Tidbits on March 6, 2006
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 
Archives of Tidbits: Tidbits Directory --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Bob Jensen's various threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
       (Also scroll down to the table at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )

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/.

Internet News (The News Show) --- http://www.thenewsshow.tv/daily/

Bob Jensen's home page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

Security threats and hoaxes --- http://www.trinity.edu/its/virus/

25 Hottest Urban Legends (hoaxes) --- http://www.snopes.com/info/top25uls.asp 
Hoax Busters --- http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ 
Stay up on the latest and the oldest hoaxes --- http://www.snopes.com/

Most Popular Web Sites 2006 - 2007 --- http://www.webtrafficstation.com/directory/
WebbieWorld Picks --- http://www.webbieworld.com/default.asp

Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Videos from Suicide Bombers
Suicide bomber videos: Footage of hate Farewell message: 'There is no blood better than the blood of Jews'
WorldNet Daily, March 2, 2006 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49085

Quail Hunting School (forwarded by Paula) --- http://www.quailhuntingschool.com/flash.php

"Searching the Web for Video Clips" by Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114117478467285971.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

From Opinion Journal on February 28, 2006
In an item yesterday on "Tom and Jerry," we mentioned "The Ducktators," a 1942 Looney Tunes short depicting an anatine Hitler and an anserine Mussolini. It turns out a video (albeit of rather poor quality) is available through Google; click here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1633673673225697900  

The Blogging Heads --- http://bloggingheads.tv/?id=64&cid=187

Information Week news (in audio) and Windows Vista security (in video) --- http://www.informationweek.com/

Exploring Space: The Quest for Life (from PBS) --- http://www.pbs.org/exploringspace/

Remember This One? (turn your speakers up)
Do Your Own Damn Taxes Video (music from Frank Sinatra) --- http://www.doyourdamntaxes.com/ 

Free music downloads --- --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

My Time on Earth --- http://www.goodolddogs.com/mytime.html

From NPR
Jenny Lewis: Questioning God on 'Rabbit Fur Coat' --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5228500

God Bless America Again --- http://www.goodolddogs3.com/God-Bless-America-Again.html

From NPR
Singing of New Orleans, Past and Future --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5237133

Mississippi Squirrel Revival --- http://mywebpages.comcast.net/singingman7777/MSR2.htm

Photographs and Art

From NPR
The Decline of the Black Farmer --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5230129

Girodet: Romantic Rebel --- http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/girodet/

Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

America:  Why I Love Her by John Mitchum--- http://www.goodolddogs.com/America_WhyILoveHer.html

Poems by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) --- Click Here

Digital Orchid Library from Michigan State University --- http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/orchids/

Poetry Foundation (probably the wealthiest of the foundations) --- http://www.poetryfoundation.org

The Lotus Eater by W. Somerset Maugham --- http://shortstory.byethost6.com/maughamlotus.html
Other short stories by Maugham --- http://shortstory.byethost6.com/

Short Story Classics --- http://shortstory.byethost6.com/

E.L. Doctorow links in the Scout Report on February 24, 2006

E.L. Doctorow wins PEN/Faulkner Award Doctorow’s ‘The March’ Wins Top Honor --- Click Here

NPR: E.L. Doctorow on Sherman and ‘The March’ --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4964601

2006 PEN/Faulkner Winners --- http://penfaulkner.org/winners.htm

Wired for Books: Audio Interview with E.L. Doctorow --- http://wiredforbooks.org/eldoctorow/

Jensen Comment
Professor Mansfield has been a long-standing critic of grade inflation at Harvard University. To read more about his articles on this go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation
 

Question
Increasingly I am receiving requests from teachers and students in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere around the world. Often they are asking some very basic accounting and finance questions.  What are the most efficient ways to help them with these basic, and sometimes advanced, questions?

Answer from Bob Jensen
As most of you know, my Web documents and multimedia tutorials on two servers have become huge. Even I have finding my own stuff unless I use Google in search of my own deeply embedded modules. Most of my tutorials and other helpers in accounting and finance were written for my graduate students and my off-campus audiences in my traveling dog an pony shows. Unfortunately I do not have Web documents for elementary tutorials. And at the advanced level, there are many topics that I have not covered in tutorials.

How do I help with things that I've not covered in my tutorials? It finally dawned on me to check for Wikipedia links when people write to me for help. You might consider this same approach to save time when trying to help people who make inquiries around the world. When people write to me for help with basic concepts, I now check the quantity and quality of what has been written about these concepts in Wikipedia. The Wikipedia modules are often very good, often better than my tutorial would have been if I took the trouble to write my answers to the hundreds of inquiries I receive from around the world.

My skill in helping others has largely been in knowing what terms or sub-terms to search for on the Web. Now I use these skills to first search for Wikipedia modules. Then I do a search for other helpers that I can find in my own sites and in other sites on the Web. But first I check on Wikipedia for explanations and links  --- http://www.wikipedia.org/

By way of an illustration, I recently received an email from an accounting teacher in a developing country. He/she asked some very basic questions. A sample of part of my long reply to this teacher is shown below:

• You can read about common stock at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Stock

• You can read about preferred stock at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_Stock

• You can read about debt at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt

• You can read about cost of capital at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_capital

• You can read about Risk Premium at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_premium#Finance

• You can read about CAPM at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Asset_Pricing_Model

• You can read about option pricing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_pricing

People often ask why I've poured thousands of hours in developing my accounting and finance tutorials that I share with the world on two Web servers. Answering inquiries from teachers, students, reporters, practitioners, and others has become my great joy in life. But since I receive hundreds and hundreds of inquiries I must resort to efficiency measures. My main efficiency measures are as follows:
 

1. Put as much of you own stuff, documents, audio, and video, as possible on your Web servers so that you can simply point to research and other answers that you’ve previously prepared. Sometimes new inquiries inspire me to improve my tutorials.
    
2. Some of the people who might contact you do not even have a textbook on the subject. Try to recommend free textbooks that can be downloaded from the Web. Some examples are given at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
    
3. Learn the sites on the Web that provide a lot of great answers, particularly the Wikipedia site. Unfortunately I've been negligent in improving Wikipedia modules and creating new modules. Perhaps I will find time to this after I've retired on May 13, 2006.
    
4. Belong to listservs and forums of specialists who are willing to answer questions that you yourself cannot answer. I've been blessed with some of these, notably one called the AECM.

It will make you feel good to help strangers who send you questions about technical issues in your craft. Try to help these people in need, but you must become efficient in providing high quality answers. And by all means admit your own ignorance when you cannot answer something. Don't try to waste their time by pretending or getting them lost in technical documents only remotely related to the questions raise.

Question
Is Byetta a weight loss miracle for diabetics?

"A Ray of Hope for Diabetics," by Alex Berenson, The New York Times, March 2, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/business/02drug.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The users call the drug Lizzie, the Big Brother or sometimes Gilly. On blogs they rave over its uncanny ability to melt away pounds, although some are wary of its side effects, which can include nausea and strange welts.

The users are not fad dieters or methamphetamine addicts, but people with diabetes. And the subject of their rhapsodies is not a gray-market diet pill sold on late-night television but Byetta, a federally approved diabetes medicine, available only by prescription, whose popularity and sales have soared since its introduction last June.

For diabetics, the weight loss caused by Byetta comes as a welcome contrast to the weight gain that often accompanies insulin and other diabetes medicines; the extra pounds can eventually worsen the disease. Some patients say Byetta has reversed the course of a disease that can lead to severe complications like amputations, blindness and kidney failure and even death.

