalists attending were handed gifts of watches and MP3 music players.
"Questions of corruption in the search for Pacific allies," Sydney Morning Herald, February 7, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/06/1107625061638.html 

Military Recruiters on U.S. Campuses
If, as is likely, the Supreme Court overturns the appeals court decision, that will be the end of it. Almost all universities, public and private, take millions of dollars in federal money that would be next to impossible to give up. That's especially true of the elite schools, both public and private. Still, it would be nice to think that the nation's universities would welcome the military for reasons other than the mercenary. Patriotism, perhaps?

"Wisdom of Solomon," The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2005, Page A14 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110730600668943186,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 
In fairness, the lawsuits initiated by 26 law schools are mainly aimed at legal principle and concern over a college's ability to block some really undesirables from recruiting on campus such as Spam Inc. and Hell's Hackers.

Sometimes all forms of torture just won't work:  This could be a little kinky
A militant group in Iraq claimed last night to have kidnapped an American soldier and threatened to kill him if Iraqi prisoners were not released within 72 hours. The group posted on the internet what appeared to be a photograph of a soldier sitting in front of a black banner with a gun pointed at his head.
Rory McCarthy, "Insurgents say they are holding US soldier," The Guardian, February 2, 2005 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1403711,00.html 
But Wait:  Liam Cusack, the marketing coordinator for Dragon Models USA http://www.dragonmodelsusa.com/dmlusa/welcome.asp , said the figure pictured on the Web site is believed to be "Special Ops Cody," a military action figure the company manufactured in late 2003.  "It pretty much looks exactly like the same person [sic]," he said. . . ."Cody" is an action figure the company made for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which supplies U.S. military bases worldwide with various items. The doll was meant to look like a U.S. soldier who might be serving in Iraq, Cusack said.

Slam Dunk or Slammer Dunk?
Wall Street firms have been desperate to diversify their overwhelmingly white ranks and to tap into the lucrative niche of African-American entertainers. To that end, firms have engaged in bidding wars for brokers with ties to these celebrities.  Mr. Darden was clearly caught up in the swirl: he was ambitious and savvy enough to drop a name like Shaq and take the millions thrown at him in return, but unable to cement enduring financial relationships.  Many aspects of the case remain unexplained. While the civil suit against Mr. Darden states that he never delivered his list of famous clients, Nelly and Mr. Sprewell gave him $1.25 million to invest that has not been returned.

Landon Thomas, Sr., "Catch Him If You Can," The New York Times, January 15, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/business/yourmoney/16scam.html?oref=login 

UN: United Nookie
Allegations of sex crimes committed by U.N. staff and troops date back at least a decade and span operations on three continents, in places like Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cambodia. But rather than showing the kind of "zero tolerance" toward sexual crimes that Mr. Annan now promises, the U.N. has treated such instances with cavalier nonchalance.

"Sex for Food," The Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110428235654211678,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 

Oh no!  They're talking about me behind my back again.
There are people who know everything, but that's all they know.

Niccolò Macchiavelli

Snow on the roof means fire in the furnace
The AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) is a powerful outfit. It has 35.5 million members ages 50 or older.
 Al Neuharth. "Use, abuse of power: Bush and the AARP ," USA Today, January 7, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050107/al07b.art.htm

Shrinking without interpolation
Current forgery detection techniques, which are vital for screening news items and intelligence, leave much to be desired. Digital watermarking works only when someone has had the foresight to insert hidden information into an image file to prevent tampering. In contrast, Popescu and Farid’s method can be applied automatically to any image file. However, the method is not foolproof: for example, it cannot detect cases of shrinking without interpolation. Also, data compression, used in JPEG files, and noise interfere with the algorithm. Nonetheless, the new software makes it harder for a digital photograph to lie.

"Photoshop Sleuths," MIT's Technology Review, February 2005 --- 
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/issue/synopsis_info.asp?trk=nl
 
Bob Jensen's threads on fraud reporting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm 

Seed Police Gonna Gethcha
Monsanto Co.'s "seed police" snared soy farmer Homan McFarling in 1999, and the company is demanding he pay it hundreds of thousands of dollars for alleged technology piracy.  McFarling's sin? He saved seed from one harvest and replanted it the following season, a revered and ancient agricultural practice.  "My daddy saved seed. I saved seed," said McFarling, 62, who still grows soy on the 5,000 acre family farm in Shannon, Miss. and is fighting the agribusiness giant in court.
Paul Elias, "Enforcing Single-Season Seeds, Monsanto Sues Farmers," MIT's Technology Review,  January 14, 2005 --- 
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/ap/ap_011405.asp?trk=nl
 
Jensen Comment:  This also means that McFarling and other farmers cannot buy ahead when the price is low and subjects them to greater pricing risk unless they enter into possibly complex derivative financial instruments for hedging purposes.

Three Cheers (make that 2.5 cheers) for Our Lawyers.
It took lawyers and litigation to start the civil rights, environmental protection, disability rights and anti-smoking movements. Legislators wouldn't act until the lawsuits caused change and produced publicity that led to laws and other reforms. For example, lawsuits aimed at smoking did what Congress refused to do: slashed smoking rates and returned hundreds of billions of dollars to taxpayers.  USA TODAY opposes the suits, arguing for public education and personal responsibility. But expensive taxpayer-funded government educational campaigns weren't very effective in reducing smoking, race discrimination, sexual harassment or other behaviors, while lawsuits were. Face it, personal responsibility by itself simply hasn't worked for obesity any better than it did for smoking and the others, and it isn't likely to.
John F. Banzhaf III, "Lawsuits can fight fat Legal action is more effective than public education programs," USA Today, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050131/oppose31.art.htm 
Jensen's Paraphrasing of Portions of the Above Quotation:
For example, lawsuits aimed at preventing audit failures did what CPA firms internally refused to do: Make CPAs serious about incompetent auditing and unethical relationships with clients. Before the recent auditing scandals  (especially before Andersen's in-your-face lack of humility in the Waste Management scandal), Bob Jensen opposed lawsuits, arguing for auditor education and professional responsibility. But traditional college curricula and milk toast ethics policies weren't very effective in holding the line on auditor independence.  Face it, professional responsibility with caps on legal liability by itself simply won't work for auditors any better than it would for obesity, smoking and the others, and it isn't likely to.  Caps on liability make it profitable to be incompetent and, perhaps, even fraudulent.  The temptations for unrestrained sweet sugar, succulent fat, nicotine, and CPA client complicity and/or audit cost cutting are too irresistible.

Please try to understand this math
Investors who are content to pay the average fee for their mutual fund might be surprised to learn that most investors are actually paying quite a bit less.  The average annual fee, expressed as a percentage of fund assets, for the 10,585 open-end stock funds tracked by Lipper Inc. is 1.573%. But the dollar-weighted average fee -- or what the average investor is actually paying -- is a mere 0.936%, according to Lipper.  There is a significant difference because the vast majority of mutual funds aren't the multibillion-dollar portfolios that dominate media coverage, but smaller portfolios that generally have higher so-called expense ratios.
Daisy Maxey, "How to Look at Mutual-Fund Fees," The Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2005, Page R1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110773891359147341,00.html?mod=todays_us_the_journal_report 

How to Bribe Russians
The Finnish government said it regretted sponsoring a book giving detailed examples of how to bribe Russian businessmen published by the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce.
Weird News, January 21, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/FinnBribes 

In the good old summertime
No one serious has called Summers a sexist. (Not even Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at MIT, who said that, if she hadn't walked out, she would have fainted or barfed.) Which is appropriate, since sexism had nothing to do with his controversial statements. What led him to wonder whether there might be small genetic variations between men and women in quantitative capacity, I suspect, was his genuine surprise that women have not risen in the fields of physics, engineering, and mathematics as fast as he thinks they could and should. He isn't in the least bit oblivious to the lingering prejudices against women in the academy. (After all, his mother is a retired professor of public policy at the Wharton School of Business and his "significant other," Elisa New, is a professor of English at Harvard and a valued contributor to The New Republic.)

Martin Peretz, "Body of Evidence," The New Republic, February 4, 2004 http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050214&s=diarist021405  

Perhaps Colleges Should Give Stronger Warnings to Students
Tattoos and body piercings have become so common that they hardly attract notice. One recent study of 7,960 college students in Texas found that one in five had at least one tattoo or piercing of a body part other than the earlobe.  But health officials say they are increasingly worried about the health risks posed by such body modification practices, including physical disfigurement and bacterial and viral infections, and not only from needles that draw blood in potentially unsanitary conditions.
Lorraine Kreahling, "The Perils of Needles to the Body," The New York Times, February 1, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/health/policy/01tatt.html?oref=login 

Just a little bit for the little bits!
Doctors have successfully transplanted insulin-producing cells from a mother to her diabetic daughter.

BBC News, February 4, 2005 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4236873.stm 

Ode to Arnie
California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things had better work here, because here, beneath that immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent.

Joan Didion as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-02-04-05.htm 




Bob Jensen's threads on the dirty secrets of credit card companies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 


Fakes!
The global counterfeit business is out of control, targeting everything from computer chips to life-saving medicines. It's so bad that even China may need to crack down
"Fakes," Business Week, February 7, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/FakesJan_29
Bob Jensen's threads on Fraud Reporting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm


Annuities!
Don't Believe The Hype Many of the tax benefits of variable annuities no longer exist, but the hard sell continues.
A paid subscription version of this Business Week, February 7 article is available at http://snipurl.com/AnnuitiesFeb_7 

Claim Says Morgan Stanley Got  Kickbacks to Push Some Products," by Susanne Craig and Ian McDonald, The Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2004, Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110505182475219324,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

A new arbitration claim asserts that Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley received hidden incentives from several big insurance companies to push certain variable annuities and other investment products.

Bob Jensen's threads on investment scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudRotten.htm 


In God, but not our financial advisor, we trust!
Declining trust has spurred some 25% of the affluent investors surveyed to move a portion of their assets out of their financial-services firms in the past two years, according to a study by Spectrem Group, a Chicago research and consulting firm. A litany of complaints, including poor investment performance, conflicts of interest, hidden fees and financial scandals, prompted wealthy investors to move their business elsewhere.
Rachel Emma Silverman, "
Wealthy Lose Trust in Advisers," The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2005, Page D2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110730662305243216,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


More than 230 civilians have been killed while working on U.S.-funded projects in Iraq, and U.S. officials did not properly keep track of $8.8 billion of Iraq's money, according to an inspector general's report released Sunday (January 30).
USA Today, January 31, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050131/a_civilians31.art.htm 
I might add that over 300 Iraqi college educators have also been executed, including many who did not necessarily support U.S. presence in Iraq.  Some were killed simply because they were intellectuals who also did not support Islamic fundamentalism and continued suppression of educating women.


Your credit history may influence the amount you pay for insurance on your home and cars.
Through the years insurers have found a person's credit information to be a highly accurate predictor of risk, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a non-profit organization supported by the property and casualty insurance business.

Peabody and Smith Newsletter, February 2005 --- http://realtytimes.com/c/PeabodySmithRealty 


Questions
What major metropolitan areas in the U.S. have the highest per-capita rates of FTC consumer crime complaints?
What metropolitan area made the above top honors plus the top honors for the most identity theft complaints?
What are the major types of complaints?


Answers
Scroll down

"Identity Theft, Net Scams Rose in '04-FTC ," Reuters, The Washington Post, February 1, 2005 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54010-2005Feb1.html?nav=headlines 

Americans lost at least $548 million to identity theft and consumer fraud last year as the Internet provided new victims for age-old scams, according to government statistics released Tuesday.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it received 635,000 consumer complaints in 2004 as criminals sold nonexistent products through online auction sites like eBay Inc. or went shopping with stolen credit cards

Identity theft -- the practice of running up bills or committing crimes in someone else's name -- topped the list with 247,000 complaints, up 15 percent from the previous year.

Fraud and identity theft cost consumers at least $437 million in 2003.

Internet-related fraud accounted for more than half of the remaining complaints as scammers found victims through Web sites or unsolicited e-mail, the FTC said.

Auction fraud was the most common Internet scam, the FTC said in its annual fraud report, followed by complaints about online shopping and Internet access service.

The number of incidents was up across nearly every category from 2003, but it was unclear whether that represented an actual increase in fraud or simply a greater awareness of the FTC's Consumer Sentinel fraud program.

Consumers likely lost significantly more than the amount reported, as fewer than half were able to pin a dollar figure on their losses.

The median monetary loss reported was $259, though 41 consumers reported losses of $1 million or more.

The FTC did not specify how many identity-theft incidents took place online. A recent report by the Better Business Bureau found that most cases of identity theft occurred through the theft of a checkbook or other offline methods.

The FTC site is at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/02/top102005.htm 

The top categories of consumer fraud complaints for 2004 include:

  • Internet Auctions - 16 percent
  • Shop-at-Home/Catalog Sales - 8 percent
  • Internet Services and Computer Complaints - 6 percent
  • Foreign Money Offers - 6 percent
  • Prizes/Sweepstakes and Lotteries - 5 percent
  • Advance-Fee Loans and Credit Protection - 3 percent
  • Business Opportunities and Work-at-Home - 2 percent
  • Telephone Services - 2 percent
  • Other (miscellaneous) - 12 percent

Other findings from the report include:

  • Of the 635,173 complaints received in 2004, 246,570 were identity theft reports and 388,603 were fraud complaints.
  • Internet-related complaints accounted for 53 percent of all reported fraud complaints.
  • The major metropolitan areas with the highest per-capita rates of complaints concerning consumer fraud were Washington, DC; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA; and Las Vegas-Paradise, NV.
  • Credit card fraud was the most common form of reported identity theft, followed by phone or utilities fraud, bank fraud, and employment fraud.
  • The major metropolitan areas with the highest per-capita rates of reported identity theft were Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA; and Las Vegas-Paradise, NV.

Copies of the report, “National and State Trends in Fraud and Identity Theft,” are available online at http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/pubs/Top10Fraud2004.pdf and from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish (bilingual counselors are available to take complaints), or to get free information on any of 150 consumer topics, call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357), or use the complaint form at http://www.ftc.gov. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

Bob Jensen's threads on consumer fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm 


Forbe's slide show on the 2005's Most  Notorious (White Collar Crime) Trials --- http://www.forbes.com/home/business/2004/12/21/cx_lrlh_1221trials.html 

Bob Jensen's Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 

Bob Jensen's updates on computer and network security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 




TRINITY MAGAZINE, FALL 2004, from the front piece by the President of Trinity University

Are truths self-evident? Do similes announce differentness? Is trompe l'oeil noetic? How does the Faust figure differ in European cultures? Does jazz have form in the same sense that a sonata does? Does the form of a question qualify its answer? 

. . .

There are many other utilitarian dimensions to the humanities. One can, for example, make money writing books, editing magazines, translating, playing music, acting, teaching philosophy, and doing a host of other things for which studying the humanities directly prepares students. To lead in business, politics--in virtually any walk of life--the communication, cultural, and conceptual skills, encompassed by the humanities are at least greatly helpful, if not necessary. And the exposure to ambiguity, rigorous criticism, and formal argumentation, which are characteristic of work in the humanities, is excellent preparation for the vagaries and hard realities of negotiating one's way through a demanding world, especially to maintaining some immunity to the blandishments of marketers and politicians. by John Brazil


TRINITY MAGAZINE,  FALL 2004, Page 15

Bob King Receives National Award

Trinity athletic director Bob King was named the 2003-04 Division III National Athletic Director of the Year for the West Region by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA).  He received the award at NACDA's convention in August 2004 in Dallas.

Since King took over the athletic program in 1993, the Tigers have claimed 91 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) titles, in addition to winning 10 of the last 11 SCAC President's Trophy awards.  Not only have four teams won NCAA Division III championships, but the Tigers have also earned distinction as the only NCAA institution in any division to have its football, volleyball, men's soccer and women's soccer teams competing in the NCAA semifinals in the same season, a feat the Tigers accomplished in 2002.

Additionally, the University was selected as the third best college in Division III for female student-athletes by Sports Illustrated for Women.  In the classroom, Trinity student-athletes have led the SCAC in Spring Academic Honor Roll accolades during King's tenure, while accumulating a composite grade point average that exceeds the university average.  Fourteen student-athletes have been awarded NCAA postgraduate scholarships.


This message is from the Director of the Trinity University Library.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Graves, Diane J. 
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 9:22 AM 
To: Trinity Faculty 

A number of you have asked about the legal use of copyrighted material on your websites and Blackboard courses. I just learned about this site, prepared at the CUNY Baruch College, which will help. It’s an interactive guide in a flow chart format that shows the steps you need to take to use copyrighted media in teaching. It’s very easy to follow.

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/tutorials/copyright/ 

Both the library and IMS are providing links to this guide from our sites, but you might find it helpful to review it now and bookmark it for later use.

Diane

Diane J. Graves, Professor & University Librarian
Elizabeth M. Coates Library, Trinity University
One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212

February 2, 2005 reply from Dr. Jagdish Pathak [jagdish@UWINDSOR.CA

I liked the presentation. It opened in my lotus notes browser without any problem. It is knowledge enhancing and equally enjoyable stuff!

Jagdish Pathak, PhD 
Guest Editor- Managerial Auditing Journal (Special Issue) 
Accounting Systems & IT Auditing Faculty 
Accounting & Audit Area 
Odette School of Business 
University of Windsor 
401 Sunset Windsor, N9B 3P4, ON Canada

February 3, 2005 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu

COPYRIGHT AND LEARNING

"Like evil trolls guarding the gates, the copyright controllers are trying to hold sway over our actions and create walled gardens around knowledge repositories so that they can maintain full control over who uses applications or accesses content and when, where, and how they use it."

In "Stealing the Goose: Copyright and Learning" (IRRODL, November 2004) Rory McGreal calls for taking back education's "fair use" and "fair dealing" rights that are in jeopardy as some intellectual property owners seek to tighten control and maximize profits. The article is available online at http://www.irrodl.org/content/v5.3/mcgreal.html 

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL) [ISSN 1492-3831] is a free, refereed ejournal published by Athabasca University - Canada's Open University. 

For more information, contact Paula Smith, IRRODL Managing Editor; tel: 780-675-6810; fax: 780-675-672; email: irrodl@athabascau.ca ; Web: http://www.irrodl.org/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on the education-unfriendly DMCA are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright 


Many, if not most, colleges are getting into distance education with a course here and a course there.  This may not be the best approach.

"OFFERING ENTIRE DEGREES ONLINE IS ONE KEY TO DISTANCE EDUCATION, SURVEY FINDS,:  by Dan Carnevale, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 4, 2005, Page A31.

The distance-education programs that offer entire degrees online are more successful than those that offer only a scattering of courses, a new survey has found.

The report, titled "Achieving Success in Internet-Supported Learning in Higher Education," was written by Rob Abel, president of a nonprofit organization called the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness.  The report was set to be released this week.

Mr. Abel says the organization wanted to find out what made a distance-education program successful and to share the information with other institutions.  The organization surveyed officials at 21 colleges and universities that it determined to be successful in distance education.  In their responses, college officials highlighted the need for such common elements as high-quality courses and reliable technology.

But what struck Mr. Abel as most important was that 89 percent of the institutions created online degree programs instead of just individual online courses.  Online degree programs lead to success, he says, because they tend to highlight a college's overall mission and translate into more institutional support for the faculty members and students working online.

"It's easier to measure the progress at a programmatic level," Mr. Abel says.  "The programmatic approach also gets institutions thinking about student-support services."

Of course, success is subjective, he says, and what may be deemed successful for one institution may not work at another.

But he found that some college officials believe distance education has not lived up to their expectations.  He hopes that some colleges will learn from institutions that have succeeded online.  "These particular institutions didn't see this as a bust at all," Mr. Abel says.  "Maybe that just means that they set realistic expectations."

SUCCESS STORIES

One of the institutions included in the report is the University of Florida, which enrolls more than 6,000 students in its online degree programs.  William H. Riffee, associate provost for distance, continuing, and executive education at the university, says Florida decided to move forward with a strong distance-education program because so many students were demanding it.

"We don't have enough seats for the people who want to be here," Mr. Riffee says.  "We have a lot of people who want to get a University of Florida degree but can't get to Gainesville."

The university does not put a cap on enrollments in online courses, he says.  Full-time Florida professors teach the content, and part-time faculty members around the country field some of the questions from students.

"We have learned how to scale, and we scale through an addition of faculty," Mr. Riffee says.  "You scale by adding faculty that you have confidence will be able to facilitate students.

Another college the organization deemed successful in distance education is Westwood College, a for-profit institution that has campuses all over the country, in addition to its online degree programs.  Shaun McAlmont, president of Westwood College Online, says some institutions may have trouble making the transition to online education because higher education tends to be slow to change.

"How do you introduce this concept to an industry that is very much steeped in tradition?"  he asks.  "You really have to re-learn how you'll deliver that instruction."

Mr. McAlmont, who has also spent time as an administrator at Stanford University, says non-profit institutions could learn a lot from for-profit ones when it comes to teaching over the Internet.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on education technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


"College Textbook Prices Criticized," by Stuart Silverstein, Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/textbookFeb_4 

A national student activist organization stepped up its criticism of college textbook publishers Tuesday, asserting that the industry imposed exorbitant wholesale price increases totaling 62% over the last decade on top-selling books. That amounts to more than double the nation's overall rise in consumer prices during the same period.

"Textbook prices are skyrocketing, and publishers continue to use gimmicks to inflate the price, making higher education less affordable," said Merriah Fairchild, a Sacramento-based higher education advocate. She worked with the national State Public Interest Research Groups organization in preparing a new report on textbook pricing released Tuesday.

The activist organization also complained that the textbook publishing industry charged U.S. students more than foreign students for the same texts. It found that the average textbook cost 17% more in the United States than it did in Britain. In all, it estimated that the average U.S. college student spent about $900 a year on textbooks, although industry officials put the figure at $625.

The college textbook industry called much of the report badly flawed, saying the findings were based on a small sampling of popular but costly textbooks that exaggerated the overall rise in prices to students. Industry officials also maintained that the price of textbooks had risen more slowly than college tuition and fees.

They also sought to shift some blame for costs onto college instructors and their faculty committees, saying that they were free to order less expensive texts for their students. Professors "are in control of that choice," said Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education with the Assn. of American Publishers.

But Hildebrand also said that the student organization's estimated 17% gap in prices of texts sold in the U.S. compared with those in Britain "seems reasonable."

The United States "is the richest market in the world. You sell into what the market will handle. It's like Coca-Cola sold for less overseas," he said.

The report — titled "Ripoff 101: 2nd Edition" — is a follow-up to a smaller-scale study released a year ago. Like the previous version, it accused the industry of a variety of ploys to inflate textbook prices.

Among other things, it said publishers released unnecessary new editions of texts every few years as a way to push up prices and make less expensive used books obsolete.

The activist organization also repeated its contention that publishers often packaged textbooks with unneeded instructional materials such as CD-ROMs and workbooks to drive up the price.

Continued in the article

The Ripoff 101 download is at http://calpirg.org/reports/textbookripoff.pdf 

Bob Jensen's threads on publisher frauds are at
 http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals 


---Dave Albrecht wrote: The original function is:

(X ^.8) - ( (X-1) ^ .8) = .3

February 7, 2005 reply from Roberts, John [JohnRoberts@SJRCC.EDU]

If you put the function (X^.8)-(X-1)^.8 -.3 = 0 into a graphing calculator such as the TI-83 you will find that the curve crosses the X axis at two points. It crosses the y-axis at about -1.2, then moves sharply up, crossing the x-axis at .6625, continuing up to about .7 then gradually falls (very slowly) towards the x-axis again crossing at about 135.35. So there are two answers: .6625 and 135.35.

February 7, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

The .8 is just a constant. It is rather interesting to see the degeneracy when the .8 is changed to zero.

(X ^.8) - ( (X-1) ^ .8) = .3

(X ^0) - ( (X-1) ^ 0) = .3

(1) - (1) = .3

I think this is a valid equation only in College Station, Texas.


"Equality of Opportunity: The Water We Swim," by Ben Stein, The New York Times, January 30, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/business/yourmoney/30every.html  

In 2005, however, day-to-day business swims in the water of stunning, unbelievable moral progress. It is a whole new world, a new universe of equality of opportunity.

Every job in every field is open to everyone, with perhaps a very few exceptions. Women are heads of gigantic high-tech companies like Hewlett-Packard. Blacks are heads of immense financial companies like Merrill Lynch and American Express and vast communications combines like Time Warner (and, Time was among the WASPiest of companies long ago.) Blacks and women can be found at every prestigious, well-paid perch. Jews are hired at law firms that would not have let them in the door during my youth, except as tailors. Jews are the heads of industrial corporations where they would not have been considered for interviews in 1958.

As for Asians and Hispanics, they, too, are rising everywhere. Asians lead the technology world to an astonishing extent, and Hispanics are a potent force in the media, law and other fields.

THE daily news is filled with alarums and excursions about the trade deficit, the budget deficit, corporate profits, malfeasance in high places and worries about pensions. All are real problems, to be sure, but if we take a step back, if we think like historians instead of gossips, we see something amazing: society has been made so much more open than my father - a visionary in his own way - could have dreamed only 47 years ago.

Of course we have problems. We always will. But the stunning achievements of American business in opening itself up to all in the society - that is the water in which we swim. And we should swim with a great deal of pride. The big story, the sweep of opportunity, is one that we ignore every day - and are the poorer for it.

Bob Jensen's threads on Hypocrisy in Academia are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 


Catch Me If You Can features three exciting cases to unravel. Your job? Look for clues, follow the money trail and catch the bad guys. Don't wait - log on and get sleuthing. When it comes to fighting crime, every second counts.
Catch Me If You Can --- http://www.startheregoplaces.com/sandbox/catchme/login.asp 

January 25, 2005 message from Bea Sanders, Director of Academic and Career Development, AICPA

Last year, thousands of students played our online forensic accounting game Catch Me If You Can.  Sponsored by the AICPA, it presented students with fictional cases to solve using only a few clues and their business smarts.  In unraveling the mysteries, they also learned about the business of forensic accounting, won prizes, and had fun.

Catch Me If You Can was such a "runaway hit," we have created a second edition with three all-new cases for students to solve.  It's more interactive, more exciting and more educational than ever.

The competition started on January 31, 2005


"Lessons for the American Empire," by Anna Bernasek, The New York Times, January 30, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/business/yourmoney/30view.html  

Economists and historians have long recognized the importance of balance in a nation's spending priorities. Over time, those spending decisions help determine the trajectory of a nation's prosperity and power. A country can run into trouble, for instance, if it consumes too much in military spending and starves its economy of investment. If such a pattern continues, that country's economy won't be productive enough to support further military spending; ultimately, its military will weaken and its power will decline.

In a 1987 book, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers," Paul Kennedy, a history professor at Yale, formulated the concept this way: "Without a rough balance between these competing demands of defense, consumption and investment, a Great Power is unlikely to preserve its status for long."

The British Empire was crushed by its unsustainable spending on World War I and World War II. For the Soviet Union, the cold war ultimately proved too much for its planned economy to support.

Today, the United States faces its own difficult choices between the competing demands of security, consumption and investment. Abroad, the Iraq war lingers painfully while other potential conflicts loom in Iran and elsewhere. Domestically, privatization of Social Security could cost a cool $2 trillion or so. And in global commerce, the offshore threat to the labor force and competition for business profits are increasing. Up-and-coming companies based in Asia and elsewhere may one day rival even our most successful corporations. That prospect makes increased investment in research and development and in education a pressing need for the economy. Put all that against the backdrop of the country's already substantial debts, and it is clear that tough decisions need to be made.

Now for those practical lessons.

For starters, nothing lasts forever. The eventual decline of the United States in relative terms is inevitable. But managing measured change is profoundly more desirable than suffering a precipitous fall.

Niall Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard who has written at length about the British Empire, put it this way: "There's a very big difference between declining in the next five years and the next 500 years," he said. "I shouldn't think Americans would like to live through what the British did."

Avoiding a rapid decline has something to do with picking one's battles. According to Professor Ferguson, wars among near-equals can be particularly destructive. Had Britain been able to use its influence to head off World War I, its ensuing decline would have been far less abrupt. But even if avoiding war with Germany might not have been possible, it appears that Britain seriously overestimated its chances of achieving a quick strategic victory. It's a good reminder that military actions are among the most risky a nation can undertake. So far, the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, much weaker nations, are not in themselves likely to seriously injure the United States' position. But concluding the conflict in Iraq has not proved as easy as prewar estimates suggested, and opening a front in Iran or elsewhere could add significant burdens.

Continued in the article


The Encyclopedia of World History http://www.bartleby.com/67/

Bob Jensen's threads on history are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History 


A BRIEF HISTORY OF ECONOMICS: Artful Approaches to the Dismal Science by E Ray Canterbery (Florida State University) http://www.worldscibooks.com/economics/4079.html 


Animal Diversity Web --- http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html 


TurboTax, TaxCut Expand Offerings for Federal Income Tax Via IRS Web Site; 
State Tax Returns Are Not Included

If you've been using a basic version of some package like Turbo Tax and you've not yet paid to upgrade this year, you might be interested in going to the IRS Free File site at http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html 

"Popular Tax Software Is Now Free to All," The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110730045375743009,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

In an unusual departure for the $1 billion tax software and online tax-preparation industry, makers of the nation's two best-selling programs are giving away free software and electronic-filing services to anyone who wants them.

The move to make the software free to everyone is the latest twist to emerge from a deal the Internal Revenue Service cut in late 2002 with numerous tax-preparation companies.

The IRS, which has been trying to encourage more people to file electronically, promised not to provide its own free service during the term of the pact. In return, members of the alliance were required to offer free services, via the IRS Web site, to at least 60% of the nation's taxpayers.

Since the program's inception, nearly all such offers were limited to people who met certain income, age or other restrictions. It has expanded this year amid growing industry competition to attract more users for both federal and state software.

In all, a total of 19 Web-based versions of federal tax-prep and electronic-filing programs are available free through the IRS. (Some of the most popular versions retail for about $20 or $30.) Some businesses still restrict the free services based such factors as income or age. But others -- including the two biggest sellers, Intuit Inc., maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block, maker of TaxCut -- are offering free services to everyone.

Nearly all of the free offers are only for federal returns. Most people still will have to pay for software or electronic filing of state returns, and companies in the alliance hope to capture some of that business. Some companies also may use this as an opportunity to sell taxpayers on other financial services, such as mortgages or insurance.

Continued in the article

If you've been using a basic version of some package like Turbo Tax and you've not yet paid to upgrade this year, you might be interested in going to the IRS Free File site at http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html 

Bob Jensen's tax helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation 


Our Earth as Art --- http://earthasart.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.htm 


February 3, 2005 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu

TURNING LEARNING OVER TO STUDENTS

"A common report from anecdotal writing over many generations of educators is that it is the teacher who usually learns the most during the process of gathering content materials, designing, teaching and evaluating student performance." According to Terry Anderson and Norine Wark, in "Why Do Teachers Get to Learn the Most? A Case Study of a Course Based on Student Creation of Learning Objects" (e-JIST, vol. 7, no. 2, 2004), this can be remedied by "the creation of innovative, flexible instructional course designs aimed at creating active learning communities in which the students take on the major roles of constructing, sharing and teaching the course content." Anderson and Wark's developed an instructional design that encourages collaboration by groups of students in online classes. Their assessment of their study indicates that such a design can "reduce instructor workload, provide opportunity for students to acquire new skills while increasing their subject content knowledge, and create a lasting legacy of re-usable learning objects."

The paper is available online at http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/docs/Vol7_no2/FullPapers/WhyDoTeachers.htm 

e-Journal of Instructional Science and Technology (e-JIST) is a peer-reviewed electronic journal published by the Distance and e-Learning Centre, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland 4350, Australia; Web: http://www.usq.edu.au/dec/ . Current and back issues of e-JIST are available at no cost at http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/ 

......................................................................

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS IN WEB-BASED COURSES

In "Measuring Student Perceptions in Web-Based Courses: A Standards-Based Approach" (ONLINE JOURNAL OF DISTANCE LEARNING ADMINISTRATION, vol. VII, no. IV, Winter 2004), authors Joe Jurczyk, Susan N. Kushner Benson, and John R. Savery present a "method that instructors and administrators can use to measure student perceptions in a distance learning environment using a set of standards from the Institute of Higher Education Policy (IHEP)." Using their experience with a graduate course in social science research methods, the authors illustrate how to apply their assessment method. Their paper is available online at http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/winter74/jurczyk74.htm 

The Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration is a free, peer-reviewed quarterly published by the Distance and Distributed Education Center, The State University of West Georgia, 1600 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118 USA; Web: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/jmain11.html 

The IHEP standards were designed to establish best practices benchmarks for higher education distance learning courses. The benchmarks are organized into the following categories: institutional support, course development, teaching and learning process, course structure, student support, faculty support, and evaluation and assessment.

IHEP's mission is "to foster access and success in postsecondary education through public policy research and other activities that inform and influence the policymaking process." For more information about IHEP, go to http://www.ihep.com/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on learning and education technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


"Beyond The Balance Sheet Earnings Quality," by  Kurt Badanhausen, Jack Gage, Cecily Hall, Michael K. Ozanian, Forbes, January 28, 2005 --- http://www.forbes.com/home/business/2005/01/26/bbsearnings.html 

It's not how much money a company is making that counts, it's how it makes its money. The earnings quality scores from RateFinancials aim to evaluate how closely reported earnings reflect the cash that the companies' businesses are generating and how well their balance sheets reflect their true economic position. Companies in the winners table have the best earnings quality (they are generating a lot of sustainable cash from their operations), while companies in the losers table have been boosting their reported earnings with such tricks as unexpensed stock options, low tax rates, asset sales, off-balance-sheet financing and deferred maintenance of the pension fund.

Krispy kreme doughnuts is the latest illustration of the fact that stunning earnings growth can mask a lot of trouble. Not long ago the doughnutmaker was a glamour stock with a 60% earnings-per-share growth rate and a multiple to match-70 times trailing earnings. Now the stock is at $9.61, down 72% from May, when the company first issued an earnings warning. Turns out Krispy Kreme may have leavened profits in the way it accounted for the purchase of franchised stores and by failing to book adequate reserves for doubtful accounts. So claims a shareholder lawsuit against the company. Krispy Kreme would not comment on the suit. 

Investors are not auditors, they don't have subpoena power, and they can't know about such disasters in advance. But sometimes they can get hints that the quality of a company's earnings is a little shaky. In Krispy's case an indication that it was straining to deliver its growth story came three years ago in its use of synthetic leases to finance expansion. Forbes described these leases in a Feb. 18, 2002 story that did not please the company. Another straw in the wind: weak free cash flow from operations. You get that number by taking the "cash flow from operations" reported on the "consolidated statement of cash flows," then subtracting capital expenditures. Solid earners usually throw off lots of positive free cash flow. At Krispy the figure was negative.

 Is there a Krispy Kreme lurking in your portfolio? For this, the fifth installment in our Beyond the Balance Sheet series, we asked the experts at RateFinancials of New York City ( www.ratefinancials.com ) to look into earnings quality among the companies included in the S&P 500 Index. The tables at right display the outfits that RateFinancials puts at the top and at the bottom of the quality scale. The ratings are to a degree subjective and, not surprisingly, some of the companies at the bottom take exception. General Motors feels that RateFinancials understates its cash flow. But at minimum RateFinancials' work warns investors to look closely at the financial statements of the suspect companies. 

A lot of factors went into the ratings produced by cofounders Victor Germack and Harold Paumgarten, research director Allan Young and ten analysts. A company that expenses stock options is probably not straining to meet earnings forecasts, so it gets a plus. Overoptimistic assumptions about future earnings on a pension fund artificially prop up earnings and thus rate a minus. A low tax rate is a potential indicator of trouble: Maybe the low profit reported to the Internal Revenue Service is all too true and the high profit reported to shareholders an exaggeration. Other factors relate to discontinued operations (booking a one-time gain from selling a business is bad), corporate governance (companies get black marks for having poison pills), inventory (if it piles up faster than sales, then business may be weakening) and free cash flow (a declining number is bad).

Continued in this section of Forbes

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm 

Especially note the core earnings module at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#CoreEarnings 

For details see  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/CoreEarnings.htm 


An Expensive Book for Energy Consultants

Essentials of Energy Risk Management --- http://www.rigzone.com/store/product.asp?p_id=1048&c_id=46 
Publisher: Paradigm Strategy 
Group Item Number: 100-1048


Kahila, John [john.kahila@thomson.com

Just a short note to say thanks, for providing a number of valuable resources and links (e.g. to Teets & Uhl), and for convincing me that it was Example 5 in FAS 133 that was wrong rather than me. :-)

BTW, I do not entirely share your positive opinion of the "Derivatives Summary" document that shipped with the first version of the FASB's CD-based tutorial (referenced in one of your documents by its ZIP file name, derivsum.exe) -- and which was omitted, perhaps tellingly, from the second version. Parts of it are quite nice, but I find other parts unintelligible. I'm referring here specifically to (for instance) the table of Exhibit 8, where the relationship between the given LIBOR rates and the given implied forward rates is inscrutable. I suspect that the author of the document was also mystified, given the odd ascription of the figures to "a brokerage firm's pricing model" in the paragraph that precedes the table. The omission of necessary data is bad in an example published with a standard, as you observe; and it is worse in a tutorial that purports to explain the method of the example. [Or perhaps I'm just overlooking something obvious, but if so it has escaped a fairly determined attempt to discover what it might be.]

I do however share your positive opinion of the Teets & Uhl material. It's superb.

Thanks again, 
john kahila


Spirituality in Higher Education (Religion) --- http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/ 


President George W. Bush has appointed Edward P. Lazear, an economist at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business to the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform --- http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/lazear_taxadvisorypanel.shtml 

What I find interesting is how President Bush can turn to one of the most liberal (spell that activist left) universities in the United States and find appointments to power positions, including that of his current Secretary of State.  What is interesting to me is how universities tend to tolerate diversity of opinion, although I'm not always certain there would be open mindedness if the hiring decision was made without a policy to maintain this diversity.


Scientists have discredited claims that listening to classical music enhances intelligence, yet this so-called "Mozart Effect" has actually exploded in popularity over the years according to Stanford University Associate Professor Chip Heath.
"Discredited "Mozart Effect" Remains Music to American Ears," by Marina Krakovsky, Stanford Graduate School of Business Alumni Newsletter,  February 2005 --- http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/ob_heath_mozarteffect.shtml 

Scientists have discredited claims that listening to classical music enhances intelligence, yet this so-called "Mozart Effect" has actually exploded in popularity over the years. So says Chip Heath, an associate professor of organizational behavior who has systematically tracked the evolution of this scientific legend. What's more, Heath and his colleague, Swiss psychologist Adrian Bangerter, found that the Mozart Effect received the most newspaper mentions in those U.S. states with the weakest educational systems—giving tentative support to the previously untested notion that rumors and legends grow in response to public anxiety.

"When we traced the Mozart Effect back to the source [the 1993 Nature journal report titled 'Music and Spatial Task Performance'], we found this idea achieved astounding success," says Heath. The researchers found far more newspaper articles about that study than about any other Nature report published around the same time. And as the finding spread through lay culture over the years, it got watered down and grossly distorted. "People were less and less likely to talk about the Mozart Effect in the context of college students who were the participants in the original study, and they were more likely to talk about it with respect to babies—even though there's no scientific research linking music and intelligence in infants," says Heath, who analyzed hundreds of relevant newspaper articles published between 1993 and 2001.

Not only had babies never been studied, but the original 1993 experiment had found only a modest and temporary IQ increase in college students performing a specific kind of task while listening to a Mozart sonata. And even that finding was proved suspect after a 1999 review showed that over a dozen subsequent studies failed to verify the 1993 result. While many newspapers did report this blow to the Mozart Effect, the legend continued to spread—overgeneralizations and all. For example, Heath cites a 2001 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that refers to "numerous studies on the Mozart Effect and how it helps elementary students, high school students, and even infants increase mental performance." In truth, none of these groups had been studied, says Heath.

So why did the Mozart Effect take such a powerful hold in popular culture, particularly in reference to babies and children? Heath and Bangerter surmised that the purported effect tapped into a particularly American anxiety about early childhood education. (Bangerter, who was doing research in Stanford's psychology department during the study, had been struck by Americans' obsession with their kids' education. For example, he saw that a preschool near the Stanford campus had the purposeful name "Knowledge Beginnings," whereas a preschool near a university in Switzerland was called "Vanilla-Strawberry." The latter made no lofty claims about its educational goals.) Concern about education was so great, in fact, that several U.S. states actually passed laws requiring state-subsidized childcare centers to play classical music or giving all new mothers a classical music CD in the hospital.

To test their hypothesis that the legend of the Mozart Effect grew in response to anxiety about children's education, Heath and Bangerter compared different U.S. states' levels of media interest in the Mozart Effect with each state's educational problems (as measured by test scores and teacher salaries). Sure enough, they found that in states with the most problematic educational systems (such as Georgia and Florida), newspapers gave the most coverage to the Mozart Effect.

"Problems attract solutions," explains Heath, and people grappling with complex problems tend to grasp for solutions, even ones that aren't necessarily credible. "They can be highly distorted, bogus things like the Mozart Effect," says Heath, adding that similar patterns occur in our culture's fixation on fad diets and facile business frameworks.

Heath's analysis also found that spikes in media interest generally corresponded to events outside of science-particularly state legislation and two pop psychology books, The Mozart Effect and The Mozart Effect for Children.

Lest Heath's own findings spawn overgeneralizations, he's quick to point out that the Mozart Effect is a particular type of legend. "The Mozart Effect points out a solution, whereas urban legends point out a problem." The prevailing but untested thinking about urban legends holds that they spread by tapping into public anxiety. But Heath says that even if the Mozart Effect succeeded by suggesting a solution to an anxiety, it's not clear why legends that create anxiety would spread. Why, for example, would people circulate stories about rat meat in KFC meals or about the perils of flashing your headlights at motorists driving without their lights on. "I'm still skeptical about the anxiety approach to urban legends," he cautions.

The anxiety explanation seems simple and convenient on the surface, but as the history of the Mozart Effect shows, a convenient answer may well be completely false. As Heath puts it, "We've got to look for a realistic way out instead of an easy way out."


A top  reviewer's choice as the best book of the year goes to a slim volume put out by Oxford University Press that deserves to be a classic. "The Modern Firm", written by John Roberts, an economics professor at Stanford GSB, lays out in wonderfully lucid and jargon-free language a framework for thinking about corporate structure. Economist, December 14, 2005
"In praise of the modern firm," Dec 16th 2004 From The Economist print edition

THE question admits of no easy answer. Business books include “how to” manuals, treatises on microeconomic theory, biography, popular history and much more. But there is no manual on how to compare them. The judges of awards to works of fiction, such as the Prix Goncourt and the Man Booker prize, know roughly what they are judging and how. They are much like adjudicators at a prize marrow show. By contrast, anyone asked to compare a bunch of business books is being expected to compare marrows with leeks, carrots, tomatoes and runner beans.

So what stands out on the 2004 business-book stall? As usual there was a smattering of fine, well written stuff from North American academics. Henry Mintzberg, a consistently contrary professor of management at McGill University in Montreal, fired a rocket into the academic business community by arguing in “Managers Not MBAs” (published by Berrett-Koehler in America and FT Prentice Hall in Britain) that the MBA, the bread-and-butter of most business schools, “prepares people to manage nothing”.

Synthesis, not analysis, Mr Mintzberg argues, “is the very essence of management”. Failed leaders such as Robert McNamara (of Ford) and Jeffrey Skilling (of Enron) were star MBA students and brilliant analysts. That was not enough to make them great managers.

In “Pay Without Performance” (Harvard University Press) Lucian Bebchuk of Harvard and Jesse Fried of Berkeley set out to identify the failure of corporate governance that allows chief executives' compensation to carry on rising with little relation to performance. They point the finger firmly at board directors, arguing that “we should focus not only on insulating directors from the influence of executives [the direction of most regulation in the field so far], but also on reducing their current insulation from shareholders.”

An imbalance always exists between the few good books and the piles of unreadable ones, made worse this year by an exceptionally poor crop of corporate histories and “inside stories”. Nothing compared with last year's “The Smartest Guys in the Room” (Portfolio and Viking), a gripping account of the Enron story by two journalists from Fortune that should be a sort of “Barbarians at the Gate” for the early years of the 21st century.

Transport was the publishers' favourite sector this year. Two books came out about JetBlue, not a particularly remarkable low-cost American airline. “Flying High” (John Wiley), the worse of the two, could have been subtitled “How to Succeed Like David Neeleman”, the Mormon with attention deficit disorder and nine children who founded the company.

Books about car companies were little better. “Driven” (John Wiley), ostensibly about BMW, is stuffed with details about the carburettors and power-to-weight ratios of almost every model that the Bavarian manufacturer has ever produced. “There will never be a boring BMW,” says the author, something not always true of books about BMW.

Every year produces a rich crop of management gobbledegook. “Journey to Lean” (Palgrave Macmillan), winner of an award from Britain's Management Consultancies Association no less, came up with examples like this: “Each value stream within the operating system must be optimised individually from end to end.”

This reviewer's recent favourite, however, comes from “Ready for Anything” (Viking and Piatkus Books), a book subtitled “52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life” and glowingly endorsed by Arianna Huffington. “I think”, says the author, David Allen, “there are basically two levels to handle for [sic] any unforeseen opportunity: 1. The spiritual. If God is all, and you're part of that, just relax. 2. All the rest. For this you must get your act together, so you can shift gears as required.” Sound advice, no doubt, for anyone obsessing about those BMW power-to-weight ratios.

Some excellent books published during the year fell in the grey area where business and management overlap with economics. Martin Wolf's “Why Globalisation Works” (Yale University Press), as clear an explanation of its title as you could wish to find, was one of them. Another was James Surowiecki's “The Wisdom of Crowds” (Doubleday and Little, Brown), a hymn of praise to the superior judgment of the many in an age when the individual expert is prized above all.

This reviewer's choice as the best book of the year, however, goes to a slim volume put out by Oxford University Press that deserves to be a classic. “The Modern Firm”, written by John Roberts, an economics professor at Stanford Business School, lays out in wonderfully lucid and jargon-free language a framework for thinking about corporate structure, given that “any organisation is multifaceted, and the range of organisational variables is mind-boggling”.

With an economist's discipline, the author introduces the reader as gently as possible to some demanding and stimulating ideas, ones that have already been tested by the likes of BP. Nobody, it can now be said, is fully fit to run a modern firm until they have read “The Modern Firm”.


Yahoo's Y!Q

"Yahoo to Release Service Aimed At Making Web Searches Easier," by Kevin J. Delaney, The Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2005, Page B6 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110739746773644562,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Yahoo Inc. plans to release today (February 3) a service designed to make it easier to conduct Web searches, its latest sally in the heated battle with Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to make search results more relevant for individual users.

The service, dubbed "Y!Q," uses keywords automatically extracted from Web pages to conduct Web searches and also to find related content on Yahoo's own Web sites. The search companies have long complained about the difficulty of delivering exactly the search results users want since the average search query a user enters is just a few words long. Yahoo's new service, which it plans to release on its site for test services ( http://www.next.yahoo.com/ ), partly addresses that problem by creating a list of search keywords itself based on the text a user is looking at.

. . . 

If an individual is reading a news article on Yahoo's site about plans for changing Social Security, for example, clicking on a button marked "Search Related Info" generates links to several Web sites discussing the same topic. In that case, the service extracts a string of keywords including "President Bush" and "Social Security" from the original article and uses them as the basis for the new search. The service works on sites other than Yahoo's own and allows users to add or exclude search terms from those generated automatically.

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


Forwarded by Ed Scribner on "How to Fold a Shirt" 
It sure doesn't work this way for me --- http://www.howtofoldashirt.net/ 


February 3, 2005 message from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

One of my wireless networking buddies brought the following URL to my attention. Those who are familiar with radio and RF energy know the advantages and drawbacks from this application, but the fact that a commercial product has been developed is quite impressive to those of us in the wireless and RF fields:

Check out: http://snipurl.com/cihb 

(The Avenue A cookie monitor will be caught by those of you with Spyware protection, but Avenue A is quite harmless for those of you who don't...)


KPMG Gets Hammered Again

As the World Economic Forum got under way in the Alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland, critics of globalization handed out "Public Eye Awards" for irresponsible corporate behavior.
"Critics Give 'Public Eye' Awards for Corporate Irresponsibility," AccountingWeb, February 1, 2005 ---  http://www.accountingweb.com/item/100440 

As the World Economic Forum got under way in the Alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland, critics of globalization handed out “Public Eye Awards” for irresponsible corporate behavior. According to Agence France-Presse, Nestle, oil giant Shell and Dow Chemicals, as well as Wal-Mart and KPMG International, were criticized as being among the worst corporate performers from 20 multinational nominees that have allegedly failed in their responsibilities regarding human rights, labor relations, the environment or taxes.

“They are model cases for all the corporate groups that have excelled in socially and environmentally irresponsible behavior. They reveal the negative impacts of economic globalization,” the organizers of the Public Eye on Davos, said in a statement, AFP reported. The nonprofit groups behind the awards are Berne Declaration and Pro Natura Friends - Friends of the Earth Switzerland.

Protests coincided with the start of the annual World Economic Forum, which the Canadian Press termed a “schmooze-fest” for 2,000 top corporate executives, political leaders and celebrities from around the world. The theme for this year's forum is “Taking Responsibility for Tough Choices.”

Nestle won the “most blatant case of corporate irresponsibility” Public Eye award for its marketing of baby foods along with a labor conflict in which it allegedly fired all the staff at a factory in Colombia, replacing every employee with cheaper labor.

The award for the human rights category went to Dow Chemicals, which was nominated for its role in the Bhopal chemical disaster of 1984. About 50 Greenpeace activists lay on the street, dressed in skeleton suits to bring attention to the 20,000 victims of the world's worst chemical disaster.

Shell, meanwhile, was awarded the environment prize for its “numerous oil spills” in the Delta region of Nigeria, according to Ethical Corporation magazine.

Other award winners include Wal-Mart, which was chosen for allegedly allowing poor working conditions in its African and Asian factories, and the professional services firm KPMG for promoting "agressive tax avoidance."

KPMG, which is based in 148 countries, was nominated by the Tax Justice Network. A spokesman for the campaign said: "Many tax practitioners earn huge fee income from developing tax avoidance strategies and promoting them to corporate clients."

A spokeswoman for KPMG International said that the allegations were "misleading and inaccurate,” according to the Guardian of London. She added: "We have not provided the tax practices at issue for a number of years."

KPMG's sales of $1 billion possibly illegal tax shelters is documented (complete with the Frontline PBS video) at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#KPMG 

February 2, 2005 reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

Kinda hate to see the AccountingWeb stooping to the low level of the other sensationalist journalists by giving air-time to this sort of cockamamie nonsense. Those of us with gray hair remember that Bhopal was a Union Carbide plant, not a Dow facility. Dow Chemical had nothing to do with Bhopal. Dow didn’t even become affiliated with Union Carbide until the late 1990’s-- at least a decade after Bhopal. And why wasn’t the unknown individual who sabotaged the valve that caused the disaster mentioned? Why only a “corporation”?

And Wal-Mart doesn’t own any factories anywhere, to the best of my research. They are a retailer. They purchase from the factories that are being criticized (as the primary customer, admittedly), but let’s give credit where credit is due. And I for one have to question whether “tax avoidance strategies”, as long as they are legal, are unethical. I see no problem in applying the tax law in such a way as to minimize the amount of tax you pay (I do it every year, and I’ll bet most of this lists readers do too), and the KPMG spokesman admitted that their questionable practices have been abandoned long ago, and called the report “misleading and inaccurate”. And given that the Shell oil spills in Nigeria were the result of bombings, can those really be called “irresponsible corporate behavior”? The whole “public eye” thing seems to be deserving of an award itself for “sham of the year”.

I sure wish that journalists would begin exercising some ethics themselves, and be a little more selective in what they provide as “news” (factual reporting of events) rather than simply promulgating half-baked sensations, agendas, complaining, conflict, and strife.

David R. Fordham
Complainant, Agenda Promulgator, and Professional Strife Initiator
(and half-baker, too)
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University

February 2, 2005 reply from Richard C. Sansing [Richard.C.Sansing@DARTMOUTH.EDU

For those interested in the issue of corporate social responsibility, the 22 January 2005 issue of the Economist has a several articles on the issue. 
(The cover is a hoot! See http://www.economist.com/printedition/cover_index.cfm )

Richard C. Sansing 
Associate Professor of Business Administration 
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth 
email: Richard.C.Sansing@dartmouth.edu 

Note from Bob Jensen

    Readers may also be interested in the published letters of response at http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3623176 


"New-SAT Takers: Confused Yet?" by Jennifer Medina, The New York Times, January 30, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/nyregion/thecity/30WE.html 

The bare-bones facts are these: What used to be a two-part, three-hour ordeal, half math, half verbal, will now require students to spend 45 more minutes completing an extra writing section. The new section will consist of three parts - one an essay, the other two multiple-choice grammar and sentence-completion questions.

In addition, the math and verbal sections are undergoing changes. The math will for the first time include questions on advanced algebra. The chief difference in the verbal will be the absence of multiple-choice analogies ("curd is to cheese as slurry is to ...").

These changes are in turn affecting what is known as the SAT II, a separate series of tests in a range of different subjects. Applicants to more selective colleges are usually required to take three SAT II tests. But a widely taken one - a writing test - is being eliminated, effectively displaced by the new writing section in the SAT. That will leave some students scrambling for a third subject in which they feel proficient enough to take the SAT II.

Beyond the bare bones lies a huge gray area. Juniors are aware, for instance, that the "perfect" score for the new test will be 2400, not 1600. But what many are worried about is how that score will be arrived at - especially given that scoring an essay is subjective at best.

"Nobody is 100 percent confident with what's going to happen," said Lloyd Lynford, Sophie's father. "You can take all these practice tests and not really know what your score is going to be. There's this comparative void out there that didn't used to be. Whatever really happens is a crap shoot."

In this transition test year, a major part of that crap shoot has to do with the colleges, and which ones will want what. Some have said they will accept the old SAT, which was administered for the last time earlier this month. Some have been unclear about which they will weight more heavily - the old or the new.

There is also variation when it comes to SAT II requirements. Columbia, Duke and Brown, for instance, will lower their requirement to two SAT II tests, but Harvard and Princeton will still ask for three.

Then there is the issue of timing. Students who hold off taking the SAT until May could lose time they might otherwise spend studying for Advanced Placement exams. And for the ones who apply early decision, the October SAT is clearly too late.

"We're talking about very practical problems," said Carol Gill, who runs a private college-admission counseling firm in Dobbs Ferry. "We have to call and check with every school. Parents have to push to find out the answers, because if you miss a test, you may end up missing the whole process."

Continued in the article

How to Get Into a Top College
The choice of which college-admissions test to take has long broken down along roughly geographical lines. Students on both coasts have tended to take the SAT, while their counterparts in much of the South, the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain states favor the ACT. But as students, parents and high-school counselors look to play every angle in the competitive college-admissions game, many have learned, to their surprise, that they actually have a choice. Taking the "other" test sometimes means not only higher scores but a better chance of getting into their top schools.

Anne Marie Chaker, "A New Way to Boost Scores On College-Admissions Tests:  Students Increasingly Hedge Their Bets by Taking Both the SAT and the ACT," The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2005, Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110600746397428321,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


"Classroom basics a better outcome," by Kevin Donnelly, Sydney World Herald, January 31 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/30/1107020258601.html 

New curriculum goals have drawbacks for students, parents and teachers, writes Kevin Donnelly.

After moving away from a traditional syllabus in the early 1990s, NSW appears set to water down still further the primary school curriculum. As part of this, the NSW Board of Studies is seeking public comment in response to a consultation paper aimed at defining mandatory results for primary school students.

Significantly, the paper maintains the commitment in NSW to what is known as an "outcomes-based approach" to curriculum. In the past, schools have decided what will happen in the classroom by having a syllabus that outlines, at the start of the year, what is to be taught.

An outcomes-based approach, on the other hand, shifts the focus to the end of the process by detailing what students should be able to achieve at the completion of a set stage.

Whereas a syllabus is more traditional, stressing the importance of the basics, regularly testing students and requiring teacher-directed lessons, outcomes education embraces fads such as group learning, non-competitive assessment and restricting education to what students find most relevant.

Those who control the NSW curriculum argue that an outcomes approach represents best practice. This is not so. In the words of Bruce Wilson, the one time head of Australia's national curriculum body, an outcomes approach represents an "unsatisfactory political and intellectual compromise".

As the 1995 NSW Eltis report into the adoption of outcomes-based education across Australia concluded, there was little, if any, evidence to support the benefits of this approach.

Worse still, as noted by the Vinson report, enforcing a bureaucratic and cumbersome approach to curriculum has served only to increase teacher frustration and lower morale as valuable teaching time is wasted.

The difference between syllabus and outcome-based education is clear when looking at those countries that outperform NSW in international maths and science tests associated with the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study - the Netherlands, South Korea, the Czech Republic and Singapore, which all ignore outcomes education in favour of a syllabus approach.

The strengths of a syllabus are many. Teachers are given a clear and succinct guide of what is to be taught at the start of the year. Syllabuses relate to specific year levels, deal with essential knowledge, understanding and skills and students are regularly tested. As syllabuses are supplied to teachers and are common across schools, teachers have more time to teach, rather than having to design their own courses.

Associated with a syllabus is the expectation that teachers stand at the front of the class and direct the lesson, instead of students working individually or in groups, and that traditional methods like rote learning and memorising are used.

An outcomes-based curriculum, on the other hand, adopts an inferior approach. As outcomes relate to a range of years, on the assumption that learning is developmental, students are able to move from year to year without mastering the basics.

Unlike those countries that perform best in international tests such as the trends study, where students are tested regularly throughout primary and secondary school, the first time NSW students face a competitive, high-risk examination is during the final years of secondary school.

Not only are students promoted automatically on the assumption that they will eventually "pick things up", but the reporting system is vague and politically correct, with teachers told not to rank students or to label them as failures, so that parents complain about the lack of detailed feedback.

There is also a high level of illiteracy as outcomes education has adopted education fads like whole language, where students are taught to look and guess when confronted by an unknown word instead of sounding out letters and combinations of letters.

In defence of outcomes education, advocates argue that some Asian countries such as Japan have forsaken the more traditional, syllabus approach in favour of the supposedly more creative approach represented by the NSW curriculum.

True, Japan has adopted many of the educational fads of the West such as life-long learning, creative learning and basing education on the world of the child, but the decline in standards has been so marked that many now argue that the experiment has failed.

Normally at the top of the league table in international tests, Japan has fallen below countries it used to outperform. The public outcry in Japan is to forsake experimental education, like that of NSW, and return to what has been proven to work.

If the Carr Government is serious about raising standards, why not give schools the autonomy, with the appropriate checks and balances, to seek out the best curriculum from around the world?

Schools in New York now teach the Singapore maths curriculum, since Singapore consistently achieves the best results in international tests. Such is the criticism of the New Zealand senior school certificate that Auckland Grammar has opted to also teach the Cambridge Certificate from Britain.

In Victoria, such were the failures of the Kirner government's Victorian Certificate of Education when it was introduced in the 1990s, that some independent schools introduced the internationally recognised International Baccalaureate - a choice denied to government schools.

In an increasingly globalised world, where curriculum documents can be downloaded in an instant, and where virtual classrooms can operate across the globe, why restrict NSW schools to a state-sponsored, parochial and second-rate curriculum?

Dr Kevin Donnelly is Director of Education Strategies and the author of Why Our Schools Are Failing.


Message from the Scout Report on January 27, 2005

Simon Wiesenthal Center: Multimedia Learning Center Online --- http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/ 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has done the Web-browsing public a great service by placing this extremely comprehensive and authoritative multimedia archive online. Online since 1999, the Multimedia Learning Center provides access to some of the past virtual exhibits sponsored by the Center's Museum of Tolerance (including a fine one dedicated to Polish Jews), a host of teacher's resources, and a helpful frequently-asked-questions area. The FAQ area may be most helpful for students, as it contains an interactive glossary of the Holocaust, a timeline of the Holocaust, and answers to 36 commonly asked questions about the Holocaust. The special collections area of the site contains a number of relevant primary documents related to the Holocaust, though it should be noted that the majority of them are available only in German and Hebrew.

Bob Jensen's threads on history are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History 


Bob Blystone's Pet Orb Weaver
I have a class until 8:15 at night in Cowles.  Sometimes I take my video camera.  Most of you haven't seen Bob Blystone's Charlotte (Jennie?) spider.  When I saw her seemingly signal to me, I took out my video camera and captured some footage.  Us Web wanderers are a friendly bunch.

You've Got a Friend in Me (Turn up your speakers) --- http://www.funnybunch.com/1/me1.swf 


Mr. Sandman, bring me a . . . 

I've not verified that this artist is authentic.  Auntie Bev told me to click on the link and it will open to Windows Media Player. I think the artist was filmed in South Korea. He paints using sand and the show is absolutely amazing. Well worth the watch. The show takes about 9 minutes. http://media.ebaumsworld.com/sandsicaf.wmv 


Corporate Social Responsibility?

February 2, 2005 message from Richard C. Sansing [Richard.C.Sansing@DARTMOUTH.EDU

For those interested in the issue of corporate social responsibility, the 22 January 2005 issue of the Economist has a several articles on the issue. 
(The cover is a hoot! See http://www.economist.com/printedition/cover_index.cfm )

Richard C. Sansing 
Associate Professor of Business Administration 
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth 
email: Richard.C.Sansing@dartmouth.edu 


An Outstanding Ruling
Sexual-performance drugs like Viagra will be covered by Medicare's new prescription benefit next year, along with medications for other conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease, Health and Human Services officials said.
"Medicare Plan to Cover Viagra," The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2005, Page D5 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110730408161543107,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 


For the next six months you're working for the government!
In 1995, July 4 not only commemorated the birth of our nation, it was the first day the average American could start working for himself because he had paid his fair share of taxes. Last year Americans for Tax Reform determined that Americans worked until July 11 (53 percent of the year) to pay their fair share. At the presently accelerating rate, in about 35 years we will work all 365 days a year to pay government employees to protect our freedom.

Bob Flynt, "Taxed by Taxes," The Idaho Observer, March 2004 --- http://proliberty.com/observer/20040320.htm 
Read Flynt's listing of the taxes added since 1904 --- Not so funny!


Lawyer Bashing

Questions
Why are some crime settlements tax deductible in the United States?
Why are crime expenses deductible from fines in Holland?
Why have women in Sydney stopped reporting rapes?

Answer
The only answers I can give is that lawyers write our laws and own our courts.

First the Example (U. S. lawyers write the laws)

"Marsh's Settlement ($850 settlement for insurance bid-rigging) Looks Likely Eligible For a Tax Deduction," by Ian McDonald, The Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110773270240547175,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us 

Also see "Sins of Commission," The Economist, February 1, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3621702 

You can read more about this and other insurance scandals at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#MutualFunds 

Second the Example (Holland lawyers run the courts)

Going Dutch:  Would he get cash back if he only managed to steal €1000 ($1700)?
A bank robber has been allowed to claim the cost of a pistol used in a hold-up as a legitimate business expense.  A Dutch court has permitted the 46-year-old man to set the €2000 ($3400) cost of the gun against his gross proceeds of €6750, gained during his raid on a bank in the southern town of Chaam. The judge at Breda Criminal Court duly reduced his fine by the same amount, while sentencing him to four years in jail.
David Rennie, "Making crime pay," Sydney Morning Herald, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/26/1106415667846.html 

Third Example (as long as I'm bashing lawyers)

Three Cheers (make that Zero cheers) for Lawyers.
Today, statistics will be released showing an increase in rapes and gang rapes in Sydney (Australia). This should come as no surprise. Despite a handful of high-profile trials resulting in long sentences, most women know that most sexual assaults go unreported, that most of those that are reported are not investigated, and that most of the tiny minority of cases that are prosecuted fail in court. Last week, the case against two convicted gang rapists, Bilal and Mohammed Skaf, was suspended indefinitely because the victim, who had broken down several times while giving testimony in the trial, said she could not endure a retrial. The trial and conviction had been quashed by three judges, Keith Mason, James Wood and Brian Sully, because two jurors had made an unauthorised visit to the crime scene.
"Cold-blooded law heats up cultural war." Sydney Morning Herald, February 7 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/02/06/1107625061470.html 


Sometimes all forms of torture just won't work:  This could be a little kinky
A militant group in Iraq claimed last night to have kidnapped an American soldier and threatened to kill him if Iraqi prisoners were not released within 72 hours. The group posted on the internet what appeared to be a photograph of a soldier sitting in front of a black banner with a gun pointed at his head.
Rory McCarthy, "Insurgents say they are holding US soldier," The Guardian, February 2, 2005 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1403711,00.html 
But Wait:  Liam Cusack, the marketing coordinator for Dragon Models USA http://www.dragonmodelsusa.com/dmlusa/welcome.asp , said the figure pictured on the Web site is believed to be "Special Ops Cody," a military action figure the company manufactured in late 2003.  "It pretty much looks exactly like the same person [sic]," he said. . . ."Cody" is an action figure the company made for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which supplies U.S. military bases worldwide with various items. The doll was meant to look like a U.S. soldier who might be serving in Iraq, Cusack said.


The Ballerina Gallery --- http://www.ballerinagallery.com/ 

This collection of ballerina photos is a tribute to all these great ballerinas. The photos are strictly for private viewing purposes only and are copyright by their respective owners. If you miss any credits or object to use of material please contact me.

The facts about the dancers have been collected mainly from the official sites of the Bolshoi Theatre, the Mariinsky Theatre (Kirov) and the Royal Ballet, plus The Encyclopaedia of Dance & Ballet, The Oxford Dictionary of Dance and Russian Ballet Encyclopaedia.


What is Texas?

Scroll to the last module at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/sanantonio.htm 


The Multibillionaire's Club:  Lunch for Two Provided You Will Take Pesos

"Buffett, Gates betting billions against greenback," by James Hertling in Davos and Simon Clark in London, Sydney Morning Herald, February 1 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/31/1107020327593.html 

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the world's two richest men, are partners in business, bridge and travel. Now they've joined in a bet against the US dollar.

Mr Gates, chairman of Microsoft, said he expected the US dollar to extend its three-year drop because of widening US trade and budget deficits.

"I'm short the dollar," Mr Gates told television interviewer Charlie Rose this weekend at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The ol' dollar, it's gonna go down."

Mr Buffett, whose personal fortune of more than $US42.9 billion ($55.4 billion) is topped only by Mr Gates's $US46.6 billion, has been buying foreign currencies since 2002, citing the impact of the US deficits. Their concerns were echoed in Davos by policy makers including European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and investors such as George Soros.

The US dollar has fallen 26 per cent against a basket of six major currencies since the start of 2002. The trade deficit swelled to a record $US609 billion last year and the Bush Administration expects the budget shortfall to reach a record $US427 billion in the year to September 30.

"It is a bit scary," Mr Gates said of the US's $US7620 billion in debt. "We're in uncharted territory when the world's reserve currency has so much outstanding debt."

Mr Buffett, chairman of investment company Berkshire Hathaway, bought $US1 billion in foreign currency contracts in the third quarter, bringing his total to $US20 billion of forward contracts in eight currencies on September 30, according to Berkshire. The currency position gave Berkshire a $US412 million pretax gain in the quarter as the value of the US dollar fell.

"That's a long-term position," Mr Buffett, 74, said in an August interview. "I have no idea what currencies are going to do next week or next month or even next year. I think I know over time."

Mr Gates and Mr Buffett's shared view on the US dollar is not their only joint interest.

Mr Gates revealed a $US319 million stake in Berkshire Hathaway on December 21, a week after he joined the company as a director. The two play bridge and have travelled together, taking a 1995 train trip through China.

Mr Buffett made his first investment in China in 2003, buying a stake in PetroChina Co.

In Davos, Mr Gates described China as a potential "change agent" for the next two decades. "It's phenomenal," Mr Gates said. "It's a brand new form of capitalism."

The Microsoft founder's $US27 billion foundation in September received approval from China's foreign-currency regulator to invest up to $US100 million in the nation's yuan shares and bonds.

The comments by Mr Gates about the US dollar came a week before Group of Seven officials meet to discuss currency policy and were echoed by officials from Europe and Asia.

Continued in the article


Message from the Scout Report on January 27, 2005

Education Next --- http://www.educationnext.org/ 

Published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Education Next is a journal designed to explore the various issues involved in transforming K-12 education in the United States. As the project's mission statement notes, "Education Next partakes of no program, campaign, or ideology. It goes where the evidence points". With an editorial board that includes such notable educational researchers as Diane Ravitch and E.D. Hirsch Jr., this journal is definitely thought-provoking and worth a look. On this site, visitors can read selected full-text articles from the current issue, and from previous issues dating back to 2001. Some of the highlights from the Winter 2005 issue include pieces on character education, the training of future educators at various universities, and the salaries of teachers. Additionally, each issue also includes a number of book reviews and commentary from the journal's editors.

Bold Change is Needed in K-12 Education --- http://www.educationnext.org/ 

Mission Statement In the stormy seas of school reform, this journal will steer a steady course, presenting the facts as best they can be determined, giving voice (without fear or favor) to worthy research, sound ideas, and responsible arguments. Bold change is needed in American K–12 education, but Education Next partakes of no program, campaign, or ideology. It goes where the evidence points.


Europe's Left in Denial
Arabs report more positively about the elections than Europe.

The Wall Street Journal Europe, Feb 1 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/WSJEFeb_1 

French President Jacques Chirac and other world leaders praised Iraqis on Monday for turning out to vote in landmark elections.  Chirac called President Bush to express pleasure in the results. He said the only losers in the election were the terrorists who tried to stop it.
USA Today, February 1, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050201/a_worldreax01.art.htm 

Middle Eastern males now make up 45,000 of the 90,000 inmates in French prisons --- http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail319.html  

An Uncertain Road: Muslims and the Future of Europe --- http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=60 


Free PDF Writers

What is not yet clear to me is whether the free PDF Writer alternatives allow the higher level security options such as making it impossible for users to select text for cutting and pasting. Book publishers generally do not allow text selection. CutePDF claims that you can set security options, but I'm not certain to what level in the free or fee versions. I did not download cutePDF since I already have the fee-based Adobe PDF writer.

Robert Bower’s excellent message about the cutePDF alternative for a free PDF writer inspired me to write a module for this  edition of New Bookmarks.  You should also note the message from a computer scientist ( John Howland ) at Trinity University . 

Mac users should note that they have a built in “free” PDF writer.

Especially note the message from Robert Bowers (Wharton) below regarding a free “cutePDF” writer option.  PDF files are currently the choice of most publishing firms that now offer electronic versions of their textbooks and other publications.  The reason is that, with a little tweaking ahead of time, PDF files are probably the most secure way to publish and to share on the Internet.  

As most of you know, Adobe's popular PDF reader can be downloaded free.  Most of you probably have this on your computers already, although you may not have downloaded Version 7.0 from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html 
I downloaded Version 7.0 and have had no troubles.  However, you may want to read some of the messages below from people who reported problems.

The Adobe Acrobat Acrobat (Writer) system that will transform your word processor documents into PDF files is not free from Adobe.  The Acrobat Professional version costs $449 from Adobe, but substantial discounts can be obtained from online stores --- http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/main.html 


The messages below may be especially interesting to PDF file users (and we all have to be users these days):

January 29, 2005 message from Wharton's (University of Pennsylvania) Robert Bowers [M.Robert.Bowers@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU

There is a FREE program called cutepdf

www.cutepdf.com/ 

CutePDF allows you to create PDF files from any printable document, save PDF forms using Acrobat Reader, make PDF booklet, impose, rearrange pages and much more ...

I have been using this program for over a year. I recommend it highly.

When I am finished a client's tax return I can print it to cutepdf. The output is a pdf file, which I can email the client as an attachment.

January 31, 2005 reply from John Howland [jhowland@ariel.cs.trinity.edu

Bob, you should know that free software tools have been available to make PDF files for as long as the PDF document format has existed. These tools have always been on Unix systems (including Linux) and the same tools are available to run in a Windows environment. It involves installing the Ghostscript package. Finally, the Apple OS X operating system uses the PDF document format to image all documents from any program, so that any document which can be printed may be preserved in PDF form because that format is created to print the document. Yet another example of how the Win software world lags behind the rest of the world or makes you pay a premium cost to have the feature.

Btw did you notice from Thursday's WSJ that Microsoft's latest profits were 34% (approx) of Gross sales! and 70% of Gross sales of more than 3B of Win XP. A good example of how, when you have a monopoly, you really gouge the consumer. Win XP (released in 2001) is full of technology problems which MS says they cant fix for another couple of years. I'm guessing they are addicted to 70% profitability of gross sales and that is why they don't improve their product.

If the auto manufacturers, or oil companies or any other big business were having profits of 30+% of gross sales consumers would be outraged. Why not here?

 


Question
What can Adobe Reader 7.0 do that previous versions could not do?

Answer

Adobe 7.0 allows you to do a limited amount of editing which you could not previously do unless you yourself authored the original article in some word processor and then saved it as a PDF file.  Even if you authored the article, you could not edit your PDF version.  You had to go back to your word processor version, make the edits, and then re-save it as a PDF file.  Now you can do a limited amount of editing on in the PDF file itself, which will frustrate some original authors when they see their works marked up by others.

"Adobe Reader 7 activates intelligent PDFs, more," by Brad Cook, Mac Central, December 21, 2005 --- http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/12/21/adobereader/index.php 

Adobe on December 21 released Adobe Reader 7.0, the latest version of its free software for opening PDFs. In addition to an improved search feature, the ability to fill out and submit forms, the ability to save various files attached to PDF documents and other new functions, Adobe Reader 7 allows you to activate special abilities embedded in PDFs with Acrobat 7.0 Professional or Adobe LiveCycle. Those abilities include adding comments with enhanced tools, affixing digital signatures, using custom stamps and locally saving filled-out forms. Reader 7.0 requires Mac OS X v10.2.8 or v10.3, a G3 processor, up to 35MB RAM and up to 125MB free hard drive space.

January 19, 2005 reply from Scott Bonacker [lister@BONACKERS.COM

Be cautious, though.

Acrobat 7.0 asks you to uninstall previous versions first.

The Acrobat 7.0 installation no longer includes PDFWriter, which is used by PaperPort to save scanned documents as PDF files and probably some other apps as well. A copy of PDFWriter from previous versions can be used though as long as the licensing allows it. Relevance is that if 7.0 is bought as an upgrade, licenses for the previous version are voided.

Also, installing Acrobat 7.0 killed our time and billing application. Creative Solutions is still trying to figure out what happened. It's poetic justice, though: since their practice management program is a compiled MS Access app, it tends to interfere with anything else you are doing with other versions of Access.

Check with other users and be sure of compatibility before installing this or any other upgrade, or protect yourself by installing GoBack or something similar first on a sacrifice workstation and test it.

Scott

January 27, 2004 reply from Scott Bonacker [lister@BONACKERS.COM

When we received and installed Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional we began having trouble with two other applications on those workstations:

PaperPort requires PDFWriter to save scanned documents as PDf files, and that is no long included in the Acrobat package. The fix is to install PDFWriter separately from another source.

Creative Solutions Practice (the workstation station operation from those two) was also disabled by some unknown change made by Acrobat. No fix is available yet on that.

I've heard that Acrobat 7.0 has disrupted other applications as well. Would any one care to share on that, either to the list or privately?

Scott E Bonacker, CPA 
Springfield, MO 65807 
Phone 417-883-1212 Fax 417-883-4887

January 28 message from Kurt C. Wilner [kwilner@OPTONLINE.NET

Likewise, Scott. A week or two ago, I heeded a notice from the IRS website, and upgraded to Acrobat 7.0 -- not even Professional but just the freebie. Whoops! The disruption was confined to the laptop I was using that evening, and disappeared once I uninstalled 7.0 (and installed 6.02 instead). Another point: the freely downloadable 7.0 will not let you save *.pdf's that you've entered data on, but advises that only by printing such forms will one retain a copy!

January 31, 2005 reply from Scott Bonacker [lister@BONACKERS.COM

Previously I wrote: "Also, installing Acrobat 7.0 killed our time and billing application. Creative Solutions is still trying to figure out what happened."

The problem (simplified) turned out to be that Acrobat switched from PDFWriter to PDFMaker, and the installation process included registry changes to add a toolbar for Microsoft Office applications. Since the practice management program was a compiled Access 2000 program, it was affected in a bad way as will potentially other compiled Access applications.

Thanks to strong help from Trish and others at CSI things are working fine now. Their workaround is posted in the AdobeForums for folks who value their other applications more than they value the convenience of PDFMaker. The moral of the story is something like this: "Don't blindly upgrade software without expecting ripple effects and always leave a trail of crumbs." Systems are complex environments and everything is potentially affected by everything else - don't forget "The law of unintended consequences". Creative Solutions stepped up to the plate and worked to resolve an issue that they didn't create.

Scott Bonacker, 
CPA Springfield, Missouri

January 31, 2005 message from Richard J. Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU

Scott and others:

It's important to realize that there are multiple apps in the Adobe Acrobat product family:

First there is Acrobat Professional and Adobe Standard.

Both these apps allow you to CREATE acrobat content.

Adobe also sells server software (big bucks $$$) which facilitates corporate document creation and sharing.

The free Adobe Reader 7.0 is designed with limited functionality to encourage the sale of Acrobat Professional and Standard.

The really neat thing about Acrobat Pro 6.0 and 7.0 is the ability to integrate multimedia files into a pdf file. I'll upload a sample file to my web site later for people to test.

Richard J. Campbell 
School of Business 
University of Rio Grande Rio Grande, OH 45674

 


February 1, 2005 message from Boyd, Colin [boyd@commerce.usask.ca

Hi Bob,

I note that you have some of my stuff on one of your excellent web sites. You may be interested in 2 more articles that I had published in July of last year.

Here are the URLs to get to the articles – you can click a link on each of the two web sites so as to get pdf copies of the original published articles. I suspect that you may be particularly interested in some of the analysis I offer in my review of Toffler’s book, which is the second piece below.

Colin Boyd

http://www.commerce.usask.ca/faculty/boyd/StructuralOrigins.html 

http://www.commerce.usask.ca/faculty/boyd/LastStraw.html 

Colin Boyd, Professor of Management, 
Department of Management and Marketing, 
College of Commerce, 
University of Saskatchewan, 
25 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Sask., Canada S7N 5A7

February 1, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Thank you so much for these highly informative papers.

I will add your entire message to the February 18 forthcoming edition of New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Since your first paper deals with auditor professionalism, I will also add your message to my module on auditor professionalism at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#Professionalism 

Since your second paper is an excellent Enron reference, I will add it to my Enron references at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#References 
(Here you must scroll down quite a ways until you reach my material on Barbara Tofller's original book.)

Thanks again, 

Bob Jensen


Amazon Elbows Into Online Yellow Pages 
Hiking the stakes in this hot field, the new service from its A9 unit features photo-rich listings that let you wander around near a destination

January 28, 2005 message from BusinessWeek Online's Insider [BW_Insider@newsletters.businessweek.com
The A9.com home page is at http://a9.com/?c=1&src=a9 

Recall, that Yahoo is still king for localized searches. 
Yahoo's localized search for businesses and other sites of interest in a localized area is called Yahoo Local --- http://local.yahoo.com/ 
Keep in mind that Yahoo gives output priority to companies that pay to be listed near the top of a search outcome.

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on January 28, 2005

TITLE: Quirk Could Hurt Mortgage Insurers  (Quirk = FAS 70)
REPORTER: Karen Richardson 
DATE: Jan 21, 2005 
PAGE: C3 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110626962297132172,00.html  
TOPICS: Financial Accounting, Financial Accounting Standards Board, Insurance Industry, Loan Loss Allowance, loan guarantees, Contingent Liabilities

SUMMARY: "Millions of people who can't afford to put down 10% or 20% of a home's price are required by their mortgage lenders to buy policies from mortgage insurers, which, by agreeing to shoulder some risk of missed loan payments, can lower the buyer's down payment to as little as 3%." However, as a result of a "quirk" in establishing Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 60, "Accounting and Reporting by Insurance Enterprises" in 1982, the FASB allowed an exclusion for mortgage insurers from requirements to reserve for future losses. This exclusion may lead to to delayed reporting of costs associated with the mortgage lending and of exacerbation of losses if default rates increase due to the type of borrowers taking advantage of this insurance in the hot real estate market.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) What is the purpose of mortgage insurance for a home buyer?

2.) How do mortgage insurance providers, and insurance providers in general, earn profits on their activities? How are insurance rates determined? In general what costs are deducted against revenues determined from those insurance rates?

3.) Access Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 60, "Accounting and Reporting by Insurance Enterprises," via the FASB's web site, located at http://www.fasb.org/pdf/fas60.pdf From the discussion in the summary of the standard, state the general accounting requirements contained in this statement.

4.) Based on the discussion in the article, what is the exemption allowed for mortgage insurers from Statement No. 60's requirements? What is the reasoning for that exemption? What is your opinion about this reason?

5.) Refer again to the FASB Statement No. 60 on the FASB's web site. Locate the exemption described in question 4 and give its citation.

6.) Given this accounting requirement exemption, what are the concerns with measuring profit in the mortgage insurance industry in general (regardless of the issues with the current real estate market)? What is the technique used to handle that issue in financial reports? In your answer, specifically refer to, and define, the matching concept in accounting.

7.) How does the potential caliber of the real estate buyers using mortgage insurance exacerbate the concerns raised in question 6?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm 


February 4, 2005 message from Eric Toulon [toulon@hawaiilink.net

Aloha Bob, 

Thought you might like to see some interesting things that happened early on in the Clinton Administration that may have compelled him to enact laws like the Securities Litigation Reform that led later to the final repeal of the Glass Steagle Act. My web page at http://www.upyourshawaii.com  has many of the players involved in these meetings, and if you click on the highlighted underlined words they will bring you to supporting documentation. Thanks, Eric V. Toulon


A Make Versus Buy Case

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on January 28, 2005

TITLE: Weak Dollar, Strong Sales 
REPORTER: Timothy Aeppel 
DATE: Jan 20, 2005 
PAGE: B1 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110619065596531067,00.html  
TOPICS: Accounting, Foreign Currency Exchange Rates, Hedging, Managerial Accounting

SUMMARY: The article describes small businesses taking advantage of the weak dollar to improve export sales.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) How much has the U.S. dollar weakened in recent times? How does a weakening dollar help U.S. manufacturers' overseas sales?

2.) Suppose you operate a small manufacturing firm, have seen significant increases in overseas sales recently, and are considering opening a foreign operation. What risks do you face? Which risks are greater for small manufacturing firms than for large companies?

3.) How may a company, such as Ohio Screw Products, that makes sales in a foreign currency, such as the euro, hedge against the risks associated with currency fluctuations?