Continued in article

Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/

Latest Headlines --- March 5, 2006

• In a Bad Mood? Eat Your Fish
• Weighty Fix for Women's Midlife Fat
• Spousal Spats: Bad for the Heart?
• Yoga May Help Teens Lose Extra Weight
• Mantras May Help Cut Stress
• Noni Juice: Can It Lower Cholesterol?
• New Vaccine May Cut Ear Infections
• RSS WebMD Health News

Question
What really fueled Hitler's regime? Hitler's Bank Bares Its Dark Past

Dresdner's self-financed study reveals that greed rather than ideology inspired its zealous support for the regime, even to helping build Auschwitz. There's no way to put a positive spin on German industry's collaboration with the Nazi regime before and during World War II, so Dresdner Bank Chief Executive Herbert Walter didn't try. Presenting the results of an independent study of Dresdner's role in the Holocaust, Walter admitted: "It confronts us with bitter historical truths. We accept these truths, even when they are painful."
Jack Ewing, "Hitler's Bank Bares Its Dark Past:  Hitler's Bank Bares Its Dark Past," Business Week, February 22, 2006 --- Click Here

Painful is hardly a strong enough word. According to the study by a team of historians from German universities, Dresdner functioned as the house bank to Hitler's Schutzstaffel (SS), lending more money than any other bank to the organization that was at the forefront of the most ghastly atrocities. Dresdner, co-founded by Eugen Gutmann, who was Jewish, quickly expelled its Jewish employees after the Nazi takeover and arbitrarily cut the pension payments of Jewish retirees. The bank even owned a stake in the construction company that built the crematorium at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

It has become almost a ritual for big German companies to finance detailed studies of their Nazi collaboration. Volkswagen, DaimlerChrysler (DCX ), Siemens (SI ), and even menswear maker Hugo Boss (HUGSF ) have owned up to their histories. Part of the motivation may be genuine remorse, but companies also have learned that attempts to spin history can backfire.

MONEY MOTIVE
Bertelsmann suffered severe embarrassment in 1998 when a German journalist, Hersch Fischler, punctured the myth that the Gütersloh-based media giant had resisted the Nazis and suffered a shutdown of its book-publishing business as a result. In fact, the company later conceded, Bertelsmann had profited handsomely from supplying morale-building books to German troops and was shut down near the end of the war only to save paper.

Since then, companies have learned that it's better to confront the past themselves than to wait for an enterprising historian or journalist to do so. The self-examination is a prerequisite to being a global player from Germany. "Apparently, they expect to be more involved in the global community in the next decade. They want to start in a clear position," says Cees B.M. van Riel, a professor who teaches corporate communications at RSM Erasmus University business school in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

As Walter conceded in a statement, Dresdner suppressed its own history until the mid-1990s when, under pressure from critics, it commissioned the study. Dresdner's close ties to top Nazis were already well-known; Chief Executive Karl Rasche, an SS member, was tried and sentenced to a prison term at Nuremberg.

But the study makes clear that Dresdner's wartime culpability was much deeper, and the motive was money rather than politics or Nazi pressure. The bank "took advantage of all the business opportunities opened up by the aggressive and racist policies of the Third Reich," study co-author Johannes Bähr concludes.

OVERZEALOUS COOPERATION
Despite the bank's own Jewish origins, it played a key role in the persecution of German Jews, according to the study. After Jewish employees were expelled in 1933, Dresdner exceeded even Nazi race laws in cutting their pensions or severance payments. As Jewish businesses were being "Aryanized," the bank hired thuggish "business consultants" to intimidate owners and seize control.

After the war began, bank executives knew early on about crimes taking place in concentration camps, according to the study. Dresdner provided banking services to numerous SS facilities. The bank was a major shareholder in a construction company, based in Breslau (now the Polish city of Wroclaw), which built crematoriums at the Auschwitz death camp. "Particularly in the case of its most reprehensible activities, the bank could have operated differently," Bähr writes.

Continued in article

Everybody Should Read This:  Evil Doers of the Future Extend Well Beyond Islamic Fundamentalists
Extremism, Terror, and the Future of Conflict
By Michael J. Mazarr Michael J. Mazarr is professor of national security strategies at the U.S. National War College and adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the policy or position of the U.S. government or the National Defense University.

Hoover Institution's Policy Review, March 2006 --- http://www.policyreview.org/000/mazarr.html

When they briefly stated an intention to begin referring to a “global struggle against violent extremism,” certain officials in the Bush administration did more than implicitly acknowledge the vacuity of the idea of a “global war on terror.” They hinted, however obliquely, at something far more profound: a radical shift in the nature of conflict, what it means to be “at war.” From traditional notions of armies fighting armies in vast confrontations, the new concept seems to imply, the warfare of the future will look very different — twilight struggles against non-state networks of evildoers. This notion mirrors an emerging...

II he theory of war that undergirds realpolitik is straightforward. For thousands of years, warfare has meant a clash of wills between opposing military forces on the field of battle, from which one side usually (though not always) emerged as a recognizable winner. The causes of such wars were the combination of an anarchic system of self-help that opened the way for aggressive and imperialistic campaigns of conquest, bitter competitions over scarce resources, escalating mutual security fears, and misperception and miscalculation. Conducting war meant the mobilization of resources and military units to defeat enemy forces in the field. It is from this basic concept — states at war employing organized military units — that most of the hallmarks of modern military science flow: the moral and physical clash of wills; the role of the decisive battle in a campaign; and the endless search for the enemy’s “center of gravity” and the “culminating point” of a conflict. But we have been moving away from this paradigm for some time.2 Centuries ago, military forces were very nearly divorced from the societies on behalf of whom they fought: crowds of adventurers out at the frontier and beyond, staging highly ritualized über-duels on grassy plains, while the home society went on farming and hunting and carpentering. To be sure, these armies would affect the surrounding societies in profound ways: They would recruit or dragoon young men who otherwise would be farming or cobbling; they would pillage the surrounding landscape as they passed through it; and they would sometimes draw abundant camp-following crowds. But the basic model was one of a quasi-independent army marching off to find its counterpart and slaughter it. Even by Napoleonic times, armies remained remarkably separable from their peoples, grand militarized playthings moving around the chessboard of strategy. And playthings they were, because armies and navies were the instruments of their leaders — sometimes individual kings or tyrants, sometimes collective groups, but always leaders in search of some self-defined material end, the governing power goal of realpolitik. Philip of Macedon could decide that the time had come to unify the Greek city-states, and off went his army to battle. The Romans could elect to subjugate yet another frontier people, and the legions gathered up their equipment. Kings and princes in early modern Europe, reflecting perhaps the apotheosis of this practice, marshaled bands of expensive knights and attendants in what looks to modern eyes almost like an elaborate game. Even when wars emerged without clear power-seeking intent, issues of security dilemmas and power rivalries always hung about the proceedings. In such a context, the enemy’s forces in the field embodied very nearly the entirety of the conflict. When they were destroyed, the enemy was vanquished. What “the people” thought about it, hacking away at their farms a thousand miles from the battlefield (or even right next door to it), usually had little or no bearing on the outcome — except when especially reckless leaders bankrupted the home front to such a degree that they were overthrown while on campaign. Even when forces became nimbler and strategy emphasized moving between, around, and behind an enemy to get at his capital or his industrial heartland, these supposedly indirect strategies mostly ended up in force-on-force butchery. In its actual practice (as distinct from its consequences, which frequently transformed societies from the roots up), then, war stood apart from society, independent, self-regarding. Warfare was armies against armies, and when it became something more than that — the destruction of whole societies, for example — it remained largely in service of the narrower goal: to cripple the enemy’s military instrument, and thus compel his surrender. The character of war in this theory was fierce and brutal, built as it was around the organized employment of violence to break an enemy military’s will.3 All of this made sense in a world governed by the doctrine of realpolitik. From Thucydides onward, the concepts of a realist approach to world politics were clear enough: States sought power; there was no world authority to govern the resulting conflict; stronger states took what they could, weaker ones succumbed or hid under the protective umbrella of alliances. Above all, military power and the diplomatic and political influence that flowed from it was the coin of the realm for the players in the international game, the sine qua non in whose absence no other state powers or goals could be reliably sustained. For centuries, perhaps millennia — from the Peloponnesian War through the German advocates of machtpolitik — this situation was not only admitted, it was frequently celebrated. The world was a great Darwinistic struggle and courageous peoples sought power and used it. Warfare was welcomed as a means of stiffening national character and a route to glory for individuals and cultures alike — a perverse notion that, sadly, has not quite been put to rest.4 Later, British and American realists mourned the reality of power politics and warned against imperial expansion, but pronounced both of them unavoidable given the twin natures of world politics and human nature. Either way, as a positive doctrine or an empirical analysis, realism spoke to a world governed by unconstrained power rivalries, tragic misunderstandings, and, ultimately, force-on-force military confrontations.   III ith this background, it becomes clear that one claimed shift in the nature of war does not, in fact, describe any change at all. It goes under the current name of “transformation,” but even the concept is hardly new. Transformation is the child of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) — itself a grandson of maneuver warfare and blitzkrieg, which have their roots in the renewal of strategic thought following the First World War. As one analyst explains it, attrition warfare (an especially slaughterous variant of the canonical force-on-force style) aspired to the annihilation of enemy forces. Maneuver warfare targets the coherence of the adversary’s combat systems, methods, and plans. The hope is that a very selective action can have a cascading effect — an effect disproportionately greater than the degree of effort. An analogy from architecture would be the removal or destruction of the keystone of an arch . . . the removal of which disrupts the stability of the system, resulting in its destruction.5 But the “system” is still the enemy military capability. Maneuver warfare is just a more elegant way of dealing with the usual force-on-force confrontation. And so are its descendants. The Soviet theorists of the “military-technical revolution” — who were themselves influenced by American writings, and whose concepts Americans then translated into the RMA — were interested in more or less the same things as the German blitzkriegers: slicing up, destabilizing, and defeating enemy forces, only this time with weapons energized by a revolution in microelectronics, computing power, precision strike, and automation. Radical new concepts of command and control, “networked” organizations, “information dominance” — this and much else on the Defense Department’s transformation menu — therefore reflects the latest and most efficient elaboration of the principles of maneuver warfare. Some of the documents of the Office of Force Transformation point to a broader agenda,6 but if we look at the practical efforts of the Defense Department — where its budget goes, what its troops are trained to do, how its operations are conducted — the emphasis remains stubbornly on the force-on-force route to military victory. The primary modernization agendas of the services today speak to the same deep-rooted goal: finding tanks, planes, ships, and people that belong to the enemy and making them explode. Transformation advocates have grown dextrous in the use of bold terms. They call the whole enterprise “network-centric warfare” and speak of “information superiority” and “shared awareness.” They refer to “systems of systems” and “linked platforms of sensors, shooters and commanders in seamless webs,” and talk of the increased speed and greater lethality with which military operations will now operate.7 But whatever the language, network-centric warfare reflects principles that have governed force-on-force warfare for centuries: Rapid, effective command and control that allows you to get inside an enemy’s “decision loop” has been the goal of the great captains of history for centuries; precision-guided weapons are just the latest and most effective effort to hit enemy forces as accurately as possible. Some elements of the transformation agenda speak to so-called “information warfare.”8 Like notions of transformation and “network-centric warfare,” accounts of information warfare generally say very little about what the thing actually is.9 Some writers have used the term “cyberwar,” by which they appear to mean the by now conventional idea that warring powers will try to destroy the computer systems of their opponents.10 One account points to the rise of domains that do not require physical force to attack, and the resulting extension of warfare “beyond the traditional military realm.”11 This is not the first time military strategists have pointed to the potential of new technologies to overcome age-old truths about war. Yet Clausewitz wrote the epitaph of “perfect information dominance” some time back: fog and friction. There will never be sensors numerous, accurate, or reliable enough to create a perfect information picture. There will never be information architectures capable of sharing the resulting information widely, perfectly, or quickly enough to allow forces in the field to rely on it.12 As partial evidence, we have a number of recent examples. In Kosovo, the Serbs managed to accomplish a vast amount of movement and operations without NATO knowledge.13 In the Iraq War, despite the full-scale application of sensor and communications technologies greatly more advanced than those of Operation Desert Storm, the most frequent military engagement may have been the venerable “movement to contact” — steaming ahead until you encounter the enemy, then groping your way around the battlefield until you find the right tactical answer for him. The Third Armored Division famously stumbled into the biggest conventional battle of the war without advance warning. Iraqi commanders were able to move huge units around the battlefield without being seen or detected, until more Americans on “movement to contact” orders plowed into them. The immense success of the U.S. and allied drive to Baghdad was far more a product of the tactical skill of middle-level U.S. commanders than it was a victory for sensors and “network-centric operations.”   IV t is hardly surprising that all of this transformational and network-centric jargon would add up to so little in the way of truly new theories of warfare. These concepts are all about tactics and implementation; they have nothing to say about the causes of war, or the strategic implications of those causes. From a definitional standpoint, there are at least three concepts at work in any discussion of “warfare.”14 First is the character of battle — the clash of arms where one army physically meets another. This is the meeting point that generates statements about the “unchanging nature of war” — violence, blood, courage, willpower, and so forth. At a second level we find the form of warfare, the tactics and operational art governing units in battle — infantry war versus blitzkrieg, insurgency versus classical force-on-force duels. Whereas the character of battle may be eternal, the form of warfare constantly evolves, responding to new technologies, new tactics, and new social organizations. But then we come, finally and most fundamentally, to the nature of conflict. This is the highest strategic level of analysis and deals with the causes and character of severe political-military-socioeconomic disputes in the international system. International conflict generates the context for warfare, but also much else — Schellingesque bargaining games, coercive diplomacy, deception and artful dodges short of warfare and battle. Continued in article

Jensen Comment
What frightens me is the possible breakdown in confidence that our nation states can protect us. This may give rise to an explosion of militias with war lord mentalities. The becomes much more frightening with the possible availability of cheap dirty bombs and biological weapons.

Bob Jensen's threads on the "Evil Empire" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm

Nancy's latest scars from constituency spurs in her side (see "shout down" highlighted below)
San Francisco leaders have passed a resolution calling for President Bush’s impeachment on the accounts of bringing the country into war, sanctioning torture, spying on citizens and bungling the response to Hurricane Katrina. Members of the city’s board of supervisors have asked Congress to conduct a complete investigation of the administration's purported transgressions and hold offenders accountable with criminal prosecution or impeachment.
Joanna Wypior, "San Francisco Leaders Calling For Bush’s Impeachment," All Headline News, March 5, 2006 --- http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7002653797

Jon Stewart's "Donkey Show"
Normally I'm not a big fan of Jon Stewart, but I left The Daily Show on tonight while I worked on a couple of other tasks. Stewart reviewed the pandering done by Hillary Clinton and Ray Nagin yesterday, as well as the shout down Nancy Pelosi received on Saturday when she (rationally) suggested to her constituency that their concerns on the war would best be addressed electorally in 2006 during a visit to San Francisco. At the end of the segment, titled "Donkey Show", Stewart noted this: So the Democratic platform appears to be ... Democrats are our government's slaves [Hillary added to graphic] ... New Orleans can't be rebuilt without Willy Wonka [Nagin added to graphic] ... and voting (to surrender in Iraq) is for pussies [Pelosi added to graphic]. Good luck in 2006, everybody!
Captain Ed, Captain's Quarters, January 16, 2006 --- http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006173.php 
Jensen Comment
Latest Jon Stewart Videos --- http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml
Jon Stewart Comedy Central Homepage --- http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml
Jon Stewart Intelligence Page --- http://www.jonstewart.net/

San Francisco and India Have One Thing in Common: 
They will both fumigate after a visit by President Bush
Hindu priests who look after the memorial of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi conducted a purification ceremony at the shrine after a visit from President Bush. But it wasn't the president who offended them, it was the sniffer-dogs who scoured the area ahead of his visit. After the dog visit, the memorial was cleansed with water brought from the Ganges river, which Hindus consider holy, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported Sunday.
"Priests Purify Shrine After Bush Visit," ABC News, March 5, 2006 ---
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1688828&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Why linking pay to stock prices is liable to do more harm than good

"Why Rules Can't Stop Executive Greed," by Daniel Akst, The New York Times, March 5, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/business/yourmoney/05cont.html

In the arena of executive compensation, two recent developments stand out against the backdrop of continuing looting. First, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced plans to make corporations more fully disclose executive pay. Second, a study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting found that more companies were imposing performance targets on the stock and options they granted to C.E.O.'s.