4.) What risks associated with currency fluctuations cannot be hedged against?

5.) What example of a "make versus buy" decision is described in the article? How did currency fluctuations affect that decision? What other strategies does the company use that influence amounts used for this decision?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island


From the Scout Report on January 27, 2005

Heritage Scrapbooks http://www.crcstudio.arts.ualberta.ca/heritage/ 

Despite the obvious advantage of sharing various photographs over the Internet, there is a certain charm to older scrapbooks that bring together all kinds of random objects, clippings, and so on. Culled from the collection of one Dr. Gary Kelly, these online scrapbooks date from the early 18th century to the present day, and offer a lovely selection of the art and personal insights afforded by the practice of creating scrapbooks. Currently, the site contains 21 scrapbooks, which may be browsed by title, author, document type, and category. Users may want to begin their journey through the scrapbooks by looking at the work of Sophia Jemmett, who created her own scrapbook in 1835. Here they will find a host of images and drawings that Ms. Jemmett found worthy enough to include within the work's 125 pages. Another scrapbook of particular interest is the one created by Marjorie Simpson. Her scrapbook begins during her days at the University of Oregon in the 1920s and continues up to the year 1955. All in all, this site offers a good introduction to some rather intriguing scrapbooks.


JOURNAL OF DERIVATIVES ACCOUNTING 

Vol. 1, No. 2 (September 2004) out now!! In this issue issue of JDA, Guy Coughlan, Simon Emery and Johannes Kolb discuss the Hedge Effectiveness Analysis Toolkit, which is JPMorgan’s latest addition to a long list of innovative and cutting-edge risk management solutions. View the Table of Contents @ http://www.worldscinet.com/jda/01/0102/S02198681040102.html

Bob Jensen's tutorials on derivatives accounting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 


After sending Mark a message regarding a multimedia 3-D archaeology site (Kansas City Hopewell)  in Kansas, I received the following reply on January 30, 2005:

Dear Bob,

Hi, and thanks for the reference. You may be interested in our project publication at:

www.choma.org 

No 3-D stuff...

Best,

Mark

-- Mark B. Garrison 
Professor and Chair Department of Art and Art History 013 
Storch Memorial Library 
Trinity University One Trinity Place 
San Antonio, TX 78212

 


Forwarded by Harry Haines on February 1, 2005

Third columnist caught with hand in the Bush till Michael McManus, conservative author of the syndicated column "Ethics & Religion," received $10,000 to promote a marriage initiative.

By Eric Boehlert

One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.


The Meat and the Gravy

The meat of this module is on how to transfer your MS Outlook files from your old computer to another computer or to a storage drive.  Assuming you use Outlook, you have an attic for saved messages in "Personal Folders" that are only stored on your old computer.  My attic is stuffed with hundreds of messages I deemed worthy of saving.  Many of these messages have attached documents, PowerPoint files, Excel Workbooks, audio files, and video files.  When I move to a newer computer I want to move my entire attic after I clean it out just a bit.

Before I get into the meat, let me mention the Journal of Accountancy.  The neatest thing about the Journal of Accountancy (JA) is that current issues and all of its archives are totally free to Internet users.  Since most of its articles are directed at nerds wearing green eyeshades, you're probably thinking "who cares?"  The answer is that you might care.  Each issue as a wonderful section called "Technology Q&A" written by Stanley Zarowin (if you plan for your first born son to be an accountant, good names are Stanley, Herbert, and Throckmorton).  The "Technology Q&A" section explains how to do advanced things you never dreamed were possible in Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, etc.  And it explains things in pictures so that people who can barely read and write can do fancy things with their computers.  Another section in each JA edition is called "Smart Stops on the Web."  This has short descriptions of sites of possible interest to both us nerds and you normal people.

Now I will get to the meat part.  Here's what you should do to transfer your Outlook system from your old computer into another computer.

  1. It is possible to connect to computers directly, but you will probably find it easier to first transfer your Outlook system into an auxiliary hard drive.  These devices are relatively cheap these days from discount stores like Amazon.  I figure I can probably get almost all of my Outlook attic into a 50 Gb hard drive.  Some of the various alternatives are described at http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1738,4642,00.asp 

  2. Copy Outlook from your old computer to your auxiliary hard drive.  Then transfer Outlook to another computer or simply leave it in storage so the contents of your attic are not lost forever if your old computer crashes and burns.  How can you make these transfers?  Don't ask me;  I'm not as smart as Stanley.  Go to http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/feb2005/tech_qa.htm#Q1 

Now that I've covered the meat of this module, let me add some gravy.  Let's look at how to pop in a calendar into MS Word documents.  Lists of events and appointments in your memos and documents are boring.  Instead pop a nifty calendar by following the easy instructions at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/feb2005/tech_qa.htm#Q6 

In the February issue of JA, Stanley has some other neat advice listed below, including advice on how to view wide documents in your browser without having to scroll:

Technology Q&A
Transfer Outlook data to a new computer
Identify airplane seats with computer power ports

View wide documents without scrolling sideways

Prepare a list of custom dates

Display and print formulas in Excel

Add a calendar tool to Word

Oops! Watermark is possible in Excel

Who says you can’t easily change Excel’s text case?

Shortcuts.

Smart Stops on the Web in the  February 2005 edition of the JA does not have very many links of interest to normal people.  But there is a link to the neat Families First Web site of the Alliance for Children.  There is also a neat investment helper site called Articles, Calculators and Tips.  There also is a link to Banister Financial where you can find some tips of valuation and valuation frauds.  The rest of the links this month are great but only if you're a nerd.

Now I want you to imagine yourself at a Super Bowl party as pictured in a New Yorker cartoon.  Just before the Patriots kick the winning field goal,  you yell out "Hedge Funds!"  The room will grow hushed, and you'll be totally embarrassed if can't replace football with something exciting to say about hedge funds.  I recommend that before going to the party you read Hedge Funds for Dummies or something to that effect.  The term "Hedge Fund" really means "Private Investment Club."  Under Wall Street's rules, the minimum club membership investment is $25,000 which you can lose faster in a hedge fund than in a floating crap game.  But hedge funds are exciting for party conversations.  I recommend that you begin to learn about them before the party at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/feb2005/evans.htm 

Now you probably don't give a darn about the acronym  XBRL.  It stands for the most significant technology in the last 100 years for making smart investments.  I will warn you that the great Hannon and Gold article in this month's JA is a bit "nerdie," but you can make a stab at it at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/feb2005/hannon.htm 
Then if you want to get lost in a forest of XBRL trees go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm 

As I look over the way I write these days, I think I'm beginning to sound a little more like Andy Rooney.  If I'd let my eyebrows grow out, I'd probably even look a bit more like him.  But where we will differ for the next four years is in our respect for the current President of the United States.

And if you read and applauded at almost every word in this module, I don't think I want to be with you at a Super Bowl party next Sunday afternoon.

Bob Jensen

February 2, 2005 reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

Bob, you’ve let the cat out of the bag! Now that you’ve informed the masses how to learn those tips and tricks, we computer magicians won’t be revered as much!

For the readers of this list, I have to endorse the Tech Q&A column, and add my own favorite: PC Magazine’s monthly “Solutions” section (“making technology work for you”), which every month has a nifty collection of similar tips and tricks. There’s always several on MS Office tips, one on “Security Watch”, and my favorite: “User to User”.

Unlike JA (while I always read Zarowin), I read the entire PC Magazine cover to cover… for about $39 per year (after discount), it comes out twice a month, and is jam-packed with stuff that finds its way into my office, my classroom, and my daily life. The “Forward Thinking” and “Pipeline” sections are almost prophetic about what’s coming down the pike, and give you a “heads up” about new ideas under design, or in development – they are a great way to stay “up” on the latest.

The “First Looks” section is always interesting, covering new products just coming on the market. The pundits (Machrone, Miller, Howard, and, of course, Dvorak) are entertaining and I find myself agreeing with their complaints and rants more often than not. The mag always has a very useful main section covering a major tech topic in depth (printers one issue, laptops another, networking gear another, etc.), which I find educational, since I’m always interested in “how things work”. (… and yes, I’m familiar with the howthingswork websites!)

I used to require a PC magazine subscription for my accounting technology classes, until I found an equally useful (and easier to use) reference work, the Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, which has to be the all-time winner of my award for usefulness. I haven’t yet encountered a TLA (three letter acronym) that I didn’t find on the CDE. I put the CDE on my windows desktop, and when I come across a new tech term that I’m unfamiliar with (such as BogoMips, COTS, or CVC) I click on the CDE icon and type in the term and it’s always there. Much quicker than Googling, and I get a clear concise definition, not a bunch of links… it saves me a minute here, a minute there. And all terms in the CDE are internally linked to each other, so you can click from entry to entry by clicking on almost any word in any definition.

I’m not in any way affiliated with CDE, nor do I get a commission, but I’ve negotiated a discount for my students if they mention my name. So if you order the CDE, ask for Irma and tell her I told you about the product and ask if there is a discount for knowing David Fordham at James Madison University! I’ll bet she’ll give you the discount, too. The phone number is 1-888-815-3772. The normal retail cost is about $55 or thereabouts, and includes four updates a year. The CD’s arrive in the mail in January, April, July, and October. It is indispensable if you want to stay current with the jargon and terminology.

David R. Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University


-----Original Message----- 
From: Denise Giannetti-Walsh [mailto:dgwalsh@greenwoodcpw.com]  
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 11:18 AM 
To: Jensen, Robert Subject: question from industry

Mr. Jensen,

I could use your advice. I work for a municipal utility that purchases forward contracts for natural gas. We purchase put options (don't ask ) to offset price increases in the future. The nature of our purchases are not speculative as we will receive the physical. I am new to the industry and new to hedge accounting. How would you treat these transactions and when would you record them. I have the FAS133 book and have been doing research to make up my mind what to do. I came across your website and it seems that you may have a quick answer to this. I would really appreciate the help.

 

Thank you,

Denise Giannetti-Walsh, CPA
Greenwood Commissioners of Public Works
Greenwood, SC 29646

February 2, 2005 reply from Denise

Thank you so much for the clarification. I will continue to use your website as a reference source when I need a little help. This is a new beast to me and I need to account for these transactions asap.

Denise

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jensen, Robert [mailto:rjensen@trinity.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 6:08 PM 
To: Denise Giannetti-Walsh Subject: 
RE: question from industry

Hi Denise,

FAS 133 says you have to value all derivatives (both your put options and your futures contracts) at fair value (marked-to-market) on the balance sheet.

All unrealized value adjustments have to be offset to current earnings unless the derivatives are qualified for hedge accounting.

As I read what you wrote, you are hedging the futures contracts with put options. FAS 133 does not allow hedge accounting for a derivative that hedges another derivative such that you are not eligible for hedge accounting. All changes in value of both derivatives most go to current earnings (but the net impact may be zero on earnings).

However, I suspect that you did not quite word your question properly. Instead of entering into forward contracts (e.g., say on the NYMEX), perhaps you meant that you have a contract to purchase the gas in the future. These contracts are not derivatives. They are either firm commitments (if you locked in the future purchase price) or forecasted transactions (if you contacted a quantity but agreed to pay the future spot rate on the date of purchase).

Forecasted Transaction Let's suppose you have a forecasted transaction to buy one unit of gas at an unknown future spot rate. Locking in a price with a put option makes no sense. However, you might lock in a price by purchasing a call option for a premium of $9.25 and a strike price of $125. This is exactly the cash flow hedge illustrated in Example 9 beginning in Paragraph 162 of Appendix B of FAS 133. You can see the full accounting by downloading the file 133ex09a.xls Excel workbook at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/ If the spot price at expiration had been $120, then your call option becomes worthless. But you don't mind in that case since you can now buy the inventory at a spot price below the strike price.

Firm Commitment Suppose that you instead had a commitment to buy one unit of gas at a contracted (firm commitment) price of $125.00 from the very beginning. You no longer have cash flow risk, so there is no reason to hedge cash flow. However, you might want to hedge the value of that unit of gas on the date of purchase just in case you could actually buy the gas at a lower spot price. For example, if the spot price was $120.00 you might be sorry that your firm commitment price forces you to pay $5.00 more the spot price. In order to hedge the fair value of your unit of gas, you could enter into a put contract that assures you that your purchase will never be higher than the spot rate. If your strike price is $125 and the put option expires when the spot price is $120, you net settle your put option for $5.00 in cash. You then pay the contracted $125 price, but the net outlay is $125-5=$120 because you hedged. If the spot price soars instead to $140, your put option becomes worthless. However, you don't mind because your $125 firm commitment price looks pretty good against a $140 price that you would have to pay without the original firm commitment.

The above hedge of a firm commitment is a fair value hedge rather than a cash flow hedge. You can get hedge accounting, but you cannot use OCI offsets for a fair value hedge. Nor can you book the inventory before you purchase it even if you hedge. In this case, the FASB created a hedge accounting account called "Firm Commitment." It more or less takes the place of OCI when the inventory is not yet on the books but the purchase contract has a firmly committed price.

You can look up the terms "forecasted transaction," "firm commitment," "cash flow hedge," and "fair value hedge" in my glossary at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm  
That glossary will link you to paragraph numbers in FAS 133. You will find illustrations in those locations.

Hope this helps.

Bob Jensen

My tutorials for FAS 133 theory and practice are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 




An Embarrassing Message from the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave

The article below is extremely controversial.  I think it signifies an evil that most Americans do not want to be known for either now or in history books.  I also sympathize with troops that we do send into battle.  For the sake of image we should not replace their weapons with bags of marshmallows when they are in harm's way.

New York Post -- February 6, 2005

THE TRUTH ABOUT WAR

By RALPH PETERS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 6, 2005 -- IN San Diego on Tuesday, I had the privilege of sitting beside Lt.-Gen. Jim Mattis, a Marine who knows how to fight. We were on a panel discussing future war. And Gen. Mattis, a Marine to the marrow of his bones, spoke honestly about the thrill of combat. Mattis has commanded at every level. In Desert Storm, he led a battalion. In Afghanistan and then in Iraq, he led with inspiration and courage. Everyone on our panel had opinions about war, but that no-nonsense Marine knew more about it than the rest of us combined.

In the course of a blunt discussion of how our military has to prepare for future fights, the general spoke with a frankness that won the hearts of the uniformed members of the audience. Instead of trotting out politically correct clichés, Mattis told the truth:

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil . . . it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

The language wasn't elegant. But we don't need prissy military leaders. We need generals who talk straight and shoot straight, men who inspire. And I guarantee you that any real Marine or soldier would follow Gen. Mattis.

What was the media's reaction? A B-team news crew saw a chance to grab a headline at the military's expense (surprise, surprise). Lifting the general's remarks out of context, the media hyenas played it as if they were shocked to learn that people die in war.

Combat veterans are supposed to be tormented souls, you understand. Those who fight our wars are supposed to return home irreparably damaged.

HOLLYWOOD'S ideal of a Marine is the retired co lonel in the film "American Beauty," who turns out to be a repressed homosexual and a murderer. Veterans are sup- posed to writhe on their beds all night, covered in sweat, unable to escape their nightmares.

War does scar some men. Most vets, though, just get on with their lives — scratch a veteran looking for pity and more often than not you'll find a supply clerk who never got near a battlefield. And some who serve — the soldiers and Marines who win our wars — run to the sound of the guns, anxious to close with the enemy and kill him. They may not love war itself, but they find combat magnetic and exhilarating. They like to fight.

That's fine in movies featuring Brad Pitt as a mythical Greek hero. But God forbid that a modern-day Marine should admit that he loves his work.

Well, Marines and soldiers don't serve full careers because they hate their jobs. In peace or war, the military experience is incredibly rich and rewarding. And sometimes dangerous. Goes with the territory. But for most of the young infantrymen in Iraq, their combat experience will remain the highpoint of their lives. Nothing afterward will be as intense or exciting. And they will never make closer friends than they did in their rifle squad.

Gen. Mattis may have been unusual in his honesty, but he certainly isn't unusual in our history. We picture Robert E. Lee as a saintly father figure, but Lee remarked that it's good that war is so terrible, since otherwise men would grow to love it too much. He was speaking of himself. Andy Jackson certainly loved a fight, and Stonewall Jackson never shied from one. Sherman and Grant only found themselves in war.

WE lionize those who em braced war in the past, but condemn those who defend us in the present. George S. Patton was far blunter than Jim Mattis — but Patton lived in the days before the media was omnipresent and biased against our military.

The hypocrisy is stunning. Gen. Mattis told the truth about a fundamental human activity — war — and was treated as though he had dropped a nuclear weapon on an orphanage. Yet when some bozo on a talk show confesses to an addiction or a perversion in front of millions of viewers, he's lionized as "courageous" for speaking out.

Sorry. It's men like Jim Mattis who are courageous. The rest of us barely glimpse the meaning of the word.

We've come to a sad state when a Marine who has risked his life repeatedly to keep our country safe can't speak his mind, while any professor who wants to blame America for 9/11 is defended by legions of free-speech advocates. If a man like Mattis hasn't earned the right to say what he really believes, who has?

Had Gen. Mattis collapsed in tears and begged for pity for the torments war inflicted on him, the media would have adored him. Instead, he spoke as Marines and soldiers do in the headquarters tent or the barracks, on the battlefield or among comrades. And young journalists who never faced anything more dangerous than a drunken night in Tijuana tried to create a scandal.

FORTUNATELY, Lt.-Gen. Mattis has three big things going for him: The respect of those who serve; the Marine Corps, which won't abandon a valiant fighter to please self-righteous pundits whose only battle is with their waistlines; and the fact that we're at war. We need more men like Mattis, not fewer. The public needs to hear the truth about war, not just the crybaby nonsense of those who never deigned to serve our country.

In my own far humbler career, the leaders I admired were those who had the killer instinct. The soldiers knew who they were. We would have followed them anywhere. They weren't slick Pentagon staffers anxious to go to work for defense contractors. They were the men who lived and breathed the warrior's life.

Table manners don't win wars. Winning our nation's battles demands disciplined ferocity, raw physical courage — and integrity. Jim Mattis has those qualities in spades.

Semper fi, General.

Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern

 




Forwarded by a former student.

There once was an accountant who lived her whole life without ever taking advantage of any of the people she worked for. In fact, she made sure that every job she did resulted in a win-win situation.

One day while walking down the street she was tragically hit by a bus and she died. Her soul arrived up in heaven where she was met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter himself.

"Welcome to Heaven," said St. Peter. "Before you get settled in though it seems we have a problem. You see, strangely enough, we've never once had an accountant make it this far and we're not really sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in." said the accountant. "Well, I'd like to, but I have higher orders. What we're going to do is let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can choose whichever one you want to spend an eternity in."

"Actually, I think I've made up my mind...I prefer to stay in Heaven"

"Sorry, we have rules..."

And with that St. Peter put the accountant in an elevator and it went down-down-down to hell. The doors opened and the accountant found herself stepping out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club and standing in front of her were all her friends - fellow accountants that she had worked with and they were all dressed in evening gowns and cheering for her.

They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks and they talked about old times.

They played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the country club where she enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner. She met the Devil who was actually a really nice guy (kind of cute) and she had a great time telling jokes and dancing. The accountant was having such a good time that before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everybody shook her hand and waved goodbye as she got on the elevator.

The elevator went up-up-up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and found St. Peter waiting for her. "Now it's time to spend a day in heaven."

So the accountant spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing. She had a great time and before she knew it her 24 hours were up and St. Peter came and got her.

"So, you've spent a day in hell and you've spent a day in heaven. Now you must choose your eternity."

The accountant paused for a second and then replied, "Well, I never thought I'd say this, I mean, Heaven has been really great and all, but I think I had a better time in Hell."

So St. Peter escorted her to the elevator and again the accountant went down-down-down back to Hell. When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and filth. She saw her friends were dressed in rags and were picking up the garbage and putting it in sacks.

The Devil came up to her and put his arm around her. "I don't understand," stammered the accountant, "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we danced and had a great time. Now all there is a wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable."

The Devil looked at her and smiled. "That's because yesterday you were a recruit, but today you're staff."


More Helpful Household Tips from Paula

Dirt Layers of dirty film on windows and screens provide a helpful filter against harmful and aging rays from the sun. Call it an SPF factor of 15 and leave it alone.

Cobwebs Artfully draped over lampshades reduce the glare from the bulb, thereby creating a romantic atmosphere. If someone points out that the light fixtures need dusting, simply look confused and exclaim "What? And spoil the mood?" (Or just throw glitter on them & call them holiday decorations.)

Pet Hair Explain the mound of pet hair brushed up against the doorways by claiming you are collecting it there to use for stuffing hand-sewn play animals for underprivileged children. (Also keeps out cold drafts in winter.)

Guests If unexpected company is coming, pile everything unsightly into one room and close the door. As you show your guests through your tidy home, rattle the door knob vigorously, fake a growl and say, "I'd love you to see our den, but Fluffy hates to be disturbed and the shots are SO expensive."

Dusting If dusting is REALLY out of control, simply place a showy urn on the coffee table and insist that "This is where Grandma wanted us to scatter her ashes."

General Cleaning Mix one-quarter cup pine-scented household cleaner with four cups of water in a spray bottle. Mist the air lightly. Leave dampened rags in conspicuous locations. Develop an exhausted look, throw yourself on the couch and sigh, "I clean and I clean and I still don't get anywhere." As a last resort, light the oven, throw a teaspoon of cinnamon in a pie pan, turn off oven and explain that you have been baking cookies for a bake sale for a favorite charity and haven't had time to clean...Works every time.

Another favorite (Erma Bombeck's?): Always keep several get well cards on the mantle so if unexpected guests arrive, you can say you've been sick and unable to clean. 


Groaners forwarded by Dick Haar (Some are old, but others were new to me.)

They're not all doozies, but keep reading, some are...

1. Two antennas meet on a roof, fall in love and get married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2. Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, "I've lost my electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive..."

3. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve you but don't start anything."

4. A sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve food in here."

5. A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

6. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."

7. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"

8. "Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home.'" "That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome." "Is it common?" "It's Not Unusual."

9. Two cows standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning." "I don't believe you," said Dolly. "It's true, no bull!" exclaimed Daisy.

10. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

11. Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

12. A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet and says, "My dog's cross-eyed, is there any thing you can do for him?" "Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him." So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes. Finally, he says, "I'm going to have to put him down." "Why?? Because he's cross-eyed?" "No, because he's really heavy."

13. Apparently, one in five people in the world are Chinese. And there are five people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mom or my dad or maybe my older brother Calvin or my younger brother Ho-Chin. But I'm pretty sure it's Calvin.

14. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.

15. I went to the butcher's the other day and bet him 50 bucks that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, "No, the steaks are too high."

16. A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!" The doctor replied, "I know you can't - I've cut off your arms!"

17. I went to a seafood disco last week and pulled a mussel.

18. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly; but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

19. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.

20. Two termites walk into a bar. One asks, "Is the bar tender here?"


Also forwarded by Paula

These answers came from a Catholic Elementary school test. The children were asked questions about the Old and the New Testaments. Here are some of the answers they gave:

1. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis. God got tired of creating the world so he took the Sabbath off. 2. Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. Noah's wife was Joan of Ark. Noah built and ark and the animals came on in pears.

3. Lots wife was a pillar of salt during the day, but a ball of fire during the night. 4. The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with unsympathetic genitals. 5. Sampson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah. 6. Samson slayed the Philistines with the Axe of the Apostles. 7. Moses led the Jews to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients. 8. The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up to Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments.

9. The first commandments was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple. 10. The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery. 11. Moses died before he ever reached Canada. Then Joshua led the Hebrews in the Battle of Geritol. 12. The greatest miricle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him. 13. David was a Hebrew King who was skilled at playing the liar. He fought the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.

14. Solomon, one of Davids sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines. 15. When Mary heard she was the Mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta. 16. When the three wise guys from the East Side arrived they found Jesus in the manager. 17. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption. 18. St. John the Blacksmith dumped water on his head. 19. Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do unto others before they do one to you. He also explained man doth not live by sweat alone.

20. It was a miricle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance. 21. The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 Decibels. 22. The Epistels were the wives of the Apostles. 23. One of the Oppossums was St. Matthew who was also a taxman. 24. St. Paul cavorted to Christianity, he preached holy acrimony which is another name for marriage. 25. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.


Changes Temperature Without a Change in Color

"Piste to the eyeballs," Sydney Morning Herald,  January 31 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/30/1107020254529.html 

A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found a drunken Richard Kral staggering on a mountain path four days after his Audi was buried, Ananova.com reports.

Unable to dig himself out, he drank one of 60 half-litre bottles of beer in the car and realised he could melt the snow with urine - then drank the rest.

"It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I'm glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there," he said.


Forwarded by Barb Hessel

Roy was sitting in an airplane when another guy took the seat beside him.

The new guy was an absolute wreck, pale, hands shaking, biting his nails and moaning in fear.

"Hey, guy, what's the problem?" Roy asked.

"Oh man... I've been transferred to California," the other guy answered.

"There's crazy people in California and they have shootings, gangs, race riots, drugs, the highest crime rate..."

"Hold on," Roy interrupted, "I've lived in California all my life, and it is not as bad as the media says. Find a nice home, go to work, mind your own business, enroll your kids in a good school and it's as safe as anywhere in the world."

The other passenger relaxed and stopped shaking for a moment and said, "Oh, thank you. I've been worried to death, but if you live there and say it's OK, I'll take your word for it. What do you do! for a living?"

"Me?" said Roy, "I'm a tail gunner on a bread truck."


Oldies but goodies forwarded by Auntie Bev

1. Two vultures boarded a plane, each carrying two dead raccoons.

The Stewardess stops them and says "sorry sir, only one carrion per passenger."

2. NASA recently sent a number of Holsteins into orbit for experimental purposes. They called it the herd shot round the world.

3.Two boll weevils grew up in S. Carolina. One took off to Hollywood and became a rich star. The other stayed in Carolina and never amounted to much--and naturally became known as the lesser of two weevils. > 4. Two Eskimos in a kayak were chilly, so they started a fire, which sank the craft, proving the old adage you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

5. A 3-legged dog walks into an old west saloon, slides up to the bar and announces "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

6. Did you hear about the Buddhist who went to the dentist, and refused to take Novocain? He wanted to transcend dental medication.

7. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and met in the lobby where they were discussing their recent victories in chess tournaments. The hotel manager came out of the office after an hour, and asked them to disperse. He couldn't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.

8. A women has twins, gives them up for adoption. One goes to an Egyptian family and is named "Ahmal" The other is sent to a Spanish family and is named "Juan." Years later, Juan sends his birth mother a picture of himself. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. He replies, "They're identical twins for Pete sake!! If you've seen Juan, you've see Ahmal!!"

9. A group of friars opened a florist shop to help with their belfry payments. Everyone liked to buy flowers from the Men of God, so their business flourished. A rival florist became upset that his business was suffering because people felt compelled to buy from the Friars, so he asked the Friars to cut back hours or close down. The Friars refused. The florist went to them and begged that they shut down. Again they refused. So the florist then hired Hugh McTaggert, the biggest meanest thug in town. He went to the Friars' shop, destroyed their flowers, trashed their shop, and said that if they didn't close, he'd be back. Well, totally terrified, the Friars closed up shop and hid in their rooms. This proved that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

10. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot his whole life, which created an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him frail, and with his odd diet, he suffered from very bad breath. This made him ....what? (This is so bad it's good...)

....a super-callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

11. And finally... there was a person who sent 10 puns to some friends in hopes at least one of the puns would make them laugh.

Unfortunately no pun in ten did!!!


These are attributed to Andy Rooney, but I did not verify this for a fact.

As I grow in age, I value women who are over 50 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 50 will not lie next to you in bed and ask, "What are you thinking?" She doesn't care what you think.

If a woman over 50 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it's usually something more interesting.

A woman over 50 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whomever. Few women past the age of 50 give a damn what you might think about her or what she's doing.

Women over 50 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

A woman over 50 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn't trust the guy with other women. Women over 50 couldn't care less if you're attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won't betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 50. They always know.

A woman over 50 looks good wearing bright red lipstick; this is not true of younger women or drag queens.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 50 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one! You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 50 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 50+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 18-year-old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize. 
Andy Rooney


Forwarded by Dick Haar

"The Honorary Degree"

A rich Texan walked into the offices of the president of a small Texas college and said, "I'd like to donate a million dollars tax free to this institution. But there's a condition. I would like to have an honorary degree."

The president nodded agreeably, "That's not a problem. We can certainly arrange that!"

The rich man said, "An honorary degree for my *horse*."

"For your horse???"

"Yep, you betcha. She carried me for many years and I owe her a lot. I'd like her to receive a Tr.D., a Doctor of Transportation."

"But . . . we can't give a degree to a *horse*!"

"Then I'm afraid I'll have to take my million dollars to another educational institution."

"Well, wait a minute," said the president, seeing the million slip through his fingers, "Let me consult with the school's trustees."

A hurried trustee meeting was brought to order and the president related the deal and the condition. All of the board reacted with shock and disbelief -- except the oldest trustee. He appeared almost asleep.

One trustee snorted, "We can't give a *horse* an honorary degree -- no matter HOW much money is involved."

The oldest trustee opened his eyes and said, "Take the money and give the horse the degree."

The president asked, "Don't you think that would be a disgrace to us?"

"Of course not, " the wise old trustee said. "It would be an honor. It'd be the first time we ever gave a degree to an ENTIRE horse."


Forwarded by Dick Haar

John was on his deathbed and gasped pitifully. "Give me one last request, dear," he said. "Of course, John," his wife said softly. "Six months after I die," he said, "I want you to marry Bob." "But I thought you hated Bob," she said. With his last breath John said, "I do!"

=========================

I was in the express lane at the store quietly fuming. Completely ignoring the sign, the woman ahead of me had slipped into the check-out line pushing a cart piled high with groceries. Imagine my delight when the cashier beckoned the woman to come forward, looked into the cart and asked sweetly, "So which ten items would you like to buy?"

=====================

Because they had no reservations at a busy restaurant, my elderly neighbor and his wife were told there would be a 45-minute wait for a table. "Young man, we're both 90 years old," the husband said. "We may not have 45 minutes." They were seated immediately.

======================= 

All eyes were on the radiant bride as her father escorted her down the aisle. They reached the altar and the waiting groom; the bride kissed her father and placed something in his hand. The guests in the front pews responded with ripples of laughter. Even the priest smiled broadly. As her father gave her away in marriage, the bride gave him back his credit card.

======================= 

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

======================= 

Three friends from the local congregation were asked "When you're in your casket, and friends and congregation members are mourning over you, what would you like them to say? Artie said: "I would like them to say I was a wonderful husband, a Fine spiritual leader, and a great family man." Eugene commented: "I would like them to say I was a wonderful teacher and servant of God who made a huge difference in people's lives." Don said: "I'd like them to say, "Look, he's moving!"

=======================

Smith climbs to the top of Mt. Sinai to get close enough to talk to God. Looking up, he asks the Lord. . "What does a million years mean to you?" The Lord replies, "A minute." Smith asks, "And what does a million dollars mean to you?" The Lord replies, "A penny." Smith asks," Can I have a penny?" The Lord replies, "In a minute".

===========================

A man goes to a shrink and says, "Doctor, my new wife is unfaithful to me. Every evening, she goes to Larry's bar and picks up men. In fact, she sleeps with anybody who asks her! I'm going crazy. What do you think I should do?" "Relax," says the Doctor, "take a deep breath and calm down. Now, tell me, exactly........... where is Larry's bar?"

===========================

An old man goes to the Wizard to ask him if he can remove a "Curse" he has been living with for the last 40 years. The Wizard says "Maybe, but you will have to tell me the exact words that were used to put the curse on you." The old man says without hesitation, "I now pronounce you man and wife."

====================== 

A man picks up a young woman in a bar and convinces her to come back to his hotel. When they are relaxing afterwards, he asks, "Am I the first man you ever made love to?" She looks at him thoughtfully for a second before replying. "You might be," she says. "Your face looks familiar."

========================== 

A man goes to see the Rabbi. "Rabbi, something terrible is happening and I have to talk to you about it." The Rabbi asked, "What's wrong?" The man replied, "My wife is poisoning me." The Rabbi, very surprised by this, asks, "How can that be?" The man then pleads, "I'm telling you, I'm certain she's poisoning me, what should I do?" The Rabbi then offers, "Tell you what. Let me talk to her, I'll see what I can find out and I'll let you know." A week later the Rabbi calls the man and says, "Well, I spoke to your wife. I spoke to her on the phone for three hours. You want my advice?" The man said yes and the Rabbi! replied, "Take the poison." _____


It's hard to sit still listening to this one (you have to have your speakers on)!

Forwarded by Dick Wolff
Squirrel in the Church --- http://www.dreamcloud.net/dreamer/squirrel/squirrel.html 

 




And that's the way it was on February 8, 2005 with a little help from my friends.

 

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 

Jesse's Wonderful Music for Romantics (You have to scroll down to the titles) --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/

Free Harvard Classics --- http://www.bartleby.com/hc/
Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

 

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/ 

 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting newsletters are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#News 

News Headlines for Accounting from TheCycles.com --- http://www.thecycles.com/business/accounting 
An unbelievable number of other news headlines categories in TheCycles.com are at http://www.thecycles.com/ 

 

Jack Anderson's Accounting Information Finder --- http://www.umsl.edu/~anderson/accsites.htm

 

Gerald Trite's great set of links --- http://www.zorba.ca/bookmark.htm 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

The Finance Professor --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/about/aboutFP.html 

 

Walt Mossberg's many answers to questions in technology --- http://ptech.wsj.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Household and Other Heloise-Style Hints --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#Hints 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

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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February 1, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

For earlier editions of New Bookmark s go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.  Think it over 
http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/Flash/Think_It_Over.swf

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Pictures from the war ---  http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf 

Don't gross out your hosts in a foreign country!
Eating and Drinking Etiquette Quiz --- http://fekids.com/img/kln/flash/DontGrossOutTheWorld.swf 




Hypocrisy in Academia

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
James Baldwin

Bob Jensen's communications on Hypocrisy in Academia --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 

Quotes of the Week

The world is split between those who do not sleep because they are hungry and those who do not sleep because they are afraid of those who are hungry.
Paulo Freire

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by incapacity.
William Blake

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-01-20-05.htm 

It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
Henrik Ibsen

The beautiful thing about mathematics is that you can't prove it except by its own terms. There's no way to put some math in a test tube and see if it turns purple or heats up. It sits there smugly in its own perfect cocoon, letting people like Max find anything he wants in it--or to think that he has.
Roger Ebert, July 24, 1998 --- http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980724/REVIEWS/807240303/1023 

Victory for Ignorance in Iraq
Professor says approximately 300 academics have been assassinated.  
Professionals fleeing country amid attacks.
American and Iraqi officials say elections Jan. 30 will be one step toward ending the insurgency raging here. But scientists and academics have been under siege for more than a year and a half, and they fear the threat against them will continue. Doctors, scientists and academics — the educated elite who would be the foundation of a healthy economy and democratic society — continue to leave Iraq.

Charles Crain, USA Today, January 17, 2005, Page 6A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050117/a_assassinations17.art.htm 

This is probably something that would censored in the mainstream media of the United States.
The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1399358,00.html reports from Tikrit that even some former Baathist generals are enthusiastic about the election. One of them, Abdullah Hussein, predicts a 40% turnout in Saddam Hussein's erstwhile home province.

I moved the following set of Quotations on Hypocrisy in Academia
Bob Jensen's communications on Hypocrisy in Academia --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm 

Congratulations to Trinity University Librarian, Don Mathis.  
Don is the first poet to publish in an e-zine that has 35,000 paid subscribers.  His "Lest We Forget," poem about the Oklahoma City tragedy appeared in issue #547 at http://www.heroicstories.com/ 
Trinity Magazine, Fall 2004, Page 13.

In the late 1990s, CEOs Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco International, and Richard Scrushy of HealthSouth were what novelist Tom Wolfe called “masters of the universe.” Charismatic, driven and fabulously wealthy, they sat atop giant companies largely of their own making. They didn't so much manage these corporations as reign over them.  But now that their trials for securities fraud are about to begin, they want to let the world in on a little secret: They actually weren't very good at what they did. They were unaware of what was going on around them and were incapable of demanding accountability from their aides. Like the hapless Sgt. Schultz in the old television program Hogan's Heroes, they know nothing, they see nothing.
"The clueless CEO defense," USA Today, January 25, 2005, Page 12A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050125/edtwo25.art.htm 

While women make up a majority of the nation's 48 million Social Security recipients, 54.3% of them get benefits based on the earnings of their husband. Once a woman reaches age 62, she is eligible to receive a monthly payment computed from her earning's history. Or, if it's larger, she can opt for a check that equals 50% of her husband's Social Security pension, based in part or totally on his earnings.  But if, as one widely mentioned option suggests, workers are allowed to put up to one-third of their payroll taxes into a private account, this shift would sharply reduce the size of the Social Security check of workers who take that option. It would also slash their spouse's share of their benefit.
DeWayne Wickham, "Social Security Reform:  Women May Be the Big Losers," USA Today, January 25, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050125/iraq2_com.art.htm 

But Wait, Women May In Fact Be the Big Winners
Commentary writer DeWayne Wickham is right to be concerned about how women fare in Social Security reform, but his belief that personal retirement accounts would harm women is not based in fact.  
Leanne J. Abdnor, "Social Security reform could favor women," USA Today, January 27, 2005, Page 10A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050127/letad27.art.htm 

If a couple divorced, the wife would be entitled to half of the accumulated assets in the couple's personal accounts, and, unlike under the current system, she would not have to be married 10 years in order to have a property right.

In addition, most personal account proposals are progressive, which would allow lower-wage workers — the majority of whom are women — to put away more money than higher-wage workers.

Finally, most reform proposals would increase the minimum benefit for lower-wage workers and increase the widows' benefits, strengthening the program's important anti-poverty insurance function.

The best security for women in retirement is to have both a strong benefit from Social Security and a nest egg of money that is hers and hers alone, not the property of the government.

President Bush deserves generally very high marks on economic policy in his first term, although there were some stumbles (e.g., too much non-defense spending growth, steel tariffs). His approach to economics and economic policy -- a combination of philosophical principles and practical business experience -- will continue to serve him well in his second term.
Michael J. Boskin, "Economists' President," The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2005, Page A18 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110651961194133470,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 
Mr. Boskin, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the T. M. Friedman Professor of Economics at Stanford University, served as chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1989-93.  He was also a faculty member at Harvard and Yale.

The Coalition Provisional Authority reports that public works projects will provide running water to 75% of Iraq's population — more than at any time in history.
"The Good News," USA Today, January 27, 2005

Endowments - the financial stockpiles that help determine an institution's financial health and often pay for crucial aspects of academia, including some professors and scholarships - brought in an average 15.1 percent return during the 2004 fiscal year. It was one of the largest average returns since the mid- to late 1990's, and it came as a huge relief after declines in 2001 and 2002, followed by only a modest rebound in 2003.  The survey credited the strong performance of stocks, bonds, hedge funds and other investments for last year's gains, pointing out that some indexes, including the Standard & Poor's 500, did even better than the typical endowment during the same period. But for all the good news, the survey also found that endowments still faced erosion from the combination of inflation and a widespread need to dip into the money.
Greg Winter, "College Endowments Post Solid Gains in '04," The New York Times, January 24, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/education/24college.html 

CogVis, developed by scientists at the University of Leeds in Yorkshire, UK, teaches itself how to play the children's game by searching for patterns in video and audio of human players and then building its own "hypotheses" about the game's rules.
Will Knight, "Machine learns games 'like a human'," New Scientist, January 24, 2005 --- http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6914 

Beam me up Scottie!
Could this have long-term implications for education, FedEx, and many other sectors of the economy?
The weekend premiere of (the movie) Rize was a big deal simply for its delivery method -- it was beamed to the theater from 800 miles away. It could change the way movies are distributed.
J
ason Silverman, "Feature Films Without Wires," Wired News, January 25, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66380,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 

Two key Republican lawmakers suggested Sunday that Social Security is not in crisis and questioned President Bush's proposal to let younger workers invest part of their payroll taxes in private accounts.  Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the House panel that handles Social Security, and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a pivotal moderate on the Senate Finance Committee, said any proposal for private accounts should be part of a larger overhaul of Social Security.
"Social Security ‘crisis' questioned:  2 key Republicans urge taking time," USA Today, January 24, 2004 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050124/1a_bottomstrip24_dom.art.htm 

Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearings exposed the high level of hypocrisy that exists in politics today. It's ironic that Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., would accuse Rice of not respecting the truth regarding the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq (“Rice clears first hurdle easily, but final vote may be delayed,” News, Thursday).  Flashback to several years ago when former president Bill Clinton admitted lying to his staff and the American people about his involvement with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Sen. Boxer accused the Republican party of using this issue for political gain.
Kevin Paine, "Rice confirmation hearings highlight hypocrisy," USA Today, January 24, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050124/letfeat24.art.htm 

Do we transform American education into a rigid Spartan-like system based solely on the dissemination of information and the single-minded and rigorous development of skills or, do we take a more Athenian approach and teach in such a way that we create a thinking citizen who can make good decisions when faced with the complexities of a democracy and the challenges of the 21st century? Are we Sparta or are we Athens?
"Are We Sparta or Are We Athens?" The Irascible Professor, January 20, 2005 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-01-20-05.htm 
Jensen Comment:  I think Brian Crouch had K-12 schools in mind when he wrote the Sparta vs. Athens essay. But it would not be hard to change a few words and insert bits about FASB standards, IAS standards, tax laws, and GASB standards to elevate the essay to the topic of accounting “education” versus “training” in college. Of course this topic has be debated repeatedly and led to some of the innovative Accounting Education Change Commission curriculum experiments and other AAA-sponsored research --- http://aaahq.org/market/display.cfm?catID=7 
However, when push comes to shove our students pressure us for Sparta since the U.S. CPA examination is “Spartan.” 

Three notable incidents and rescues have occurred on Mount Washington already this year. One was avalanche related, one skiing related, and yesterdays was climbing related.  All of these incidents could have been avoided by good decisions. The most important piece of equipment you carry into the mountains is your brain. Use It!
Pete Sweeney - Summit Manager, January 26, 2005 --- http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/index.php 
Bob Jensen's home in the White Mountains --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm 

Question
Why do women live longer than men?
Answer:  
It is that while 70-year-old men have the hearts of 70-year-olds, those of their female peers resemble the hearts of 20-year-olds.
For the rest of the answer see below for an article from The Economist
Jensen Comment:  What impressed me in this study is the sample size of 12,000 subjects.

Then again, maybe women live longer because they are happier with a better sense of humor.
t's no joke;  laughing may be one of nature's cleverest tricks for keeping us healthy and safe.

"The Funny Thing About Laughter," by Jeffrey Kluger, Time Magazine, January 17, 2005, Page A25.
The January 17, 2005 issue of Time Magazine has an entire section devoted to a number of articles on "The Science of Happiness."

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time.
Edith Wharton

Unbroken happiness is a bore;  it should have ups and downs.
Moliere

Happiness ain't a thing in itself --- it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.
Mark Twain

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
Robert Frost

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway

When one door of happiness closes, another opens;  but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened to us.
Helen Keller

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
Ingrid Bergman
(Maybe that's why I seem more happy these days.)

In "Happiness" (Penguin, 310 pages, $25.95), Lord Layard does an excellent job of recounting the collective findings of much of this new science. He details the discoveries of the discipline known as "positive psychology," which focuses on the causes of good feeling. He delves into the comparative sociology of "subjective well-being," explaining efforts to measure the relative happiness of nations and to ascertain the causes of variation across cultures. And he summarizes the work of neuroscientists, geneticists and psychopharmacologists, who are together sketching a diagram of the machinery of mood.
Darrijn McMahon, "Be of Good Cheer -- Or Else," The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110670320151236152,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money --- Bob Jensen's a happy man!!
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand Russell

Going Dutch:  Would he get cash back if he only managed to steal €1000 ($1700)?
A bank robber has been allowed to claim the cost of a pistol used in a hold-up as a legitimate business expense.  A Dutch court has permitted the 46-year-old man to set the €2000 ($3400) cost of the gun against his gross proceeds of €6750, gained during his raid on a bank in the southern town of Chaam. The judge at Breda Criminal Court duly reduced his fine by the same amount, while sentencing him to four years in jail.
David Rennie, "Making crime pay," Sydney Morning Herald, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/26/1106415667846.html 

In response to many professor requests, we are launching weekly quizzes, designed to quickly assess your students' understanding of Journal content. Available every Friday by 5pm ET starting today, these multiple-choice questions will cover material in that week's issues. For more information and a sample quiz, please visit http://ProfessorJournal.com
Newsletter from The Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2005

A new version of Picasa, Google Inc.'s digital photo software, is due for release today, offering additional ways to edit, print and share pictures.
Chris Gaither, "Free-for-All Could Pay Off for Google," The Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/PicasaNews 
The Picasa home page is at http://www.picasa.com/ 
Picasa is free software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you know. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.

For the first time, all taxpayers can prepare and file federal returns electronically for free through the IRS Web site.  In the past, participants in the Free File program, a partnership between the IRS and private tax preparers, had to meet criteria related to age, income or state of residence. The program is designed to encourage more taxpayers to file electronic returns, which are cheaper for the IRS to process. This year, tax software giant Intuit, maker of TurboTax software, has scrapped all restrictions. For now, anyone who goes to www.irs.gov, clicks on “Free File” and links to TurboTax can prepare and file their taxes at no charge. Two other preparers, eSmartTax and TaxACT, are also offering their services to all taxpayers for free.
Sandra Block, "This year, everyone can file taxes free at IRS Web site:  Some preparers drop restrictions," USA Today, January 19, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050119/1a_bottomstrip19_dom.art.htm 
The terrific IRS Web site is at http://www.irs.gov/ 
Bob Jensen's tax helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm 

The most serious problems in our profession are caused by our own self-indulgence.
LEONARD SPACEK, CEO of the major accounting firm of Arthur Andersen, 1956
Loren Steffy, "Sage of ethical accounting foretold Andersen demise," The Houston Chronicle, January 13, 2005 
(I thank Paul Bjorklund for pointing this article out to me.)
Bob Jensen's threads on Andersen's demise are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#EnronLinks 

The day Arthur Andersen loses the public's trust is the day we are out of business. 
Steve Samek, Country Managing Partner, United States, on Andersen's Independence and Ethical Standards CD-Rom, 1999 (prior to the breaking of the Enron scandal)
As quoted at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#Quotations 
At the above site you can also read the following:
In his eulogy for Arthur Andersen, delivered on January 13, 1947 the Rev. Dr. Duncan E. Littlefair closed with the following words:

Mr. Andersen had great courage.  Few are the men who have as much faith in the right as he, and fewer still are those with the courage to live up to their faith as he did...For those of you who worked with him and carry on his company, the meaning is clear.  Those principles upon which his business was built and with which it is synonymous must be preserved.  His name must never be associated with any program or action that is not the highest and the best.  I am sure he would rather the doors be closed than that it should continue to exist on principles other than those he established.  To you he has left a great name.  Your opportunity is tremendous; your responsibility is great.

So here's here's the big question: if children who don't even go to school learn so easily, why do children who go to school seem to have such a hard time? Why can children solve problems that challenge computers but stumble on a third-grade reading test? . . . But routinized learning is not an end in itself. A good coach may well make his players throw the ball to first base 50 times or swing again and again in the batting cage. That will help, but by itself it won't make a strong player. The game itself -- reacting to different pitches, strategizing about base running -- requires thought, flexibility and inventiveness.  Children would never tolerate baseball if all they did was practice. No coach would evaluate a child, and no society would evaluate a coach, based on performance in the batting cage. What makes for learning is the right balance of both learning processes, allowing children to retain their native brilliance as they grow up.
Alison Gopnik, "How We Learn," The New York Times, January 16, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/education/edlife/EDSCIENCE.html 

How to Get Into a Top College
The choice of which college-admissions test to take has long broken down along roughly geographical lines. Students on both coasts have tended to take the SAT, while their counterparts in much of the South, the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain states favor the ACT. But as students, parents and high-school counselors look to play every angle in the competitive college-admissions game, many have learned, to their surprise, that they actually have a choice. Taking the "other" test sometimes means not only higher scores but a better chance of getting into their top schools.

Anne Marie Chaker, "A New Way to Boost Scores On College-Admissions Tests:  Students Increasingly Hedge Their Bets by Taking Both the SAT and the ACT," The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2005, Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110600746397428321,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

Why the American Federation of Teachers is outraged at The Wall Street Journal.
"Education Moe-Jo," The Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2005; Page A8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110627248941932251,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 

Had Dr Patrick Hazlewood produced proof that little green men really do come to Swindon to make pretty rings in the landscape, he would have provoked less outrage. After what he had considered to be a perfectly amicable parents' evening during which he explained why he was scrapping traditional homework for Year Seven pupils, the world came crashing through his gates, accusing him of wrecking education and wasting taxpayers' money.
"The head who banned homework," Guardian, January 23, 2005 --- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1396578,00.html 

The "classroom teachers" line is an especially nice touch. Whenever anyone dares to challenge the unions, they portray it as an attack on all teachers and roll out some union "activist" to pose as Miss Devoted from a second-grade classroom to express her dismay. In reality, a major goal of reformers is precisely to liberate individual teachers to do what is best for students. The unions continue to insist on rules that reward the worst teachers as much as the best, and that make it nearly impossible to fire failures.
"Education Moe-Jo," The Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2005; Page A8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110627248941932251,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 

There are two types of thinking, to oversimplify grossly. We may call them intuitive and articulate. The first is the domain of hunches, snap judgments, emotional reactions, and first impressions--in short, instant responses to sensations. Obviously there is a cognitive process involved in such mental processes; one is responding to information. But there is no conscious thought, because there is no time for it. The second type of thinking is the domain of logic, deliberation, reasoned discussion, and scientific method. Here thinking is conscious: it occurs in words or sentences or symbols or concepts or formulas, and so it takes time. Articulate thinking is the model of rationality, while intuitive thinking is often seen as primitive, "emotional" in a derogatory sense, the only type of thinking of which animals are capable; and so it is articulate thinking that distinguishes human beings from the "lower" animals....
Richard A. Posner, "Blinkered," New Republic, January 16, 2005 --- https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20050124&s=posner012405 

Scientists are developing a pill to stop people suffering heart attacks and strokes. The drug would be taken regularly by middle-aged men and women to prevent their arteries clogging up or developing fatal blockages in later life.
Robin Mckie, "Just one tablet a day could keep heart attacks away," The Guardian, January 9, 2005 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1386230,00.html 

More young women are getting so drunk they need to be hospitalised, with health experts fearing the trend will worsen
Miranda Wood and Danielle Teutsch, "Experts Warn Female Alcohol Abuse on the Rise," Sidney Morning Herald, January 16, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/15/1105582768071.html 

New Zealand police tricked a thief who stole a mobile phone into giving them his name and address by telling him he had won a prize.
"Prize Idiot," The Sidney Morning Herald, January 16, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/15/1105582769264.html 

I suppose owning everything in the world gives him a certain cachet.
New Yorker Cartoon on January 19, 2005 --- http://www.newyorker.com/ 

There is no love without suffering or causing suffering.
Henri de Régnier

But does she pine for the good old days of regulated air travel? Not in the least. Even with the crowds, the delays, the occasionally surly service and all the other problems of modern air travel, her flights are much cheaper and her choices far broader than they were before deregulation.
Micheline Maynard, "Coffee, Tea or Regulation?" The New York Times, January 23, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/business/yourmoney/23dereg.html 

Moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to be heart healthy but not driver healthy in some people.  New evidence is out about possible brain impacts.
Moderate alcohol consumption protects women from cognitive decline.  Can a drink a day prevent mental decline? The finding that older women who consume moderate amounts of alcohol score better on cognitive tests suggests that it can.
Roxanne Khamsi, "Booze boosts brainpower," News@nature.com, January 20, 2005 ---  http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050117/full/050117-10.html  
Years ago a doctor prescribed a shot a day for my Grandmother Dourte.  She refused and said she'd rather die --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm 

Mystery ingredients in non-alcoholic beer may protect against cancer, at least in mice.
Sydney Morning Herald, January 21, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/20/1106110881064.html 

At a time when Internet shopping is booming, Martha Stewart's company plans to shut down its online store
James T. Madore, "Martha Stewart to end Web, catalogue operations," Chicago Tribune, January 19, 2005 --- http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ny-bzmart0119,1,1537105.story?coll=chi-business-hed 

IN A RARE SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT on a college administration already under censure, the American Association of University Professors has criticized Benedict College for firing two professors who refused to follow a policy that required them to base 60 percent of grades for freshmen on effort. 
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam --- http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/01/2005011404n.htm 

If you let other people do it for you, they will do it to you.
Robert Anthony as quoted in a January 19 message from InformationWeek Daily [InfoWeek@update.informationweek.com

Linus Torvalds once led a ragtag band of software geeks. Not anymore. Here's an inside look at how the unusual Linux business model increasingly threatens Microsoft
"Linux Inc.," Cover Story in Business Week, January 31, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/c6pa 

Although IBM's open-source support is no money-maker, it does serve as a deft weapon to undermine Microsoft's markets
"A Way to Hammer at Windows," by Steve Hamm, Business Week, January 13, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/Hammer 
Also see http://snipurl.com/IBMopen 

These days it seems everyone’s blogging. Combine this newest source of information with more traditional online news sources, and you could spend your whole day slogging through lists of bookmarked Web pages just to keep up. Rojo Networks is one of the latest of a bevy of startups trying to help Web users make better sense of this content explosion. The year-and-a-half-old startup’s approach is to help users home in on the most relevant and interesting news and blogs by finding out what others in their online social networks are reading.  Rojo exploits a recent and growing phenomenon called RSS, for Really Simple Syndication. With RSS, an online publisher can format content so that users can extract and display it, along with content from other publishers, using “RSS aggregators.” These personalized websites and dedicated reader programs let users view all the RSS “feeds” they subscribe to—complete with headlines, summaries, and links to original content—in one location.
Corie Lok, "So what are you reading these days?" MIT's Technology Review, February 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/issue/forward_content.asp?trk=nl 

Ten percent of all bird species are likely to disappear by the year 2100, and another 15 percent could be on the brink of extinction, according to a new study by Stanford biologists published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in December. This dramatic loss is expected to have a negative impact on forest ecosystems and agriculture worldwide and may even encourage the spread of human diseases, according to the study.
Mark Schwartz, "Bird populations face steep decline in coming decades, study says," Stanford University, January 10, 2005 --- http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/january12/birds-011205.html 

New Approaches to Exec-Ed Today's climate demands fresh thinking, say three top schools. Plus: New scholarships at Carnegie Mellon; Poker 2005; And more
Francesca Di Meglio, "New Approaches to Exec-Ed," Business Week, January 7, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/ExecEd 

Studies of animal models of Parkinson disease as well as clinical investigations, have shown that transplantation of fetal DA neurons can relieve the symptoms this disease. However the technical and ethical difficulties in obtaining sufficient and appropriate donor fetal brain tissue have limited the application of this therapy.
Journal of Clinical Investigation,, January 18, 2005 --- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050111124158.htm 

Today's young fathers are taking paternity leaves, rejecting overtime, and rushing home after work to do all the things many of their own fathers didn't.
"Gen X Dad," The Boston Globe Magazine, January 16, 1005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/ 

A suggestion by Harvard University's president, Lawrence H. Summers, that women may not have the same innate abilities in math and science as men has touched off an angry response from many Harvard professors, including members of a committee on women's issues who sent Summers a letter yesterday complaining that his remarks "impede our current efforts to recruit top women scholars."
Marcella Bombardieri, "Harvard women's group rips Summers," The Boston Globe, January 19, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/c4q8 

The slogan "gender equality" reduces diversity on campus still further by pretending that all women share the same set of views. Protesting that there are currently only 85 tenured female professors at Harvard, about one-quarter of the faculty, the Women's Caucus boasts that almost all of them agree with its politics. Meanwhile, in a country that has just elected a Republican president and a Republican Congress, one could not find, among Harvard professors, a quarter of a quarter who hold conservative views. Divergent thinkers are driven out of the universities to the think tanks where intellectual initiatives are encouraged rather than suppressed. On the campus, intimidation; beyond the campus, the democratic arena where better ideas can contend and prevail.
Ruth Wisse, "Gender Fender-Bender," The Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2005, Page A8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110627289525032265,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 

Mr. Summers (President of Harvard University) also received support from Hanna H. Gray, a former president of the University of Chicago and a member of the Harvard Corporation, the university's governing body. Dr. Gray said she believed that Mr. Summers's remarks had been misinterpreted.  "I think that Larry Summers is an excellent president of Harvard, firmly committed and deeply respectful of the role of women in universities and one who is anxious to strengthen and enhance that," she said.
Sam Dillon and Sara Rimer, "No Break in the Storm Over Harvard President's Words," The New York Times, January 19, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/education/19harvard.html?oref=login
On January 17, Bob Jensen reported the initial Boston Globe report and link at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q1.htm#011805 

There are many reasons to be concerned that the quiet revolution has stalled. As economists we are concerned that women's educational investments may be inefficiently used. Universities should be concerned because they are both producers and consumers of educated individuals. All employers need to make career paths more amenable to combining work and family if our nation is not to lose a valuable and growing source of talent. Thus it is not surprising that the president of Harvard University, an economist, would attend an academic conference and express his concerns about the advancement of women. Only through reasoned discourse and an exploration of the causes of persistence and change can the promise of the quiet revolution be fulfilled.
"Summers is right," by Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, The Boston Globe, January 23, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/23/summers_is_right/ 
Claudia Goldin is Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University and research associate and program director of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Lawrence F. Katz is Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers has been getting all sorts of grief after telling an economics conference that "innate" differences between men and women contribute to the underrepresentation of female scientists at universities.  Coincidentally, a new University of California–Irvine study addresses the issue of differences between male and female brains. It found that while there are "no disparities in general intelligence between the sexes," there are differences in brain structure. According to the analysis, men have approximately 6.5 times as much gray matter related to general intelligence as women, and women have nearly 10 times as much white matter related to intelligence as men. Gray matter is where the information-processing centers in the brain are located, while white matter represents the connections between these processing centers. These differences, according to a coauthor of the study, may help to explain why "men tend to excel in tasks requiring more local processing—like mathematics—while women tend to excel at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions in the brain, such as required for language facility." The study also found that more intelligence processing in women is found in the brain's frontal lobes, while the gray matter driving male intellectual performance is distributed throughout the brain. According to the researchers, this more centralized intelligence processing in women is consistent with previous findings that frontal brain injuries can be more detrimental to cognitive performance in women than in men.
US News, January 21, 2005 --- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/tech/nextnews/nexthome.htm 

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers's words on the innate differences in science ability between men and women lack a basis in science.  Scholars have demolished some of the widely held beliefs about why fewer women enter science. Contrary to myth, for instance, women are not handicapped in becoming scientists because social forces steer them away from math and science in high school. To the contrary. As sociologists Yu Xie of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Kimberlee Shauman of the University of California, Davis, showed in a 2003 book, "Women in Science," "girls are not only on a par with boys" in how many math and science courses they take. "They also attain significantly better grades."
Sharon Begley, "Harvard Chief's Words On Innate Differences Lack Basis in Science," The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2005, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110685903651738366,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Before Iliescu entered the momhood, Berkeley Dean Mary Ann Mason set out to answer the question asked by her women graduate students: "Is there a good time to have a baby?" Her analysis of 160,000 PhDs showed that having children early in their careers was a boon for men and a bust for women. Fathers who had children within five years of their PhD were more likely to get tenure-track jobs than other men, but mothers were less likely than either fathers or other women. As for women who got on the tenure track before the baby track? Only one in three ever became mothers. Right now, the big flap in the land of academia is over Harvard President Larry Summers's off-the-cuff and off-the-wall remarks about women and science. He wondered aloud whether innate gender differences were one reason women weren't getting ahead in the sciences.
"Can women have it all?" by Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe, January 23, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/GlobeJan23 

The research to support the latter idea is getting better all the time. There are some terrific studies from the National Institutes of Health showing that parenting style itself can affect the way behavioral genes are expressed; countless others demonstrate that the way we behave helps shape both the structure and function of our brain. Behavioral researchers have found, for instance, that constant anxiety can alter pathways in the brain that produce stress hormones, raising the levels to such an extent that the body resets into a constant nervous state. Further, the compounds produced in that stress-chain reaction can cause damage to certain parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, which helps regulate memory. In other words, if you suffer from memory problems during stress, chances are it's because stress has altered your brain.  So, nature impacts nurture - and vice versa. They dance together throughout our lives, so closely intertwined in their particular waltz, that it becomes simplistic to argue that a behavior is just one or the other.
Deborah Blum, "Solving for XX:  What science can (and can't) tell Larry Summers about the difference between men and women," The Boston Globe, January 23, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/01/23/solving_for_xx/  . .

The brain of a genius reveals some, but not all, of the qualities that made him special, writes Roger Highfield.  The bizarre story of Albert Einstein's brain has taken a new twist: half a century after it was sliced into 240 pieces, a team has created a life-size replica which it believes could shed new light on one of the greatest scientific minds.
"The matter between Einstein's ears," The Sidney Morning Herald, January 15, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/14/1105582722494.html 

In "Postcards From the Brain Museum" (Broadway Books, 356 pages, $24.95), Brian Burrell asks: "Is there anything to it?" His conclusion: "If there was something truly distinctive in the brains of great men, great women, depraved hoodlums, or murderers, it would have been discovered by now. But nothing has turned up."
Barbara D. Phillips, "Gray Anatomy," The Wall Street Journal, January 19, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110609006719229460,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

Logical and precise, left-brain thinking gave us the Information Age. Now comes the Conceptual Age -- ruled by artistry, empathy and emotion.
Daniel H. Pink, "Revenge of the Right Brain," Wired News, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/brain.html?tw=wn_tophead_5 

Amateurs beat space agencies to Titan pictures.
News@Nature, January 19, 2005 --- http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050117/full/050117-7.html 

Things are looking rosier still now that Britain's biggest competitor in higher education, America, has driven away tens of thousands of potential students by tougher visa rules. Demand from China is huge (it has been rising by more than 50% a year) and the British brand is strong. For university administrators who face low budgets and political interference at home, the export market looks good ... There are good academic reasons for wanting foreign students, but the main motivation is mercenary. Foreign students subsidise the loss-making teaching of home students (and of the EU ones, who pay domestic rates). They pay £8,000 ($15,000) a year, compared with the £5,000-odd in fees and subsidies that universities get for an average home student. Ivor Crewe of Universities UK, a lobby group, calls them “essential”. The state-funded culture-promoters at the British Council say they are “crucial”. Sir Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics (LSE), terms them “integral”.
"Can foreigners prop them up?" The Economist, January 13, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3556596 

You would be wrong, according to many surveys taken in rich countries. These tend to show that, once a country has lifted itself out of poverty, further rises in income seem not to create a meaningful rise in the proportion of people who count themselves as happy. Since the 1950s, for example, the proportion of Americans who tell pollsters that they are “very happy” has stayed constant at around 30%, while the proportion who say that they are “not very happy” has barely fallen. Explaining this paradox, and offering suggestions for increasing the supply of happiness, is the aim of a new book by Richard Layard, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics and a Labour peer.
"Can't Buy It," The Economist, January 13, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3555887 

JARED DIAMOND likes his subjects big. His best-known book, Guns, Germs and Steel, was in some editions subtitled A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years. This was no conventional history; rather, the author tried to explain the environmental factors behind the rise of various human civilisations.…
Diamond's new book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, in The Economist, January 13, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3555894 
Robert S. Desowitz reviews the book in Scientific American --- http://snipurl.com/Collapse 

Monsanto Co.'s "seed police" snared soy farmer Homan McFarling in 1999, and the company is demanding he pay it hundreds of thousands of dollars for alleged technology piracy.  McFarling's sin? He saved seed from one harvest and replanted it the following season, a revered and ancient agricultural practice.  "My daddy saved seed. I saved seed," said McFarling, 62, who still grows soy on the 5,000 acre family farm in Shannon, Miss. and is fighting the agribusiness giant in court.
Paul Elias, "Enforcing Single-Season Seeds, Monsanto Sues Farmers," MIT's Technology Review,  January 14, 2005 --- 
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/ap/ap_011405.asp?trk=nl
 
This also means that McFarling and other farmers cannot buy ahead when the price is low and subjects them to greater pricing risk unless they enter into possibly complex derivative financial instruments for hedging purposes.

Paul Niven, head of strategy at F&C Asset Management, a fund management company in London, pointed out that many Asian stock markets have continued to rally this year. "Such behavior may seem odd at a time of such unprecedented disaster across numerous countries," Mr. Niven said, "but it does appear that markets are behaving entirely rationally."  He and other investment professionals say there was no widespread selling because the tsunami damage, though extending for thousands of miles along the Indian Ocean's rim, had negligible impact on industrial capacity. It may seem perverse when juxtaposed with the immense loss of life, analysts say, but the disaster may even produce economic and commercial benefits as rebuilding begins.
Conrad De Aenlle, "Why Stock Markets Stayed Calm in Southern Asia," The New York Times, January 16, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/business/yourmoney/16storm.html 

Oh No!  Not Our Alamo (read that Taxpayer Turkey) Dome!
Cities are spending billions of dollars to build or expand convention centers when attendance at trade shows has dropped sharply, a report today by a Washington think tank shows.
Larry Copeland, "Convention centers grow, fewer go Cities spending more even as business drops," USA Today, January 17, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050117/1a_bottomstrip17.art.htm 

A CBS-Like Scandal in the Medical World
A misleading article on "missing" Eli Lilly documents could give the usually methodical world of medical journals a black eye.  On New Year's Day, the British medical journal BMJ published a news article suggesting that "missing" documents from a decade-old lawsuit indicated that Eli Lilly & Company, the maker of Prozac, had minimized data about the drug's risks of causing suicidal or violent behavior.  The American freelance reporter who wrote the article, Jeanne Lenzer, declined to be interviewed, referring all questions to the BMJ. Officials there did not respond to written questions, but a spokeswoman, Emma Dickinson, said in an e-mail message on Friday that the publication "takes this issue very seriously" and will address Lilly's concerns after reviewing them.  The BMJ, which is considered a leading medical journal, may have little choice. While Lilly has not taken legal action, its lawyers have notified the publication that the company considers the article to be "inaccurate and defamatory," asserting that the records were not missing and that all their relevant data had been previously submitted to the F.D.A. Also, Lilly issued an analysis last week of the 52 pages of records that the BMJ had received, which the company said supported its claims. Lilly said it got the documents from a congressman who received them from the BMJ.

Barry Meier, "Dispute Puts a Medical Journal Under Fire," The New York Times, January 17, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/business/media/17journal.html 

There used to be such a thing as a sense of occasion (in the U.K), and those participating in the occasion -- whether it be a night at the opera or an invitation to dinner or to a religious ceremony -- would avoid insulting their hosts or diminishing the event itself by not turning up for it dressed as if for an afternoon in the garden or at the dog track. That now seems to have gone by the board. Formality at recreational occasions is regarded as utterly absurd; and, indeed, conservatism of dress in the workplace is now increasingly frowned upon, as indicating a range of unsavory attitudes including a hidebound mentality, political incorrectness and class-consciousness.
Simon Heffer, writing in this week's edition of the London magazine, the Spectator, as quoted in the WSJ on January 18, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110600215216228230,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep 

Employers, in recent years, have stepped up their efforts to get workers into 401(k) plans amid the changing retirement-plan landscape and the uncertainty of Social Security. Still, nearly a third of eligible workers aren't participating in their company's 401(k) plan, and of those who do, many aren't putting away enough to make it through their retirement years, according to Hewitt Associates, a global outsourcing and consulting firm in Lincolnshire, Ill
Cathy Chu, "Some Retirees' Nest Eggs Appear to Have Cracks," The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2005, Page C6 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110599507987728083,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 

Would the murderer please come in to provide the police with a DNA sample?
Three years ago, fashion writer Christa Worthington was stabbed to death at her Truro, Mass., home. With few new leads, police are seeking DNA samples from the 800 male residents of the Cape Cod town to see whether any match semen found at the crime scene.
"A faulty fishing expedition," USA TODAY, January 19, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050119/edit19.art.htm 

Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France 
by John J. Miller and Mark Molesky
A review of this book appears in "French Lessons" --- 
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_01_17/review.html 
France has long fought what it sees as an American cultural invasion. But the country is now going to great lengths to save Euro Disney as the America-bashing yields to another French preoccupation: job creation.
"Despite Losses and Bailouts, France Stays Devoted to Disney," The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2005, Page A1

How to Bribe Russians
The Finnish government said it regretted sponsoring a book giving detailed examples of how to bribe Russian businessmen published by the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce.
Weird News, January 21, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/FinnBribes 

Ballou Makes It Big (with video)
The Washington Post, January 23, 2005 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/metro/012005-23v.htm 

They thought they were getting away with it.
New York City's Department of Finance has sent out thousands of letters to local customers of Internet cigarette vendors, asking for a total of $1.3 million in lost taxes. The city gleaned the names and addresses from a Virginia lawsuit against one site, Cigs4cheap.com, which offered reduced-tax cigarettes and is now out of business. Some people are said to owe as much as $10,000.
Maggie Farley, "N.Y. Orders Online Cigarette Buyers to Cough Up Taxes," Los Angeles Times, January 17, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/CigTax 

If you can stay in the stock market for the long term, your investments will pay off. But that long term can be very, very long.
Alan Sloan, "Stocks' Payoff Myth," Newsweek, January 18, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6839146/site/newsweek/ 

Horny Moms
New Zealanders are feeling sheepish over a new postage stamp that shows two lambs with their mother complete with a pair of powerful, curled horns - in reality found only on a ram.
"Ewe Must Be Kidding," Sydney Morning Herald, January 10, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/18/1105810910104.html 

A previously unknown 1892 novel by Scotsman Jack McCullogh, which tells a tale of a man who sleeps until the 2000, depicts such things as digital watches, bullet trains, television, and women's equality, the Times newspaper said.  Being a golpher, McCullogh paid attention to what he new best, calling the book "Golf in the Year 2000, or What Are We Coming To," and predicted the advent of both golf carts and golf professionals.
Weird News, January 20, 2005 --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/19th-century-british-golfer-predicted-future-or-part-of-it-in-novel.html 

A Los Angeles police officer who was videotaped repeatedly slamming the face of a handcuffed 16-year-old boy onto the bonnet of a car and then punching him in the face has been awarded $US1.6 million ($2.1 million) in damages in a case steeped in racial antagonism.  Another officer who witnessed the bashing was awarded $US811,000. The awards were made after the two white officers sued Los Angeles city for racial discrimination, claiming they had been punished more harshly than a black officer who was also present.
"Officer who bashed boy gets $2.1m damages," Sydney Morning Herald, January 21, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/20/1106110881904.html 

Researchers have found a chain of 288 one-to-one sexual relationships at a high school in the US Midwest, meaning the teenager at the end of the chain may have had direct sexual contact with only one person, but indirect contact with 286 others.  The sociologists who conducted the study said on Monday that they were surprised by the findings, which also showed that despite reputations and popularity, most teenagers in their study did not engage in promiscuous behaviour with many others.  "From a student's perspective, a large chain like this would boggle the mind," said sociologist James Moody, who led the study.  "They might know that their partner had a previous partner. But they don't think about the fact that this partner had a previous partner, who had a partner, and so on."  This means that teenagers need a different approach to sexual health education and especially prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, the team at Ohio State University said.
"School sex study puts history in a new light," Sidney World Herald, January 26, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/25/1106415598932.html 

A Sydney Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting an adult man 22 years ago, when homosexual sex was illegal, has received an extremely rare, and short, sentence.  Terence Norman Goodall, 64, was yesterday sentenced to a "rising of the court" for fondling the genitals of a 29-year-old Catholic teacher at a Cronulla public pool after the two had shared a candlelit dinner.
Natasha Wallace, "Short sentence for priest convicted of indecent assault," Sidney Morning Herald, January 26, 2005 ---  http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/25/1106415598668.html 

According to court papers, Sylvia Johnson told investigators she was not popular in high school and had finally started "feeling like one of the group."
"Police: Mom threw sex parties for teenagers," CNN, January 22, 2005 --- http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/21/sex.parties.ap/index.html 

Remember how the Russian space program worked in the 1960s? The only flights that got publicized were the successful ones.  Hedge funds are like that. The ones asking for your money have terrific records. You don't hear about the ones that blew up. That fact should strongly color your view of hedge funds with terrific records.
Forbes, January 13, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/ForbesJan_13 
Bob Jensen's threads on hedge funds can be found by scrolling down at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm#H-Terms 

I wonder which finger?
He is accused of assaulting a former worker, Nelson Chisale, 41, before throwing him into an enclosure filled with lions. All that remained was Mr Chisale's skull, ribs, vertebrae and a single finger.
"Farmer fed worker to the lions, court told," Sidney Morning Herald, January 26, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/25/1106415598935.html 




Questions 
Is your university getting credit card kickbacks on student and alumni use of credit cards? 
Did you know that many universities send names, addresses, and social security numbers of students and alumni to a company that solicits them to use a credit card? 
 

Answers
January 19, 2005 message (re-written by Bob Jensen) from a former high level university administrator

Many, if not most, colleges and universities are doing this. The reason: every time a credit card is used for any purchase, the university gets a percentage (for each purchase transaction) from the credit card company "as a gift." This kind of income is generally not recognized as a gift by the rules of the college and university auditors/business managers (see NACUBO). Why should the university provide any of this information? In addition to not informing people that this information is being "sold," this practice encourages college students and alumni to go into more debt.

Fixed Rate Lures Have a Hook
"Beware of 'fixed rate' lure of credit cards," by Michelle Singletary, Boston Globe, January 26, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/GlobeJan_23 

'Are you nutso?'

That was a question one reader posed to me recently. He thought I was wrong to advise a young woman not to transfer $13,000 of student loan debt to a credit card offering a very low interest rate.

But I'm not nuts, just realistic. I recommended that the woman with the student loan debt not do it because those low-interest-rate cards come with too many loopholes that allow a credit card company to hike the rate even if you sneeze wrong.

''You give folks far too little 'credit' for being able to monitor their situation," the reader scolded me.

It's not that I don't think people can't handle credit well; it's that folks sign up for these cards without reading or understanding the fine print, which states that minor missteps in the handling of their accounts can trigger increased rates -- significantly higher interest rates (much higher than the 8.25 percent fixed rate the woman in question was paying on her student loan).

Actually, to the dismay of some, you can do everything right and still have your credit card rate increased.

In fact, Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch is going after one giant credit card company for what he says is a deliberate attempt to mislead people into signing up for what they think are permanently fixed-rate credit cards.

In a lawsuit filed recently against two subsidiaries of Capital One Financial Corp., Hatch alleges that the company uses false, deceptive, and misleading television advertisements, direct-mail solicitations, and customer service telephone scripts to market credit cards with allegedly ''low" and ''fixed" interest rates that, unlike its competitors, will never be increased.

Capital One said in a statement that it has done nothing wrong.

I do believe that much of the advertising for credit cards doesn't emphasize that special low rates can be taken away for any number of bill-paying infractions -- making a single payment late (even by one day) or exceeding your credit limit.

However, what many consumers don't understand is that the word ''fixed" in the credit card world isn't the same as, for example, a 30-year ''fixed" mortgage loan. You can pay your mortgage late or not at all and your rate will be the same. You might get kicked out of your house or ruin your credit rating, but you won't get kicked up to a higher interest rate.

Not so with credit cards. A fixed credit card rate can be changed.

Hatch's suit alleges that consumers are not adequately informed of what can happen with a low-interest-rate card and cites case histories from several Minnesota cardholders. Here are some examples outlined in the lawsuit:

Nicole Bourgeois opened a credit card account with Capital One in July 2003. Bourgeois had seen a Capital One television ad offering low, fixed-rate credit cards. Based on the ads, she thought fixed meant the rate would not change for the life of the card. Bourgeois and her husband had wanted to consolidate debt from other credit cards into a single joint account with a low interest rate. Bourgeois received a card with a rate of 4.9 percent. But nearly a year after having the card, she noticed one month her rate had been increased to more than 14 percent. She called Capital One and was told that the increase was the result of one late payment.

Robert Stein said he found the prospect of a low fixed-rate card very appealing. He believed that the term ''low fixed rate" meant that the interest rate would stay at 4.9 percent for as long as he had the card. However, Stein's rate increased to 6.9 percent. Why? When he called to inquire, he was told his interest rate was increased because his payment was received two days past the due date.

Betty Ramsland obtained a Capital One credit card in 2002 with a fixed rate of 8.9 percent. Two years later, Ramsland's rate was raised to 14.95 percent. Ramsland said in the lawsuit she asked the company why her rate was increased but didn't receive an explanation.

Sure, some people move around debt from one low-interest credit card to another with no problem. But you're nuts to believe a promise of a forever fixed-rate credit card. Maybe it will stay fixed. Maybe it won't.

Bob Jensen's threads on the dirty secrets of credit card companies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 

Executives increasingly insist that pensions are a luxury corporations can no longer afford --- except for themselves.  Many executive whose companies have reneged on pension promises to workers have been careful to ensure their own big monthly retirement checks.  In 2002, United Airlines lured Glenn Tilton to be chief with a prepaid retirement benefit worth $4.5 million.  (Other examples are given.)
"Corporate Honchos Take Care of Their Own First," U.S. News and World Report, January 24, 2005, Page 44.

Some companies are taking weeks to deposit workers' 401(k) contributions, earning interest on the money that should rightfully go to employees. According to MarketWatch, depositing 401(k) deposits can take as long as seven weeks, enough time for employers to earn short-term interest on the period between the deduction and deposit. 
AccountingWeb, January 25, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/item/100422 

Bob Jensen's Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 

With horror stories of clogged computers ringing in their ears, lawmakers get ready to drop the hammer on malware makers. Penalties as high as $3 million could await homepage hijackers and other troublemakers.
Michael Grebb, "Congress Puts Spyware on Hit List," Wired News, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,66407,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 

Current forgery detection techniques, which are vital for screening news items and intelligence, leave much to be desired. Digital watermarking works only when someone has had the foresight to insert hidden information into an image file to prevent tampering. In contrast, Popescu and Farid’s method can be applied automatically to any image file. However, the method is not foolproof: for example, it cannot detect cases of shrinking without interpolation. Also, data compression, used in JPEG files, and noise interfere with the algorithm. Nonetheless, the new software makes it harder for a digital photograph to lie.
"Photoshop Sleuths," MIT's Technology Review, February 2005 --- 
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/issue/synopsis_info.asp?trk=nl
 
Bob Jensen's threads on fraud reporting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm 

To defeat Bayesian filters, spammers have taken to inserting legitimate words into spam.  Hackers are turning digital rights management features of Microsoft's Windows Media Player against users by fooling them into downloading massive amounts of spyware, adware, and viruses.  A year after it went into effect, the federal CAN-SPAM Act is a "miserable" failure, a messaging security firm that monitors compliance with the anti-spam legislation says.  The United States was the 800-pound spam-spewing gorilla throughout 2004, a spot it held from wire to wire throughout the year, an anti-virus firm says.  Federal judge grants restraining order shutting down six porn purveyors.
Information Week's Updates on Spam (including how spyware burglars and spammers stay ahead all efforts to stop it) --- http://snipurl.com/spamJan19 

Meanwhile, other people have been building much better browsers, just as Microsoft itself did in the 1990s, when it challenged and eventually bested the then-dominant browser, Netscape Navigator. The most significant of these challengers is Firefox, a free product of an open-source organization called Mozilla, available for download at www.mozilla.org. Firefox is both more secure and more modern than IE, and it comes packed with user-friendly features the Microsoft browser can't touch.

"Security, Cool Features Of Firefox Web Browser Beat Microsoft's IE," Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2004, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110435917184512320,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

 

Firefox gets all the attention these days, but it wasn't the first to fight the Internet Explorer hegemony. Nor is it alone: Opera is still plugging away.
Michelle Delio, "Opera, the Forgotten Browser," Wired News, January 26, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66394,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 

 

The best way to defeat the bad guys is shift from a Windows operating system another operating system such a Mac or Linux.  You can read more about this at the link below.  Unfortunately, universities like my own do not provide tech support for anything other than Windows even though a huge portion of the budget is now devoted to security upgrades and ever-losing fixes to Windows security protection and breaches.  I wonder how many universities truly regret that they bought into Microsoft's supposedly "cheaper" solution years ago.

 

January 19, 2005 reply from Patricia Doherty [pdoherty@BU.EDU

Well, just for information, I seem to have joined this wave two ways. First, on our Windows desktop (Dell) at home, we are now using FireFox. We like it a lot - far fewer popups, and a very good browser. We have had no complaints. Even my impatient husband likes it.

And Santa brought me a Mac PowerBook for Christmas. I love it.

One word of warning: if you decide to buy a security cable for your laptop to secure it, say, at your office, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES buy the Targus combination lock model. They can "reset" themselves without your knowing, if you carry it, for example, in your bag and it rubs against other things - the reset screw is vulnerable to being moved unintentionally - and when you lock it to your laptop, your combination no longer works and you can't get it off your laptop. Mine did - I won't bore you with the long story that will end this morning with a hacksaw. Buyer beware! Get a lock that has a key. Wish I'd known this before.

Pat


Behind Microsoft's entrance into the thriving market for antivirus software is the rush of viruses that regularly rain down on PCs. In the month of December alone, 390 computer viruses were on the loose among the computing community, according to a tally by WildList Organization International, which collects reports from anti-virus experts throughout the world.
Deborah Asbrand, "Is Microsoft's AntiVirus Strategy Secure?" MIT's Technology Review, January 20, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/wo/wo_asbrand012005.asp?trk=nl

Bob Jensen's updates on computer and network security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 




January 26, 2005 message from MABDOLMOHAMM@BENTLEY.EDU 

I am coordinating a group of faculty members from accounting, finance, management and philosophy to develop an interdisciplinary ethics course for our undergraduate program. Any information you might have to share, including syllabi will be greatly appreciated.

I am also wondering if you (both academicians and professionals) might be willing to spend approximately five minutes to respond to a short survey to collect structured data on the type of the ethics course that might be needed. I am not asking for disclosure of any sensitive data here, but brief demographic information is collected for comparative analysis. Please be assured that your answers will be kept in strict confidence and only aggregate data will be included in any report or research paper in the future.

If you are willing to participate please open the following URL and press submit when you are done.

http://atc.bentley.edu/resources/perseus5/surveys/accountingethics1.htm 

Thanking you in advance,

Ali

Mohammad J. Abdolmohammadi, DBA, CPA 
http://web.bentley.edu/empl/a/mabdolmohamm/  
John E. Rhodes Professor of Accounting 
Bentley College 
175 Forest Street Waltham, MA 02452 
781-891-2976 voice 781-891-2896 fax

Reply from  Bob Jensen on January 26, 2005

Hi Mohammad,

You might check out the Picola Project as a potential model for applying for grants and helping accountants around the world.  This model would be great if it were extended beyond communities and into accountancy --- http://communityconnections.heinz.cmu.edu/picola/index.html 

When it comes to the academic side of ethics, I always say begin with CMU philosophy professor Robert Cavelier.