To the uninitiated, these events may suggest that some moderation is in the offing, but ultimately neither will help much. Any benefit from shining the cleansing light of day on executive greed will probably be outweighed by the inflationary effect of additional disclosure, which will provide more ammunition for executives and consultants seeking to justify additional increases. They have to keep up with the Joneses, they'll say.

Tying pay more firmly to performance won't help, either. Boards will find ways around the requirements if performance isn't up to snuff, and they will continue to bid irrationally for unduly coveted executives.

As Rakesh Khurana showed in his insightful book, "Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic C.E.O.'s" (Princeton University Press, 2002), there is a much wider pool of potential chief executives than soaring pay levels would seem to imply. But companies insist on bidding for a savior, not a capable leader who knows the business at hand, which may be why typical C.E.O. tenures are now so short. Even in the boardroom, charisma carries you only so far.

Indeed, linking pay to stock prices is liable to do more harm than good. A stock price isn't much of a measure of executive performance, anyway. A huge part of that price reflects industry conditions; energy companies soared not because they were run by paragons of diligence or insight, but because of world events beyond any executive's control. In hard times, moreover, a company's stock may take a hit, but those are precisely the times when good leadership is most difficult — and valuable.

Other performance metrics can be equally troublesome, encouraging executives to massage earnings, sacrifice long-term strength for higher short-term sales and profits and otherwise act in ways detrimental to everyone but the C.E.O., his family and a few lucky divorce lawyers.

Perverse incentives notwithstanding, this focus on metrics is a sad acknowledgment by corporate directors that they cannot control themselves or the pay they hand over to their top five executives. In one study, two professors, Lucian A. Bebchuk of Harvard and Yaniv Grinstein of Cornell, found that from 2001 to 2003, such pay totaled roughly 10 percent of corporate profits at public companies. It's a bizarre twist on the tradition of tithing, one that benefits the rich instead of the needy and conscripts America's shareholders as involuntary donors.

Although more disclosure and pay-for-performance requirements won't dampen runaway C.E.O. compensation, both are useful for illustrating a larger lesson: that it's naïve to place too much faith in the power of rules to limit human behavior. Indeed, the problem of C.E.O. compensation suggests that, as in many aspects of modern life, few mechanisms of constraint are as effective as one on which we relied so often in the past. That mechanism was shame.

You'd think that more disclosure would produce more shame, and thus less pay, for C.E.O.'s and other top executives. Unfortunately, disclosure of a few more million here and there won't fundamentally change a hiring system that actively recruits the most grasping and hubristic candidates. Consider the incentives: by offering lavish pay and perks that would make royalty blush, corporate directors today are perhaps unwittingly selecting C.E.O.'s for shamelessness and egotism rather than leadership.

HISTORY teaches that there is no ultimate solution to the so-called agency problem, or the tendency of those who merely work in an enterprise to act in their own interest rather than that of the owners. Rules and incentives can help, of course, but they cannot take the place of an honest sense of obligation, duty and loyalty — values that ought to run in all directions in any decent corporate culture.

Continued in article

"The Case for Cutting the Chief's Paycheck," by William J. Holstein, The New York Times, January 29, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/business/yourmoney/29advi.html

Bob Jensen's threads on outrageous executive compensation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#OutrageousCompensation

The mice that roared!
What Jewish conspiracy is allegedly behind the historic "Tom and Jerry" cartoons and movies?

"Tom and Jerry – a Jewish makeover? Iranian official says cartoon is conspiracy to improve image of mice, Jews," WorldNetDaily, February 25, 2006 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48996 

The Jewish Walt Disney Company gained international fame with this cartoon," said Bolkhari. "It is still shown throughout the world. This cartoon maintains its status because of the cute antics of the cat and mouse – especially the mouse.

"Some say that the main reason for making this very appealing cartoon was to erase a certain derogatory term that was prevalent in Europe."

According to the professor, "Tom and Jerry" was created to irradicate the association between mice and Jews created in the minds of Europeans by Hitler.

"If you study European history, you will see who was the main power in hoarding money and wealth in the 19th century," continued Bolkhari. "In most cases, it is the Jews. Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the anti-Semitic trend, and then the extensive propaganda about the crematoria began. ... Some of this is true. We do not deny all of it.

"Watch 'Schindler's List.' Every Jew was forced to wear yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' 'Tom and Jerry' was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was 'dirty mice.'

Continued in article

March 6, 2006 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]

Bob, your tidbits this week contains the following quote under your headline "What Jewish conspiracy is allegedly behind the historic "Tom and Jerry" cartoons and movies?": "The Jewish Walt Disney Company gained international fame with this cartoon," said Bolkhari. "

But you don't comment on the blatant inaccuracies of the media report you quote. I urge my students anytime they quote a known erroneous media report to at least acknowledge the wrong information, lest they be guilty of also promulgating falsehood, and lest their credibiilty suffer by repeating false information.

First, Tom and Jerry is not a Disney cartoon. Tom and Jerry was created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joe Barbera, who later produced many other cartoons as "Hanna-Barbera". Tom and Jerry cartoons have never had any affiliation with Disney.

Second, the creators of Tom and Jerry insisted until the end of their lives that there was no political or other motive behind the cartoon beyond pure fun with animation.

Third, Disney was most certainly NOT a "Jewish" company in 1940 when the Tom and Jerry cartoons were created by Hanna- Barbera, and even more certainly not with the creation of Mickey Mouse. Walter Disney was a tyrannical manager (not necessarily a bad thing!), and kept tight control on the creative processes at the company until his death, -- and Walt Disney was ... an active Congregationalist! Not Jewish.

While the Disney company has recently had some top management with Jewish-sounding names (who possibly could even be of Jewish extraction, or even practicing Jewish religion for that matter, I just don't know and don't care), I doubt seriously that any of them are exercising near the control that Walt Disney did on the creative processes.

To quote a news media report with such glaring errors in it without calling attention to the unfactual information is to (shudder, wince) imitate the WSJ and NYT! I respect your tidbits and would hate to see them sinking to that low a level...

;-)

David Fordham

Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the foiled attack on a Saudi Arabian oil facility at Abqaiq
Aljazeera, February 25, 2006 --- Click Here
Also see The New York Times account on February 25, 2006 --- Click Here

Question
What really fueled Osama bin Laden's 9/11 attack and other more recent attacks?
In what nation can he claim his only success in winning masses of new converts?
Hint: That nation is a long distance from the Middle East.

Answer
The money mostly came from Osama bin Laden's wealth in excess of $1 billion in family money. His initial goal is to topple virtually all governments of Muslim countries. His only success purportedly has been in Indonesia. Most other Muslim nations have not demonstrated increased allegiance for Osama bin Laden, although his El Quida cells lay hidden in all Muslim nations and most Western nations as well.

Yenny Wahid is an eloquent (and elegant) foe of Muslim fundamentalists.
After 9/11, many Americans assume that the radical Islamic agenda is to destroy the U.S. The reality is that attacks on Western targets are designed to function as brutal propaganda coups that will attract recruits to the cause of violent revolution. The main goal of ideologues like Osama bin Laden is to topple the governments of Muslim countries, including, most famously, the Wahabi royal regime of Saudi Arabia. But the real strategic plum, Ms. Wahid says, would be her native Indonesia and its 220 million citizens--with the largest Muslim population on earth. "We are the ultimate target," she told me in Washington during a trip to the U.S. earlier this month. "The real battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims is happening in Indonesia, not anywhere else. And that's why the world should focus on Indonesia and help."
Nancy De Wolf Smith, "Daughter of Islam: An eloquent (and elegant) foe of Muslim fundamentalists," The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2006 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008016

Iran official says U.S. behind al-Qaeda attacks
Iran’s Interior Minister accused the United States of using its infiltrators in al-Qaeda to carry out terrorist attacks that would serve its interests, government-owned newspapers in Tehran reported on Saturday. Radical Shiite cleric Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said that Iran had “specific intelligence” proving that the U.S. had infiltrated al-Qaeda and ordered its cells to carry out terrorist attacks to convince other members of the group that they are genuine devotees. “We have specific intelligence that America has infiltrated al-Qaeda with certain individuals and has even given [its cells] the orders for terrorist strikes in order to strengthen their position”, Pour-Mohammadi told a meeting of local officials in the southern city of Kerman. He also blamed “foreigners” for being behind a spate of bombings in the south-western Iranian oil-city of Ahwaz in order to destabilise the country.
"Iran official says U.S. behind al-Qaeda attacks," Iran Focus, March 4, 2006 --- http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6067

But Wait! That's not so. Israel is behind all terrorism in the world including its secret deployment of al-Qaeda
Israel is behind all the violence in the world and is using its secret service agencies to fuel the insurgency in Iraq to direct international attention away from the Palestinian conflict, claims a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror organization. "The Israeli secret services are behind everything in the world, not only in Palestine or in Iraq. So one of the objectives would be to direct the attention of the world to Iraq instead of what is happening in [Israel],"
Abu Nasser, Al Aqsa's leader in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49110

Rahmatullah Hashemi was the Taliban's chief spokesman abroad. So how did he end up at Yale?
Why does he prefer a Jewish dining hall?

In terms of life experience, Rahmatullah is way ahead of his classmates at Yale, but he grew up fast and skipped that quintessentially collegiate phase of just hanging out and cracking jokes with friends in a dorm room
Chip Brown, "The Freshman:  Talib in Luce Hall ," The New York Times, February 26, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/magazine/26taliban.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Also see http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/fund030606.asp

Has the anti-war movement been hijacked?
Indeed, some of the major "anti-war" groups are intimately connected with terrorist states like North Korea, as well as terrorist organizations in the Middle East. Some, like the international A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition, are closely allied with known communist organizations. One prominent group discussed in the April Whistleblower advocates that activists "physically shut down financial centers which regulate and assist the functioning of U.S. economy," engage in "large-scale urban rioting" so as to cause "massive unrest and even state of emergencies declared in major cities across the country," and "actively target U.S. military establishments within the United States … [using] any means necessary to slow down the functioning of the murdering body."
"ANTI-WAR OR ANTI-AMERICA? Exposing the violent, revolutionary leadership of today's 'peace' movement,
 Whistleblower --- http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=1170 

"Black Flight The exodus to charter schools," by Katherine Kersten, The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2006 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/cc/?id=110008032

MINNEAPOLIS--Something momentous is happening here in the home of prairie populism: black flight. African-American families from the poorest neighborhoods are rapidly abandoning the district public schools, going to charter schools, and taking advantage of open enrollment at suburban public schools. Today, just around half of students who live in the city attend its district public schools.

As a result, Minneapolis schools are losing both raw numbers of students and "market share." In 1999-2000, district enrollment was about 48,000; this year, it's about 38,600. Enrollment projections predict only 33,400 in 2008. A decline in the number of families moving into the district accounts for part of the loss, as does the relocation of some minority families to inner-ring suburbs. Nevertheless, enrollments are relatively stable in the leafy, well-to-do enclave of southwest Minneapolis and the city's white ethnic northeast. But in 2003-04, black enrollment was down 7.8%, or 1,565 students. In 2004-05, black enrollment dropped another 6%.

Continued in article

Supermarkets adopt portable scanners that let shoppers total their purchases themselves --
and foil Italian elbow queens who have mastered cutting in line.

"Grocery Checkout, Italian Style," by Nicole Martinelli, Wired News, March 1, 2006 --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70282-0.html?tw=wn_index_4

If you've ever tried to stand in line in Italy, you'll understand why self-service scanning at supermarkets has taken off.

Something in the Italian character simply refuses to stand in an orderly fashion and wait. Women in fur coats park baskets near the checkout, disappear, come back and add items, and when they are done, cut in with the banshee wail: "I am in line!" For dignity's sake, one must swiftly elbow her out and hope a carabiniere husband isn't waiting in the parking lot.

Hence the appeal of quick, orderly DIY checkouts. Self-scanners have long been called the next big thing in supermarkets, but perhaps because of the hellish line situation, Inferno-familiar Italians were quick to adopt them. A Tuscan-based chain started experimenting in 1998, and two out of three supermarkets in my neighborhood in Milan had self-scanning programs before I decided to give them a try.

Continued in article

Making your food look and act more like toys
Last week, we took a look at the wonderful ways in which technology has improved our food without making it healthier or better tasting. This week, we're doing more of the same, starting with a product that will delight people who wish their toaster waffles more closely resembled plastic toys.
Lore Sjöberg, "You Can Play With Your Food," Wired News, March 1, 2006 --- http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70306-0.html?tw=wn_index_2

From The Washington Post on March 1, 2006
What year was the first television patent issued?

A. 1947
B. 1939
C. 1929
D. 1884

U.S. Is Settling Detainee's Suit in 9/11 Sweep
The federal government has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by an Egyptian who was among dozens of Muslim men swept up in the New York area after 9/11, held for months in a federal detention center in Brooklyn and deported after being cleared of links to terrorism. The settlement, filed in federal court late yesterday, is the first the government has made in a number of lawsuits charging that noncitizens were abused and their constitutional rights violated in detentions after the terror attacks.
Nina Bernstein, "U.S. Is Settling Detainee's Suit in 9/11 Sweep," The New York Times, February 28, 2006 --- Click Here

Does this characterization of William Jennings B sound like anybody you know about today?
Yet this left-leaning Bryan had, in Hofstadter’s account, no meaningful program for change. He was merely a vessel of rage. Incapable of statesmanship, only of high-flown oratory, he was a relic of the agrarian past –- and the prototype of the fascistic demagogues who were discovering their own voices, just as Bryan’s career was reaching its end.
"Doing the Lord’s Work," by Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed, March 1, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/03/01/mclemee 

"The End of Tolerance: Farewell, multiculturalism. A cartoon backlash is pushing Europe to insist upon its values," Newsweek Magazine, March 6, 2006 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11569485/site/newsweek

The world has long looked upon the Dutch as the very model of a modern, multicultural society. Open and liberal, the tiny seagoing nation that invented the globalized economy in the 1600s prided itself on a history of taking in all comers, be they Indonesian or Turkish, African or Chinese.

How different things look today. Dutch borders have been virtually shut. New immigration is down to a trickle. The great cosmopolitan port city of Rotterdam just published a code of conduct requiring Dutch be spoken in public. Parliament recently legislated a countrywide ban on wearing the burqa in public. And listen to a prominent Dutch establishment figure describe the new Dutch Way with immigrants. "We demand a new social contract," says Jan Wolter Wabeke, High Court Judge in The Hague. "We no longer accept that people don't learn our language, we require that they send their daughters to school, and we demand they stop bringing in young brides from the desert and locking them up in third-floor apartments."

What's going on here? Weren't the Dutch supposed to be the nicest people on earth, the most tolerant nation in Europe, a melting pot for minorities and immigrants since the Renaissance? No longer, and in this the Dutch are once again at the forefront of changes in Europe. This time, the Dutch model for Europe is one of multiculturalism besieged, if not plain defunct.

This helps explain Europe's unusually robust reaction to the cartoon crisis, which continued last week with riots in Nigeria and Pakistan that have left over 100 dead. There were apologies, to be sure, for causing offense after a small Danish paper published a dozen cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. But on one point European leaders were united and bluntly clear: they would not tolerate any limits on European newspapers' rights to publish. "Freedom of speech is not up for negotiation," declared Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, summing up a consensus that has only grown stronger as the cries of outrage from the Muslim world grow louder.

Continued in article

More Americans abducted along Mexico border than in Iraq
LAREDO, Texas – This border area is one of the least publicized international crisis zones. More Americans have been kidnapped just in this area than in all of Iraq by Islamic terrorists. Twenty-six Americans are now officially listed as missing in the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo region of the U.S.-Mexico border—in addition to the more than 400 Mexicans reported to be suffering a similar fate. The number of American civilians missing or kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of the war is 23 as of last September, the latest figure released by the State Department . . . “They had 176 murders in Nuevo Laredo last year, and none of them have been solved. In the first less than six weeks of this year, there were another 27 murders. Again, none solved. At the rate they are going, the death toll will be over 300 by year’s end.” If anything, Mr. Flores said, the cartels have become more brazen, more willing to reach for their guns.
Maxim Kniazkov, "More Americans abducted along Mexico border than in Iraq," Insight Magazine, February 27, 2006 --- http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/laredo_0.htm 

Writing Center Resources from Princeton University --- 
http://webware.princeton.edu/sites/writing/Writing_Center/WCWritingResources.htm

Writing Center Resources from Purdue University  ---
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Bob Jensen's writing resource bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries

Question
How dangerous is MySpace.com now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.?