He shares some course references at http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/CAAE/webmats.htm
Some of his fantastic course materials are linked on the left side of the page at http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/Cavalier/80130/  

Part I History of Ethics

Preface: The Life of Socrates
Section 1: Greek Moral Philosophy
Section 2: Hellenistic and Roman Ethics
Section 3: Early Christian Ethics
Section 4: Modern Moral Philosophy
Section 5: 20th Century Analytic Moral Philosophy

Part II Concepts and Problems

Preface: Meta-ethics, Normative Ethics and Applied Ethics
Section 1: Ethical Relativism
Section 2: Ethical Egoism
Section 3: Utilitarian Theories
Section 4: Deontological Theories
Section 5: Virtue Ethics
Section 6: Liberal Rights and Communitarian Theories
Section 7: Ethics of Care
Section 8: Case-based Moral Reasoning
Section 9: Moral Pluralism

Part III Applied Ethics

Preface: The Field of Applied Ethics
Section 1: The Topic of Euthanasia
Multimedia Module: A Right to Die? The Dax Cowart Case
Section 2: The Topic of Abortion
Multimedia Module: The Issue of Abortion in America
Postscript: Conflict Resolution

Note that his update materials appear to be buried in a CMU Blackboard server.  I suspect Dr. Cavelier would share the updates if it was for a good cause.  


Farewell to Critical Accounting (Especially note the link under Number 2 below)
These are responses as to what is the meaning of "Middle of the Road Theory."

January 27, 2005 message from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU

Bob,

You might like to refer to: 1. Tinker, T., C. Lehman and M. Neimark (1991), "Falling Down the Hole in the Middle of the Road: Political Quietism in Corporate Social Reporting", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 28 - 54.

2. http://www.ssn.flinders.edu.au/commerce/researchpapers/02-3.pdf 

3. http://visar.csustan.edu/aaba/nandan&lodhia.pdf 

Jagdish

January 27, 2005 message from Ed Scribner [escribne@nmsu.edu

Bob,

It’s related to the question, “Why did the accountant cross the road?” The answer to that question, I’m told, is, “To bore the people on the other side.”

The “Middle of the Road Theory” is a normative theory prescribing that the accountant should not waver and stop in the middle of the road.

Ed

January 27, 2005 message from Van Johnson [accvej@LANGATE.GSU.EDU

-----Original Message----- 
From: Van Johnson 
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 12:33 PM

Subject: Re: Middle of the Road Theory

Here is a cite from Tilt (1999). Hope it is helpful.

In order to clarify the debates in the environmental (and social) accounting literature, each piece of research must be considered in light of the philosophical stance of the writer. The various positions taken by writers of social and environmental accounting literature, are commonly seen as fitting into three categories (Mathews, 1984; 1987; Parker, 1995; Tinker et al., 1991; Gray et al., 1996; Hackston & Milne, 1996). First, there is the functionalist or neo-classical economic paradigm, characterised by decision usefulness studies (eg. Spicer, 1978; Belkaoui, 1980; 1984; Dierkes & Antal, 1985). These studies rely on market explanations for all business activity, including social and environmental reporting. Second, there is the interpretive or 'middle of the road' paradigm, where the status quo is accepted but reasons other than market forces are explored as explanations for social reporting (eg. Gray et al., 1988; Laughlin, 1990). Finally, the radical, critical or socio-political paradigm is where social reporting cannot be considered without acknowledgment of the social and political nature of the society within which firms exist (eg. Cooper, 1980; Tinker, 1980; Tinker et al. 1991; Mathews, 1984; Gray, 1992; Lehman, 1995).

Van

 

 


Saturn:  Jewel of the Solar System  --- http://www.exploratorium.edu/saturn/ 

On October 15, 1997, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, loaded with an array of powerful instruments, rocketed into space on a seven-year journey to Saturn and its vicinity. On July 1, 2004 Universal Time (June 30 in U.S. time zones), the spacecraft began orbiting Saturn for four years, flying close to several of its thirty-plus moons. The Huygens probe will separate from Cassini in December 2004, dive down through the thick, cloudy atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and land on Titan's surface in January 2005. Scientists expect that this extended tour of the Saturnian region will provide new information about the planet’s composition and atmosphere and its mysterious moons and rings. They also hope to learn more about the formation of the solar system.

On this Web site (which will expand in winter 2004), we'll explore Saturn and its environs, adding new images and information as they become available.


We're Hot Stuff

"Rules spur demand for accountants:   Universities can't turn them out fast enough," by Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY, January 18, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050118/1a_bottomstrip18.art.htm 

Call it the revenge of the nerds.

While many professions have been slow to hire, accounting firms have been adding to their payrolls, leading to greater pay and perks for the nation's bean counters. In the last three months of 2004, the number of people working as accountants or bookkeepers rose 2.4%, nearly five times the rate of increase in jobs economywide, according to the government.

“It's clearly one of the hottest markets (for accountants) that I've seen,” says Brent Inman of PricewaterhouseCoopers. On-campus hiring by his firm in 2004 was up 45% from two years earlier and is expected to grow 20% this year. Hiring of experienced accountants has been growing at a similar rate.

The increases are mostly attributed to the federal Sarbanes-Oxley law, which created new government standards in the wake of accounting scandals, most notably at energy giant Enron, and led to a greater need for accountants.

The job growth has sparked greater interest in accounting on college campuses. In the 2002-03 academic year, the most recent data, nearly 50,000 students received either bachelor's or master's degrees in accounting, up 11% from the prior year and the largest number in seven years, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

But the increase in students still can't keep up with demand.

“There's still a lot of seats that need to be filled,” says William Hogan, a partner at accounting firm John R. Waters in Chicago.

Accountants are increasingly able to call the shots when looking for jobs. They're demanding higher pay, flexible work arrangements and even signing bonuses. Hogan says annual pay for entry-level accountants at his firm rose approximately $10,000 to between $50,000 and $55,000 in two years.

January 18, 2005 reply from careers@localaccountingjobs.com 

LocalAccountingJobs.com has over 80,000 Active Accounting & Finance Job Applicants in our database on January 18, 2005!

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on January 21, 2005

TITLE: Headhunters Are Hustling to Meet Deluge of Demand for Accountants and Auditors 
REPORTER: Julie Bennett 
DATE: Jan 18, 2005 
PAGE: B9 
LINK: Print Only 
TOPICS: Accounting, Auditing, Sarbanes-Oxley Act

SUMMARY: The article is associated with a special advertising section for financial careers. The author highlights the effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act and academic priorities undertaken in accounting programs.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) What are the reasons for the significant increase in demand for accounting and auditing professionals? Specifically explain the role of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (known as SOX or SarbOx).

2.) What have been the effects of that demand increase on individual professionals?

3.) What are the factors employers are looking for in the most sought-after professionals?

4.) What has been the effect of these factors on student interest in accounting as a career? In your answer, consider the discussion of the diversity in the accounting student population.

5.) Are you interested in a graduate program in accounting leading to a Ph.D.? What qualities do you think a person should possess in order to successfully pursue that career option?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

Executive level international accounting and auditing job openings are listed at Go here - http://www.accountingeducation.com/jobs/index.cfm#careercentre 

Bob Jensen's threads on accountancy careers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers 


January 26, 2005 message from Dennis Beresford [dberesfo@terry.uga.edu

I have a DVD that was produced by the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California in conjunction with PricewaterhouseCoopers. It reports on a study undertaken of PWC employees and alumni by CEO. It is titled: The value of the PwC professional experience: What employees gain by staying longer at the Firm, and why they leave.

In essence, the DVD reports on this study's conclusion that leaving public accounting before attaining at least the Manager level tends to significantly hurt a person in the long term with respect to earnings and level of ultimate position within a company. It also notes that the major reason that employees leave the firm "too early" is that they are unhappy with the work/life balance (not a big surprise).

Like other firms, PWC is making efforts to reduce its turnover, particularly in these days of great demand for auditing services (404, etc.). In a recent discussion with a senior PWC partner, I was told that the firm believes that many faculty members are advising students to spend the minimum possible time in public accounting and then move on to something more meaningful. Thus, the firm will be making efforts to "educate educators" on the negatives of leaving too soon - including the matters covered in this study. It's possible that we will hear some of this in the dinner that PWC just invited us to.

I've also been told that PWC (and presumably other firms) is making very substantial bonus payments to retain employees. These may run 20% or so of salary. And raises of 15-30% are common. The firm is also making efforts to bring former employees back to the firm. Perhaps they would even be interested in hiring some educators as auditors!

Denny


Question
What’s happening with business education at Oxford and what does it have to do with eBay?

Answer
January 26, 2005 message from Business Week's MBA Express [BW_MBA_Express@newsletters.businessweek.com

Q. Why is your program considered an up-and-coming one? 
A: We have had a lot of press, first, because we're a department of Oxford University. And Oxford established a business school late by international standards [in 1996], nearly 100 years after the founding of many schools in the U.S. Second, we have been successful in a short time by attracting some of the best students and faculty in the world. Third, we have launched a number of initiatives, such as 2004's Social Entrepreneurship Center, a research center that was partially funded by an eBay (EBAY ) co-founder [Jeff Skoll] and allows us to offer a series of social entrepreneurship classes [using entrepreneurial approaches to address social problems] to MBA students.


January 25, 2005 message from News Update [campustechnology@newsletters.101com.com

Internet Study Predicts Aptitude Will Drive Class Composition

A sweeping survey of nearly 1,300 technology experts and scholars on the future of the Internet has concluded - not surprisingly - that the Internet would reach into and influence every corner of American life over the next 10 years. The study, released under the auspices of Elon University and the Pew Internet & American Life Project, paints a picture of a digital future that enhances the lives of many but which also contains some worrisome notes.

For instance, over half of the respondents predicted the Internet would spawn "a new age of creativity" and that formal education would incorporate more online classes, with students grouped by interests and skills, rather than by age. At the same time, two-thirds predicted a devastating attack on the country's network infrastructure would occur or in the next 10 years, and that government and business surveillance would rise dramatically.

Full results of the survey can be found on the Web at http://www.elon.edu/predictions 

Bob Jensen's threads on trends in education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm 


"At 50, AP Test Is Still Changing College Board Seeks Ways to Foster Abstract Thinking," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, January 26, 2005, Page A10 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35616-2005Jan25.html 

The Advanced Placement test, close to surpassing the SAT as the most important exam for college-bound U.S. students, will undergo an adjustment designed to help change the way high school and introductory college courses are taught, College Board officials said yesterday.

The officials, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the AP program at a Washington news conference, said they are enlisting professors at 130 colleges known for the best teaching of introductory science, English and history. The teachers will help change AP course materials and tests to encourage more conceptual understanding and less memorization in both high schools and universities.

"We will be providing AP at its best, to enable more colleges to raise their own standards," said Trevor Packer, executive director of the AP program, which is owned by the College Board, the nonprofit organization that also owns the SAT.

College Board President Gaston Caperton, a former governor of West Virginia, described the rapid growth of what began in 1955 as a small program designed to keep students at exclusive private schools and affluent neighborhood high schools from having to repeat in college the advanced course work they studied in high school.

High school students who take AP courses in any of 34 subjects have a chance to earn college credit, or at least to skip introductory college courses, by doing well on one of the three-hour AP exams. In 2004, Caperton said, 1.1 million students took about 2 million AP tests, more than double the number 10 years ago. The number of AP test-takers rivals the 1.4 million seniors who took the SAT last year.

"When students are challenged in high school, they gain the confidence to go to college and succeed once there," Caperton said. He said that the program has succeeded in increasing minority student participation in the AP program and their success rate on the tests. This is particularly evident in states such as Florida that have spent heavily to pay the $82 test fee for students, lure more students into the courses and improve the training of AP teachers.

The AP program has become the most influential factor, along with the similar but smaller International Baccalaureate program, in the growing rigor of courses taken by the most ambitious high school students, many experts say. Taking at least a few AP or IB courses has become a virtual requirement for admission to the most selective colleges.

But the AP's growth has also brought criticism. Packer said that the move to make AP courses and tests more sophisticated was in part a response to a report suggesting such a change by the National Research Council, a nonprofit science and technology advisory group. Packer said the initial focus will be on U.S. history, English language, English literature and the four AP science courses -- biology, chemistry, physics and environmental science.

He said critics were wrong to say that AP tests forced AP teachers to cover too much material, given that a top AP score of 5 can be achieved by a student who misses most of the multiple-choice questions but does well on free-response questions that reward thought and analysis. But improving the courses and tests even more, he said, would encourage more colleges to lessen their own tendencies to reward memorization in introductory courses.

Caperton and Packer rejected suggestions -- including those in a fall 2003 article by William Casement in the journal Academic Questions -- that cutbacks in AP credit at some selective colleges, along with sustained AP scores despite the growth in test-takers, show that the program is losing rigor and credibility. The exams, Caperton said, "are more rigorous than ever before." The College Board, Packer said, has plenty of data to prove that.

In releasing the "Advanced Placement Report to the Nation" yesterday, the College Board said AP is changing the way it judges success by schools and districts. The traditional way has been to report what is often called the passing rate -- the percentage of AP tests that receive a grade of 3, 4 or 5, the equivalent of a college C, B or A, and are likely to earn college credit. AP officials said this method encouraged schools to let only their best students into AP courses so the schools would be guaranteed a high passing rate.

A new measuring stick, the report said, will motivate schools to enroll more students in the program, because studies suggest that an intense academic experience like AP in high school increases the chance that an average student, particularly from a minority group, will graduate from college. Schools, districts and states will now be told the percentage of all public high school seniors, including non-AP students, who had at least one AP grade of 3 or higher, the report said. Those figures, in turn, could provide a comparative measure of AP success.


Question
What proportion of Americans start collecting social security at age 62?

Answer
"Social Security gets stretched, strained by long retirements:  55% of American workers start collecting benefits at 62," by Dennis Couchon, USA Today, January 25, 2005, Page 1A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050125/1a_cover24.art.htm 


Homeowners in many metropolitan areas are bracing for another round of higher tax bills as a hot real estate market and other factors push property taxes to new levels.
Larry Copeland, Homeowners can expect bigger property tax bite: Demand for services puts officials in pinch," USA Today, January 25, 2005, Page 1A ---  http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050125/1a_bottomstrip25.art.htm 

"Homeowners Revolt Against Tax Assessors:  Rising Property Levies Spur Lawsuits, Calls for Ousters; Boston Tries a New Tack," by Ray A. Smith, The Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2005, Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110661015488934628,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

As home prices and property taxes in many areas of the U.S. continue to reach new heights, homeowners are aiming their sights at a common target: the local tax assessor.

Angry about higher tax bills, and not content with the formal appeals process, citizens are suing assessors or calling for their ouster. In other cases, mounting pressure is prompting city councils and community organizations to arrange grilling sessions where the spotlight is on the assessor to explain why assessed values and tax bills have gone through the roof.

In Canaan, N.Y., more than 50 residents sued the local assessor after seeing their property-tax bills more than double during the past 10 years. Outraged by the big increases in their property assessments, Madison County, Ga., residents flooded the tax assessor's office last summer with 1,500 appeals, and sought the resignations of the entire board of assessors. In Essex County, N.J., about 100 citizens packed their local synagogue in West Orange, N.J., in October for a special meeting with town officials, including the mayor, to discuss rising property taxes.

"People were feeling it has gotten out of control," says Michael Luxenberg, president of Congregation Ahawas Achim B'nai Jacob and David. "You think you can afford a home and taxes keep going up a thousand dollars a year over the course of a few years. It really becomes unaffordable."

Continued in article


Question
What nation has the most lawyers per capita?

Answer
Ireland with one attorney for every 369 people. That outstrips even the U.S., which has one lawyer per 421 people, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  But the U.S. tops the world in tort litigation.

In Ireland, business owners have pushed through a series of legal reforms that are showing signs of reducing insurance premiums for consumers and business and cutting the number of personal-injury claims.

"Ireland Curbs 'American Disease' -- Personal-Injury Lawsuits," by Charles Fleming, The Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2005, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110661371404034739,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Pat McDonagh likes U.S. culture enough that he opened Supermac's, one of the many American-style hamburger joints on Dublin's main thoroughfare, O'Connell Street.

But now Mr. McDonagh is leading the fight against another U.S. trend that has swept across the Atlantic: personal-injury lawsuits. Such litigation has boomed in Europe in the past few years -- its nickname in some circles is "the American disease."

After videotaping a customer pouring water on the floor of the restroom in one of his restaurants before claiming a slip-and-fall accident, Mr. McDonagh has been on a campaign to curb the trend. He and other business owners have succeeded in pushing through a series of legal reforms in Ireland in the past few years that already are showing signs of reducing insurance premiums for consumers and business and cutting the number of claims.

A new arbitration body in Dublin now reviews personal and employers' liability claims -- including motor, workplace, and other accidents but not medical malpractice cases -- before they get to court. This initial process is a lawyer-free zone. Attorneys are not permitted to handle the claim for plaintiffs, who deal directly with the panel, known as the Personal Injury Assessment Board. (Plaintiffs can hire a lawyer for consultation, however).

The panel's rule is striking, given that Ireland is one of the most densely lawyered nations, with one attorney for every 369 people. That outstrips even the U.S., which has one lawyer per 421 people, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Continued in the article


"In virtual school, teacher is just an e-mail away," by Melissa Hart, Christian Science Monitor, January 4, 2005 --- http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0104/p12s01-legn.html 

Dear Ms. Hart,

May I substitute the three-page paper analyzing "The Epic of Gilgamesh" with a different project? Since the story is about friendship, I'd like to film a documentary about a day in my life, and how my best friend's death affected me.

The e-mail came from one of my 10th-grade world-literature students, the same week Time magazine published a short piece examining the viability of online education. In her Nov. 29 article, Time writer Deborah Fowler presents two virtual schools for consideration - the University of Miami Online High School and the Laurel Springs School in Ojai, Calif., which offers K-12 curriculum.

Many students at these schools are aspiring professional athletes who compete around the world, and thus need a flexible education plan. At the conclusion of her article, Ms. Fowler quotes Kevin Roy, director of education for the Elite TNT Tennis Academy in Montgomery, Texas, on his views regarding online schools which some of Elite's students attend. "You will never have that wonderful teacher who inspires you for life," Mr. Roy says. "But the virtual school offers endless possibilities."

I've worked for Laurel Springs as an English and history teacher for more than seven years. When Roy's quote hit the Web, staff and teachers were dismayed at the idea that online education precludes inspiring teachers.

According to my school's philosophy, the needs of each individual student are paramount. We offer an extensive questionnaire that evaluates learning styles and pinpoints students' areas of interest. Should a student find a particular lesson less engaging than others in a course,

teachers will work with the student to design a more relevant lesson. Such attentiveness to the individual can't help fostering meaningful relationships between students and teachers.

For years, I taught English in traditional high school and college classrooms. There's nothing like the energy and excitement of a group discussion about a novel, poem, or essay. But there's something different that goes on in a distance-learning program, and pedagogues should look further before they recoil from education via computer.

My school, like other distance-learning programs, offers a range of K-12 courses and electives. I work with young adults who are Hollywood actors, Olympic hopefuls, and world travelers - students for whom a traditional five-day-a-week school is impractical. I also work with young people who are in recovery from drugs or alcohol, kids who've been bullied by classmates, chronically ill students, and those in bereavement due to divorce or death. These students cannot flourish in a traditional classroom, where there are 30-plus individuals expected to conform to a strict curriculum.

I'm grateful to Roy for pointing out the endless possibilities offered by distance learning. Students in my British-literature courses have the flexibility to travel to England with their families during the school year and explore Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and Jane Austen's Bath. My history students supplement their studies with trips to a local museum or an analysis of historical films. Recently, one of my championship figure-skaters, who long ago demonstrated her prowess as an essayist, wrote a compelling 10-page illustrated story of her quest for American citizenship.

Some educators are aghast when I explain how delighted I was to receive my world-literature student's proposal to film a documentary instead of the standard analytical essay on "The Epic of Gilgamesh." The ancient Sumerian legend of a man devastated by the death of his closest friend resonated deeply with my student, who had recently witnessed the murder of her best friend. Her work on this documentary ensures that she'll never forget the Sumerian king and his sorrow, so like her own.

At times, sitting alone at my computer and grading student essays or projects, I miss the dynamic classroom debates, the pleasure of looking into a student's eyes and seeing a new enthusiasm for literature. But neophytes who regard distance learning as a lesser form of education need to rethink their position. My students and I communicate daily through e-mail, not just about course work but about new puppies, dating dilemmas, and worries about leaving home for college. We develop strong friendships, and I've found myself in the role of mentor too many times to count. Although we've never met face to face, many students keep in contact long after graduation.

Why is this? Perhaps the answer lies in an e-mail I received recently from a Japanese student upon her graduation. Her mother had committed suicide, leaving the girl at 15 years old to run a household while completing a full honors course load in preparation for college.

Dear Ms. Hart, Although we've never met, I feel closer to you than any teacher I've ever had. Thank you.

Melissa Hart teaches English and history at Laurel Springs School, an online school in Ojai, Calif., and is author of the memoir 'The Assault of Laughter' (Windstorm, 2005).


"What's New For The 2004 Tax Year?"  Compiled by Scott Reeves, Forbes, January 20, 2004 --- http://www.forbes.com/home/taxes/2005/01/20/cx_sr_0120taxes.html 
This includes "Ten Changes in the Tax Law That You Should Know About."

Did you know about the "phase out" of itemized deductions as you grow older?
Note the free (albeit slow loading) videos that are temporarily available --- http://www.forbes.com/ 
President Bush signed two significant tax bills in 2004, with some giving and some taking for taxpayers.

Bob Jensen's tax helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation 


Distance Learning Update

"Bricks and clicks:  New approaches blur the line between traditional classrooms and online learning," by Anne McGrath,
US News, January 18, 2005 --- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/elearning/articles/04opener.htm 

The mechanical engineering students in Jan Helge Bohn's class at Virginia Tech regularly huddle with teammates at the Technische Universitat in Darmstadt, Germany, using synchronized computers, shared databases, and videoconferencing to brainstorm design concepts for the Opel Signum hatchback. Gifted sixth graders in Chicago can log into Illinois Virtual High School for algebra lessons. And busy professionals in all kinds of fields are rushing online to add credentials–outside of regular business hours and often from the road. E-learning "is a good fit for me," says Sarah Fisher, 23, a driver on the IndyCar racing circuit who's getting her bachelor's in marketing via the Web at Ellis College in New York. "I was able to take a break for the Indianapolis 500."

Granted, investors who bought the bubble-era hype about "anywhere, anytime" learning–that it would quickly put an end to education as we know it–lost tens of millions in the dot-com crash. A key reason: They wildly underestimated the cost and difficulty of delivering quality E-courses. Yet now that so many hard lessons have been learned, a more subtle but perhaps just as significant shift is well underway. Even as enrollment in online distance programs nears 1 million and grows by more than 20 percent a year, according to Boston research firm Eduventures, the much bigger audience turns out to be right in the classroom building. As colleges and high schools embrace "bricks and clicks" instruction–some of it in class, some of it on the Web–many experts see a future in which there's no longer a divide but a spectrum: Some classes will never hold a face-to-face meeting, some will meet once a week or once a month and interact electronically the rest of the time, and some will carry on the old-fashioned way. "E-learning is going to disappear as a [distinct] concept," predicts Matthew Pittinsky, chairman of Blackboard Inc., whose course-management and other software served 15,000 students in 1998 and six years later reaches 12 million in 50 countries.

The high schoolers and working adults who are driving demand for fully online courses typically can't manage the class any other way. Like Illinois, many states have established virtual high schools to give every student access to courses like astrophysics and AP microeconomics, which are especially hard to find in rural schools. University of Maryland-University College, which enrolls 90,000 working adults online and at sites in 29 countries, reports rapidly increasing demand for its 91 online programs. "We're planning for [overall] growth of 15 to 20 percent a year," says UMUC President Gerald Heeger.

Meanwhile, the vision spurring more-traditional colleges to add E-learning to the student experience is that technology can lift classroom teaching to new heights–at least eventually. "Ninety percent of what's out there today is what I call the 'walk-up model.' Professors just put their syllabus and lecture notes online," says Gary Matkin, dean of continuing education at University of California-Irvine. But streaming video, virtual meetings, and the wealth of Web resources make it possible for Shakespeare students to dissect Macbeth in class, continue online discussion into the wee hours, watch a world-class performance, and converse with actors around the globe. Science classes might download information directly from the Hubble telescope or view the sonogram of a beating heart under the guidance of a cardiologist.

Space savings. A further attraction of the bricks-and-clicks model is thatit mitigates the need for more bricks. "We estimate that we've avoided about $3.6 million in construction costs," says Joel Hartman, vice provost for information technologies and resources at the fast-growing University of Central Florida, which uses a combination of blended and fully online instruction to get more mileage out of its space.

Employers, too, are turning to E-learning to save money. From IBM to the Mayo Clinic to Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco, organizations that need to teach lots of workers quickly about new products or new insurance regulations–or even how to evacuate in a terrorist attack–have rushed to replace expensive and disruptive class time with "just in time" instruction at the employee's desk. Merely ditching the instructor and slapping up screens of text doesn't effectively change behavior, says Boston consultant Lisa Neal. But Sean Rush, who heads IBM's education division, says the company has saved $350 million yearly by "dramatically re-engineering" courses to put them online: making lessons interactive and allowing widely scattered students to collaborate, for example, and using voice and video to liven up the experience. It's the commitment to re-engineering, at all levels of E-learning, that will determine whether this apparent transformation can really last.

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


"Accounting Firms Make Fortune's Best Companies List," SmartPros, January 20, 2005 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x46625.xml 

Several accounting and consulting firms made Fortune magazine's 100 Best Companies to Work For list, which appears in the magazine's January 24 issue and is available now at www.fortune.com.


Plante & Moran, Booz Allen Hamilton, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Deloitte & Touche all made the list:

Rank

Company

Job
Growth

Company
Size

# U.S.
Employees

41

Plante & Moran  

Moderate

Small

1,242

75

Booz Allen Hamilton 

High

Large

14,304

80

Ernst & Young 

Zero

Large

23,431

82

PricewaterhouseCoopers 

Moderate

Large

23,815

90

Deloitte & Touche 

Negative

Large

29,541

The list is compiled for Fortune magazine by Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz of the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco, based on two criteria: an evaluation of the policies and culture of each company, and the opinions of the company's employees.

Wegmans Food Markets came in at No. 1 with their "employees first" motto. W.L. Gore, the privately-held maker of Gore-Tex fabric, holds the No. 2 spot for its yearly compensation reviews. Thanks to a boom in homebuying last year, customer service reps at No. 3 Republic Bancorp received $10,000 in bonuses.

For the fee-based full list, visit http://www.fortune.com/fortune/bestcompanies

Question
What company got the number one ranking?

Answer
It’s a yummy good company.  You can see the answer for free at http://www.fortune.com/fortune/bestcompanies


This Week's Example of DoubleSpeak

Best of the Web Today - January 20, 2005 By JAMES TARANTO '
Sunday's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" (no transcript available online), and there was Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid tripping over himself explain his comments about Justice Clarence Thomas:

*** QUOTE ***

Stephanopoulos: You got yourself into a little hot water last month when you said that Judge [sic] Thomas had been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. Did you go too far there?

Reid: Well, let me say this. I voted against Judge Thomas when he was going to be confirmed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Why in the world would I ever vote for that man for chief justice? And probably that's all I should have said.

Stephanopoulos: Because you did go on and say that, you know, you talked about his opinions and said they were poorly written, and you talked about one case, the Hillside Dairy case, where you said his read like an eighth-grade dissertation compared to Justice Scalia's dissent, you said, which was like one from a Harvard graduate. We went back and looked at that, and Justice Thomas's dissent was a simple two sentences, pretty clear to me, and Justice Scalia didn't even have a dissent.

Reid: But here's the problem in the Hillside case. But Justice Scalia did write in that case, and--

Stephanopoulos: But in the majority. Not a dissent.

Reid: Yeah, that's right. But his reasoning was very logical. That's my whole point, and I think that when we have an activist judge like Thomas, who wants to turn precedent on its head, it's not good. And I can give you other cases. The Mitchell case on Fifth Amendment, where he and Scalia wrote differently. I mean, I know opinions. But, again, George, I acknowledge what I should have said: I voted against him the first time and I'm gonna vote against him the second time if he comes up.

 


From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on January 21, 2005

TITLE: College Loans: The Lost Concept of Repayment 
REPORTER: Letter to the Editor by Marie A. Bennett 
DATE: Jan 18, 2005 
PAGE: A17 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110601364308628517,00.html  
TOPICS: Accounting, Bad Debts, Bankruptcy

SUMMARY: This opinion piece responds to a front page article from January 6, 2005, describing student loan collection techniques authorized by law. That article also including three case stories of individuals having difficulty repaying their loans. Students must read the related article to respond to questions.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) From whom may students obtain college loans? List all sources.

2.) When loans are obtained from commercial banks and students default on them, why does the government end up collecting on them? What is the purpose for this arrangement?

3.) What student loan collection techniques differ from those undertaken by commercial lenders? What techniques are similar?

4.) Consider the arguments presented in the opinion page letter to the editor from Marie A. Bennett, Higher Education Consultant, in contrast to the related article. What factors should you consider in deciding on the level of debt to undertake in order to finance your college education?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

"College Loans: The Lost Concept of Repayment," The Wall Street Journal,  January 18, 2005; Page A17 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110601364308628517,00.html 

I read with great interest the Jan. 6 page-one article "College Try: U.S. Gets Tough on Failure to Repay Student Loans," wherein three stories were told of individuals who had defaulted on college student loans guaranteed by the federal government. In each case there was a version of the song, "If I had only known." Known what? That I wouldn't make much money as a cello player? That if I didn't complete my degree I wouldn't make much money? One defaulter said he wouldn't have gone to such an expensive school.

I may sound unsympathetic to their circumstances, but I assure you that I am not. But I am distressed by the failure of our schools and families to educate potential and current college students about the economics of the choices they make. In fact, we don't provide the vital consumer finance education to our youth that is critical to their economic success as adults. Where and when are they taught the true costs of borrowing and the true costs and benefits of education? Where and when are they taught how to assess the cost of education relative to the career and income potential?

Almost 40 years ago I was the only freshman in my college dormitory who knew how to balance a checkbook and to throw away the credit card offers until graduation. Thirty-five years later I was stunned to learn that my daughter was the only one in her dormitory with the same knowledge.

Marie A. Bennett
Higher Education Consultant
Rockville, Md.

When someone is the beneficiary of the public's largesse, there is a responsibility to act in kind -- responsibly. To provide accessible, low-interest loans is a gift in and of itself. Without repayment, these wouldn't be loans but outright gifts, and they wouldn't have been made initially. Gifts come from family members; let them ask family members.

Roger Weir
Chicago

--- RELATED ARTICLES --- 
TITLE: U.S. Gets Tough On Failure To Repay Student Loans 
REPORTER: John Hechinger 
PAGE: A1 
ISSUE: Jan 06, 2005 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110497406688418357,00.html 


Online Learning of Japanese
From the University of Chicago
Kanji Alive ---  http://kanjialive.lib.uchicago.edu/ 


Congratulations to the University of Southern California

January 21, 2005 message from AACSB International [comm@aacsb.edu

Accounting Education Program Benefits from Leventhal Gift at USC Elaine and Kenneth Leventhal—for whom the School of Accounting is named at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business—have increased their support of the school by $10 million, to bring the total of their naming gift to $25 million.


January 21, 2005 message from AACSB International [comm@aacsb.edu

The 37th annual report includes data from more than 25,000 faculty salaries across all ranks in 28 business fields and 4,400 administrators in 25 positions.

January 22, 2005 reply from Jim McKinney [jim@MCKINNEYCPA.COM

You can see the Executive Summary at: http://www.aacsb.edu/knowledgeservices/SS04ExecutiveSummary.pdf


A couple of Q&As from Walter Mossberg

"Mossberg's Mailbox," The Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110617451593530627,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Q: If I buy the new $99 iPod Shuffle, can I use it to listen to books? Can I synchronize it with my Toshiba laptop, if I already am synchronizing a regular iPod to the same laptop?

A: Yes, and yes. Like all iPods, the little Shuffle can play back digital audio books from Audible.com. These can be purchased from the iTunes online store or from Audible's Web site. And, you can synchronize multiple iPods, regardless of model, with a single music library on a single computer.


Q: How do I back up my "favorites" in Internet Explorer?

A: The simplest method is to use the Import and Export command, under the File menu. The option called "Export Favorites" will save your favorites in a single file called "bookmark.htm." This file can be imported at a later date into Internet Explorer and will re-create your favorites. You can also copy this file to other computers and import it into Internet Explorer on those PCs, to replicate your favorites on multiple machines.

Alternatively, you can back up the folder where Internet Explorer stores favorites as numerous small, individual files. In Windows XP, that folder can be found nested in a larger folder called "Documents and Settings," in a subfolder with your user name on it.


"An Open Letter to My Current and Future Tax Clients," AccountingWeb, January 14, 2004 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100374 

Dear Tax Client,

Enclosed is my annual organizer which I am providing to you to help you organize the financial information I need to prepare your tax returns this year. I know you will probably return it to me untouched, but if you choose to not use it, you will not need to return it to me and you will save the postage costs.

The complexity of your tax return, and accordingly, the cost of its preparation, is not directly related to the amount of money you made last year. Your day-trading adventure, your Amway business, and your other financial endeavors cannot be ignored just because they weren’t successful.

I know that you thought day-trading was going to make you a millionaire, but the fact that you lost a significant amount of money, does not eliminate my need to determine the gain or loss on each individual security bought and sold.

The IRS requires that it be reported. Nor does the fact that you lost money reduce the time I am going to need to go through all those transactions to glean the information I need to make sure they are reported properly.

No, your tax return is not easy. My college education, CPA/accounting background, tax education and years of experience in the field may help me accomplish the task more expeditiously than you could do it, but don’t think for a minute that it is easy. In fact, in all the years I have been preparing returns, I have never found two that were alike. Nor does having prepared your return last year significantly mitigate the effort needed to prepare your return this year.

Contrary to your expectation, I do not know the entire, continuously changing body of the tax code, related regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures and court cases off the top of my head. When I was going through my tax master’s degree program, I learned that when you shoot from the hip, you will be wrong 90% of the time. Your financial situation makes your question unique to you. So I’m sure it will not surprise you to see a charge on my bill for the time I need to research the answer to your question.

And please do not compare the fees I charge to commercial tax return preparers who employ unsophisticated workers at minimum wage to peruse a computer generated questionnaire to prepare your return and then use the accumulated personal information to market highly profitable financial products to you unless you want to reprove the old adage that you get what you pay for. I know that tax return preparation is a very competitive business but my fees are very reasonable compared to the fees paid to other professionals for the services they provide to you.

I know that you are required to file a tax return but that does not make me a public service. Tax agencies are increasingly demanding me to perform more procedures and requiring me to apply more due diligence to my work. I must bill you for this as well.

I’m not going to be sorry if you will need to cancel your next botox treatment. And, frankly, no, I cannot wait for you to get your refund to get paid for my service. If you would like, I can arrange to provide an outside bank product to do that, but there will be an extra charge.

I have always worked hard to provide you with the best service I can provide. Whether it is reviewing your completed return with you, addressing IRS correspondence or planning future transactions, I have always worked to provide you with the most accurate information and the best strategy for your unique financial circumstances. I have enjoyed working with you in the past and I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year and look forward to working with you in the future.

Sincerely,

YOUR FRIENDLY TAX COMPLIANCE PROFESSIONAL

About the Author: Mr. Budzichowski is a recognized expert in electronic filing and has been involved with the electronic filing process almost since its inception. Allen has successfully developed a practice emphasizing sophisticated individual income tax planning consulting and compliance. Before venturing into his own practice Allen was associated with various accounting firms including Coopers & Lybrand where he was a Manager in the firm’s tax department. He has given many presentations on electronic filing over the past few years and has written the only continuing education courses known to be available on the topic. Allen, a graduate from Northern Illinois University and Golden Gate University (his Masters degree in Taxation) is very active in accounting professional groups as well as his local business community. In Allen’s observations he shows how the impact of electronic filing has effected the accounting profession… which always makes his presentations interesting and thought provoking.

Contact:

www.ElectronicTaxAdministration.com  
10000 Riverside Dr #8 
Toluca Lake CA 91602 Phone: 818-505-198

Bob Jensen's taxation helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation 


Free from National Public Radio
Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘Raven’ --- http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/raven/index.html 
Hear actor Basil Rathbone's classic rendition of "The Raven"
Note:  The above site has various nice stories and free music.  There are also video clips such as Groucho Marx clips.


New Video and Television Dialog Search Services from Google and Yahoo

I got hundreds of hits on the term "Carson" at http://video.google.com/ 

Google Video Search Live, January 25, 2005 --- http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-01-25-n90.html 

The brand new Google Video (Beta) search went live (at the time I linked to it yesterday, it was still a redirect to the Google homepage). Actually, instead of finding video files online for you to watch, Google is looking at the closed captioning of some stations and so far only returns textual content along with snapshots. Indexing of stations started in December 2004, so don't expect too much content just yet. Google says:

"Our mission is to organize the world's information, and that includes the thousands of programs that play on our TVs every day. Google Video enables you to search a growing archive of televised content – everything from sports to dinosaur documentaries to news shows.

Just type in your search term (for instance, ipod or Napa Valley) or do a more advanced search (for instance, title:nightline) and Google Video will search the closed captioning text of all the programs in our archive for relevant results. Click on a program title on your results page and you can look through short snippets of the text along with still images from the show."

Reuters has this statement Google co-founder Larry Page:

"Now users can search the content of thousands of TV programs, find the shows that have the information they're looking for, and learn when they can watch

"Google and Yahoo Are Extending Search Ability to TV Programs," by Saul Hansell, The New York Times, January 25, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/technology/25google.html 

Google and Yahoo are introducing services that will let users search through television programs based on words spoken on the air. The services will look for keywords in the closed captioning information that is encoded in many programs, mainly as an aid to deaf viewers.

Google's service, scheduled to be introduced January 25, does not actually permit people to watch the video on their computers. Instead, it presents them with short excerpts of program transcripts with text matching their search queries and a single image from the program. Google records TV programs for use in the service.

Google's vice president for product management, Jonathan Rosenberg, said offering still images was somewhat limited but was a first step toward a broader service.

"The long-term business model is complicated and will evolve over time," Mr. Rosenberg said. Eventually, Google may offer video programming on its site or direct people to video on other Web sites. But for now, the issues relating to the rights and business interests of program owners are very complex, he said.

A Google spokesman, Nate Tyler, said the service would include "most of the major networks," including ABC, PBS, Fox News and C-Span. Mr. Rosenberg said Google did not think it needed the permission of network and program owners to include them in the index but would remove any program or network if the owner requests it. He declined to discuss any business arrangements between the program owners and Google.

Brian Lamb, the chief executive of C-Span, said he met with representatives of Google and approved of their service but no money changed hands between the two organizations.

Yahoo introduced a test version of a different sort of video search last year, available from a section of its site, that lets users comb through video clips from various Web sites.

Today, Yahoo will move the video search to its home page. In the next few weeks, it will introduce the ability to search the closed-captioning text for programs from some networks, including Bloomberg and the BBC. Unlike the Google service, Yahoo's offering will let users watch 60-second video clips.

David Ives, the chief executive of TV Eyes, which is providing that part of Yahoo's service, said some broadcasters were paying to have their programs included in the search. In other cases, he said, the broadcaster and TV Eyes will split revenue from advertisements placed next to the video clips.

Yahoo --- http://video.search.yahoo.com/ 

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are quietly developing new search tools for digital video, foreshadowing a high-stakes technology arms race in the battle for control of consumers' living rooms. Google's effort, until now secret, is arguably the most ambitious of the three. According to sources familiar with the plan, the search giant is courting broadcasters and cable networks with a new technology that would do for television what it has already done for the Internet: sort through and reveal needles of video clips from within the haystack archives of major network TV shows. The effort comes on top of Google's plans to create a multimedia search engine for Internet-only video that it will likely introduce next year, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. In recent weeks, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has demonstrated new technology to a handful of major TV broadcasters in an attempt to forge alliances and develop business models for a TV-searchable database on the Web, those sources say.
GeekNik, December 5, 2004 --- http://www.geeknik.net/?journal,594 
The full story is at http://news.com.com/Striking+up+digital+video+search/2100-1032_3-5466491.html?tag=nefd.lede 
You can test Yahoo now.  Search for Enron at http://video.search.yahoo.com/ 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


National Service Learning Clearinghouse ---  http://www.servicelearning.org/ 

 
    Glossary
    Find definitions for the most common service-learning terms.
    History
    Two time lines and annotated history of important events in the development of service-learning.

January 20, 2005 message from Jones, Sandra [Sandra.Jones@Trinity.edu

I am pleased to announce the launch of the Experiential and Service-Learning Website. My hope is that students, faculty and staff will find it interesting and informative. The calendars are updated regularly and if there is a student or faculty member that you would like to put a spotlight on, let me know and they can shine on the Civic Engagement Page. 

http://www.trinity.edu/departments/student_activities/service_learning/Pages/Index.htm 

Enjoy.

Sandra Jones
Service Learning Facilitator
AmeriCorps Vista
Trinity University
One Trinity Place
Political Science Office
San Antonio, Texas 78212
210-999-7463


"Health Education - One Click at a Time," Cover Story in T.H.E. Journal, January 20, 2005 --- http://www.thejournal.com/thefocus/46.cfm 
Contains links to various health education sites.


From the Scout Report on January 21, 2005

Manybooks.net
http://www.manybooks.net/ 

There are a number of places to get books online, but this recent addition to that cadre of websites is definitely worth a look. The staff members at Manybooks.net have adapted the e-texts created by the Project Gutenberg DVD and placed them online in a host of formats, including pdf, eReader, and as Palm document files. Visitors can begin by browsing by author, title, category, or language. Some of the languages covered in the database include Dutch, Esperanto, Swedish, Tagalog, and Welsh. Satisfied visitors can also submit a list of five of their favorite books so that other users may take advantage of their favorite reads. Some of the recently recommended titles include Jude the Obscure, Silas Marner, Ecce Homo, and New Grub Street. Persons attracted to this site should also take a look at the ebook cover page, where they can peruse the covers of some of the many books contained within the archive. Some of the more compelling covers include those for As a Man Thinketh authored by James Allen and a rather lovely cover for Under the Lilacs by Louisa May Alcott.

Bob Jensen's threads on hard copy and electronic book searching (including price comparison sites) can be found by scrolling down at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


NewsDesigner.com http://www.newsdesigner.com/blog/ 

While billed as just a weblog “about newspaper design, journalism, yadda, yadda”, this particular weblog is a rather useful resource for those who seek to keep on top of current trends in newspaper design and the nature of journalism more generally. The blog itself contains helpful hypertext links to new newspaper designs and a number of commentaries that take a critical eye on the careful (and not so careful) juxtaposition of text and images. Some of the more recent topics covered include the war in Iraq and the nature of newspaper coverage of the tsunami that wrecked havoc on South and Southeast Asia. Also, the left-hand side of the page features links to a host of international newspapers, recent entries, the weblog archive, and links to the weblogs of other journalists.


Urbis ---  http://www.urbis.org.uk/default.asp 

Located in the Millennium Quarter in Manchester, Urbis is a museum that “explores urban culture and the cities of today and tomorrow”. The museum's very distinct and novel building was designed by the noted architecture firm of Ian Simpson, and is noted for its glass facing and location within the popular Cathedral Gardens. To get a sense of the building’s design and context, visitors should take advantage of the QuickTime virtual tour offered on the website. Moving on from that part of the site, users can learn about their creative and well-designed exhibitions that profile different aspects of urban life from around the world. The resources page also offers webcam perspectives on other cities, including Singapore, Tokyo, and London.


In these days Bernard Berenson would more likely have become a stock broker where he could get more frequent kickbacks from mutual funds.  

"The Art of Money," by E.V. Thaw, New Republic, January 24, 2005 --- http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050124&amp;amp;amp;s=thaw012405 
A book review of Duveen: A Life in Art, by Meryle Secrest (Alfred A. Knopf, 517 pp., $35)
Also see http://www.granta.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=1455 

Duveen's business practices seem less than admirable, as the story of the firm unfolds in Secrest's account, though the man himself remains fascinating and stubbornly likeable. He supervised every small detail when laying siege to a painting or a collection that he was determined to acquire, bombarding his clever and loyal staff with cables and bulletins about how to proceed every step of the way. When, with equal expense of energy and strategy, he sought to corral an affluent client who might buy a precious picture, he left no tricks unplayed, bribing butlers and other servants to keep him informed of his quarry's movements and alert to visits by rival dealers. 

. . .

But far and away the most interesting part of the Duveen story concerns the curious and problematic relationship between the Duveen firm and Bernard Berenson, the art historian and connoisseur. Owing to his influential publications on the leading painters of the Italian schools in the Renaissance (which contained his lists of their authentic works), Berenson became the leading expert in the matter of the authenticity of such paintings. His credentials were further enhanced by his guru-like personality, his vast and ever-expanding library and photo archive, and his grand lifestyle in a large villa just outside Florence.

Berenson was a genuine connoisseur, but he was not a good character. In his desire for the money to support his luxurious existence, he took secret commissions from art dealers for the purchases that he recommended to the new American collectors who were also giving him a fee. As the market surged for early Italian pictures, Berenson began a contractual but undeclared association with the Duveen firm, advising them about acquisitions for stock from his wide knowledge of where the pictures were buried in private collections, and advising the clients he called "squillionaires" to buy from Duveen, especially the Italian pieces in which he had a secret ownership share (usually 25 percent of the selling price). His wife Mary, who seems to have kept the books in those days, wrote continually to Duveen, blatantly acknowledging two sets of books kept by the firm, and complaining that he was negligent in letting them know what shares were earned and to whom the sales were made, and also that his remittances were late.


American History

American in the 1930s ---  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/front.html 


Examples of Spurious Correlation

Remember the classic example of spurious correlation:  The stork population of Denmark closely tracked the birth rate of human babies over a long period of time.  This does not imply storks deliver babies..

January 25, 2005 quote from OpinionJournal [OpinionJournal@wsj.com

The 19 "blue states"--those won by Senator John Kerry--account for 95 percent of the cases of Lyme disease reported in 2002, they wrote. 

Red states are prone to another illness, informally called "southern tick-associated rash illness" or Stari, which is caused by the bite of the Lone Star tick. But although "Lyme disease is spreading faster than Stari," Robert Nadelman, one of the study's authors, says, "We do not believe . . . that tick-borne diseases are likely to be a major factor in the 2008 presidential election."


At an executive conference the priority is not learning.  It’s more about rubbing elbows

Question
What's the difference between an academic conference and an executive conference?

Answer
To begin with, the registration fee at an executive conference is $3,500
Other differences are quoted below.
"Do All Things Digital" A Wall Street Journal Executive Conference --- http://d.wsj.com/ 

No bloviating panels.  (Bloviate means to orate verbosely and windily.)
No canned presentations.
(I suspect that also means no handouts.)
No conflict-laden analysts. 
No canned demos. 
And no PowerPoint allowed.


"SAP's Earnings Increase 29% On Strong Sales in Americas," by Joon Knapen, The Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2005, Page B5 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110672499262736451,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Bob Jensen's long-neglected threads on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosap.htm 


Some of you might be interested in the movie Pi.

A message from one of my students is shown below. The "video we watched" in class was NOVA's "Trillion Dollar Bet" about the rise and fall of the Black Scholes model (well that didn't exactly fall completely) and Long Term Capital Management (that fell completely after losing billions and billions of dollars).

My threads on the rise and fall of LTCM are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudRotten.htm#LTCM 

Bob Jensen

Hey Dr. Jensen,

I was wondering if team 6 could present on February 28th?

Also - You should definitely check out Pi. Here is Roger Ebert's review if that helps you http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980724/REVIEWS/807240303/1023 

It was a low budget Sundance winner. It was interesting and related very closely to the video we watched.

Andrew

 


Henry Morrison Flagler Museum --- http://www.flaglermuseum.us/ 

Henry Flagler, 1830-1913, founded Standard Oil in 1870 with John D. Rockefeller and Samuel Andrews. In his 50s, Flagler became interested in Florida and by his death, Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway (FEC.) linked the entire east coast of Florida, from Jacksonville to Key West, establishing agriculture and tourism as Florida's leading industries. Hotels Flagler built along the route of the FEC established St. Augustine, Daytona, Palm Beach and Miami as resorts known the world over.

In 1902, Flagler built the Gilded Age estate, Whitehall, for his wife Mary Lily Kenan in Palm Beach. Architects Carrère and Hastings designed Whitehall in the Beaux-Arts style made popular at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In traditional Gilded Age fashion, the New York design firm Pottier & Stymus designed the interiors of Whitehall as a series of period rooms.

Bob Jensen's threads on museums are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History 


But their teachers may be the ones who are "illiterate."
Now the Educational Testing Service, the nonprofit group behind the SAT, Graduate Record Examination and other college tests, has developed a new test that it says can assess students' ability to make good critical evaluations of the vast amount of material available to them.  The Information and Communications Technology literacy assessment, which will be introduced at about two dozen colleges and universities later this month, is intended to measure students' ability to manage exercises like sorting e-mail messages or manipulating tables and charts, and to assess how well they organize and interpret information from many sources and in myriad forms. About 10,000 undergraduates at schools from the University of California, Los Angeles to Bronx Community College are expected to take the test during the first offering period, which ends March 31.

"Measuring Literacy in a World Gone Digital," by Tom Zeller Jr., The New York Times, January 17, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/technology/17test.html 

Also see http://www.ets.org/all/ICTL_2nd_framework.pdf 


Teachers Must Adapt to Changed Mindsets of Incoming Students Who Grew Up With Computers

"How do you communicate with students who have grown up with technology? Schools are looking to technology for the answer," by Kevin Delaney, The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2005, Page R4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110556110781524378,00.html?mod=todays_us_the_journal_report 

Forget the computer lab. To hold the attention of the tech-savvy PlayStation 2 generation, educators are working digital technology into every corner of the curriculum.

Pioneering teachers are getting their classes to post writing assignments online so other students can easily read and critique them. They're letting kids practice foreign languages in electronic forums instead of pen-and-paper journals. They're passing out PDAs to use in scientific experiments and infrared gadgets that let students answer questions in class with the touch of a button. And in the process, the educators are beginning to interact with students, parents and each other in ways they never have before.

The issue is, "how do we communicate with students today who have grown up with technology from the beginning?" says Tim Wilson, a technology-integration specialist at Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, Minn. "The traditional linear approach...often seems too slow and boring to students used to MTV, instant messaging and MP3s."

Permanent Record

Boosting this grass-roots tech effort is a new wave of free and low-cost technologies and services. Online forums and Web logs, or blogs, are simple to set up and free to use. So are "wikis" -- Web pages that can be written on as well as read, making it easy for teachers to make notes in the digital margins. Hardware, too, is getting cheaper: Prices have fallen for everything from wireless-networking equipment to hand-held gadgets to personal computers. And thanks to a computerization drive of the past decade or so, 99% of public schools now have Internet access, with an average of one computer for every five students, according to the Department of Education.

The department recently concluded that schools on the whole aren't doing enough with that infrastructure. But in schools across the country, a corps of tech-savvy educators are showing how to get the job done. Students in journalism classes at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J., for example, never turn in hard-copy assignments. They post them on blogs -- which allows their teacher, Will Richardson, and their fellow students to read and post comments about the articles.

Mr. Richardson says students like the blogs especially as an organizing tool, letting them easily search through past assignments. More broadly, he believes the blogs have "really profound implications" for education: Students discuss each other's work in new ways, such as linking to relevant information on the Web to support their comments. In some cases, people outside the school can access the blogs, providing students with a platform for disseminating their views. The blogs also let parents keep up to date on their kids' assignments more easily than ever before.

Lewis Elementary School in Portland, Ore., also uses Web-based publishing technology to open up new possibilities in communication. Fifth-graders send classwork, and essays and articles for their monthly newspaper, to a wiki over the school's network. Teacher Kathy Gould goes to the Web page and writes corrections and comments directly into the text -- instead of posting a note in a separate "comments" section, as with a blog. Students can then access the wiki to read and respond to her comments.

Meanwhile, students in John Unruh-Friesen's advanced-placement government class at Hopkins High School conduct running debates on an online forum outside of the classroom. The students, mostly 12th-graders, tackle issues including the presidential election, the possibility of a military draft and the Middle East conflict.

"Some students are reluctant to participate in class discussions," says Mr. Wilson, the technology-integration specialist at Hopkins. "Some of those kids feel much more comfortable interacting when they have time to craft a response."

Students in advanced foreign-language classes at Hopkins use forums to keep online journals and interact with each other. For example, the instructor of the fifth-year French course, Molly Wieland, used to require students to keep paper journals in French. Since moving those to an online forum, she says the students write more than they did before.

The fact that they're writing for an audience larger than just their teacher makes a difference, and what they're saying tends to be more conversational and relevant to the students' lives. A recent exchange between the students involved college choices and the wisdom of rooming with your best friend in the dorm -- all in French.

Continued in the article

January 17, 2005 reply from XXXXX

Hi Bob,

Any ideas on how to incorporate technology in classes where 1/4 -1/3 of he students have not had the benefits of the US system of education? I enjoy reading your messages and am on the listserv on a view only basis so I write directly to you. I teach accounting as well as ethics and law classes at a small private school in Hawaii and also at a community college as well. Both schools have large polynesian and micronesian student populations. These students are almost all fist generation in college and grew up in third world eonomic situations. They are also extremely limited as to financial resources here during their time as students (the minimum wage in many of the micronesian and polynesian areas is only about $1.35 hour and clearly does not allow families to purchase computers at home or for the schools). The rest of the class is a typical mix of socioeconomic and educational levels. Some are very adept at technology and others are not yet able to use basic word processing and spreadsheet applications. My primary campus has limited numbers of computers for general student use and the first and sometimes only things students will try is web surfing for fun not education. Any suggestions as how to work in such a group? If you have the time you can reach me at ______.

Aloha,

XXXXX

January 17, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

You have a problem similar to the general problem in college when some students enter with lesser skills in mathematics. Either the college has to have remedial courses, lower math requirements, or apply a sink-or-swim policy. 

I guess my only answer is that a good curriculum has remedial programs (possibly not for credit) that try to bring students up to speed in computing skills. This cannot possible take the place of ten to fifteen years of living online (like most of your other new students), but it might help to a certain extent. Also students tend to help each other in computing much more so than in math and science.

I have a problem in my graduate accounting classes where students come in with varying knowledge of finance, particularly in derivative financial instruments.  I that assigning students to work in pairs has helped somewhat.

Some professors might argue that a college should have tracks for students who cannot or do not want a traditional education without having to use technology skills. I think that deprives students for live in the modern world. The Internet has become the world's library. Virtually all professions now take technology skills for granted.

Bob Jensen

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on the worries of education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm 


January 19, 2005 message from techLEARNING news [techlearning@news.techlearning.com

Iowa Charter Delivers Options for Rural Students Iowa Central Charter High School is one of only two charter schools in Iowa. Charter students can take dual-credit classes on their own campus, at Iowa Central Community College (ICCC), as "V classes" (virtual, interactive classes over the Internet), as standard online classes, or over the Iowa Communications Network (ICN). Source: Iowa Communications Network (ICN) http://news.techlearning.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/elfC0FHYLa0E2V0C8V40Ec 

Bob Jensen's threads on technology in education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


From T.H.E. Newsletter on January 19, 2005

Online courses growing rapidly  
For the full story, visit: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/2014679p-8398715c.html  

Students take calculus via Web 
For the full story, visit:
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2005/01/14studentstakecal.html  

Bob Jensen's threads on technology in education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


XBRL Update

"Lifting the Lid: Tech Seen Easing Financial Analysis," by Reuters, The New York Times, January 23, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-column-lifting.html  

The day when stock investors scan corporate results with computer software to make immediate buy-and-sell decisions may be close at hand.

After agonizingly slow progress, a computer language of business reporting called XBRL appears to be on the verge of wider adoption, its backers say. XBRL could have major implications on the speed at which hedge funds and other investors make trading decisions, making accounting shenanigans more readily apparent and potentially increasing stock price volatility.

XBRL, which stands for extensible business reporting language, is a language derived from the code of the World Wide Web. It consists of thousands of ``tags'' that correspond to items on financial reports, including balance sheets and income statements, making the filings understandable by a computer.

The technology has won support from major accounting firms and investor relations groups and has even gained a preliminary nod from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has proposed a voluntary program for XBRL.Yet after five years of pushing, only a handful of companies have committed to publishing their results in XBRL. One reason may be a lack of easy-to-use tools for creating the language.

On Thursday, PR Newswire, a major distribution agency for corporate news releases in the United States, will try to address that issue, announcing a plan to offer its clients a tool to turn press releases written with Microsoft Office into XBRL in a matter of hours. It will also send links to XBRL documents along with the press releases it sends.

BusinessWire, another major press release publisher, has also made strides with XBRL, turning to a partnership with Edgar Online, a Web site for SEC filings.

PR Newswire Chief Operating Officer Dave Armon said his clients are eager to explore XBRL. ``A lot of the companies are looking for a way to break out and show that they're more transparent, or willing to try new things,'' he said.

Investor relations departments, which handle financial reporting, still tend to be slower adopters of technology. They have also been occupied with other initiatives, such as complying with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, before taking on XBRL.

``This whole business reporting landscape is something that hasn't been touched technology-wise for decades,'' said Rob Blake, former XBRL manager for Microsoft Corp., which has been one of its biggest backers. ``All of us knew this wasn't going to happen overnight.''

Blake, now vice president of marketing for Rivet Software, the Denver-based software company partnering with PR Newswire, said he expects XBRL to be increasingly adopted over the next 12 to 18 months.

VOLUNTARY PROGRAM

Last September, the SEC proposed a voluntary plan to allow companies to submit financial filings using XBRL beginning with the 2004 calendar year-end reporting season.

The commission sought feedback on the proposal through Nov. 1. However, an SEC source said, ``approval of the plan is not imminent.'' A delay in approval would cast doubt on whether the original timeline for having the program in place for the 2004 annual report filing season will be met. For companies that close their books on Dec. 31, the deadline for filing an annual report, or Form 10-K, is mid-March.

The SEC has said it hopes the new format will enhance users' ability to search the filings database, extract and analyze data, perform financial comparisons within industries and speed up the commission's review of filings.

The new tagged data format also allows for the automatic exchange of financial information across various software platforms, including Web services, the SEC said in its September announcement.

Using a tagged financial filing, an analyst could easily transfer the data to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, for example, rather than having to read the data in text form or retype the information, according to XBRL advocates Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, PR Newswire and Reuters, which have joined together to promote the new technology.

KPMG International recommends that its clients adopt the new format, saying it benefits not just regulators but the reporting companies as well. In a 2004 report, the Big Four accounting firm said XBRL is becoming relatively simple and its use will allow companies to save time and money at the end of each reporting period.

In addition to KPMG, Ernst & Young LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Deloitte & Touche LLP submitted comments to the SEC in support of the voluntary XBRL filing plan.

The commission first began accepting filings regarding insider stock transactions in extensible markup language, from which XBRL is derived, in 2003.

Bob Jensen's threads on XBRL are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm#TimelineXBRL 


Question
What can Adobe Reader 7.0 do that previous versions could not do?

Answer

Adobe 7.0 allows you to do a limited amount of editing which you could not previously do unless you yourself authored the original article in some word processor and then saved it as a PDF file.  Even if you authored the article, you could not edit your PDF version.  You had to go back to your word processor version, make the edits, and then re-save it as a PDF file.  Now you can do a limited amount of editing on in the PDF file itself, which will frustrate some original authors when they see their works marked up by others.

"Adobe Reader 7 activates intelligent PDFs, more," by Brad Cook, Mac Central, December 21, 2005 --- http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/12/21/adobereader/index.php 

Adobe on December 21 released Adobe Reader 7.0, the latest version of its free software for opening PDFs. In addition to an improved search feature, the ability to fill out and submit forms, the ability to save various files attached to PDF documents and other new functions, Adobe Reader 7 allows you to activate special abilities embedded in PDFs with Acrobat 7.0 Professional or Adobe LiveCycle. Those abilities include adding comments with enhanced tools, affixing digital signatures, using custom stamps and locally saving filled-out forms. Reader 7.0 requires Mac OS X v10.2.8 or v10.3, a G3 processor, up to 35MB RAM and up to 125MB free hard drive space.

January 19, 2005 reply from Scott Bonacker [lister@BONACKERS.COM

Be cautious, though.

Acrobat 7.0 asks you to uninstall previous versions first.

The Acrobat 7.0 installation no longer includes PDFWriter, which is used by PaperPort to save scanned documents as PDF files and probably some other apps as well. A copy of PDFWriter from previous versions can be used though as long as the licensing allows it. Relevance is that if 7.0 is bought as an upgrade, licenses for the previous version are voided.

Also, installing Acrobat 7.0 killed our time and billing application. Creative Solutions is still trying to figure out what happened. It's poetic justice, though: since their practice management program is a compiled MS Access app, it tends to interfere with anything else you are doing with other versions of Access.

Check with other users and be sure of compatibility before installing this or any other upgrade, or protect yourself by installing GoBack or something similar first on a sacrifice workstation and test it.

Scott

January 27, 2004 reply from Scott Bonacker [lister@BONACKERS.COM

When we received and installed Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional we began having trouble with two other applications on those workstations:

PaperPort requires PDFWriter to save scanned documents as PDf files, and that is no long included in the Acrobat package. The fix is to install PDFWriter separately from another source.

Creative Solutions Practice (the workstation station operation from those two) was also disabled by some unknown change made by Acrobat. No fix is available yet on that.

I've heard that Acrobat 7.0 has disrupted other applications as well. Would any one care to share on that, either to the list or privately?

Scott E Bonacker, CPA 
Springfield, MO 65807 
Phone 417-883-1212 Fax 417-883-4887


"Videotape to DVD, Made Easy," by David Pogue, The New York Times, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/technology/circuits/27stat.html?oref=login  

Whoever said "technology marches on" must have been kidding. Technology doesn't march; it sprints, dashes and zooms.

That relentless pace renders our storage media obsolete with appalling speed:5¼-inch floppies, Zip disks or whatever. And with the debut of each new storage format, millions of important files, photos, music and video have to be rescued from the last one.

At the moment, the most urgent conversion concerns videotape, whose signal begins to deteriorate in as little as 15 years. Rescuing tapes by copying them to fresh ones isn't an option, because you lose half the picture quality with each generation. You could play them into a computer for editing and DVD burning, but that's a months-long project. You could pay a company to transfer them to DVD, if you can stomach the cost and the possibility that something might happen to your precious tapes in the mail.

There is, fortunately, a safe, automated and relatively inexpensive solution to this problem: the combo VHS-DVD recorder. It looks like a VCR, but it can play or record both VHS tapes and blank DVD discs, and copy from one to the other, in either direction. Pressing a couple of buttons begins the process of copying a VHS tape to a DVD, with very little quality loss. (You can't duplicate copy-protected tapes or DVD's, of course; only tapes and discs you've recorded yourself.)

And if your movies are on some other format, like 8-millimeter cassettes, you can plug the old camcorder into the back of this machine, hit Play, and walk away as the video is transferred to a DVD.

(Of course, now you have to worry about the longevity of recordable DVD's. Fortunately, a DVD's movie files are stored as digital signals, not analog, so you won't lose any quality when you copy them onto whatever video format is popular in 2025. Video contact lenses, perhaps?)

As a bonus, a combo VCR-DVD player-recorder can eliminate one machine stacked under the TV, one remote control and, in most cases, one set of cables to your TV. (None of this makes it simple, however. All of these machines are far more complex than, say, a stand-alone DVD player.)

I sampled four of these combo boxes: the Panasonic DMR-E75V, the RCA DRC8300N, GoVideo's VR2940, and the JVC DR-MV1S. (Who makes up these model names, anyway - drunken Scrabble players?) All are available online for $285 to $350. As it turns out, shopping for a combo recorder is an exercise in compromise. Here are some of the trade-offs you have to look forward to.

JACKS Each recorder has a dazzling array of jacks on the front and back panels, for ease in connecting to your other home-entertainment gear. For example, each has so-called component video outputs for a superior picture on recent TV sets. JVC and GoVideo even included a front-panel FireWire input, which lets you dump footage from a digital camcorder directly onto a DVD.

Unfortunately, the GoVideo deck lacks an S-video input, a high-quality connection to many camcorder models. And a note to videophiles: The RCA, JVC and GoVideo decks can play both VCR and DVD signals through the same set of component video cables, so you don't have to switch TV inputs to get the best quality. DISC FORMAT Thanks to a foolhardy war between electronics companies, there are two incompatible formats for blank DVD's, confusingly called DVD-R and DVD+R. Recorded discs of either type will play in most recent DVD players, but you have to be careful to buy the right kind of blanks for your recorder, and many stores carry only one type.

The RCA and GoVideo decks require DVD+R (and their more expensive, erase-and-reuse variant, DVD+RW). The Panasonic and JVC players take DVD-R discs (and the erasable DVD-RW). A disc of either format must be "finalized" (a 2- to 15-minute electronic shrink-wrapping) before it will play in other DVD players.

As a bonus, the Panasonic and JVC models also accept a third format called DVD-RAM, which doesn't play in most everyday DVD players. But if you just leave it in your recorder, you can use it pretty much like a hard drive, adding and deleting recordings at will, slicing out commercials, watching the beginning of a show whose ending is still being recorded, and so on.

Bob Jensen's threads on gadgets are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm#Technology 

Recall that David Pogue is also the author of a must-have book for frustrated Windows users who at last make a switch to a Mac system.  I wrote the following module in the January 18 edition of New Bookmarks:

Tired of Computer Viruses, Spyware, and all the Other Microsoft Diseases?
Switch to a Mac

If you switch to a  Mac, a must book is Mac OS X: The Missing Manual by David Pogue http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596000820/002-3743809-1628824?v=glance 

This book explains how to translate what you liked to do in Windows into how to do the same things on a Mac.


Question
How can you find a doctoral thesis?

Answer
One source for many universities is at http://library.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/econ/dissertations.html 


The following message was sent to students in one of my classes this semester.  I might add that for background understanding of derivative financial instruments, I’ve not seen a better elementary text than the following book:

Derivatives:  An Introduction by Robert A Strong, Edition 2 (Thomson South-Western, 2005, ISBN 0-324-27302-9)

The course syllabus is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/acct5341.htm#Preliminary1

You might find the links sent by one of my students (Chris) interesting.

*****************************************

In answer to a question from Chris, the best explanation of Enron’s secret use of derivatives is in Frank Partnoy’s testimony before the Senate (which is not assigned reading for this course, but very interesting reading nevertheless) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#FrankPartnoyTestimony
One of the things that caused Enron to implode was the secret use of over 3,000 SPEs (now called VIEs by the FASB) and derivatives (particularly put options) in those SPEs.  One of the project task forces will enlighten us about older SPE rules versus new Interpretation 46 VIE rules.  My threads on this are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/speOverview.htm

My threads on the Enron/Andersen scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm
There is too much here to assign in Acct 5341, but it makes for interesting reading.

My threads on derivative financial instruments frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds

Chris sent the following message:

-----Original Message-----
From: Hendrix, Christopher
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2005 8:11 PM
To:
Jensen, Robert
Subject: Articles, presentation date list

Dr. Jensen,

I have a couple links you might find interesting, was just trying to do a little more background reading on derivatives. 

http://www.reason.com/0402/fe.gc.in.shtml (I thought it was a fairly good intro article to derivatives and possible uses)

http://www.fenews.com/fen26/enron2.html (discusses how derivatives were involved with and used by Enron)

Also, would you happen to have any links to other good sites about how Enron used derivatives?  I knew they were using SPE's to hide their debt but never really realized they were using derivatives as well to mask their troubles, with derivates seemingly unfairly blamed for their part.  So it was interesting reading that they used price swaps etc with their SPE's, and I was wondering if you had some other handy links about how this was done. 


Question
How can you operate your office or home computer while you are someplace else in the world?

Answers
During my sabbatical leave off campus, I ran my Trinity University desktop (PC Windows) computer daily from various parts of the U.S. and Canada via a fee-based service called Go-To-My-PC that worked well except during the few weeks (usually during term breaks) in which Trinity's system worked at slow motion.  If my Trinity computer got turned off due to a power outage or techie tinkering on campus, my loyal secretary started it up again whenever I sent her an email message.  Of course this was a bit of a problem during weekends and holidays.  She didn't want to live in her office waiting for my messages that might come in at any time of day on any day of the week.

I worried that Trinity's firewall might block out Go-To-My-PC.  That's a good reason to first try the service for free.  Fortunately, Trinity University has a friendly firewall.

You can try Go-To-My-PC free for a month --- https://www.gotomypc.com/ 

Now Mac users have an option worth considering.

Got a Pocket PC? Then you, too, can control your PowerBook from anywhere on the globe. You travel, it stays. Just make sure you've got someone at home who can reboot.
"The Portable Mac OS X Geek," by Leander Kahney, Wired News, January 17, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66292,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3 

Who says you can't run Mac OS X on a Pocket PC?

Austrian Mac consultant and columnist Teddy the Bear manages it.

Whether he's wandering the Macworld show floor in San Francisco or sitting on a beach in southern Spain, he can call up his Mac in Vienna. Thanks to a remote, wireless connection, OS X runs as though it were installed on his Fujitsu Siemens handheld.

"No one believes me when I tell them I can do this. They think it is a screenshot," said the tall Austrian, who asked to be identified only by his nom de plume. "I can do whatever I can do with my Mac at home."

Teddy's Pocket Loox 720, which costs about $700 but is not available in the United States, has built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Thanks to near-ubiquitous Wi-Fi access, especially in Europe, Teddy is able to call up his PowerBook at home.

"Of course, I can do e-mail and web browsing using the Pocket PC software, but because it's Microsoft, it's bad. So I'm logging into my Mac OS X machine in Vienna," he said.

It's no speed demon, but Teddy can exert total control through his Pocket PC. He manages e-mail, browses the web and queues up TV shows for his Mac to record using EyeTV.

"It's quite fast, even on slow connections," he said. "You can't play games, but for normal desktop work, it's quite nice. And it's amazingly stable."

The only problem is the lack of a keyboard or mouse. To make things easier, Teddy grew his two thumbnails to tap out commands on the Pocket PC's teeny touch screen.

The Pocket Loox 720 is one of the first Pocket PCs with a full VGA screen (640 by 480 resolution), which makes remote browsing of a desktop computer practical.

"As soon as you have a VGA screen, your pictures look gorgeous. You see a lot more of the screen. Before, it is not possible to use a remote connection -- there is too much scrolling," said Teddy.

To access the Mac, Teddy installed a Virtual Network Computing, or VNC, client on the handheld and a VNC server on his PowerBook at home in Vienna. VNC is a standard, open-source protocol for network computing, with client and server software for dozens of platforms, including relatively obscure machines like the Newton.

Teddy works as a Mac consultant and writes a gadgets column for a glossy Austrian magazine. He's always out and about Vienna on his bicycle, and travels a lot: about one week out of every month.

"I'm never with my Mac at home," he said. "I'm always with my small devices.

"Here's my office," he added, indicating a fanny pack containing the Pocket PC, a digital camera and a palmOne Treo 650, which can also access the PowerBook but doesn't have the bigger screen.

The PowerBook is sitting on a fast broadband connection, and Teddy uses it to its full potential. It acts as a firewall and router, and a wireless base station for the apartment and garden. It's also a telephone answering machine and fax, and a digital video recorder.

has 800 GB of external hard drives for recording TV shows using EyeTV, a system that turns a Mac into a digital video recorder. He pipes video to a TV in the bedroom, and has hooked up an infrared control system to change channels.

If the PowerBook crashes when he's out and about, he calls his "server admin" girlfriend to reboot the machine.

"Everything is on the PowerBook," he said. "It's so easy. I can access it from anywhere in the world, and work on it as though I am at home. It's so easy and convenient. And I can't lose it."

Paraphrased reply from a computer scientist on January 17, 2005

Bob,
This service may require opening a port to your machine through your 
organization's firewall.
I should mention that Unix based users have been accessing and operating their 
machines (with full GUI) over the internet for more than 20 years. 
Moveover, with the X windows protocol, this access is secure  
on any variety of Unix (IBM, SGI, Mac OSX, Linux, BSD, HP UX, etc.) machine.
I would also mention that the VNC method of doing this (Developed by AT&T 
labs UK, but now freely distributed via GNU License) allows interoperability 
between all varieties of Unix, Windows, and Mac OS, though there are 
security issues with this solution (unless it is tunneled through) 
just as there are security issues with the program you used.

January 17, 2005 reply from Barbara Scofield [scofield@GSM.UDALLAS.EDU

I have also used Go To My PC successfully.

I have a laptop that I carry now, so I no longer use Go To My PC, but I do use www.mail2web.com to retrieve and send email from my university account while I am at home.

Barbara W. Scofield, PhD, CPA 
Associate Professor of Accounting 
University of Dallas 1
845 E. Northgate Irving, TX 75062 

scofield@gsm.udallas.edu
 

January 17, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Barbara,

The fact that I carry a laptop is the reason I use Go-To-My-PC. My laptop becomes my on-campus desktop, and I can do things that I cannot due unless I'm remotely operating my desktop computer on campus. The main advantage is that I can access Trinity University's Web server and the Computer Science Department's Web server. I serve up documents to the Internet from both servers. I cannot access these servers off campus unless I am on Go-To-My-PC.

Bob Jensen


Beam me up Scottie!
Could this have long-term implications for education, FedEx, and many other sectors of the economy?
The weekend premiere of (the movie) Rize was a big deal simply for its delivery method -- it was beamed to the theater from 800 miles away. It could change the way movies are distributed.
J
ason Silverman, "Feature Films Without Wires," Wired News, January 25, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66380,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 

January 25, 2005 reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

I see this as another blind “waste” of a precious, and very limited, resource: radio spectrum.

There is a finite amount of radio spectrum (frequencies, e.g., channels) available for wireless communication. Heretofore, radio-based communications have historically been limited to applications where wired (or physical, as in delivery services) communications systems were infeasible or cost-prohibitive. Police radios, railroad dispatching, portable and mobile equipment, etc.

Nowadays, however, we see wireless “taking over” everything -- mainly as a fad. As a result, you get too many users (applications) using a finite resource and eventually you end up with contention, shortages, etc. – In Belgium, our multi-thousand dollar investment in an 802.11 wireless network was rendered ineffective because of … pollution: interference by neighboring 802.11 networks, who, ironically, were being interfered with my OUR network. As a result of six months’ efforts to make it work, we finally have decided to rip out the wireless (read “useless”) stuff and put in a wired Ethernet network. The wired network makes more sense anyway, since the users for the most part won’t be mobile or portable.

As more and more wireless applications are adopted, the careful, systematic and exclusive assignments of “rights” begins to collapse. And you can’t make more frequency spectrum … we are already using everything from DC to daylight.

I for one really hate to see the proliferation of “wireless for the sake of wireless” devices, especially in applications where wired connectivity can be utilized, even if it costs a little more. Another incidence of wastefulness caused by lack of thinking…

David R. Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University


As I sit alone in my office each day back in Texas , I'm frequently saddened or uplifted by the music at Jesse's Web.  She has some new music and graphics that you can view and listen to at http://www.jessiesweb.com/ 

The options are romantic, funny, and in some cases rock and roll.

One of her new additions is “When Children Cry" --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/children.htm 

Some of her old great pages are now under reconstruction, so all options are not are available.

My all-time favorite, however, is still available at http://www.jessiesweb.com/blessing.htm

On any of her pages you can scroll down and click on another download.    If the music does not start up on any choice, scroll clear down to the bottom of the page where there is an audio control slider.


But frequent-flier club members shouldn't think all the freebie miles they've racked up will add up to free trips. Even with more miles floating around, airlines are cutting flights and flying more crowded planes, limiting the seats available to frequent fliers
"Frequent-flier miles harder to redeem," by Keith Reed, Boston Globe, January 16, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/01/16/frequent_flier_miles_harder_to_redeem/ 

Frequent-flier miles are easier to come by as airlines sell more miles to partners like credit card companies and hotels, but they're harder than ever to redeem.

Behind-the-scenes deals with corporate partners are helping cash-strapped airlines rake in millions of dollars at a time when high fuel costs and lower fares are killing their bottom lines. At the same time, these deals give companies that buy miles a sought-after incentive to offer their customers.

But frequent-flier club members shouldn't think all the freebie miles they've racked up will add up to free trips. Even with more miles floating around, airlines are cutting flights and flying more crowded planes, limiting the seats available to frequent fliers.

"It's not that there's fewer seats out there, it's that the rest of the plane is full so there's no more to give away," said Randy Peterson, president of InsideFlyer.com, a Colorado Springs website that tracks frequent-flier programs. "The other seats are taken up by paying customers."

The difficulty some passengers have redeeming miles for flights that are convenient to them is leading many to use miles for nontravel-related rewards such as magazine subscriptions, or transferring them to hotel points programs when rules allow. Members of American Airlines' and US Airways' frequent-flier clubs received letters last month inviting them to spend unused miles on subscriptions; 500 miles got them 12 issues of Latina magazine, while 5,600 got 52 issues of Variety.

"One of the big complaints from fliers right now is that they've accrued all these miles and they're unavailable to get the seats," said Mark R. Cestari, vice president of marketing at SmarterTravel.com, a Boston-based website that tracks travel trends.

"There's kind of a movement among frequent fliers that the value of miles have been oversold, so now they're trying to use them to get satisfaction. That partially grows out of the fact that the airlines are making more seats available in the lower fares, so they're making fewer seats available for frequent-flier miles," Cestari said.

Airlines won't disclose how much they made last year selling miles to other companies until they file their annual reports with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in March. Some declined to discuss details of their frequent-flier programs.

Still, there is evidence that the practice is extremely lucrative for airlines.

"The sale of miles is growing," said Mark Bergsrud, vice president of marketing programs and distribution at Continental Airlines. "It's good business whether the oil price is low or high and good business before fares started to decline. It may be particularly good now."

Continental reported $24 million from sales of its OnePass frequent-flier miles to other companies in the fourth quarter of 2003, but Bergsrud said the actual amount was probably larger because airlines account for those sales over several quarters.

Continued in the article

January 16, 2005 reply from Glen Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU

Somewhat related to frequent-flier programs, United Airlines has just started offering the opportunity to pre-buy various levels of their elite status ($5K = Premier, $10K=Premier Executive, $20K=1K). Basically, you are buying a pre-paid card, like at Starbucks, that you then use to purchase future airline tickets and Red Carpet Club membership. If this is successful, it will generate a cash injection for United. However, from a flyer’s perspective who have “earned” these levels from their flying in the past, it is going to mean that there will be more people in the “express” lines and more people in the Red Carpet club and more people trying to get upgrades to business and first class.

January 16, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Glen,

Takes guts to pre-pay for possibly long-term tickets on a bankrupt airline. Especially in the case of United and US Airways my guess is that many pre-pay certificate holders will stand way in the back of the line in bankruptcy court, just in front of the frequent flier certificate holders.

I have a friend who lost a million miles worth of Eastern Airlines certificates when the company went down to the mat for the count.

Bob Jensen

January 16, 2005 reply from Speer, Derek [d.speer@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ

Hi Bob, Glen and everyone

Air New Zealand was faced with the same criticism (often from its most loyal and regular customers) that it was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain reward flights. Late last year it converted its Airpoints (i.e. frequent flier miles) into dollar values. Holders may now redeem them for (as their advertisements state) "Any seat on any flight" at the going rate for available seats on that flight. I have not yet attempted to redeem any so I cannot report on how effectively the new system is working.

Derek


January 16, 2005 message from my graduate assistant

Dr. Jensen, 

I searched for some software to graph multivariate and multidimensional data, and while a lot of them cost a good sum of money or required the use of linux or unix OS, I found a couple that could perhaps be useful and are free to the public domain. If you want to check them out and let me know what you think, they are:

*Xgobi: http://www.research.att.com/areas/stat/xgobi/  
(by its description, looks like this program could do a lot, although I haven't downloaded it yet since its instructions are a handful)

*Vista: http://forrest.psych.unc.edu/research/  
(says it can be used in conjunction with Excel, which would be the best of both worlds)

Chris

Bob Jensen's threads on multivariate imaging, including Minard's famous six-dimensional graph of the Napoleon's army decline from 422,000 (Leave Paris) to 10,000 (return to Paris) following a campaign to Moscow, are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm 


"Academics fight to break 'stranglehold' on journals," Donald MacLeod, Guardian Unlimited, January 26, 2005 --- http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1398368,00.html 

Hopes of opening up research findings to a wider readership and breaking the stranglehold of publishers over academic journals will be aired at a conference at Southampton University today.

Southampton, the first UK university to make all of its academic and scientific output freely available, announced that its repository will in future be an integral part of its research infrastructure.

Advocates of open access won the backing of MPs last year but have not yet succeeded in convincing ministers. The escalating cost of journals - and the rising number published - is a major headache for university libraries, but supporters of open access argue there is a moral case for making findings freely available. They hope it will increase the influence of British science internationally and help researchers in developing countries where expensive journals are hard to access.

The Commons science and technology committee backed experiments with open access publishing where the author pays and it is free to the reader but this was rejected by the government after determined lobbying by publishers. The MPs also suggested trials of open access repositories where the researcher publishes in a paid-for journal but archives his paper at his or her university. This was ignored by the government.

Faced with the reluctance of governments in the UK and abroad to push for open access by attaching conditions to research grants, the open access movement is trying to get self-archiving off the ground on a large scale.

Following a technical seminar yesterday discussing the lessons learned at Southampton, senior librarians and university managers will debate future developments today. Robert Campbell, president of Blackwell Publishing, is due to consider how author self-archiving of journal articles might affect learned society journals, and reflect on the balance between providing open access to articles and protecting the journals which publish them.

Professor Stevan Harnad, one of the founders of the open access (OA) movement, argues there are two roads to open access - the 'golden road' of publishing in an OA journal (author-institution pays publication costs instead of user-institution) and the 'green road' of publishing in a non-OA journal but also self-archiving the article in an OA archive.

He believes self-archiving by researchers should be mandated by universities and funders such as the research councils. (The influential Wellcome Trust, which awards grants of £1.2bn a year, has come out strongly in favour of open access publishing.)

Academic journals are anxious about these developments. One of the most prestigious, Nature, is encouraging self-archiving - but only after six months, meaning that fellow researchers would have no realistic choice but to subscribe.