"Scenes From the MySpace Backlash," by Kevin Poulsen, Wired News, February 27, 2006 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,70254-0.html?tw=wn_index_1

Meanwhile, schools are racing to block the site at the campus firewall. "Some argue that it's educationally valid, others say they're seeing kids beat up over it," says David Trask, a junior high teacher and technology director at Vassalboro Community School in Maine. "In my view, it doesn't have much (educational) value."

MySpace's rapid transformation into the largest community of teens and twenty-somethings in history made a backlash perhaps inevitable. In the three years since its launch, MySpace has gathered over 57 million registered users (counting some duplicates and fake profiles). As of last November, it enjoyed a 752-percent growth in web traffic over one year, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

In July the site was purchased for $580 million by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and late last year launched its own record label in partnership with Interscope Records.

Concerns over the site fall generally into two categories: unease over the type of content teens are posting, and fear of the type of people they're meeting.

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolf says to his knowledge the backlash hasn't caused any advertisers to drop their support of the site. "We get phone calls from time to time, but when we describe the safety measure that we've put into place generally the advertisers are relieved and feel good about what we're doing."

Continued in article

"A MySpace Cheat Sheet for Parents," by Kevin Poulsen, Wired News, February 27, 2006 --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70287-0.html?tw=wn_index_2

Can I search MySpace to see if my kid is on it?

I did it anyway. Should I be worried that my teenage girl is linked to so many male "friends?"

What if she's linking to adult men? That can't be good.

How should I talk to them about MySpace?

What is MySpace doing to protect its users?

Travelers Insurance company says hybrid-vehicle owners tend to be safer drivers, so they'll get a discount on their auto insurance, Wired Blog, February 27, 2006 --- http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/cars/

From the Scout Report on February 14, 2006

Camino 1.0 http://www.caminobrowser.org/ 

With a host of helpful features, Camino 1.0 will be a most welcome addition for Mac users everywhere. The interface for the browser is quite elegant, and gives users the ability to pause and resume downloads, along with enhanced security, and tabbed browsing. This version is compatible with computers running Mac OS X 10.2. [KMG]

Link200 3.2.0.2 http://www.veign.com/download_app.asp?app=103 

Many users may have dozens, if not hundreds, of bookmarks located within their favorite browsers. It can be time-consuming and quite tedious to check their validity, and this is where this application can step in to help with this process. Link200 3.2.0.2 will go through bookmarks in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Netscape and remove those that are no longer valid. This version is compatible with all computers running Windows 98 and newer.[KMG]

Consumers Beware of Unsuspected Automatic Billings

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review of February 24, 2006

TITLE: Automated Payments Pose Growing Problem
REPORTER: Carol Hymowitz and Elizabeth Bernstein
DATE: Feb 22, 2006
PAGE: D1
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114057073099879624.html 
TOPICS: Accounting, Banking

SUMMARY: The article describes issues consumers face in stopping automatic payment arrangements. "...Consumers don't always know and follow the rules for recurring payments, and banks say they aren't able to cancel recurring credit-card charges when a consumer has signed a long-term contract with a merchant..." In addition, consumers must devote significant time to resolving issues. Accounting topics arise because the article uses the terms debit and credit; questions ask students to understand the use of these terms in banking transactions.

QUESTIONS:
1.) The article differentiates between debit card or bank account transactions and credit card transactions. What is the difference between a debit card and a credit card? How is a debit card similar to a checking account?

2.) What are the issues in resolving payment disputes on automated payment plans? Why do the issues differ between debit cards or bank accounts used for automated payments and automated charges to credit cards?

3.) The article uses the terms credit and debit in the title and other places, such as the statement that "Nancy Burleson's checking account was debited an extra week's mortgage payment..." Do these uses of the terms debit and credit correspond to the use of those terms in the balance sheet equation? Support your answer.

4.) Refer again to the statement quoted in question 3 about debiting a checking account. Describe how a customer checking account is classified on a bank's balance sheet, including a definition of the term "demand deposit." Explain how a demand deposit account is increased (with a debit or a credit?) and decreased (again, with a debit or a credit?).

5.) How is a customer credit card account balance (say, on a MasterCard or Visa account) classified in a bank's balance sheet? Explain how the account balance is increased (with a debit or a credit?) and decreased (again, with a debit or a credit?)

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

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

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

Finally cancer deaths are on the decline
It didn't attract a lot of media fanfare, but two weeks ago the National Center for Health Statistics announced some spectacular news. The number of Americans dying from cancer fell for the first time in decades. This achievement against one of mankind's most dreaded diseases is the medical equivalent of putting a man on the moon. Just a few years ago health officials warned of an epidemic of U.S. cancer deaths. One and a half million Americans will be diagnosed with the disease this year. And with a toll of half a million deaths a year, cancer is still one of the leading killers in America -- partly because death rates from infectious diseases have fallen precipitously over the past century. But the National Cancer Institute rightly hails the new data as "powerful evidence" that "we are on the right track to eliminating the death and suffering due to cancer."
"Cancer Prognosis," The Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2006; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114066413292580962.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

Where are all the open-source companies headed?
That Oracle, a company that has shown little support for open-source software projects, has developed an appetite for open-source acquisitions illustrates how much the worlds of commercial and open-source software are colliding. IBM has proven open source can thrive with the help of a large commercial developer, and now it's pushing its open-source strategy further. The experiences of Sun Microsystems and CA show how complicated the balance can get . . . Many in the open-source community view big-business encroachment with trepidation; they worry that Oracle, for example, is more out to kill a competitor than build a bridge. Yet others note there's only so much that any heavyweight can dictate in the open-source world. "The software stack and the communities around it, you can't buy those," says Scott Kveton, a director at Oregon State's Open Source Lab. If big vendors think they're buying customers with such deals, they're throwing money in the wrong direction. "That's the old school mentality of 'we're going to dictate where our customers go,'" Kveton says. "... This is 'watch where your community is going, and get there.'"
Charles Babcock, "It's Open Season," Information Week, February 20, 2006, pp. 24-26 --- Click Here

All sparrows are not alike
The bird world has many resplendent creatures that are easy to spot. The appeal of sparrows is quite different. Most of them look alike, and only ace birdwatchers can tell one species from another . . . Depending on how you count them, there are at least 60 species of sparrows in the U.S. and Canada, according to the University of Toronto's James Rising, who has co-written two books on sparrows. Some, like the Spotted Towhee -- with its black head, white belly, rusty flanks and spotted mantle -- are distinctive. Many others, like the Song Sparrow or Savannah Sparrow, can be told apart only by such clues as tiny facial markings, the length of their tails and their flight patterns. What about the sparrows commonly seen hopping around city streets? They are usually House Sparrows, and to hard-core birders, they don't count. That is because the House Sparrow was brought over from Europe, and although it resembles North American sparrows, it isn't closely related.
Neil Templen, "Birdwatchers Find Sparrows Often Are A Tough Nut to Crack," The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2006, Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114066223905080905.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

All Domestic Partners are Not Alike

February 23, 2006 message (with respect to the marriage tax on people over 60)
from Scott Bonacker [cpas-l@BONACKER.US]

If "living together" is an euphemism for extra-marital sex, it is maybe more of an example of the utilitarianism of Western morality. I doubt that the traditional definition of sin has been changed, just the way that society reacts to it.

However, if "living together" simply means sharing a residence and combining resources, like roomies, then morality probably isn't even an issue. Male/female co-housing has been acceptable for 30-40 years at least hasn't it? When was Three's Company on TV?

Someone else can ask, though. I'm not going to.

Scott

February 23, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Scott,

Actually this is not a joking matter when it comes to employer benefits put into place largely for gay and lesbian couples.

Some jurisdictions require that there be a sexual relationship (actually worded as a "non-platonic relationship"). This is intended to prevent benefits "selling." For example, a single professor with great a great medical benefits package might otherwise "sell" his/her "domestic partnering benefits" to a tenant in great need of expensive medical care or perhaps even give the domestic partnering benefits to his/her live-in relative.

The following was a Tidbit on January 27, 2006 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2006/tidbits060127.htm 

Domestic partners must have sex to get benefits
A requirement within a new domestic partner benefit plan at the University of Florida — that participants “have been in a non-platonic relationship for the proceeding 12 months” — has left many employees feeling like the university was getting a little too personal. Administrators have taken notice and said that the policy will be changed within the next two weeks.
Rob Capriccioso, "Too Much Information on Sex at Florida," Inside Higher Ed, January 24, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/24/florida

Olympic Halls of Fame --- http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
Type "Hall of Fame" in the exact phrase box and the name of a country in the upper search box.

Pro Football Hall of Fame --- http://www.profootballhof.com/

Basketball Hall of Fame --- http://www.hoophall.com/

Women's Basketball Hall of Fame (with audio) --- http://www.wbhof.com/

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum --- http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/

National Soccer Hall of Fame --- http://www.soccerhall.org/

National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame --- http://www.racingmuseum.org/

Country Music Hall of Fame --- http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/inductees/minnie_pearl.html

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame --- http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=81

Accounting Hall of Fame (International) --- http://fisher.osu.edu/departments/accounting-and-mis/hall-of-fame/

European Accounting Hall of Fame --- http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/news/3806/

Hall of Fame Jokes --- http://www.ssqq.com/jokes/jokefamous.htm

The best books about doctors and patients

"Saw Bones," by Jerome Groopman, M.D., The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2006 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/fivebest/?id=110008014

1. "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" by Leo Tolstoy (1886).

With fine brush strokes, Tolstoy paints the portrait of an ambitious and upwardly mobile magistrate, Ivan Ilyich, who suddenly comes down with a mysterious malady. The restrained prose works to amplify a chilling message: Severe illness strips away life's façade and forces us to examine our inner core. Ilyich, at the cusp of death, realizes that he has squandered his life by pursuing what is insubstantial. But Tolstoy affirms that while there may no longer be hope for the body, there is, until the last breath, hope for the soul. It is a lesson best learned while still healthy.

2. "The Cunning Man" by Robertson Davies (Viking, 1994).

The Canadian writer Robertson Davies, who died in 1995, is not widely read in the U.S., and that's a shame. He's a master at capturing the multiple facets of character. In this novel, Davies delves deeply into the mind of a doctor who is keenly aware of not only the clinical problems of his patients but also their psychological needs. "Patient autonomy" has become a popular mantra in our culture, but Davies prompts us to consider that there might be times when, buffeted by illness, we need the firm, guiding hand of the expert physician. And he shows us how the placebo effect, with roots in ancient shamanism and branches that extend to today's practice, can work for the good.

3. "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks (Knopf, 1995).

Neurology is (pun intended) a highly cerebral field. Detailed knowledge of the anatomy of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves, and meticulous examination of the patient, lead the astute neurologist to a clinical diagnosis. While elegant cerebration may arrive at an answer, it does not necessarily bring a solution, since there is often little effective therapy for neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks is acutely attuned to this, and in these beautifully written case histories--including those of a painter who has lost the ability to see color and a man whose damaged memory leaves him living perpetually in 1968--he shows us how human beings, even in the absence of potent treatments, can find ways to surmount their debility and lead fulfilling lives.

4. "The Man Who Grew Two Breasts" by Berton Roueche(Dutton, 1995).

It should come as no surprise that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a physician. Doctors often find themselves in the role of detectives, sifting clues, weighing evidence and melding deduction with intuition to identify the culprit--as Roueche depicted over the course of nearly 50 years as a medical writer for the New Yorker magazine. Modern medicine might rely heavily on the sophisticated technology of MRI scans and the like, but Roueche's stories of clinical enigmas, collected here and in other books, show how much doctors can surmise by asking the right questions and listening closely to the patient's responses. After numerous fruitless tests, a physician finally cracked the case of the man in the book's title by prompting him--through close questioning--to realize where he had been unwittingly exposed to female hormones (I won't spoil the mystery here). Words, and the doctor's laying on his hands, can still be the key to solving medical puzzles.

5. "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas (Viking, 1974).

Doctors occupy a unique perch, witnesses to life's great mysteries. They are both biologists and healers, fascinated by the intricate geometry of tissues and organs while engaged in their patients' struggle to find meaning in their plight. Physicians aim for cure but more often come to compromise. The late Dr. Thomas embodies the physician-scientist who examines the organelles of the cell along with the aura of the spirit. A polymath, he draws connections between human beings and the natural world in unexpected places: how our physiology and our social behaviors are mirrored in termites and bees, wasps and ants, sea slugs and giant squids. His essays communicate a deep sense of awe, and his literary voice, like that of a physician at the bedside, brings wisdom and solace.

Dr. Groopman is the Recanati Professor at Harvard Medical School. His book on clinical decision-making will be published next year.

 

How Ordinary Scots in bygone days found out what was happening --- http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/

In the centuries before there were newspapers and 24-hour news channels, the general public had to rely on street literature to find out what was going on. The most popular form of this for nearly 300 years was 'broadsides' - the tabloids of their day. Sometimes pinned up on walls in houses and ale-houses, these single sheets carried public notices, news, speeches and songs that could be read (or sung) aloud.

The National Library of Scotland's online collection of nearly 1,800 broadsides lets you see for yourself what 'the word on the street' was in Scotland between 1650 and 1910. Crime, politics, romance, emigration, humour, tragedy, royalty and superstitions - all these and more are here.

Bob Jensen's threads on history are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History

Bob Jensen's threads on electronic literature are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

"SEC Shuts Down $50 Million Autosurf Ponzi Scam," by Gregg Keizer, InformationWeek, February 28, 2006 --- http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181401317

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges against the owner of an Autosurf site who it accused of running a $50 million Ponzi scam and pocketing nearly $2 million.

Less than two weeks ago, the FBI opened an investigation into 12dailypro.com's promises of large returns on members' investments. In exchange for buying $6 units -- up to a maximum of $6,000 worth -- 12dailypro.com members were promised a 144 percent return within 12 days simply for viewing a dozen Web ads daily.

The SEC dubbed 12dailypro.com a "paid autosurf program" but said it was in reality an illegal Ponzi, a scam where income from incoming members is used to pay existing members' returns.

"The defendants falsely represented that upgraded membersSMQ-8217-SMQ earnings 'are financed not only [by] incoming member fees, but also with multiple income streams including advertising, and off-site investments,'" the SEC said in a statement issued Monday. "In fact, at least 95 percent of revenues have come from new investments in the form of membership fees from new or existing members. The other 'multiple income streams' from advertising revenues or off-site investments were either negligible or non-existent."

Johnson's scheme, said the SEC's complaint, had raised more than $50 million from over 300,000 members since mid-2005. Johnson, meanwhile, had transferred about $1.9 million from 12dailypro.com to her personal bank account, the SEC alleged.

The SEC asked the court to freeze Johnson's and 12dailypro.com's assets, as well as those of her payment providers, which included StormPay, an online payment service based in Tennessee that is under investigation by state authorities.

12dailypro essentially shut down after StormPay, which said it suspected an illegal scheme, turned off the payment spigot in late January. In less than two weeks, StormPay was hit with a denial-of-service (DoS) attack that knocked it offline for two days. The DoS attacker has not been identified.