The joint information systems committee (Jisc), which coordinates information technology at UK universities, is encouraging the creation of open access journals and has funded free access for universities to journals published by BioMed Central. Jisc said that since it first signed up for BioMed Central membership in July 2003, there had been a huge increase in support and usage from researchers in the UK.

Submissions to BioMed Central's journals by UK academics have increased by 180%, and publications have increased by 210%. Downloads of BioMed Central journal articles by the UK community have more than doubled since July 2003. "These results demonstrate that the Jisc membership has had a huge impact on the awareness of open access publishing in just one year," said a spokesman.

This month Jisc awarded a total of £150,000 to some of the key scholarly publications in their fields: the New Journal of Physics (published by the Institute of Physics Publishing); Nucleic Acids Research (Oxford University Press); Journal of Medical Genetics (BMJ publishing group Ltd); the journals of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr); and The Journal of Experimental Botany (The Society for Experimental Biology). Jisc funding will ensure the waiving of all or part of the submission/publication fees for all UK HE authors.

In the US the Public Library of Science (PLoS) announced it was embarking on a new phase of "its ambitious plan to transform scientific publishing", with the launch in 2005 of three new open-access journals: PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics, and PLoS Pathogens.

Bob Jensen's threads on the monopoly and fraud of journal publishing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals 


Forwarded by Helen Terry

"'Recovery dorms' offer student support," CNN.com, January 17, 2005 --- http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/17/recovery.dorm.ap/index.html 

His name is Ben and he's a campus drunk trying to stay sober amid a lot of chances to party.

The 19-year-old, sticking with his first name in the style of Alcoholics Anonymous, knows how to party. He learned to drink in the fifth grade in Cleveland. By high school he was drinking at least three nights a week, sometimes having 20 drinks of beer, gin and tequila.

"Every time I had time I would drink," said Ben, gently petting the mutt that he and his housemates at Case Western Reserve University have adopted.

Now in college, Ben is trying to stay away from booze and Case Western is doing its part by offering him a spot at a "recovery dorm."

The residence -- with sparse landscaping and bare-bones furniture -- looks like a fraternity house, only cleaner and lacking a beer keg on the back porch. It's the university's experiment to help students with drinking and drug abuse problems cope with the high-pressure environment of university.

While many campuses have housing for nonsmokers and nondrinkers, student residences for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts are rare. Officials at Rutgers University, which pioneered the idea, know of only a handful of such recovery dorms, perhaps three or four nationwide.

Continued in article


"Grids Unleash the Power of Many," by John Gartner, MIT's Technology Review,  January 14, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/wo/wo_gartner011405.asp?trk=nl 

Computer scientists in three states -- West Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado -- are each combining their technology resources into separate computer grids that will give researchers, universities, private companies and citizens access to powerful supercomputers.

The project designers say these information aqueducts will encourage business development, accelerate scientific research, and improve the efficiency of government.

"Grid computing will provide 1,000 times more business opportunities than what we see over the Internet today," says Wolfgang Gentzsch, managing director of grid computing and networking services at MCNC in Research Triangle Park, NC.

MCNC is spearheading North Carolina's statewide grid development that currently includes seven universities including North Carolina State, Duke, and the University of North Carolina.

The North Carolina project -- which has a goal to link 180 institutions -- is encouraging business development through its Start Up Grid Initiative, which allows fledgling companies to plug into the grid for up to nine months free of charge and afterwards at discounted rates, Gentzsch says.

Because raising capital and acquiring technology takes up most of a new company's time, "Startups usually only get to spend 10 percent of their time executing their idea," says Gentzch, who has launched seven companies.

According to a 2003 report by Robert Cohen, a Fellow at the Economic Strategy Institute, North Carolina's grid could create 24,000 jobs and boost the state's output by $10.1 billion by 2010 if effectively implemented.

Before statewide grids can become a realit, the software used to share and manage resources needs to be improved to include more standard communication protocols. Gentzsch says the expected release of version 4.0 of the open source Globus Toolkit, which he estimates is used by 90 percent of grid projects, will greatly simplify connecting computers to the grid.

Securing a location's computing resources so that only specified resources are made available for sharing is a significant challenge, Gentzsch says. To protect data files, institutions must "encrypt everything," and configure the grid network so that "the CPU cycles are separated from the disk resources."

Gentzsch estimates that advanced computing resource utilization is just 25 percent, and grid computing could increase the efficiency to 75 percent.

"New Group Will Promote Grid Computing for Business," by Steve Lohr, The New York Times, January 24, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/technology/24grid.html

A handful of technology companies including I.B.M., Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems plan to announce today that they are forming a consortium to accelerate the adoption of utility-like grid computing in the corporate world.

The group, called the Globus Consortium, will cooperatively develop software tools more suited for business uses of grid computing, and educate companies about the technology and its potential.

Bob Jensen's threads on grid computing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#Future 


Heartening to Women, Not so Heartening to Men

Question
Why do women live longer than men?

Answer

"The stronger sex," The Economist, January 13, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3556139 

WOMEN live longer than men. It is unfair, but true. In developed countries, the average difference is five or six years. In the poor world the gap is smaller, owing to the risks of childbirth. But nowhere is it absent. The question is, why?

That question can be answered at two levels. An evolutionary biologist would tell you that it is because women get evolutionary bonus points from living long enough to help bring up the grandchildren. Men, by contrast, wear themselves out competing for the right to procreate in the first place. That is probably true, but not much help to the medical profession. However, a group of researchers at John Moores University, in Liverpool, England, has just come up with a medically useful answer. It is that while 70-year-old men have the hearts of 70-year-olds, those of their female peers resemble the hearts of 20-year-olds.

David Goldspink, who revels in the title of Professor of Cell and Molecular Sports Science at John Moores, and his colleagues looked at 250 volunteers aged between 18 and 80 over the course of two years. All the volunteers were healthy but physically inactive. The team's principal finding was that the power of the male heart falls by 20-25% between the ages of 18 and 70, while that of the female heart remains undiminished.

Each volunteer's heart function was measured before exercise and at peak exertion on a treadmill. In particular, the researchers measured blood flow and blood pressure. Their subjects were also given an ultrasonic scan to measure the size of the chambers of their hearts, the thickness of the heart's muscular wall, and its filling and emptying actions.

The researchers found that between the ages of 20 and 70, men lose one-third of the contractile muscle cells in the walls of their hearts. Over the same period, women lose hardly any contractile cells. There is a strong link between the number of these cells and the function of the heart. What remains a mystery is why men lose these cells and women do not.

previous theory of why women outlive men suggested that the female sex hormone, oestrogen, could have a protective effect on the heart. But Dr Goldspink dismisses this idea, saying that there is no discernible drop-off in female heart function after menopause, when oestrogen levels decrease dramatically. However, oestrogen does have a beneficial effect on blood vessels. The study found that blood flow to the muscles and skin of the limbs decreases with age in both sexes. The changes in the structure of the blood vessels occur earlier in men, but women catch up soon after menopause.

It's not all bad news for men, though. In a related study, the team found that the hearts of veteran male athletes were as powerful as those of inactive 20-year-old male undergraduates. But can men really recover lost heart function after a lifetime of inactivity and poor diet? Is it ever too late to start exercising? “I think the answer is no,” says Dr Goldspink. “The health benefits to be gained from sensible exercise are to be recommended, regardless of age.” So if you are male and getting on, get on with it.

 


I now have a copy of my lost file.

Question 
How can you recover a file that you've accidentally erased on your Web server?

Answer

Jim Borden, bless his heart, found a copy of my lost January 5 file of New Bookmarks in Google's archive. I never thought of searching for it on Google.

Thanks Jim.

PS You might remember Google when you erase a file on your Web server by accident. In my case I overwrote my January 5 booknew.htm file with my forthcoming January 5 edition of New Bookmarks on Trinity's Web server. Then like a dummy, I also overwrote my backup booknew.htm file on my local machine. That left me with no copy of my January 5 edition of New Bookmarks. Dahh!

Thanks to Jim I have now added the January 5 edition to my archive file at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q1.htm 

This was Jim's message to me on January 16, 2005

Bob,

I think this may be the file you are looking for:

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:rG9d3v0IIXAJ:www.trinity.edu/rjensen/booknew.htm+jensen+trinity+bookmark+%22january+5%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a

Jim  
James Borden [james.borden@villanova.edu

January 17, 2004 reply from Greg Leeds

If you want to look for lost files from further back, the Wayback Machine can be a good tool: http://www.archive.org/ 

-Greg Leeds


Question
Google is the world's most popular search engine.  What is one of the main areas where Yahoo still has the lead?

Answer
Localized search (click on the Local tab at http://www.yahoo.com/ )

There are some other areas where Yahoo is popular.

Maps, Travel Information, and Local Area Searches for Businesses and Places of Interest

For many years the most popular site for maps and travel instructions was MapQuest --- http://www.mapquest.com/

Yahoo Maps and Driving Directions --- http://maps.yahoo.com/

SmartView Maps and Desktop Search from Yahoo

"The Yahoo Factor," by Maya Dollarhide, MIT's Technology Review, January 27, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/wo/wo_dollarhide012705.asp?trk=nl 

Yahoo was last to the game with its Yahoo! Desktop Search, putting it squarely behind the eight ball. While Microsoft and Google have emerged as the current leaders (see What's Next for Google?), Yahoo has turned its attention to indexing the world by building out its mobile search technologies.

Yahoo!'s SmartView -- a competitor to America Online's MapQuest -- launched last March, and enables users find business locations, phone numbers, and directions.

Squaring off with AOL won't be an easy task. MapQuest has done a good job outflanking Microsoft's MapPoint, which recently made headlines for its odd search queries results.

But Yahoo hopes to hone SmartView, and integrate that into its Web and desktop search capabilities. Recently, a "Real Time" traffic report was added, where people can locate traffic jams, construction sites, speed zones, and accident reports. The service also includes Yahoo! Maps enhancements which include faster panning and zooming, larger views, and turn-by-turn maps with driving directions.

. . .

In the competitive field of search services, Yahoo is gaining ground on its top competitors, according to a survey by Market Researcher Keynote. While Google, Yahoo and MSN were the top choices of the 2,000 consumers surveyed, Yahoo maintained the highest user loyalty, primarily because of its localized search.

All three companies are targeting local search moving into the future, but Google and Microsoft haven't yet found their groove.

Yahoo's localized search for businesses and other sites of interest in a localized area is called Yahoo Local --- http://local.yahoo.com/ 
Keep in mind that Yahoo gives output priority to companies that pay to be listed near the top of a search outcome.

Yahoo Maps and Driving Directions --- http://maps.yahoo.com/

Yahoo's Desktop Search (for searching text in files within a single computer)  information is at http://desktop.yahoo.com/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on desktop searching via Google Desktop or Yahoo Desktop http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#WebDesktop 

Bob Jensen's general search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


It All Started at Stanford University:  History Trivia About Yahoo and Google

Google's searching service is built upon over 100,000 custom made computers. I've never been able to find how many computers are used by Yahoo. Interestingly, both Google and Yahoo were started by Stanford University students rather than their professors.

The Yahoo company was started up by two Stanford University electrical engineering students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, in 1994 --- http://soe.stanford.edu/AR95-96/jerry.html 

The Faerie Keeper reports the following --- http://www.faeriekeeper.net/the2002.htm 

The word "Yahoo" was invented by Jonathan Swift for the Travels. He and his friends used the word among themselves while Swift was writing he book, appearing in their correspondence.  The name Yahoo! purportedly stands for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Jerry Yang and David Filo insist they selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos, but we have gotten ahead of our story, so let us back track a "wee" bit

The Google company was started up two Stanford University computer science doctoral students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, in 1996 --- http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/index.html 

 

Google states the following at http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html 

"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.

Readers interested in the wonderful “Defining Google” 60 Minutes module should go to http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/30/60minutes/main664063.shtml 

 

Question
What was the name of the first search engine built by
Sergey Brin and Larry Page?

Answer
Back Rub --- http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/index.html


"Deloitte's Top Tech Trends," SmartPros, January 19, 2005 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x46612.xml 

Deloitte's Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) industry group announced its predictions for the global technology industry in 2005, forecasting a number of advances in technology, along with some serious challenges.

"In 2005 Internet use will continue to proliferate, with the Web browser playing an increasingly important part in our lives," said Eric Openshaw, a Principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and Americas Group Leader, TMT industry group. "Nanotechnology will become increasingly mainstream, enabling a wide range of new and improved products. And ethanol-based fuel cells will hit the market, providing portable power that lasts for days, weeks or even months."

In addition, Openshaw said electronic forms of personal identification will proliferate as a way to improve security. He warned that viruses, worms and other malware will multiply and spread to connected mobile devices, frustrating the public and costing companies billions in lost data and downtime."

Three key trends identified in the report are:

Nanotechnology becomes mainstream. Nanotechnology -- one of the most talked about, yet least-understood technologies of the 21st century -- will become increasingly mainstream in 2005. Nanotechnology is already quietly revolutionizing a wide range of products -- from computer hard drives and sunblock cream to car tires -- and will soon become a cornerstone of every manufacturing industry. Advances will increasingly be driven by the world's largest companies and nanotech companies will generate substantial revenue for the very first time. Potential uses will include using nano-spheres to deliver a drug directly to its intended target; employing nano-scale manufacturing processes to make smaller and faster processors and storage devices; and using nano-scale properties to make stain resistant, crease-free fabrics, and garments that resist bacteria.

Electronic viruses run rampant. Massive growth in connected technologies -- from PCs and mobile phones to PDAs and gaming consoles -- will cause a corresponding leap in electronic viruses and other malicious attacks. Nuisances such as unsolicited e-mail (SPAM) and unsolicited instant messages (SPIM) will continue to proliferate. More harmful intrusions, such as viruses, worms and malware (malicious software), blue-jacking (attacks on Bluetooth-enabled devices) and VoIP SPAM will become common, and increased use of mobile phones, remote working and WiFi will give hackers more access to private, corporate and government networks. The trend will cost businesses worldwide billions of dollars in lost data and downtime; at the same time, it will reveal vast opportunities for companies that sell IT security, and new lines of business will spring up from mobile operators, handset makers, service providers, and systems integrators.

Electronic identification vs. Digital crime. Governments around the world will move to replace paper-based IDs with digital products. These new forms of electronic identification will be used in passports, ID cards, bank cards and credit cards, and will include information such as the individual's name, address, nationality, digital photo and even biometric data. Electronic identification will be principally designed to curb fraud and identity theft, but will also speed up the process of identification and authentication. In spite of these measures, identity theft will continue to rise dramatically -- particularly for people and organizations that do business online. It will be imperative for all companies doing business online to spend the money to create more secure methodologies to protect themselves and their customers.

Bob Jensen's threads on nanotechnology, fullerenes, and ubiquitous computing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm 


To the extent the workers are correct, this may have implications for auditing and design/testing of internal controls.

"Majority of Workers Believe Their Bosses Lack Integrity, Fairness," AccountingWeb, January 25, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100410 

More than half of American workers question the basic morality of their organizations' top leaders and say that their managers do not treat them fairly, according to results of a just-released, representative, nationwide survey of 7,718 American workers aged 18 and over.

Reacting to ongoing corporate scandals, accelerating outsourcing and continued downsizing, only 36 percent of workers said they believed top managers acted with honesty and integrity. Even fewer (29 percent) believe management cares about advancing employee skills, while one-third of all workers feel they have reached a dead end at their jobs.

Sponsored by 24 leading U.S. companies, the "New Employer/Employee Equation Survey" was conducted by Harris Interactive, Inc. for Age Wave, an independent think tank that counsels business and government on issues impacting an aging society, and The Concours Group, a global consultancy advising senior executives.

Facing a growing shortage of qualified workers and an aging workforce, employers must move rapidly to develop strategies for dealing with these emerging multi-generational workforce issues, the researchers found.

Other key findings:

 

  • Small firm employees feel far more engaged in their work than their corporate counterparts.
  • Older workers are the most satisfied, the most engaged in their work, and the least likely to feel burned out.
  • Younger workers are the most distressed and restless, and they feel the least amount of loyalty to their employers.
  • Substantial numbers of employees feel dead-ended and are seeking changes at work or new jobs altogether.
  • Job security, health care coverage and professional development are valued above additional compensation.
The survey results run counter to long-held beliefs in a number of key workplace categories, including:

Job Satisfaction vs. Engagement

Across the American workforce, only 45 percent of workers say they are satisfied (33 percent) or extremely satisfied (12 percent) with their jobs. At the same time, a much lower number actually feel very "engaged" by their jobs. Only 20 percent feel very passionate about their jobs; less than 15 percent agree that they feel strongly energized by their work; and only 31 percent (strongly or moderately) believe that their employer inspires the best in them.

Managers: Part of the Problem

Managers were only slightly more positive about the organizations they are charged with leading than employees as a whole. While nearly two-thirds (63 percent) agree that they care about the fate of their organization – more than one-third, surprisingly, do not. Slightly more than one-third of managers surveyed feel that their organizations inspire the best in them or are willing to promote their organization as being a great place to work.

Benefits and Satisfaction

Given the rising costs of coverage, it's no surprise that one of the major issues facing corporate America is providing health coverage to employees. The data suggest these pressures are compounded by the fact that overall health care coverage is the number one employee priority -- more important than future retirement coverage, prescription drug or other benefits. Beyond traditional benefits, workers are increasingly seeking jobs that provide them with opportunities to learn and to grow.

Worker Burnout

Increasing numbers of employees are coping with burnout (42 percent), while one-third (33 percent) believe they have reached a dead end in their jobs, and 21 percent are eager to change their jobs. Burnout will be an especially critical concern for American companies as demographers predict that retiring baby boomers will create a shortfall in professional and skilled workers over the next five years.

Firm Size Makes a Difference

Employees at small firms (49 employees or less) report far greater job satisfaction than do employees at large firms. They are more likely to feel "energized" by their work (44 percent vs. 28 percent at large firms) and "very passionate" about their job (53 percent vs. 36 percent).

Large firms are much more likely to offer a more robust platter of benefits beyond basic compensation than small companies. These include bonus compensation (44 percent vs. 24 percent); stock options or grants (50 percent vs. 7 percent); retirement savings plan (83 percent vs. 29 percent), annual pay raises (74 percent vs. 34 percent), and life insurance (80 percent vs. 31 percent).

Despite the more generous benefits provided by large firms, employees of smaller companies are much more engaged and are more likely to "really care about the fate of this organization" (64 percent of small companies vs. 47 percent of large firms). They are also more willing to put forth extra effort to help the organization succeed (61 percent vs. 43 percent), to agree that the organization inspires the best in them (44 percent vs. 24 percent), and to say that they would "accept almost any job to keep working here" (29 percent vs. 16 percent).

Retirement Only One Option

While many workers expect to retire at certain ages (25 percent between ages 61 and 65; 16 percent between ages 66 and 75), today a whopping 34 percent say they NEVER plan to retire.

Traditional views of retirement are changing dramatically, with many planning to keep working in some manner after retiring. Of those, 12 percent say they plan to work full-time, 39 percent part-time, and 49 percent to cycle back and forth between working and not working. Older workers will provide companies with a valuable pool from which to address skill and labor shortages. However, organizations will have to rethink how best to attract and accommodate these older workers and their preferred work schedules.

Time Off and Family Life

Nearly all workers were seeking more time off -- and a better balance between work and leisure. When asked which mattered more -- paid maternity leave, flexible work schedules, or more paid vacation time – workers overwhelming ranked more paid vacation time as their single biggest desire. This response received more than twice as many votes as both a more flexible work schedule and paid maternity leave. In addition, as the workforce ages, employers will likely have to accommodate their employees' need to spend more time with family members, many of whom are older. Twice as many employees surveyed were becoming grandparents than having a new child themselves. While a third of the workforce (33 percent) is involved with raising children, 13 percent find themselves empty nesters adjusting to children leaving home.


January 18, 2005 message from Wimsatt, Kate [kwimsatt@aicpa.org

Attached is the latest issue of The CPA Exam Alert. This issue will be posted to the CPA Exam web site, www.cpa-exam.org , shortly. Please feel free to re-publish or distribute this information as appropriate.

Best regards,

Kate Wimsatt
AICPA- Academic and Career Development
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
212.596.6224 (voice) 212.596.6292 (fax)
kwimsatt@aicpa.org 


"Customers are clearly pulling the whole market toward standards," says Steve Mills, who heads International Business Machines Corp.'s software business. "You can't ignore them."
David Bank, "The Revolt of the Corporate Consumer," The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110556230093424405,00.html?mod=todays_us_the_journal_report 

The power has shifted. For more than two decades, software vendors have been in control, selling tech-hungry companies a steady stream of products largely on the vendors' terms. But in the four years since the collapse in corporate technology spending, the tables gradually have turned -- now, it's the buyers who are clearly calling the shots.

The power has shifted.

For more than two decades, software vendors have been in control, selling tech-hungry companies a steady stream of new products and services largely on the vendors' terms.

No longer. In the four years since the collapse in corporate technology spending, the tables gradually have turned -- to the point that now, it's the buyers who are clearly calling the shots. They are wrangling for better prices, demanding software that's more reliable and secure, and resisting software companies' push for constant -- and expensive -- upgrades.

All this represents a seismic shift in power to tech buyers from sellers. Limited tech budgets have given chief information officers more negotiating clout with vendors, who know that many buyers already feel burned by disappointments with previous purchases. Meanwhile, open-source and subscription Web-based software services have emerged as more-serious competitors to the established software giants, putting downward pressure on prices. Combined, these trends mean that customers are demanding -- and getting -- more and better software for their money.

"They're economic tectonic plates and they're moving," Mitchell Kertzman, a venture capitalist with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners in San Francisco, says of the forces propelling the customer revolt. The power shift is permanent, he adds. "There isn't any way to go back."

Continued in the article


January 16, 2005 message from akonstam@trinity.edu 

The January (2005) issue of the Journal of Data Science is now on line. The web version is free of charge and no password is required. The URL: http://www.sinica.edu.tw/~jds/ 


When photographers get bored --- http://www.sunbelt-software.com/stu/bored/ 


Surprise! Surprise!  Republicans are an "endangered species among professors.  This is probably not the case among college students.

Among professors of anthropology, the ratio of democrats to republicans is 30:1.  Among economics professors it is 3:1.

Thus, the social sciences and humanities are dominated by Democrats. There is little ideological diversity.
"Two new scholarly studies," by Daniel Klein et al. on the political orientation of academic faculty, National Association of Scholars --- http://www.nas.org/aa/klein_launch.htm 
Also summarized in The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 3, 2004, Page A15.

Abstract: In Spring 2003, a large-scale survey of American academics was conducted using academic association membership lists from six fields: Anthropology, Economics, History, Philosophy (political and legal), Political Science, and Sociology. This paper focuses on one question: To which political party have the candidates you've voted for in the past ten years mostly belonged? The question was answered by 96.4 percent of academic respondents. The results show that the faculty is heavily skewed towards voting Democratic. The most lopsided fields surveyed are Anthropology with a D to R ratio of 30.2 to 1, and Sociology with 28.0 to 1. The least lopsided is Economics with 3.0 to 1. After Economics, the least lopsided is Political Science with 6.7 to 1. The average of the six ratios by field is about 15 to 1. Our analysis and related research suggest that for the the social sciences and humanities overall, a "one-big-pool" ratio of 7 to 1 is a safe lower-bound estimate, and 8 to 1 or 9 to 1 are reasonable point estimate. Thus, the social sciences and humanities are dominated by Democrats. There is little ideological diversity. We discuss Stephen Balch's "property rights" proposal to help remedy the situation.

We conjecture that if Berkeley and Stanford are non-representative, it has less to do with geography than with the elite character of those institutions. That is, we would conjecture that the more elite institutions tend to be more rock-solidly Democratic and statist. This conjecture is in line with Lipset’s findings about academic elites (Lipset 1982: 151). (Here, the Klein & Stern survey is of no help, because it collected no information about the “tier” of the respondent’s institution.)
"How Many Democrats per Republican at UC-Berkeley and Stanford? Voter Registration Data across 23 Academic Departments," by Daniel B. Klein and Andrew Western, "Two new scholarly studies," by Daniel Klein et al. on the political orientation of academic faculty, National Association of Scholars --- http://www.nas.org/aa/klein_launch.htm 

Abstract: Using the records of the seven San Francisco Bay Area counties that surround University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, we conducted a systematic and thorough study of the party registration of the Berkeley and Stanford faculty in 23 academic departments. The departments span the social sciences, humanities, hard sciences, math, law, journalism, engineering, medicine, and the business school. Of the total of 1497 individual names on the cumulative list, we obtained readings on 1005, or 67 percent. The findings support the "one-party campus" conjecture. For Stanford, we found an overall Democrat to Republican ratio of 7.6 to 1. For UC-Berkeley, we found an overall D to R ratio of 9.9 to 1. Moreover, the breakdown by faculty rank shows that Republicans are an "endangered species" on the two campuses. This article contains a link to the complete data (with individual identities redacted).

In the Accounting and Marketing Departments with only 31 individuals, 25.8% were registered as democrats and only 3.2% were registered as republican.  Another 3.2% were registered as American Independents.  It appears that 61.3% of the accounting and marketing faculties were not registered in either the democratic or republican parties.  

Bob Jensen  

January 25, 2005 reply from Taggart, Kenneth [ktaggart@trinity.edu

I have written about this before on Tiger Talk, but the Wall Street Journal recently had a long and excellent article on a heartening change (for Republicans) in the domination of the Left on U.S. universities. College Republicans now outnumber College Democrats, both in numbers of chapters and in membership, I even notice that this trend carries over to highly politically incorrect activities, like Harvard’s gun club with more than 100 student members!! I know that most of our colleagues would say that they don’t inject personal bias into their courses, or that it doesn’t really matter if they do, or, even worse, that they are simply telling the truth that everybody knows. I’m convinced that our professors do inject their political views into their commentary during course lectures and discussions. A cursory look at faculty bulletin boards would make it obvious that they clearly spell out their positions on political issues. On many of them, it is virtually the only commentary posted. I know this is only natural and human that we make personal comments in class, but we have a responsibility to be fair and even-handed, and should comment without extreme sarcasm or disdain. A telling observation on page 6 of the article is the following: “A brand-new American Council of Trustees and Alumni survey finds that half of all students—not just conservatives—at the top 50 colleges [I would hope this includes TU] say that profs frequently inject their political views into courses, and almost one-third think that they have to agree with those views to get a good grade.” The article can be found at http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006149 

Just my two cents,

Ken Taggart

January 25, 2004 reply from XXXX

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXX
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 12:32 PM
To: Taggart, Kenneth; Jensen, Robert
Subject: RE: Republicans an endangered species in academe?

 

Is impartiality necessary? Hal Barger was one of my first professors here in 1980. I was in his American and Texas Government class. It was clear he supported Carter and even said so in class. But he was honest about it and he respected the opinions of the students, even when I wore a Reagan button and a rather vocal Anderson supporter who did not hesitate to express herself. And while he did inject his views in comments about the material he didn’t let it interfere with subject of the course. As a student and even after I returned to Trinity as an employee, Dr. Barger was always one of the people here I highly respected, even when we disagreed.

 

I disagree that professors must be impartial. Students have always had a healthy skepticism of authority and are generally bright enough to recognize bias when it occurs. What professors need to do is simply be honest with their students. What departments as a whole need to do is ensure that the podium doesn’t become a pulpit. I also think there is great value in exposing the younger students to the opinions of the older professors. There are often very good reasons why a certain opinion is held. It is misleading to allow students to think that every opinion is yes or no. Life is a lot more complicated than that.

 

We are supposed to be preparing young people to go into the world and be autonomous. They will someday have the power to determine the course of our nation and of the world. They must have the ability to discern fact and opinion and balance differing views to prevent our society from falling into chaos. It is incumbent upon us to teach them how to do this. Shielding them from opinion does not give them the experience that they will require later in life.

XXXXX

January 25, 2004 reply from Bob Jensen

Impartiality is neither a theoretical nor practical goal.  However, I’m a firm believer that there are two or more sides to “nearly” every argument and that it is a duty of an academic not to totally dominate a course with one sidedness in spite of strong personal bias.  A course must follow a curriculum plan.  Students generally dislike courses or entire degree programs that are billed as one thing and turn into something else.  For example, I know of an instance where a business law course heavily became a Bible reading course that was not originally deemed part of the curriculum plan. 

Students who take a capital markets course will be very disappointed if the professor uses this platform to only lambaste capital markets in society.  Students came to learn more about the how capital markets work and how organizations raise capital in a market system.  One of my advisees vocally complained about and dropped, years ago, a political science course on multinational business that turned “100 percent” (her words) into professorial preaching about the evils of multinational business without any chance (in peril of a bad grade) to examine the good things that many multinational firms do around the world.  The course description did not match the course content.  I think students are turned off whenever teaching becomes preaching.

I guess what I am saying is that the course description is a contract with a student.  Strong partiality in any course should be part of the course description that, in turn, as been approved as part of the curriculum plan.  I also am a firm believer that political leanings should not be any more of a factor hiring decisions than gender, race, or sexual orientation should be a factor.  Should an economics department or a political science department blacklist faculty candidates who are not politically correct?  I think not and am proud that Trinity seems to have avoided this in both such departments. 

I think that many colleges have succumbed to subtle and political blacklisting of faculty candidates.  Hiring bias may be the leading factor why conservatives are becoming an “endangered species” in colleges in the U.S., Canada, and most other parts of the world.  At least this is becoming the case according to the two studies that I mentioned in my original memo.  I say this knowing full well that a psychology professor here at Trinity is fond of reminding me that correlation does not imply causation.

Clearly there is some institution-wide partiality in schools like Brigham Young and Baylor, but this is known up front by students who either did or did not apply to those universities because of this partiality.  See “God and Man at Baylor” --- http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/125/42.0.html

Students do not expect Baylor-like partialities in the University of Texas or Trinity University .   Nor do students expect, with an average of nine liberal faculty for every conservative faculty member in any University X, that 90 per cent of the courses will preach liberalism in one form or another.  They came to learn all sides of history, economics, science, business and whatever else.

Bob
email: 
rjensen@trinity.edu
Homepage:  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

 


January 18, 2005 message from Richard C. Sansing [Richard.C.Sansing@DARTMOUTH.EDU

Q: What do the first four articles in the December 2004 issue of Management Science have in common?

A: They were all written by accountants!

ANNIVERSARY ARTICLE: A Perspective on "Asymmetric Information, Incentives and Intrafirm Resource Allocation" Authors: Madhav V. Rajan and Stefan Reichelstein

Strategy Selection and Performance Measurement Choice When Profit Drivers Are Uncertain Authors: Ronald A. Dye

Information Revelation, Incentives, and the Value of a Real Option Authors: Brian Mittendorf

Reduced Quality and an Unlevel Playing Field Could Make Consumers Happier Authors: Nahum D. Melumad and Amir Ziv

I'm not sure what this has to say about accounting scholarship.

Richard C. Sansing 
Associate Professor of Business Administration 
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth 
100 Tuck Hall Hanover, NH 03755

January 18, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Because these scholars differ so much in background, I don't think there is a message other than we congratulate them.  

Brian Mittendorf and Nahum Melumad are CPAs with more traditional accounting backgrounds than the other authors listed in Richard's interesting message above.

Most of the others are educated in management science and economics rather than accounting.  For example, all of Stefan Reichelstein's degrees are in management science and economics.  It is not surprising that he publishes in journals aligned with his education --- http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/accounting/Faculty/reichel/ 
But he does teach undergraduate accounting, conducts some accounting research, and is the Managing Editor of Review of Accounting Studies --- http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/accounting/Faculty/reichel/ 

A prize-winning research paper by Stefan Reichelstein is highlighted in an accounting practitioner news site.
"Stanford Business School Study: Use Weighted Averages to Determine Transfer Pricing," SmartPros, November 29, 2004 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x45997.xml 

Ron Dye's degrees are all in mathematics and economics.  He's pretty much an equation-speak professor.  I think his teaching and research are more into mathematics than the accounting side of things, although he has been active in publishing in accounting journals and participating in some AAA programs --- http://www.kellogg.nwu.edu/doctoral/images/Phd.pdf 

I find it encouraging that some of these noted researchers with analytical skills are also noted teachers.  In particular, Professor Rajan has won outstanding undergraduate teaching awards at Wharton --- http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v47pdf/010515/051501.pdf 

Nahum Melumad is a noted teacher, administrator, and executive program leader --- http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol21/vol21_iss11/record2111.18.html 


A Technical Problem for Accounting Students

GM and Fiat are in talks about a possible breakup. The major sticking point is a put option that could force GM to buy the remaining 90% of Fiat's auto unit.  How might original marriage and possible break up be accounted for in broad terms?

"For GM and Fiat, A Messy Breakup Could Be in Works:  Debt-Ridden Italian Car Maker Ponders Exercise of Option Forcing U.S. Giant to Buy It," by Gabriel Kahn in Turin, Italy, Stephen Power in Frankfurt and Allesandra Galloini in Milan, The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110652643327233687,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us 

Nearly five years into a partnership they once touted as made in heaven, General Motors Corp. and Fiat SpA are in tense talks about a possible breakup that could further batter their finances and reverberate across the auto industry.

Despite months of negotiations, the two sides remain miles apart on the major sticking point: a "put" option that could force GM to buy the 90% of Fiat's ailing, debt-laden auto unit that GM doesn't already own. Fiat's chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, has stated repeatedly that he has the right to exercise the put beginning today, when a so-far unsuccessful mediation process expires. GM CEO Richard Wagoner Jr. insists the option is invalid.

On Monday, Fiat said the mediation period has been extended to Feb. 1 "to wait for the conclusion of the process of mediation." After that, the Italian company will have the option to exercise its put, Fiat said.

The negotiations are coming to a head as GM, which paid $2.4 billion for a since-diluted 20% stake in Fiat's car unit in 2000, faces a possible cut in its credit rating. In its core market of North America, GM has been losing market share and been forced to cut production amid increased competition from Asian rivals such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. If GM is forced to pay a hefty settlement to wriggle out of the put option -- or worse, has to acquire the Italian auto maker and its $10 billion in debt -- it could weigh heavily on an already burdened balance sheet.

The situation is even more dire for Fiat, an Italian industrial icon that also owns businesses such as Iveco trucks, CNH farm equipment and Ferrari sports cars. Fiat Auto's operating losses for 2004 are expected to total around $1.3 billion. With Fiat Auto burning through cash rapidly, the put option has emerged as a potential lifesaver for Mr. Marchionne, a turnaround specialist who arrived at the Italian auto maker in June following a management shakeup. He has made resolving the issue his top priority and forced GM into a tense set of negotiations.

People close to Mr. Marchionne say he hopes to force GM to pay handsomely to get out of the obligation, thus buying Fiat some time. But the price would have to be high -- in excess of nearly $2 billion -- to provide the car unit the 18 months of extra cash needed to tide it over as it tries to bring important new models to the marketplace. Even then, industry analysts say its ultimate survival is uncertain.

Fiat Auto is running on fumes. In a rapidly consolidating industry of global giants, it is caught in a trap of high fixed costs and shrinking market share. In a document presented to one of Fiat's creditor banks earlier this month and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Fiat SpA reports that without a payment from GM, the conglomerate's current cash and cash equivalents will last only between 13 months and 20 months. But while Fiat needs a quick resolution, GM stands to benefit by postponing the matter further.

According to a person close to the negotiations, a speedy resolution is unlikely. "Each side is changing its mind almost every day. Everything is possible," said the person

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's tutorials on accounting for derivative financial instruments like put options are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 

In particular, there's a power point tutorial at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/Calgary/CD/PowerPointCalgary/ 


A Topic for Class Debate

This might be a good topic of debate for an ethics and/or fraud course.  The topic is essentially the problem of regulating and/or punishing many for the egregious actions of a few.  The best example is the major accounting firm of Andersen in which 84,000 mostly ethical and highly professional employees lost their jobs when the firm's leadership repeatedly failed to take action to prevent corrupt and/or incompetent audits of a small number audit partners.  Clearly the firm's management failed and deserves to be fired and/or jailed for obstruction of justice and failure to protect the public in general and 83,900 Andersen employees.  A former Andersen executive partner, Art Wyatt, contends that Andersen's leadership did not get the message and that leadership in today's leading CPA firms is still not getting the message --- http://aaahq.org/AM2003/WyattSpeech.pdf 

Even better examples can be found in the likes of Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, leading investment banks, leading insurance companies, and leading mutual funds that were rotten to the core but not necessarily on the edges where thousands of employees earned honest livings in ethical dedication to their professions.  Their new leaders still don't seem to be getting the message --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudRotten.htm 

The problem is how to clean out the core without destroying all that is good in an organization.  Another side of the problem is how to protect the public from bad organizations filled with mostly honest employees.

Most of us view The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) as a good source for reporting on financial and accounting fraud and scandal.  By "reporting" I mean that WSJ reporters actually canvas the world and ferret out much of which later gets reported on TV networks (TV networks tend to rely on what newspapers like the WSJ actually discover).  But an editor of the WSJ actually stated to me one time that the WSJ is really two newspapers bundled into one.  The bulk of the paper is devoted to reporting.  But the Editorial Page is often devoted to defending the crooks that are scandalized on Page 1 of the WSJ.  My best example is the saga of felon Mike Milken who was constantly scandalized on Page 1 and defended on Page A14 (or wherever the Editorial Page happened to be that day).

I tend to have a knee jerk reaction to get the bad guys or the incompetent guys who should never be put in charge.  But in fairness there is something to be said for using a hammer where a scalpel might do the job.  We have two hammers in the United States.  One is called government regulation.  The other is called tort litigation.  Both can badly injure the innocent along with the guilty.  We have one major scalpel that is very dull and almost never used properly.  That is punishment that deters white collar crime.  White collar crime pays in the United States.  The criminal generally gets away with the crime or gets a very light punishment before retiring in luxury from the take of his or her crime.  In the meantime the crook's honest colleagues like the many employees of Andersen and Enron take the fall.  For my complaints about leniency and white collar crime see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays 

Now the top crime fighters (Donaldson and Spitzer) in the U.S., who I think are well intended, are taking the heat from Page A14 of the WSJ while Page 1 of the WSJ thinks they are often citing them for their good works.  

And let's not forget the class of gutless wonders, who were incompetent in their jobs while leading government regulatory agencies, and are now raking in millions because of their prior incompetence.  Does the name Arthur Levitt ring a bell? 
Hint:  He headed up the SEC in the 1990s when the worst corporate, mutual fund, investment banking, and insurance scams raking in billions of dollars were taking place right under his nose.  

"Mutual Displeasure," Editorial, The Wall Street Journal,  January 17, 2005; Page A14 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110591631511827345,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 

The Washington rumor mill has it that SEC Chairman William Donaldson is fighting for his job after a checkered two-year tenure. Whatever the merits of that gossip, Mr. Donaldson has been handed a golden opportunity to both exert some intellectual leadership and quiet his critics by reconsidering the agency's rule on mutual fund "independence."

That step, we'd add, would also help restore some SEC credibility. No one denies the recent corporate scandals deserved a tough response, and the federal prosecution of individual offenders has usually hit the right targets. Far less thoughtful has been the Donaldson SEC's habit of punishing business as a class, especially with broad new rules that seem designed mainly to keep up with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. An agency once admired for thoroughness has become known for its slapdash rule-making -- from shareholder access to hedge funds to stock-exchange regulation.

The mutual fund "reform" of last summer is a case in point. Red-faced that Mr. Spitzer exposed the late-trading offenses, the SEC rushed to show its relevance with a regulation requiring that 75% of all mutual fund board directors be "independent," including the chairman. What this means in practice is that folks like Edward Johnson, who has run Fidelity Investments for three decades without scandal and whose reputation has helped to attract investors, now must step aside.

Of hundreds of funds managing $7.5 trillion in assets, some 80% have chairmen from management, while about half fail the 75% "independent" standard. The process of identifying, recruiting and appointing independent members will not only be costly but will divert resources away from more profitable uses. The independent directors of one small fund ($218 million assets) estimate compliance with just the 75% independent director rule would cost its shareholders an average of $20,000 a year.

The requirement is so arbitrary that Congress has asked the SEC to justify its actions, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is suing to have it thrown out. And with good cause. The SEC may not even have the authority under the 1940 Investment Company Act to require corporate governance standards -- and the agency knows it. That's why, rather than mandate the requirements straight out, it instead made the industry's continued use of certain standard regulatory exemptions (which the SEC does have power to grant) contingent on adopting the new requirements.

Under the 1940 Act that established mutual fund standards, Congress considered and rejected a requirement that even a simple majority of the fund's directors be independent. Congressional testimony at the time noted that many investors were "buying" the management of a particular person, and that they wouldn't be served by a board that constantly overrode that person's decisions.

Now, it's possible to argue that new times call for new ways to make boards more accountable. Yet the SEC didn't even try. Agencies have an obligation to examine what new rules mean for competition and capital formation, and when the mutual fund rule got rolling Republican Commissioner Cynthia Glassman called for economic analysis of independent- vs. management-chaired funds, as well as of the rule's costs. Mr. Donaldson claimed he too wanted more info.

No report was ever done. Mr. Donaldson ignored research that did exist, in particular a Fidelity-sponsored study showing that fund companies with independent chairmen have worse investment performance. "There are no empirical studies that are worth much," he pronounced when he and the two Democratic Commissioners approved the rule by 3-2 vote in June. "You can do anything you want with numbers." Well, yes, as the SEC vote showed.

The process was such a stinker that the two other GOP SEC Commissioners filed a rare official dissent. They noted the rule was arbitrary (why 75%?) and failed to consider less onerous alternatives, and they bemoaned the lack of analysis. The SEC had acted by "regulatory fiat" and "simply to appear proactive." Ouch.

Led by New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, Congress has passed legislation demanding the SEC submit a report to Congress by May showing a "justification" for the new rule, including whether independent boards perform better or have lower expenses. But the SEC is so far giving Congress the back of its hand and last week rejected a U.S. Chamber request to delay the rule's imposition.

What's really going on here is that an SEC regulatory staff that failed in its earlier mutual-fund oversight now wants to punish the law-abiding as well as the guilty. This is unnecessary, but it's also unfair. Far from being an embarrassing turnaround, a reassessment is a chance for Mr. Donaldson to prove that both he and his agency are more interested in getting things right, than simply getting things done.

I might point out that my take on this is that Page A14 of the WSJ  is part and parcel to the establishment on Wall Street and Page 1 of the WSJ is written by reporters who are more concerned with discouraging egregious fraud and incompetence.

 

Chartered Jets, a Wedding At Versailles and Fast Cars To Help Forget Bad Times.
As financial companies start to pay out big bonuses for 2003, lavish spending by Wall Streeters is showing signs of a comeback. Chartered jets and hot wheels head a list of indulgences sparked by the recent bull market.
Gregory Zuckerman and Cassell Bryan-Low, "With the Market Up, Wall Street High Life Bounces Back, Too," The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107584886617919763,00.html?mod=home%5Fpage%5Fone%5Fus 

"How Hazards for Investors Get Tolerated Year After Year." by Susan Pulliam, Susanne Craig, and Randal Smith, The Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2004 --- Scroll down at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#Debate 

"OVERCOMPENSATING In Fraud Cases Guilt Can Be Skin Deep," by Alex Berenson, The New York Times, February 29, 2004 --- Scroll down at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#Debate 


"Do You Want to Live Forever?" by Sherwin Nuland, MIT's Technology Review, February 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/issue/feature_aging.asp?trk=nl 

Perhaps theoretical is too small a word. De Grey has mapped out his proposed course in such detail that he believes it may be possible for his objective to be achieved within as short a period as 25 years, in time for many readers of Technology Review to avail themselves of its formulations—and, not incidentally, in time for his 41-year-old self as well. Like Bacon, de Grey has never stationed himself at a laboratory bench to attempt a ­single hands-on experiment, at least not in human biology. He is without qualifications for that, and makes no pretensions to being anything other than what he is, a computer scientist who has taught himself natural science. Aubrey de Grey is a man of ideas, and he has set himself toward the goal of transforming the basis of what it means to be human.

For reasons that his memory cannot now retrieve, de Grey has been convinced since childhood that aging is, in his words, “something we need to fix.” Having become interested in biology after marrying a geneticist in 1991, he began poring over texts, and autodidacted until he had mastered the subject. The more he learned, the more he became convinced that the postponement of death was a problem that could very well have real solutions and that he might be just the person to find them. As he reviewed the possible reasons why so little progress had been made in spite of the remarkable molecular and cellular discoveries of recent decades, he came to the conclusion that the problem might be far less difficult to solve than some thought; it seemed to him related to a factor too often brushed under the table when the motivations of scientists are discussed, namely the small likelihood of achieving promising results within the ­period required for academic advancement—careerism, in a word. As he puts it, “High-risk fields are not the most conducive to getting promoted quickly.”

Continued in the article


January 19, 2005 message from Glen Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU

There was an article in the WSJ yesterday (Tuesday) about the secondary market for gift cards where people can get cash for gift cards—usually you get 80 cents to 97 cents for each dollar in the gift card.

In a general discussion of gift cards, the article said:

For retailers, gift cards can be blessings and curses…There is a danger for stores, however, because in many cases, gift-card sales don't actually count as revenue for the store until someone redeems them. That is because states can treat unredeemed cards as "abandoned" property and take control of the funds after a period of time…As a result, gift cards have the potential to either ruin retailers' sales results -- or save them. Both these possibilities presented themselves in the recent holiday season.

It was the comment about the gift-card sales don’t actually count as revenue that caught my eye. Can someone tell me what the journal entries would look like when card is first “sold” and when the card is redeemed? Since cards get lost or forgotten about, not every dollar on every card will be redeemed. So, this would also have to be accounted for at some point.

January 19, 2005 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

Interesting issue.

If there is a problem, it probably can be traced to sloppy wording on the gift card "contracts".

A state claiming the store's funds (from unredeemed cards) as abandoned property would seem (to me) to be a problem only if the selling retailer booked the sale of the card as "debit to cash, credit to unearned revenue". While this is the classical treatment, I would think that there are ways around this.

If the retailer worded a contract so that the sale of the gift card constituted a "sale of RIGHTS" which EXPIRE after a time (should be shorter than the state's abandoned property statutory limit), then I would think that states would have no claim on the funds as "unclaimed" (unless some wise politician somewhere had already put one of those flaky special-target laws on the books!). Under this scenario, the "rights" of the gift-card recipient would have to be booked as a liability (similar to, but not as, unearned revenue, as would any "right" to the company's inventory), with the proper adjustments being made at the time of redemption.

This raises the point: when is the profit to be recognized? Should the "liability" be recorded at the company's average COST of inventory (allowing the profit to be recognized at the time of the sale of the gift card -- and further reducing the states' claim on the funds), or at the full face value of the card (which would move the profit recognition to the time of redemption)?

Under the former, the store would (correctly, using logic!) book revenue at the time the CARD was sold, not at redemption. The store considers the CARD to be the item it sold, and the redemption is simply an exchange (trading the card for other merchandise). Logic dictates that it was the store's sale of the CARD which effected (with an "e") the cash receipt, and since lost/stolen/destroyed/forgotten cards are never redeemed, it was the CARD which the store tendered to receive cash and earn revenue. The redemption is simply an exchange made in the interest of customer convenience. This treatment is logical since the store's marketing efforts, cash collection activity, etc. resulted in a "sale" at the time the card was bought.

Under the latter, however, the card is a modern vehicle for classical unearned revenue, with the wrinkle that customers can forfeit ownership of the claim by losing/forgetting the card. This treatment says that stores don't sell CARDS, they sell only merchandise. (I personally find that something of a stretch -- and patently unfair -- if the card can expire and the holder loses the right of redemption!)

That is why I say the problems arise because of lack of clarity in the contract between the store and the cardholder.

And of course, this whole discussion overlooks the fact that lawmakers can, at their whim and fancy, craft specious laws targeting stuff like this, and dictate that it be treated any way they want.

David Fordham 
PBGH Faculty Fellow 
James Madison University

January 19, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

PwC offers free guidance on Gift Card Sales and Escheat Liabilities at http://www.pwcglobal.com/gx/eng/about/ind/retail/0185_quick_briefs_1204.pdf  

Note the special problem that installment expiration creates, i.e., expiration of a portion of the gift card value between the time that it is purchased and the time it is redeemed. A huge complaint among consumers arises when, as is often the case, the original value of the gift card deteriorates over time to the benefit of the retailer. There is some new legislation restricting this.

I might note that prepaid airline tickets create a somewhat similar accounting problem. Airlines get prepayment cash now and have a deferred revenue liability. Prepaid airline tickets are now being marketed heavily by the airlines.

Frequent flier miles are also a problem. Technically the purchase price of a ticket you buy for a flight today is a bundle of the value of the service today plus a small portion equal to the value of a future service when combined with your other frequent flier points. The value of the latter is highly contingent on both how many frequent flier points you accumulate and when you use them. Most of them expire over a period of time (say two years) if you don’t use them.

There are two basic practices of accounting for frequent flier awards. First the marginal (incremental) cost must be calculated in a complex way that adjusts for expected usage (say that there is a 65% chance of the award being used) and other factors (use on a trip from Atlanta to London entails food cost where as on a trip from Atlanta to Chicago only a beverage cost is involved). No incremental cost is factored in for fuel and other “fixed” costs relative to flying a full versus empty seat. Airlines do generally do not allow redemption of frequent flier awards on anything other than expected empty seats (usually 7% or less on each flight). There also is the problem that airlines can modify their awards programs after awards have been issued.

Given the complexity of the expense calculation, airlines tend to use either a “deduct-now” plan or a “deduct-when-redeemed” plan. Only the deduct-now plan recognizes a future liability. For example, I think United Airlines records the full ticket price as current revenue and then deducts the estimated future expense (with the credit being to an award redemption liability). Other airlines record the full price of the ticket as current revenue and then delay the expense recognition until the guy eats his chicken on the way to London or drinks his orange juice on the way to Chicago. The latter approach does not require award expense estimation.

Bob Jensen

January 19, 2005 reply from Barbara Scofield [scofield@GSM.UDALLAS.EDU

A good analogy to the gift cards as an product in and of themselves is the sale by airlines of frequent flier points to customers either directly or to hotels, etc., who then give the points to the hotel's customers. Airlines can't book a sale at the time that they are paid by the customer / hotel for the points, but must accrue a frequent flier liability because they owe a service to the final recipients of those frequent flier points. See the Significant Accounting Policies of Southwest Airlines annual report for 2001. Frequent flier points in themselves have no value. Their value derives from the ability to use them to actually fly. Most airlines made the accounting method change at the same time (January 1, 2000) in response to SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin on Revenue Recognition, now SAB 104.

Barbara W. Scofield, PhD, CPA 
Associate Professor of Accounting 
University of Dallas 
1845 E. Northgate Irving, TX
75062
scofield@gsm.udallas.edu
 

 


"Goodbye, good times?" The Economist, January 21, 2005 --- http://economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3594971 

Most American companies have enjoyed several years of bumper profits. But, as the results season gets under way, some big firms are reporting that times are getting tougher. Are many more set to follow?

BY MOST measures American companies should have it easy. The country’s economy is growing at a healthy pace—around 4% a year—and consumer spending is holding up. Although the Federal Reserve has pushed up interest rates and is set to increase them further, borrowing is still cheap. And a weak dollar makes America’s exports all the more alluring to buyers abroad, who currently account for almost a quarter of American firms’ profits. No wonder, then, that American companies' profits as a share of GDP are close to an all-time record, or that the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovers around 10,500, over 40% higher than where it stood in late 2002.

As the reporting season gets under way, the news from many American companies is rosy. Bigger profits here, analysts’ expectations exceeded there. But for some firms business is less bright. These include eBay, which saw profits rise by 44% in the latest quarter compared with a year ago while failing to live up to expectations. Its shares plunged by 18%. Qualcomm, a mobile-phone technology firm, said that it would miss Wall Street’s forecasts, and Motorola’s shares fell by 7% after the mobile-phone manufacturer also admitted to performing less well than expected. Continental and Delta, two airlines, reported big losses in the fourth quarter. And General Motors said that profits in the same quarter had fallen by 37% compared with a year ago.

These results perhaps point to a wider truth: the days of vast and ever-growing profits may be coming to an end for the time being. In fact, according to figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, overall profits for all businesses decreased by $55.9 billion in the third quarter, a 4.8% drop compared with the previous quarter. For non-financial firms things look better: profits have soared since 2001 and are still growing. But that growth began to slow in the second half of last year (see chart).

The specific travails of individual companies offer only a partial explanation for the slew of disappointing earnings news in recent days. More generally, the high oil price has hit profits and may also contribute to slowing economic growth and hence further depress earnings. Other corporate costs have also escalated. For example, America’s car companies have had to endure big rises in steel prices.

However, another factor lies behind the slowing growth of profits: productivity growth. Between 1995 and 2000 output per man hour grew by around 2.5% a year; between 2001 and 2003 it jumped to 4.2%. The cause of this sudden burst lies in the reaction of firms in the aftermath of the bursting of the technology bubble and subsequent recession. As the recession hit, firms shed labour. As the economy recovered, slimmed-down companies squeezed more out of workers who responded favourably while labour markets remained slack, boosting productivity. As a result, hiring stagnated, unit labour costs fell and profits rose, resulting in America’s much-discussed “jobless recovery”.

The bumper growth in productivity was fuelled by another, related factor. As Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman, remarked last year, the boom in technology spending during the bubble created a “backlog of unexploited capabilities”. It is generally accepted that a period of reorganisation is required to exploit fully the benefits of new technology. The round of corporate cutbacks in the recession afforded just such an opportunity for workers to make the most of new technology.

The problem that faces America’s companies is that productivity growth of 4% is unsustainable. The measure slumped to 1.8% at an annualised rate in the third quarter of 2004 and could continue in the doldrums for a time to come. Optimistic estimates suggest that productivity growth could bounce back at the end of 2005, but only to the trend level of around 2.5% that America saw in the years preceding the recession rather than the rampant rate of growth underlying the profits bonanza since 2001.

Though companies and their shareholders may find little cause for celebration, the immediate prospects for America’s workers are a little brighter. Some argue that America’s corporations have accrued more than their fair share of the fruits of a growing economy, by extracting extra productivity from their employees over the past three years, and that a period of rebalance between profits and wages (and jobs) is due. There is some evidence that this is happening. Hiring is a little better: 157,000 non-farm employees were added to payrolls in December. And in some cases non-wage compensation, such as health-care benefits, is rising. A dark cloud may be forming over America’s corporations, but it has a silver lining.



What happened to Maxine's "Hel-LLLOoo"?

"Survey Reveals Most Annoying Workplace Buzzwords," SmartPros, January 18, 2005 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x46539.xml 

Executives were asked, "What is the most annoying or overused phrase or buzzword in the workplace today?" Their responses included:

"At the end of the day"
"Solution"
"Thinking outside the box"
"Synergy"
"Paradigm"
"Metrics"
"Take it offline"
"Redeployed people"
"On the runway"
"Win-win"
"Value-added"
"Get on the same page"
"Customer centric"
"Generation X"
"Accountability management"
"Core competency"
"Alignment"
"Incremental"




I make no claims about the accuracy of these home remedies.  Always see a doctor for things you think might be serious.

The list below is not intended to be humor.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: R D Haar [mailto:rdhaar@gvtc.com]
Sent:
Tuesday, January 04, 2005 9:30 AM
 

Did You Know That?

 

1. Drinking two glasses of Gatorade can relieve headache pain almost immediately -- without the unpleasant side effects caused by traditional pain relievers." (not migranes)

 

2. Did you know that Colgate toothpaste makes an excellent salve for burns?

 

3. Before you head to the drugstore for a high-priced inhaler filled with mysterious chemicals, try chewing on a couple of curiously strong Altoids peppermints.  They'll clear up your stuffed nose.

 

4. Achy muscles from a bout of the flu?  Mix 1 Tablespoon of horseradish in cup of olive oil.  Let the mixture sit for 30 minutes, then apply it as a massage oil, for instant relief for aching muscles.

 

5. Sore Throat?  Just mix 1/4 cup of vinegar with 1/4 cup of honey and take 1 tablespoon six times a day.  The vinegar kills the bacteria. (but not strep).  Purportedly most over-the-counter medicines are useless wastes of money.

 

6. Cure urinary tract infections with Alka-Seltzer.  Just dissolve two tablets in a glass of water and drink it at the onset of the symptoms.  Alka-Seltzer begins eliminating urinary tract infections almost instantly -- even though the product was never been advertised for this use

 

7. Eliminate puffiness under your eyes..... All you need is a dab of preparation H, carefully rubbed into the skin, avoiding the eyes.  The hemorrhoid ointment acts as a vasoconstrictor, relieving the swelling instantly.

 

8. Honey remedy for skin blemishes... Cover the blemish with a dab of honey and place a band-aid over it.  Honey kills the bacteria, keeps the skin, sterile, and speeds healing.  Works overnight.

 

9. Listerine therapy for toenail fungus... Get rid of unsightly toenail fungus by soaking your toes in Listerine mouthwash.  The powerful antiseptic leaves your toenails looking healthy again.

 

10. Easy eyeglass protection... To prevent the screws in >eyeglasses from loosening, apply a small drop of Maybelline Crystal Clear nail polish to the threads of the screws before tightening them.

 

11. Coca-Cola cure for rust... Forget those expensive rust removers.  Just saturate an abrasive sponge with Coca Cola and scrub the rust stain.  The phosphoric acid in the coke is what gets the job done.  
(According to Bruce Lubich [blubich@UMUC.EDU] , Coke will also remove stickers from glass by desolving the glue.)

 

12. . Cleaning liquid that doubles as bug killer... If menacing bees, wasps, hornets, or yellow jackets get in your home and you can't find the insecticide, try a spray of Formula 409.  Insects drop to the ground instantly.

 

13. Smart splinter remover... just pour a drop of Elmers Glue all over the splinter, let dry, and peel the dried glue off the skin.  The splinter sticks to the dried glue.

 

14. Hunt's tomato paste boil cure... cover the boil with Hunt's tomato paste as a compress The acids from the tomatoes soothe the pain and bring the boil to a head.

 

15. Balm for broken blisters... To disinfect a broken blister, dab on a few drops of Listerine... a powerful antiseptic.

 

16. Heinz vinegar to heal bruises... Soak a cotton ball in white vineg ar and apply it to the bruise for 1 hour.  The vinegar reduces the blueness and speeds up the healing process.

 

17. Kills fleas instantly.  Dawn dish washing liquid does the trick.  Add a few drops to your dog's bath and shampoo the animal thoroughly.. Rinse well to avoid skin irritations.  Goodbye fleas.

 

18. Rainy day cure for dog odor... Next time your dog comes in from the rain simply wipe down the animal with Bounce or any dryer sheet, instantly making your dog smell springtime fresh.

 

19. Eliminate ear mites... All it takes is a few drops of Wesson corn oil in your cat's ear.  Massage it in, then clean with a cotton ball.  Repeat daily for 3 days.  The oil soothes the cat's skin, smothers the mites, and accelerates healing.

 

20. Vaseline cure for hair balls....... To prevent troublesome hair balls, apply a dollop of Vaseline petroleum jelly to your cat's nose.  The cat will lick off the jelly, lubricating any hair in its stomach so it can pass easily through the digestive system.  

David Fordham questioned whether Vaseline was safe for hair ball removal based on an assumption that petroleum products are not healthy to ingest.  I took the trouble to read the label on a Vaseline jar and found that it recommends Vaseline for human lips.  Seems like there would have been millions in lawsuits if ingestion of Vaseline in small amounts was a hazard.

January 14, 2004 reply from Vadim Ponomarenko [vadim@trinity.edu

Robert Chesebrough, the inventor/discoverer of Vaseline, used to eat a spoonful of it every day. He lived to 96, and used to joke that this habit helped him slip from death's grip.

 

21. Quaker Oats for fast pain relief.... It's not for breakfast anymore!  Mix 2 cups of Quaker Oats and 1 cup of water in a bowl and warm in the microwave for 1 minute, cool slightly, and apply the mixture to your hands for soothing relief from arthritis pain.  

Question
Do you know why the color ties on bread wrappers have different daily colors?

Answer
You’ll eventually scroll down to the answer.

 

More from Betty Carper

THINGS TO KNOW

1. Budweiser beer conditions the hair

2. Pam cooking spray will dry finger nail polish

3. Cool whip will condition your hair in 15 minutes

4. Mayonnaise will KILL LICE, it will also condition your hair

5. Elmer's Glue - paint on your face, allow it to dry, peel off and see the dead skin and blackheads

6. Shiny Hair - use brewed Lipton Tea

7. Sunburn - empty a large jar of Nestea into your bath water

8. Minor burn - Colgate or Crest toothpaste

9. Burn your tongue? Put sugar On it!

10. Arthritis? WD-40 Spray and rub in, kill insect stings too

11. Bee stings - meat tenderizer

12. Chigger bite - Preparation H

13. Puffy eyes - Preparation H

14. Paper cut - crazy glue or chap stick (glue is used instead of sutures at most hospitals)

15. Stinky feet - Jell-O!

16. Athletes feet - cornstarch

17. Fungus on toenails or fingernails - Vicks vapor rub

18. Kool aid To clean dishwasher pipes. Just put in the detergent section and run a cycle, it will also clean a toilet. (Wow, and we drink this stuff)

19. Kool Aid can be used as a dye in paint also Kool Aid in Dannon Plain yogurt as a finger paint, your kids will love it and it won't hurt them if they eat it!

20. Peanut butter - will get scratches out of CD's! Wipe off with a coffee filter paper

21. Sticking bicycle chain - Pam no-stick cooking spray

22. Pam Will also remove paint, and grease from your hands! Keep a can in your garage for your hubby

23. Peanut butter will remove ink from the face of dolls

24. When the doll clothes are hard to put on, sprinkle with corn starch and watch them slide on

25. Heavy dandruff - pour on the vinegar!

26. Body paint - Crisco Mixed with food coloring. Heat the Crisco in the microwave, pour in to an empty film container and mix with the food color of your choice!

27. Tie Dye T-shirt - mix a solution of Kool Aid in a container, tie a rubber band around a section of the T-shirt and soak

28. Preserving a newspaper clipping - large bottle of club soda and cup of milk of magnesia, Soak for 20 min. and let dry, will last for many years!

29. A Slinky Will hold toast and CD's!

30. To keep goggles and glasses from fogging, coat with Colgate toothpaste

31. Wine stains, pour on the Morton salt And watch it absorb into the salt.

32. To remove wax - Take a paper towel and iron it over the wax stain, it will absorb into the towel.

33. Remove labels off glassware etc. rub with Peanut butter!

34. Baked on food - fill container with water, get a Bounce paper softener and the static from the Bounce Towel will cause the baked on food to adhere to it. Soak overnight. Also; you can use 2 Efferdent tablets, Soak overnight!

35. Crayon on the wall - Colgate Toothpaste and brush it!

36. Dirty grout - Listerine

37. Stains on clothes - Colgate

38. Grass stains - Karo Syrup

39. Grease Stains - Coca Cola, It will also remove grease stains from the driveway overnight. We know it will take corrosion from car batteries!

40. Fleas in your carpet? 20 Mule Team Borax- Sprinkle and let stand for 24 hours. Maybe this will work if you get them back again.

41. To keep FRESH FLOWERS longer Add a little Clorox, or 2 Bayer aspirin, Or just use 7-up instead of water.

42. When you go to buy bread in the grocery store, have you ever wondered which is the freshest, so you "squeeze" for freshness or softness? Did you know that bread is delivered fresh to the stores five days a week? Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Each day has a different color twist tie. They are: Monday = Blue, Tuesday = Green, Thursday = Red Friday = White and Saturday = Yellow. So if today was Thursday, you would want red twist tie; not white which is Fridays (almost a week old)! The colors go alphabetically by color Blue- Green - Red - White - Yellow, Monday through Saturday. Very easy to remember. I thought this was interesting. I looked in the grocery store and the bread wrappers DO have different twist ties, and even the ones with the plastic clips have different colors. You learn something new everyday! Enjoy fresh bread when you buy bread with the right color on the day you are shopping.

January 17, 2004 message from Chris Hendrix

One last aside, pertaining to the different color of twist ties on bread wrappers, which I had to look up once I read the listserv email about it. There are a few sites (i.e. http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/f/freshbread.htm  , http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/bread.html ) that say that there is indeed a color code, but that it varies from store to store and company to company, so one color code cannot be taken as an absolute. Just thought that was worth noting so that you don't just use that system and have it backfire and end up with old bread. I'm definitely gonna have to check and see if someone can tell me the color code for my bread at HEB next time I go though.

~Chris


More things to know, including what to do with leftover wine!

Forwarded by Dick Haar

Martha's Way:  Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips.
Maxine's Way
:  Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for Pete's sake! You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it, anyway!

Martha's Way
:   To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.
Maxine's Way
:  Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix and keep it in the pantry for up to a year.

Martha's Way
:   When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake
Maxine's Way
:  Go to the bakery! They'll even decorate it for you.

Martha's Way
:   If you accidentally oversalt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant "fix-me-up."
Maxine's Way
:  If you oversalt a dish while you are cooking, that's too bad. Please recite with me the real woman's motto: "I made it and you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes!"

Martha's Way
:  Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks.
Maxine's Way
:
 Celery? Never heard of it!

Martha's Way
:  Brush some beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish.
Maxine's Way
:
 The Mrs. Smith frozen pie directions do not include brushing egg whites over the crust so I don't.

Martha's Way
:  Cure for headaches: take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.
Maxine's Way
:
 Take a lime, mix it with tequila, chill and drink!

Martha's Way
:  If you have a problem opening jars, try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy.
Maxine's Way
:
 Go ask that very cute neighbor if he can open it for you.

And Bob Jensen's favorite is:
Martha's Way
:  Don't throw out all that leftover wine. Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
Maxine's Way
:
 Leftover wine??!!???? Hel-LLLOoo !!!!!.  

You can learn more about Martha Stewart at http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/marthastewart/ 

You can learn more about Maxine at http://pressroom.hallmark.com/Maxine_facts.html


Thai Elephants Get Pottie Training --- http://headline.news.designerz.com/thai-elephants-get-potty-training-report.html 
(Includes a picture of an elephant seated on a commode.)


Forwarded by Betty Carper

Philosophy of Life

1. My husband and I divorced over religious differences... He thought I wasn't God.

2. I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.

3. I Work Hard Because Millions On Welfare Depend on Me!

4. Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.

5. I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

6. Don't take life too seriously; No one gets out alive.

7. You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me. (What, she did?)

8. Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

9. Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.

10. I'm not a complete idiot --Some parts are missing.

11. Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.

12. NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning medicine.

13. God must love stupid people; He made so many.

14. The gene pool could use a little chlorine. (I love this one!)

15. Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.

16. Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

17. Being "over the hill" is much better than being under it!

18. Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew up.

19. Procrastinate Now!

20. I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts; Do You Want Fries With That?

21. A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

22. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance

23. Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere!

24. They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.

25. He who dies with the most toys is still dead.

26. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it uses up three thousand times the memory.

27. Ham and eggs. A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.

28. The trouble with life is there's no background music.

29. The original point and click interface was a Smith and Wesson.

30. I smile because I don't know what the hell is going on.


Forwarded by Dick Haar

THE LITTLE HOUSE BEHIND THE HOUSE 
One of my bygone recollections, As I recall the days of yore. Is the little house, behind the house, With the crescent over the door.

'Twas a place to sit and ponder With your head bowed down low; Knowing that you wouldn't be there, If you didn't have to go.

Ours was a three-holer, With a size for every one. You left there feeling better, After your usual job was done.

You had to make these frequent trips, Whether snow, rain, sleet, or fog, To the little house where you usually Found the Sears-Roebuck catalog.

Oft times in dead of winter, The seat was covered with snow. 'Twas then with much reluctance, To the little house you'd go.

With a swish you'd clear the seat, Bend low, with dreadful fear. You'd blink your eyes and grit your teeth As you settled on your rear.

I recall the day Granddad, Who stayed with us one summer, Made a trip to the shanty Which proved to be a hummer.

'Twas the same day my Dad Finished painting the kitchen green. He'd just cleaned up the mess he's made With rags and gasoline.

He tossed the rags in the shanty hole And went on his usual way, Not knowing that by doing so, He would eventually rue the day. Now Granddad had an urgent call, I never will forget! This trip he made to the little house Lingers in my memory yet.

He sat down on the shanty seat, With both feet on the floor. Then filled his pipe with tobacco And struck a match on the outhouse door.

After the Tobacco began to glow, He slowly raised his rear: Tossed flaming match in the open hole, With not a sign of fear.

The Blast that followed, I am sure, Was heard for miles around; And left poor grandpa Just sitting on the ground.

The smoldering pipe was still in his mouth, His suspenders he held tight; The celebrated three-holer Was blown clear out of sight.

When we asked him what had happened, His answer I'll never forget. He thought it must be something That he had recently et!

Next day we had a new one, Which my Dad built with ease. With a sign on the entrance door Which read: No Smoking, Please!

Now that's the end of the story, With memories of long ago, Of the little house behind the house Where we went when we had to go!


Inside every older lady is a younger lady -- wondering what the hell happened. -Cora Harvey Armstrong-

Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut her up with cookies.

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy. Helen Hayes (at 73)-

I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows. -Janette Barber-

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse. -Lily Tomlin-

A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car. -Carrie Snow-

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and y ou cry with your girlfriends. -Laurie Kuslansky-

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being, hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. -Erma Bombeck-

Old age ain't no place for sissies. -Bette Davis-

A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't. -Rhonda Hansome-

The phrase "working mother" is redundant. -Jane Sellman-

Every time I close the door on reality, it comes in through the windows. -Jennifer Unlimited-

Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. -Charlotte Whitton-

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart. -Caryn Leschen-

I try! to take one day at a time -- but sometimes several days attack me at once. -Jennifer Unlimited-

If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning. -Catherine-

When I was young, I was put in a school for retarded kids for two years before they realized I actually had a hearing loss. And they called ME slow! -Kathy Buckley-

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb -- and I'm also not blonde. -Dolly Parton-

If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them. -Sue Grafton-

I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on. -Roseanne Barr-

When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.. -Elayne Boosler-

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman. -Maryon Pearson-

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman. -Margaret Thatcher-

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career. -Gloria Steinem-

I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house. -Zsa Zsa Gabor-

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. -Eleanor Roosevelt-


Forwarded by Dick Haar

PREGNANCY Q & A & more!

Q: Should I have a baby after 35? A: No, 35 children is enough.

Q: I'm two months pregnant now. When will my baby move? A: With any luck, right after he finishes college.

Q: What is the most reliable method to determine a baby's sex? A: Childbirth.

Q: My wife is five months pregnant and so moody that sometimes she's borderline irrational. A: So what's your question?

Q: My childbirth instructor says it's not pain I'll feel during labor, but pressure. Is she right? A: Yes, in the same way that a tornado might be called an air current.

Q: When is the best time to get an epidural? A: Right after you find out you're pregnant.

Q: Is there any reason I have to be in the delivery room while my wife is in labor? A: Not unless the word "alimony" means anything to you.

Q: Is there anything I should avoid while recovering from childbirth? A: Yes, pregnancy.

Q: Do I have to have a baby shower? A: Not if you change the baby's diaper very quickly.

Q: Our baby was born last week. When will my wife begin to feel and act normal again? A: When the kids are in college.

TOP TEN THINGS ONLY WOMEN UNDERSTAND 
10. Cats' facial expressions. 
9. The need for the same style of shoes in different colors. 
8. Why bean sprouts aren't just weeds. 
7. Fat clothes. 
6. Taking a car trip without trying to beat your best time. 
5. The difference between beige, ecru, cream, off-white, and eggshell. 
4. Cutting your hair to make it grow. 
3. Eyelash curlers. 
2. The inaccuracy of every bathroom scale ever made.

AND, the Number One thing only women understand:

1. OTHER WOMEN


Forwarded by Paula

SAPE Entrance examination

The Southern Association of Professional Engineers are sick and tired of hearing about how dumb people are in the South. We challenge any so-called smart Yankees to take this exam administered by the SAPE.

1. Calculate the smallest limb diameter on a persimmon tree that will support a 10-pound possum.

2. Which of these cars will rust out the quickest when placed on blocks in our front yard? a '65 Ford Fairlane, '69 Chevy. Chevelle, or a '64 Pontiac GTO?

3. If your uncle builds a still which operates at capacity of 20 gallons of shine produced per hour, how many car radiators are required to condense the product?

4. A woodcutter has a chainsaw which operates at 2700 RPM. The density of the pine trees in the plot to be harvested is 470 per acre. The plot is 2.3 acres in size. The average tree diameter is 14 inches. How many Budweisers will be consumed before the trees are cut down?

5. If every old refrigerator in the South vented a charge of R-12 simultaneously, what would be the percentage decrease in the ozone layer?

6. A front porch is constructed of 2x8 pine on 24 inch centers with a field rock foundation. The span is 8 feet and the porch length is 16 feet. The porch floor is 1 inch rough sawn pine. When the porch collapses, how many hound dogs will be killed?

7. A man owns a house and 3. 7 acres of land in a hollow with an average slope of 15%. The man has five children. Can each of his grown children place a mobile home on the man's land and still have enough property for their electric appliances to sit out front?

8. A 2-ton truck is overloaded and proceeding 900 yards down a steep slope on a secondary road at 45mph. The brakes fail. Given average traffic conditions on secondary roads what is the probability that it will strike a vehicle with a muffler?

9. A coal mine operated a NFPA Class I, Division 2 Hazardous Area. The mine employs 200 miners per shift. A gas warning is issued at the beginning of the 3rd shift. How many cartons of unfiltered Camels will be smoked during the 3rd shift?

10. At a reduction in the gene pool variability rate of 7.5% per generation, how long will it take a town which has been bypassed by the Interstate to breed a country-western singer?


It is a picture of the demise of a suicide jumper taken shortly after he landed. It shows him with his insides now on the outside. You will see the look of horror on the faces of the bystanders. The faces of the bystanders is why I believe this is real.

http://home.att.net/~songs2/Jumper.jpg 


Bob Overn sent this oldie but goodie.

A minister was completing a temperance sermon.

With great emphasis he said, "If I had all the beer in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river."

With even greater emphasis he said, "And if I had all the wine in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river."

And then finally, shaking his fist in the air, he said, "And if I had all the whiskey in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river."

Sermon complete, he sat down.

The song leader stood very cautiously and announced with a smile, nearly laughing, "For our closing hymn, let us sing

Hymn #365 - "Shall We Gather at the River."

 


A Real Tennessee Titan:  A True Story, No Joke!

January 25, 2005 message from OpinionJournal [OpinionJournal@wsj.com

Ford Family Values 
John Ford, who lives in Memphis, Tenn., has, shall we say, an interesting personal life. The Memphis Commercial Appeal describes his testimony at a recent Juvenile Court hearing:

*** QUOTE ***

Some days, Ford said, he lives with ex-wife Tamara Mitchell-Ford and the three children they had together. On others, he stays with his longtime girlfriend, Connie Mathews, and their two children.

This, despite a raucous 2002 divorce that led to Mitchell-Ford's jailing after she plowed her Jaguar through the French doors of Mathews's Collierville home.

Ford said he pays nearly all bills for both families. They stay in houses he owns and where he also lives.

*** END QUOTE ***

Wait, it gets better. The reason Ford was in court was that he is "battling a suit by a third woman, Dana Smith, who is trying to increase his court-ordered support of a 10-year-old girl he fathered." In his defense, Ford cites a state law "that keeps court-ordered support lower when a father is financially responsible for other children."

But here's the kicker: Ford wrote the law whose protection he now seeks. He is a member of the Tennessee Senate http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/senate/members/s29.htm  and chairman of its Child Welfare Committee.

 


Forwarded by Paula

I am sending this only to those whose level of maturity qualifies them to relate to it:

1974: Long hair 2004: Longing for hair

1974: KEG 2004: EKG

1974: Acid rock 2004: Acid reflux

1974: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor 2004: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor

1974: Seeds and stems 2004: Roughage

1974: Hoping for a BMW 2004: Hoping for a BM

1974: Going to a new, hip joint 2004: Receiving a new hip joint

1974: Rolling Stones 2004: Kidney Stones

1974: Screw the system 2004: Upgrade the system

1974: Disco 2004: Costco

1974: Passing the drivers' test 2004: Passing the vision test

1974: Whatever 2004: Depends

Just in case you weren't feeling too old today, this will certainly change things. Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to try to give the faculty a sense of the mindset of this year's incoming freshmen. Here's this year's list:

The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1986. They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.

Their lifetime has always included AIDS.

Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.

The CD was introduced the year they were born.

They have always had an answering machine.

They have always had cable.

They cannot fathom not having a remote control.

Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.

Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.

They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.

They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are.

They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.

They never heard: "Where's the Beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel", or "de plane, Boss, de plane".

They do not care who shot J. R. and have no idea who J. R. even is.

McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.

They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.

Do you feel old yet? Pass this on to the other old fogies on your list. Notice the larger type, that's for those of you who have trouble reading.


Forwarded by Paula

A new wine for old folks:

California vintners in the Napa Valley area, which primarily produces Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio wines, have developed a new hybrid grape that acts as an anti-diuretic. It is expected to reduce the number of trips older people have to make to the bathroom during the night.

The new wine will be marketed as Pino More.


Forwarded by Barbara Hessel

Top Country Songs of 2004

15. If I Can't Be Number One In Your Life, Then Number Two On You

14. If The Phone Don't Ring, You'll Know It's Me

13. How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?

12. I Liked You Better Before I Got to Know You So Well

11. I Still Miss You Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better

10. I Wouldn't Take Her To A Dog Fight 'Cause I'm Afraid She'd Win

09. I'll Marry You Tomorrow, But Let's Honeymoon Tonight

08. I'm So Miserable Without You It's Like You're still Here

07. If I Had Shot You When I First Wanted To, I'd Be Out Of Prison By Now

06. My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend And I Sure Do Miss Him

05. She Got The Ring And I Got The Finger

04. You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly

3. Her Teeth Was Stained But Her Heart Was Pure

02. She's Looking Better After Every Beer

And, the Number one Favorite Country Song of 2004 Is:

01. I Ain't Never Gone To Bed with Ugly Women, but I've Sure Woke up with A Few


Forwarded by Paula

WOMAN'S PERFECT BREAKFAST


She's sitting at the table with her gourmet coffee.
Her son is on the cover of the Wheaties box.
Her daughter is on the cover of Business Week.
Her boyfriend is on the cover of Playgirl.
And her husband is on the back of the milk carton.

WOMEN'S REVENGE

"Cash, check or charge?" I asked, after folding items the
woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet
I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse.
"So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked.
"No," she replied, "
but my husband refused to come shopping with me,
so I figured this was the most legal evil thing I could do to him."


UNDERSTANDING WOMEN
(A MAN'S PERSPECTIVE)

I know I'm not going to understand women.
I'll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax,
pour it onto your upper thigh,
rip the hair out by the root,
and still be afraid of a spider.

WIFE VS. HUSBAND

A couple drove down a country road for several miles,
not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an
argument and neither of them wanted to concede their
position. As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats,
and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically,
"Relatives of yours?"
"Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws."

 

WORDS
A husband read an article to his wife about how many
words women use a day... 30,000 to a man's 15,000.
The wife replied, "The reason has to be because we
have to repeat everything to men...
The husband then turned to his wife and asked, "What?"

CREATION

A man said to his wife one day, "I don't know how you
can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time.
" The wife responded, "Allow me to explain. God made
me beautiful so you would be attracted to me;
God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you!

WHO DOES WHAT

A man and his wife were having an argument about who
should brew the coffee each morning.
The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up
first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee."
The husband said, " You are in charge of cooking
around here and you should do it, because that is your
job, and I can just wait for my coffee."
Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides, it
is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."
Husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me."
So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New
Testament and showed him at the top of several pages,
that it indeed says..........
"HEBREWS"


Jib Jab with George Bush --- Click here: Yahoo Presents JibJab - Second Term


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no internet or internet chat rooms...........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little league had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.


Moonlight Serenade --- http://www.singingman.us 

Singing Man's Humor Page --- http://www.singingman.us/Humorous.html 

Singing Man's Nostalgia --- http://www.singingman.us/MusicAndNostalgia.html 


Forwarded by Dick Haar

God saw you hungry and created Mac Donald's, Wendy's, Burger King, and Taco Bell.

God saw you thirsty and created Coke, juice and Wine,

God saw you in the dark and created LIGHT!

God saw you without an adorable irresistible FRIEND so he created ME!

You lucky Devil.


In some years, the Johnnie Carson Show accounted for over 20% of all NBC profits. Across thirty years he was watched by more people than any other television star.

We're more effective than birth control pills. (I assume this refers to Johnnie, Ed, and Doc and the lateness of the Johnnie Carson Show.)

When turkeys mate they think of swans. (Ever wonder how he knew that?)

I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.

Anytime four New Yorkers get into a cab together without arguing, a bank robbery has just taken place.

New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time, most unsolved.

If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.

The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money.

Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas. 

Welcome to the Academy Awards, a glittering two hours of entertainment, spread out over four hours.  For those of you taping this on Betamax, you're under arrest. -- (at the 1979 Oscars®) 

Happiness is your dentist telling you it won't hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill. 

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.

If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam. 

Adults ask questions as a child does. When you stop wondering, you might as well put your rocker on the front porch and call it a day. 

For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.

He's so fat, he can be his own running mate. 

I know you've been married to the same woman for 69 years. That is marvelous. It must be very inexpensive. 

 



And I'm just horsing around --- 

http://www.bassfiles.net/PatchestheHorse.wmv  


An inspirational Irish Blessing (with music)--- http://www.jessiesweb.com/blessing.htm 


The author of the following poem is unknown

When my life has reached its very end, And I take that final breath; I want to know I've left behind, Some "good" before my death.

I hope that in my final hour, In all honesty I can say: That somewhere in my lifetime, I have brightened someone's day.

That maybe I have brought a smile To someone else's face, And made one moment a little sweeter While they dwelled here in this place.

Lord, please be my reminder And whisper softly in my ear ... To be a "giver," not a "taker," In the years I have left here.

Give to me the strength I need, Open up my mind and my soul That I might show sincere compassion, And love to others before I go.

For if not a heart be touched by me, And not a smile was left behind ... Then the life that I am blessed with, Will have been a waste of time.

With all my heart, I truly hope To leave something here on earth ... That touched another, made them smile And gave to my life some worth.




And that's the way it was on January 18, 2005 with a little help from my friends.

 

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 

Jesse's Wonderful Music for Romantics (You have to scroll down to the titles) --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/

Free Harvard Classics --- http://www.bartleby.com/hc/
Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

 

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/ 

 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting newsletters are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#News 

News Headlines for Accounting from TheCycles.com --- http://www.thecycles.com/business/accounting 
An unbelievable number of other news headlines categories in TheCycles.com are at http://www.thecycles.com/ 

 

Jack Anderson's Accounting Information Finder --- http://www.umsl.edu/~anderson/accsites.htm

 

Gerald Trite's great set of links --- http://www.zorba.ca/bookmark.htm 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

The Finance Professor --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/about/aboutFP.html 

 

Walt Mossberg's many answers to questions in technology --- http://ptech.wsj.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Household and Other Heloise-Style Hints --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#Hints 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

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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January 18, 2005 

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on January 18, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.  Think it over 
http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/Flash/Think_It_Over.swf
 

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Pictures from the war ---  http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf 




Universities conferred 1,038 business doctoral degrees in 2003 out of a total of 40,710 doctoral degrees awarded.  The highest number was 8,369 in life sciences.  In contrast, there were 6,777 conferred in the social sciences and 6,627 awarded in education.
See "Number of Doctorates Edges Up Slightly," by John Gravois, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 7, 2005, Page A24.
Jensen Comment:  
The above numbers reveal that business doctorates in 2003 were about 2.5% of the total number of doctorates awarded.  In comparison, business majors comprise more than 20% of the total number of undergraduate degrees awarded each year.  Business accounted for 21.1% in the year 2000 according to Table 4 at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003165.pdf   
Faculty opportunities are relatively high for business doctorates, especially accounting doctorates where less than 100 have been awarded each year since 1999 according to Page -2 (two pages behind Page 1) of the Accounting Faculty Directory 2002-2003, edited by James R. Hasselback.  Jim excludes the serious number of phony or marginal doctorates awarded by diploma mills, and I assume the Chronicle does the same in the above article.  Phony "life experience" doctoral degrees are probably a bit more of a problem in business education, but most accredited colleges and universities are pretty efficient in detecting phonies.  Business programs generally rely on a small number of cross-over doctorates such as legitimate JD degrees and economics PhD degrees.  

One way of detecting doctoral diploma mills is to search on a term like "Instant Doctorate" in Google and notice the many diploma mills listed on the right side of the screen who pay Google to list their sites.  There are many more phony business doctorates awarded each year than legitimate doctoral degrees, and the total number of all phony doctoral degrees may well exceed the legitimate number such as the 40,710 reported above.  Of course many people pay for a doctoral degree knowing full well that it is hopeless to apply for a faculty position in a legitimate college or university.

K-12 schools have the largest problem with phony education masters and doctoral degrees.  Often it is an existing teacher who is trying to “qualify” for a higher raise based upon a higher credential even if it is a phony credential.

Bob Jensen’s threads on diploma mills are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill



Quotes of the Week

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.
This is the "8th Habit" that Stephen R. Covey added to his best selling book entitled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  His new book is called The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness --- http://snipurl.com/EighthHabit

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
Alfred Adler

Reminiscent of the kids in the back of the car on your family's vacation, the persistent question about this technology (Learning Management Systems) seems to be, "Are we there yet?"
Ira Fuchs, "Learning Management Systems," Syllabus, July/August 2004 --- http://www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=9675 
(See below)

I wonder if this could also be said about the difference between reading something and writing something!
"When you're not in, it's hard to pay attention like you would be if you're in there. You can sort of pay attention, but unless you're in there evaluating the play calls, there's a lot of game management type stuff that comes into it. Ultimately, it's hard to simulate the game action and simulate being out there under fire. You can try as hard as you can, but it's not the same."

Patriot's Quarterback Tom Brady as quoted by Ron Borges, Were these Davey's 15 minutes of fame?" Boston Globe, January 3, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/articles/2005/01/03/were_these_daveys_15_minutes_of_fame/ 

What's good for teacher unions is not good for public school students. 
The unions are opposed to No Child Left Behind, for example, and indeed to all serious forms of school accountability, because they do not want teachers' jobs or pay to depend on their performance. They are opposed to school choice -- charter schools and vouchers -- because they don't want students or money to leave any of the schools where their members work. They are opposed to the systematic testing of veteran teachers for competence in their subjects, because they know that some portion would fail and lose their jobs. And so it goes. If the unions can't kill these threatening reforms outright, they work behind the scenes to make them as ineffective as possible -- resulting in accountability systems with no teeth, choice systems with little choice, and tests that anyone can pass.

Terry Moe, "No Teacher Left Behind," The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2004, Page A12 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110557289419624649,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep  

What's good for Congress is not always good for school students or teachers.
The Irascible Professor has railed against academic pork in the past, because these Congressional "earmarks" rob funds from legitimate, peer-reviewed grant programs. Pork-barrel appropriations that dole out highway projects and military bases to the districts of long-serving and well-connected members of Congress are nothing new. However, the rapid growth in pork-barrel projects for academia is a relatively recent phenomenon that started under Democratic control of the House and Senate. But, it has continued with a vengeance in the Republican-dominated Congresses of the past few years. Congressional pork now has reached the point where it has all but sunk the formerly well-respected Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) of the Department of Education.

Mark Shapiro, The Irracible Professor, January 11, 2005 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-01-11-05.htm 

During the American Revolution, George Washington used to call out for "beef, beef, beef," but the Continental Congress called out for "pork, pork, pork."
Author unknown, frequently quoted by Utah's Congressman Chris Cannon.

On the Decline
The Future Of The New York Times

Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. has his hands full: Weaker earnings. A changing media world. A scandal's aftermath. He also has an ambitious business plan ... the once-Olympian authority of the Times is being eroded not only by its own journalistic screw-ups -- from the Blair scandal to erroneous reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- but also by profound changes in communications technology and in the U.S. political climate. There are those who contend that the paper has been permanently diminished, along with the rest of what now is dismissively known in some circles as "MSM," mainstream media. "The Roman Empire that was mass media is breaking up, and we are entering an almost-feudal period where there will be many more centers of power and influence," says Orville Schell, dean of the University of California at Berkeley's journalism school. "It's a kind of disaggregation of the molecular structure of the media."

Business Week Cover Story, January 17, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/FutureOfNYT 
 

On the Rise
Twenty-seven percent of online adults in the United States said in November they read blogs, compared with 17 percent in a February survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Amocl Kesdamim. "Blog Creation, Readership Rise in 2004," Chicago Tribune, January 3, 2005 --- http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-blogs-survey,1,3924333.story?coll=sns-business-headlines 
Bob Jensen's threads on Weblogs and blogs are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 
Jensen Comment:  I think that we will see a steady increase in Weblog (blog) assignments in course content over the next decade relative to traditional print media.  

Writers who work for mainstream publications while operating personal weblogs face an inherent conflict of interest. Usually, the blogs suffer.
Adam L. Penenberg, "Heartaches of Journalist Bloggers," Wired News, January 13, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66251,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3 

A bookseller has become the first blogger in Britain to be sacked from his job because he kept an online diary in which he occasionally mentioned bad days at work and satirised his "sandal-wearing" boss . . . Published authors and some of the 5 million self-published bloggers around the globe said it was extraordinary that a company advertising itself as a bastion of freedom of speech had acted so swiftly to sack Mr Gordon, who mentions everything from the US elections to his home city of Edinburgh in the satirical blog he writes in his spare time.
Patrick Barkham, Guardian Unlimited, January 12, 2005 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs/story/0,14024,1388466,00.html 
Mr. Gordon's blog is at http://www.woolamaloo.org.uk/

A writer ought to be able to write simple sentences before he tries to be a poet. I want to see something traditional that a sculptor has done - something I can understand - before he gets a license to do this.  Picasso earned the right to do anything he wants. His work is art whether I think so or not.  Whoever did one particular painting suffers either from a functional disorder of the mind or he's putting us on.  What beneficial effect does this have on our brains that makes it worth putting in a public place?
Andy Rooney, "When Did This Become Art (with particular reference to modern sculpture in cities)," 60 Minutes (CBS Television) --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/20/60minutes/rooney/main662013.shtml 

In one of the rare surveys conducted about plagiarism, two University of Alabama asked 1,200 of their colleagues if they believed their work had been stolen.  A startling 40 percent answered yes.
Thomas Bartlett and Scott Smallwood, "Professor Copycat," The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 17, 2004, Page A8.
The number of articles in this particular issue of the Chronicle make it a must reference for anybody studying plagiarism by college faculty.
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 

The creative person, the person who moves from an irrational source of power, has to face the fact that this power antagonizes. Under all the superficial praise of the creative is the desire to kill. It is the old war between the mystic and the nonmystic, a war to the death..
May Sarton as quoted on January 3, 2004 in InformationWeek Daily [InfoWeek@update.informationweek.com

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Albert Einstein
As quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-01-07-05.htm 

In response to many professor requests, we are launching weekly quizzes, designed to quickly assess your students' understanding of The Wall Street Journal content. Available every Friday by 5pm ET starting today, these multiple-choice questions will cover material in that week's issues. For more information and a sample quiz, please visit http://ProfessorJournal.com
This appeared in a January 14, 2005 message form weeklyreview@wsj.com 

Parents who lost a son to cancer have built a website using their own funds to help other patients make sense of complicated treatment information.
Kristen Philipkoski, "Posting Straight Facts on Cancer," Wired News, January 3, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66130,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 

More female students than ever are earning Ph.D.'s, but they still have trouble winning tenure-track jobs at top research universities.  Read the transcript of a live discussion of the issues raised in this article.
"Women in Academe," The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 5, 2005

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers . . . Summers has called last year's results, when only four of 32 tenured job offers went to women, unacceptable and promised to work on the problem. However, some Harvard professors have questioned his commitment to the issue.
Marcella Bombardieri, "Summers' remarks on women draw fire," Boston Globe, January 17, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/17/summers_remarks_on_women_draw_fire/ 

November's election results, kicking the feminist left when it's down just doesn't seem very sporting -- particularly at a time when people who openly advocate female subordination as part of their creed have a disturbing amount of influence on the right. But that's all the more reason to be exasperated when feminism devolves into irrelevancy and silliness just when a sane pro-equality message is needed most.
Cathy Young, "Feminist excess revisited," Boston Globe, January 17, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/GlobeJan17 

Good News and Bad for Women's Careers 
Women across the board seem to be enjoying greater parity with men--except in "good-old-boy companies," where a woman's personal style and needs for work/family balance may clash with organizational expectations, values, and demands, according to Stanford Professor Charles O'Reilly
--- http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/ob_womencareers.shtml 

Los Angeles claims that Priceline.com, Expedia and Orbitz, among others, are buying rooms in bulk from hotels at deep discounts, marking up prices for consumers and then paying taxes on the cheaper rate, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The Los Angeles city hotel tax rate is 14 percent, which is charged to consumers, but the Internet companies are pocketing the difference, the lawsuit says.
"LA Sues Travel Websites for Underpaying Hotel Taxes," AccountingWeb, January 7, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100338 

Dentists are Filling More Than Teeth
Once the poor relations in the medical field, dentists have recently started making more money than many types of physicians, as they have avoided being flattened by the managed-care steamroller and found success marketing costly optional treatments.
Mark Maremont, "Tale of Two Docs: Why Dentists Are Earning More," The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110531516417121170,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 

An independent assessment of CBS's report on the president's military service is a major blow to the news operation's credibility.
Bill Carter, "Post-Mortem of a Flawed Broadcast," The New York Times, January 11, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/business/media/11network.html?oref=login 

Thom Calandra, a former columnist for CBS MarketWatch.com, will pay more than $540,000 to settle federal regulators' charges that he used an investment newsletter to pump up the price of penny stocks he owned before selling them.
Eric Dash, "Ex-Columnist Fined in Stock Trading Scheme," The New York Times, January 11, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/business/media/11tout.html 

No wild animals were found dead along the Sri Lankan coastline, adding credence to the belief that beasts have a sixth sense that warns them of impending disasters.
"How Did Animals Escape Tsunami?" Wired News, December 30, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66148,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6 

Gripes from demanding customers like Mr. Olander help explain why so many cool technologies -- from high-definition TV to home networking to interactive TV -- just aren't catching on yet. Besides shortcomings in existing products, battles over technical standards and fear of video piracy are slowing manufacturers' ability to deploy new stuff. Many potential customers, disappointed and confused, are walking out of stores empty-handed.
Sarah McBride, et al, "Why HDTV Hasn't Arrived In Many Homes," The Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2005, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110488131948416964,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

The dean of St Mary's Cathedral, Neil Brown, has criticised religious leaders who say the tsunami disaster is the will of God.  The comments came after the Anglican Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen, said disasters were part of God's warning that judgement was coming.
Lisa Pryor, "God's will comments horrible, says dean," Sydney News Herald, January 3, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/02/1104601246571.html 

The Upside Down World of SUVs
Tennessee had the largest percentage increase in SUVs from 1997 to 2002 — nearly 151% — according to a Census Bureau study of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Nationally, the number grew nearly 56% during that time period. The explosion in the number of SUVs is a contributing factor to a national trend of communities widening municipal parking spaces to accommodate larger vehicles.
"SUV ownership explodes," USA Today, January 3, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050103/a_suv_growthchart03.art.htm 

Crotch shot has blokes fuming at sexist ads.  A bureau statistician, Neale Apps, was at a loss to explain why Australian men had finally found their voice. "I can only think that they are no longer embarrassed about complaining," he said. Mr Apps noted that some ads attracted twice as many complaints from men as women.
Julian Lee, Sydney Morning Herald, January 3, 2004 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/02/1104601243209.html 
Also see similar criticisms of U.S. television and newspaper bias against men.
 The New York Times has been "breeding contempt for men" --- http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/roberts/03/roberts062103.htm 
A controversial book by Warren Farrell entitled Why Men Earn More uses government wage data to show that the " pay gap” has become an ideological myth.  His latest controversial book is called The Myth of Male Power --- http://snipurl.com/MythOfMalePower 

"Women are more confident about job security than men are, but women are less excited about work," Headlines, BizEd from the AACSB, January/February 2005, Page 8
See below for more about this study.

Universities and foundations saw their endowments post average returns of 14.7% last year, the best results in four years.
"Endowments Generate Best Returns in 4 Years<" by Ann Grimes, The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2004, Page C4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110496843557918152,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

The Education Department has become one of the toughest debt collectors around thanks to an expanding arsenal it wields against former students who don't repay. But its aggressiveness has sparked an outcry from borrowers, consumer-advocacy lawyers and even some bankruptcy-court judges.
"U.S. Gets Tough On Failure to Repay Student Loans." by John Hechinger, The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2004, Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110497406688418357,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

We used to be a lot smaller around the middle
The Truman administration wants Congress to set up a vast new banking system to provide ready money for a lot of new non-profit housing projects. It's aimed primarily at helping "middle income" families … with incomes between $2,400 and $4,400.

The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 1950 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106149222093777800,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing

The AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) is a powerful outfit. It has 35.5 million members ages 50 or older.
 Al Neuharth. "Use, abuse of power: Bush and the AARP ," USA Today, January 7, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050107/al07b.art.htm

IN SEPTEMBER 2004, a group of scientists from around the world announced that they had deciphered yet another genome. By and large, the world shrugged and ignored them. The organism in question was neither cuddly and furry, nor edible, nor dangerous, so no one cared. It was, in fact, the black cottonwood, a species of poplar tree, and its was the first arboreal genome to be unravelled. But perhaps the world should have paid attention, because unravelling a genome is a step towards tinkering with it. And that, in the end, could lead to genetically modified forests.
 "Down in the forest, something stirs," The Economist, January 6, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3535741

Their study found different parts of the brain were activated in men and women when they were shown words such as "obesity", "corpulence" and "heavy".
Lindsay Moss, "Words take on new meanings for the sexes ," Scotsman.com, January 5, 2005 ---
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=10272005 

Class Action Securities Fraud Lawsuits up in 2004
While the number of federal securities fraud class actions filed in 2004 increased only moderately from 2003 levels, rising to 212 companies sued from 181, the decline in stock market capitalization corresponding to these actions increased dramatically, according to a report released today by the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse in cooperation with Cornerstone Research.  The total decline in the market capitalization of the defendant firms from the trading day just before the end of the class period to the trading day immediately after the end of the class period, or the "Disclosure Dollar Loss (DDL)," nearly tripled from $58 billion in 2003 to $169 billion for cases filed in 2004. This 192 percent increase in the DDL index is attributable entirely to eight filings, in which each defendant firm experienced disclosure dollar losses in excess of $5 billion. In sharp contrast, there was only one filing with losses that large in all of 2003.

AccountingWeb, January 6, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100321 

Totally Beautiful Story
Click here: An Angel named Cheyenne <http://www.angel9oh7.com/unkangcheyenne.html
Forwarded by Tom Watson




Bob Jensen's Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 

Just because a charity Web site looks authentic does not mean it is authentic.  Also, don't fall for telephone solicitations.  These crooks have no conscience!
The FBI is investigating dozens of bogus Web sites that prey on potential tsunami donors by mimicking sites of well-known charities, FBI Special Agent Tom Grasso said Monday.  The fake sites, which have surfaced in recent days, range from crude to accurate replicas that use the charities' logos and photos.

Edward Iwata and Martin Kasindorf, USA Today, January 11, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050111/a_emailscam11.art.htm 
Bob Jensen's threads on charity frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudReporting.htm#CharityFrauds 


That some bankers have ended up in prison is not a matter of scandal, but what is outrageous is the fact that all the others are free.
Honoré de Balzac

This is Important

From PBS:  Things a Credit Card Holder Should Know (including online tests for students)

Secret History of the Credit Card --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/ 

You can watch the entire Frontline video from the link on the above site.

Should you get a Capital One credit card?

The point is that credit card companies don't care how rich you are or even your liquidity.  It's your payment practice on all your accounts payable that really counts.  Payment history is the main ingredient of a FICO score, but the actual FICO formula is very complex --- http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/fico.html

You're a grade C credit card user if you zero out all your accounts payable in less than 20 days.  Good guys don't get an A or a F grade as credit card customers.  Of course the credit card companies still get a percentage of your purchase prices from the vendors who sold you the goods.  Credit card companies always get something (usually around 6% of the price), but vendors can negotiate the rate they pay on their customers' purchases.  Credit card companies don't care as much for C grade customers because they are limited to the what the product vendors pay one time on each purchase.

You're a Grade B card user if you don't (or can't) pay off your entire monthly balances.  A Grade B customer always pays the minimum balance due on each credit card, but never in his lifetime pays off an entire balance due.   That way the credit card companies collect forever (actually only about 35 years if you don't add to your account) from you in addition to what the product vendor initially paid to them for your purchase.

You're a Grade A customer for Visa if you miss one payment on your Discover card but keep on making all minimum payments on your Visa.  That way Visa can jack up your interest rate from 8.9% to 29.9% APR for the rest of your life because your FICO score increased due to one missed payment on any one of your credit cards or other accounts.  The Frontline show has a segment on how one guy's perfect six-year perfect record of making minimum payments did not prevent his interest rate from jumping up by 20% when it was discovered by the FICO folks that he missed one payment on an account six years in the past.  This is funny (sad?) because this guy’s credit card company’s CEO phoned the guy after the Frontline TV show aired and lowered his rate back down to 8.9%.

It's the indexing of your changing interest rates to your increased FICO score that's the biggest "secret" credit card companies don't want consumers to understand.  The Frontline show ("Secret History of the Credit Card") stresses that most consumers don't even know what a FICO score is let alone how it affects their future interest rates on all their credit card unpaid balances.  See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/eight/

The main page for downloading details and the free video of the entire Frontline PBS show is at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/ 

How can you beat this scam?
Never pay less than the minimum amount due, control your credit addiction, and try to zero out every credit card balance in less than 20 days or whatever the payment cycle is on your card.  If this fails I would not necessarily advise getting a Capital One card.

Capital One now advertises that the bank has changed its ways and doesn’t change credit card  rates in the same way that other credit card companies are bilking the public ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8200-2005Jan13.html
I would still advise reading the small print even if it’s a Capital One card.

The Minnesota state attorney general’s office has sued one of the nation's largest credit card issuers (Capital One), claiming it is misleading consumers with promises of “fixed“ interest rates, then hiking their rates as much as 400 percent.
Bob Sullivan, MSNBC, "Capital One Sued Over Marketing Practices," January 3, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6781155/  

January 18, 2004 reply from Linda Kidwell [lak@NIAGARA.EDU]

I have another, totally unrelated reason for not getting a Capital One card. I must say, this story has given me great meat for class discussion in auditing!

When I applied for a mortgage 8 years ago, my credit report contained a three-year-old written-off Capital One card to the tune of $8,000. I had never heard of this card, and it had been issued in my maiden name!

Just think of all the failures of internal controls my case included. At the time the card was issued, they used a marketing list at least three years old to solicit the account. A basic credit check would have revealed that I no longer went by that name, and that in fact I had taken out a mortgage in the past year at a different address. They allowed the perpetrator to run up over $6,000 of charges without having made a single payment. They made no effort to contact me to collect the money, or they'd have discovered the fraud two years earlier. Finally, after I submitted an affadavit to disclaim the account and after they had my credit cleared, they started calling me to collect the debt. Unbelievable!

So will I ever get a Capital One account? NEVER!!!

Linda Kidwell

January 18, 2005 reply from Barbara Scofield [scofield@GSM.UDALLAS.EDU

What do you tell college students about getting store credit cards in order to get the initial 15% discount on merchandise? My daughter gets every credit card Express, Old Navy etc. will give her in order to get the discount and then she cancels the card after the first bill. She feels that she is getting the benefit of the marketing system and none of the costs of having open credit lines count against her (or tempt her).

Barbara W. Scofield, PhD, CPA 
Associate Professor of Accounting 
University of Dallas 
1845 E. Northgate Irving, TX 75062
scofield@gsm.udallas.edu 

January 18, 2005 reply from Richard J. Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU]

Barbara: She should be concerned about her FICO score. The more inquiries made by department stores, the lower her FICO score will be. The FICO scoring secret algorithms view frequent credit applications a sign of desperation, even if the application is successful.

Q. What are some common missteps that bring down your score?

A. Balance transfers on your credit cards, for one thing. It may seem smart to load all your debt onto one low-rate card. But if you max out on a high-limit card, your credit score takes a big hit. Even if you aren't applying for more credit, your current credit-card companies may raise your interest rates because your credit score dropped.

The whole instant-credit thing also hurts your credit, like when you're at the Gap and they say you get 10 percent off if you apply for a credit card and buy this thing using your new credit card.

You have the combined effect of an "inquiry for new credit" and a small credit limit on the store card, which you already filled up. Both are bad.

The other thing you have to watch out for are collections, the leading type of which is medical collection. Many of those are mistakes -- often an insurance company is responsible for a co-payment, but the doctor bills it to the patient and it ends up becoming a collection.

Richard J. Campbell
School of Business
University of Rio Grande
Rio Grande, OH 45674

January 18, 2004 reply from Roberts, John [JohnRoberts@SJRCC.EDU]

Barbara,

If she lives in Texas she should request her free credit report from all three agencies starting in June. This can be done at http://www.annualcreditreport.com  If she doesn't live in Texas, that site will also tell her when they will be available for her location. She will notice that all of those credit cards are on her report, whether they have a balance or not, whether they are closed or not.

She should then get her FICO score. She will have to pay a small amount for this but it will tell her the score AND what she can do to make it higher. The higher it is the better interest rates you receive on loans from cars to mortgages. If she has been doing what you say, it will most likely report that there have been too many inquiries (like Richard said) and they are lowering her score. It may still be over 700, which seems to be the demarcation line for quick loan acceptance with decent rates but the next inquiry (which she might need for something really important) might drop it below 700 and that would cost her big money (much more than she saved on those department store discounts), especially if it means the difference of a half-point or more on a 30 year mortgage.

College students tend to be very short sighted so this will probably be a big sale on your part -- as you well know. I have two daughters myself which are both out of college now, but still, the only time they listen to ole dad is when they already agree with him and tells them what they want to hear:-)

John C. Roberts, Jr.
Saint Johns River Community College
283 College Drive Orange Park, FL 32065

January 19, 2005 message (re-written by Bob Jensen) from a former high level university administrator

Questions 
Is your university getting credit card kickbacks on student and alumni use of credit cards? 
Did you know that many universities send names, addresses, and social security numbers of students and alumni to a company that solicits them to use a credit card? 

Answer
Many, if not most, colleges and universities are doing this. The reason: every time a credit card is used for any purchase, the university gets a percentage (often ten percent) from the credit card company "as a gift." This kind of income is generally not recognized as a gift by the rules of the college and university auditors/business managers (see NACUBO). Why should the university provide any of this information? In addition to not informing people that this information is being "sold," this practice encourages college students and alumni to go into more debt.

Bob Jensen's threads on the dirty secrets of credit card companies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO 


"Charitable Donations, Give Wisely: Tips to Avoid Fraudulent Scams," AccountingWeb, January 6, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100325 

The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) is encouraging the general public to contribute to tsunami relief efforts, but urged donors to use caution when giving to avoid potential scams.


"After this unprecedented tragedy, donations of money and supplies are greatly needed," said AFP President and CEO Paulette V. Maehara, CFRE, CAE. "Americans are a very generous people and always respond positively to these types of crises, but they should also be vigilant and informed in their giving."

Maehara stressed that potential donors should know two things before they give to any organization:

 

  1. Is the organization they're supporting legitimate; and,
  2. Will the funds they're giving be used in an appropriate way, consistent with their intent?
Regarding the latter point, some organizations might be concentrating on relief efforts only in certain countries, or emphasizing certain aspects of the relief efforts. In some cases, charities may have already received enough funding for their relief projects and may encourage giving to a general fund, where the money might be used for future disaster relief.

"There's nothing wrong with that as long as the charity tells you upfront how your money will be used," said Maehara. "If you want your money to go to a certain country or particular effort, make sure you know exactly what the organization is doing and who or how it is helping."

But first, donors should determine whether or not the charity they're supporting is legitimate. Many national and international charities are household names. However, the Internet has allowed individuals and smaller groups to organize local efforts that are equally worthy, but not as well- known.

"Ninety-nine percent of the organizations who are working on tsunami relief efforts, even those you haven't heard of, are legitimate," said Maehara. "But as we saw with the 9/11 relief efforts, there are always a few unscrupulous scam artists who would seek to take advantage of American generosity and make a quick buck at the expense of others."

To avoid fraudulent organizations and ensure contributions will be sent to a legitimate organization, Maehara recommended the following tips:

 

  • When giving at a website, make sure the site is secure and that your personal information cannot be seen or stolen by others. Make sure the website itself is legitimate; sometimes scam artists use similar but slightly different names or domain names.

  • When giving via the phone, obtain a phone number for the charity and call the number to ensure the number is legitimate.

  • Be aware of organizations with similar sounding names. 'United Wayfarers' for example, sounds similar to 'United Way' but it may be a completely different charity or simply a fraudulent organization.

  • Be suspicious of callers and organizations that talk about having 'tax i.d. numbers' or other official-sounding information. Lots of organizations have 'tax i.d. numbers' but that doesn't mean they are charities.

  • Do not give to an organization that promises to have a driver come immediately to your home or office and pick up a check. That's usually a sure sign of fraud.

  • Report suspicious activity to your local police and/or state Attorney General's office.

Maehara also suggests asking if the fundraiser is a member of AFP and follows AFP's Code of Ethical Principles and Standards of Professional Practice, or a similar code, and if they abide by the Donor Bill of Rights. "The vast majority of the fundraising profession practices ethical fundraising," stated Maehara. "If donors know that they're working with one of these fundraisers, then they'll know that they are giving to a legitimate organization."

More information on charitable giving and evaluating a charity can be found on the AFP website under 
"National Philanthropy Day -- About Giving."
--- http://www.afpnet.org/ 


January 11, 2005 message from Elliot Kamlet SUNY Account [ekamlet@BINGHAMTON.EDU

It seems that once in a while our profession can do some good!

U.N. says it will use outside accountants to track billions of dollars pledged to help tsunami victims AP WorldStream English (all) via NewsEdge Corporation : UNITED NATIONS_In an unusual move, the United Nations said it will use an outside firm of accountants to help track the billions of dollars pledged to help the victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Price-Waterhouse-Coopers has offered its services on a pro bono, or no fee, basis to the United Nations to help create a financial tracking system, Kevin Kennedy, a senior official in the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said Monday.

See http://snipurl.com/PWCvolunteers 

Bob Jensen's American History of Fraud ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm

Some of the most notorious white collar criminals in recent history
See History of Fraud in America --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm

Spyware Dectector and Remover
January 2004 message from Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU

This product gets my 5 star rating - I was lulled into a false sense of security with Norton Security suite on my new computer.

http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/product.cfm?page=benefits&id=410 

Richard J. Campbell mailto:campbell@rio.edu 

Bob Jensen's updates on computer and network security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 




Tired of Computer Viruses, Spyware, and all the Other Microsoft Diseases?
Switch to a Mac

If you switch to a  Mac, a must book is Mac OS X: The Missing Manual by David Pogue http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596000820/002-3743809-1628824?v=glance 

This book explains how to translate what you liked to do in Windows into how to do the same things on a Mac.


 

Apple said its earnings more than quadrupled on a 74% sales surge. The results reflected strong holiday demand for Macintosh computers and iPod music players. Its shares surged 11%.
Nick Wingfield, The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2005, Page A3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110478542032015600,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us 

 


A Few Questions and Answers from Walt Mossberg

 

"Spreadsheets and Firefox; Managing Network Contacts, by Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal,  September 30, 2004; Page B5 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109649487646631729,00.html?mod=technology%5Ffeatured%5Fstories%5Fhs 

Q: If I switch from Windows to the Macintosh, will all my Windows programs still run on the Mac? Can I use all my files, like Excel spreadsheets and photos and music?

A: Apple's Macintosh computers use their own operating system, not Microsoft's Windows, and therefore they aren't designed to run Windows programs. So, if you switch to a Mac, you shouldn't count on using your current Windows programs, such as Outlook, or Windows Media Player. There are Mac versions of some popular Windows programs, like Microsoft Office, and equivalents for other programs. You shouldn't buy a Mac unless you are prepared to leave your Windows software behind and use new Mac software.

However, there is an exception. If you must use an irreplaceable Windows program or two occasionally, you can run them on the Mac, provided you buy special software from Microsoft called Virtual PC, which emulates a Windows computer on a Mac. Essentially, it fools Windows programs into believing a Mac is a Windows PC. But Virtual PC is slow, and is vulnerable to Windows viruses and spyware, so I don't recommend it for heavy use.

Files are a different story. All your Windows MP3 music files, JPG picture files, text files, Adobe PDF files, and other common file types can be used right out the box on a Mac. And, if you buy Microsoft Office for the Mac, all of your Excel, Word and PowerPoint files can be instantly opened and edited on the Mac.

Q: I've switched to the Firefox Web browser, but have found that some Web pages that formerly opened fine in Internet Explorer, especially financial pages, don't work right in Firefox. What can I do?

A: Firefox is a better, more secure browser, and it supports all major Web-site design standards. But, unfortunately, some Web sites, particularly financial Web sites, have been designed to use nonstandard features of Internet Explorer. For these sites, I suggest you revert temporarily to IE, even if you use Firefox for everything else.

Q: I am faced with the daunting task of building and utilizing my personal network of contacts, which means calling leads and maintaining an extensive to-do list, reminders and notes. Do you know of an application that would manage this process?

A: You want a contact manager, rather than a simpler address book and calendar program like Outlook or Lotus Organizer. The difference is that contact managers are designed to let you manage and record all your interactions with each person, or group of people -- including notes, e-mails, appointments and more. These programs are popular among salespeople and others.

The best-known personal contact manager is ACT, by Best Software, at www.act.com  Another prominent contact manager is GoldMine, by FrontRange Solutions, at www.goldmine.com.


Mac Voice Recognition

"Talking to Macs," Walter Mossbert, The Wall Street Journal,  January 13, 2005; Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110557287127924647,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Q: I have been a longtime user of voice-recognition software on my Windows PC and would like to use this type of program if I switch to a Mac. Does anyone make a worthwhile speech-recognition product for Mac?

A: Every Mac comes with built-in speech-recognition features that allow users to issue certain commands to the computer verbally. In addition, there are speech-recognition programs for the Mac that allow users to dictate text to the computer as well as issue verbal commands. For instance, there is a Mac version of the IBM ViaVoice speech-recognition program, familiar to Windows users. More information is at scansoft.com/viavoice/mac/. And a small software company, MacSpeech, makes a speech-recognition program called iListen. More information is at www.macspeech.com. There may be others as well. However, I haven't tested any of these, so I can't say how well they work or which is best.

Bob Jensen's threads on voice recognition are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm 


Appeal
Please send Bob Jensen links to great blogs --- rjensen@trinity.edu

Blogs are becoming more important than traditional communication channels in almost any discipline.  The problem is now sorting through the maze to zero in on the ones that interest you the most.

Bob Jensen's threads on Weblogs (blogs) are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 

September 2, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu

RHETORIC, COMMUNITY, AND CULTURE OF WEBLOGS

The Department of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota has created "Into the Blogsphere," a website to explore the "discursive, visual, social, and other communicative features of weblogs." Educators and faculty can post, comment upon, and critique essays covering such areas as mass communication, pedagogy, and virtual community. The website is located at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ 

For more information on weblogs in academe, see also:

"Educational Blogging" By Stephen Downes EDUCAUSE REVIEW, vol. 9, no. 5, September/October 2004, pp. 14-16, 18, 20-22, 24, 26 http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp 

"The Educated Blogger" CIT INFOBITS, June 2004 http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitjun04.html#1 

 

January 2005 Update on Blogs

Eric Rasmusen (Economics, Indiana University) has a homepage at http://www.rasmusen.org/ 
His business and economics blog is at http://www.rasmusen.org/x/ 
In particular he focuses on conservative versus liberal economics and politics

Gerald (Jerry) Trites (Accounting, AIS) has a homepage at http://www.zorba.ca/ 
He runs an e-Business blog at http://www.zorba.ca/blog.html 
His site is a great source for updates on research studies in e-Business

Some Blog Directories

  1. categorized directory of blogs and journals.
    Category: Weblog Directories
    www.blogarama.com - 17k - Cached - More from this site
  2. a blog directory where users can submit and find blogs.
    Category: Weblog Directories
    www.blogcatalog.com - 23k - Cached - More from this site
  3. ... Weird is our choice blog this week, straight out of ... Blogwise often find a blog that stands out for its ... be featuring a new blog every week in this slot ...
    Category: Weblog Directories
    www.blogwise.com - More from this site
  4. ... Download the Blog Search Engine Toolbar. The blog Search Engine is a web search resource for finding ... Free Video Game and Online Game Directory Web Conferencing Small Business Forum ...
    www.blogsearchengine.com - 15k - Cached - More from this site
  5. blog search engine and directory.
    Category: Weblog Directories
    www.getblogs.com - 7k - Cached - More from this site
  6. Bloghub.com - Your local blog directory! ... Bloghub.com is an international online blog directory and community where members from around the world gather here ... site to our directory, search our blog directory or join us for ...
    www.bloghub.com - 64k - Cached - More from this site
  7. features a directory of political blogs covering all viewpoints.
    Category: Political Weblogs
    directory.etalkinghead.com - 9k - Cached - More from this site
  8. ... My Subscriptions Search The Web Subscribe To URL. Directory. Share. Home > Feed Directory. See Also: Most Popular Feeds | Most Popular Links ... View: Feed Directory | User Directory ...
    www.bloglines.com/dir - 19k - Cached - More from this site
  9. ... and trackback services, and a Blog O the Week feature. Blog Universe. Blog directory categorized by genre ... like you. British Blog Directory - BritBlog. A directory of blogs written ...
    www.lights.com/weblogs/ directories.html - 16k - Cached - More from this site
  10. The BLOG page at Marketing Terms.com - Internet Marketing Reference. ... Blog. weblog. ---------------------------- (Requires JavaScript ... eatonweb.com - blog directory and portal. ...
    www.marketingterms 

"The Bottom Line on Business Blogs:  Entrepeneur.com, August 9, 2004 --- http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,316638,00.html 
They've moved beyond the realm of diarists and techies to benefit mainstream businesses. 

January 13, 2005 reply from James Borden 

Bob,

Here is a link to a Forbes article back in 2004 that categorizes the top blogs:

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2003/04/14/bestblogslander.html 

Here are two more "best of" blog listings: 

http://www.bloglines.com/topblogs

http://www.blogstreet.com/blogtops.html

Jim

January 13, 2005 reply from Ed Scribner [escribne@nmsu.edu

Don’t know if it’s great, and you probably already have it:

http://accounting.blogspot.com/ 

Ed

January 25, 2005 reply from Gerald Trites [gtrites@zorba.ca

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the recent reference to my blog. I really enjoy doing it and find it doesn't take a lot of time because I read various sources every day anyway, and I use Google's Blogger, which provides a button on my browser that I can push to make an entry on the blog. It only adds an extra few minutes once the software is set up, which is also easy to do if you go to www.blogger.com 

I find my students in my e-business and MIS classes visit it. I also recently had the blog added to the website for my e-Business textbook on the Pearson website, which hopefully the users of the book will find useful.

I recently changed the design by adopting a new template for the blog, which I think is a better format - more attractive and professional looking.

I think it has other potential uses, and am checking out your threads for ideas.

All the best,

Jerry _____________________________________ 
Gerald Trites, FCA, CA·IT/CISA 
Website - http://www.zorba.ca  
The Trites E-Business Blog -
http://www.zorba.ca/blog.html 

 

Bob Jensen's threads on Weblogs (blogs) are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 


Google offers new searching hardware as well as software

"Google Unveils New Search Product," The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2005, Page B5 
January 13, 2005; Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110557822746424884,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Google Inc. announced a low-cost hardware and software package that small- and medium-size organizations can use for searching their own Web sites and other information.

The Internet search company is selling the $4,995 Google Mini, which includes a computer server and software, exclusively through its online store. Organizations can use the Google Mini to let staff search for shared documents and information on internal Web sites and permit the public to search their external Web sites.

Google says it has over 800 customers for the Google Search Appliance, a more powerful but similar product. The Google Search Appliance, with a minimum price tag of $32,000, represented less than 2% of Google's $2.2 billion in revenue during the first nine months of 2004.

The link for Google's new "Search Appliance" is at http://www.google.com/enterprise/ 

Google's Directory (Domestic and Global) is at http://directory.google.com/ 

Google's Business Solutions page is at http://www.google.com/services/ 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


Question
How should a college degree impact earnings expectations on average?

Answer
"College Degree Still Pays, but It's Leveling Off," by Louis Uchitelle, The New York Times, January 13, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/business/13pay.html  

Ever so gradually, the big payoff in wages from a college education is losing its steam, which calls into question the emphasis that the White House, under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, has placed on a bachelor's degree as a sure-fire avenue to constantly rising incomes.

Men and women with four years of college earn nearly 45 percent more on average than those with only a high school diploma, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The spread is as high as it has ever been, but it has been stuck in the 45 percent range since the late 1990's, and through the 1990's it rose much more slowly than in the 1980's.

Although the payoff from a college education is leveling off, income inequality continues to grow. That suggested to some economists at the annual meeting last weekend of the American Economic Association that employers are making wage decisions on criteria that have little to do with the supply of and demand for educated workers.

The leveling off of the wage premium for a four-year college degree has lasted long enough to suggest that it is not just a pause in an otherwise constantly rising payoff for those with bachelor's degrees, but another significant shift in labor market dynamics. The payoff for a college education fell in the 1970's only to reverse course, rising sharply in the 1980's and then leveling off in the 1990's, even showing signs of beginning to fall in the current decade.

"We always knew that the return in wages to a college education fluctuates, but we forgot," said Cecilia E. Rouse, a Princeton University labor economist, "and now we are being forced to remember."

The 1980's experience gave birth to the skills-mismatch thesis - the view that millions of workers lacked the college training required for the increasingly high-tech jobs that the new economy generated. Out of that thinking came stepped-up federal spending on college scholarships, tuition tax credits and the like. That put the burden on individuals to get the necessary education, with the government playing a supporting role as financier.

Continued in article


"E-learning Demand to Double in 2005," SmartPros, January 7, 2004 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x46477.xml 

Demand for online courses will almost double in 2005, as professionals and companies realize e-learning's distinct advantages, according to officials at RedVector.com, a Tampa-based company that offers online courses to professionals involved in the design and construction industries.

A recent survey of RedVector.com clients indicates professionals and corporate leaders had different reasons for adopting online education. Professionals cited the variety and depth of course offerings while corporate leaders cited cost savings and relevance of courses to business goals.

Recent research indicates the entire online professional education industry may experience similar growth in 2005:

Spending on online continuing education passed the $9 billion mark in 2003, according to IDC Research, and grew to between $12 and 14 billion in 2004, according to Bersin and Associates. IDC predicts a 30 percent increase in yearly e-learning spending worldwide through 2008. The number of companies using online learning to train employees will grow by 50 percent in 2005, according to Bersin and Associates. Economics has been a driving force behind growth in online professional education. With online courses, companies no longer have to pay travel and hotel costs and employees can be more productive since they aren't spending time traveling.

Growth in online learning is also driven by specialization in course offerings. According to the Distance Education and Training Council, more than 500 companies and organizations now offer online courses focusing on specific industries and professions.


Some universities have programs dedicated to particular firms such as the Ernst and Young's employee masters degree programs (University of Virginia and Notre Dame) and PwC's employee MBA program at the University of Georgia.  For details, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#CorporatePartnerships 

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education and training are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


Reminiscent of the kids in the back of the car on your family's vacation, the persistent question about this technology (Learning Management Systems seems to be, "Are we there yet?"
Ira Fuchs, "Learning Management Systems," Syllabus, July/August 2004 --- http://www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=9675 

Question
If you know what OKI is, do you also know what SAKAI stands for?

Answer
OKI stands for the Open Knowledge Initiative and DSpace spearheaded by MIT in conjunction with various leading universities --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI 

The OCW (Open Courseware) announcement, almost three years ago, was open for easy inference. MIT officials insisted that the university was not offering online courses to students; rather, MIT faculty were putting their course materials—syllabi and supporting resources—on the Web for others to use. In other words, one could see the syllabus and review some of the course materials, but not take the class.  And not just a few classes. OCW’s announced goal is to make the complete MIT curriculum—everything in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum, across all fields, totalling some 2000 courses—available over the next few years. Speaking at the November 2003 EDUCAUSE Conference, Anne Margulies, executive director of the OCW project, announced that MIT has made significant progress towards this goal: as of fall 2003, the resources for some 500 MIT courses had been posted on the Web.
Kenneth C. Green, "Curricular Reform, Conspiracy, and Philanthropy," Syllabus, January 2004, Page 27 --- http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=8718 

The main Open Knowledge Initiative site at MIT is at http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html 

In the first week on the Web, the OCW site received more than 13 million visits from users, about 52 percent from outside of the United States. The OCW team also processed more than 2,000 e-mails in those first days, more than 75 percent of them supportive of the project. The remaining 25 percent were a mix of technical questions, inquiries about specific course offerings, and questions about content. Less than 2 percent of those e-mails were negative.
"Open Access to World-Class Knowledge," by Anne H. Margulies, Syllabus, March 2003, pp. 16-18 --- http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=7360 

"SAKAI," The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, December 2003 --- http://juicy.mellon.org/RIT/MellonOSProjects/SAKAI/ 

SAKAI
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

A grant was made to the University of Michigan, for use by the SAKAI consortium to support the development of an open source, feature-rich course management system for higher education. Participating institutions have agreed to place the new learning management system into production when the system is completed.

Project Website --- http://www.sakaiproject.org/ 

The University of Michigan, Indiana University, Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the uPortal consortium are joining forces to integrate and synchronize their enormous investments in educational software to create an integrated set of open source tools for the benefit of higher education. The new open source software, known as SAKAI, aims to draw the “best-of-breed” from among existing open source course management systems and related tools: uPortal, CHEF, Stellar, Encore, Course Tools, Navigo Assessment, OnCourse, OneStart, Eden Workflow, and Courseworks.

MIT’s Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) produced a comprehensive framework for course management systems rather than a production system. The SAKAI effort is the logical next step: the creation of a comprehensive course management system and an underlying portal framework that draw from existing efforts and integrate the finest available modules and approaches.

The goal is an economically sustainable approach to high quality open source learning software for higher education. The approach promises to overcome two main barriers that have consistently impeded such collaborative efforts: (1) unique local architectures, including heterogeneous software, software interoperability requirements between systems, and diverse user interfaces that hinder the portability of software among institutions; and (2) timing differences in institutional funding and mobilization that reduce synergy and result in fragmented, often incomplete offerings and weak interoperability.

This consortium hopes to overcome these barriers by relying on OKI service definitions that integrate otherwise heterogeneous local architectures and enable the mobility of software. In addition, the advanced course management system will use as its core-building block an upgraded version of the Foundation-supported and highly successful uPortal software (Version 3), a powerful, open source portal environment that will integrate a portal specification needed for tool interoperability. The institutions are also committed to the “synchronization of institutional clocks,” essentially rolling out the new applications on the same schedule to maximize the synergy of the effort.

In concert with the development effort, SAKAI is creating a partners program that invites other institutions to contribute $10,000 per year for three years. Partner institutions will experiment with production versions of the software in 2004 and 2005 and investigate sustainability options. They will receive early access to project information; early code releases for the SAKAI framework, portal, services, and tools; invitations to partner meetings; and technical training workshops. Contributions from an expected minimum of 20 institutions will support a community development staff member to coordinate partner activities, a developer to interact with partner technical staff, another staff member to coordinate documentation, a support staff member to respond to inquiries, and an administrative staff member to coordinate partner activities and facilitate responses.

Continued in article

Ira Fuchs, "Learning Management Systems," Syllabus, July/August 2004 --- http://www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=9675 
A dialog between Syllabus Magazine (S) and Ira Fuchs (IHF)

OKI focused on this framework and the delivery of a proof of concept, meaning a system or a pair of systems that could demonstrate this interoperability. And that’s in fact what MIT and Stanford achieved.

S: So OKI focused on the framework… how does the Sakai project build on that?

IHF: The Sakai project starts out where OKI left off by taking the architecture and the OSIDs [Open Services Interface Definitions] and fusing them with the best of breed development—learning management system development—from four major institutions: Stanford, MIT, Indiana University, and the University of Michigan. The purpose is to create a world-class production-ready system that will be open, extensible, and scalable. And, further, a very important aspect of Sakai is that the four institutions have agreed, in writing, as a condition of the grant, that they will bring this new system into production on each of their campuses at the same time, approximately a year from now. The goal is really nothing less than delivering an LMS that colleges and universities can use and extend with modules written at other schools, at their own school, or licensed from commercial vendors.

S: Do you think learning management systems will be considered a core technology for colleges and universities going forward? And will open, interoperable systems prevail and be in common use? Are we there yet?

IHF:I think learning management systems are a core technology already, and that fact is, I think, both good and bad. It’s good because learning management systems have helped the faculty and students enormously. They make course information and content available on the Web, and at the same time improve communication among students and faculty. But because the LMS is already so important to the functioning of many schools, it’s going to be hard to move away from the proprietary systems they may be running today and to begin using open, collaboratively developed and maintained systems. I think open systems are going to prevail, but it’s going to take time.

S: So, in a sense, we’re not really there yet…What are some of the steps that could move all of this forward?

IHF: That’s true, we’re not there yet. But Sakai is about to deliver a beta release. The concept is to leverage the work of many, many institutions to ultimately build a system that most, if not all, institutions will want to run. But that’s not the case yet. Today, you have a plethora of choices among learning management systems. There are sites on the Web listing dozens of them. But for institutions seeking to move away from their current LMS, there is a cost to change. The cost comes in many forms, not the least of which is that people grow accustomed to an interface. And often they’ve converted content to be used in that system. So whatever we come up with is going to have to account for and minimize those costs of change.

One way to minimize them is, for example, in the case of the user interface, to have what are commonly known as skins. These are modifiable user interfaces that are selectable by an institution, or sometimes even by the end user, to make the system look the way they want it to look. We’re also going to need to have tools to facilitate the transformation of content from one system to another, to export it and then import it into another system. So we’re going to have to do what we can to minimize the cost of converting from one system to another.

S: Is interoperability among installed systems a key goal for OKI?

IHF: Absolutely, that’s what OKI is all about. The basis for all of this is to have a set of standards, of common interfaces, APIs or OSIDs. I think this is the right time, because people have learned, first of all, that it’s too expensive to try to develop it all on their own. Even the biggest institutions—such as Michigan, the Indiana University, Stanford, and MIT—have decided that building and maintaining these complex systems on their own just doesn’t make sense any more. At the same time, the notable, visible success of some of the open source projects—the big ones like Linux, Apache, or MySQL—have proven that it’s possible to develop something in the open and get people to commit to maintain and enhance the software.

Perhaps the most important fact to remember is that the industry we represent, higher education, is unique in our willingness to collaborate and to share our labors, such as we have in this IT space. There are a lot of smart people in each of these institutions, and if we can harness them behind the same projects and use a set of standards, starting off with a good base piece of software such as I think Sakai will deliver, then we can do wonders.

S: What about standards for metadata? Is that something to consider along with the interface standards?

IHF: Sure it is, and that is something, of course, that the library community has been working on for a long time. What did someone once say?: “The wonderful thing about standards is there are always so many to choose from…” And we do have many metadata standards. But I think that they will converge, at least in limited domains. When it comes to learning object repositories, it’s going to lead to a set of metadata schema, metadata standards that will not satisfy everyone—that’s probably impossible—but will be good enough. Many of the Mellon-funded projects—OCW, Sakai, LionShare at Penn State, Chandler—are all trying to converge on a common standard for metadata.

S: Will learning management systems change significantly in the next few years? Have they been on the right track, and are they flexible enough to be used universally?

IHF: Learning management systems have come a long way, but there’s still much that can be done to improve usability in particular, especially to make it easier to publish or create new material. It still takes too much expertise to create attractive materials from the notes, images, and programs that faculty use to teach a course. The proliferation of learning management systems suggests that no one system is sufficiently feature-rich, or adequately flexible and extensible enough to meet everyone’s needs or even most institutions’ requirements. But I hope to see that change in the next couple of years with the advent of Sakai.

The proliferation of learning management systems suggests that no one system is sufficiently feature-rich, or adequately flexible and extensible enough to meet everyone’s needs or even most institutions’ requirements.

S: Are new development tools needed?

IHF: Yes, I think we need authoring tools that lower the effort threshold dramatically for faculty to take digitized materials and create something esthetically pleasing as well as effective for their teaching purposes. There are tools, but we have to make sure that they are going to be compatible with all of the other pieces that we’re putting together based on standards. Of course, they’re not yet very compatible, but how could they be? They were built at some point in the past when people weren’t worried about that.

S: What are the pieces needed so that learning management systems can become more easily or better integrated with other parts of the campus information system, either on the academic or on the administrative side?

IHF: We need the middleware layer that translates the standards, such as the OSIDs, for the actual campus infrastructures. For example, OKI defines a set of OSIDs for authentication and authorization, and we want developers to be able to use those OSIDs, so that the systems will be interoperable. However, just about every campus has some authentication system already in place, whether it’s User ID/Password, or Kerberos, or Shibboleth. So there needs to be code which translates the calls that use the OSIDs, to the actual campus mechanisms. This is kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. Why create the middleware unless developers are using the standards? Why should developers use the standards unless the systems they are writing for have implemented the necessary middleware? But I think it’s going to happen.

S: How do portals fit in with all of this?

IHF: There’s another project, which was funded by the Mellon Foundation at almost the same time as OKI that has been very, very successful—that’s uPortal. It’s in use at scores of institutions now. It is the primary enterprise portal at those institutions. So when you ask the question about how to make it easier to integrate the LMS with other parts of the campus information system, I think uPortal is going to play an important role—and Sakai is built on top of uPortal.

S: Will libraries become better integrated with the LMS?

IHF: I think they must become better integrated in-so-far as making it as transparent as possible to the end user—faculty or the student—as to where the information used by the LMS is coming from or how to search for it. And that’s a significant challenge since there are many potential sources for the data used in an LMS. A course can use data from online publishers, from the campus library, from another library, from the campus repository, or even from the faculty member’s local or server-based files. With the emergence of peer-to-peer tools, such as LionShare, the data could even come from the personal machines of individuals throughout the world. Somehow we need to make all of this distributed information available in the learning management system without the user having to learn so many different interfaces.

Bob Jensen's threads on OKI and SAKAI are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


There are many of MIT's shared course materials (syllabi, lecture notes, etc.) that are available free on line in virtually all academic disciplines covered at MIT --- http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html 
There are quite a few new and updated courses in the database.

The Sloan School of Management shares undergraduate and graduate course materials are at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of-Management/index.htm 


For accounting historians --- Jefferson's financial account books.

The Thomas Jefferson Papers http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/index.html


A Few New Books Reviewed in the AACSB's BizEd, January/February 2005, pp. 54-55

Questions
What is the future of higher education?
Why are inventors odd?
What is the process of acquiring skills and knowledge to become excellent leaders?
Does computer and video game playing in the teenage years alter attitudes and expectations about work?
What is behind "contagious success?"

Answers
Frank Newman, Lara Couturier, and Jamie Couturier argue that the biggest change in higher education will be a shift to the market mindset in the struggle for top students, rankings, and prestige.  Students of the future will be much more critical and discerning about what the competition offers in higher education.  Their new book is entitled The Future of Higher Education: Rhetoric, Reality, and the Risks of the Market --- http://snipurl.com/bz9z 

Evan I. Schwartz contends that inventors are odd because their minds are constantly teasing at problems.  He picks through the brains of dozens of inventors in his new book entitled Juice --- http://snipurl.com/ScwartzJuice 

Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap describe the process of acquiring "deep smarts" as a cycle of compressed learning, success, and failure in their new book called Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Business Wisdom --- http://snipurl.com/DeepSmarts 

John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade argue that computer and video game playing in the teenage years significantly alters both attitudes and expectations about work.  Their new book is entitled Got Game: How a New Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever --- http://snipurl.com/GotGame 

Susan Lucia Annunzio provides empirical evidence that "treating people well makes money."  Her new book is entitled Contagious Success --- http://snipurl.com/ContagiousSuccess 


News Update from Campus Technology on January 11, 2005

Creating the Classroom of Tomorrow

What does it take to successfully integrate all systems across a campus? Planning, communication, flexibility, and more. In a new micro site sponsored by HP, you'll read how several campuses approached their IIS projects and what made them successful. Join a peer forum to discuss implementation and budget issues; read white papers, case studies and articles on the challenges of integration.

http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=11787 


Study Says U.S. University Endowments' Returns Rose Fivefold

Universities reported a nearly fivefold increase in their investment portfolio returns last year, marking their best performance since the stock market decline, the Reuters News Agency reported last week.

Seven hundred and seven educational endowments and foundations polled by Commonfund Institute said average annual total returns stood at 14.7 percent for the 12 months ended on June 30, 2004. That was up from 3.1 percent in the previous year and losses in the two years before that, according to a study by the Institute.

The study found institutions expect returns for fiscal 2005 to be near 7.9 percent. One of the best performing endowments was Harvard University, which earned 21.1 percent, boosting its endowment to $22.6 billion.


Electronic 'Facebook' Evolves from Directory to Networking Tool

The Facebook, an online social-networking service launched last February by a group Harvard University students, has become more of a campus networking tool than a social novelty, according to a report in the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle newspaper.

Once a service issued to incoming freshmen as a way of helping them get acquainted faster, this electronic version now enables students to design online profiles of themselves with photos and information about their majors, the courses they're taking, the dorm they live in, and their interests.

The Facebook supports itself through advertising, now claim more than 1.3 million members at nearly 300 schools. 

To visit its site, go to http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=11917 


A Talking Pen That Computes and Checks Spelling

"New Computer Pen Reads Handwriting And Can Talk Back," by Stephanie Kang, The Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2005, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110549457385323664,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

In a consumer electronics market flooded with iPods and Xboxes, LeapFrog Enterprises Inc. is making a play for 8-to-13-year-olds with a talking digital pen that answers math problems, corrects spelling and plays fantasy baseball games.

The product, called FLY, is a "pentop computer" from LeapFrog and Swedish technology firm Anoto AB. The $99 gadget is essentially a pen with computer electronics that captures text in a digital file as the user writes on special paper covered with barely visible gray dots. As bulky as a thick magic marker, FLY uses a small camera hidden under the tip that records writing at about 75 frames per second. The pen's software can "read" a user's handwriting or drawing and then orally respond.

For example, a student can draw a "calculator" pad on the paper, touch the pen to the numbers of an equation and hear the answer through the pen's speaker. Writing out an equation, say, "2+2," generates the same result. The pen will answer "4." It can give hints on how to do long division, spell words or quiz students with interactive worksheets. Handwritten English words can be translated through the pen's speakers into Spanish or French.

The pen can also be used musically: a rectangle drawn into eight slices becomes a keyboard's eight notes so the writer hears different notes when touching each slice. Similarly, a set of drawn circles turn into a drum kit, with different percussion sounds generated by touching the circles with the pen. Users can compose music using different beats and sounds, which can then be downloaded as a cellphone ringtone.

Basic computer functions such as an alarm clock and calendar are available. The calendar would note that soccer practice starts at 4 p.m. on Mondays. At that date, the pen reminds the user of the practice.

LeapFrog plans to begin selling the pen in the fall, and it's already thinking about some possible complications. If a user writes an obscenity, for example, the pen may respond with an oral message like, "You can't say that." And while illegible handwriting is another possible problem, LeapFrog thinks that by age 8, most kids' penmanship will be good enough to be recognized by the computer.

Since the pen isn't yet on the market, some unexpected glitches could crop up. The pen holds a lexicon of about 70,000 words, but if a user writes a word that isn't covered by the program, the pen will say it doesn't recognize the entry and advise the user to try again. FLY has limitations: its calculator cannot do fractions, for instance.

While LeapFrog and others have made technology-driven products for young children, there is very little available for kids as they head into their teens. Jim Marggraff, an executive vice president at LeapFrog and developer of FLY, believes the pen's ability to deliver high-tech computer capability in the low-tech format of pen and paper is not only learning-friendly, but also the start of a "new medium of technology."

Leapfrog has tried to give the pen features that will make it cool for tweens. Products for girls include an interactive diary that asks users questions to stimulate journaling. Boys can play an interactive fantasy baseball game that uses Upper Deck baseball cards and comes with sound effects like the crack of a bat and an announcer's voice.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on gadgets are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm#Technology 


Questions
What was the gold standard?  
What is a fiat monetary system?

Answers from Mike Moffatt --- http://economics.about.com/cs/money/a/gold_standard.htm 


"The Next Wave Of Gadgets For the Home:  Products Rolled Out at Show Include Touchless Faucets, Furniture to Hide Big TVs ." by Kara Swisher, The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2005, Page D2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110496715215718100,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

 

"A Gadget Guide, From Small Phones to Big TVs:  Coming Array of Gizmos Includes Souped-Up TiVo and Wi-Fi Digital Cameras," by Don Clark and Evan Ramstad, The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2005. Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110496816504118140,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

 

Eastman Kodak Co. will be unveiling a digital camera that can connect wirelessly to the Internet, allowing people to instantly send their pictures to friends. TiVo, which makes the best-selling digital video recorder, will be introducing a device that can record high-definition digital television without the need for a separate box from cable companies.

And, companies including Sharp Corp. and Intellon Corp. will be showing off a new wireless technology called Ultra Wideband that lets consumers move digital songs, pictures and other content from one device to another faster than is possible now.

But inevitably, some of the products announced at the show never hit the market. Last year, Apex Digital Inc. announced a console called ApeXtreme that was supposed to let people play computer games on TV sets. But the company, which has been involved in a billing dispute with its Chinese manufacturing partner, has said technical difficulties forced it to shelve the product.

Here are some products that are attracting attention at this year's CES:

LG 60PY2DR 60-inch plasma TV

Price: $14,999
Availability: Second quarter of this year
What It Is: A big flat-screen TV set that has a built-in digital video recorder

In one of the more promising cross-category combinations, South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. is incorporating a huge 160-gigabyte hard drive into both the 60-inch and 50-inch versions of its top-of-the-line plasma TV sets. That's enough memory to hold 14 hours of high-definition programs or 62 hours of regular TV programs.

The built-in recorders can be programmed using an interactive program guide provided by Gemstar-TV Guide, meaning no subscription fees to other services are required. The TVs also have slots to accommodate nine types of digital memory cards, which are used for showing pictures from a digital camera.

TiVo with Cable Card

Price: To be determined
Availability: Early next year
What It Is: A digital video recorder with features that include a built-in digital cable tuner so users don't need a separate cable box

As cable companies roll out their own digital video recorders, TiVo is scrambling for a new edge. As part of that quest, it plans to offer a version of its DVR early next year that will allow cable subscribers to tune into and record high-definition digital television broadcasts without the need for a separate box from cable companies.

The product relies on a plug-in device, called a CableCard, that the industry is promoting as a way to let products connect to cable systems without a dedicated decoder box. TiVo is promoting other bells and whistles on its digital video recorders that aren't yet offered by cable companies, including a capability called TiVoToGo that allows TiVo users to transfer recorded programs from their DVRs onto laptop computers and portable gadgets that play video.

Later this year, TiVo will enable subscribers to download video programs over high-speed Internet connections, a move that could allow programmers to bypass distribution over traditional cable networks.

Kodak EasyShare One

Price: $599
Availability: June
What It Is: A digital camera that can connect wirelessly to the Internet

Kodak says consumers will be able to use its new camera to connect to its online photo storage and printing service, Ofoto, which is being renamed Kodak EasyShare Gallery. (They won't be able to access competing photo-developing Web sites, however.) They also can use the camera to e-mail pictures to other people or invite them to view albums of photos from a wedding or vacation that they put online. (Because the keypad works only with a stylus, it isn't practical for broader e-mail usage.)

The camera has a three-inch diagonal screen, substantially larger than the more common 1.8-inch screen, which the company says makes it easier to view photos and show them to others. It also comes with an unusually large 256 megabytes of built-in memory, that can be used for storing albums of up to 1,500 pictures. Kodak said it expects most people will buy memory cards for shooting pictures and use the built-in memory for long-term storage.

iRiver H10 Portable Player

How Much: $279
Availability: Later this month
What It Is: Stores music, photos and video clips

IRiver is one of many companies trying to make devices that give consumers a portable way to store their digital pictures that is as handy as what they can do with their downloaded music. The latest effort has a color screen that can display digital images downloaded from a PC. The unit works with any of the seven online music sites that support Microsoft's PlaysForSure download and subscription-music services, and includes an FM tuner and voice recorder.

The downside: a hard drive that can store just five gigabytes of data, which means it can fill up fast with big image files. Apple's iPod photo, which stores music and pictures, comes in 40-gigabyte and 60-gigabyte versions, but iRiver's $280 H10 is an inexpensive alternative.

Samsung Pocket Imager DLP projector

How much: To be determined
Availability: September
What It Is: A projector that fits in your pocket and can display images from a laptop or PC

Samsung Electronics Co. has been pushing up the size of its big-screen TV sets, using a new chip called a digital light processor. Now, the Korean company is using that same technology to go in the opposite direction: to shrink gadgets.

If you have pictures on a laptop, mini-DVD player or hand-held computer, the projector, which is four inches long, 2.75 inches wide and 1.77 inches tall, can display them onto a variety of surfaces. The company plans to target business travelers, particularly those who tote around laptop-size projectors. But the device also may appeal to consumers who want to project images onto unusual backdrops, such as the backseats of minivans or airplanes.

Haier P7 Pen Phone

How much: $399 to $499
Availability: To be determined
What It Is: A cellphone that is the size of a pen

This cellphone, from Haier Group Inc., a Chinese appliance maker, is about an inch wide, six inches long and a half-inch deep. The phone uses a wireless standard known as GSM, which also is used by some major U.S. carriers, and does what most other phones do. That includes making calls, taking pictures and downloading ringtones. Unlike other phones, however, it has a clip to fit in a shirt pocket. Haier hasn't lined up U.S. carriers to offer the phone yet but hopes to rectify that soon.

eMagin 7800 3D Visor

How much: $899
Availability: Second quarter
What It Is: Virtual-reality goggles

Most people who have tried virtual-reality goggles come away disappointed. For all but military-grade gear, the images are fuzzy, the headsets are too heavy, and the point of view shifts slowly when users turn their heads. But eMagin's new visor uses a particularly sharp display technology that it says offers a clarity comparable with watching a 105-inch video screen from 12 feet away. The head-tracking technology is fast, and the visor weighs just eight ounces. Users can plug it into a laptop or desktop PC, and fire up the latest first-person computer game. Few DVDs are adapted for 3D now, but eMagin is hoping that its new visor will open the floodgates.

Alienware DHS 5 media center

How much: $2,400 for a fully outfitted model

Availability: Now

What It Is: A general-purpose device for storing and managing digital media, recording TV programs, surfing the Web and playing games

Most computer makers, including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Gateway Inc., sell the equivalent of PCs that you can access through your living-room TV set. Like other products, Alienware's DHS 5 runs Microsoft's Windows Media Center edition and can be controlled by a remote control in addition to a keyboard. But it has some differences. Unlike most media centers, it can use three TV tuners -- so you could record two programs while watching a third, and one of them could be in high-definition. It also can be outfitted with as many as three hard disks for digital video recording, which means you can store that many more episodes of "Lost."

David Gallagher discusses some of the same new products.
 "Technology Briefing," by David F. Gallagher, The New York Times, January 6, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/technology/06tbrf.html?oref=login


"Women are more confident about job security than men are, but women are less excited about work," Headlines, BizEd from the AACSB, January/February 2005, Page 8

According to the survey, 57.9 percent of women MBAs say they have job security, while 49 percent of men feel that way.  Most of these women find their work agreeable: 75.2 percent feel they have the ability to live according to their own values; 59.9 percent feel challenged by their work; 57.6 percent feel well-paid; and 56.3 percent feel satisfied.

Nonetheless, 41.4 percent of the women say they are not excited about their work, while 67.2 percent of the men with MBAs say they are.  Perhaps this is because 63.9 percent of women MBAs do not believe their work contributes to society in a valuable way, compared to 55.8 percent of men MBAs who feel that way.  Of those with MBAs, 56.8 percent of women are likely to be dissatisfied with their job's capacity to "make the world a better place," compared to 44.5 percent of men.

These survey figures are disturbing, says Anna K. Lloyd, executive director and president of C200.  "If women MBAs aren't linking their work to societal value, then fewer stellar women will be drawn to business careers; and those who are may not put their full energy and spirit into their work," she says.  She believes further research is necessary to determine what is causing the gap between men's and women's satisfaction with work--whether it's related to a discrepancy between the kinds of jobs men and women get, whether it holds true for entrepreneurial women as well as corporate women, and whether it's a general feeling among MBA women  that springs from other root causes.

Additional segments of the survey investigate how men and women rate themselves at executing specific business tasks, such as handling money and meeting deadlines, and whether they expect to be earning enough money to support a family or simply to provide for themselves.  For additional information about the C200 survey, contact Elizabeth Koons at Sommerfield Communications at elizabeth@sommerfield.com.

A controversial book by Warren Farrell entitled Why Men Earn More uses government wage data to show that the "pay gap” has become an ideological myth.  His latest controversial book is called The Myth of Male Power --- http://snipurl.com/MythOfMalePower 


100 Years After Einstein

A century after Einstein's miracle year, most people still do not understand exactly what it was he did. Here, we attempt to elucidate.
"Miraculous visions," The Economist, December 29, 2005 --- http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518580

In the span of 18 months, Isaac Newton invented calculus, constructed a theory of optics, explained how gravity works and discovered his laws of motion. As a result, 1665 and the early months of 1666 are termed his annus mirabilis. It was a sustained sprint of intellectual achievement that no one thought could ever be equalled. But in a span of a few years just before 1900, it all began to unravel. One phenomenon after another was discovered which could not be explained by the laws of classical physics. The theories of Newton, and of James Clerk Maxwell who followed him in the mid-19th century by crafting a more comprehensive account of electromagnetism, were in trouble.

Then, in 1905, a young patent clerk named Albert Einstein found the way forward. In five remarkable papers, he showed that atoms are real (it was still controversial at the time), presented his special theory of relativity, and put quantum theory on its feet. It was a different achievement from Newton's year, but Einstein's annus mirabilis was no less remarkable. He did not, like Newton, have to invent entirely new forms of mathematics. However, he had to revise notions of space and time fundamentally. And unlike Newton, who did not publish his results for nearly 20 years, so obsessed was he with secrecy and working out the details, Einstein released his papers one after another, as a fusillade of ideas.

For Einstein, it was just a beginning—he would go on to create the general theory of relativity and to pioneer quantum mechanics. While Newton came up with one system for explaining the world, Einstein thus came up with two. Unfortunately, his discoveries—relativity and quantum theory—contradict one another. Both cannot be true everywhere, although both are remarkably accurate in their respective domains of the very large and the very small. Einstein would spend the last years of his life attempting to reconcile the two theories, and failing. But then, no one else has succeeded in fixing the problems either, and Einstein was perhaps the one who saw them most clearly.

A noble prize

When Einstein was awarded a Nobel prize, in 1921, it was for the first of his papers of 1905, which proved the existence of photons—particles of light. Up until that paper, completed on March 17th and published in Annalen der Physik (as were the other 1905 papers), light had been supposed to be a wave, since this explains the interference patterns created when it passes through a grating. Einstein, however, began from a different premise, by considering the so-called “black-body experiment”.

A black body is a notional heated box that emits electromagnetic radiation (light, and its cousins such as radio and X-rays) at all frequencies. One of the main problems of physics at the turn of the century was that black-body radiation was predicted to increase indefinitely at higher frequencies, which was physically impossible. Five years earlier, Max Planck, a respected elder statesman of German physics, had supposed that a black body could emit radiation only at discrete frequencies. The gaps between these frequencies are the quantum jumps from which quantum theory ultimately derives its name. Quantising radiation in this way gets round the problem of indefinitely increasing frequencies.

Planck, however, stopped short of making the deduction that quantising light means that it is made of particles rather than waves. Einstein, by contrast, concluded just that. Furthermore, he went on to show how this assumption explained the photoelectric effect, another physical mystery of the time.

The photoelectric effect occurs when light shines on to an electrical conductor. The light knocks electrons out of their orbits and causes a current to flow. The paradox was that shining a brighter beam at the conductor did not increase the voltage, although the current increased. The light, in other words, was producing more electrons, but not more energetic electrons. Turn up the frequency of the light beam, however, and the voltage goes up. Einstein showed that this is explained if light is composed of particles (which only later came to be called photons) whose energy is proportional to their frequency.

Although physics students today are often taught that it was a quirk of the Nobel committee to give the prize to Einstein for his quantum work rather than relativity, the truth is that everyone at the time, including Einstein, believed it to be the more surprising result. When, late in 1905, he sent a friend some reprints of his papers, he said, “I am sending you some papers which may be of interest. Only one of them is revolutionary.” He was referring to the photoelectric paper, rather than anything on relativity. As he later wrote, “It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one's feet, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.” Indeed, the idea that light is made of particles was not truly accepted until 1923, when it was found that electrons could hit light and cause it to gain energy, as well as the reverse.

Local knowledge

Though Einstein's quantum hypothesis eventually became accepted, it had consequences that not even he had foreseen. Up until the late 1920s, quantum theory evolved in an ad hoc fashion. It fell to a younger generation of physicists, in a burst in the late 1920s and early 1930s, to codify it into a universal system now known as quantum mechanics. This shows that light is actually neither just a particle nor just a wave, but rather both simultaneously. Similarly, objects traditionally thought of as particles, such as electrons, are also, simultaneously, waves.

Two consequences followed. The first was that chance plays a fundamental role in the interactions of elementary particles, and therefore in the way the world works. Physics, up to that point in history, had been “deterministic”. Consequence followed cause with no room for uncertainty. But uncertainty is at the core of quantum mechanics. It is there in the form of Werner Heisenberg's famous “uncertainty principle” that it is impossible to measure both the speed and the location of an object with precision. And it is there in the form of Erwin Schrödinger's equally famous cat, which is simultaneously dead and alive because its fate depends on the quantum properties of an object whose state is indeterminate (rather than merely unknown) until it is measured.

The second consequence is that the world is “non-local”. That is to say, quantum interactions occur instantaneously over arbitrarily long distances. What is more, there is no mechanism in quantum mechanics which explains how particles “communicate” to match up their quantum properties in this way. For example, if one particle is spinning in one direction, its partner must spin in the opposite. However, the first particle does not have a definite direction until it is measured (Schrödinger's cat again), so the second particle cannot “know” how to point until a measurement is performed on the first particle, by which time the second particle may be millions of kilometres away. Einstein termed this “spooky action-at-a-distance”.

Einstein was profoundly uncomfortable with both uncertainty and non-locality. From that time until the end of his life in 1955 (making 2005 also the 50th anniversary of his death) he worked to eliminate them from physics. But despite the fame of Einstein's statement that “God does not play dice”, he did not believe that quantum mechanics was fundamentally incorrect. Indeed, he was the first to propose Schrödinger and Heisenberg—whose reputations were not established at the time—for Nobel prizes. Rather, he believed it was incomplete.

The best analogy here is to temperature. Temperature does not really exist. When something is said to be hot or cold, what is actually being described is the average speed of the molecules of which that something is made. If the molecules are moving quickly, it is hot, and if slowly, then cold. Temperature is merely a succinct encapsulation of this average. Similarly, Einstein believed that quantum mechanics was describing some sort of statistical average of an underlying phenomenon that was deterministic.

In 1935, Einstein, along with two young collaborators, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, proposed an experiment that would test this idea by probing action-at-a-distance. It was not, however, performed until 1982. And when Alain Aspect and his colleagues at the University of Paris did carry out the measurement, they found that it was Einstein, not quantum theory, which was wrong. Action-at-a-distance, spooky though he thought it, does occur. However, this episode is an excellent illustration of Einstein's contribution to quantum mechanics. By constantly trying to poke holes in the theory, he made it both stronger and clearer.

As clear as daylight

Abraham Pais, a physicist who wrote what is generally regarded as the definitive scientific biography of Einstein, said of his subject that there are two things at which he was “better than anyone before or after him; he knew how to invent invariance principles and how to make use of statistical fluctuations.” Invariance principles play a central role in the theory of relativity. Indeed, Einstein had wanted to call relativity the “theory of invariants”.

The idea of an invariant, which, largely because of Einstein, became central to physics in the 20th century, is something that stays constant under various transformations. A circle is invariant under rotation, because it looks the same no matter how it spins. A square, on the other hand, is invariant only under rotations of 90°. Rotate it through a right angle, or a multiple of a right angle, and it is indistinguishable from its unrotated self. Rotate it by any other angle, and it will appear different.

Einstein's insight in the special theory was that the speed of light is such an invariant. It is constant, no matter what speed the observer is travelling at. Add to this the condition, first codified by Galileo, that the laws of physics should look the same so long as the observer is in steady motion, and the special theory of relativity follows. But why did Einstein think the speed of light had to be invariant?

Continued in article


Law School Admission Council --- http://www.lsac.org/ 


Question
Is Google becoming Skynet?  And is Aishwarya Rai the world's most beautiful woman?

Answer (Well sort of)

January 3, 2005 message from Glen Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU

Maybe my mind is drifting—or maybe 2 plus 2 does equal 4.

Terminator 3 has been playing recently on cable. [Don’t read further if you don’t want to know the ending!]

At the end of Terminator 3, we learn that Skynet (which takes over the world in the future and tries to kill all humans) is not controlled by just one major computer as we thought in Terminators 1 and 2, but instead, Skynet is all the computers on earth connected together—acting as one giant computer brain.

Tonight I was watching 60 Minutes on TV and they dedicated 30 minutes to Google. Google is able to search all computers connected to the Internet. Recently Google released software that will search all the computers on LANS. Now you can Google on your cell phone, search libraries, etc. etc. etc. Now they are working on a universal translator (Start Trek anyone?) that will automatically search and translate any document in any language.

Is Google Skynet? Think about it.

Glen L. Gray, PhD, CPA
Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business & Economics
California State University, Northridge
Northridge, CA 91330
http://www.csun.edu/~vcact00f  

January 3, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Glen,

I also watched the excellent 60 Minute module.   Google is amazing in almost every aspect, including how it is managed.  I think that all business policy and organization behavior students should watch this module.  It will be interesting to see how long the company can continue to grow at an exponential pace and maintain its long-standing motto to “Do No Evil.”   These guys really believe in that motto.  Google is probably the most cautious firm in the world about who gets hired and promoted.

There has never been anything quite like Google in terms of management, except SAS probably comes a little bit close.

Yes I think Google could become Skynet if it were not for the serious policy of Google to not be a monopolist (except by default) which is the antithesis of Microsoft Corporation.  Also there is the black cloud of Microsoft hanging over Google to pull down Google’s Skynet even if it takes a trillion dollars.   

There were some very fascinating things that I learned from the 60 Minutes module.  For one thing, Google is getting closer to scanning the documents in alternate languages around the world and then translating each hit into a language of choice (probably English to begin with).  Secondly, I knew that Google bought Keyhole, but I had not played in recent years with the amazing keyhole (not Google Views) ---  http://www.keyhole.com/

Readers interested in the wonderful “Defining Google” 60 Minutes module should go to http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/30/60minutes/main664063.shtml

I might also add that this module was followed by another module on The World’s Most Beautiful Woman --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/29/60minutes/main663862.shtml
She’s very articulate and a pure delight in this world of sinking morality even though her movie roles to date have been
Bombay frivolous.

 Bob Jensen

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm  


Here's Johnnie

From: owner-johnny-ihackstuff@nexus.net [mailto:owner-johnny-ihackstuff@nexus.net] On Behalf Of j0hnny
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 10:08 PM

Subject: johnny-ihackstuff ihackstuff: Google Hacking Book, Forums, Database!

Greetings from http://johnny.ihackstuff.com!

First, let me say I'm sorry to those that are receiving this twice. I'm REALLY sorry, but my first mailing went out to only a few hundred of us! I tried to de-duplicate, but I probably messed something up! =/

It's been a long time since I emailed everyone, and as many of you know, I keep emails to a minimum. In typical fashion, I'll keep this one short as well. We're proud to announce a few BIG THINGS happening including our new redirector site, http://www.ihackgoogle.com.

First, I've written a book on Google Hacking, published by Syngress, available online through Amazon.com, as well as finer bookstores sometime in the next few days.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=ihackstuff-20&path=tg%2

Fdetail%2F-%2F1931836361

I'm very proud of this book, and I had great support from some great co-authors, including our very own Murf and ThePsyko. From an offensive standpoint, this book is filled with great information about how to use Google to assess, and in some cases, penetrate a target during an assessment. From a defensive standpoint, this book can help you understand and defend against the threat an attacker poses when armed only with the Google search engine. Those of you that have commented on my down-to-earth style will appreciate how easy this book reads, and even I was surprised by just how much could actually be accomplished with Google. Check it out!

Let's talk a moment about our forums. We've got some great forums going! The Google Hacking forums

(http://johnny.ihackstuff.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=index&c=2)

are so active we've had to sign up several moderators just to handle all the traffic! Each and every day, new techniques are discovered by our nearly 30,000 site members.

Of course, discovering new techniques is great and all, but if they aren't documented, what's the use? That's where our new and improved Google Hacking Database (GHDB) comes in. Once called the "googledorks" list, this database documents nearly 1,000 queries that attackers could be using against you! Each entry in the database lists the query, provides a link to the Google results, describes the issue, and of course ranks the danger of each search, in true googledork fashion!

Quite a few tools have been developed, including Athena by Steve at snakeoillabs, SiteDigger by Foundstone, and a new slick addition, Wikto, by Roelof and the crew at Sensepost (http://www.sensepost.com/research/wikto/). Each of these tools uses the GHDB to help you discover your level of exposure to the dangerous Google Hacking threat.

That's about it. Thanks for signing up for an account on my site, and I'm sorry if this email is unwelcome. If you would like me to delete your account, preventing future (sparse!) emails, please reply to this with "DELETE ME" and your email address in the subject.

I hope this email finds you well. This little hobby of mine has really taken off, and I'm blessed to be along for this ride. Thanks for joining me!

take care,

j0hnny

http://johnny.ihackstuff.com

johnny@ihackstuff.com 

"I'm Johnny. I hack stuff."


From the January 7, 2005 edition of the Scout Report

Resident Assistant http://www.residentassistant.com/ 

Now that students around the country are returning to college after winter break, it may behoove those in student services (or those with a young person who is attending college) to take a look at this helpful site. Designed specifically with resident assistants (RAs) in mind, the site contains over 2,300 pages of residence life materials including programming ideas, icebreakers, and articles on a host of different topics. There are also a number of articles that impart advice for new RA's, including those on common mistakes, keys to success, and planning successful trips for students under their charge. One particularly helpful feature is the "Ask the Experts" section, where persons seeking answers to residential life questions can pose their questions online, or review previously answered questions about community building, dealing with students who may have a substance abuse problems and so on.

Two from the History Cooperative The Oral History Review http://www.historycooperative.org/ohrindex.html  World History Connected http://www.historycooperative.org/whcindex.html 

Many academic disciplines have been actively seeking to expand their scholarly publishing activities onto the Internet, and history is certainly no exception. In the spring of 2000, The History Cooperative was launched as part of a collaborative effort on the part of four organizations (including the American Historical Association and the National Academy Press). Rather recently, The History Cooperative brought two new publications into the fold: Oral History Review and World History Connected. Visitors to the first site can read the first electronic edition of the Oral History Review (from September 2004), and peruse such articles as "Kissing Cousins: Journalism and Oral History" and a number of book reviews from that edition. Visitors can also view submission guidelines and learn about the journals' editorial board. The second link leads to the World History Connected e-journal, which is the new journal of "learning and teaching for world history educators". Currently there are three issues of this journal available here for the public's consideration. Visitors will want to make sure and read a commentary titled "An Emerging Consensus in World History" by that eminent historian from the University of Chicago, Professor Emeritus William McNeill. [KMG]

Women in World History Curriculum http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/ 

Under the able direction of educator Lyn Reese, the Women in World History Curriculum project has been developing materials that introduce women's history into the secondary level classroom for more than two decades. Teachers and parents will enjoy perusing the online materials here, which include reviews of various curricula, reviews of women's history books that may be useful in the classroom, and of course, some historical background essays on topics such as women and the Crusades and historical perspectives on Islamic dress. The site also contains 13 activities that educators may use in their classrooms. The topics covered by these activities include the role of women in the early Industrial Revolution period in England and the fight for global suffrage. Additionally, some of the educational materials featured here are available for purchase.

 

Two from the National Academies Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review [pdf] http://www.nap.edu/books/0309091241/html/   http://video.nationalacademies.org/ramgen/news/isbn/0309091241.rm 

The National Academy of Sciences has never been known to shy away from important and controversial public policy debates, and this recent report on the relationship on the role of guns in U.S. society is no exception. Released in December 2004, this 328-page report from the National Academies' National Research Council contains some rather important observations, including the fact that there is no credible evidence that "right-to-carry" laws either decrease or increase the incidence of violent crime. It should be noted that the study committee responsible for the report was not asked to address any issues of policy, but rather just to offer a critical and methodical assessment of the research base on firearms violence and on prevention, intervention, and control strategies. That being said, the committee did recommend that the federal government should support a robust research program in this area. The first site mentioned here will lead visitors to a full-text version of the report which may be viewed online, complete with a rather compelling dissent section offered by the noted social scientist James Q. Wilson. The second link leads to a news conference that complemented the recent release of this valuable report.

Fox Chase Cancer Center: Research [pdf] http://www.fccc.edu/research 

In 1974, the Fox Chase Cancer Center was designated as one the country's first comprehensive cancer centers by the National Cancer Institute. The mission of Fox Chase "is to reduce the burden of human cancer through the highest-quality programs in research and patient care, including cancer prevention, treatment, early detection and education." Current Fox Chase faculty research programs focus on molecular aspects of oncogenesis; cell cycle control; gene expression; viral molecular biology and pathogenesis; regulation and development of the immune system; and more. Specific research programs include Cellular and Development Biology; Prostate Cancer; Breast Cancer; Immunobiology; and Cancer Prevention and Control. From the research program pages, visitors can link to publication listings, research interests, and contact information for staff members. The website also provides information about Resources & Research Education, and the Fox Chase Postdoctoral Research Program. The Center's Talbot Research Library has a number of helpful resources for researchers as well including links to Databases, and Journal Holdings. [NL] This site is also reviewed in the January 7, 2005_NSDL Life Sciences Report_.


January 12, 2005 message from Trey Dunn

Dr. Jensen, I thought you might enjoy these pictures. They are before and after pictures of the destruction of the tsunami that hit Asia on December 26. -Trey

http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/9.html 


United Kingdom Statistics Online --- http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on economic statistics are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics 


Man Versus Machine

Chess was very important in the very earliest days of mainframe computing.  The initial goal of building computer chess software that could "view" any pattern of chess pieces and then optimally play for either player was soon deemed impossible because of the exponential explosion of possible outcomes over subsequent sequential plays of the opponent.  No computer then or now has the computing speed and memory to play optimal chess.  This led early decision theorists such as Herb Simon and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon back in the 1960s to develop "heuristic" and "satisficing" and "bounded"  theories of reaching good but not necessarily optimal decisions.  Some of Simon's writings are referenced at http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/simon.htm .  Robert Nau provides updated theories of choice and decision making in this regard at http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~rnau/choice/choice12.pdf 

 

Also see a great historical review in "Man Versus Machine:  Computer Chess Develops" at http://whyfiles.org/040chess/main4.html 


Other related documents are linked at 
http://whyfiles.org/040chess/index.html
 


Computer wastes Garry Kasparov, the Muhammed Ali of chess.

Deep Blue's guts, spilled.

Is this computer smart?

Startling facts about the chess struggle.

Electronic brain, or giant adding machine?

Making sense of Blue's bash.

 

Update on Chess

Chessbase News --- http://chessbase.com/ 

 

"Update on Chess Technology," by Dylan Loeb McClain, The New York Times, January 13, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/Chess2005 

JAY BONIN, an international chess master who lives in New York, is one of the busiest players in the country. He takes part in face-to-face tournament matches every week and also regularly participates in games of speed chess at chessclub.com, the Internet Chess Club. He estimated that he has played more than 20,000 games online in the last three or four years.

Mr. Bonin is much more active than most elite players, but he is doing what most serious players have long thought is necessary: playing frequently to stay in peak form. Now, however, because of the widespread availability of databases of games and the growing strength of chess software, such activity may actually be making it easier to beat him.

Mr. Bonin said that he recently lost a tournament game to a weaker player who had not competed in years, but who had sprung a surprise move on him in one of Mr. Bonin's favorite openings.

"The line he played reeked of preparation," he said.

The problem for elite players is that while practice is important, so too is study and preparation - knowing the best moves and knowing what opponents like to play.

There are many ways to play a chess game, particularly in the opening sequences, and some players may have studied the first 15 or 20 moves of their favorite openings, like the Kings Indian defense, the Ruy Lopez or hundreds of others that are known by shorthand names.

Game databases, many of which are online, give players information about what opening strategies their opponents use. And rapidly improving chess computer programs can analyze games and make suggestions about what to play. In many cases, electronic game collections are replacing books as chess players' primary source of information.

Using computers and databases during tournament matches is not allowed, and most players say that cheating is rare. But using such systems to help prepare has become ubiquitous.

Gregory Shahade, an international master, said he has used databases, partly because everyone else does, too. Mr. Shahade said that he did not think that he had ever lost a game because an opponent prepared a special opening, but that he felt computers and databases have made chess more predictable and probably less fun. "It seems there is less creativity now," he said.

Garry Kasparov, a former world champion and still the world's top ranked player, agreed that electronic aids may have stifled creativity, at least in the openings.

It certainly has made things more difficult for the more innovative players. Before people started using databases, a player who came up with a new move in an opening might be able to use it several times before enough people found out about it to start preparing for it. Now innovations are known almost as soon as they are played. "The profit maybe is very small," Mr. Kasparov said. "You can only use it one game."

Mr. Kasparov himself may be most responsible for the widespread adoption of electronic aids by chess players.

André Schulz, editor of Chessbase (chessbase.com), an online database and news site based in Hamburg, Germany, said that Mr. Kasparov met one of the company's founders, Matthias Wullenweber, in 1985, when Mr. Kasparov was preparing for his second world championship match against Anatoly Karpov. With suggestions from Mr. Kasparov, Mr. Wullenweber created a program that would allow someone to search a database of games based on different specifications, like player names, positions and opening names.

Mr. Kasparov was enthusiastic about the resulting program and when Mr. Wullenweber started selling it, Mr. Kasparov gave it an endorsement sure to catch the attention of other players. "It's the greatest development for chess since the invention of the printing press," Mr. Kasparov said.

Chessbase.com, which now has more than three million games, is updated every week. Mr. Schulz said that many of the new games are supplied by tournament directors who collect them from the players. Most of the games are in the public domain, so there is no cost to acquire them. The games are entered using notation that has a designation for each piece and each square.

Many games are from elite players - including some played hundreds of years ago - but there are also a great many games from average players. That way, Mr. Schulz said, it is possible to look up games played by your next opponent.

**************************************

Additional Reading

A 1-1/2-year-old computer in Israel is being reared to learn the same way children do -- with the hopes of being the first machine to pass the so-called "Turing Test." http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,46171,00.html 


"Accounting Oversight Board Can't Find Workers, Cuts Budget," SmartPros, January 3, 2005 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x46423.xml 

The U.S. accounting watchdog has voted to cut its 2005 budget by more than 10 percent, to $136.1 million, mainly because of difficulties in hiring workers.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board also said it may consider raising salaries in order to attract workers as competition for experienced auditors intensifies.

Thursday's budget cut comes just two months after the board approved a $152.8 million budget for 2005 amid expectations that it would start the year with 300 employees. Instead, the audit-oversight board will begin the new year with 262 staffers, reducing the chances of meeting projections for 450 employees by the end of 2005.

The nonprofit board was created by Congress 2 1/2 years ago in the aftermath of a series of corporate accounting scandals. It has been seeking to add to its work force as it picks up its routine inspections. The board plans to conduct annual inspections of firms that audit more than 100 public companies, and to inspect the smaller accounting firms at least once every three years.

The oversight board is funded through fees levied on auditing firms and public companies.

The audit-oversight board said that, even with less money and fewer workers than projected, it will be able to meet the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on corporate reform.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting reforms are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudProposedReforms.htm 


"Infrequently Asked Questions" from The Economist --- http://www.economist.com/diversions/quiz/ 

In the past ten years, 28 British universities have closed their _______ department:

 

  • Philosophy
  • Chemistry
  • Drama
  • German

In Greece, the cap on the liability of firms’ auditors is indexed to:

  • The combined revenue of Greece’s 50 largest companies
  • The salary of the president of the supreme court
  • The population: auditors are liable for €2 per Greek
  • The market capitalisation of the Athens stock exchange

 

The book “Past Events Have Not Vanished Like Smoke,” which has been banned by the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department, covers:

 

  • The party’s persecution of intellectuals in 1957
  • The suspicious death of Liu Shaoqi, a rival to Mao, in 1969
  • The forced abortion of what would have been the author’s second child
  • Government debates on how to handle the Tiananmen Square uprising

 

How did Asian soyabean rust, currently blighting farms in the American south-east, get to the United States?

 

  • Via Japanese orchids shipped to a botanical garden in Memphis, Tennessee
  • It was let loose by “agri-terrorists”
  • Via a hurricane
  • Via soy plants meant to be used for genetic experiments

Less than 1% of Indonesians:

 

  • Live on an island
  • Are Christian
  • Voted for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the current president, in 2004 elections
  • File personal tax returns

 

Why did the prima ballerina born Alice Marks change her name to Alicia Markova?

 

  • To show her support for the Soviet Union
  • To be taken seriously as a ballerina (at Diaghilev’s suggestion)
  • To honour her roots; her grandfather had taken the name “Marks” on emigrating to Britain
  • To hide from creditors

 

Why did a series of presidential election polls taken for The Economist by YouGov, a British firm, fail to predict that George Bush would win the 2004 election?

 

  • They polled too heavily in urban areas
  • They ignored voters who only use mobile telephones
  • They didn’t take into account the likeliness that responders would actually vote
  • They only polled friends and relatives of Economist staff

 

All of the following are names of file-swapping services, save one. Which one is made up?

 

  • Grokster
  • Morpheus
  • Swaparama
  • eDonkey

 

Between 1993 and 2002, strikes cost Britain 25 working days per year, the United States 45, and Germany:

 

  • 5
  • 15
  • 35
  • 75

 

A few months before Yasser Arafat died, an independent firm conducted a poll of Palestinians on their choice for his vice-president. Who won?

 

  • Marwan Barghouti, then in an Israeli prison
  • Mahmoud Abbas, who became the PLO’s chairman after Mr Arafat’s death
  • Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader
  • “Will decide later”

 

In which year did Afghanistan set a record for opium production (4,600 tonnes)?

 

  • 1921, the first year the crop was introduced
  • 1989, the year the Soviet army left
  • 1999, under the Taliban
  • 2003, under coalition forces
 

ANSWERS

 

 

In the past ten years, 28 British universities have closed their ____ department:
Chemistry
(See article: Bad chemistry, 27/11/2004)
 
The book “Past Events Have Not Vanished Like Smoke,” which has been banned by the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department, covers:
The party’s persecution of intellectuals in 1957
(See article: Under fire, again, 11/12/2004)

 
How did Asian soyabean rust, currently blighting farms in the American south-east, get to the United States?
Via a hurricane
(See article: Rust never sleeps, 11/12/2004)

 
Less than 1% of Indonesians:
File personal tax returns
(See article: So much to do, 11/12/2004)

 
Why did the prima ballerina born Alice Marks change her name to Alicia Markova?
To be taken seriously as a ballerina (at Diaghilev’s suggestion)
 (See article: Alicia Markova, 11/12/2004)

 
Why did a series of presidential election polls taken for The Economist by YouGov, a British firm, fail to predict that George Bush would win the 2004 election?
They didn’t take into account the likeliness that responders would actually vote
(See article: He said, she said, nobody knew, 20/11/2004)

 
In Greece, the cap on the liability of firms’ auditors is indexed to:
The salary of the president of the supreme court
(See article: Called to account, 20/11/2004)

 
All of the following are names of file-swapping services, save one. Which one is made up?
Swaparama
(See article: I want my P2P, 20/11/2004)

 
Between 1993 and 2002, strikes cost Britain 25 working days per year, the United States 45, and Germany:
5
 (See article: Goodbye consensus?, 20/11/2004)

 
A few months before Yasser Arafat died, an independent firm conducted a poll of Palestinians on their choice for his vice-president. Who won?
“Will decide later”
(See article: Looking for a leader, 20/11/2004)

 
In which year did Afghanistan set a record for opium production (4,600 tonnes)?
1999, under the Taliban
(See article: After the Taliban, 20/11/2004)

 


Free International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Copies

January 5, 2005 message from Paul Pacter

I posted a news story on www.iasplus.com  yesterday about new full text postings by the EC.

Plus I put a permanent link on my website to the EC postings of IASs.

I hope this email goes thru.

Paul


6 January 2005: FEI top 10 financial reporting issues for 2005
Financial Executives International has compiled a list of the Top 10 Financial Reporting Challenges for 2005. While the list is written primarily in a US reporting context, nearly all of the challenges on the list relate to IASB projects as well:
  • Stock Options (SFAS 123 and IFRS 2).
  • Internal Controls.
  • Revenue recognition (a joint IASB-FASB project).
  • Uncertain tax positions (FASB and IASB are working to converge their income tax standards).
  • Unremitted foreign earnings (FASB and IASB are working to converge their income tax standards).
  • Business Combinations (a joint IASB-FASB project).
  • Inventory costs (FASB has issued Statement 151 in late 2004 to converge with IAS 2).
  • Off-balance-sheet arrangements disclosures.
  • XBRL (an IFRS Taxonomy has been developed).
  • MD&A guidance (an IASB research project).


Question
What things other than consciousness cannot be a scientific problem?

Answer:  The answer is up to you to think about!

Putting the point in that way makes it clear that, in the first instance at least, the problem of consciousness is a philosophical, not a scientific, problem. It cannot be solved by studying the empirical data, since consciousness (as normally understood) isn’t one of them.
"The Unobservable Mind," by Roger Scruton, MIT's Technology Review, February 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/issue/review_mind.asp?trk=nl 

Consciousness is more familiar to us than any other feature of our world, since it is the route by which anything at all becomes familiar. But this is what makes consciousness so hard to pinpoint. Look for it wherever you like, you encounter only its objects—a face, a dream, a memory, a color, a pain, a melody, a problem, but nowhere the consciousness that shines on them. Trying to grasp it is like trying to observe your own observing, as though you were to look with your own eyes at your own eyes without using a mirror. Not surprisingly, therefore, the thought of consciousness gives rise to peculiar metaphysical anxieties, which we try to allay with images of the soul, the mind, the self, the “subject of consciousness,” the inner entity that thinks and sees and feels and that is the real me inside. But these traditional “solutions” merely duplicate the problem. We cast no light on the consciousness of a human being simply by redescribing it as the consciousness of some inner homunculus—be it a soul, a mind, or a self. On the contrary, by placing that homunculus in some private, inaccessible, and possibly immaterial realm, we merely compound the mystery.

Putting the point in that way makes it clear that, in the first instance at least, the problem of consciousness is a philosophical, not a scientific, problem. It cannot be solved by studying the empirical data, since consciousness (as normally understood) isn’t one of them. We can observe brain processes, neurons, ganglions, synapses, and all the other intricate matter of the brain, but we cannot observe consciousness. I can observe you observing, but what I observe is not that peculiar thing that you know from within and that is present, in some sense, only to you. At least, so it would seem; if this is some kind of mistake, it is a philosophical and not a scientific argument that will tell us so.

This appropriation of the question by philosophy is apt to make scientists impatient. Surely, they will argue, if consciousness is real it must be part of the real world—the world of space and time, which we observe with our senses and explain by science. But what part? First-person reports of conscious states are radically affected by brain damage, and the behavior that leads us to describe others as conscious originates in the nervous system, whose functions seem to be largely controlled by the brain. Common sense and scientific inference therefore both point to the brain as the seat of consciousness. So, scientists argue, let’s study the brain and find out exactly which of its processes correspond to our conscious mental states. That way, they suggest, we will find out what consciousness is.

But will we? Unfortunately, the philosophical problem comes back at us in another form. How exactly do we discover a correspondence between consciousness and a brain process, given that consciousness is not something that we observe? And suppose we overcome that difficulty and produce a theory correlating conscious mental states with specific neurological events. This means that we have discovered what consciousness is only if we can advance from this correspondence to an understanding of our identity. And that is precisely what so many philosophers doubt we can do. True, there are some who defend the view that conscious states are identical with brain processes, but they defend it on philosophical, not scientific, grounds. And their view is open to radical objections: for example, how can a state of one thing (a person) be identical with a process in another (a brain)?

If the neurobiologist Christof Koch, professor of cognitive and behavioral biology at Caltech, enters this territory with some trepidation, he nevertheless hopes to take possession of it in the name of science. The task, he believes, is to avoid getting lost in definitions and conceptual puzzles and instead to discover the “neuronal correlates of consciousness.” He at once narrows that target, however, to “the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms jointly sufficient for a specific conscious percept.” In other words, the object of study is not consciousness as such but “specific conscious percepts,” in particular those involved in visual perception. Koch’s ambition, nevertheless, is to integrate the analysis of vision into the more general program that he developed with the late Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA, who contributes the foreword to the book. That program is to explain how consciousness evolved and identify the processes in the brain that carry it. The book gives a fairly comprehensive account of what neurobiology has to say about the higher functions of the brain. It is not surprising, therefore, that the writing is densely scientific and heavily referenced, with many digressions. But proceeding on the supposition that the science is correct, what do we make of the title? Does neurobiology in the style of Crick and Koch really take us further in the “quest for consciousness”? Or is it simply amassing more and more information about the brain, without telling us how brain and mind are connected?


"A New Idea for Publishing," by John Battelle, MIT's Technology Review, January 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/megaphone0105.asp?trk=nl 

Ideally, commercial media would consist of equal partnerships between three parties: publishers, the audience, and advertisers. In reality, advertisers, the group with the most money, hold all the cards. Publishers have been relegated to the role of supplicant, and the audience—well, we pretty much have to swallow whatever deal the publisher and the advertisers cut.

For the most part, the Internet has inherited this model from print publishing: on the Web, there are far more publishers trolling for ad dollars than there are advertisers doling them out. But the Internet’s interactivity suggests an alternative economy in which the long-standing imbalance between publisher, audience, and advertiser could be corrected. A system of Internet-based marketing, which I’ll call Publisher-Driven Advertising, or PDA, may be soon possible. In this system, publishers would pick and choose from a vast supply of advertisers

The first step toward building such a system has already been taken: the pay-per-click (PPC) network. If you have ever visited Google or any content site that runs Google’s ads, you’ve seen it (for more on Google’s advertising networks, see p. 38). Those text-based ads on the right side of the screen represent two shifts in the traditional relationship between publishers and advertisers. First, the advertiser pays only when the ad performs—when someone clicks on the ad itself. Second, paid search networks “disaggregate” advertisers from publishers—that is, advertisers no longer purchase space on the publisher’s site but instead pay for keywords.

When PPC networks were first introduced, publishers were understandably concerned. PPC undermined what they had worked hard to build: a community of loyal readers. PPC networks claimed that those readers were only valuable if they acted—that is, clicked on an ad.

Advertisers initially loved paid search for one simple reason: it worked, driving valuable leads to their sites. But the publishers’ concerns were well-founded. After all, paid search can undermine the value of a publisher-created community. It also fails to garner the benefits of a publisher’s influence and endorsement. Finally, advertisers care a lot about where their ads appear. A big question arises: can we create an advertising model that has all the benefits of paid search and at the same time values the relationship between publisher and audience?

Imagine that we start with the idea of PPC—that advertisers pay publishers only if their ads are acted upon by readers. Next, imagine that, instead of buying into PPC networks or specific sites, advertisers release their ads onto the Internet.

Because an Internet-based ad is already a little piece of software, it can be tagged with information about its target audience, how much the advertiser is willing to spend to reach that audience (and how much each click will cost), what kind of websites are acceptable or forbidden (such as porn sites), and any number of other attributes. Most important, each ad could communicate with a “home” application that tracks its progress and status.

Once these tagged ads are let loose, publishers could simply copy and paste them into their own websites. Through connections to their home sites, the ads would report which publishers have pasted them where, how many clicks they’ve received, and how much money is left in the advertiser’s bank account. The ad propagates until it runs out of money. If it is working, the advertiser simply fills up the tank with more money.

Why is this model better than the current one? Because publishers know their audiences best. There’s no incentive for publishers to place ads that don’t perform or that offend their readers.

How might such an idea take root? Weblogs. These “micropublishers” have credibility and influence with their online communities, and if they decided to run PDA-based advertising, it could be taken as tantamount to an endorsement of the system itself.

This adds yet another element to the PDA system: publisher influence. PDA allows publishers to declare their support of certain advertisers by deciding to run their ads. This new system of advertising might even incorporate a “cost-per-influence” metric that would reward publishers for propagating ads to other sites*.

Although there are technological and business problems that still need to be ironed out, Publisher-Driven Advertising could work, especially because it benefits all the parties involved. When PPC was first proposed, it was dismissed as a joke. Today, it’s a $5 billion industry.


Question
What are fullerenes?

Answer

Fullerenes, those soccer ball–shaped carbon molecules also known as “buckyballs,” have generated outsized expectations ever since their discovery in 1985. Scientists think they could eventually be used in chemical sensors, fuel cells, drug delivery, cancer medicines, and smart materials. Yet while commercial demand for fullerenes is gradually emerging, so are fears that these molecules, which measure only a few billionths of a meter across, pose serious health and environmental hazards.
"Mitsubishi: Out Front in Nanotech," by Stephen Herrera, MIT's Technology Review, January 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/herrera0105.asp?trk=nl 

To some, however, fullerenes’ potential is too great to ignore. Mitsubishi Corporation, which holds a number of key patents and licenses on fullerenes, began laying the groundwork for their commercialization in 1993, and company executives say they realized from the beginning that they would need to do voluntarily what many companies won’t do until forced: consider the concerns of stakeholders in academia, government, the environmental community, and the public.

In 2001, Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi Chemical, one of its sister firms in the Mitsubishi group, created Frontier Carbon to manufacture fullerenes. Today Frontier produces only a small amount of fullerenes for its 350 Japanese customers. But already it can make 40 metric tons of fullerenes a year and will eventually expand that capacity to 1,500 metric tons per year. No other producer comes close to these volumes. In fact, nanotechnology industry observers say the two Mitsubishis are taking a big risk by powering up fullerene capacity before there’s a market. They are, in one nanotechnology pundit’s words, “putting the cart, the barn, and the farm before the horse.”

And then there are the health concerns. It’s well known that fullerenes suck up loosely bound electrons from neighboring molecules. Inside the body, this phenomenon releases free radicals that can wreak havoc on cell chemistry. And in a possible confirmation that fullerenes produce this effect, a highly publicized study described at an American Chemical Society meeting last March found that bass fish exposed to the molecules developed brain damage.

Counteracting such fears won’t be easy, since Japan, along with most of the in­dustrialized world, lacks a government-­approved system for monitoring, testing, or certifying nanotechnology products. But thanks in part to the efforts of Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi Chemical, and Frontier, Japan is well on its way to becoming the first nation with such protections, which could help inoculate its companies against a nanotech backlash.

Bob Jensen's threads on nanotechnology and ubiquitous computing are at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on nanotechnology and accounting are at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/310wp/310wp.htm#_The_Chaotic_Future   

 


January 4, 2005 message from Zabi Rezaee

I hope everyone is having a happy new year. I'm looking for a reference to any manuscript or published paper that describes profit functions and/or a model comprised of a set of variables (internal/external) and constraints (internal/external). Any help finding this reference would be greatly appreciated. 

Best regards, Zabi Rezaee, Ph.D, CPA, CMA, CIA, CGFM, CFE 
Thompson-Hill Chair of Excellence & Professor of Accountancy 
Fogelman College of Business and Economics 300 
Fogelman College Admin. Building 
The University of Memphis Memphis, TN 38152-3120 
Phone: (901) 678-4652 Fax: (901) 678-2685 E-Mail:
zrezaee@memphis.edu 

January 4, 2004 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Zabi,

It is unclear what you mean by a profit model.  I’ve never seen a mathematical model of an entire firm or division in a firm that was very practical because of missing variables, function assumptions, and nonstationarities of the firm and the economy being modeled.  Limiting assumptions generally loom larger than life.  Models can be useful from the standpoint of teaching, especially when the models are pitted against the realities of the world to show how difficult it is to model the real world of accounting.

 

In a CVP context, you might look at Jim Martin's Constrained Optimization Techniques --- http://www.maaw.info/ConstrainoptTechs.htm

Much of the analytical work of Demski, Felthan, etc. entail profit models.  See http://bear.cba.ufl.edu/demski/pdfjunk/resume3.pdf 
Joel's old thesis was a linear programming model.

Also see http://people.sauder.ubc.ca/faculty/feltham/docs/CV-Events-9-04.pdf 

Simulation models often dig deeper into the realities.  See Swarm at http://www.swarm.org/ 

 

From a forecasting standpoint, you might look at the following two references:

1. Issues in Accounting Education Vol. 16, No. 2 May 2001 Questrom vs. Federated Department Stores, Inc: A Question of Equity Value Gary K. Taylor, William D. Samson, and Benton Gup

2. Penman Financial Statement Analysis and Security Valuation by Stephen H. Penman (McGraw-Hill, Second Edition, 2003)

Hope this helps,

Bob Jensen


The life of Leonardo da Vinci. 

Renaissance Man, by Adam Gopnik
Reviewed at http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?050117crbo_books 


Question
What is the worst state in the U.S. to run a business?

Answer 
I thought it might Taxachusetts (High Taxes), Hawaii (logistical costs and militant labor uniions), or Alaska (climate, long nights, and shortage of skilled labor). The WSJ thinks it's New York:

"The Former Empire State," The Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2005; Page A10 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110489289784817277,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 

"Outsourcing" to Bombay and Beijing gets the media attention, but job relocation among the 50 U.S. states is twice as common. This means that relative state business climates count for a lot, as New Yorkers have been discovering to their sorrow.

Last week the Public Policy Institute of New York released a report that confirms what many in that state's business community surely suspected, even if they didn't realize things were quite so bad. Exorbitant costs for energy, employee benefits and taxes make New York one of the worst places in the country to run a business. "The burden of these high costs clearly outweighs New York's advantages, such as technology and labor force, in terms of the state's overall competitiveness," the report concludes. Among the burdens:

• Commercial users of electricity pay the second-highest rates in the country (behind Hawaii) and an average of 43% more than businesses located in other states. At 37% above the national average, industrial prices for natural gas aren't a deal either. Robert Ward, the Public Policy Institute's research director and the study's author, told the New York Sun that state fees and regulations discourage private-sector energy competition. "It is almost impossible to imagine how another generation facility could get built these days," he says.

• New York corporate taxes per capita are fourth-highest in the U.S. and 171% above the national average. Personal income-tax rates are also among the nation's highest, especially for residents of New York City.

• The state ranks second (after Alaska) in health insurance costs to employers, and third in workers compensation costs, which are a whopping 80% above the national median. Albany politicians have piled on so many health-care mandates that an insurance policy can cost thousands of dollars more a year in New York than a few miles away in Connecticut. New York's complex, high-rate unemployment insurance tax structure also earns it the status of "worst in the nation," says the report.

Small wonder that New York's growth in private-sector jobs since 1993 is only half of the national average. Or that manufacturing employment over the same period is down by 27%, compared with the nationwide average of 15%.

All of this has made the state's economic troubles a staple of political rhetoric. Politicians promise changes, but once they settle in Albany they all conform to its tax, spend and regulate culture. Republican Governor George Pataki resisted this for his first three years in the early 1990s, cutting spending and tax rates. But like California's former Governor Gray Davis, Mr. Pataki lost his way in the revenue boom later in the decade.

Spending began exceeding inflation as he sought to gain union support during election years, and taxes were raised to finance it all. By 2002, New Yorkers were shouldering the heaviest tax burden in the nation, both on a per-capita basis and after adjusting for personal income.

Not even 9/11 and a recession have done much to abate Albany's spending binge. The Manhattan Institute's E.J. McMahon noted in June that while the consumer price index for Northeast urban regions is up by less than 8% since 2001, "the state funds budget has grown by over $6 billion, or 11%." This year's budget, passed in August, favors borrowing and "one-shot" revenues over cost-cutting.

One political irony is that this record has created an opening for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, of all people, to run for Governor in 2006 promising economic revitalization. Mr. Spitzer's arbitrary enforcement of the financial industry has done its own economic damage, but voters can be forgiven if they wonder how the Democrat would be any worse than Mr. Pataki, who hasn't yet decided whether to run for a fourth term. Meanwhile, Republicans are barely holding on to their majority in the state senate with the help of gerrymandering. Eventually they'll lose that, too, not that it matters much now in policy alternatives.

All of this is fine if you're the Governor of New Jersey, or Connecticut, or some other state that has benefited over the years from business fleeing New York. But it's a tragedy to see a state that was once America's industrial engine, and even now is home to so much financial and creative talent, gradually slip into French-style decline. If the state's politicians want to see the cause, the Public Policy Institute study is telling them to look in the mirror.




Forwarded by Marjoy

Subject: my Norwegian friend is on a roll...

 To those in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and for that matter the rest of the country, I must report the sad news that  'Ole' was SHOT.

 He was up by the Canadian border on his 4-wheeler cutting some trees, when some rangers looking for terrorists spotted him. According to the news reports, using a loudspeaker, they shouted to him "Who are you and what are you doing?"

 Ole shouted back, "OLE..BIN LOGGIN'!"

 Ole is survived by his wife Lena and good friend Lars.

For Sven, Ole, and Lena stories, try the following:
       http://www.newnorth.net/~bmorren/olelena.html  (with music)


Forwarded by Dr. Wolff

A seven year old Dallas boy was at the center of a courtroom drama this morning when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of the boy. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents so the judge had awarded temporary custody to his aunt. The boy confirmed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and refused to live there. When the judge offered the alternative that he live with his grandparents the boy cried out that they beat him more than anyone.

The judge then decided to allow the boy to choose who should have custody of him. Just before noon today, custody was finally granted to the Dallas Cowboys as the boy (and the judge) firmly believed that they are not capable of beating anyone.


Forwarded by Paula

Men are like .Laxatives ......... They irritate the crap out of you.

Men are like . Weather ......... Nothing can be done to change them.

Men are like ......... Blenders ......... You need One, but you're not quite sure why.

Men are like . Chocolate Bars ........ Sweet, smooth, &they usually head right for your hips.

Men are like . Commercials ......... You can't believe a word they say.

Men are like ... Department Stores ........ Their clothes are always 1/2 off.

Men are like ......... Government Bonds ........ They take soooooooo long to mature.

Men are like ... Mascara ......... They usually run at the first sign of emotion.

Men are like . Popcorn .. They satisfy you, but only for a little while.

Men are like .. ... Snowstorms ........ You never know when they're coming, how many inches you'll get or how long it will last.

Men are like ......... Lava Lamps ...... Fun to look at, but not very bright.

Men are like ......... Parking Spots ......... All the good ones are taken, the rest are handicapped.


Corporate Lessons forwarded by The Happy Lady (Cindy)

CORPORATE LESSON #1 A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower when the doorbell rings. After a few seconds of arguing over which one should go and answer the doorbell, the wife gives up, quickly wraps herself up in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next door neighbor. Before she could say a word, Bob says, "I'll give you $800 to drop that towel that you have on." After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves. Confused, but excited about her good fortune, the woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets back to the bathroom, her husband asks from the shower, "Who was that?" "It was Bob the next door neighbor," she replies. "Great!" the husband says, "Did he give you the $800 he owes me?"  Moral of the story: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

 CORPORATE LESSON #2 A priest was driving along and saw a nun on the side of the road. He stopped and offered her a lift which she accepted. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her habit to open and reveal a lovely leg. The priest had a good look and nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily reached over and slid his hand up her leg. The nun looked at him and immediately said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest was flustered and apologized profusely. He forced himself to remove his hand. Changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" Once again the priest apologized, "Sorry, Sister, but the flesh is weak." Arriving at the convent, the nun got out gave him a meaningful glance and went on her way. Upon his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to retrieve a bible and looked up Psalm 129. It Said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

 Moral of the story: If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

 CORPORATE LESSON #3 A sales representative, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out in a puff of smoke. The Genie says, "I usually only grant three wishes, so I'll give each of you just one." "Me first! Me first!" says the admin clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Poof! She's gone.

 In astonishment, "Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of pina coladas, and the love of my life." Poof! He's gone. "OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office right after lunch."

 Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say.

 CORPORATE LESSON #4 A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?" The crow answered: "Sure, why not?" So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow and rested. All of a sudden a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

 Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

 CORPORATE LESSON #5 A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, but I haven't got the energy."

 "Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. "They're packed with nutrients." The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, there he was, proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.

 Moral of the story: Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

 CORPORATE LESSON #6 In Africa, every morning a gazelle awakens knowing that it must outrun the fastest lion if it wants to stay alive. Every morning, a lion wakes up knowing it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

 Moral of the story: It makes no difference whether you are a gazelle or a lion: When the sun comes up, you had better be hauling ass.


Forwarded by Dick Haar

Dear Lord, 

I pray for: Wisdom, To understand a man. 
Love, To forgive him and; 
Patience, For his moods. Because, 
Lord, if I pray for Strength I'll just beat him to death.


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Whether a man winds up with a nest egg, or a goose egg, depends a lot on the kind of chick he marries.

Trouble in marriage often starts when a man gets so busy earnin' his salt, that he forgets his sugar.

Too many couples marry for better, or for worse, but not for good.

When a man marries a woman, they become one; but the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.

If a man has enough horse sense to treat his wife like a thoroughbred, she will never turn into an old nag.

On anniversaries, the wise husband always forgets the past - but never the present.

A foolish husband says to his wife, "Honey, you stick to the washin', ironin', cookin', and scrubbin'. No wife of mine is gonna work." !!!!!!!

The bonds of matrimony are a good investment, only when the interest is kept up.

Many girls like to marry a military man - he can cook, sew, and make beds, and is in good health, and he's already used to taking orders.

Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age, and start bragging about it.

The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your youth....Remember about Algebra.

You know you are getting old, when everything either dries up, or leaks.

I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.

One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.

Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

Old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald, they don't recognize you.

If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you are old.


Forwarded by The Happy Lady

*******************

How to shower like a woman

Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according to lights and darks.

Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown. If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

Look at your womanly physique in the mirror - make mental note to do more sit-ups/leg-lifts, etc.

Get in the shower. Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone.

Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins.

Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean.

Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner enhanced.

Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until red.

Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash. Rinse conditioner off hair.

Shave armpits and legs.

Turn off shower.

Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower.

Spray mold spots with Tilex.

Get out of shower.

Dry with towel the size of a small country.

Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.

Check entire body for zits, tweeze hairs.

Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head. If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

*********************************

How To Shower Like a Man:

Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile.

Walk naked to the bathroom.

If you see wife along the way, shake wiener at her making the 'woo-woo' sound.

Look at your manly physique in the mirror.

Admire the size of your wiener and scratch your ass.

Get in the shower.

Wash your face.

Wash your armpits.

Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse them off.

Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.

Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area.

Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs stuck on the soap.

Wash your hair.

Make a Shampoo Mohawk.

Pee.

Rinse off and get out of shower.

Partially dry off.

Fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of tub the whole time.

Admire wiener size in mirror again.

Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on floor, light and fan on.

Return to bedroom with towel around waist.

If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake wiener at her and make the woo-woo' sound again.

Throw wet towel on bed.


The Happy Lady wrote this letter to her son.

My Dearest Son,

Hope you didn't lose the game by fumbling the ball again over in Auburn.  I'm writing this slow, because I know you can't read fast.  Besides it takes time to spell check every word. 

We don't live where we did when you left home. Your Dad read in the newspaper that most accidents happen within 20 miles of your home, so we moved 21 miles further south..

I won't be able to send you the address because the last Arkansas family that lived here took the house numbers when they moved so they wouldn't have to change their address. This place is really nice. It even has a washing machine. I'm not sure it works so well, though. Last week I put a load of clothes in and pulled the chain. We haven't seen them since. 

The weather isn't bad here. It only rained twice last week; the first time for three days, and the second time for four days.   About that coat you wanted me to send; your Uncle Billy-Bob said it would be too heavy to send in the mail with the buttons on, so we had to cut them of; You can find them in the pockets.

Bubba locked his keys in the car yesterday. We were really worried because it took him two hours to get me and your Pa out. Your sister had a baby this morning, but I haven't found out what it is yet so I don't know if you are an aunt or uncle. It's the dangdest thing, but the baby looks just like your brother.

Uncle Bobby-Ray fell into a moonshine vat last week. Some men tried to pull him out, but he fought them off and drowned with a big smile on his face. We had him cremated; he burned for three days. 

Three of your friends went off a bridge in a pickup truck. Bubba was driving. He rolled down the window and swam to safety. Your other two friends, Cletus and Buford, were in the back. They drowned because they couldn't get the tailgate down. 

There isn't much more news at this time. Nothing much out of the normal has happened.    

Your Favorite Aunt,  
Mom


Forwarded by The Happy Lady

An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car,   found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle. She dropped her   shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her   voice, "I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!"   

he four men didn't wait for a second invitation. They got out and ran like   mad. The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load   her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into driver's   seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition.   She tried and tried, and then it dawned on her why.   

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces   farther down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police   station.. The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn't stop laughing.   He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were   reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less   than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun. No charges were filed.   

If you're going to have a Senior Moment, make it a memorable one!

Bob Jensen had a somewhat similar worrisome experience.  In Franconia, New Hampshire I got into a Jeep Grand Cherokee and could not get the key to work in the ignition.  Then I remembered that my Jeep was parked at another spot on the street.


Forwarded by The Happy Lady

Little Nancy was in the garden filling in a hole when her neighbor peered over the fence.

Interested in what the cheeky-faced youngster was doing, he politely asked, "What are you up to there, Nancy?"

"My goldfish died," replied Nancy tearfully, without looking up, and I've just buried him."

The neighbor was concerned, "That's an awfully big hole for a goldfish isn't it?

Nancy patted down the last heap of earth then replied, "That's because he's inside of your dead cat."


Forwarded by Dick Haar

A very elderly gentleman, (mid nineties) very well dressed, hair well groomed, great looking suit, flower in his lapel smelling slightly of a good after shave, presenting a well looked after image, walks into an upscale cocktail lounge.

Seated at the bar is an elderly looking lady, (mid eighties). The gentleman walks over, sits along side of her, orders a drink, takes a sip, turns to her and says, "So tell me, do I come here often."


An Irish Friendship List forwarded by Debbie Bowling

May your purse always hold a coin or two;

May the sun always shine on your windowpane;

May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain;

May the hand of a friend always be near you;

May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.


An inspirational Irish Blessing (with music)--- http://www.jessiesweb.com/blessing.htm 




And that's the way it was on January 18, 2005 with a little help from my friends.

 

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 

Jesse's Wonderful Music for Romantics (You have to scroll down to the titles) --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/

Free Harvard Classics --- http://www.bartleby.com/hc/
Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

 

I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor (an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) --- www.FinanceProfessor.com 

 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting newsletters are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#News 

News Headlines for Accounting from TheCycles.com --- http://www.thecycles.com/business/accounting 
An unbelievable number of other news headlines categories in TheCycles.com are at http://www.thecycles.com/ 

 

Jack Anderson's Accounting Information Finder --- http://www.umsl.edu/~anderson/accsites.htm

 

Gerald Trite's great set of links --- http://www.zorba.ca/bookmark.htm 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

The Finance Professor --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/about/aboutFP.html 

 

Walt Mossberg's many answers to questions in technology --- http://ptech.wsj.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Household and Other Heloise-Style Hints --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#Hints 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

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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January 5, 2005

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on January 5, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

For earlier editions of New Bookmark s go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Pictures from the war ---  http://www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf 

For current news, see the Drudge Report --- http://www.drudgereport.com/  




Quotes of the Week

Give Generously
Rush of donations from USA is immediate and immense Millions pledged for disaster relief .

Barbara Slavin, USA Today, December 30, 2004, Page 1A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20041230/1a_cover30.art.htm 
How to Help --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20041230/1a_coverside30.art.htm 
Also see --- http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?050103on_onlineonly03 

"People who are considering donating money to help victims of the Asian tsunami are getting some advice that seems contradictory," by Judy Keen, USA Today, January 4, 2004, Page 10A --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050104/a_money04.art.htm
 

"UN receives record $1.93 billion in donations," Sydney Morning Herald, January 4, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/01/04/1104601306733.html?oneclick=true

Jan Egland, the UN official who accused the US and other advanced democracies of stinginess, was not however talking about disaster relief. He was talking about development aid. And it’s true that the advanced countries give less (proportionally) of such aid than they did, say, in the 1960s. Why is that? Very largely because we have learned something over the past half century: development aid does not work very well – trade and investment do. The human lives lost to the tsunami cannot be restored by any amount of money. But the physical infrastructure destroyed will quickly be rebuilt and replaced, and mostly by private investors. The idea that countries like Thailand can only get capital by begging rich countries to give it to them has been discredited everywhere but the musty corridors of the UN.
David Frumm's Diary, "Back to Work," National Review, January 3, 2005 ---
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp

There are exceptions, such as the so-called tidal waves produced by earthquakes under the sea, but the waves we know best are wind waves. It is a confused pattern that the waves make in the open sea: a mixture of countless wave trains, overtaking, passing, or engulfing one another—each group different in the place and manner of its origin, in its speed, and in its direction of movement; some destined never to reach any shore, others destined to roll across half an ocean before they dissolve in thunder on a beach. The patient study of many men over many years has brought a surprising degree of order out of this vast confusion. While there is still much to be learned about waves, there is a solid basis of fact on which to reconstruct the life history of a wave, predict its behavior under all the changing circumstances of its life, and calculate its effect on human affairs.
Rachel L. Carson, "The Sea III—Wind, Sun, and Moon," The New Yorker, December 29, 2004 --- http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?050103fr_archive03 
For a picture of one too big for surfers, to to http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/31/international/worldspecial4/31wave.html?oref=login&th 

 

Poetry is the art of putting the ocean into a glass.
Italo Calvino

Ignorance of your own ignorance, is ignorance at its worst.
Saint Jerome

Professional Fees in Enron Bankruptcy Top $780 million (as of December 2004) --- http://www.accountingweb.com/item/100263 
Guess who pays the next time you pay your power bill?
Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudenron.htm#EnronLinks 

Help me understand what I am telling you about and I will explain it better.
Antonio Machado

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
Franklin P. Jones

Experience: a comb that life gives you after you've lost your hair.
Judith Stern

Across the country, universities are facing the same stark dilemma as Smith. If they continue to put more money into financial aid, they have to take it from somewhere else. At what point are they cutting too deeply, compromising the education they have to offer?
Marcella Bombardieri, "Tuition aid takes toll on many colleges," The Boston Globe, January 2, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/02/tuition_aid_takes_toll_on_many_colleges/ 

In the years after Enron, many chief executives had been operating in a defensive crouch. Last year, however, they switched to offense, yelping about the new securities rules — way too strict and so time-consuming — and whining that Eliot Spitzer and his meddlesome investigations could wreck the nation’s economy. The United States Chamber of Commerce even sued the Securities and Exchange Commission, hoping to overturn its new rule requiring mutual fund chairmen to be independent.  So as 2005 dawns, it is again time to grant the Augustus Melmotte Memorial Prizes, named for the charlatan who parades through “The Way We Live Now,” the novel by Anthony Trollope. Mr. Melmotte, who would fit just fine into today’s business world, is a confidence man who takes London by storm in the late 1800’s.
Gretchen Morgensen, "The Envelopes, Please," The New York Times, January 1, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/01/business/yourmoney/02award.backup.html?oref=login 
Bob Jensen's threads on corporate governance are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#Governance 
Bob Jensen's threads on "Rotten to the Core" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ 

I explain to my students that entering into a general partnership is like going to bed with someone. Sometimes, it can be a wonderful, mutually satisfying experience that you want to continue for a long time. Then again, sometimes you simply get screwed.
David Coy Adrian, Michigan.

"I know that these actions would be controversial in this age where we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability," Mr. Tenet said, "But, ultimately, the Wild West must give way to governance and control."
Tom Zeller, Jr., "On the Open Internet, a Web of Dark Alleys," The New York Times, December 20, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20covert.html?oref=login 

It seems perfectly true, as Mr. Alvarez argues, that we do not live in a robust literary moment, no matter how often we are told, say, what a genius Jonathan Franzen is. One way of reviving low spirits is to acquaint oneself with Mr. Alvarez's own prose, with his nuanced sense of other writers and with the excerpts of their greatness that he supplies in the course of this short, impassioned book.
Bookmarks, The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2004, Page W6 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110444637291113272,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal 
The Book: THE WRITER'S VOICE, by A. Alvarez
(Norton, 128 pages, $21.95)

What's Microsoft been up to in grid/distributed computing? The company's not talking, but we've ferreted out some interesting details about the hush-hush "Bigtop" project. Our sources say it involves loosely coupled machines, and perhaps even a new version of Windows. Read our story for more details on what "Bigtop" could be, and when to expect it.
Jim Lauderback, What's New from Ziff Davis, December 30, 2004
Bob Jensen's threads on cluster and grid computing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#Future 

Will the Mac become like old generals that simply fade away?
That's what John C. Dvorak has concluded. He doesn't base his conclusions on market-share numbers, but instead via an intriguing online stat: how much Internet activity is Mac-based. And the answer is a miniscule and declining amount. John has laid out three reasons for the impending doom, and then adds a zinger: that the Mac's vaunted ease of use is what will slay it in the end. Read his thought-provoking column about why the Macintosh will fade away. And then complain to him, not to me!
Jim Lauderback, What's New from Ziff Davis, December 30, 2004

"The heart has been torn out of schools," says Drake. "You've got to want to teach, and they've got to want to learn. And when both happen, it's magic. It may not be what you intended to teach, but it's when kids really learn. But now teachers are being forced to teach the test, which isn't formulated by teachers but by bureaucrats. They have to let teachable moments go."
David Drake as quoted by Rebecca L. Weber, "Teachers sing the blues over ed law," The Christian Science Monitor, December 28, 2004 --- http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1228/p13s01-legn.html 

Few would dispute that the obstruction of Bush nominees played to the political advantage of Bush and Republican Senate candidates and was an important factor in Republicans' picking up four seats. The leader of the Democratic obstructionism, Tom Daschle, lost his seat. And the one Democrat who won in a competitive race, Ken Salazar of Colorado, pledged not to filibuster nominees.
"Bush Makes Right Move," USA Today, January 3, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050103/oppose03x.art.htm 

About 850,000 people who probably would qualify for a federal Pell Grant do not fill out the financial-aid form known as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), according to a recent study by the American Council on Education in Washington. Currently about 5 million people receive those grants - ranging from a few hundred dollars to a maximum of $4,050 a year.
Stacy A. Teicher, "Think you can't afford college in 2005? Think again, experts urge," The Christian Science Monitor, December 30, 2004 --- http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1230/p12s01-legn.html 

The Wharton School's Peter Cappelli and Monika Hamori took a look at the career histories and personal characteristics of the top executives of Fortune 100 companies in 1980 and 2001. Their findings? In a nutshell, the current generation of corporate bigwigs is younger, much more likely to be female and less likely to hold an Ivy League degree. ... More interesting is to ask: How did it happen? The answer, in a word, is competition. The early 1980s were "a watershed moment for the U.S. economy and for U.S. corporations in particular," Mr. Cappelli and Ms. Hamori write. Recession, deregulation, global competition, corporate restructurings, the shareholder value movement -- all put pressure on corporations to improve performance. That meant seeking out the best managers regardless of gender, age or where they went to school.  The result is that the road to senior management of U.S. corporations now runs along a different course. That coveted promotion will depend on merit more than ever. That's good for U.S. business and good for American workers.
"Farewell, Organization Man," The Wall Street Journal,  December 31, 2004, Page W11 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110445779058613804,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal 
See the NBER table where the undergraduate Ivy League CEOs dropped from 14% to 10% in a decade whereas the public college CEOs increased from 32% to 48% in that same decade.  What's interesting is that, in the Year 2001, 42% of the CEOs did not get an undergraduate degree from either a public college or an Ivy League university.  Nothing is said about where that huge block went to school, although I suspect a large number of them went to private colleges and universities that aren't in the Ivy League.

Online merchants are poised to record a much bigger rise in holiday sales than their offline counterparts. Broadband expansion, more luxury gift sales and a rise in late shoppers help the bottom line.
Joanna Glasner, "E-Tailers to Post Strong Season," Wired News, December 23, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,66122,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 

ONLINE SPENDING CLIMBED 25% during the holiday season from a year earlier, a survey found.
Desiree J. Hanford, The Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110478868075315675,00.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news

Because of what enfeebling bad habit did the proud and potent thinking class that gave us F.D.R. and J.F.K. fade into a cynical, ironic, smirking bunch of spiritual weaklings headed up by Al Franken and Michael Moore? Was the problem attending movies instead of church? Deserting Burger King for Whole Foods Market? No, I've concluded. The blame lies elsewhere. The seduction of America's elites by the vices of humanism and skepticism can only be blamed on the New Yorker cartoon, an agent of corruption more insidious than LSD or the electric guitar.
Walter Kirn, "Blame it on The New Yorker," The New York Times, December 26, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/books/review/26kirn.html 
Bob Jensen's sampling of quotations from The New Yorker's cartoons along with other accountancy humor are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#Humor 

Sooner or later, advertisers had to figure out the Internet. Here was a medium that was reaching into nearly every office in America. And at home, it was wresting millions of eyes away from the TV. It could even count mouse clicks. Today, Net advertisers are finally hitting their stride.
Stephen Baker, "Where The Real Internet Money Is Made Advertising on the Web could top $9 billion this year -- and there are lots of ways investors can profit from the trend," Business Week, December 27, 2004 --- http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_52/b3914442.htm 

Canadians spend more than 37 billion minutes surfing the Internet monthly or an average of more than 34 hours a month or 80 minutes a day. Yahoo reported in another study that 48 per cent of respondents indicated they could not go without the Internet for more than two weeks.  Aside from on-line shopping, banking and booking travel, Internet users are searching for relevant information about names in the news.
Diana Pereira (See below)

Reproduction experts in Chicago might have an elegant solution to the explosive moral dilemma posed by embryonic stem-cell research. 
Kristen Philipkoski., "Stem-Cell Method May Cheat Death," Wired News, December 22, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66113,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 

A reproductive research team in Chicago could have an answer to the ethical and scientific conundrums presented by the pursuit of stem-cell treatments.

That's no small task considering it's a question the top minds in science and bioethics have been racking their brains to solve. Scientists at the Reproductive Genetics Institute, or RGI, believe they can derive high-quality embryonic stem cells from an early embryo without killing it.

The approach would involve removing one cell from a very early embryo that has developed to about eight cells (called a morula), and deriving stem cells from that single cell. The embryo would still have the potential to develop into a human if implanted into a womb. The only thing preventing the scientists from trying the process is money, said Dr. Yury Verlinsky, director of RGI.

The role of libraries . . . will shift from primarily acquiring published scholarship to a broader role of managing scholarship in collaboration with the researchers that develop and draw upon it.
Clifford Lynch, speaking at "E-Research and Supporting Cyberinfrastructure" forum --- http://www.arl.org/newsltr/237/cyberinfra.html 
PowerPoint slides ---  http://www.arl.org/forum04/#proceedings.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are quietly developing new search tools for digital video, foreshadowing a high-stakes technology arms race in the battle for control of consumers' living rooms. Google's effort, until now secret, is arguably the most ambitious of the three. According to sources familiar with the plan, the search giant is courting broadcasters and cable networks with a new technology that would do for television what it has already done for the Internet: sort through and reveal needles of video clips from within the haystack archives of major network TV shows. The effort comes on top of Google's plans to create a multimedia search engine for Internet-only video that it will likely introduce next year, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. In recent weeks, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has demonstrated new technology to a handful of major TV broadcasters in an attempt to forge alliances and develop business models for a TV-searchable database on the Web, those sources say.
GeekNik, December 5, 2004 --- http://www.geeknik.net/?journal,594 
The full story is at http://news.com.com/Striking+up+digital+video+search/2100-1032_3-5466491.html?tag=nefd.lede 
You can test Yahoo now.  Search for Enron at http://video.search.yahoo.com/ 
Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 
(Also see below.)

Random House is exploring the possibility of selling its books online directly to consumers, the first such move by a major publisher.
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, "Random House Considers Online Sales of Its Books," The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2004, Page A3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110308002114100603,00.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news 
Bob Jensen's threads on electronic books are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm 

Television is the only sleeping draught taken through the eyes.
Vittorio de Sica

Bulls Without Balls"  French bid to attract runaway bovines fails
Weird News, December 15, 2004 --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/bulls-without-balls-french-bid-to-attract-runaway-bovines-fails.html 

There are many manuals for using the Mac, but few that come with two hours of video tutorials. Jim Heid's Macintosh iLife is like watching a presentation at the local Apple Store, without having to lift your posterior off the sofa.
"The Easy Way to the ILife," Leander Kahney, Wired News, December 21, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66102,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 

There is a story behind every electronic gadget sold on the QVC shopping channel. This one leads to a ramshackle farmhouse in rural Oregon, which is the home and circuit design lab of Jeri Ellsworth, a 30-year-old high school dropout and self-taught computer chip designer. Ms. Ellsworth has squeezed the entire circuitry of a two-decade-old Commodore 64 home computer onto a single chip, which she has tucked neatly into a joystick that connects by a cable to a TV set. Called the Commodore 64 - the same as the computer system - her device can run 30 video games, mostly sports, racing and puzzles games from the early 1980's, all without the hassle of changing game cartridges.
John Markoff, "A Toy With a Story," The New York Times, December 20, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20joystick.html?oref=login 
Sold by Mammoth Toys, based in New York, for $30, the Commodore 64 joystick has been a hot item on QVC this Christmas season, selling 70,000 units in one day when it was introduced on the shopping channel last month.

Harvard professor Michael Porter is an unlikely champion of inner cities.  Author of the B-school text on strategy, he seems more boardroom than bodega.  But the nonprofit he founded in 1994 uses economic data to dispel myths about urban neighborhoods to attract corporate investment.  A new study by his Initiative for a Competitive Inner City says retail spending in densely populated urban areas is $25 million per square mile, compared with $3 million in metro areas.  
Jessi Hempel, "Inner Cities are Where the Money Is," Business Week, December 27, 2004, Page 16.
Porter's message is getting through to retail chains like Home Depot.

But the nondescript cable box is the object of a lot of frenzied lobbying over at the Federal Communication Commission these days, with consequences for your pocketbook and how you watch television.  As with their service, cable companies have a monopoly on these "set-top" boxes, which haven't changed much over the past 15 years. If you want digital service or premium channels such as HBO, you need the box, and you use the one provided by your cable company.
Jonathan Krim, "The FCC Frenzy Over Controlling Your Cable Box," The Washington Post, December 23, 2004, Page E01 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21137-2004Dec22.html 

Nashville, Tenn., schools stopped displaying the honor rolls of A students because some parents complained that the displays might hurt the feelings of dimmer students. In Washington state, the Puyallup school district ended the grade-school tradition of children parading in Halloween costumes, partly because some costumes might be offensive to real witches. Said a district spokeswoman, "Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective [sic] symbols of the Wiccan religion, and so we want to be respectful of that."  Jon Blake Cusack named his son Jon Blake Cusack 2.0.
George F. Will, "2004:  A Year for Witches," Newsweek, December 20, 2004, Page 72 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6699531/site/newsweek/ 

Average Rises Above $82,000 After remaining relatively stagnant since 2001, total compensation for M.B.A.s is matching the record levels of pay hit during the peak of the dot-com boom, according to the most recent survey by TopMBA.com, an online recruiting and education site. According to the survey, companies report that the average M.B.A. salary went above $82,000 in 2004, up more than 9% from 2003.
Jane J. Kim (See below)

The glitch, which could permit an attacker to secretly search the contents of a personal computer via the Internet, is what computer scientists call a composition flaw - a security weakness that emerges when separate components interact. "When you put them together, out jumps a security flaw," said Dan Wallach, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice in Houston, who, with two graduate students, Seth Fogarty and Seth Nielson, discovered the flaw last month. "These are subtle problems, and it takes a lot of experience to ferret out this kind of flaw," Professor Wallach said.
John Markoff, "Rice University Computer Scientists Find a Flaw in Google's New Desktop Search Program," The New York Times, December 20, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20flaw.html 
The glitch only applies to the Web Desktop search tool for internal documents.  It does not apply to other Google search tools.
See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#WebDesktop 

When there is a male-female imbalance in a zoo, the penguins turn gay
Weird News, December 25, 2004 --- http://science.news.designerz.com/researchers-find-gay-penguins-in-japanese-aquariums-report.html 

Service Contracts are cash cows --- but retailers are mum about their importance
Here's a secret two of the nation's largest consumer-electronics chains don't want investors to know.  As TVs, portable DVD players, and other stuff fly off their shelves, Best Buy Co. and Circuit City Inc. aren't banking on them to make profits.  Instead, they're counting on the extended warranty contracts that they sell aggressively along with the goods.  Warranties cost virtually nothing to market, and the products they insure rarely need repairs. 
(examples are on Page 86)
Larry Armstrong, "The Warranty Windfall," Business Week, December 20, 2004, Page 84
Tip:  When available, buy extra coverage from the manufacturer rather than a retailer who overcharges for extended warranties.  This advice, of course, varies with particular products and particular retailers.

The subject of the 16th president's sexuality has been debated among scholars for years. They cite his troubled marriage to Mary Todd and his youthful friendship with Joshua Speed, who shared his bed for four years. Now, in a new book, C. A. Tripp also asserts that Lincoln had a homosexual relationship with the captain of his bodyguards, David V. Derickson, who shared his bed whenever Mary Todd was away.
"Finding Homosexual Threads in Lincoln's Legend," by Dinita Smith, December 16, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/books/16linc.html 
Many, if not most, Lincoln scholars consider Tripp's evidence, which some claim was also fabricated, too thin to support his conclusions ---
http://www.gaypasg.org/PressClippings/2004/December/Finding%20homosexual%20threads%20in%20Lincoln's%20legend.htm 

KPMG knew that FAS 91 and FAS 133 were being violated, but KPMG did not insist on correcting the books.  How much of Fannie’s current trouble can be blamed on KPMG?
Fannie's auditor, KPMG, disagreed with the way the company decided how much
(derivatives instruments debt and earnings fluctuations) to book in 1998. The matter was recorded as "an audit difference" -- a disagreement between a company and its auditor that doesn't require a change in the books.

John D. McKinnon and James R. Hagerty, "How Accounting Issue Crept Up On Fannie's Pugnacious Chief," The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110323877001802691,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 
Bob Jensen's Fannie Mae threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 
Bob Jensen’s threads on KPMG’s troubles are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#KPMG

Slide Show:  MSNBC.com picks the has-beens of 2004.--- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4999736/ 

The mounting pressure on Mr. Raines comes after a career that lifted him from childhood poverty to Harvard Law School, a Rhodes scholarship, and the pinnacle of power in government and finance. For years, the company he leads got its way in Washington, wielding an army of lobbyists and calling on its many friends in Congress and the homebuilding industry. Fighting Fannie was considered futile. "You didn't question the king," says Andrew Cuomo, housing secretary under President Clinton. Fannie, which has about $957 billion of debt, is involved in financing more than a quarter of U.S. residential mortgage debt outstanding
John D. McKinnon and James R. Hagerty, "How Accounting Issue Crept Up On Fannie's Pugnacious Chief," The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110323877001802691,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one 
Bob Jensen's Fannie threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 

As the commercial pressures on museums increase, curators and directors feel less inclined to promote a relatively unknown artist and more inclined to rely on those artists who have already been celebrated in a marketplace comprising galleries, auction houses, and museums. This dependence on big name artists is a large factor in the under-representation of women. "Certainly the name recognition of an artist is of importance to many institutions when they plan their schedules," says Susan Sterling, chief curator of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. "If you take a look at the top-ten artists--as defined by magazine coverage and sale prices for their work--you rarely find a woman artist among that list."
Eliza Strickland, "Does commercialization Cause Discrimination at Museums?  Selective Thinking," The New Republic, December 30, 2004 --- http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=online&s=strickland123004 

The New York Stock Exchange is sometimes called the "world's largest casino." But Mark Cuban thinks that's unfair --- to Las Vegas.  The billionaire provocateur says trading stocks and bonds is actually a bigger loser's game than gambling is.  To prove it, Cuban, the onetime dot-com potentate now best known for his high-volume ownership of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, says he's going to start up a most peculiar hedge fund.  Cuban says it "won't invest in stocks or bonds or any type of business.  It's going to be a fund that only places bets.  A gambling hedge fund."  It is, he says, "an idea whose time has come."
Andy Serwer, "Seeking Good Returns and Fairness . . .in Vegas," Fortune Magazine, December 27, 2004 , Page 55.
Jensen Comment:  It's a little like betting on a dog race where there are no mounted jockeys (read that floor traders and brokers) to dictate the outcomes. Only, unlike a dog or horse race, Cuban’s fund odds are known with certainty on each event.  I wonder if TIAA-CREF may one day be renamed TIAA-CREF-BINGO with the least risk in the BINGO portfolio!

China crowned its first ever Miss Plastic Surgery at a pageant that attracted widespread attention at home and abroad with its apparent endorsement of the notion that beauty is only skin deep.
Weird News, December 18, 2004 --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/china-crowns-first-ever-miss-plastic-surgery.html 

A new book argues that in playing video games, boys are actually training for the new world of work, not avoiding it.
"Learning Early That Success Is a Game," by Lisa Belkin, The New York Times, Decmeber 19, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/jobs/19wcol.html?oref=login  

Mobile phones can check e-mail, browse the web, keep your calendar and even let you make a telephone call. Is it any wonder that we're also turning them into sex toys? 
Regina Lynn, "Cell Phones That Do It," Wired News, December 17, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66052,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4 

As often happens, a cultural interest opened doors to a social movement, this one involving "sex workers" and their supporters. In a new wave of activism, many prostitutes are organizing, staging public events and coming out publicly to demand greater acceptance and protection, giving a louder voice to a business that has thrived in silence.
Mireya Navarro, "Long Silent, Oldest Profession Gets Vocal and Organized," The New York Times, December 18, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/18/national/18prostitutes.html?oref=login   

Not surprisingly, the Entertainment Software Rating Board has rated the game M, or Mature, unsuitable for anyone under 17. Yet if Karen Pearson of Oakland, Calif., is any indication, a lot of younger children will be playing the game this holiday season.
"Game Ratings: U Is for Unheeded," by Katie Hafner, The New York Times, December 16, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/technology/circuits/16rate.html 
Refers to the best selling Grand Theft Auto game that use strong language, sexual content, drug use and graphic violence involving gang warfare and the killing of prostitutes.

Celebrity Underwear Exhibit Draws Crowds in Portugal
Weird News, December 31, 2004 --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/celebrity-underwear-exhibit-draws-crowds-in-portugal.html 
It might be more interesting to view it after the tax auditor arrives.

Purdue Study (forwarded by Don Mathis)
Even though men are often perceived to be at the top, especially in the corporate world, new gender research from Purdue University shows that men are not generally the preferred gender. This new research shows that when adults' automatic attitudes are measured, they have more positive feelings about women as a group. ''This seems contradictory to other research out there, because men generally enjoy higher status,'' said Stephanie Goodwin, an assistant professor of psychological sciences who studies the social cognitive effects of biases and prejudices. ''Even today, men are generally the ones in positions of power in the family and the workplace, and they tend to make more money.''

ScienceBlog, December 16, 2004 --- http://www.scienceblog.com/community/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4947 

One of the Biggest Red States (in terms of square miles)
Montana Universities Must Offer Health Insurance to Gay Employees' Partners
Adam Liptak, The New York Times, December 31, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/31/national/31gay.html?oref=login 

One of the Biggest Blue States (in terms of square miles and population)
Come Saturday (January 1, 2004), such improvised arrangements will be less necessary for them and nearly 29,000 other California couples - the majority same-sex partners. A law taking effect with the new year gives gay couples who register as domestic partners nearly the same responsibilities and benefits as married spouses. Heterosexual elderly couples (who are not married) also are eligible.
Associated Press, The Washington Post, January 1, 2004 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40328-2005Jan1.html 

GENEROUS DONORS: Gifts of all sorts, including a huge number of prepaid telephone cards, have flooded into the military's premier hospitals in the Washington area for wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
THE DOWNSIDE: Hospital officials say they are running out of storage room and are asking that further gifts of items be held back until February or March.

Associated Press, The Washington Post, January 1, 2005 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40312-2005Jan1.html 

Google Crawling in the Stacks
Google plans to begin converting the holdings of leading research libraries into digital files that would be searchable online

John Markoff and Edward Wyatt, "Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database," The New York Times, December 14, 2004 --- http://snipurl.com/GoogleLibrary  

A study by the University of Arizona in 2002 found the typical worker's desk has hundreds of times more bacteria per square inch than an office toilet seat. If that's not disturbing enough, desks, phones and other private surfaces are also prime habitats for the viruses that cause colds and flu.
David Williams, "Is Your Desk Making You Sick," CNN.com, December 13, 2004 --- http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/12/13/cold.flu.desk/index.html 

I think that educators on all levels need to be aware of the types of things that students fear. This applies to college level students as much as it applies to the fears of kindergartners, I believe. The law of averages seem to point toward a teacher or professor at some time needing to announce news in the classroom that is totally terrifying at worst and still "bad news" at best. He or she will then either feed fear or help to alleviate it depending on how it is handled. I think that taking a bit of time to think about certain scenarios coming to pass on a global, nationwide, or even local school level and how they would be explained to students is important. Unfortunately, coming up with possible horrors to play "what would I do?" with are all too plentiful . . . The bogeymen that lived under our beds in days of yore don't seem as frightening as those who reside, whether recognized by the children or not, under the beds of today's generation. Things were so much more innocent back then. Or were they?
Kathy A. Schaeffer, "Generations of Fear," The Irascible Professor, December 22, 2004 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-12-22-04.htm 
Also see "Why Students Struggle When Pressure Is On," by Benedict Carey, The New York Times, December 21, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/health/psychology/21stre.html  

 

Don't mess with this woman!
Police are mulling charges against a woman who strangled her neighbor's Rottweiler, which she said had attacked her Yorkshire terrier, local press reported. Robin Bush, was inside her home Wednesday when the Rottweiler, Rox, slipped away from his owner and attacked the Yorkie, Candy, who was outside with Bush's 10-year-old son, the Port St. Lucie News, reported, citing police.
Weird News News, December 10, 2004 --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/woman-strangles-rottweiler-to-save-her-yorkie.html 

Allegations of sex crimes committed by U.N. staff and troops date back at least a decade and span operations on three continents, in places like Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cambodia. But rather than showing the kind of "zero tolerance" toward sexual crimes that Mr. Annan now promises, the U.N. has treated such instances with cavalier nonchalance.
"Sex for Food," The Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110428235654211678,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

Indionesia shuts down fake ecstasy factories after drug users complain --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/indonesia-shuts-fake-ecstasy-factories-after-drug-users-complaints.html 

Your graph showing that malpractice awards account for only 2% of medical costs is a gross underestimate. The amount juries award to plaintiffs doesn't begin to address the additional tests ordered, extra days in hospitals, extra visits to emergency rooms, or extra meetings -- all performed in the name of reducing litigation. The threat of malpractice, whether legitimate or not, has removed judgment from the practice of millions of physicians. Judgment has been replaced by making sure that no possibility -- no matter how remote -- hasn't been ruled out, requiring billions of dollars of imaging and laboratory tests. Reducing the threat of malpractice to physicians would produce a significant reduction in medical expenditures.Jonathan D. Reich, M.D. Assistant Clinical Professor University of Florida School of Medicine Lakeland, Fla. (Dr. Reich is a fellow of American Academy of Pediatrics and a fellow of the American College of Cardiology.)
As quoted from Letters to the Editor, The Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2004, Page A9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110427584995511487,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion 

2004: The Year In Excuses
Blamethrowers, rationalizers, fingerpointers, and plain old whiners—the people who made us proud all year
G Beato, Reason Magazine, December 30, 2004 --- http://www.reason.com/hod/gb123004.shtml 

 

Why Bob Jensen's Metacognitor is So Terrific
Sadly, those French fries will stick to you longer than any memory!

Message from Denny Beresford on December 22, 2004

Bob,

From the magazine The Week, January 7, 2005 (page 30)

Thinking about sex improves memory. People are most likely to remember something when they can link it to sexual imagery, researchers found. It's easier to remember that you need to pick up butter at the grocery store, for example, if you make an association with Last Tango in Paris. For "French fries," think "French kiss." Sexual thoughts are more likely to stick with you because sexual urges are so deeply imbedded in human nature, said memory specialist Jamie Nast. "Rote memorization will only get you so far, " said Nast. "When things get sexual, it's very powerful."

Denny

Actually this finding about sex and memory reveals why men have better memories than women, except in the case of college professors where males and females have equally bad memories. Professors must be focusing on the wrong memory aids.




Unethical Stock Brokers and Investment Advisors in Every Small Town --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudRotten.htm#InvestmentBanking 

Bob Jensen's Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 

Some federal doctors and medical researchers do not enjoy the same protections to blow the whistle on wrongdoing as other government employees, an administrative law judge has ruled.  The whistle-blower law was enacted more than a decade ago to strengthen federal workers' protections when they make accusations of government wrongdoing. It gives them outlets like the board to seek legal protection.
Associated Press, "Judge Limits Protections Allowed to Federal Whistle-Blowers," The New York Times, December 25, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/25/politics/25whistle.html?oref=login 
Bob Jensen's threads on whistle blowing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#WhistleBlowing 

"Survey Shows Consumers are Unaware of Increase in Fake Insurance," AccountingWeb, December 22, 2004 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100252 

At this time of year, there is no room in the budget for purchases that do not deliver value. Yet, the General Accounting Office reports the number of fake insurance policies sold to consumers is on the rise, resulting in $252 million in unpaid health insurance claims alone.

According to a survey released today, conducted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), most of the public (74 percent) is unaware of the rise in fake insurance sales and the need for increased vigilance when purchasing insurance.

The survey also revealed that most Americans feel the information available from their state insurance department could be helpful in avoiding fake insurance (83 percent), but only 8 percent of adults surveyed said they have contacted their state insurance department to confirm the validity of an insurance provider before making a purchase.

As part of the United States' fight against the rise in fake insurance, the NAIC has launched a nationwide awareness campaign that encourages consumers to "Stop. Call. Confirm." before buying insurance.

"In the area of fake health insurance alone, the General Accounting Office reported 144 fake health insurers nationwide sold bogus policies to more than 200,000 policyholders between 2000 and 2002," said Diane Koken, NAIC president and commissioner of the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance. "This is simply unacceptable."

According to most states' laws, with very few exceptions, no insurance product can be sold by individual agents, brokers, or companies without the approval of the state insurance department. Fake insurance is any insurance plan intended to defraud consumers or businesses.

Everyone is at risk

"Fake insurance can touch anyone at any time with potentially disastrous results," said Koken. "Frequent targets of unauthorized health insurance plans are older adults and small businesses or associations looking to reduce health insurance costs."

Fake insurance is attractive because it is typically less expensive than legal policies. But that is because a fake policy does not provide sufficient - if any - coverage.

As a result of fake insurance policies, honest people and businesses are swindled, health is endangered, premiums stay high, and goods and services cost more.

Protecting yourself is easy

The NAIC recommends, if not absolutely sure you are dealing with a reputable, licensed insurance provider, look for three warning signs of fake insurance:
  • Aggressive marketing and a high-pressure, "you must sign today" sales approach with lots of fine print and disclaimers
  • Premiums that are 15 percent or more under the average price for comparable insurance products on the market
  • Few coverage limitations
How can you protect yourself against fake insurance? The NAIC urges you to STOP ... CALL ... and CONFIRM before buying insurance:
  • STOP before signing anything or writing a check
  • CALL your state insurance department; contact information is available at www.naic.org
  • CONFIRM the company is legitimate and licensed to do business in your state
"If consumers will stop, call, and confirm before they buy insurance, they may save themselves the pain of unpaid claims," said Koken. "They also can help us track down and take action against the con artists who sell fake insurance."

Bob Jensen's threads on medial and drug company frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#PhysiciansAndDrugCompanies

Bob Jensen's threads on insurance frauds (including those from legitimate companies) are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudRotten.htm#MutualFunds 

Bob Jensen's American History of Fraud ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm

A judge refused to accept a guilty plea from a former AOL software engineer accused of selling 92 million e-mail addresses to spammers, saying he was not convinced the act was a crime under new federal antispam legislation.
"Judge Rejects Guilty Plea In America Online Spam Case," The Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110365400892306111,00.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news

"Beware Web Hitchhikers," CBS News, December 31, 2004 --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/31/eveningnews/consumer/main664185.shtml 

One of the big-sellers this holiday season is the wireless router, which lets you link your computer to the Internet from any room in the house.

But as CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, the problem is that strangers on the street can also hook up to the net -- through your router.

It's called "war-driving" -- prowling neighborhoods, searching for open wireless networks that offer a free ride onto the Internet.

Bob Jensen's updates on computer and network security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 




 

The U.S. Trade Deficit

Just because the United States has its largest trade deficit ever doesn't mean that we're living beyond our means. Far from it. In fact, the characterization of the U.S. as a land of chronic overspenders, hellbent on selling themselves into global servitude doesn't make sense at all. And once the over-consumption model is put into question every policy remedy based on the presumption of squander looks pretty weak
Arthur B. Laffer, "Destination U.S.A.," The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 3005, Page A8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110471293088514892,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

 

Just because the United States has its largest trade deficit ever doesn't mean that we're living beyond our means. Far from it. In fact, the characterization of the U.S. as a land of chronic overspenders, hellbent on selling themselves into global servitude doesn't make sense at all. And once the over-consumption model is put into question every policy remedy based on the presumption of squander looks pretty weak.

In an era of floating exchange rates the trade deficit (or more appropriately, the current account deficit) is one and the same as the capital surplus. The only way the U.S. can have a trade deficit amounting to 5.6% of GDP is if foreigners invest that amount of their capital in the U.S. It's a matter of simple accounting. But once you realize that the trade deficit is, in fact, the capital surplus you would clearly rather have capital lined up on our borders trying to get into our country than trying to get out. Growth countries, like growth companies, borrow money, and the U.S. is the only growth country of all the developed countries. As a result, we're a capital magnet.

Take a look around. Germany hasn't had a growth spurt since the 1960s when Ludwig Erhard was Bundeskanzler. France still has a mandated maximum workweek of 35 hours, a maximum income tax rate of 58%, a 1.8% annual wealth tax and government spending as a share of GDP greater than 50%. Finland, for goodness sakes, fines speeders a percentage of the speeder's income. Sweden, Denmark and Germany also fine speeders a percentage of their income, only with caps. Japan has had a stock market down by over 70% from its high in 1989 and both company and government unfunded liabilities in Japan are out of sight. Canada's economic policies are kooky and investments in Latin America, the Middle East, Russia, Southeast Asia and Africa are about as safe as running drunk blindfolded across the "I-5" freeway at rush hour.

So what's not to like about the U.S.? Whether you're an American or a foreigner the U.S. is the choice destination for capital. That's why we have such a large trade deficit.

The only way foreigners can guarantee a dollar cash flow to invest in the U.S. is if they sell more goods to the U.S. and buy less goods from the U.S. Our trade deficit is not a sign of a structural flaw in the fabric of the U.S. economy but is instead a stark reminder of our privileged status as the most pro-growth, free market, rule of law economy the world has ever known. Why on earth any American would want to change our policies to emulate foreign policies is beyond me.

China has realized the pre-eminence of the U.S. model and since 1979 has reduced the percentage of GDP flowing through its government from about 82% to today's level of about 30%. That is a supply-side tax cut par excellence. China also realizes that the U.S. has the best monetary policy ever. By fixing the value of its currency, the yuan, to the U.S. dollar, it has literally imported Alan Greenspan to China. Talk about outsourcing!

To guarantee the dollar value of the yuan requires that China hold over $500 billion of liquid dollar assets. China doesn't hold those dollars as a favor to us: it holds those dollars to benefit itself. One needs only glance at the financial disaster that ensued when former Argentine President Fernando De la Rúa broke the peso currency bond to the U.S. dollar to understand why China won't break its currency's link to the dollar. It's elementary, my dear Watson.

Now, within this framework of global capital mobility and U.S. pre-eminence there are significant variations in the relative capital attractiveness of the various nations of this world. When foreign economic policies improve, and the foreign attractiveness to capital increases as a result, the first impact is a weakening of the U.S. terms-of-trade (the real exchange rate) followed much later by a fall in the U.S. capital surplus, i.e., trade deficit.

As of late, foreign economic policies have improved. France is a lot better today than it was three years ago. And -- shock of shocks! -- Germany is even considering a real tax cut. Jean- Claude Trichet has shown himself to be a world-class governor of the European Central Bank, following on the heels of the incompetent Wim Duisenberg. Five new entrants to the EU -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia -- have low-rate flat taxes. Junichiro Koizumi of Japan is a lot better than the former prime minister, Yoshiro Mori. Investors on the margin should look more favorably to investments abroad.

Continued in article

 


Harmony in the Accounting World:  Well Sort of 
(the U.S. is still working on watering down some domestic standards and upgrading some others)

From 2005, more than 90 countries will either permit or require their quoted companies to present their accounts according to international financial reporting standards. This is a bigger step than many firms, or their shareholders, seem to realise.  
The Economist, December 28, 2004 --- http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3493407 

FROM January 1st, the 7,000 or so companies listed on stock exchanges in the European Union will have to grapple with a new set of accounting standards. Nor will they be alone. In total, more than 90 countries, from Australia to Russia, will either require or permit the use of new global norms for presenting their figures, known as international financial reporting standards (IFRS).

Though companies in the EU (where the standards will be compulsory) have had more than two years to prepare for the changeover, it will still come as a jolt to many whose financial year ends on December 31st. This is because the change does more than just substitute IFRS for local GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) as the framework under which firms must present their accounts to regulators and investors. In some countries it will bring fundamental change—particularly in continental Europe, where medium-sized companies have often had closer relationships with their banks than with their shareholders.

. . .

The ultimate prize is a truly global accounting standard. The most important obstacle to this is eliminating the remaining differences between IFRS and United States GAAP, so that multinationals will be able to produce a single set of accounts that satisfy regulators pretty much everywhere that matters. Since 2002, Sir David and his opposite number at America’s Financial Accounting Standards Board have been working towards this, in the hope of achieving complete convergence within a few years. It will be a struggle. But if the standard-setters are successful in their quest, there could be a double pay-off: greater clarity and transparency for investors everywhere and cheaper capital for the companies they invest in.

International Accounting Board Standards are at http://www.iasb.org/ 
(Unfortunately the copies of the standards are not yet free from the IASB..  Also note that IAS 39 had to be watered down to suit the EU banking community, especially in France).  Two sources tell be that copies of the IFRS standards are free somewhere since EU laws must be made public, but thus far nobody can tell us where they are hidden.

For international accounting news and commentaries I highly recommend Paul Pacter's IAS Plus site hosted by Deloitte at http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm 

U.S accounting external reporting standards are divided somewhat with the preponderance coming from the FASB and some coming from the SEC (copies of the standards are free from both sources, but not all FASB interpretations and pronouncements are free)

Financial Accounting Standards Board --- http://www.fasb.org/ 

Securities and Exchange Commission --- http://www.sec.gov/ 

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) today issued limited amendments to IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement on the initial recognition of financial assets and financial liabilities. The amendments provide transitional relief from retrospective application of the ‘day 1’ gain and loss recognition requirements. They allow, but do not require, entities to adopt an approach to transition that is easier to implement than that in the previous version of IAS 39, and will enable entities to eliminate differences between the IASB’s Standards and US requirements.
December 17, 2004 news announcement from the IASB --- http://www.iasb.org/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm 

After receiving an informative message from John Brozovsky about the possible availability for free copies of international accounting standards (thereby bypassing the rather expensive fees charged by the IASB even though the standards are now required in the EU nations), I checked with my favorite authority on the topic of international standards.  Paul Pacter is not only a former student and great friend, he maintains the best news site on international standards.  For international accounting news and commentaries I highly recommend Paul Pacter's IAS Plus site hosted by Deloitte at http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm 

 

From 2005, more than 90 countries will either permit or require their quoted companies to present their accounts according to international financial reporting standards. This is a bigger step than many firms, or their shareholders, seem to realise.  
The Economist
, December 28, 2004 --- http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3493407 

 

Note Paul’s message below. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Pacter, Paul (HK - Hong Kong) [mailto:paupacter@deloitte.com.hk]
Sent:
Sunday, January 02, 2005 10:24 PM
To: Jensen, Robert
Cc: jbrozovs@vt.edu
Subject: Publishing IFRSs in various EU languages

Hello Bob,

First, happy new year to you.  Did you spend the holidays in New England ?  I went to Xi'an , Shaanxi Province , China , for 8 days.

John is correct in that, because the IFRSs have the force of law, they must be published in all EU languages.  The way the EC does that is, when each individual standard (or batch of standards) is adopted by the Commission, they are published -- after some time -- in the Official Journal of the European Union, which is published in all languages.  I am unaware of a place where all the translations are consolidated, though I will check further.

If you click on this link:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/accounting/ias_en.htm

and then go down to the section headed IASs/IFRSs, SICs and IFRICs adopted by the Commission
you will find the various batches of IASs/IFRSs adopted by the Commission and published in the Official Journal.  As you can see they are way out of date because in November all improved IASs 1-41 and IFRSs 3-5 were adopted, and there is as yet no link to the Official Journal.  Same problem for the December 2004 adoption of IFRS 2. 

To complicate matters further, the IASB is publishing its standards in 3 documents:
1.  Standards
2.  Appendix(es) of guidance
3.  Basis for conclusions

Only item 1 above is published in the Official Journal.  But you really need all three to apply the standards. 

Note that my link above leads to the English text of the Commission's website and to the English Official Journal.  But the Journal has links to the other languages.

The IASB has announced that they, like FASB, will be posting the full text of their standards on their website for download without charge.  That has not yet happened though the announcement was six months ago or so.  And they also mean only item #1 above.

I believe you are correct in concluding that this is an economic issue.  It is more of an issue with IASB than with FASB because IASB does not receive SOX funding.

Paul

Paul Pacter
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Director, IFRS Global Office
26/F Wing On Centre
111 Connaught Road Central
Hong Kong , China
Direct: +852 2852 5896
Fax: +852 2542 2681
paupacter@deloitte.com.hk
www.iasplus.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Jensen, Robert [mailto:rjensen@trinity.edu]
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 10:00 PM
To: ppacter@ix.netcom.com
Subject: FW: Happy New Accounting Year

Hi Paul,

Are the free IFRS really hidden to protect IASB revenues or are they simply
difficult to find?

See John's message below.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message-----
From: John Brozovsky [mailto:jbrozovs@vt.edu]
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 7:02 AM
To: Jensen, Robert
Subject: Re: Happy New Accounting Year

Hi Bob:

Actually you can find IFRS 'free' if you can locate it.  EU requires all

laws to be freely available in all EU languages.  Since IFRS is 'law' in

the EU it is freely available (just extremely hard to find).  My German
students gave me the German language page but I have not managed to
chase
down the English one.

John


Images from Around the World

Digital Himalaya (includes video)  http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/index.html 

National Geographic Explorer http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/ 


Math in the Movies http://world.std.com/~reinhold/dir/mathmovies.html 

Math And Science Song Information, Viewable Everywhere ---  http://www.science-groove.org/MASSIVE/ 

 


 

Question
What is the Joel Siegel's Number 1 pick for a 2004 movie?

 

Answer
Million Dollar Baby — The year's best from an old vintage of great actors and great filmmakers. Clint Eastwood directs, produces and stars in this tale of a female boxer, played by Hilary Swank, who's too old to start stepping into the ring and too driven to let that stop her. The best film of the year. Period.
ABC News, December 31, 2004 --- http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=371391 
His top ten picks are listed in the above article.  It was not a great year at the movies.
Also see http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2005/01/02/knockout_role/ 
Million Dollar Baby didn't rate so high in CNN's top picks --- http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/31/10.best.films/index.html 

 


Question
If you're interested in a wide array of national and international news alternatives on line, where should you start?  
Wlat is the leftist retort?

 

Answer
Bob Jensen uses the Drudge Report --- http://www.drudgereport.com/ 

 

The leftist retort is the Drudge Retort --- http://www.drudge.com/ 


Question
Would students be more excited about a science project measuring lichen growth or tracking roadkill?

Answer
"Call Him Dr. Splat," The Boston Globe, December 2, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2005/01/02/call_him_dr_splatt/ 


Jensen Advice is Cheap: Digital Cameras and Everything Else

I have received a number of requests for advice about digital cameras.  I like my Sony MVC-XS350 that I bought at Wal-Mart.  It shoots directly to a CD-R or CD-RW, which allows me to create and store picture files without a computer.  It's relatively heavy and too bulky for a shirt pocket.  You should be warned that some of the newer printers that will print directly from memory sticks will not yet print from CDs.  I have to go through my computer to print the pictures.

  Since I’m not an expert on digital cameras, I refer people to  http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/digital-camera.htm 

Also see Walt Mossberg's December 22, 2004 Review
"What to Look for When Buying A Digital Camera:  A Guide to Understanding Megapixels, Digital Zoom, Batteries and Memory Cards," Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal,  December 22, 2004; Page D5 ---  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110366826096806466,00.html?mod=gadgets%5Flead%5Fstory%5Fcol 

When it comes to many questions (products, science, etc.) , I refer people to http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/
This fantastic site now has a new search engine. 

When it comes to encyclopedia-type questions my next favorite referral is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
If you don’t like something in a Wiki module, you can change it yourself from your browser.  If you don’t find a module, you can perform a service for the world by writing a module.
****************************

December 21, 2004 reply from Curtis Brown at Trinity University

Bob,

Chances are you know about this site already, but a great source of information for people shopping for digital cameras is http://www.steves-digicams.com/  -- details and reviews of every camera imaginable, links to price comparisons, and a list of the "best" cameras in a variety of different categories.

Curtis


Question
Take a look at your college's current Web site.  How does it stack up against the competition?

 

Answer
The Latest Experiments by Colleges Recruiting New Students

"College Recruiters Lure Students With New Online Tools," by Bob Tedeschi, The New York Times, December 30, 2004 
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/technology/circuits/30coll.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1104501548-NF+yTytFntuHGH4s471j9A 

Colleges taking their battle for high school seniors to the Web and beyond.

Frustrated by the failure of e-mail solicitations to generate much response - largely because of the colleges' own unrestrained e-mail policies - admission directors are looking for new ways to incorporate the Internet into their marketing plans. For some, that means setting up more online chats. For others, it means streaming more video from their Web sites.

For Saint Mary's College, a Catholic college for women in Notre Dame, Ind., the answer is a high-tech version of campus view books, glossy tomes featuring ethnically diverse samplings of students wandering through verdant campuses, happy to be within sprinting distance of a Chaucer text.

After two years of testing, this fall Saint Mary's rolled out a video magazine, or Vmag, aimed at prospective applicants. Students can download the publication from the Saint Mary's home page (www.saintmarys.edu), along with software that automatically retrieves updates. When an updated version is ready for viewing, a desktop icon prompts the user to reopen it.

Each Vmag contains four one- to two-minute video clips featuring various aspects of campus life. While some of the clips show monologues by the college president or financial aid director, most are narrated by a pair of Saint Mary's students, who take viewers on a tour.

"We were searching for something a little more innovative and exciting to catch the attention of prospective students, and we found it," said Mary Pat Nolan, who was until recently the Saint Mary's director of admission. "This really sets us apart."

Ms. Nolan, who left Saint Mary's this month, said the college had tested the Vmag for two years, sending it to applicants who had been accepted by the school but had not yet decided to enroll. She said it was impossible to determine how it had affected enrollment, but added that she suspected it had helped.

Delivering a video magazine, Ms. Nolan said, "is a way to tell students we're not living in the dark ages, and that we're technologically advanced."

"We're not a convent school that's isolated, where you'll never see a man or have a social life," she said. "You'll have it all."

That message resonated with Maggie Oldham, who was among the first prospective students to view the video magazine two years ago. Ms. Oldham, now a sophomore, had been accepted by four colleges; initially, Saint Mary's was at the bottom of her list.

"When you see pictures, you think, 'That looks nice,' " Ms. Oldham said. "But with video, I could see myself in that class or at that basketball game. It was pretty persuasive, the whole interactive part of it."

Frequent updates to the video were helpful. "Once you go to all those schools, they all kind of run together," she said. "You can go back and look at all the brochures, but this is better at reinforcing what you've seen."

Kathleen Hessert, co-founder of NewGame Communications, a Charlotte, N.C., company that produces Vmags for schools and other organizations, said the technology is starting to attract interest from more colleges. "I think we were a little bit ahead of the market initially," Ms. Hessert said.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on tools of the trade are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm 

 


New Strategies for Education Publishing?

 

"Pearson's Plans Face Big Test," by Charles Goldsmith, The Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2004, Page B7 --- 

LONDON -- It is crunch time for Pearson PLC's education strategy.

The media company has been focused on fixing problems at higher-profile divisions: the Financial Times newspaper and Penguin publishing. But it is the less glitzy business -- education publishing -- that will determine whether Pearson's strategies are working in 2005.

Pearson Chief Executive Officer Marjorie Scardino long has promised that 2005 will be a banner year for the company's education business. Pearson publishes school textbooks and administers testing programs for many U.S. school systems. With many big states expected to add textbooks to their curricula, and U.S. school-testing programs getting into high gear, Pearson has said for some time its results would improve in 2005 following several flat years.

How the education business performs in 2005 is a test for Mrs. Scardino. She became Pearson CEO in 1997, the same year Dennis Stevenson became chairman.

Her tenure has been marked by the disposal of several noncore holdings, including Madame Tussaud's wax museum and a stake in merchant bank Lazard. She focused the British company on education with the $4.6 billion acquisition of Simon & Schuster's educational assets in 1998 and the $2.5 billion acquisition of National Computer Systems Inc., a Minnesota testing firm, in 2000. Some analysts criticized the company for overpaying for NCS through what was then the largest-ever United Kingdom stock issue, but Mrs. Scardino insists the price was justified.

Still, many investors and analysts say Mrs. Scardino's efforts to focus the company haven't gone nearly far enough. They question why it holds on to the Financial Times and some wonder if Penguin could be sold.

This month, Mrs. Scardino agreed to sell Pearson's 79% stake in Spanish media business Recoletos Grupo de Comunicacion SA to the Madrid company's management, for about €740 million ($1 billion). Last month, a deal was announced for Dow Jones & Co. to buy online financial-news provider MarketWatch Inc., in which Pearson holds a 22% stake, for $519 million. (Dow Jones publishes The Wall Street Journal, which competes with the Financial Times, and Pearson and Dow Jones have a joint venture that publishes a Russian financial newspaper.)

Mrs. Scardino says she is happy with Pearson's portfolio. "Compared to most companies, we are a rifle shot of focus," she said in a recent interview.

Rival textbook publisher McGraw-Hill Cos., she points out, also publishes BusinessWeek magazine and owns the Standard & Poor's credit-rating firm. Mrs. Scardino adds that both the Financial Times and Penguin fit into Pearson's overall informational mission.

U.S. States Plan Big Purchases

In 2005, Pearson's education business is expected to get a boost from President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" legislation, which has increased testing in U.S. schools. On the textbook front, many schools cut their textbook spending during the last big cycle for new books in 2001 and 2002, when a U.S. recession hit state budgets. As a result, with major textbook purchases planned by such states as Texas, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, a big rebound is expected in 2005.

Many states are implementing new reading and social-studies texts next year, too. Last year, education accounted for 60%, or £2.45 billion ($4.71 billion), of Pearson's £4.05 billion in sales and 64%, or £313 million, of its £490 million in operating profit.

The risks to watch for in 2005, analysts say, are if even one or two big states defect to McGraw-Hill or Reed Elsevier PLC for their textbooks. The weakness of the dollar also could hurt the schools division, which operates primarily in the U.S., says Stuart Owen, head of equity strategy at Barclays Global Investors, which holds a 2% to 2.5% stake in Pearson through its London Stock Exchange index-tracking business.

Continued in article


Question
What's a MS-MBA Program?

Answer
This is the answer from Boston University

A "very rigorous" MS-MBA program draws big employers to campus, says Catherine Ahlgren, chief of the B-school's career center.  he idea is that in the past, Information Systems was a stand-alone thing. Now, leaders need to be able to speak that language and determine what impact technology can have on a particular company. Some of the courses include Business Architecture, Telecommunications, Issues in Managing Network Systems, and IT Strategies for a Networked Economy (a requirement for all MBAs). During the MS-MBA's second year, teams are assembled to work on-site with a client, where they're assigned a task to improve that company's technological infrastructure. The employer benefits from the free, on-site consulting help, and the students receive credit and genuine work experience. They later present their findings to their classmates.
"
Boston University's Double-Degree Appeal," Business Week, December 29, 2005 --- http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/dec2004/bs20041223_3316.htm?c=bwmbadec29&n=link1&t=email 


Bob Jensen's Comment
Something's got to give.  MBA programs are already analogous to the "90 Day Wonder" program the army used in World War II to create military officers in a 90 day cram program.  If you start with a real neophyte such as a humanities major from Princeton and try to cover business education in two years, the curriculum is already tight.  If you try to add in MIS, something has to give for majors who do not already have undergraduate business degrees.  MBAs without former undergraduate business degrees are the equivalent of 90-Day Wonders.  Graduates from any MS-MBA program in two years or less have to be 45-Day Wonders in business.

January 3, 2004 reply from Patricia Doherty [pdoherty@BU.EDU

These students fulfill the requirements of both the MS degree in information sciences, and also the MBA degree. It is a very rigorous program, and the students are among our top Master's students.

p


Question
How do MBA programs differ from Executive MBA programs?

Answer from the University of Virginia

"Darden to Offer Executive MBAs," Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2005, Page B5 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110419905673210680,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

The University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration plans to join the ranks of schools that offer master's programs for executives who don't want to leave their jobs to advance their careers.

The university formed a committee in April to study the need for such a program "after we saw an increasing number of inquiries from companies and people in the region," said the school's dean, Robert S. Harris.

Once the curriculum and other details are in place and university and state officials approve, Darden hopes to launch its program in 2006 with an inaugural class of 40 to 45 students.

Darden's plans reflect a national trend in which business schools are responding to the fact that fewer people want to give up a fairly high-paying job for two years to pursue their MBA, Mr. Harris said.

The Graduate Management Admission Council, which tracks business-school trends, found that 78% of full-time programs it surveyed saw a decline in applications in 2004 from the previous year, and 53% of executive MBA programs reported an increase. This was at least in part because of increasing financial concerns of applicants in general and women and minorities specifically, the council said.

Since 2001, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School has offered a two-year MBA program in San Francisco for West Coast executives in addition to its longtime executive MBA program in Philadelphia. Northwestern University and the universities of Chicago and Michigan are among other highly ranked schools that offer executive MBA programs.

Virginia Tech started its executive MBA program in February at the university's northern Virginia campus to target employees of corporations in the Washington area, including the World Bank, Accenture Ltd. and Time Warner Inc.'s America Online.

Darden's executive MBA program will have the same core curriculum as the regular program but will be geared more toward leadership development and will be designed for people who have worked for about 10 to 12 years, as opposed to the average two or three years for typical MBA candidates.


Software for Your Next Trip to World of Mickey Mouse 

This is one of the things that makes behavioral research most frustrating.  Once the "code is cracked," the success in doing so may destroy the discovery.  Much depends upon the efficiency of information flow, because there is a lag between the discovery and changed behavior.  In a sense this applies to the larger picture of building models to predict getting rich due to stock market inefficiencies.  If somebody "cracks the market code" there will only be a very short window of time between when the information might yield abnormal returns.  An efficient market will react very quickly, in Epsilon time, to prevent abnormal returns.

"Cracking the Code At Disneyland:  Software, Web Sites Help Avoid Lines, Save Money; Six Top Rides in Two Hours," by Suein Hwang, The Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2004, Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110375969122007752,00.html?mod=e%2Dcommerce%5Fprimary%5Fhs 

That is how my husband, 2-year-old daughter and I emerged from a recent trip to Disneyland. Disney's theme parks are almost as famous for triple-digit ticket packages, pricey meals and often-interminable lines as they are for cartoon inhabitants. But many people don't realize that a cottage industry of tools is springing up on the Web that can help crack the code of the Happiest Place on Earth. The goal: to beat the lines and save money.

Travelers increasingly are turning to unofficial sites such as mouseplanet.com and laughingplace.com, which are filled with fanatical advice on such things as the best place to view the fireworks and the vegetarian options at restaurants.

One of the newer entrants is RideMax, software you buy and download over the Internet that claims to spit out a customized, minute-by-minute itinerary for a day in the park. It promises to minimize the time wasted standing in line by analyzing millions of combinations of wait times, days of the week, and times of day. Sample itinerary for a recent Friday: 1:39 p.m. arrive at the Indiana Jones ride. Wait time 14 minutes; ride duration five minutes; walking time to the next ride four minutes. At 2:02 p.m. arrive Thunder Mountain. Wait time five minutes; ride time four minutes; walking time to next ride five minutes. And so forth.

The RideMax site probably had the biggest impact on our recent family trip to Disneyland. For $12.95, users get a 90-day subscription, which asks you to input the days you are traveling, the hours you plan to be in the parks, and the attractions you want to ride. The results were impressive. Using the software, my husband put together an itinerary that got him on six of Disneyland's most popular rides ("Indiana Jones," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Matterhorn," "Thunder Mountain," "Haunted Mansion," and "Splash Mountain") in just more than two hours. Average wait time: 13 minutes.

If that sounds more like a forced march than a day of fun, the reality is that planning a Disney sojourn beforehand is growing more critical as the crowds thicken. Although Walt Disney Co. doesn't disclose attendance figures, aficionados say the week between Christmas and New Year's is one of the most popular (i.e., most packed) week of the year. Next year is looking to be crowded, too, as the company gears up for what a spokesman describes as "the largest event in Disney theme park history" to celebrate Disneyland's 50th anniversary. Disneyland attendance increased to 13.36 million visitors in 2004, a 5% jump from the year before, according to trade magazine Amusement Business.

Some people are also using the Web to save money on one of the biggest costs of a Disney trip -- tickets. Because Disneyland charges the most to people staying the shortest amount of time -- a five-day "Hopper" ticket is selling on Disney's site for $129, while a much shorter three-day costs nearly the same, $124 -- a black market has sprung up online, with some people buying tickets for more days than they need, then selling off the days they don't use. While Web sites like eBay and Craigslist are teeming with sellers, Disney warns that the tickets are nontransferrable, and that if a turnstile operator gets wise, the tickets could be confiscated.

Cost, of course, is a perennial issue for Disney-visitors. The company has carefully engineered the prices right down to the sugar-coated churro (which, by the way, now costs $2.75).

Planning the Visit

In planning our visit, we took the advice of various Web sites and decided to avoid Los Angeles Airport and fly instead into the John Wayne Airport at Orange County, which offers closer proximity to the park. We also elected to skip staying at one of the official Disney resorts, whose standard rates start at $195 a night (and which were booked that weekend anyway), instead stayed for $99 a night at a highly rated Howard Johnson's. Nothing fancy, but it was only an eight-minute walk away from the park.

Upon the recommendation of several Disney-advice Web sites including mouseplanet.com, we reserved two "character meals," sit-down meals at Disney properties where you chow down on heavy buffet food while being visited by a stream of Disney characters. As many parents know, eating at a sit-down restaurant with an active toddler can be an excruciating experience.

But at the start of our first meal, when Goofy lay down on the floor so our daughter could tickle his whiskers, we realized the overpriced food was worth it. She had a blast, dancing with Snow White and hugging numerous furry animals. Meanwhile, not only could we actually eat, but we also got many hilarious photos. Our cost: $72 for our dinner at Goofy's Kitchen and $47 for the Princess-laden breakfast at the Plaza Inn. Parents note: some young children freak out when confronted with a six-foot-tall walking dog.

Reliable Data

On Friday and part of Saturday, we followed RideMax's schedule to the minute and tracked its performance and found that it was reliable. While the sign in front of the Indiana Jones ride warned of a 60-minute wait, for example, the RideMax itinerary insisted it would be 14 minutes.

Sure enough, despite what the sign said, the actual wait turned out to be 17 minutes. "We've looked at (RideMax) somewhat closely and it seems to have accurate wait times," says a Disneyland Resort spokesman. "It does a pretty good job." Disney says that while it doesn't endorse fan Web sites and services, it considers them a helpful resource for customers.

For newbies not immersed in the details of Disney's queuing systems, the software also takes advantage of insider tips we wouldn't have otherwise known about. By using the "single rider" option RideMax indicated was offered on a few popular rides (Single Rider lets you jump most of the line if you agree to go solo) we took turns jumping onto two of California Adventure's most popular rides in less than five minutes, while our daughter was napping, trying to ignore the stares from people stuck in line as we coasted by.

Finally, RideMax forces users to plan the optimum hours to be at the park. It's one thing to hear that Saturday afternoons are busy, but it's another to read in black-and-white that you'll be standing in line for 90 minutes to ride a five-minute ride. We decided to take Saturday afternoon off, and were glad we did.

The software is the brainchild of Mark Winters, an Orem, Utah-based software engineer at Novell Inc. who was inspired to build the software after a frustrating experience with the Matterhorn. "I go to Disneyland and see a family from Boise buried in a map and I feel for them," he says. Starting in 1998, he built up his own proprietary database of wait and walk times and came to realize that the wait times for various rides remained fairly consistent from year to year. After building up enough data, he then built the optimization algorithm, which he says gets quite complicated when dealing with combinations of 20 different attractions plus various line-up rules for different attractions.

The RideMax software was created specifically for Disneyland and its neighboring California Adventure. The software doesn't work for Disney World, although Mr. Winters says he's considering building a version for the Florida theme park.

Some System Flaws

The system has its flaws. The program, which operates only on Windows, doesn't include the times for shows or performances, leaving it up to the user to try to figure out when they are and how long in duration they might be. (Mr. Winters says he is working on integrating performances into the software).

Also, while RideMax may be almost wait-free, it isn't totally stress-free. Its walking times assume travelers know the fastest route from one attraction to another, and in several cases we found ourselves rushing to get to the next ride after making a wrong turn. My throat tightened when I took an extra couple of minutes struggling with a FastPass machine, a system that distributes reservation tickets for popular rides. And don't even think about going to the bathroom. RideMax does offer an option for "slow" walkers, which obviously includes us.


December 27, 2004 message from 

Tsunami Animation --- http://blog.ziffdavis.com/coursey

A Japanese scientist has prepared a very interesting animation of the tsunami that resulted for the Sumatra earthquake. The graphic shows how the wave spread across the Indian Ocean --- http://staff.aist.go.jp/kenji.satake/animation.gif

There is no legend, but red represents uplift and blue subsidence of the ocean's surface. Note that the wave seems to emanate all along the fault that slipped, rather than from a point source above the epicenter.

Here's an interesting story about how a computerized monitoring system might have provided a warning and reduced that loss of life.

 Neal J. Hannon, CMA 
University of Hartford; Barney School of Business 
XBRL Editor, Strategic Finance Magazine


Beyond Chernoff:  This may have serious implications for multivariate data analysis
Ever since the crude computer-face depiction of up to 18 dimensions of multivariate data, computerized recognition of faces as been one of my big fascinations.
"Visualization of Multidimensional Data" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm 

"LAPD Studies Facial Recognition Software," The Associated Press, The New York Times, December 25, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Facial-Recognition.html  

The Los Angeles Police Department is experimenting with facial-recognition software it says will help identify suspects, but civil liberties advocates say the technology raises privacy concerns and may not identity people accurately.

``It's like a mobile electronic mug book,'' said Capt. Charles Beck of the gang-heavy Rampart Division, which has been using the software. ``It's not a silver bullet, but we wouldn't use it unless it helped us make arrests.'

But Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the technology was unproven and could encourage profiling on the basis of race or clothing.

``This is creeping Big Brotherism. There is a long history of government misusing information it gathers,'' Ripston said.

The department is seeking about $500,000 from the federal government to expand the use of the technology, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. Police have been testing it on Alvarado Street just west of downtown Los Angeles.

In one recent incident, two officers suspected two men illegally riding double on a bicycle of being gang members. If they were, they may have been violating an injunction that barred those named in a court documents from gathering in public and other activities.

As the officers questioned the men, Rampart Division Senior Lead Officer Mike Wang pointed a hand-held computer with an attached camera at one of the men. Facial-recognition software compared his image image to those of recent fugitives, as well as dozens of members of local gangs.

Within seconds, the screen displayed nine faces that had contours similar to the man's. The computer said the image of one particular gang member subject to the injunction was 94 percent likely to be a match.

That enough to trigger a search that yielded a small amount of methamphetamine. The man did turn out to be the gang member, and was arrested on suspicion of violating the injunction by possessing illegal drugs. The city attorney's office has not yet decided whether to charge the man.

The LAPD has been using two computers donated by their developer, Santa Monica-based Neven Vision, which wanted field-testing for its technology. The computers are still considered experimental.

The Rampart Division has used the devices about 25 times in the two months officers have been testing them. The technology has resulted in 16 arrests for alleged criminal contempt of a permanent gang injunction, and three arrests on outstanding felony warrants.

On one occasion, the computer was used to clear a man the officers suspected of being someone else, police said.

So far, the city attorney has filed seven injunction cases in arrests that involved the technology. A judge dismissed a case after questioning the technology, but it has been refiled. Suspects in two cases pleaded guilty.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on data visualization are at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm  


Games:  Developers, critics, gamers and analysts weigh in: 
What they loved, what they learned, what they worried about

Warning:  To see this article you must click the tiny little "Go to Salon: text at the top of an advertisement.
"The year in games Developers, critics, gamers and analysts weigh in: What they loved, what they learned, what they worried about," by Wagner James Au, Salon, December 22, 2004 --- http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/12/22/year_in_games/index_np.html?x 
You must register to download a free copy of the entire article.


"Evolving Technologies Reports," EDUCAUSE --- http://www.educause.edu/EvolvingTechnologiesReports/869 

The Evolving Technologies Committee is charged with the identification of developing technologies and the evaluation of their impact on higher education for the EDUCAUSE community. Annually such technologies are identified, researched, and white papers are produced by members of the committee. The information gathered is presented at the EDUCAUSE annual conference committee meeting.


"Technology and Plagiarism in the University: Brief Report of a Trial in Detecting Cheating," Diane Johnson et al., AACE Journal 12(3), 281-299 --- http://www.aace.org/pubs/AACEJ/dispart.cfm?paperID=24 

This article reports the results of a trial of automated detection of term-paper plagiarism in a large, introductory undergraduate class. The trial was premised on the observation that college students exploit information technology extensively to cheat on papers and assignments, but for the most part university faculty have employed few technological techniques to detect cheating. Topics covered include the decision to adopt electronic means for screening student papers, strategic concerns regarding deterrence versus detection of cheating, the technology employed to detect plagiarism, student outcomes, and the results of a survey of student attitudes about the experience. The article advances the thesis that easily-adopted techniques not only close a sophistication gap associated with computerized cheating, but can place faculty in a stronger position than they have ever enjoyed historically with regard to the deterrence and detection of some classes of plagiarism.

December 22, 2004 reply from David Albrecht [albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM

Bob,

You provide a link to a fascinating article. In part, I find it interesting because an MBA student just submitted an electronic version of a paper with various writing styles, so I did a Google search on a few selected phrases. Eight of the nine phrases came from Internet sources.

I'm curious, does anyone on this list require the electronic submission of papers? If so, do you require simultaneous submission of a printed copy or do you prohibit such?

David Albrecht 
Bowling Green State University

December 22, 2004 reply from Bruce Lubich [blubich@UMUC.EDU

In the grad school at University of Maryland University College, all of our online classes (about 80% of our classes are online) have their work submitted electronically, usually via our online gradebook. There is no simultaneous submission of a paper copy. It's not prohibited, but why would you want the extra paper?

Bruce Lubich

December 22, 2004 reply from Roger Debreceny [roger@DEBRECENY.COM

For a number of years, I have required only electronic submission of papers and a variety of other items such as PowerPoint presentations via either Blackboard or WebCT. I don't allow printed copies. This arises in several benefits. I never lose printed submissions -- they are always stored on WebCT. There is no doubt about when the submission was made. And I can also use Eve to check plagiarism on the downloaded papers, where appropriate -- but I also design assignments to limit the amount of Internet-based plagiarism. WebCT, in particular, makes downloading submissions for a particular assignment straightfoward. I set my assignment requirements to ensure that the number of pages printed is limited (single spaced, Times Roman 11 point for body type) and I print the assignments two pages per printed page.

Roger

December 22, 2004 reply from MABDOLMOHAMM@BENTLEY.EDU 

Did anyone watch ABC's 20/20 piece, "Big Cheats on Campus" on November 19 by John Stossel? It featured Turnitin.com's president, John Barrie who stated that schools "submit 20,000-30,000 papers per day, and his company finds plagiarism in about 30 percent of those cases."

I used Turnitin.com for my graduate classes in 2004 as did a colleague who used it in his undergraduate classes. We required electronic submission of papers that we then submitted to Turnitin.com. We find that on average approximately 30 percent of undergraduate papers and 20 percent of graduate papers are copied form internet sites. When we adjust the copying for appropriate citations to find plagiarism, the average copying drops to about half that, and as you can imagine there is a wide variation. These data suggest two different questions: (1) What is an acceptable level of copying where clear and proper citation is provided? Is it acceptable that a student just copy, paste and reference text to write a paper? (2) Can one assume plagiarism for the copied text that has no citation? Or could this be, as some students argue, just a lack of training on how to cite literature?

Ali Mohammad J. Abdolmohammadi, DBA, CPA 
http://web.bentley.edu/empl/a/mabdolmohamm/  
John E. Rhodes Professor of Accounting 
Bentley College 175 Forest Street 
Waltham, MA 02452

December 22, 2004 reply from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU

I almost feel nostalgic about the good old college days of mine when essay type questions were the rule, and so were in-class closed book/notes examinations.

I have been arguing with our faculty here that even Ph.D comprehensive examinations should be in-class closed book/notes, but I am very lonely on this issue.

A lot of the plagiarism issues would vanish if the student had to do the research BEFORE writing the essays, and the writing of the essays were the result of reflection, analysis & synthesis, development of paradigms to place work in the area,...... Frequent consultation of evidence in the process of writing warps thinking. The evidence should only be used to support one's arguments, and not form the arguments themselves.

Jagdish

December 27, 2004 reply from Flowers, Carol [cflowers@OCC.CCCD.EDU

I don't believe this is argumentative -- I believe it is no different than the discussion that ensued over "group discussions/activities". I feel these subjects elicit quite a bit of interest as they are general discussions that are encountered by all instructors.

As an instructor at a community college, I find that many of the discussions posted evolve around audits, etc. Therefore, discussions such as "testing and group activities" are more applicable to Financial Accounting (that I teach). Many of you also deal with upper division and graduate students; whereas, I deal with ESL and undergraduate (freshman/sophomores). I would venture a guess that the two populations are dramatically different. My teaching load is predominantly online -- though I find this an issue with my on campus classes also. Therefore, learning, and testing that learning is occurring, is an issue for me.

Some would argue that the ability of students to research a subject and find an answer is learning. I agree, but at the same time, I have observed the following situation. I, too, have seen papers composed mostly of work copied from the internet (including my son's!!). When I ask the student directly questions regarding the subject matter which they have written about, they don't even understand the vocabulary that they have copied enough to explain it verbally to me. And, if they attempt to put it in their own words, it is nonsensical.

I have a number of quizzes that I require completed as "pacers" for the class. Exams are proctored on campus. When I indicate that the student must come to campus, the comments I've received are: "does this mean we can't have an open book to take the exam?" ; " Does this mean we can't ask a friend for the answer?" I question what learning would be going on under these circumstances. I use multiple choice and essay questions. Questions are not ones that test your memorization but application/extrapolation of procedures/information learned. Students have great difficulty with this type of testing as they are unaware of to how to transfer information learned from a procedural mode to a conceptual mode due to lack of vocabulary and critical thinking/logic skills.

I feel that if they can transfer this knowledge to other situations (i.e.: word problems, essay) in a proctored environment, then they will have taken some knowledge from the course.

Any other ideas/suggestions/arguments GRATEFULLY accepted!!!

December 28, 2004 reply from Gerald Trites [gtrites@ZORBA.CA

I've been experimenting with requiring all "term papers" to be submitted in the form of web pages. I've gone through two semesters doing this. I tell them to feel free to use anything on the web only instead of copying it in to just link it and to name all their sources for unlinked material. Of course, it's very easy to see where the material came from if they don't reference it. I think it has cut down on the amount of copying, because they are very web aware and know how easy it is to find their sources. I get the usual range of quality, but I some of the sites they do are amazing.I do limit the marks awarded to design and so on, leaving most of them for content and this works OK. Generally, I find it is a good way to go, and will keep it up and try to improve on it. I don't think I will require traditional term papers again. If you can't beat them, join them.

Jerry 
Gerald Trites, FCA, CA·IT/CISA 
Website - http://www.zorba.ca  
The Trites E-Business Blog
- http://www.zorba.ca/blog.html 

December 28, 2004 reply from Barry Rice [BRice@LOYOLA.EDU

David Albrecht said: "I'm curious, does anyone on this list require the electronic submission of papers?"

In the fall of 1983 [NOT a typo], I began requiring students to submit ALL term papers electronically and continued that practice until I retired from teaching in 2002. I never allowed paper or floppy disk submissions. There was no Turnitin.com back then and floppies really were floppy! :-) I sound like an old codger.

Barry 
AECM List Owner

 

December 28, 2004 reply from Tracey Sutherland [tracey@AAAHQ.ORG

Those interested in this plagiarism thread may find the statement on best practices for "Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism" developed by the Council of Writing Program Administrators useful. It describes shared responsibilities for dealing with the issue, and some best practices for students, faculty, and administrators that include ideas for developing assignments as well as a caution about the online detection services. You can find the report online at http://www.wpacouncil.org/positions/WPAplagiarism.pdf  .

Peace of the season, Tracey

Tracey Sutherland 
Executive Director American Accounting Association 
Phone: 941/921-7747 ext. 311 Fax: 941/923-4093

 

 

Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 


"U.S. Slips in Attracting the World's Best Students," by Sam Dillon, The New York Times, December 21, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/national/21global.html?oref=login  

American universities, which for half a century have attracted the world's best and brightest students with little effort, are suddenly facing intense competition as higher education undergoes rapid globalization.

The European Union, moving methodically to compete with American universities, is streamlining the continent's higher education system and offering American-style degree programs taught in English. Britain, Australia and New Zealand are aggressively recruiting foreign students, as are Asian centers like Taiwan and Hong Kong. And China, which has declared that transforming 100 universities into world-class research institutions is a national priority, is persuading top Chinese scholars to return home from American universities.

"What we're starting to see in terms of international students now having options outside the U.S. for high-quality education is just the tip of the iceberg," said David G. Payne, an executive director of the Educational Testing Service, which administers several tests taken by foreign students to gain admission to American universities. "Other countries are just starting to expand their capacity for offering graduate education. In the future, foreign students will have far greater opportunities."

Foreign students contribute $13 billion to the American economy annually. But this year brought clear signs that the United States' overwhelming dominance of international higher education may be ending. In July, Mr. Payne briefed the National Academy of Sciences on a sharp plunge in the number of students from India and China who had taken the most recent administration of the Graduate Record Exam, a requirement for applying to most graduate schools; it had dropped by half.

Foreign applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. Actual foreign graduate student enrollments dropped 6 percent. Enrollments of all foreign students, in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral programs, fell for the first time in three decades in an annual census released this fall. Meanwhile, university enrollments have been surging in England, Germany and other countries.

Continued in the article

December 21, 2004 reply from Nancy Ericksen

We (the United States) also closed all the US information centers that were providing information on US schools to potential applicants abroad - while other countries were beginning nationally funded advertising campaigns. At the same time we made it much more difficult and expensive to get a US student visa. There is a perception in many countries that it is too hard to come to the US. I suspect that these numbers will continue to drop.

However, Trinity's numbers have risen sharply.

Nancy Ericksen
Trinity University


Why then do the studies show that a faculty member's research activity and his or her teaching performance basically are uncorrelated (neither positively correlated nor negatively correlated)? My best guess is that these studies have fundamental flaws. After reading some of Nils' references as well as more recent work on the subject, I believe that most of these studies measure both teaching effectiveness and research activity incorrectly. On the teaching effectiveness side, student evaluations of teaching often are the only measure used in those studies; and, on the research productivity side generally only numbers of publications are counted. Neither of these data points really measure quality. The student evaluations often are highly correlated with the grade that a student expects to receive rather than how much the student has learned. Faculty members who are engaged in research often are demanding of themselves as well as their students, so that may skew their student evaluations. Measuring research activity by the number of papers published tends to skew the results towards those faculty members who would view themselves primarily as researchers and teachers of graduate students rather than as teacher scholars who devote as much effort to their teaching as to their research. In fact one of the correlations observed in the research is that those faculty members who publish the most often have less time available to devote to their teaching.
Nils Clausson, "Is There a Link Between Teaching and Research?" The Irascible Professor, December 30, 2004 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-12-30-04.htm 
Jensen Comment:  By definition successful research is a contribution to new knowledge.  It cannot be conducted without scholarship mastery of existing knowledge on the topic at hand.  What Clausson seems to imply is that a great teacher can have terrific and ongoing scholarship without adding to the pile of existing knowledge.  There also is the question of great facilitators of research who do not publish.  These professors are sometimes great motivators and advisors to doctoral students.  Examples from accounting education include the now deceased Carl Nelson at the University of Minnesota and Tom Burns from The Ohio State University.  My point is that great teachers come in all varieties.  No one mold should ever be prescribed like is often done in today's promotion and tenure committees that sometimes discourage fantastic teaching in favor of uninteresting publication.

December 31, 2004 reply from Amy Dunbar [Amy.Dunbar@BUSINESS.UCONN.EDU

Shapiro stated, “No one became an astronomer, or an economist, or and English professor in order to teach students astronomy, economics, or English literature. I certainly didn't.”

Au contraire. I think a lot of us entered PhD programs because we wanted to teach. I think that teaching and research are positively correlated because scholarship is infused with curiosity and care.

Amy Dunbar

UConn

December 31, 2004 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

Hear, hear! Amy, I agree. Shapiro's assertion that "no one" gets a Ph.D. to teach is patently false, as evidenced by the overwhelming majority of my colleagues who obtained a Ph.D. degree SOLELY to obtain a teaching position (and many of whom eschew the superficiality of much of today's published accounting "research").

Thus, if this statement of Shapiro's is false, why would I believe his other statements that "not one shred of empirical evidence" exists to relate good teaching to good research? That statement is likely patently false too, mainly because, in my view, of issues with construct validity issues in the studies. Look carefully at the precise wording of my following postulates:

1. Good research does not necessarily guarantee good teaching. (I believe anyone who has any experience in academe would have to accept this as well-established and supported empirically.)

2. Good teaching does not necessarily require research ... DEPENDING (a major qualifier!) ON WHAT you are trying to teach. THIS second postulate (more specifically, the qualifying predicate!) is the one that most of Shapiro's citations (I assume, since I must admit I haven't read them!) likely overlooked in their studies.

There are many subjects, including MANY undergraduate course topics, which do not require constant updating and up-to-the- minute currency, and thus a teacher may not benefit as greatly from being active in research in that area. For these, research does not have to be correlated to good teaching. So it probably isn't.

But there are many other areas which probably can NOT be taught properly by anyone who is NOT staying current with the field by being actively immersed in the present state-of- the-art. Medicine, Pharmacology, Genetics, Materials Science, shoot, any one of us could name dozens. And these fields do not need empirical evidence, it is deducible by pure logic, from the objectives of the teaching activity.

And even in these fields, doing good research does not necessarily mean that you are a good teacher, but being a good teacher in the field does require research.

By overlooking the characteristics of the field, the characteristics of the course content, characteristics of the NEED of students in the course, and similar oversights, Shapiro's researchers have confounded their data so much that their conclusion (the lack of correlation between research and teaching) lacks validity, even ignoring the obvious problems with measurements that Bob pointed out.

Of course, Shapiro is a primary example of a phenomenon I plan to be one of my best assertions: the complete replacement of "factual reporting" with "sensationalism" in today's communication realm.

I mean, honestly, why should accountants be different from the rest of the world when it comes to abdicating the obligation to report fairly, justly, objectively, and factually? The news media sure does not report objectively (the New York Times and its affiliate the Herald Tribune are absolute jokes when it comes to embellishment, sensationalizing, biasing, coloring, and other departures from "reporting news", and they are representative of their industry). Neither do other forms of so-called "news" media, nor do practitioners of law (look at the claims of civil rights attorneys!), politicians (nothing more need be said here), so-called "reality TV", or any of the other professions which the public (erroneously) is expected to perceive as communicating reality. So why should accountants be held to a different standard than the rest of society?

Rhetorical question, of course...

Happy New Year to anyone who reads this far on my lengthy treatises. And Happy New Year to the others on this list, too!

David Fordham 
James Madison University

 

January 1, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi David,

I tend to agree with everything you said below except the key phrase "being a good teacher in the field does require research."

It would be more acceptable to me if you fine tuned the phrase to read "being a good teacher in the field does keeping up with research."  Of course this leads head on into the brick wall of performance reward systems that find it easier to count publications than subjectively evaluate scholarship.

A terrific surgeon or teacher of surgery is not required to contribute to new and unknown surgical knowledge and/or technique. A surgical researcher may spend a lifetime endeavoring to create a new surgical technique but that endeavoring is not a requisite for greatness as a teacher of existing best practices.  In teaching of surgery, experience is the requisite for greatness as a teacher of existing best practices.

Nor does a great historian or history teacher have to contribute to new knowledge of the past in order to have an outstanding preparation to teach what is already known about the past.  Although researchers are almost paranoid to admit it, it is possible to become the world's best scholar on a topic without extending the knowledge base of the topic.

The problem with great research discovery is that endeavoring to discover often drains a lifetime of energy at the edge of the head of a pin, energy that has a high probability of draining efforts to prepare to teach about the whole pin or the pin cushion as a whole.

The key problem is having the time or energy for preparation to teach.  Research in the narrow sometimes drains from the act of preparing to teach in breadth and length.  Also knowing the history of the narrows does not necessarily mean that the researcher understands the history of the entire river (which is my feeling about some of our top empirical researchers in accounting who have very little knowledge of the history of accounting as a whole). 

Rivers versus pin cushions!  Am I mixing my metaphors again?

I agree that Shapiro made a dumb comment about why we got our doctorates and became educators. I tend to agree, however, with Nils Clausson's conclusion that seems to be lost behind Shaphiro's dumb remark.

Bob Jensen

January 1, 2005 reply from Alexander Robin A [alexande.robi@UWLAX.EDU

Wonderful! It is so nice to see these very reasonable ideas articulated. The idea that keeping up in a field in order to teach it requires active research (actually, publication numbers) rather than active reading and study is one of those unquestioned mantras that comprise educational mythology at most universities. I suspect the true reason for that belief is that it is convenient - bureaucracies like easy measurements that don't require much discernment. Counting publications is a very easy (if erroneous) way to measure faculty performance.

Robin Alexander

January 1, 2005 reply from Dennis Beresford [DBeresfo@TERRY.UGA.EDU

Bob

I wonder whether you could further fine tune your comment to say, "being a good teacher does require keeping up with developments in the field." While keeping up with research is certainly helpful, the vast majority of accounting majors are undergrads and MAcc's who will go into (mainly) public accounting and the corporate world. And, of course, many of our accounting students are taking the class only as a requirement of a different business major. I respectfully submit that knowing what is happening in the accounting profession and broader business community is quite important to effective teaching of those students.

Some accounting research may also be relevant, particularly for teaching PhD students but that's a pretty tiny number.

Go Bulldogs and Trojans!

Denny Beresford


As I said previously, great teachers come in about as many varieties as flowers.  Click on the link below to read about some of the varieties recalled by students from their high school days.  I t should be noted that "favorite teacher" is not synonymous with "learned the most."  Favorite teachers are often great at entertaining and/or motivating.  Favorite teachers often make learning fun in a variety of ways.  

The recollections below tend to lean toward entertainment and "fun" teachers, but you must keep in mind that these were written after-the-fact by former high school teachers.  In high school, dull teachers tend not to be popular before or after the fact.  This is not always the case when former students recall their college professors.

"'A dozen roses to my favorite teacher," The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 30, 2004 --- http://www.philly.com/mld/Inquirer/news/special_packages/phillycom_teases/10304831.htm?1c 

Students may actually learn the most from pretty dull teachers with high standards and demanding assignments and exams.  Also dull teachers may also be the dedicated souls who are willing to spend extra time in one-on-one sessions or extra-hour tutorials that ultimately have an enormous impact on mastery of the course.  And then there are teachers who are not so entertaining and do not spend much time face-to-face that are winners because they have developed learning materials that far exceed other teachers in terms of student learning because of those materials.  

In some cases, the “best learning” takes place in courses where students hate the teacher who, in their viewpoint, does not teach.  In has a lot to do with metacognition in learning.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm 

Many of our previous exchanges on the AECM about these issues are at the following links:

Grade Inflation Issues
  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation 

Onsite Versus Online Learning
  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#OnsiteVersusOnline 

Student Evaluations and Learning
 http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#LearningStyles  

January 2, 2005 reply from MABDOLMOHAMM@BENTLEY.EDU 

In search of a definition of a "perfect teacher"

A teacher can be excellent by having one or more of a number of attributes (e.g., motivator, knowledgeable, researcher), but a teacher will be perfect if he/she has a combination of some or all of these attributes to bring the best out of students.

We all can cite anecdotal examples of great teachers that exhibited excellence in an important attribute. Below are three examples.

A few years ago an economics teacher of my son in high school admitted to parents at the beginning of the year that he had very little knowledge of the subject matter of the economics course that he was assigned to teach. He said that the school needed a volunteer to take an economics course and then teach it at the high school, and he volunteered. A former college football player, the teacher had learned to motivate others to do their best and by the end of the year he had motivated the students to learn a lot, much of it on their own. In fact to the pleasant surprise of the teacher and parents two student groups from this class made it to the state competition, one of which ended up being number one and the other ranked number 4 in the state.

I have noticed that many of the professors getting teaching awards from our beloved AAA have also been heavy hitters in publishing. While one can be a good teacher without being a heavy hitter in publishing, it may be that scholarship, broadly defined (include the knowledge of current developments) is an important factor in being a good teacher. Even if one is not a heavy hitter, scholarship as an exercise of the brain, makes one a better teacher.

Others argue that students are the best judges of good teaching. I recall having read a research piece some time ago that those who consistently rate high in student evaluations are good teachers, while those who consistently rate low are poor teachers. The ones in the middle are those for whom other factors may be at work (e.g., being too demanding or a tough grader).

Here is a research question: Do we have a comprehensive inventory of the attributes of good teaching, and if so, is it possible to come up with combinations of various attributes to define a "perfect teacher" or an "expert teacher"?

Ali Mohammad J. Abdolmohammadi, DBA, CPA 
http://web.bentley.edu/empl/a/mabdolmohamm/  
John E. Rhodes Professor of Accounting 
Bentley College 175 Forest Street Waltham, MA 02452

January 2, 2005 reply from Van Johnson [accvej@LANGATE.GSU.EDU

Bob--

Your post reminded me of one of my favorite editorials by Thomas Sowell in 2002. It is included below.

"Good" Teachers

The next time someone receives an award as an outstanding teacher, take a close look at the reasons given for selecting that particular person. Seldom is it because his or her students did higher quality work in math or spoke better English or in fact had any tangible accomplishments that were better than those of other students of teachers who did not get an award.

A "good" teacher is not defined as a teacher whose students learn more. A "good" teacher is someone who exemplifies the prevailing dogmas of the educational establishment. The general public probably thinks of good teachers as people like Marva Collins or Jaime Escalante, whose minority students met and exceeded national standards. But such bottom line criteria have long since disappeared from most public schools.

If your criterion for judging teachers is how much their students learn, then you can end up with a wholly different list of who are the best teachers. Some of the most unimpressive-looking teachers have consistently turned out students who know their subject far better than teachers who cut a more dashing figure in the classroom and receive more lavish praise from their students or attention from the media.

My own teaching career began at Douglass College, a small women's college in New Jersey, replacing a retiring professor of economics who was so revered that I made it a point never to say that I was "replacing" him, which would have been considered sacrilege. But it turned out that his worshipful students were a mass of confusion when it came to economics.

It was much the same story at my next teaching post, Howard University in Washington. One of the men in our department was so popular with students that the big problem every semester was to find a room big enough to hold all the students who wanted to enroll in his classes. Meanwhile, another economist in the department was so unpopular that the very mention of his name caused students to roll their eyes or even have an outburst of hostility.

Yet when I compared the grades that students in my upper level class were making, I discovered that none of the students who had taken introductory economics under Mr. Popularity had gotten as high as a B in my class, while virtually all the students who had studied under Mr. Pariah were doing at least B work. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

My own experience as an undergraduate student at Harvard was completely consistent with what I later learned as a teacher. One of my teachers -- Professor Arthur Smithies -- was a highly respected scholar but was widely regarded as a terrible teacher. Yet what he taught me has stayed with me for more than 40 years and his class determined the course of my future career.

Nobody observing Professor Smithies in class was likely to be impressed by his performance. He sort of drifted into the room, almost as if he had arrived there by accident. During talks -- lectures would be too strong a word -- he often paused to look out the window and seemingly became fascinated by the traffic in Harvard Square.

But Smithies not only taught us particular things. He got us to think -- often by questioning us in a way that forced us to follow out the logic of what we were saying to its ultimate conclusion. Often some policy that sounded wonderful, if you looked only at the immediate results, would turn out to be counterproductive if you followed your own logic beyond stage one.

In later years, I would realize that many disastrous policies had been created by thinking no further than stage one. Getting students to think systematically beyond stage one was a lifetime contribution to their understanding.

Another lifetime contribution was a reading list that introduced us to the writings of top-notch minds. It takes one to know one and Smithies had a top-notch mind himself. One of the articles on that reading list -- by Professor George Stigler of Columbia University -- was so impressive that I went to graduate school at Columbia expressly to study under him. After discovering, upon arrival, that Stigler had just left for the University of Chicago, I decided to go to the University of Chicago the next year and study under him there.

Arthur Smithies would never get a teaching award by the standards of the education establishment today. But he rates a top award by a much older standard: By their fruits ye shall know them.

January 2, 2004 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

Bob, you've hit upon an enlightening point.

Your post about alums' vote for "Best" teacher or "Favorite" teacher not being the one who "taught them the most", or even "the most entertaining" contrasts vividly with my wording when I refer to "Excellence in teaching".

The "Best" teacher in a student's (alums) eye isn't always the "most excellent" teacher.

Most of us (the public at large, even) desire to be popular, and therefore "best" or "favorite" in anything we do. But "best" and "favorite" are far more subjective and individual-dependent superlatives than "most excellent".

The latter term denotes a high level of attaining the objective of the endeavor, whereas the former terms denote a broader array of attributes (frequently skewed more towards personality traits) appealing to personal tastes, where the overriding attributes do not have to be the meeting of the fundamental objectives of 'teaching'.

I (and many of my colleagues, possibly including yourself) generally strive for excellence in teaching, -- which often requires excellence in many other attributes (including personality ones, too!) in order to achieve. Unfortunatly, many students concentrate their attention on the personality- related ones. And just as sadly, the AACSB accreditation jokers (along with elected state legislators at the K-12 level!) concentrate only on "knowledge transfer", "comprehension", and "measurabale rubrics". Both of these extremes ignore the overall mix which composes "Excellence in teaching" in terms of achieving the educational objectives.

(And yes, I strongly believe that educational objectives include far more than mere knowledge transfer... they include motivation, inspiration, appreciation, and many other currently-*unmeasurable* traits, which is why I'm such an outspoken critic of the AACSB's "assurance of learning" shenanigans.)

By the way, if you've read this far: Bob, I've got to admit my poor choice of wording on an earlier post. I indicated that some fields (such as pharmacology, genetics, etc.) require "research" to teach well -- I didn't mean to equate research with publication as is commonly done in academe, nor did I mean to equate it with "advancing the knowledge of mankind" as it is probably more accurately defined. I meant that those fields require effort to stay on top of what's happening, as you more appropriately and accurately articulated. This can take the form of overt activity to advance the knowledge of mankind, or it can take the form of studious and constant attention to current literature and activity of others. (I guess that's what I get for becoming so immersed in my genealogical "research", which for the most part consists of studiously searching and absorbing the "literature" and activities of others, rather than creation on my own!) Anyway, I'd also like to agree strongly with your assertion that "excellent teachers come in all varieties". This is another fact which further confounds the "measurement" of excellent teaching, and is often ignored by those in the AACSB and state legislature education committees.

David Fordham 
James Madison University

January 2, 2005 reply from David Albrecht [albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]

David Fordham,

Another intriguing post to the always interesting posts of Bob Jensen.

This has caused my mind to wander, and it has stalled wondering about the similarities between audit quality and teaching quality.

As I recall, there are three primary components or perspectives of audit quality: the input of the auditor (new being made public for the first time by the PCAOB), the accuracy of the auditor's output, and the public perception of the auditor. Based on the maxim that perception is reality, much musing and academic research has focused on the third component. Perhaps an example will help explain what I'm getting at. For decades, the firm of Arthur Andersen worked hard on the first two components and eventually was bestowed with the third component. Then, according to Toffler, Squires et. al, Brewster and some others, AA skimped on the first two components and eventually had the third component withdrawn. Have the final biggest firms, the Big Four, traveled the same path? I can't really tell, given the confounding that the big firms insurance function brings to the analysis. I do know that for the largest companies (audited by the biggest auditing firms) the large amount of restatements causes me to doubt the amount of recent auditor quailty.

In a fashion, there seem to be three similar components of excellence in teaching. First, there is the input of the teacher. There are many parts to this. There is the scholarly endeavor of "keeping up." There is the creative thought that goes into course design and material development. Of course, there is the preparation for each class, and there is the classroom pedagogy. The second component would have to be the amount and quality of learning that takes place. The third component would be the public perception of the teacher.

With respect to the national public, it is easy to see that many students engage the teachers from the most expensive, elite schools. These students seem willing to pay the price needed to get that clean opinion from the top firm, er, I mean that degree with honors from the top school. Are these students acting in the most rational manner? It's hard to tell. They seem to go to top research schools where they receive much of their instruction from graduate students, many of whom lack American language and cultural skills that I'd think necessary for much quality. Then, they get to senior level classes and receive instruction from professors that sometimes are too preoccupied with research to adequately shepherd their students. The elite schools try not to mess up the good students too much. The students find assurance in the perceived quality of the degree from the elite school

Some students, frequently the less well heeled or from the poorest educated families, attend lower ranked schools. Dare I say a teaching school such as Bowling Green or James Madison? Anecdotal evidence supports the contention that my schoolschool places much emphasis on the first two components of teaching quality and does a quality job. However, not being one of the biggest schools does put a hurt on the perceived quality of the educational experience here.

I wonder if the PCAOB, the auditor's auditor, will be any better than the AACSB, the business and accounting program's auditor. I can tell from experience that a non-elite accounting program has a difference of opinion with the AACSB, not because its students come from around the world (they do) or that its graduates are in high demand by national and regional employers (they are) or that its graduates progress rapidly in their careers (they do), but because of an insufficient number of faculty publications in top-tier journals. I think some of the time t he AACSB misses the boat.

Will the PCAOB? I guess that will be the true test of the similarity between auditor quality and teacher quality.

David Albrecht 
Bowling Green State University

 

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 


"The Pursuit of Knowledge, From Genesis to Google," by Alberto Manguel, The New York Times, December 19, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/weekinreview/19mang.html  

One warm afternoon in the late 19th century, two middle-aged office clerks met on the same bench of the Boulevard Bourdon in Paris and immediately became the best of friends. Bouvard and Pécuchet (the names Gustave Flaubert gave to his two comic heroes) discovered through their friendship a common purpose: the pursuit of universal knowledge. To achieve this ambitious goal, they attempted to read everything they could find on every branch of human endeavor and, from their readings, cull the most outstanding facts and ideas. Flaubert's death in 1880 put an end to their enterprise, which was in essence endless, but not before the two brave explorers had read their way through many learned volumes on agriculture, literature, animal husbandry, medicine, archeology and politics, always with disappointing results. What Flaubert's two clowns discovered is what we have always known but seldom believed: that the accumulation of knowledge isn't knowledge.

The desire to know everything on earth and in heaven is so ancient that one of the earliest accounts of this ambition is already a cautionary tale. According to the 11th chapter of Genesis, after the Flood, the people of the earth journeyed east, to the land of Shinar, and decided to build a city and a tower that would reach the heavens.

"And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language;

and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." According to the Sanhedrin (the council of Jewish elders set up in Jerusalem in the first century), the place where the tower once rose never lost its peculiar quality and whoever passes it forgets all he knows. Years ago, I was shown a small hill of rubble outside the walls of Babylon and told that this was all that remained of Babel.

If Babel symbolized our incommensurate ambition, the Library of Alexandria showed how this ambition might be achieved. Set up by Ptolemy I in the third century B.C., it was meant to hold every book on every imaginable subject. To ensure that no title escaped its vast catalog, a royal decree ordered that any book brought into the city was to be confiscated and copied; only then would the original (sometimes the copy) be returned.

A curious document from the second century B.C., the perhaps apocryphal "Letter of Aristeas," recounts the library's origins. To assemble a universal library (says the letter), King Ptolemy wrote "to all the sovereigns and governors on earth" begging them to send to him every kind of book by every kind of author, "poets and prose writers, rhetoricians and sophists, doctors and soothsayers, historians and all others, too." The king's librarians calculated that they required 500,000 scrolls if they were to collect in Alexandria "all the books of all the peoples of the world." Time exacerbates our greed: by 1988, the Library of Congress alone was receiving that number of printed items per year, from which it sparingly kept about 400,000.

But even this (by our standards) modest stock of a half-million books was too much for any reader, and the librarians of Alexandria devised a system of annotated catalogs for which they chose works they deemed especially important and appended a brief description to each title: one of the earliest "recommended reading" lists. In Alexandria, it became clear that the greater your ambition, the narrower your scope.

But our ambition persists. Recently, the most popular Internet search service, Google, announced that it had concluded agreements with several leading research libraries - Harvard, the Bodleian at Oxford, Stanford, the New York Public Library - to make some of their books available online to researchers who won't have to travel to the libraries or dust their way through endless stacks of paper and ink. Millions of pages will be waiting temptingly for their online readers and (to refer back to Genesis) "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." No doubt the whole of the ghostly stock of Alexandria (which vanished in the seventh century) can now be summoned up with the mere tap of a finger.


Product Search With Options to Rent of Buy It Cheaper?  
That plus much more!

"Amazon: Giving Away the Store,"  by Wade Roush, Technology Review,  January 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/roush0105.asp?trk=nl 

Visit Amazon Light at www.kokogiak.com/amazon4, and you’ll see a plain search box that allows you to locate any product in Amazon.com’s database. Click on an item, and you’ll be taken to a page with the usual product image, price information, and customer reviews, and, of course, the familiar “Buy This” button. Amazon Light’s pages are deliberately less cluttered than those at Amazon itself, but the family relationship is obvious.

Look closer, however, and you’ll spot some distinctly non-Amazonian features. If the item you’re viewing is a DVD, for example, there will be a button that lets you see in a single click whether the same disc is for rent at Netflix. If it’s a CD, you can check whether Apple’s iTunes music store has a downloadable version. And if it’s a book, Amazon Light will even tell you whether it’s on the shelf at your local public library.

What’s going on here? Surely, executives at Seattle-based Amazon would never condone an online service that encourages people to buy things from sites other than Amazon?

Actually, they would. Amazon Light, created by former Amazon programmer Alan Taylor and hosted on his personal website, kokogiak.com, is one of thousands of independent sites incorporating the product data and programming tools that Amazon has been sharing freely since July 16, 2002. That’s the day Amazon celebrated its seventh anniversary—and unveiled a startling new project, called Amazon Web Services, that promises to change, once again, the way retailers of all stripes think about reaching their customers.

While companies such as Google and Microsoft are also experimenting with the idea of letting outsiders tap into their databases and use their content in unpredictable ways (see “What’s Next for Google?”), none is proceeding more aggressively than Amazon. The company has, in essence, outsourced much of its R&D, and a growing portion of its actual sales, to an army of thousands of software developers, who apparently enjoy nothing more than finding creative new ways to give Web surfers access to Amazon merchandise—and earning a few bucks in the process. The result: a syndicate of mini-Amazons operating at very little cost to Amazon itself and capturing customers who might otherwise have gone elsewhere. It’s as if Starbucks were to recruit 50,000 of its most loyal caffeine addicts to strap urns of coffee to their backs each morning and, for a small commission, spend the day dispensing the elixir to their officemates.

“Amazon is pouring so many resources into their Web services that it’s almost frightening,” says Paul Bausch, one of the inventors of the well-known weblogging tool Blogger and, more recently, the author of O’Reilly Media’s Amazon Hacks, a collection of tips for tapping into Amazon’s rich database. “They are extremely aggressive, and that separates them from Google and from other people who are still just experimenting with the technology. They really believe that this is where their business is heading.”

Continued for three more pages in the article

Product search helpers are available at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#ProductsAndMarketing 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


Speegle:  Listen to Your Search Outcomes

Human eyes can scan a page is a fraction of the time it takes to hear the page read aloud.  I can't for the life of me see much advantage to having a search page read aloud except for blind people or for other people who are focusing on other things such as driving a car.  You can choose a male or female voice without a heavy Scottish accent. See http://www.speegle.co.uk/ 

It's fun to try this out.  I did so using the search term Enron and found some interesting outcomes that I had not found on other search engines.  Hence I might use Speegle more as a visual search engine.

"Speech takes on search engines," BBC News, December 21, 2004 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4079005.stm 

A Scottish firm is looking to attract web surfers with a search engine that reads out results. Called Speegle, it has the look and feel of a normal search engine, with the added feature of being able to read out the results.

Scottish speech technology firm CEC Systems launched the site in November.

But experts have questioned whether talking search engines are of any real benefit to people with visual impairments.

'A bit robotic'

The Edinburgh-based firm CEC has married speech technology with ever-popular internet search.

The ability to search is becoming increasingly crucial to surfers baffled by the huge amount of information available on the web.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


Art Education Partnership --- http://aep-arts.org/ 

Welcome to the Arts Education Partnership (AEP) web site! AEP is a national coalition of arts, education, business, philanthropic and government organizations that demonstrate and promote the essential role of the arts in the learning and development of every child and in the improvement of America's schools.

The Partnership includes over 140 organizations that are national in scope and impact. It also includes state and local partnerships focused on influencing educational policies and practices to promote quality arts education. Partnership organizations affirm the central role of imagination, creativity and the arts in culture and society; the power of the arts to enliven and transform education and schools; and collective action through partnerships as the means to place the arts at the center of learning.


THE FUTURE OF SEARCH --- RDF, RSS, and Pluck

 

December 28, 2004 message from Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU

 

Check out the following video tutorial on RSS provided by Derek Franklin, one of the most prolific authors on Macromedia Flash.

http://www.rssdomination.com/video.htm 

Richard J. Campbell 
mailto:campbell@rio.edu
 

December 28, 2004 reply from Bob Jensen

 

You can read about the origins of Resource Description Framework (RDF) at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm#TimelineRDF 

 

You can read more about Wiki at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosf.htm#Wiki 


RSS is defined as Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary where RDF in this context is a XML markup that allows you to find topics in documents that do not necessarily use your search terminology and exclude documents that use your terminology in a different context. . Unfortunately, the same term in English may have vastly different meanings which leads to getting thousands or millions of unwanted "hits" in traditional HTML text searches. 

 

A RSS site allows user to add content to the site.  In this sense it is like Wiki, but it us much more efficient and popular than a Wiki for news feeds (although Wikipedia has just started a news feed feature.).  But Wiki's do not have the same deep RDF metadata features.   Wikipedia defines RSS as follows at http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RSS.html 

 

Short for RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary, an XML format for syndicating Web content. A Web site that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user that can read RSS-distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content includes such data as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate information.

RSS was originally developed by Netscape.

 

RSS/RDF feeds are commonly available ways of distributing or syndicating the latest news about a given web site. Weblog (blog) sites in particular are prolific generators of RSS feeds.  Free software that integrates well with Internet Explorer and is very simple to install is Pluck from http://www.pluck.com/ 
The following are RSS search advantages described by Pluck:

 

For Hunters and Gatherers, a New Way to Compare 
"With one click, users of Pluck can save Web bookmarks into an online folder or email them to others."

Blurring the Line Between Affiliate and Developer 
"Pluck not only integrates eBay searching into the browser, but it improves on features built into eBay.com..."

 

Question
Is RSS really the next big thing on the Internet?

 

Answer
Actually RDF is a long-run huge thing for meta searches, and RSS is probably the next big thing as an early part of RDF.  Major Internet players such as Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay are already providing RSS feeds distributing or syndicating the latest news about their sites. Weblog (blog) sites in particular prolific sources of RSS feeds.

 

There are also anti-spam advantages featured in the video at http://www.rssdomination.com/video.htm  

 

You should probably download Pluck and begin to play around with RSS feeds and searches.  There are, however, drawbacks.

 

If you feed too much too often, there is high risk of information overload.  It is something like email from Bob Jensen magnified 1,000 times. Also be aware that any summarization or abstract of a complete article must by definition omit many things.  What you are most interested in may have been left out unless you go to the main source document.

 

Another limitation is that our libraries are just beginning to learn about RDF and it's helper RSS sites.  This technology is is on the cutting edge and you can still get lost without the help of your friendly librarian.  This is still more into the XML techie domain and is not as user friendly to date as most of us amateurs would prefer.

 

Burnhan's Beat provides quite a lot of information about the history, advantages, and limitations of RSS --- http://billburnham.blogs.com/burnhamsbeat/2004/02/rss_a_big_succe.html 

In particular note j's Scratchpad --- http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/jkbaumga/2004/02/26#a829 

 

I will be interested in reader comments, because I still feel very ignorant in this domain.

 

Bob Jensen

 

 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


THE FUTURE OF SEARCH (or so says IBM) --- The Future of Search (or so says IBM) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#FutureOfSearch
This may have very serious implications for Internet searching, XBRL, and academe!

I.B.M. says that its tools will make possible a further search approach, that of "discovery systems" that will extract the underlying meaning from stored material no matter how it is structured (databases, e-mail files, audio recordings, pictures or video files) or even what language it is in. The specific means for doing so involve steps that will raise suspicions among many computer veterans. These include "natural language processing," computerized translation of foreign languages and other efforts that have broken the hearts of artificial-intelligence researchers through the years. But the combination of ever-faster computers and ever-evolving programming allowed the systems I saw to succeed at tasks that have beaten their predecessors.
James Fallow (See below)

"At I.B.M., That Google Thing Is So Yesterday," by James Fallows, The New York Times, December 26, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/business/yourmoney/26techno.html 

SUDDENLY, the computer world is interesting again. The last three months of 2004 brought more innovation, faster, than users have seen in years. The recent flow of products and services differs from those of previous hotly competitive eras in two ways. The most attractive offerings are free, and they are concentrated in the newly sexy field of "search."

Google, current heavyweight among systems for searching the Internet, has not let up from its pattern of introducing features and products every few weeks. Apart from its celebrated plan to index the contents of several university libraries, Google has recently released "beta" (trial) versions of Google Scholar, which returns abstracts of academic papers and shows how often they are cited by other scholars, and Google Suggest, a weirdly intriguing feature that tries to guess the object of your search after you have typed only a letter or two. Give it "po" and it will show shortcuts to poetry, Pokémon, post office, and other popular searches. (If you stop after "p" it will suggest "Paris Hilton.") In practice, this is more useful than it sounds.

Microsoft, heavyweight of the rest of computerdom, has scrambled to catch up with search innovations from Google and others. On Dec. 10, a company official made a shocking disclosure. For years Microsoft had emphasized the importance of "WinFS," a fundamentally new file system that would make it much easier for users to search and manage information on their own computers. Last summer, the company said that WinFS would not be ready in time for inclusion with its next version of Windows, called Longhorn. The latest news was that WinFS would not be ready even for the release after that, which pushed its likely delivery at least five years into the future. This seemed to put Microsoft entirely out of the running in desktop search. But within three days, it had released a beta version of its new desktop search utility, which it had previously said would not be available for months.

Meanwhile, a flurry of mergers, announcements and deals from smaller players produced a dazzling variety of new search possibilities. Early this month Yahoo said it would use the excellent indexing program X1 as the basis for its own desktop search system, which it would distribute free to its users. The search company Autonomy, which has specialized in indexing corporate data, also got into the new competition, as did Ask Jeeves, EarthLink, and smaller companies like dTSearch, Copernic, Accoona and many others.

I have most of these systems running all at once on my computer, and if they don't melt it down or blow it up I will report later on how each works. But today's subject is the virtually unpublicized search strategy of another industry heavyweight: I.B.M.

Last week I visited the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, 20 miles north of New York, to hear six I.B.M. researchers describe their company's concept of "the future of search." Concepts and demos are different from products being shipped and sold, so it is unfair to compare what I.B.M. is promising with what others are doing now. Still, the promise seems great.

Two weeks before our meeting, I.B.M. released OmniFind, the first program to take advantage of its new strategy for solving search problems. This approach, which it calls unstructured information management architecture, or UIMA, will, according to I.B.M., lead to a third generation in the ability to retrieve computerized data. The first generation, according to this scheme, is simple keyword match - finding all documents that contain a certain name or address. This is all most desktop search systems can do - or need to do, because you're mainly looking for an e-mail message or memorandum you already know is there. The next generation is the Web-based search now best performed by Google, which uses keywords and many other indicators to match a query to a list of sites.

I.B.M. says that its tools will make possible a further search approach, that of "discovery systems" that will extract the underlying meaning from stored material no matter how it is structured (databases, e-mail files, audio recordings, pictures or video files) or even what language it is in. The specific means for doing so involve steps that will raise suspicions among many computer veterans. These include "natural language processing," computerized translation of foreign languages and other efforts that have broken the hearts of artificial-intelligence researchers through the years. But the combination of ever-faster computers and ever-evolving programming allowed the systems I saw to succeed at tasks that have beaten their predecessors.

December 26, 2004 reply from neal hannon [nhannon@COX.NET

Another quote from the article:

Arthur Ciccolo, an I.B.M. strategist for its unstructured-information project, said that call centers would be the first place for new search systems to be applied. Genomic-research projects, where unexpected correlations can be crucial, might be the second.

Think about all the unexpected correlations that occur in business data, especially as more and more basic business facts are becoming encoded with meta-data in an XML or XBRL format. This could give business intelligence systems a real boost.

Neal

Neal J. Hannon, CMA
University of Hartford; Barney School of Business
XBRL Editor, Strategic Finance Magazine
U Hartford: 860-768-5810 Home Office: 401-769-3802

 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on XML, RDF, and XBRL are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm 


A Family Affair (Helpers for Family Businesses)  www.family-business-experts.com

Bob Jensen's helpers for small businesses are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness 



Surprise, Surprise!
In terms of features, especially security protection, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is well behind the times in terms of alternatives.

 

Meanwhile, other people have been building much better browsers, just as Microsoft itself did in the 1990s, when it challenged and eventually bested the then-dominant browser, Netscape Navigator. The most significant of these challengers is Firefox, a free product of an open-source organization called Mozilla, available for download at www.mozilla.org. Firefox is both more secure and more modern than IE, and it comes packed with user-friendly features the Microsoft browser can't touch.

"Security, Cool Features Of Firefox Web Browser Beat Microsoft's IE," Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2004, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110435917184512320,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser is one of the most important, and most often used, programs on the world's personal computers, relied upon by more than 90% of Windows users. But Microsoft hasn't made any important functional improvements in Internet Explorer for years.

The software giant has folded IE into the Windows operating system, and the browser only receives updates as part of the "Windows update" process. In recent years, most upgrades to IE have been under-the-hood patches to plug the many security holes that have made IE a major conduit for hackers, virus writers and spyware purveyors. The only visible feature added to IE recently: a pop-up ad blocker, which arrived long after other browsers had one.

Meanwhile, other people have been building much better browsers, just as Microsoft itself did in the 1990s, when it challenged and eventually bested the then-dominant browser, Netscape Navigator. The most significant of these challengers is Firefox, a free product of an open-source organization called Mozilla, available for download at www.mozilla.org. Firefox is both more secure and more modern than IE, and it comes packed with user-friendly features the Microsoft browser can't touch.

Firefox still has a tiny market share. But millions of people have downloaded it recently. I've been using it for months, and I recommended back in September that users switch to it from IE as a security measure. It's available in nearly identical versions for Windows, the Apple Macintosh, and the Linux operating system.

There are some other browsers that put IE to shame. Apple's elegant Safari browser, included free on every Mac, is one. But it isn't available for Windows. The Opera browser is loaded with bells and whistles, but I find it pretty complicated. And NetCaptor, my former favorite, is very nice. But since it's based on the IE Web-browsing engine, it's vulnerable to most of IE's security problems.

Firefox, which uses a different underlying browsing engine called "Gecko," also has a couple of close cousins based on the same engine. One is Netscape, now owned by America Online. The other is a browser called Mozilla, from the same group that created Firefox. But Firefox is smaller, sleeker and newer than either of its relatives, although a new Netscape version is in the works.

Firefox isn't totally secure -- no browser can be, especially if it runs on Windows, which has major security problems and is the world's top digital target. But Firefox has better security and privacy than IE. One big reason is that it won't run programs called "ActiveX controls," a Microsoft technology used in IE. These programs are used for many good things, but they have become such powerful tools for criminals and hackers that their potential for harm outweighs their benefits.

Firefox also has easier, quicker and clearer methods than IE does for covering your online tracks, if you so choose. And it has a better built-in pop-up ad blocker than IE.

But my favorite aspect of Firefox is tabbed browsing, a Web-surfing revolution that is shared by all the major new browsers but is absent from IE. With tabbed browsing, you can open many Web pages at once in the same browser window. Each is accessed by a tab.

The benefits of tabbed browsing hit home when you create folders of related bookmarks. For instance, on my computer I have a folder of a dozen technology-news bookmarks and another 20 or so bookmarks pointing to political Web sites. A third folder contains 15 or so bookmarks for sites devoted to the World Champion Boston Red Sox. With one click, I can open the entire contents of these folders in tabs, in the same single window, allowing me to survey entire fields of interest.

And Firefox can recognize and use Web sites that employ a new technology called "RSS" to create and update summaries of their contents. When Firefox encounters an RSS site, it displays a special icon that allows you to create a "live" bookmark to the site. These bookmarks then display updated headlines of stories on the sites.

Firefox also includes a permanent, handy search box that can be used to type in searches on Google, Yahoo, Amazon or other search sites without installing a special toolbar.

And it has a cool feature called "Extensions." These are small add-on modules, easy to download and install, that give the browser new features. Among the extensions I use are one that automatically fills out forms and another that tests the speed of my Web connection. You can also download "themes," which change the browser's looks.

There is only one significant downside to Firefox. Some Web sites, especially financial ones, have chosen to tailor themselves specifically for Internet Explorer. They rely on features only present in IE, and either won't work or work poorly in Firefox and other browsers.

Luckily, even if you switch to Firefox, you can still keep IE around to view just these incompatible sites. (In fact, Microsoft makes it impossible to fully uninstall IE.) There's even an extension for Firefox that adds an option called "View This Page in IE."

Bob Jensen's threads on computer and networking security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 


From the AccountingWeb on December 28, 2004

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: 
Keeping the Books: Basic Record Keeping & Accounting for the Successful Small Business, by Linda Pinson  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This introductory guide offers advice on choosing an accounting method, developing a chart of accounts, organizing recordkeeping, and interpreting the records later. A glossary of accounting terms, a list of business resources, and sample forms are also included. Most entrepreneurs enter new ventures because they know something about products or retail or sales and marketing. Despite a burning passion for their new businesses, entrepreneurs will not succeed unless they learn to keep their financial records in order. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0793179297/accountingweb 

Bob Jensen's helpers for small businesses are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness 


How to Pass Price Risk Along to Uncle Sam
Agribusiness Lobby Reaps the Biggest Harvest in Washington DC

A farmer can sell his crop early at a high price, say, in a futures contract, and still collect a subsidy check after the harvest from the government if prices are down over all. The money is not tied to what the farmer actually received for his crop. The farmer does not even have to sell the crop to get the check, only prove that the market has dropped below a certain set rate.
"Big Farms Reap Two Harvests With Subsidies a Bumper Crop," by Timothy Egan, The New York Times, December 26, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/national/26farm.html?oref=login  

The roadside sign welcoming people into this state reads: "Nebraska, the Good Life." And for farmers closing out their books at the end of a year when they earned more money than at any time in the history of American agriculture, it certainly looks like happy days.

But at a time when big harvests and record farm income should mean that Champagne corks are popping across the prairie, the prosperity has brought with it the kind of nervousness seen in headlines like the one that ran in The Omaha World-Herald in early December: "Income boom has farmers on edge."

For despite the fact that farm income has doubled in two years, federal subsidies have also gone up nearly 40 percent over the same period - projected at $15.7 billion this year, and $130 billion over the last nine years. And that bounty is drawing fire from people who say that at this moment of farm prosperity, the nation's subsidy system has never made less sense.

Even those deeply steeped in the system acknowledge it seems counterintuitive. "I struggle with the same question: how the hell can you have such high government payments if farmers had such a great year?" said Keith Collins, the chief economist for the Agriculture Department.

The answer lies in the quirks of the federal farm subsidy system as well as in the way savvy farmers sell their crops. Mr. Collins said farmers use the peculiar world of agriculture market timing to get both high commodity prices and high subsidies.

"The biggest reason is with record crops, prices have fallen," he said. "And farmers are taking advantage of that."

A farmer can sell his crop early at a high price, say, in a futures contract, and still collect a subsidy check after the harvest from the government if prices are down over all. The money is not tied to what the farmer actually received for his crop. The farmer does not even have to sell the crop to get the check, only prove that the market has dropped below a certain set rate.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on futures contracts and other derivative financial instruments are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on Government Fraud, Pork Barrels, and Accountability are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudRotten.htm#Government 


December 23, 2004 message from reform@pobox.une.edu.au 

In the festive spirit I came across an interesting website http://www.huckabees.com/  . I'm sure you will all agree that it seems to epitomize the potential for globalisation of Corporate Social Responsibility. Rumour has it that they have been granted approval to set up an exciting new eco-shopping mall and housing estate on land donated to the University of Technology, Sydney adjoining Sydney's Lane Cove National Park. This ground breaking development takes this innovative University out of the ivory tower and into the market place (at UTS we mean Business), here Academic department stores will compete head to head with clothing and appliances departments. The largest student accommodation development in the southern hemisphere nearby will mean that students from around the world can shop for knowledge and all their other needs in comfort surrounded by one of Sydney's most beautiful landscapes. This is just one of the many new initiatives that makes this company so instructive on what is possible in corporate life and I would strongly recommend that everyone take a close look at it.

Season cheers to all,

David

PS It is not for the existentially challenged.

David Bubna-Litic 
School of Management 
UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, 
SYDNEY 
Markets Campus Office C402 Phone: +612 9514 3193 Fax +612 9514 3602 PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007 Australia


 

Internet Trends and Usage

Bob Jensen's threads on Web data and statistics are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm#WebData 

Statistics in Real Time --- http://www.statmarket.com/ 

Most popular Web sites of the world --- http://www.webbieworld.com/default.asp 
I never heard of them --- http://www.webbieworld.com/ranked.asp 
(Where in the heck is Google?)

Question
Who is the most downloaded woman?

Answer
Since 1996, images of Danni Ashe have been downloaded over 1 billion times --- http://www.billiondownloadwoman.com/ 
(I tend to not trust this kind of data)

Who uses the Internet? --- http://www.ncddr.org/du/researchexchange/v02n01/www2.html 
A bit of history --- http://www.msichicago.org/scrapbook/scrapbook_exhibits/commex/history.html 
Also see http://www.e-government.govt.nz/docs/channel-surfing-200409/chapter16.html 
Also see http://www.ncpa.org/pd/economy/pd070999e.html 
Some rather interesting facts from the Sherwood Oaks Christian Church --- http://www.socc.org/archive/internetclass/InternetClassPage2.html 

Question
How many internet hosts were there in 1981 compared to the end of 2002?

Answer
At the end of August in 1981 there were 213 hosts.  In January of 2003 there were 171,638,297 hosts --- http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/ops/ds/host-count-history.php 
(I trust this data because of the careful way in which it is collected.)

Frequently asked questions and answers about the Internet --- http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/ops/ds/faq.php
Other details --- http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/ops/ds/  

Global Statistics --- http://www.thecounter.com/stats/ 

Yahoo Statistics and Demographics --- http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Statistics_and_Demographics/ 

Consumer Internet Barometer --- http://www.consumerinternetbarometer.us/ 

The Consumer Internet Barometer is a unique quarterly study that reveals what US consumers think, feel, and do relating to the Internet. It captures behavioral and attitudinal measures correlated with usage trends.

It identifies trends such as:

  • To what extent are Internet activities becoming an integral part of everyday life for US consumers?
  • For which consumers is the Internet a more or less satisfying and trustworthy medium?
  • Once online, which consumer groups are buying? How often? How much are they spending? Are there seasonal patterns?
  • Are there meaningful changes in consumers' perceptions of the security of their personal information when engaging in activities such as purchasing, banking, or playing games?

"I know that these actions would be controversial in this age where we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability," Mr. Tenet said, "But, ultimately, the Wild West must give way to governance and control."
Tom Zeller, Jr., "On the Open Internet, a Web of Dark Alleys," The New York Times, December 20, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20covert.html?oref=login 

The average online buyer is spending more this holiday season; is less price-obsessive; expects to buy during the last week; and among big spenders, is more likely to be male than you might expect.
Rob McGann, "Snapshot of the 2004 Online Holiday Shopper," ClickZ Network, December 21, 2004 --- http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/retailing/article.php/3450651 

Online merchants are poised to record a much bigger rise in holiday sales than their offline counterparts. Broadband expansion, more luxury gift sales and a rise in late shoppers help the bottom line.
Joanna Glasner, "E-Tailers to Post Strong Season," Wired News, December 23, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,66122,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 

Sooner or later, advertisers had to figure out the Internet. Here was a medium that was reaching into nearly every office in America. And at home, it was wresting millions of eyes away from the TV. It could even count mouse clicks. Today, Net advertisers are finally hitting their stride.
Stephen Baker, "Where The Real Internet Money Is Made Advertising on the Web could top $9 billion this year -- and there are lots of ways investors can profit from the trend," Business Week, December 27, 2004 --- http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_52/b3914442.htm 

Canadians spend more than 37 billion minutes surfing the Internet monthly or an average of more than 34 hours a month or 80 minutes a day. Yahoo reported in another study that 48 per cent of respondents indicated they could not go without the Internet for more than two weeks.  Aside from on-line shopping, banking and booking travel, Internet users are searching for relevant information about names in the news.
Diana Pereira (See below)

"Who Opens E-Mail Spam," by Diana Pereira, Globe and Mail, December 22, 2004 --- http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041222.wyahoo1221/BNStory/Technology 

Canadians admit to being stressed by spam e-mails, but can't resist responding to the junk.

The annual Internet review by Yahoo Canada reports that about one out of three Yahoo e-mail users said they opened spam messages because they had interesting subject lines. Forty-eight per cent of users respond to spam messages by unsubscribing. Others say they respond to the junk messages to give spammers a "piece of their mind." Two out of five users opened spam messages because they looked like they came from a trusted source.

The website released its Internet year in review Wednesday, reporting that 18 million Canadians (56 per cent of the population) use the Internet monthly, viewing more than 60 billion pages a month. Most users are in Ontario (37.9 per cent). The Atlantic provinces have the least number of users at 6.6 per cent.

Canadians spend more than 37 billion minutes surfing the Internet monthly or an average of more than 34 hours a month or 80 minutes a day. Yahoo reported in another study that 48 per cent of respondents indicated they could not go without the Internet for more than two weeks.

Aside from on-line shopping, banking and booking travel, Internet users are searching for relevant information about names in the news.

For example, the study shows that one of the most popular searches in February was Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction while in October they were reading about Ashlee Simpson's lip-synching fiasco on Saturday Night Live. In January, users were researching how to lose weight, while in July, they were curious about Mary-Kate Olsen's weight loss, supposedly linked to an eating disorder. Users mourned the passing of Ronald Reagan in June and Christopher Reeve in October. This month, Internet users are writing to Santa, wondering what his postal code is, and also suffering NHL withdrawal.

In a separate report by Statistics Canada, Internet service providers are benefiting from high on-line use. Statscan said that ISPs turned a profit in 2003 for the first time since in four years.

The majority (74 per cent) of ISP's revenue came from the provision of Internet access services. 41 per cent of ISP's revenues came from providing broadband (high-speed access). 30 per cent came from narrowband (dial-up access).

Bob Jensen's threads on Web data and statistics are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm#WebData 


The National Commission on Writing ---  http://www.writingcommission.org/ 

Advanced technology in the workplace is requiring employees to write more than ever before, a recent survey of leading American businesses reveals. Writing: A Ticket to Work . . . Or a Ticket Out is the second report to Congress and the nation from the National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges. Especially in those business sectors with the most projected growth, writing is critical for success, yet businesses say that many college graduates don't have the writing skills they need. Learn more and download the full report.

The National Commission on Writing was founded by the College Board in an effort to focus national attention on the teaching and learning of writing. Bob Kerrey, president of New School University, serves as chair. The Commission believes we must improve the quality of writing in our schools if students are to succeed in college and in life. Its first report to Congress, The Neglected "R," called for a writing revolution to return writing to its proper place in the American classroom.


The Need for a Writing Revolution

The Commission issued The Neglected "R": The Need for a Writing Revolution in April 2003, arguing that writing has been shortchanged in the school reform movement, despite the best efforts of many educators. The report made five recommendations: create a national writing agenda; increase the amount of time students spend writing; ensure fair and authentic assessments; apply emerging technology to the teaching of writing; and increase professional development for teachers. Over the last 12 months, the Commission has been meeting with educators, policymakers, and writing experts around the country to decide how best to implement the recommendations of The Neglected "R."

The Commission has also worked to raise additional federal dollars for teacher professional development on behalf of the National Writing Project, and is undertaking other efforts to keep writing in the public eye.

Download the report of the National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges:
The Neglected "R": The Need for a Writing Revolution (.pdf/204K)
Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader (latest version recommended).

Read the press release accompanying the report of the National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges. More...


Fun and Useful Stuff --- http://ejw.i8.com/fun.htm 

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Bob Jensen's helpers on similar items are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm 


Technology and Learning 2004 Awards --- http://tnl.texterity.com/tnl/200412/ 
(Notice the forward and reverse buttons at the top of the screen.)


Anamorphoses ---  http://www.anamorphoses.com/flash/index.html 

Welcome to Anamorphoses, the world in which Robert Lepage and his team unveil the creative process, from the idea's elaboration up to the film's distribution, that gave way to the feature film Possible Worlds. We also invite you to discover the unprecedented interactive 3D story-board, accessible to the public for the first


Ideas for Teaching Large Classes

Contests motivate top students in large courses, says award-winning professor Eric Roberts tackles neglected issue of motivating elite students through recognition, camaraderie, teaching opportunities 
Dawn Levy, Stanford Report, December 3, 2004 --- http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/december8/roberts-1201.html 

Roberts provides ample opportunities for his students to earn extra-credit through contests that usually entice about 10 percent of a given class to enter. Work is judged for categories including "best algorithm" and "best aesthetics." Past winners have programmed adventure games and created computer animations.

Eric Roberts is the principal architect of what was for many years the largest course at Stanford—Computer Science 106A, an introductory programming class with an enrollment that waxes and wanes with the NASDAQ. In a fat year, 1,000 students may enroll, with more than 400 students in a single class. How professors can encourage top scholars in large classes was the topic of Roberts' "Award-Winning Teachers on Teaching" talk Nov. 18 in Building 460.

"How do you manage in a large course not completely snowing the people on the low end of the scale or boring silly the people on the high end of the scale?" asked Roberts, the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn University Fellow in Undergraduate Education.

Only 6 percent of Roberts' introductory students end up majoring in computer science. Many major in other engineering disciplines, and almost 20 percent major in social sciences or humanities. "It's a wide spectrum, and I wanted to encourage those people to be in that class," Roberts said. "It was one of the signature aspects of the Stanford curriculum that we tried to keep an introductory computer science sequence that really did have broad appeal."

Success in such classes means supporting students every step of the way so they can do well, Roberts said. It also means setting a high bar. "One of the difficulties in a large class is if you decide that you're going to curve it rigidly, you've forced it into a mode where many people are going to be unhappy," he said. Roberts favors a grading system that rewards those who meet clearly delineated objectives—no matter how many students meet those objectives. "If everybody does enough work to get an A, then everybody will in fact get an A."

That's a big incentive to do well. Further, superlative work in Roberts' classes has earned A+ and even A++ marks. (The latter designates work that "exceeds all expectations," according to a jury of section leaders, teaching assistants and the professor.)

Top students also have the opportunity to gain teaching experience after the class ends. Owing to economic necessity and a dearth of graduate students willing to assist teaching introductory computer courses, the teaching assistants (TAs) in such courses at most universities are undergraduates.

"We decided at Stanford to make a virtue of necessity and really train those students to be wonderful as teachers," Roberts said. Undergraduate TAs also provide "stepping stone role models" that help increase the number of underrepresented minorities in computer science.

Programming is one of the most varied intellectual activities in terms of productivity and ability, Roberts said. "The difference between this person who's sort of good and that person who's really great is extraordinary."

A 1968 study of working programmers showed 20 to 1 variations in productivity—how much code a person could generate—among individuals with the same levels of education and experience. The best programmers also tended to be the fastest and to have the fewest bugs. "You see the same [enormous variability] in classrooms," Roberts said.

Move over, Ed McMahon

Roberts said he can't gear the class to top students without risking losing those on the bottom. Instead, he leverages the features of large classes to encourage excellence. And that means—drumroll, please—lots of contests that provide extra credit. Students can enter three contests per quarter in his CS 106 A and B classes. Only large classes have enough students to make contests feasible, as only about 10 percent of the class usually enters. A large class may have 40 to 60 entrants. Winners rise from the obscurity of a large class.

Judged by an army of section leaders, programs can win for such categories as "best algorithm" or "best aesthetics." Some contests have explored the limited world of Karel the robot, who can turn left but not right, forcing students to program three left turns to make a right when Karel runs a maze. One winning program calculated the weakest and strongest countries in a game of Risk to determine who could attack whom. Another winner created an animation of IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer beating chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. Yet another winner created an adventure game using text-based commands to have players find magic wands and potions.

Continued in article


December 15, 2004 message from Dennis Beresford [dberesfo@TERRY.UGA.EDU

In a recent issue of Golf World, a letter writer was commenting on the need for professional golfers to be more "entertaining."  He went on to say:

"Fans pay top dollar to attend tournaments and to subscribe to cable coverage.  Not many would pay to see an accountant work in his office or watch The Audit Channel."

That's probably a true comment.  On the other hand, wouldn't at least some of us have liked to watch The Audit Channel and see what was being done on Enron, WorldCom, HeathSouth, or some of the other recent interesting situations?

Denny Beresford

December 15, 2004 reply from Bob Jensen

You know better than the rest of us, Denny, that academic accounting researchers won't tune in to watch practitioners on The Audit Channel. They're locked into the SciFi Channel.

Bob Jensen

December 16, 2004 message from David Coy [dcoy@ADRIAN.EDU

There was an episode of Deep Space Nine, where Quark (the Ferengi) told a Klingon woman that his financial analysis of her records showed that another Klingon was systematically attacking the assets of her family and defrauding her.

I think the fraudster met the business end of a Klingon "betleH" (Sword of Honor). A suitable end for certain "deserving" fraudsters, I think.

In the spirit of the Holidays, (and since I am between exams, and actually have all my grading up to date, and have nothing better to do right now) I leave you with the following Klingon holiday proverb, most probably given as blessing at a meal.:

"Hoch DaSopbe' chugh batlh blHeghbe'

Translation: Eat everything or you will die without honor.

David Coy 
Adrian College

Bob Jensen's threads on Academics Versus the Accounting Profession (including the first tee shot by Denny Beresford) are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#AcademicsVersusProfession 


Business-School Graduates See Pay Packages Improve Amid Increased Recruiting

Average Rises Above $82,000
After remaining relatively stagnant since 2001, total compensation for M.B.A.s is matching the record levels of pay hit during the peak of the dot-com boom, according to the most recent survey by TopMBA.com, an online recruiting and education site. According to the survey, companies report that the average M.B.A. salary went above $82,000 in 2004, up more than 9% from 2003.

"Starting M.B.A. Salaries Are Rising," by Jane J. Kim, The Wall Street Journal, :December 16, 2004; Page D2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110315683413001497,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

For the first time since the dot-com bust, business-school graduates are being offered stellar pay packages.

Officials at top business schools report that during this fall's recruiting season, salary offers and signing bonuses for M.B.A.s jumped significantly, especially for those seeking jobs as investment bankers and consultants.

And executives at major firms on Wall Street and elsewhere say they are hiring more people and returning to campuses this fall with more full-time offers to meet their growing business needs.

Average Rises Above $82,000

After remaining relatively stagnant since 2001, total compensation for M.B.A.s is matching the record levels of pay hit during the peak of the dot-com boom, according to the most recent survey by TopMBA.com, an online recruiting and education site. According to the survey, companies report that the average M.B.A. salary went above $82,000 in 2004, up more than 9% from 2003.

Among the M.B.A.s seeing the biggest increases: those with a focus on management consulting and finance. Average salaries in finance increased 21% to $98,477 in 2004 from $81,144 in 2003, while average salaries for management consultants jumped 16% to $86,233 during the same period, according to the survey.

Continued in the article


I'm not certain how well it is doing, but Authorware is still alive --- http://www.macromedia.com/software/authorware/?promoid=home_prod_aw_082403 

Toolbook is also still alive, but it is a long ways from the original ToolBook coded in OpenScript.  Users now rely more on pre-coded templates with fewer customization and creativity alternatives.

Both Authorware and ToolBook are used more in the corporate training world with academic applications on campuses being few and far between.  Far more important on campuses have been the course management systems of WebCT and Blackboard.

The history of course authoring and management software can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 


Apple's iPods are in short supply at retailers nationwide, as the music player's sales growth exceeds even bullish expectations.
"Out of Tune: IPod Shortage Rocks Apple," by Nick Wingfield, The Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2004; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110314977967901339,00.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news 

Walter Mossberg's iPod User's Guide
"Making the Most Of Season's Big Gift: Our iPod User's Guide," Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2004; Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110306321533200124,00.html?mod=gadgets%5Flead%5Fstory%5Fcol 

By all accounts, millions of people will buy or receive Apple Computer's iPod digital-music players this holiday season. The gadgets are beautifully designed and simple to operate, which is one reason they're so popular, even after three years on the market and despite a rising number of competitors.

But new iPod owners still have lots of questions. So, with the help of my assistant, Katie Boehret, I've put together this beginner's guide to the iPod. Even if you've had an iPod or iPod mini for awhile, this guide might teach you something new, such as how to transfer songs from your iPod back to a computer, or how to play songs on your iPod that were purchased from online stores other than Apple's.

Do you need an Apple Computer to use an iPod?

No. The iPod is designed to work with either Windows or Macintosh computers.

What is the relationship between the iPod and iTunes?

Apple's iTunes is a software program that is intended to be used on a computer in conjunction with the iPod. It locates and organizes all the music on a computer. Confusingly, Apple has also given the name iTunes to its online music store, where it sells songs that can be played in the iTunes software or on the iPod.

How do I transfer music onto my iPod?

You first have to collect music files on your computer, and then move them to the iPod. The iTunes software organizes all the music on your PC or Mac into a library. Whenever you plug an iPod into your computer -- either directly, or via a dock that holds the iPod and connects to the computer -- iTunes will automatically send the music in its library to the iPod. Alternatively, you can set the iPod to receive songs manually; this will let you choose which songs transfer onto the iPod, in case you don't want the entire library to transfer over.

Where do I get the music to load onto my iPod?

Your iPod's music can come from three sources. You can copy, or "rip," tracks from the CDs that you already own. To do that, you just insert a CD in your computer, and it shows up in a window in iTunes. Make sure you're online when you do this, because the software consults an Internet database to identify the album, artist and tracks. Then, you click on the "Import" button in the top right corner of the iTunes window to copy your CD onto your computer as song files. These songs become part of the iTunes library, and can be transferred to your iPod.

If you already have songs on your computer that are in a format the iPod can play, such as MP3 or AAC, iTunes can import these songs into its library and transfer them to the iPod. Finally, you can purchase songs on Apple's iTunes Music Store for 99 cents each. They are downloaded to your computer as soon as you buy them, and can be found in iTunes by clicking on "Purchased Music."

Can my iPod play songs I buy from other online stores?

Not directly. Most online stores, including Apple's, use special copy-protected variants of standard music formats. The only one of these copy-protected formats the iPod can play is the one used by Apple's iTunes store. Songs that are sold from other music stores, like Musicmatch or Napster, are in a different copy-protected format.

But if you do have some songs from an incompatible store, there is a workaround that can get them onto your iPod. First, using the software that works with the other store -- like Windows Media Player or Musicmatch -- copy, or "burn," the songs in question to a standard audio CD. Then, take the CD, re-insert it into your computer, and launch iTunes. Use iTunes to copy, or "rip," the songs into MP3 files. These files are then incorporated into the iTunes library.

Can I use songs I buy on the iTunes store on more than one computer or iPod?

Yes. A song bought on the iTunes store can be used on an unlimited number of iPods, and on as many as five different computers.

How do I create playlists on my iPod?

Continued in the article

Stylish design was an important factor in the swift ascent of Apple's iPod. Now, iRiver is taking a similar tack with a digital music player that hangs around your neck --- the iRiver N10
Evan Ramstad, "iPod Has a Pendant-Style Rival," The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2004, Page D4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110306601058200223,00.html?mod=gadgets%5Fprimary%5Fhs%5Flt 

Bob Jensen's threads on gadgets are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm#Technology 


Copyright Information and Dead Link Archives --- http://ejw.i8.com/copy.htm 

Journals Associations, 
Councils and Organizations 
Education 
General Issues 
Permission 
Intellectual Property 
Government Law 
Publishing Concerns 
Libraries and Copyright 
Mega Sites Music 
Dead Link Archive --- http://ejw.i8.com/copy.htm#dead 

DEAD LINK ARCHIVE 
For Dead Links, use Internet Archive to find a version of these sites. Highlight and copy the URL, then go to the Way Back Machine at http://www.archive.org/index.html  and then paste the URL into the web address box. Often icons are not available and the most recent listed version may not bring up the page. Go to an earlier date on the archive list for that site. Also, if you do not find it archived, try the Google Search Engine at http://www.google.com  and check their archive. Songwriter and Music Copyright Resources, http://www.npsai.com/resources.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on copyrights are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm


Questions
Are revenue-strapped states failing to increase funding for higher education in 2005?  

Is California's "Terminator Governor" reducing the funding of state-supported colleges and universities?

Answers
States increased funding 3.8% to $63 billion for higher education this fiscal year, reversing declines last year that led to budget cuts and tuition increases at many state-supported colleges.  Of course, some states like Massachusetts are not doing well, but then again Massachusetts is the only state in the union to lose population last year when the U.S. population increased by millions.  The five state with the largest increases were as follows:

Increases in Higher Education Appropriations
Florida 11.1%
Virginia 10.6%
New Jersey 08.8%
New York 07.9%
California 07.6%

"States Increase College Funding," by Anne Marie Chaker, The Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2004, Page D2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110367583654606642,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal 

States increased funding for higher education this fiscal year, reversing declines last year that led to budget cuts and tuition increases in many public colleges and universities across the country.

A study by the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University shows that total state tax appropriations for colleges and universities went up by 3.8% to $63 billion for fiscal year 2004-05. That's a significant shift from last year, when state funding fell 2.1% -- the first decline since 1992-93 and only the third since university researchers began tracking the data in the early 1960s.

The increase is a significant economic indicator, according to James C. Palmer, a professor at the Normal, Ill., university who conducted the survey. The growth in higher-education funding "very much reflect the economic fortunes of the nation," Mr. Palmer says. While declines in the early '90s were smaller than last year's, he says, they were also driven largely by California's economic woes. "The recession we just experienced was more widespread," across many states, says Mr. Palmer.

When budgets are tight, higher education is often one of the first things lawmakers slash because they know there's an easy way to fill in the gap: Raise tuition. For the 2004-05 school year, average tuition and fees for in-state students at public colleges in the U.S. increased 11%. In constant 2004 dollars, average tuition and fees at public colleges rose 51% over the past 10 years.

Among individual states, Florida reported the biggest increase of 11% in public funding, up from the previous year's decline of 2.8%. A spokesman for the Florida Department of Revenue points to a significant increase in tax revenue, thanks to a rebounding economy and tourism industry, which was hit hard in recent years.

Virginia also saw an 11% increase in funding, thanks largely to a $1 billion tax increase the state imposed last year that allowed public colleges to receive about $280 million for its 2004-06 budget period. That came after a decline of 5.7% in higher-education appropriations for 2003-2004 -- the third consecutive year of budget cuts to public colleges in that state. In 2002-03, the drop in state funding resulted in midyear tuition increases for many students attending state schools.

The University of Virginia in Charlottesville says it chose to raise tuition and cut certain services such as free printing for students in libraries. At UVA, which lost $52 million in state support over the 2002-04 budget period, resident undergraduates paid 20% more in tuition during the 2003-04 school year than they did in the previous school year. Despite regaining state support over the next couple years, those students saw a 12% tuition increase this school year.

That's because state schools are still trying to make up for the loss in funding in the previous years. "We're definitely playing catch-up," says Colette Sheehy, vice president for management and budget. "There's been a bigger shift toward parents and students paying the cost" of a public education.

An increase in appropriations may still mean plenty of schools are getting less funding than they'd like. In fact, public colleges and universities in seven states that saw their appropriations increase for 2004-05 still had funding levels lower than in 2002-03, according to Mr. Palmer's analysis. Among them are schools in Massachusetts, which received $880.6 million in tax appropriations this year, a 6.3% increase from the last fiscal year. But that's still less than the $970.8 million they received in fiscal 2003.

State support for higher education "is not even at the level of 2001," says Jack M. Wilson, president of the University of Massachusetts, who notes that the five-campus system is still $63 million behind the 2000-01 level of support it received.

Continued in the article


Question
Where are your students going for help with term paper assignments?

Answer
One place might be the "Term Paper Research Guide" at http://www.findarticles.com/p/page?sb=articles_guide_termpaper&tb=art 

Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 


December 16, 2004 message from Richard J. Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU

Top 5 Predictions for the New Year

What do you think will happen next year?

>From the latest Techsmith newsletter:

We asked around the office ...

-- Internet TV - As bandwidth grows, so will the popularity of new shows launched for viewing only on the Internet.

-- Spam will get worse before its gets better. Some high-profile incident involving SPAM will occur in 2005. Someone will pass legislation and an anti-spam filter will be created that actually works.

-- Microsoft will become more concerned with Google Desktop. They will start releasing prototypes of Longhorn to stem the Google tide.

-- 2005 will bring a variety of licensing options which will allow unprecedented flexibility in purchasing software.

-- Much like the original Polaroid evolved into an era of digital cameras, the original concept of screen capture has evolved into screen recording and will continue to evolve through innovation - and while all this technological transformation occurs, what will stay constant is the need to take pictures and screenshots.

Agree or disagree? What are your predictions for the industry? Share!

E-mail newsletter@techsmith.com

Richard J. Campbell
School of Business
University of Rio Grande
Rio Grande, OH 45674


"A New Forum (Blogging) Inspires the Old (Books)," by Joshua Kurlantzick, The New York Times, December 15, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/books/15blog.html?oref=login  

Like many aspiring authors, Marrit Ingman had a tough time convincing publishers that her big book idea - a wry, downbeat memoir of postpartum depression - could sell.

"I had to convince the publisher that an audience for the topic really did exist," said Ms. Ingman, a Texas-based freelance journalist. "The big publishers kept telling us that mothers only wanted prescriptive or 'positive' books about being a parent."

But Ms. Ingman had her own persuader: her Web log. She'd been writing it for two years and had attracted a following of mothers.

"I turned to readers of my blog," she said. "I asked them to comment on whether a book like mine would be relevant to them. Readers wrote back expressing why they wanted to read about the experience of maternal anger. I stuck their comments into my proposal as pulled quotes."

Her readers were convincing. She and her agent, Jim Hornfischer, sold her memoir, "Inconsolable," to Seal Press in August, she said. "The blog showed publishers she was committed to the subject matter and already had an audience," Mr. Hornfischer said.

Bloggers have their own Web sites, on which they write frequently updated posts, almost like online diaries. The postings are about current events, culture, technology or their own lives. Many of their postings contain links to relevant sites.

During the last year many Web logs, or blogs, have focused on the war in Iraq and the presidential campaign, and as these blogs gained a wider audience some publishers started paying attention to them. Sometimes publishers are interested in publishing elements of the blogs in book form; mostly they simply enjoy the blogger's writing and want to publish a novel or nonfiction book by the blogger, usually on a topic unrelated to the blog.

One of the first to make the transition was Baghdad blogger known as Salam Pax, who wrote an online war diary from Iraq. Last year Grove Press published a collection of his work, "Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi."

In June a former Senate aide, Jessica Cutler, whose blog documenting her sexual exploits with politicos dominated Capitol gossip in the spring, sold a Washington-focused novel to Hyperion for an advance well into six figures, said Kelly Notaras of Hyperion.

Meanwhile, a British call girl with the pseudonym Belle de Jour, who had created a sensation with a blog about her experiences, has signed a six-figure deal with Warner Books to publish a memoir, said Amy Einhorn, executive editor at Warner Books who bought the book.

Ms. Einhorn said that after she heard about the blog, "I downloaded the whole site, read it that night and then bought the book."

In October Ana Marie Cox, editor of wonkette.com, a racy, often wry Washington-based blog, sold her first novel, "Dog Days," a comic tale with a political context, to Riverhead Books. She said she received a $275,000 advance.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Weblogs and blogs are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 


Fighting Child Porn

December 14, 2004 message from InternetWeek NewsBreak [internet_week@update.internetweek.com

High-tech companies often deserve more criticism than praise, but occasionally someone in the industry launches an initiative that deserves a high-five. The Distributed Computing Industry Association is on a crusade to drive child pornography out of peer-to-peer networks.

The trade group that represents P2P companies like Grokster and Sharman Networks launched on Monday a site called P2P Patrol

(www.p2ppatrol.com) that's meant to help network users recognize and report child pornography. The site is the latest step taken by the group since launching its initiative in the spring.

But the best is yet to come. The DCIA plans to make available in February, software tools that its members could integrate into the desktop software downloaded by subscribers. If a customer finds what he thinks is child pornography, he only has to right-click on the file and select CPHotline.org, which will send the file location and other information to DCIA. If the group determines that the file contains illegal images or video, then DCIA will notify law enforcement.

The DCIA deserves a big pat on the back for taking on the role of filter between consumers and law enforcement. Rather than overwhelm police with a lot of files that may not fit the definition of illegal pornography, the group is willing to screen the submissions first.

The only complaint I have is against the DCIA's slow-moving members. So far, only two have publicly supported the initiative, while the others remain actively involved behind the scenes, according to DCIA Chief Executive Marty Lafferty.

Lafferty expects nearly 100 percent support of the upcoming software tool once a number of legal and technical issues are worked out.

Let's hope so. A company would have a difficult time explaining why they opted out of this initiative.

If you want to read more, check out the link under the News section of the newsletter. In the meantime, it's worth mentioning that Microsoft has joined the desktop-search race with rivals Google and Yahoo. Microsoft released a preview of its software on the heels of Yahoo's announcement that it would have a product available in January. Google has had a desktop-search tool in beta for two months.

Go to today's Leading Off for more information. Monday's newsletter also discussed search and the three competitors.

As always, send an email and let me know what you think about the above topics or anything else on your mind.

Antone Gonsalves, antoneg@pacbell.net
Editor, InternetWeek http://update.internetweek.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/ek7y0GMPWZ0G4X0BbSA0Ac

Bob Jensen's threads on P2P downloading area at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/napster.htm 


"Accounting Today Lists Top 100 Technology Products for 2005," SmartPros, December 28, 2004 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x46317.xml 

The December edition of Accounting Today, a Thomson Media publication, published its 12th annual Top 100 Technology Products in the accounting profession, listing the best and most proven applications in 17 categories.

All products listed offer users tools they need to resolve both minor inconveniences and larger problems that could threaten the health and lifeline of their businesses.

Products included on this year's roster have been listed in the following categories: High-End and Mid-Market Accounting; Small Business Accounting; Client Write-Up; Customer Relationship Management; Enterprise Resource Planning; Financial Planning; Fixed Assets; Forms; Non-Profits; Payroll; Planning and Analysis; Practice Management; Tax Planning and Preparation; Tax Research; and Trial Balance.

This year, two new categories -- Internet Suites and Document Management -- have been added, and the Tax Planning and Preparation categories have been combined to better reflect the availability and range of products.

"We feel our 2005 ranking truly represents the broad scope of technology solutions available within the accounting profession," said Bill Carlino, editor-in-chief of Accounting Today. "While some may be quite familiar to practitioners, others have begun to establish a high-profile presence within technology circles."

Each year, products are evaluated by the magazine's editorial staff and judged by their quality, practitioner acceptance, market visibility, product performance, vendor support and product innovation, measured against marketplace needs.

The 2005 Top 100 Technology Product listing is also available on Accounting Today's sister Web site, www.webcpa.com.

December 30, 2004 reply from John Stammers [jstammer@CENTENNIALCOLLEGE.CA

Most of the major accounting software companies offer their software free to colleges and universities. This is a major policy change from several years ago. When Centennial College upgraded ACCPAC from DOS to Windows in 2000, it cost CDN$15,000 - now it's free. In part, competitive pressures forced this change, since Great Plains had moved into Canada and were providing their accounting software free. However, the benefit to the companies is the exposure to future professional accountants who may select/recommend this accounting software because they learned it in college. (In my advanced computerized accounting course, students learn how to compare accounting software and match to business requirements.)

The entry level software used in Centennial's accounting program is Simply Accounting (62% market share in Canada, 2% in USA). It was costing us CDN$3,000 every time we upgraded to a newer version. The no. 2 entry level accounting software in Canada is QuickBooks - students and employers were requesting some training on it. On May 1, 2003, I met with Intuit Canada in Edmonton AB (1 foot of snow - I had just come from sunny Okanagan 75 degrees). Shortly thereafter, Intuit Canada announced their educational program which provided free software to colleges and students. (I don't know if Intuit in the USA has followed suit yet.) Simply Accounting had to follow suit, although the free software for students is just now in the works.

The software donated to the college is always the full unrestricted commercial version, whereas the student versions do have limited time or opens. One does have to take care and not allow the full version to escape into the real world. I have done some work for the local of our faculty union and have purchased the commercial version of Simply at Staples.

Centennial College also receives a full working version of Canadian tax software (I forget which one) - it's interesting as the IT department will actually bend its policy and do a reimage mid-semester in order to load the current tax software. I also recently acquired a full version of Caseware (working papers, write-up, etc.) which will be used in our auditing course.

John Stammers 
Professor of Accounting 
School of Business 
Centennial College Scarborough, Ontario

December 29, 2004 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

As we remove the humans from business transactions (e.g., scanners, RFID self-checkouts, etc.) and move the data warehouse further away from the transaction locus (networks, VPNs, etc.) and take accounting processes mobile (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.), our accounting numbers become more and more dependent upon an entirely different type of technology than mere bookkeeping and analysis software.

Shouldn't accounting technology be defined as a broader, more inclusive, field? Shouldn't auditors be concerned with whether the RFID scanner is actually picking up ALL the stock in the warehouse? Or whether there is sufficient checks/balances to keep a bar code from being scanned twice? Or whether the network is sufficiently robust to detect interference which might cover up a legitimate transaction, making the books oblivious to a shipment or receipt? These aspects of "ACCOUNTING" technology (yes, I know I'm shouting) are overlooked too often by accountants. Yet they are an inherent part of the "accounting system" under the fundamental definition: the processes of COLLECTING, RECORDING, ... , data affecting the financial position of the firm.

The really unfortunate thing is, we accountants usually assume the CIS gurus have designed systems with these checks/balances incorporated in them, but most CIS curricula I've seen are giving their students *no* exposure to the classical ideas and concepts of "internal control" as they apply to this technology.

As long as we accountants ourselves continue to define "accounting technology" so narrowly (e.g., software tools), we are actually contributing to the fraud potential, are we not?

David Fordham 
Technologist Wannabee 
James Madison University


December 30, 2004 reply from neal hannon [nhannon@COX.NET

I agree whole-heartedly with David. The software of accountants today has very little to do with double-entry bookkeeping and everything to do with providing all key stakeholders in the business with accurate, actionable information.

Interestingly, Accounting Technology magazine (http://www.webcpa.com/article.cfm?articleid=9497&pg=acctech ) recently asked readers to identify the most important technology issue for 2005. The responses were, in no particular order:

• Paperless Office

• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

• Integration of Web-based activities (CRM)

• Data mining and business intelligence

• Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP)

• Viruses and Internet Security

• Document management techniques

To the above list I would add:

• Integration of Sarbanes-Oxley internal control framework into

business transaction collection systems.

When I teach managerial accounting, I integrate a module on the COSO internal control framework and its relationship to Sarbanes-Oxley. In my Accounting Information Systems classes, the several items on the list are included in addition to all aspects of XML including XBRL for general ledger and financial reporting.

Regarding managerial accounting, how can we continue to teach outdated concepts like EOQ and the high-low method, while not embracing the use of data mining and business intelligence techniques to create dynamic reporting feeds to desk-top scorecarding systems? Managerial accountants need to know how to construct meaningful business reports for the management team in an on-demand environment. How the key performance indicator is calculated and what data feeds the calculation is all important, especially in the Sarbanes-Oxley section 404 era of CEO-CFO accountability.

Neal

Neal J. Hannon, CMA
University of Hartford; Barney School of Business
XBRL Editor, Strategic Finance Magazine
U Hartford: 860-768-5810 Home Office:  401-769-3802

December 30, 2004 reply from Gerald Trites [gtrites@ZORBA.CA

You're right, Neal. In response to your and David's comments on accounting technology, I think its essential for accounting educators to be more cognizant of the impact of technology in a broad sense. While we are still teaching double entry accounting methods and issues along with traditional fixed reporting issues and concepts, the world is rapidly moving past the old Pacioli based systems to data-centric accounting, as shown in the spread of integrated enterprise systems and technologies like XML and particularly XBRL. Accountants and auditors need to be more aware of data flow and data availability within companies and the need to preserve the integrity of that data at various stages before the reporting stage, because the reporting stage is effectively moving to the data level. The use of RFID and VOIP are examples of technologies that are integral to this data flow idea. The current emphasis on systems may drive a greater recognition of this idea in practice, as no systems analyst would ignore these technological components. However, the world of academia seems to move much more slowly, and the longer these issues are ignored by educators, the greater the chance they become inceasingly obsolete and out of step with the use of technologies in the accounting world.

Jerry

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting technology and software are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#AccountingSoftware 


December 14, 2004 message from Leo Lucas [leo@e-learningconsulting.com

Hi Bob, we continue to create new, low-cost e-Learning products for educators. We have added a low-cost Learning Management System (LMS - http://www.e-learningconsulting.com/products/index.html ). The prices for the LMS range from $1,000 for classroom sized license to $5,000 for a campus-sized license. Other LMS products sell for $10-50,000 dollars. The LMS supports SCORM, a standard way to publish, launch, bookmark and track e-learning courses.

Leo Lucas leo@e-learningconsulting.com 
http://www.e-learningconsulting.com 

 


Search for Online Videos

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are quietly developing new search tools for digital video, foreshadowing a high-stakes technology arms race in the battle for control of consumers' living rooms. Google's effort, until now secret, is arguably the most ambitious of the three. According to sources familiar with the plan, the search giant is courting broadcasters and cable networks with a new technology that would do for television what it has already done for the Internet: sort through and reveal needles of video clips from within the haystack archives of major network TV shows. The effort comes on top of Google's plans to create a multimedia search engine for Internet-only video that it will likely introduce next year, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. In recent weeks, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has demonstrated new technology to a handful of major TV broadcasters in an attempt to forge alliances and develop business models for a TV-searchable database on the Web, those sources say.
GeekNik, December 5, 2004 --- http://www.geeknik.net/?journal,594 
The full story is at http://news.com.com/Striking+up+digital+video+search/2100-1032_3-5466491.html?tag=nefd.lede 
You can test Yahoo now.  Search for Enron at http://video.search.yahoo.com/ 
Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 

December 21, 2004 message from Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU

Check this out!

Type in accounting and you will find some very interesting offerings. See if you can find the "accounting cheer" by students at Oral Roberts.

http://video.search.yahoo.com/ 

Richard J. Campbell 
mailto:campbell@rio.edu 

December 21, 2004 reply from Bob Jensen

Sorry Richard, but I found the videos much more interesting when I searched for Enron videos at http://video.search.yahoo.com/ 
I especially liked the first video about Rebecca Mack.

This raises an interesting question.  I tend to avoid Yahoo search engine because of Yahoo's policy to list search hits in the order of priority according to companies that pay Yahoo to have their sites come first.  This does not appear to be the case in the new Yahoo video search engine, but I'll bet its only a matter of time before videos vendors will pay to come first in Yahoo's search engine.

Bob Jensen

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


Multiple language children's dictionary, games, and quotes (simply feed in a topic, choose a language, and get a quotation) --- http://www.logos.it/pls/dictionary/new_dictionary.home_project?pjCode=10&lang=en&u_code=4395 


Training and Outsourcing News --- http://www.trainingoutsourcing.com/ 


I've worked on these numbers all day, and there's just no accounting for taste.
"Cartoonist Pokes Fun at Accounting,"  SmartPros, December 8, 2004

Need a good laugh to lighten up your day? It's just one click away. Cartoonist Mark Anderson tickles the funny bone with business-theme cartoons and illustrations on his Web site, Andertoons.com ( http://www.andertoons.com/ ).

Andertoons.com is divided into categories and subcategories that include Money Cartoons and Accounting Cartoons. The site invites visitors to sign up for the weekday e-newsletter that delivers a cartoon a day to your desktop. Visitors can also search the cartoons and illustrations by keyword.

For instance, type in "accounting" in the keyword search and you'll find a cartoon with the one-line caption, "The new font is great, but I still don't like the look of these numbers."

Another one-liner that pokes fun at accounting fumbles: "Numbers don't lie. That's where we come in."

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting humor are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#Humor 
(I still prefer the New Yorker cartoons listed at the above site.)

We are neither hunters nor gatherers.  We are accountants..
New Yorker Cartoon

It's up to you now Miller.  The only thing that can save us is an accounting breakthrough.
New Yorker Cartoon

Money is life's report card.
New Yorker Cartoon

Millions is craft.  Billions is art.
New Yorker Cartoon

My strength is the strength of ten, because I'm rich.
New Yorker Cartoon

Picture a Pig Ready for Market
Basic economics --- sometimes the parts are worth more than the whole.
New Yorker Cartoon

You drive yourself too hard.  You really must learn to take time to stop and sniff the profits.
New Yorker Cartoon

I was on the cutting edge.  I pushed the envelope.  I did the heavy lifting.  I was the rain maker.  Then suddenly it all crashed when I ran out of metaphors.
New Yorker Cartoon

Try as we might, sir, our team of management consultants has been unable to find a single fault in the manner in which you conduct your business.  Everything you do is a hundred per cent right.  Keep it up!  That will be eleven thousand dollars.
New Yorker Cartoon


Accountancy is Sure a Lot More Than Auditing

"MAP Survey Shows Revenue Growth for CPA Firms," SmartPros, December 7, 2004 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x46125.xml 

Local and regional firms across the U.S. reported revenue growth, salary increases and expansion of core service offerings in 2004 and feel optimistic heading into 2005, according to this year's PCPS/Texas Society of CPAs (TSPCA) National Management of Accounting Practice (MAP) Survey.

Thirty-two percent of the 2,373 local and regional firms surveyed this year experienced an increase in revenue of at least 10 percent, while 14 percent indicated an increase of greater than 20 percent in their most recent fiscal year.

The average total revenues for CPA firms responding to the survey was $1.48 million. Profits increased slightly as a percentage of total income from 36 percent to 36.8 percent over the 2003 results. Consistent with last year’s findings, the three largest sources of income for local and regional firms are tax services (48.5 percent), compilations (12.5 percent) and write-up/data processing (12 percent).

"This year’s survey results confirm what we’ve heard anecdotally – that local and regional CPA firms are thriving in the current business environment," said Richard J. Caturano, Chair of the PCPS Executive Committee. "This year, PCPS is providing a detailed commentary on CPA best practices, which cements the PCPS/TSCPA MAP Survey as one of the most valuable tools available to help firms run their practices." Mr. Caturano is President of Vitale, Caturano & Company, a leading CPA firm in Boston.

This year, the top 10 specialized services offered by respondent firms are:

The total number of firms offering investment and securities sales decreased from 16 percent to 10.5 percent, while payroll processing fell from 65 percent to 59 percent. 

In this year's survey, CPA firms were asked about effective marketing techniques. The top three marketing efforts by local and regional firms are newsletters (43.1 percent), trade group memberships (38.9 percent) and advertising (35.1 percent). Tele-prospecting (4.3 percent) was considered the least effective. A majority of firms have created working partnerships and alliances with other CPA firms (55.1 percent).

Among other findings:

Earnings and Rates: Firm employees reaped the benefits of local and regional firm success. The average annual base salary increased 5.7 percent over last year and bonuses averaged 5.3  percent of total salary. On average, owners took home 37 percent of their firm’s income. The average hourly billing rate for a professional earning $50,000 dropped slightly to $93 from $95 in 2003.

Retirement Plans: The data reveals that 30 percent of firms do not have a retirement plan, compared to 26 percent last year. In addition, just 37 percent provide for partner retirement, down from 45 percent in 2003.

HR Policies: Seventy-seven percent of firms offer their staff flexible work arrangements.

Outsourcing: Three-quarters of CPA firms said they wouldn’t consider outsourcing individual tax returns, while 16.8 percent said they would.

Gender Demographics: Most partners/owners are male (75 percent). However for all non-owner designations, the majority of CPAs are females.

Going Paperless: Forty-one percent of respondents indicated that they would consider going paperless, while 20 percent already are. One-quarter of the firms (25 percent) are planning to go paperless and 13 percent will not consider it.

This marks the third consecutive year that PCPS, the AICPA community for CPA firms, has partnered with the Texas Society of CPAs (TSCPA) to produce the survey and the second year the survey was sponsored by Aon Insurance Services, the broker and administrator for the AICPA Insurance Programs. For the first time, additional support was provided by Robert Half Management Resources. Forty-three state CPA societies and the Association for Accounting Administration also played a key role by encouraging their members to respond.

IntelliSurvey, an independent market research company that specializes in helping leading researchers and organizations deploy complex projects, administered the online survey to firms between June 30 and September 3, 2004. The group encompassed a diverse range of firm types and the survey was modified accordingly to ensure that firms were asked questions relevant to their size and structure.

The National MAP Survey Results Report may be purchased for $300 with a $100 discount to participants and a $100 discount for AICPA members. Results are free to PCPS members. New this year, a detailed commentary on CPA best practices and management insights will be available. For more information, call 1-800-CPA-FIRM or visit www.pcps.org and click on the 2004 PCPS/TSCPA National MAP Survey logo on the left side of the screen.

Bob Jensen's threads on fees and professionalism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fees.htm 


December 14, 2004 message from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU

At Albany we are applying to the National Security Agency to be designated a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education. What is significant is that this is the first time that Accounting has taken the lead in this effort.

We have built a website for the purpose. It is located at www.albany.edu/cifa . I hope some of you will visit the site and let us know what you think.

Jagdish

Bob Jensen's threads on assurance services are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assurance.htm 


Happy Noel to You All 
(Note that the study below applies equally to Bob Jensen's Email Messages)
Forwarded by Bob Blystone

"Incidence of and risk factors for nodding off at scientific sessions" by Kenneth Rockwood, David B. Hogan and Christopher J. Patterson for The Nodding at Presentations (NAP) Investigators, Auscultations, December 7, 2004 --- http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/171/12/1443 

We conducted a surreptitious, prospective, cohort study to explore how often physicians nod off during scientific meetings and to examine risk factors for nodding off. After counting the number of heads falling forward during 2 days of lectures, we calculated the incidence density curves for nodding-off episodes per lecture (NOELs) and assessed risk factors using logistic regression analysis. In this article we report our eye-opening results and suggest ways speakers can try to avoid losing their audience.

Hey Bob, you might note one biology teacher's cure for student dozing in class --- http://www.nonsensical.com/adrian/2004_01_25_blog_archive.html

You might also enjoy the student dozing joke at http://iteslj.org/c/jokes-bad_english.html 


Accounting Standards are Not Neutral (i.e., they change management decisions)

Question
How do you value a capped option?

Answer
Beats me, but the Black Scholes model component for time value must be modified.  But then the BS model doesn't work too well anyway since employees tend to value uncapped options much lower than BS model estimates (mostly out of fear that their options will tank).  They will accordingly reduce their estimates of value even lower if the options have caps.  I leave it up to you to explain to students why options with seven year expiration dates have lower value than traditional ten year dates, which in turn will result in higher corporate earnings per share if seven year expirations are used.  Hint:  It all has to do with that time value component of option value.

"Stock-Option Plans Get Revised to Meet New Rule," by Linlling Wei, The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2004, Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110435344663812226,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 

Companies are giving their stock-option plans makeovers.

In preparation for an accounting mandate that they treat employee stock options as an expense, companies are slashing option grants, replacing garden-variety options with various forms of stock compensation or tweaking the features of standard options.

"Most companies are looking at 'what are the alternatives?' " said Judy Thorp, national partner in charge of the compensation and benefits practice at KPMG.

One move under consideration, pay specialists say, is to cap the potential gain an employee or an executive can get from cashing in options. Tech Data Corp., for instance, already has won shareholder approval to issue such "maximum-value" stock options. Applera Corp. recently asked shareholders to vote on a similar proposal. Officials at both companies weren't available for comment.

A cap can make options less costly to companies than traditional options. It also "eliminates a concern of some investors that the open-ended nature of a traditional option could result in windfall gains for employees or executives," said Carl Weinberg, a compensation expert in the human-resources practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Stock options give recipients the right to buy their companies' shares at a fixed price within a certain period. They pay off only if the stock price rises, unlike stock grants that companies have long had to count as expenses. Employees, compensation experts say, tend to exercise their options well before the rights expire, which typically occurs 10 years after the grant date.

Stock options grew in popularity during the 1990s. About 14 million American workers -- or 13% of the work force in the private sector -- hold options, according to professors at Rutgers University and Harvard University.

Under the new Financial Accounting Standards Board rule, companies will have to deduct the value of stock options from profits, beginning in mid-2005. The options are valued when they are issued, and companies spread the cost out over the vesting period. Technology companies -- heavy issuers of options -- could continue to lobby Congress to derail the rule, but analysts see little chance of congressional intervention.

Some companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and insurer Progressive Corp., have stopped granting stock options altogether. Instead, they make grants of restricted stock, or shares that recipients can't sell for a set period. Because they provide a more certain payoff, companies usually can dole out fewer such shares. It is also easier for companies to value these shares.

Other companies, like SBC Communications Inc., are turning to stock grants that are paid out only when specific financial or operational targets are met. Shareholders favor such "performance shares" as a way to align compensation more closely with investors' interests. Microsoft Corp. has decided to give its top 600 managers shares tied to the company's performance.

Shareholders of Intel Corp., meanwhile, have approved a new option plan that, among other changes, requires employees to exercise options in seven years instead of 10. At aluminum company Alcoa Inc., new stock options will have a six-year lifespan instead of 10 years. Options with shorter lives have a lower value.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting for employee stock options are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm 


Part of a December 13, 2004 message from Ethical Performance [list_admin@ethicalperformance.com

One of the world's largest consumer products groups has begun posting online details of its policies on key aspects of corporate social responsibility.

Procter & Gamble is featuring the information on its website, at http://pgperspectives.com in response to requests from its stakeholders for more transparency on product safety, the environment and sustainability.

The company, which has five billion consumers, has arranged the material in a way that enables visitors to find information on a specific topic without having to wade through endless links.

Procter & Gamble directs visitors to information provided not only by itself, but also by third parties, including research commissioned by pressure groups that are perhaps best known as challenging some of the company's policy positions.

This makes it possible to 'drill down' to academic research papers and official documents produced by government regulators and agencies on topics ranging from European chemicals regulation to health concerns about the use of perfumes in laundry products.

December 18, 2004 message from Ayesha Nariman [ayesha@localnet.com

Dear Prof. Jensen:

A topic on C-span's Washington Journal (WJ) this morning piqued my interest in derivatives and hedge funds (see email below). I did a Google search on the subject: Use of Derivatives and Hedge Funds to steal investor wealth by a few

http://search.netscape.com/ns/search?fromPage=NSCPTop&query=Use%20of%20Derivatives%20and%20Hedge%20Funds%20to%20steal%20investor%20wealth%20by%20a%20few&x=3&y=7

Of the various options that popped-up two looked most promising and they both led to the vast research you have done on the subject:

4. Bob Jensen's Threads on Rotten to the Core [New Window] ... and Freddie, use large volumes of derivatives, which are ... fund managers to curtail their use of directed ... an arrangement that favored hedge fund Canary Capital ... http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm  [Preview This Site] 5. Fraud Updates on June 30, 2004 [New Window] ... relies more and more on derivative financial instruments ... too -- she opened her hedge fund's checkbook, eventually ... for a nonprofit and then use that opportunity ... http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud063004.htm  [Preview This Site]

This led to a plethora of information, in which I am currently salivating.

A little about myself. I ran for Congress in NY 26 CD in 2002 against Rep. Thomas Reynolds ( www.narimanforcongress ). I have written a column in the past for www.yt.org (see archives: http://www.yellowtimes.org/search.php?query=&topic=36  ). I am currently in the process of writing a book, which is a hybrid between a text, and an easy read. I hope my book will expose the current Republican Congress for the miscreants they are. I want my book to be informative, but written in a manner so as to make it an easy read for the general public - a somewhat daunting task.

I have been trying to find some information on the Congress, especially since the 1994 take over of Congress by the republican party, and the deregulation that has contributed to, if not caused, the corporate malfeasance that came to light in 2001 and onwards.

It is clear that you are a master on this subject on Government deregulation measures, while I am a neophyte. This subject will only be one chapter in my book. Hence, I would be most obliged, if you have something ready, where I can use you as a source to expound from, or if you can send me some primary source web sites. I am looking for the following, preferably in tabular format:

Column 1: the year

Column 2: The number of the House and Senate Bills and the final Bill (Conference) passed into law on ANY and ALL deregulation, and allowing Corporations/ Financial Institutions to delve into and deal in derivatives, and hedge funds.

Column 3: Any and All fall out as a result of these actions by Congress.

If you know of some egregious deregulation prior to 1994, please fell free to add them in.

Danka.

Ayesha F. Nariman, MBA 
Williamsville, NY 
www.narimanforcongress.com 

December 19, 2004 reply from Bob Jensen

Hello Ayesha,

What you must stress is that the history of capital markets and particularly fraud in capital markets is one of doing business in such a way as to circumventing regulations.  It's like a game where vendors sell unregulated securities until abuses become so widespread that there is a public outcry for regulations.  Then the bad guys rework what they sell so that they don't fall under the regulations.  The best example in recent decades is the explosion of derivative financial instruments and hedge funds.  In both cases there were virtually no regulations until billions were stolen.  Especially note the many books of Frank Partnoy --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds 

What I am saying is that in addition to deregulation in the 1990s, there was an even bigger problem of no regulation that is analogous to the laissez faire way of doing business prior to the Crash of 1929 and the ensuing securities acts (regulations) of the 1930s.

In terms of deregulation itself, much of it preceded 1994.  We had the break up of AT&T as well as the global deregulation of the telecommunications industry --- http://www.peterkeen.com/virtual01.htm .  We had the deregulation of the airline industry which began in 1979.  

In banking and securities markets, the big deregulation came with enactment of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) in 1999.  repealed the long-standing Glass-Steagall prohibitions on the mixing of banking with securities or insurance businesses and thus permits "broad banking."  But prior to this investment banks were largely unregulated which is why they got away with billions and billions of dollars worth of fraud, especially in derivatives markets. Of course the deregulation of energy markets in the 1990s that led to Enron's rise and fall is largely the doing of Senator Gramm (and his wife Wendy).  Certainly in the 1990s, the craze for deregulation commenced to burn out of control.  

I think what you should also stress is that having regulation does not do much good unless regulations are enforced.  One of the major factors leading up to the enormous securities, mutual fund, insurance, and other frauds of the 1990s was poor enforcement of Wall Street by the SEC.  Until recently Wall Street owned the SEC, NASD, NYSE, etc.  Regulations on the books were simply overlooked by Federal Regulators and state attorney generals (prior to Spitzer).  

What I am saying is that deregulation became a problem, but it was a lesser problem than lack of enforcement of existing regulation.  Of course this is a problem in nearly all Federal agencies once they become owned by the businesses they are supposed to regulate.  For example, agribusiness owns the Department of Agriculture, power companies own the FPC, industry cartels own the FDA, the airlines own the FAA, etc.  

And now we see Wall Street dealing behind closed doors to regain control of the SEC --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#InvestmentBanking 

You might be interested in my threads on the history of fraud in the U.S. at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm 




"20 Questions," by Nick Wingfield, The Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2004, Beginning on Special Section Page R1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110262057513895889,00.html

Technology has brought consumers more choices than ever -- and more questions. Do you really need the latest gadget? Which one is best for you? How much of this stuff is good for the kids? How do you take full advantage of the Internet but not get slimed? We chose 20 questions to help you make sense of it all:

1. Should I keep a separate cellphone and PDA, or buy a smart phone that combines the two?

Why carry two gadgets when one will do the work of both? That's the logic that has led people like Josh Felser, chief executive of software start-up Grouper Networks Inc., to ditch their separate personal digital assistants and cellular phones for palmOne Inc.'s popular Treo 600, which combines both. "I have a hard enough time keeping track of one device," Mr. Felser says.

With the Treo, Mr. Felser no longer has to awkwardly balance a PDA in one hand as he looks up a phone number from his electronic files, using his other hand to dial the number on his cellular phone. And the Treo, like Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry 6230, has a miniature keyboard so it can send and receive e-mail on the go. (Some other smart phones, like Samsung Electronics Co.'s i600 Smartphone, don't have full keyboards.)

But people considering a smart phone have to decide whether all this convenience is worth the price. Cellular carriers usually charge around $250 to $550 for smart phones, and users pay extra each month for e-mail service.

2. What's the best DVD format for storing home movies? What about my recording of this week's "Survivor"?

Basically, the answer depends on whether you want to use it to record and erase and record over and over again, or use it to record one thing that you plan to keep for a long time.

DVD recorders, or "burners" as they're sometimes called, support a multitude of disc formats with cryptic names like DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD-R. While multiformat DVD burners support all the various formats, some burners still fall into the "plus" or "dash" camps. Plus burners, offered by Dell Inc., Sony Corp. and others, record only onto DVD+RW and DVD+R discs, while dash burners from Toshiba Corp., Apple Computer Inc. and others record onto DVD-RW and DVD-R discs. Both camps claim various advantages to their technologies, but many experts believe they're closely comparable.

For the average consumer, the biggest difference will be whether to purchase rewritable, or RW, discs or record-only, or R, discs. RW discs allow users to record video, erase it and re-record up to 1,000 times. That capability may be more desirable for users who want to make copies of ephemera like the latest episode of "Desperate Housewives," which can be easily deleted and replaced with something else. Users who want to make more-permanent archives of home movies, though, may want to consider less expensive record-only discs, onto which video can be recorded only once.

3. How old should kids be before you let them use a computer?

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two years old shouldn't spend much time in front of any kind of screen, whether it's a computer, television or portable video-game player. In that crucial early stage of brain and emotional development, kids "should be learning from the three-dimensional, not the two-dimensional, world," says Donald Shifrin, a pediatrician and chair of the academy's committee on communications.

After the age of two, children should use a computer no more than one and a half to two hours a day, Dr. Shifrin advises. Even then, he says, parents should sit with younger kids as they're interacting with computers, to help them interpret what they're seeing, rather than using the devices as virtual baby sitters.

4. Should I get a digital camera for my kids?

Digital cameras may seem like an extravagance for a child, but in fact they may make economic sense.

The main reason is that kids tend to snap away with gusto -- and with nondigital cameras, that means a lot of hassle and expense running to the photo lab to get rolls of pictures developed, only to end up discarding many of them. But with digital gadgets, users pick the shots they want to print. Or you don't have to print at all; you can just connect the camera to a PC and swap images with friends over e-mail and the Web.

When shopping for a digital camera, one important feature is the number of megapixels. Generally, the more megapixels -- each of which equals a million dots of color per image -- the better. A two- or three-megapixel camera should more than suffice for kids just looking to get started with digital photography. Parents can easily find suitable models for less than $100.

5. How secure is my Wi-Fi connection? What if I connect in a public hot spot?

Wi-Fi is probably as safe as you need it to be -- but only if you lock your digital doors.

Wi-Fi networking gear -- the device called a base station that plugs into a broadband Internet connection and transmits the Wi-Fi signal, and the Wi-Fi card that goes into a laptop and picks up the signal -- comes with encryption software that scrambles all the data passing back and forth over a wireless network. But users setting up a home network have to be sure to turn on the encryption capabilities. Also, picking a longer password, with upwards of 20 characters, will make the network more secure. Technically, it's still possible for interlopers with the right equipment to intercept and unscramble data passed over a wireless home network, but it isn't likely they will bother.

In many public hot spots, such as a cafe or library with wireless Internet access, the operator of the network hasn't turned on any security functions, to make it easier for users to get connected to the network. Under those circumstances, users can protect their communications by using virtual private networking, or VPN, software. This technology creates a secure tunnel over the wireless network that scrambles all e-mails, Web traffic and other data.

Many companies outfit the laptops of workers with VPN software; other users can sign up for a service like HotSpotVPN.com from WiFiConsulting Inc., which for $8.88 a month will secure all their wireless communications. Hot-spot operators, like Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile HotSpot, are also starting to offer security software for their subscribers.

6. Which is better, DSL or cable?

The answer depends on which is more important to you: speed or cost. Cable and DSL providers have increasingly staked out these different segments of the market for broadband Internet access, says Bruce Leichtman, president of the broadband research firm Leichtman Research Group in Durham, N.H.

Cable generally provides downloading speeds of about three megabits per second, more than 53 times faster than a conventional dial-up modem and two to three times faster than some DSL lines, Mr. Leichtman says. So if it's the fastest possible connection to the Internet you're after, cable is likely the best option.

If price is the most important consideration, DSL may be a better option. When the cost of broadband services is disentangled from the cable-TV and phone-service packages they typically come in, DSL generally is about $10 cheaper a month than cable Internet service in most markets, estimates Mr. Leichtman.

7. What's the best software for copying a CD collection to a PC? Are there any less painful and time-consuming ways to go about it?

There's no shortage of capable, free software for "ripping" the music on compact discs onto PCs, including Yahoo Inc.'s Musicmatch Jukebox, Apple's iTunes, Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Player and RealNetworks Inc.'s RealPlayer.

Users who intend to transfer their music collections to an iPod, Apple's portable music gadget, will most likely choose iTunes, since that program was designed to closely work with the iPod. If users own portable music players made by other companies, like D&M Holdings Inc.'s Rio unit or Creative Technology Ltd., they should consider using Windows Media Player or Musicmatch Jukebox, since iTunes doesn't easily work with those devices.

Unfortunately, ripping CDs is a tedious, labor-intensive process, especially for large collections. Users have to manually drop each disc into a PC's CD drive and then wait as the computer copies all the songs into a new audio format, a process that will take anywhere from six to 10 minutes a disc.

There are services, like RipDigital, that will copy a user's CD collection onto DVDs in the MP3 format; the DVDs can then quickly be copied to a computer. RipDigital charges a pretty penny, though: $149 for up to 100 CDs, and $499 for up to 500 CDs.

8. How do I choose an online music service?

A key question here is whether you want to be able to listen to digital music on the go. If the answer is yes, then the portable digital music player you choose could dictate which online music service you patronize.

If you choose an iPod, the portable player made by Apple, the only popular online music store that currently sells songs that reliably play on the device is Apple's iTunes Music Store. The iPod and iTunes Music Store are far and away the most popular products in their categories, in part due to the simplicity with which the device and the music site work together.

Some people, though, won't want to be locked in to a single device when they patronize a music site. Those users will want to consider any number of sites, including those operated by Yahoo's Musicmatch, Roxio Inc.'s Napster unit, Microsoft's MSN Music and Virgin Group Ltd.'s Virgin Digital Megastore, all of which sell songs for 99 cents each. The music purchased from those sites will play on any portable player that supports Microsoft's audio format, including devices from Rio, Creative Labs and Samsung.

Those people who want to listen to a lot of music should think about joining a subscription music service, which typically costs around $10 a month for as much music as you can listen to. Napster, Musicmatch and RealNetworks all offer subscription services for around that price, though Virgin is the cheapest at $7.99 a month.

The biggest drawback of the subscription services is that the songs eventually become unplayable if users stop subscribing. Also, most of the services won't yet let subscribers take their music off the PC onto portable devices. That's starting to change, thanks to a new technology from Microsoft that online services are beginning to adopt. But it's too soon to tell how well the technology will work, since there aren't a lot of portable devices and services that support it yet.

9. Do I need an MP3 player? What's the best way to listen to my MP3 player in my car?

If you've gone to the trouble of storing your music collection on your computer and you want to listen to large collections of music on the go, then a portable MP3 digital music player is essential.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of models from which to choose. Apple Computer's iPod is by far the most popular player and also one of the most expensive, with models ranging in price from $249 to $599. The iPod is one of many devices that use a miniature hard disk to store up to 15,000 songs. Other, less expensive, MP3 players use a storage technology called flash, but they store only the equivalent of a handful of CDs.

There isn't yet an ideal way to listen to music from a portable MP3 player in a car. One easy option is to purchase an adapter that plugs into a car stereo cassette player on one end and an MP3 player's headphone jack on the other, a device that can be bought for as little as $9. Another easy option is to buy a radio transmitter ($30 to $65) that plugs into an MP3 player and wirelessly transmits songs from the player (if it's in the car) to an FM radio station on the car stereo. Both products, though, will likely disappoint sticklers for audio quality.

For better fidelity, users will want to connect their MP3 player into the audio input jack typically located on the rear of the car stereo, a process that will likely require removing the stereo from the vehicle's dashboard during installation. There are many detailed guides on the Web on how to do this, but the average user will want to seek professional help from a car stereo specialist.

10. Should I replace my desktop PC with a laptop?

In a word, no, says Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif.

Laptops have come down in price in recent years, while many of them now sport capacious screens. But desktops still beat them hands down, says Mr. Enderle, noting that desktops are cheaper and more powerful. That extra performance comes in especially handy for people who want to play games and use other graphics-intensive applications.

The 15-inch screens on some laptops make using them for prolonged periods of time easier than those with smaller screens, but they also have their downside. "If you go on a plane you can't open it unless you're in business class or first," Mr. Enderle says.

Of course, laptops are also more likely to be stolen. So users who decide to ditch their desktops for a portable should be sure to back up their data on an external hard drive or some other form of storage.

11. I never win an eBay auction. How can I improve my odds?

If you ask eBay Inc., the company says the best way to win an auction is simple: Bid the absolute maximum amount you're willing to spend on an item. EBay's "proxy" bidding system will automatically submit bids in increments on a shopper's behalf, up to the maximum amount and only if there are rival bids.

In reality, though, many eBay users often find themselves thwarted by bids from rival shoppers during the last few nanoseconds of an auction.

The best way to win eBay auctions, especially involving items for which there's strong demand, is to sign up for a "sniping" service that uses software to submit last-second bids for you. Two of the best-known sniping services are Auctionsniper.com and eSnipe Inc.'s eSnipe.com. These sites charge users only for auctions that they win, with fees ranging from 25 cents to $10, depending on the selling price for the auction item.

12. How do I play audio and video from my computer on my home-entertainment center?

Hooking up a computer to a stereo so you can listen to your digital music collection through better speakers is a cinch.

The bare-bones option is to purchase a standard y-adapter, a $10 or so cable shaped like the letter it's named after. One end of the cable plugs into the audio-out jack on the back of the computer, where speaker wires normally are connected. The other end goes into an empty set of jacks, such as the auxiliary jacks, on the rear of the stereo system. For better sound quality, users can pony up some extra money for an adapter such as the $50 Xitel Hi-Fi Link, made by Xitel Pty. Ltd. These little gadgets provide cleaner sound, in part by plugging into a stereo's USB port.

There are also many wireless PC-to-stereo adapters. Apple's $129 AirPort Express is designed to work with the company's iTunes music software. Netgear Inc.'s Wireless Digital Music Player, which sells for about $115, has the added advantage of allowing users to skip around a song collection using a remote control.

To play PC video files on a television set, the process is similar. Newer PCs, particularly laptops, may have S-video or composite plugs that can be connected to a television set with the appropriate cables. Be warned that text and icons from a PC won't appear crisp when displayed on most standard-definition televisions. Movies, though, should look better.

Connecting a PC to a high-definition television set will yield sharper results. Users can connect the two devices through a VGA, or video graphics array, cable; some HDTVs and PCs are also capable of being linked through a higher-quality digital cable connection called DVI, or digital visual interface. There are also wireless adapters, but the quality usually isn't as good as a physical connection.

13. How do I get rid of the pop-up ads that have invaded my computers?

The first step is to get a pop-up blocker. There are dozens of small programs users can download from the Internet to prevent noxious, distracting advertisements from springing up all over their computer screens. Yahoo and Google Inc. make programs that install search-engine toolbars on users' Web browsers, with built-in pop-up blockers. There's also a blocker built into Firefox, a Web browser alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

It's also possible that the pop-up windows on a user's system are the work of adware or spyware, programs that users can inadvertently download onto their computers by visiting disreputable Web sites. To figure out if a computer has spyware on it, users should download software, such as Webroot Software Inc.'s Spy Sweeper and Lavasoft Inc.'s AdAware, that scans for the unwanted programs.

14. Do I need to buy a video-game console, or is my PC fine for playing games?

While many of the hottest games tend to come out on consoles first, PC users have no shortage of games to choose from, including console hits like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Halo. The PC also is terrific for simpler games like checkers and poker, and high-end PCs with graphics cards are unmatched by consoles for cutting-edge graphics, such as those in Half-Life 2.

Still, the game consoles, especially Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox, are probably the most convenient option for new users, game industry executives say. "It's really hard to argue against the console systems at this point," says Vince Broady, senior vice president of games and entertainment at CNET Networks Inc.'s GameSpot.com, a Web site for gamers. "They are affordable, powerful and very easy to use. They also hook up to the TV, making them easier for users in the same household to share or play together."

Consoles have also gotten cheaper. As Microsoft and Sony get closer to releasing a new generation of consoles, expected sometime in the next year or two, the companies earlier this year slashed prices on their PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles to $149, from $199 and $179, respectively. And these consoles will likely have a huge library of fresh titles for years to come -- a bigger selection than even the new consoles are expected to have in their early days.

15. How do I get started playing online games?

The most popular online games are so-called casual games like bingo, bridge and backgammon. Yahoo, Time Warner Inc.'s America Online and Electronic Arts Inc.'s Pogo.com are among the most popular destinations for casual games on the Internet. Many of the games are free to play, though most sites also offer premium games for a fee.

If you're more interested in the fantasy/adventure arena, one of the most popular online games is Sony's EverQuest, in which thousands of players band together in a fantasy world to battle dragons and perform other tasks. Playing isn't cheap, though: The recently released second version of EverQuest costs $49.99 for the game disc, plus $14.99 a month to play.

Games consoles like Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation 2 are now online-enabled as well. Once users connect the consoles to their home networks, they can play multiplayer versions of many titles, like Halo 2, with other gamers over the Internet.

16. How do I keep my kids from looking at porn and other inappropriate content online?

If you access the Internet from home through a major Internet-service provider like America Online, EarthLink Inc. or Comcast Corp., you may already have access to parental controls that block kids from accessing certain online material. Most of the controls allow parents to easily set various levels of filtering, from more permissive to less permissive. Parental controls from Internet providers also often can be used to allow e-mail traffic only to and from addresses on an approved list.

Users who don't get parental controls with their Internet service can separately purchase programs such as LookSmart Ltd.'s NetNanny and SurfControl PLC's CyberPatrol, which typically run about $40. Some of these programs may offer even more extensive controls, such as the ability to receive complete daily electronic reports of children's online activities.

17. Is it time to buy a high-definition TV, or should I wait?

Cost-conscious consumers are better off waiting. A good HDTV set now costs $1,500 to $3,000, but prices are falling swiftly -- 25% to 30% a year, estimates Van Baker, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based research firm Gartner Inc.

If money is no object, the good news is there's starting to be a decent amount of high-definition programming available for HDTV set owners. Many sporting events and prime-time television programs are now available in high definition, as well as cable channels like Discovery, Showtime and HBO.

18. How do I start blogging?

Like a growing number of citizens of the Net, Elizabeth Lawley, an associate professor of information technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has a blog -- a personal Web site where she posts a running diary chronicling everything from her Greek vacation to trips to conferences. While Dr. Lawley used blog software from Six Apart Ltd. called MovableType that is geared toward more sophisticated users, she recommends that first-time bloggers try services such as Six Apart's TypePad or Google's Blogger.

The Blogger service, for instance, is available free at Blogger.com, and Google says users can be publishing their thoughts on the Web in about a minute.

19. What's the latest research on the health hazards of cellular phones?

After years of investigation into the matter, no clear link has been established between cellular phones and serious health risks from radio waves emitted by the devices. But most scientists haven't said the devices are completely safe, either.

The results of one typically inconclusive study came out in October from the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, in collaboration with the World Health Organization's cancer research institute. The Swedish study found that 10 years or more of analog mobile-phone use increased the risk of acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor on the auditory nerve. The study found that the risk of acoustic neuroma, which occurs in fewer than one-in-100,000 adults, was almost four times higher on the side of the head where phone users held the devices. The Swedish researchers cautioned, however, that the results needed to be confirmed in additional studies before any firm conclusions could be drawn.

20. Should I leave my BlackBerry at home when I go on vacation?

Chances are, if you're so connected to your work or personal e-mail that you have a BlackBerry, Treo or some other kind of mobile e-mail device, you're not going to leave it behind when you vacation. What's more, users with combination cellphone and e-mail devices can't exactly leave their e-mail behind if they want their cellphones handy on those trips to the beach.

Mr. Felser, the Grouper Networks CEO, has found a healthy compromise: When he vacations, he sets his Treo to download e-mail only when he manually requests it, instead of automatically downloading messages all the time.

 




Forwarded by Barb Hessell

Talkin' southern... While passing through a small town in Texas, I happened upon a unique nativity scene that indicated great skill and talent in its creation and assembly. But there was one small feature that bothered me - the three wise men were wearing firemen's helmets.

Totally unable to come up with a reason or explanation why, I left. At a "Quik Stop" on the edge of town I made the mistake of asking the lady behind the counter about the helmets. She exploded into a rage, yelling at me, "You Yankee's ne'r do read the Bible, do 'ya?

I assured her that I did, but simply couldn't recall anything about firemen in the Bible. She jerked her Bible out from behind the counter, ruffled through some pages, and finally jabbed her finger at a particular passage. Sticking it in my face she proudly announced, "Looky at this 'chere, sonny. See, it says ri'chere - the three wise men came from a far!"


Forwarded by Auntie Bev 

This is so cute!!!!!!

This is cute.  Just click on the link and load the puzzle.  Then follow the directions.


 
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=XE13117730


Dick Haar forwarded this link, but I'm not sure how many of these old cowboys weren't Democrats.  I suspect that quite a few were Democrats since they lived in Hollywood.  In Hollywood about the only Republicans are the horses the Democrats ride on.

  http://www.onecowboyleft.com

Forwarded by Paula (who called this meeting)

Who's in charge...

BODY MEETING :

All the organs of the body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was the one in charge.

"I should be in charge," said the brain, "because I run all the body's systems, so without me nothing would happen".

"I should be in charge," said the blood, "because I circulate oxygen all over so without me you'd all waste away."

"I should be in charge," said the stomach," because I process food and give all of you energy."

"I should be in charge," said the legs, "because I carry the body wherever it needs to go."

"I should be in charge," said the eyes, "because I allow the body to see where it goes."

"I should be in charge," said the rectum, "Because I'm responsible for waste removal."

All the other body parts laughed at the rectum and insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight.

Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, the legs got wobbly, the eyes got watery, and the blood was toxic. They all decided that the rectum should be the boss.

The Moral of the story?

The asshole is usually in charge !!


Owed to a Spelling Chequer (there are different versions of this) --- http://www.dyslexic.com/database/articles/crazyeng.html 


Forwarded by Paula

An oldie but goodie...
 
 
An Announcement From Santa. . .
I regret to inform you that, effective immediately, I will no longer be able to serve Southern United States on Christmas Eve. Due to the overwhelming current population of the earth, my contract was re-negotiated by North American Fairies and Elves Local 209. I now serve only certain areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan.

As part of the new and better contract I also get longer breaks for milk and cookies so keep that in mind. However, I'm certain that your children will be in good hands with your local replacement who happens to be my third cousin, Bubba Claus. His side of the family is from the South Pole. He shares my goal of delivering toys to all the good boys and girls; however, there are a few differences between us. Differences such as:

1. There is no danger of a Grinch stealing your presents from Bubba Claus. He has a gun rack on his sleigh and a bumper sticker that reads: "These toys insured by Smith and Wesson."

2. Instead of milk and cookies, Bubba Claus prefers that children leave an RC cola and pork rinds [or a moon pie] on the fireplace. And Bubba doesn't smoke a pipe. He dips a little snuff though, so please have an empty spit can handy.

3. Bubba Claus' sleigh is pulled by floppy-eared, flyin' coon dogs instead of reindeer. I made the mistake of loaning him a couple of my reindeer one time, and Blitzen's head now overlooks Bubba's fireplace.

4. You won't hear "On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen ..."when Bubba Claus arrives. Instead, you'll hear, "On Earnhardt, on Wallace, on Martin and Labonte. On Rudd, on Jarrett, on Elliott and Petty."

5. "Ho, ho, ho!" has been replaced by "Yee Haw!"

6. As required by Southern highway laws, Bubba Claus' sleigh does have a Yosemite Sam safety triangle on the back with the words "Back off". The last I heard it also had other decorations on the sleigh back as well. One is Ford or Chevy logo with lights that race through the letters and the other is a caricature of me (Santa Claus) going wee wee on the Tooth Fairy.

7. The usual Christmas movie classics such as "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a Wonderful Life" will not be shown in your negotiated viewing area. Instead, you'll see "Boss Hogg Saves Christmas" and "Smokey and he Bandit IV" featuring Burt Reynolds as Bubba Claus and dozens of state patrol cars crashing into each other.

8. Bubba Claus doesn't wear a belt. If I were you, I'd make sure you, the wife, and the kids turn the other way when he bends over to put presents under the tree.  
 
9. And finally, lovely Christmas songs have been sung about me like "Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer" and Bing Crosby's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." This year songs about Bubba Claus will be played on all the AM radio stations in the South. Those song title will be Mark Chesnutt's "Bubba Claus Shot the Jukebox"; Cledus T. Judd's "All I Want for Christmas Is My Woman and a Six Pack", and Hank Williams Jr.'s "If You Don't Like Bubba Claus, You Can Shove It."

Sincerely Yours,
Santa Claus (member of North American Fairies and Elves Local 209)

Forwarded by Barb Hessell

Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose." - Ronald Reagan

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan

"Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong." - Ronald Reagan

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandment's would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress." - Ronald Reagan

"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." - Ronald Reagan

"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." - Ronald Reagan

"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." - Ronald Reagan

"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." - Ronald Reagan

"I've laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: no matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting." - Ronald Reagan

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first." - Ronald Reagan

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." - Ronald Reagan

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book." - Ronald Reagan

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. - Ronald Reagan

Note from Jensen
See the new book (with audio CDs) entitled Reagan's Reach to Victory ---  http://www.nrbookservice.com/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6555 


Forwarded by Betty Carper

Buying gifts for men isn't nearly as complicated as it is for women.  So, don't worry, this timely list of rules will answer all your gift-giving questions for the men on your list.

Rule #1 When in doubt, buy him a cordless drill. It does not matter if he already has one. I have a friend who owns 17 and he is yet to complain. As a man, you can never have too many cordless drills. No one knows why.


Rule #2 If you cannot afford a cordless drill, buy him anything with the word ratchet or socket in it. Men love saying those two words. "Hey, George, can I borrow your ratchet?" "Sure.  By the way, are you through with my 3/8" socket?" Again, no one knows why. 

Rule #3 If you are really, really broke, buy him anything for his car. A 99-cent ice scraper, a small bottle of de-icer, or something to hang from his rear view mirror. Men love gifts for their car. No one knows why. 

Rule #4 Do not buy men socks.  Do not buy men ties.  And never buy men bathrobes. I was told that if men were supposed to wear bathrobes, jockey shorts would not have been invented. 

Rule #5 You can buy men new remote controls to replace the ones they have worn out. If you have a lot of money, buy the man on your list a big screen TV with the little picture in the corner. Watch him go wild as he flips and flips and flips. Forget the program - your entertainment will be watching him have fun! 

Rule #6 Do not buy any man industrial-sized canisters of after shave or cologne. Men believe they do not smell - they are earthy. No one knows why. 

Rule #7 Buy men label makers.  They're almost as good as cordless drills. Within a couple of weeks, there will be labels absolutely everywhere. "Socks.  Shorts.  Cups.  Saucers.  Door.  Lock.  Sink." You get the idea. No one knows why. 

Rule #8 Never buy a man anything and then tell him he should read the instructions because the box says, "Some assembly required." It will ruin his special day. He will always have parts left over. No one knows why. 

Rule #9 Good places to shop for men include: Home Depot, Lowe's, Parr Lumber, John Deere, Valley RV Center and Goodyear Tire. Napa Auto Parts and Sear's Clearance Center are also excellent men's stores. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know what it is. "From Napa Auto, eh?  Must be something I need.  Hey!  Isn't this a starter for a '68 Ford Fairlane?  Wow!  Thanks!" 

Rule #10 Men enjoy danger.  That's why they never cook, but love to barbeque. Get him a monster barbeque with a 100 pound propane tank. Tell him the gas line leaks. Oh the thrill!  The challenge! 

Rule #11 Tickets to any NFL football game is a smart gift. However, he will not appreciate tickets to "A Retrospective of 19th Century Quilts." Everyone knows why.

Rule #12 Men love chain saws. Never, ever, buy a man you love a chain saw. If you don't know why, refer to rule #7  (remember what happens with a label maker?) 

Rule #13 It's hard to beat a really good wheelbarrow or aluminum extension ladder. Never buy a real man a stepladder.  It must be an 'extension' ladder. No one knows why. 

Rule #14 Rope. Men love rope. It takes us back to our cowboy origins, or at least the Boy Scouts. Nothing says "I love you" like a hundred feet of 3/8" manila rope. No one knows why. 

Rule #15 In lieu of good rope, consider getting him a heavy-duty extension cord. It should be at least 75-100 feet, and it must be either bright yellow or international orange. He'll use it for everything, even if the job is only 10 feet from the power outlet. No one knows why. 

Enjoy your shopping

 


Tasteless Jokes (But some of them are funny) --- http://www.jokes2go.com/04/12/j27.html 

One of them is “priceless.”


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Toilet Seat

It isn't widely known, but the first toilet seat was invented by a Polish scientist in the 18th century. The invention was later modified by a Jewish inventor who put a hole in the seat.

Ten Commandments
 
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse!
You cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" and "Thou Shalt Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians! It creates a hostile work environment.
Zero Gravity
 
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a
pen that writes in zero gravity, upside-down, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 C.
The Russians used a pencil. Your taxes are due again--enjoy paying them.
Our Constitution
"They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and hell, we're not using it anymore."

 


2005

In the year which now begins, may you get a clean bill of health from your dentist, your cardiologist, your gastroenterologist, your urologist, your podiatrist, your psychiatrist, your plumber and the I.R.S.

May your hair, your teeth, your face-lift and your stocks not fall; and may your blood pressure, your triglycerides and your cholesterol not rise.

May you find a way to travel from anywhere to anywhere in rush hour in less than an hour, and when you get there may you find a parking space.

May you have good friends, including a doctor who keeps you out of the hospital, a lawyer who keeps you out of court, and an accountant who keeps you out pf jail.

May you remember to say "I love you" at least once a day to your spouse, your child, your parent; but not to your secretary, your nurse, your masseuse or your hair dresser.

May we discover civilized life in the heavens, and may we also discover civilized life on Earth.

And may you be aware of God's love in every sunset, every flower's unfolding petals, every baby's smile, every human act of kindness, every lover's kiss, and every wonderful, astonishing, miraculous beat of your heart.

And peace on Earth.   

Love, Bev

 


Forwarded by Betty Carper

Kid's Advice to Kids

 

Never trust a dog to watch your food. - Patrick, age 10

When your dad is mad and asks you, "Do I look stupid?" don't answer. - Hannah, age 9

Never tell your mom her diet's not working. - Michael, age 14

Stay away from prunes. - Randy, age 9

When your mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair. - Taylia, age 11

Never let your three-year old brother in the same room as your school assignment. - Traci, age 14

Don't sneeze in front of mom when you're eating crackers. - Mitchell, age 12

A puppy always has bad breath - even after eating a Tic-Tac. - Andrew, age 9

Never hold a Dustbuster and a cat at the same time. - Kyoyo, age 9

You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk. - Armir, age 9

Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts. - Kellie, age 11

If you want a kitten, start out by asking for a horse. - Naomi, age 15

Felt-tip markers are not good to use as lipstick. - Lauren, age 9

Don't pick on your sister when she's holding a baseball bat. - Joel, age 10

When you get a bad grade in school, show it to your mom when she's on the phone. - Alyesha, age 13

Never try to baptize a cat. - Eileen, age 8


Happy New Year!
Bob Jensen's headed back to "San Antone" from the land of snow to teach in Spring Semester

Sing along---yeeehawaaa!!!! --- http://www.jimspages.com/SAR.html 

Deep within my heart lies a melody A song of old San Antone Where in dreams I live with a memory Beneath the stars all alone

It was there I found beside the Alamo Enchantment strange as the blue up above A moonlit pass that only she would know Still hears my broken song of love

Moon in all your splendor hear only my heart Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone Lips so sweet and tender like petals falling apart Speak once again of my love, my own

Broken song, empty words I know Still live in my heart all alone For the moonlit pass by the Alamo And Rose, my Rose of San Antone

Moon in all your splendor hear only my heart Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone Lips so sweet and tender like petals falling apart Speak once again of my love, my own

Broken song, empty words I know Still live in my heart all alone For the moonlit pass by the Alamo And Rose, my Rose of San Antone My Rose, My Rose of San Antone


Forwarded by Dick Wolff

Politically Correct Holiday Greetings:

From us ("the wishors") to you ("the wishee"), please accept without obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

We wish you a financially successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2005, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects, and having regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, or choice of computer platform of the wishee.

 

By accepting this greeting you are bound by these terms that:

1.This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal.

2.This greeting is freely transferable provided that no alteration shall be made to the original greeting and that the proprietary rights of the wishor are acknowledged.

3.This greeting implies no promise by the wishor to actually implement the inferences contained in this correspondence.

4.This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishes in certain geographical locations.

5.This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably as may be expected within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first.

6.The wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor.

PS: A whole new team of lawyers revised two words of this official greeting for 2005 from 2004 but as yet, we are unable to determine which two they were. The invoice of billable hours did not specify and the paralegal said it would take an additional 4 hours to research it. Please accept this Happy New Year wish as is.

 


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

An Appropriate New Year Sentiment

 I had no Christmas spirit when I breathed a weary sigh,
 And looked across the table where the bills were piled too high.
 The laundry wasn't finished and the car I had to fix,
 My stocks were down another point, the Dolphins lost by six.

 And so with only minutes till my son got home from school
 I gave up on the drudgery and grabbed a wooden stool.
 The burdens that I carried were about all I could take,
 And so I flipped the TV on to catch a little break.

 I came upon a desert scene in shades of tan and rust,
 No snowflakes hung upon the wind, just clouds of swirling dust.
 And where the reindeer should have stood before a laden sleigh,
 Eight Hummers ran a column right behind an M1A.

 A group of boys walked past the tank, not one was past his teens.
 Their eyes were hard as polished flint, their faces drawn and lean.
 They walked the street in armor with their rifles shouldered tight,
 Their dearest wish for Christmas, just to have a silent night.

 Other soldiers gathered, hunkered down against the wind,
 To share a scrap of mail and dreams of going home again.
 There wasn't much at all to put their lonely hearts at ease,
 They had no Christmas turkey, just a pack of MREs.

 They didn't have a garland or a stocking I could see,
 They didn't need an ornament-- they lacked a Christmas Tree.
 They didn't have a present even though it was tradition,
 the only boxes I could see were labeled "ammunition."

 I felt a little tug and found my son now by my side,
 He asked me what it was I feared, and why it was I cried.
 I swept him up into my arms and held him oh so near
 and kissed him on the forehead as I whispered in his ear.

 There's nothing wrong my little son, for safe we sleep tonight,
 Our heroes stand on foreign land to give us all the right,
 To worry on the things in life that mean nothing at all,
 Instead of wondering if we will be the next to fall.

 He looked at me as children do and said its always right,
 to thank the ones who help us and perhaps that we should write.
 And so we pushed aside the bills and sat to draft a note,
 to thank the many far from home, and this is what we wrote:

 God Bless You all and keep you safe, and speed your way back home.
 Remember that we love you so, and that you're not alone.
 The gift you give you share with all, a present every day,
 You give the gift of liberty and that we can't repay.

Michael Mark s claims authorship of in December 2003 --- 
http://www.iwvpa.net/marksm/the_sand.htm


Questions
What is the meaning of Auld Lang Syne? 
What is the origin of this famous song for New Year's eve tears and smiles?

a. Austria
b. Australia
c. Germany
d. Ireland
e. Scotland

Answers
Auld Lang Syne means ”bygone distant times”: or ” more loosely "bygone days and friends" or "good times past"
Auld means old or bygone or former
Lang means long or distant
Syne means times
Langsyne means distant times

The famous song Auld Lang Syne originated in Scotland --- http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_syne.htm 

Meaning of unusual words:
Auld lang syne = Former days and friends
jo = dear
stowp = tankard
gowans = daisies
braid = broad
Guid-willie waught = friendly draught

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

Chorus:
For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

And surely you'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine,
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne!

Chorus

We twa hae ran about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine,
But we've wander'd monie a weary fit
Sin' auld lang syne.

Chorus

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn
Frae morning sun til dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.

Chorus

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine,
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught
For auld lang syne!

Happy New Year to each and every one of you!




And that's the way it was on January 5, 2005 with a little help from my friends.

 

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 

Jesse's Wonderful Music for Romantics (You have to scroll down to the titles) --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/

Free Harvard Classics --- http://www.bartleby.com/hc/
Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

 

I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor (an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) --- www.FinanceProfessor.com 

 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting newsletters are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#News 

News Headlines for Accounting from TheCycles.com --- http://www.thecycles.com/business/accounting 
An unbelievable number of other news headlines categories in TheCycles.com are at http://www.thecycles.com/ 

 

Jack Anderson's Accounting Information Finder --- http://www.umsl.edu/~anderson/accsites.htm

 

Gerald Trite's great set of links --- http://www.zorba.ca/bookmark.htm 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

The Finance Professor --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/about/aboutFP.html 

 

Walt Mossberg's many answers to questions in technology --- http://ptech.wsj.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Household and Other Heloise-Style Hints --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#Hints 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

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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Bob Jensen's homepage is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ 

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