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

All of your ancestors may not be alike
Advances in DNA testing are allowing people to uncover information about their genetic ancestry and find out where some of their ancestors came from. As an African American, I don't know where my African ancestors originated from. The only geographic location I can point to as my ancestral home is Tennessee. So I'm fascinated by the potential knowledge I could gain from this new generation of tests for genetic ancestry. But before I fork over more than $200 for such a test, the skeptic in me needs some answers. What can a DNA test really tell me about where I come from? How do these tests work? And can they be wrong?
Leslie O'Hanlon, "Tracing Your Ancestry DNA tests to find out your ancestry are growing in popularity. But do they really work? And are they worth it?" MIT's Technology Review, February 24, 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16421,312,p1.html 

March 3, 2006 message from Denmark (and it's not about cartoons)

Dear Professor Jensen,

Recently here in Denmark several companies have been added to Icelandic portfolios. For example Magasin Nord is now 83% owned by the Baugur Group. Straumur-Burdaras and B2B Holdings. I have been intrigued by the financing of these deals. I read that within the space of four years Icelandic equity fund companies raised seven billion dollars for purchasing companies and shares. It all seems bizarre and dare I say it, “fishy.” On a cursory cruise through the company web-pages I realised that the board members of all the top banks and private holdings are connected. Here is one example, the Landsbanki is chaired by the father of the chairman of Samson Holdings and connected with Avion the air and shipping company. Interestingly the father was charged with 450 cases of fraud and embezzlement in 1986 when he owned a shipping company which went bankrupt. He was not found guilty except for a book-keeping count –there was a ministerial tie-in. The son went to New York to study business –then co-founded up a brewery in St. Petersburg, Russia. That company Bravo was sold for 400 million to Heineken. These connections are intriguing. I am sure Abraham Briloff would agree. I almost feel that the Icelandic financial system is a shell-game – what is your take on these shenanigans? Is it at all possible that the Russian criminal organisations have a finger in the honeypot or is that too fanciful?

yours,

Stephen
Denmark

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

February 23, 2006 message from Glen L Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU]

I was speaker at a conference where Scott (Dilbert) Adams was also a speaker. During lunch all the speakers sat together. As you can imagine most the table conversion was questions being asked of Scott. When asked why he became a cartoonist his answer was that at age 12 he wanted to be either Hugh Hefner, a supreme court judge or a cartoonist. Why? Because they all get to work in their pajamas as they work. And, since he couldn't qualify for the first two, he selected cartoonist.

A couple of years ago I was called for jury duty. One of the jury interview question was: if you had a choice who in the courtroom would you like to be? I said the judge--and I gave Scott's answer assuming no one would then want a smart a** on their jury. It didn't work.

SEC Says NetEase, Former Officers Settled Action Over Accounting
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a settled enforcement action against Chinese online-games operator NetEase.com Inc. and two former officers over alleged improper accounting in 2000 and 2001. The SEC alleged that NetEase "materially overstated its revenues and understated its net loss by improperly recognizing revenue."
"SEC Says NetEase, Former Officers Settled Action Over Accounting," The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2006; Page B11 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114109787795885039.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

For details see http://corp.163.com/investor_eng/010904/010904_999.html

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

How Hollywood orchestrates publicity
The current strategies hark back to the Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s, when studios, movie stars and the press worked hand-in-hand to create and maintain screen icons for worshipful fans. Today, the coverage of the stars has exploded. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, circulation of US Weekly stood at an average of 1,662,000 in the six months ending in January of this year, up 12.7% from the same period a year earlier. Circulation at Bauer Publishing's InTouch climbed 15.5% to 1,178,000, and at Star rose 12.3% to 1,460,000. The magazines are lucrative. US Weekly sells a million copies a week on the newsstand at $3.49 apiece. The magazine turns an operating profit of $50 million a year, says a person familiar with its accounts. People, which has a circulation of 3.8 million, brings in by far the most revenue and profit of any of the 154 magazines owned by Time Inc., a division of Time Warner Inc. Network TV programs like Access Hollywood, cable channels like E! Entertainment Television Inc. and Web sites have added to the coverage. All these outlets compete for photos documenting the daily lives of a small cast of celebrities. These stars, in turn, seek to control their images without appearing to, because doing so would ruin their mystique. "All those dirty little secrets in Hollywood include tipping paparazzi off and playing games with them," says New York-based public-relations professional Ken Sunshine, whose clients include corporations and stars such as Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio. He says people might find that "unethical" if they knew about it, "but unfortunately it seems to be an accepted part of the business."
Joe Hagan and Merissa Marr, "Caught in the Act! How Hollywood's bold-faced names secretly steer the celebrity news machine," The Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2006; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114143524125389337.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

National Institute of Justice --- http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/

NIJ is the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice and is dedicated to researching crime control and justice issues. NIJ provides objective, independent, evidence-based knowledge and tools to meet the challenges of crime and justice, particularly at the State and local levels. NIJ's principal authorities are derived from the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended (see 42 USC § 3721-3723) and Title II of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

The NIJ Director is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The NIJ Director establishes the Institute's objectives, guided by the priorities of the Office of Justice Programs, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the needs of the field. The Institute actively solicits the views of criminal justice and other professionals and researchers to inform its search for the knowledge and tools to guide policy and practice.

February 23, 2006 message from Team Carper
This did not lift my spirits!

Age Gauge

This will really make you feel old....... Put your birth date in the pop up window after you click on the below link. What happens is pretty interesting. It's also amazing how quickly it computes!! Very cool. Send it on to all you think might like a bit of trivia!! Click here:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~cdm/age1.html

Forwarded by Bob Overn OvernBobLo@aol.com

This is a good explanation of how income tax really works!!

Sometimes politicians, journalists and others exclaim; "It's just a tax cut for the rich!" and it is just accepted to be fact.

But what does that really mean?

Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, I hope the following will help. Please read it carefully.

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." Dinner for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal.

So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start eating overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

Question
Do you really want to be a bear?

Forwarded by Maria

GONNA BE A BEAR

In this life I'm a woman.  In my next life, I'd like to come back as a bear.  When you're a bear, you get to hibernate.  You do nothing but sleep for six months.   I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid.  I could deal with that too.

When you're a girl bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs.  I could definitely deal with that.

If you're mama bear, everyone knows you mean business.  You swat anyone who bothers your cubs.  If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too.  I could deal with that.

If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling.  He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.

Yup, gonna be a bear!

Maria

Jensen Comment
But your diet in New Hampshire's mountains will be mainly acorns except when you can reach a bird feeder or open the lid of a dumpster.

When you try to be friendly and get within a hundred feet of folks at a cocktail party, they'll all scurry like you're some kind of beast. If you get too friendly in Sugar Hill, my friend Sonny O'Neal will be hired to chase you down with his pack of bear dogs. Chances are that your hide will then hang from the ceiling of his living room alongside the skins of some other friendly bears that became trophies of Sonny and Bev. The rest of you will be in the O'Neal freezer until one day parts of you are alongside the mashed potatoes.

A street smart professor was approached by a bum begging for a handout.

"If I give you $20 will you spend it on beer or hard liquor?" The professor asked.

"Never again! I swore off drinking ten years ago. I need some food," the bum begged.

"Would you spend it on green fees for a round of golf?"

"I've not played golf since I was fired from my accounting job 12 years ago."

"Ah! I'll bet you'll take this $20 and offer it to a hooker on the south side of town."

"Honestly sir. I'm so hungry that I'm just not up to sex."

"Well then you come home with me. My wife will fix you a fabulous home cooked meal."

"But my clothes are filthy. I smell, and I've got lice. Why would you let me inside your house?"

"Well the truth of the matter is that I want to show my wife what happens to a man who gives up booze, golf, and sex."

Source:  My favorite Australian DJ at http://www.bluegrasscountry.org/

Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmark s go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 
Archives of Tidbits: 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/.

International Accounting News (including the U.S.)

AccountingEducation.com and Double Entries --- http://www.accountingeducation.com/
        Upcoming international accounting conferences --- http://www.accountingeducation.com/events/index.cfm
        Thousands of journal abstracts --- http://www.accountingeducation.com/journals/index.cfm
Deloitte's International Accounting News --- http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm
Association of International Accountants --- http://www.aia.org.uk/ 
WebCPA --- http://www.webcpa.com/
FASB --- http://www.fasb.org/
IASB --- http://www.fasb.org/
Others --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm

Gerald Trite's great set of links --- http://iago.stfx.ca/people/gtrites/Docs/bookmark.htm 

Richard Torian's Managerial Accounting Information Center --- http://www.informationforaccountants.com/ 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu