We had to do some shoveling before we could bump Erika up these stairs in a wheel chair in April. Now we have good news on two fronts. One is that the late April snow is melted so that this shortest stairway to our cottage is safer. Two is that Erika can now walk up and down these front stairs --- no need for a wheel chair. However, she still has excruciating leg pain most of the time. Our inside lift will be installed on May 21 about the same time our new propane backup generator will also be installed. During May 6-8 we will once again be down in Boston for a myelogram. The saga of her recent surgeries is chronicled at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Erika2007.htm

It's been sunny and beautiful up here but the winds are still cold. I love the coolness of a mountain springtime. We have nearly 16 hours of daylight now which is double winter's light. They've commenced to golf (in warm jackets and hats) behind our cottage, although Bob Jensen has no time for such frivolity. He's too busy in retirement. Retirement? What in the heck is that?

 Paul Heywood from the historic Homestead down the road tapped two of our big maple trees and brought us a quart of sweet maple syrup. The young daughters of Lon and Nancy Henderson are raising four ducklings in a Sunset Hill House bathtub. Ducklings grow at an amazing rate. These will be moved to a pond on the golf course in early June. Then the worry will be coyotes, bobcats, and fisher cats. These fat predators, however, focus more on our many wild turkeys up here. Fortunately there are no alligators or dangerous snakes in New Hampshire. Bull frogs in our small pond beside our cottage sometimes disturb our sleep and night, but not as bad as the occasional screams of fisher cats in the woods. I especially love the night calls of the hoot owls.

If you look close at the pond above you will see a white speck that is really a mother duck. About a mile away a New Hampshire landmark called Polly's Pancake Parlor at Hildex Farm will be opening for Mothers Day.

Tidbits on May 6, 2007
Bob Jensen

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
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/.

Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

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

Do You Remember Me? (in Iraq) --- http://www.youtube.com/v/ervaMPt4Ha0
Meet Our Decorated Heroes: God Bless Them! --- http://familysecuritymatters.org/global.php?id=950394

Video: The Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Authority's Legislative Council called for the killing of every last Jew and American.
Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, IsraelNationNews, May 1, 2007 --- http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122302

Birth of TV [cultural apocalypse] --- http://www.birth-of-tv.org/

What Not to Do in PowerPoint (Video) --- http://blog.wildform.com/2007/04/death_by_powerpoint_a_comedy_v.html

An Electrifying Life Off the Ground (with a physics lesson) --- http://www.glumbert.com/media/highpower
Ed Scribner claims the guy on top of the helicopter is accounting professor David Albrecht. I think Ed was down below trying to toss up a grounding cable.

Tom Rush - Remember Song (country song about growing old) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yN-6PbqAPM

National Academy of Sciences: Webcast Archive --- http://www.nap.edu/webcast/webcast_list.php

Not Just A Number (Video about violence in Oakland, CA) ---  http://www.bayareanewsgroup.com/multimedia/iba/njn/index.html

A Reporter’s Memories of Writer David Halberstam --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9790650 

Frontline: Hot Politics --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/

Amazing 11-Year Old Girl --- http://www.dailymotion.com/visited/video/x6sfz_amazing-11-year-old

Aboriginal Canada Portal --- http://www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca/acp/site.nsf/en/index.html

Who drank the orange soda (a budding politician)? --- http://watch.break.com/287498/A_little_kid_lies_his_head_off/

Annoying Office Worker --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyeDF1CAK-c

Podcast
Sex Traffic, Third Most Lucrative International Criminal Activity Dechen Tsering from Global Fund for Women introduced Thailand/Cambodia service learning trip participants to this underground industry by which millions of women and girls each year are tricked, trapped, bought, sold, and forced into sex services ---
http://www.siconversations.org/shows/detail1198.html

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

Smithsonian Jazz --- http://www.smithsonianjazz.org/start.asp

Amazing 11-Year Old Girl --- http://www.dailymotion.com/visited/video/x6sfz_amazing-11-year-old

Tom Rush - Remember Song (country song about growing old) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yN-6PbqAPM

Music for Dusty Roads and Endless Possibilities --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9974112

'Moonglow, Lamp Low' by Eleni Mandell --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10001874

Infectious Pop From Peter Björn & John --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9807712

Mel Bay’s Creative Keyboard --- http://www.creativekeyboard.com/

Looking for a song you heard between stories on one of NPR's news or talk programs? It's called "Music Interlude." ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/music/

There are no free music downloads here, but note the names of the CPA bands reported in the AccountingWeb on April 30, 2007:

Five bands composed of accountants will rock out May 19 in a battle of the bands to raise money for accounting scholarships at two Washington state colleges.

Seattle-area bands including Disregarded Entity, Accounting Crows, Industry Audit Guys, Facial Depreciation, and Terminal Liability will participate in the second annual Battle of the Bands.

The players are all members of the Washington Society of Certified Public Accountants.

The money raised will go toward accounting scholarships at Highline Community College and Central Washington University.

Question If you had a CPA music band, what would you name it?
Jensen Ideas:

Horny Accountants
Dancing Debits
Crying Credits
Croaking the Books or Crooning the Books
CPA Sway
Energized Equities
Sin Doctors or Sin Surgeons
The Intangibles
Booked Options
Backdated Options
Jail House Rhythms
Prison Pals 
REA Rhythms
Unlimited Liabilities
The Contingencies
The Fair Values
The Excels
The ERPs
The SAPs
Rockers and Geekers
Mr. Taxman, Send Me a Team

George Wright (Loyola College) tells us he's in the Mood Swings band --- http://moodswings.com/
It sounds great!

May 2, 2007 reply from Tracey Sutherland [tracey@aaahq.org]
Who started this -- it's just terrible -- but irresistible . . . Smashing Derivatives . . . The Special Entities. . . Tones at the Top. . . perfect end of spring semester temptation! Thanks. Hope all's well with you. Tracey

May 1, 2007 reply from Peter Kenyon [pbk1@HUMBOLDT.EDU]

We have to consider the music genre. Try these
.
Pop/Top 40: Functional Fix
Rap: BBBL (Big, Bad Bottom Line)
Soul: The Expectations
Gospel: The Chambers Singers
World Beat: Accrual World
Blues: The Regulators
Reggae: Watts Happening
Country: Death & Taxes
Smooth Jazz: Sweet Deferral
Big Band: Concatenated Keys

Peter Kenyon
Humboldt State

Jensen Comment
I agree with David Albrecht that Peter's best one is "Accrual (A Cruel) World."

Sue Ravenscroft suggested Financial Notes or Sliding Scales.
Her Relay for Life team was named the Running Subtotals.

Roberta Lipsig wrote:
When my son was a statistics major he came up with a band name: Mean and the Standard Deviations. Their motto would be “You may think we’re normal, but we’re mean!

May 1, 2007 reply from Paul Krause

Bob-

Add these to your list-

Pop/Top 40: Functional Fix
Rap: BBBL (Big, Bad Bottom Line)
Soul: The Expectations
Gospel: The Chambers Singers
World Beat: Accrual World
Blues: The Regulators
Reggae: Watts Happening
Country: Death & Taxes
Smooth Jazz: Sweet Deferral
Big Band: Concatenated Keys

Paul Krause

Chico, CA, USA
Paul@PaulKrause.com 

Photographs and Art

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

Love, War and History: Israel's Yehuda Amichai (audio poetry) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9699843

Remembering the Hindenburg in Verse --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9996225

The Vital Message by Arthur Conan Doyle --- Click Here 

A Pacifist's Plainspoken Poetry (William Stafford) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9859873 

The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson --- Click Here 

The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson --- Click Here 

Aboriginal Canada Portal --- http://www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca/acp/site.nsf/en/index.html 

"Coalbrookdale and the History of Coal Power," by Renee Montagne --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9955564 
Also see "China's Coal-Fueled Boom Has Costs," by Louisa Lim, NPR, May 2, 2007 ---http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9947668 

Science and Engineering Encyclopedia http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/h/o/home/source.html

Dear Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, National Guard, Reservists, in Iraq , in the Middle East theater, in Afghanistan , in the area near Afghanistan , in any base anywhere in the world, and your families: Let me tell you about why you guys own about 90 percent of the backbone in the whole world right now and should be happy with yourselves and proud of whom you are.
Ben Stein --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Stein

Switzerland is one of the world's richest and most tranquil countries, but it also has more suicides than most. This may show that money (or yodeling) doesn't buy happiness,
Douwe Miedema, Reuters via Yahoo News, May 1, 2007 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070501/lf_nm/swiss_suicide_dc

“It would come through the small-business community like a tsunami,” he said in an interview. “For a substantial number of small businesses and many of our established businesses, the tax would be higher than the profit. That is the real problem with it.” “We all want health care,” Mr. Jackson continued. “But business closure is not good health.”
Susan Saulny, "Tax to Pay for Health Plan in Illinois Faces Resistance," The New York Times, May 5, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/us/05illinois.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Euro MPs are demanding new laws to stop cows and sheep PARPING (i.e., burping and farting). Their call came after the UN said livestock emissions were a bigger threat to the planet than transport. The MEPs have asked the European Commission to “look again at the livestock question in direct connection with global warming”. The official EU declaration demands changes to animals’ diets, to capture gas emissions and recycle manure.
The Sun, April 29, 2007 --- http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007190671,00.html
Jensen Comment
Research may show that all that's needed is a tube connecting the animal's air intake to its mouth and butt. If it works for cows, I recommend that we also apply it to the other great parpers of the world --- lawyers and politicians.

Howard Dean, head of the Democratic National Committee, once again is proving he has unusual views on the media. He says groups that want to hear candidates talk openly (i.e. not PARPING) should bar the media. "If you want to hear the truth from them, you have to exclude the press," is how he bluntly put it. On one level, that's not so controversial an idea. Today's "gotcha" journalism certainly makes candidates cautious and fearful that any stray remark will be blown out of proportion by someone in search of a headline . . . The Democratic Party's chairman has long expressed a position that federal regulation of the media -- in the form of a new Fairness Doctrine or the breakup of entities such as Fox News -- wouldn't be a bad idea. In 2003, while a presidential candidate, he railed, "Media corporations have too much power... The media has clearly abused their privilege, and it is hurting our democracy."
Political Diary, April 27, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/politicaldiary/ \

The U.S. economy is getting stronger, and the war in Iraq is getting more unpopular. Normally that spells trouble for military recruiters. But for nearly two years, the Army has managed to meet or exceed its recruiting and retention goals.
Guy Raz, "Against the Odds, Army Meets Recruiting Goals," NPR, May 1, 2007 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9937581

Testifying under oath recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice misled Congress in her strong defense of Al-Hurra, the taxpayer financed Arab TV network. It was unwitting, though. She herself was misled.
Joel Mowbrey, "Mad TV:  U.S. taxpayers subsidize terrorist propaganda and Holocaust denial in the Arab world," The Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010011

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health. Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
Steven Malloy, "The CFL mercury nightmare," Financial Post, April 28, 2007 --- Click Here

Flush with petrodollars, and amid disarray in the Western camp, Russia's hopes of restoring its lost empire are rising. Vladimir Putin's annual address to both houses of the parliament, delivered last week, was just the latest signal. The Russian president declared that his country's obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty would be suspended as long as the U.S. planned to install a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Mr. Putin threatened Russia would abandon the treaty if NATO countries failed to address his grievances. The defense shield, he claimed, was a threat to national security.
Mart Lar, "Imperially Deluded," The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2007 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117814574418090052.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

The book "Freakonomics" estimates that 50 percent of people lie on their resumes. Marilee Jones is one of them, and it cost her a high-profile job at MIT.
"Another Worker Pays the Price for Fabricating Resume," PhysOrg, April 28, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news96987628.html

Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual differences.
Paul Valéry --- Click Here

There was the (high school) girl who, during summer vacation, left her house before 7 each morning to make a two-hour train ride to a major university, where she worked all day doing cutting-edge research for NASA on weightlessness in mice. When I was in high school, my 10th-grade science project was on plant tropism — a shoebox with soil and bean sprouts bending toward the light. These kids who don’t get into Harvard spend summers on schooners in Chesapeake Bay studying marine biology, building homes for the poor in Central America, touring Europe with all-star orchestras. Summers, I dug trenches for my local sewer department during the day, and sold hot dogs at Fenway Park at night.
Michael Winerip (Harvard alum who now interviews occasional Harvard applicants), "Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard," The New York Times, April 29, 2007 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
The above quotation caught my eye since when I was in high school (in the 1950s) I worked on a farm (mostly mucking up after cows, horses, and hogs), washed cars for the local Chrysler dealer, detassled corn for Pioneer Seed Corn Company, and cut meat in a local grocery store. My high school physics project consisted of four small lights that I could switch on and off to illustrate binary coding for computers. How times and pressures have changed for college applicants in modern times

A few weeks ago, the Phoenix City Council agreed to give Thomas J. Klutznick Co. $100 million for building a high-end shopping center. Backers of the deal say failure to subsidize retail would send developers to other cities or to Arizona’s Indian reservations. With a total sales tax of 8.1 percent, Phoenix has the highest sales tax rate of competitor cities. It may very well be true that Phoenix is losing business to neighboring cities. Poor tax policy has that effect. If taxes are stifling new business, the city should lower rates across the board. But tax deals for select...
Darcy Olsen, "The Millionaire’s Club Sweetheart deals between cities and private companies violate constitution," Goldwater Institute, May 1, 2007 --- http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/aboutus/articleview.aspx?id=1551

Nationwide, home values crept up by barely 1% last year, but property-tax collections rose by 7%. The spread can be expected to continue to widen; home sales fell by 8% in March, the largest decline in 18 years. Even Connecticut has noticed. Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell, who is trying to raise income taxes and has been rated as one of the Governors least friendly to taxpayers, recently warned the Legislature "there is going to be a property-tax revolt in this state if real action is not taken." She's seeking a 3% per year cap on annual increases, this for a state that ranks third highest in per-capita property taxes. A new report from the Tax Foundation finds that while federal taxes have moderated, state and local taxes are now at an all-time high as a share of income. Florida could be the next state to act. The Legislature's current session has been dominated by debate over how to cap or reduce property taxes, and every politician in sight seems to have a plan. One proposal would roll back property taxes an enormous $6 billion and cut assessments as much as 40% in cities such as Miami where spending is out of control.
"Homeowners Rebellion," The Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2007; Page A20 --- Click Here

Video: The Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Authority's Legislative Council called for the killing of every last Jew and American.
Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, IsraelNationNews, May 1, 2007 --- http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122302

Afghanistan had nothing to do with September 11.
Rosie O'Donnel, on The View television show, as reported by Justin McCarthy, "Rosie Makes Up Facts and Smears Volunteer Soldiers, News Busters, May 1, 2007 --- http://newsbusters.org/node/12441
Jensen Comment
This is tantamount to denying al-Queda that  had anything to do with 9/11 terrorism since Afghanistan was openly Bin Laden's headquarters at the time. Rosie declares that its a fact President Bush killed over 3,000 Americans that day. What's sad is that media executives give air time to a nut like this.

Campaign Reform Hypocrisy: 527 Ways
The Democratic majority in Congress has pursued a reform agenda that so far has overlooked the campaign-finance loophole allowing soft money to flood so-called 527 organizations, loosely regulated political groups, most of which support liberal candidates. Top Democrats including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California once denounced soft money's influence on American politics, but they have backed off since taking over Congress this year. Since the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act prohibited national political parties from accepting or spending soft money unregulated dollars not given directly to candidates the 527 groups...
S.A. Miller, "Favored by 527s, Democrats mum on reforms," The Washington Times, May 1, 2007 --- http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070429-113415-2565r.htm

Missouri State University agreed to pay $185,000 to Michael Hendrix, who agreed to give up his job as a professor after it became known that he had been convicted of raping a child 25 years ago, The Springfield News-Leader reported.
Inside Higher Ed, May 2, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/02/qt
Jensen Comment
How long does it take to be forgiven? Forever and a day?

It's like a Thomas Hardy tragedy, because she did so much good, but something she did long ago came back and trumped it.
Leslie C. Perlman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on Marilee Dean, the schools dean of admissions. Dean served the position for 10 yers before stepping down last week after it was revealed that she fabricated her academic credentials.

Jacques-Alain Miller has delivered unto us his thoughts on Google. In case the name does not signify, Jacques-Alain Miller is the son-in-law of the late Jacques Lacan and editor of his posthumously published works. He is not a Google enthusiast. The search engines follows “a totalitarian maxim,” he says. It is the new Big Brother. “It puts everything in its place,” Miller declares, “turning you into the sum of your clicks until the end of time.”
Scott McLemee, "Digital Masonry," Inside Higher Ed, May 2, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/05/02/mclemee 
Jensen Comment
I wonder if the same can be said (e.g., the clicks of a heel) of the Subject Index of an old-fashioned card catalog in a library? There's a bit of arrogance at work here that says finding knowledge should be the monopoly of specialists who develop their own index filing systems over years of personalized detection. Knowledge discovery that comes easy should be banned under Miller's reasoning. Banning Google seems to be more of a Big Brother-type of book (database) burning.

Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a unique photocatalytic cell that splits water to produce hydrogen and oxygen in water using sunlight and the power of a nanostructured catalyst.
PhysOrg, May 1, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news97255464.html
Jensen Comment
General Motors recently bet the farm on hydrogen cars. Maybe this will bring hope to what otherwise is GM's fantasy.Much depends on the volume of hydrogen that can be cheaply produced.

The extermination of Jews is Allah’s will and is for the benefit of all humanity, according to an article in the Hamas paper, Al-Risalah. The author of the article, Kan'an Ubayd, explains that the suicide operations carried out by Hamas are being committed solely to fulfill Allah’s wishes. Furthermore, Allah demanded this action, because “the extermination of the Jews is good for the inhabitants of the worlds.” The killing of innocent Jews by terrorist attacks is portrayed as Allah’s plan for the benefit of humanity. 
Hamas --- http://pmw.org.il/bulletins_apr2007.htm#b030507

Equality of men and women is stupidity. What men can do, women cannot do. Women are weak physically and mentally compared to men. Men have to take care of women.
Qazi Ahmed and the Jamat --- Click Here

Britain teems with nests of serpents and scorpions of extremism who come from around the world: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Pakistan and other countries due to its flexible systems and the adoption of a policy to receive outcasts during the aftermath of World War II and the Soviet-Western conflict during which doors were opened to persecuted refugees who sought their rights.
"Britain: On the Brink of A Terrorist War," Aswarq Alawsat, April 7, 2007 ---
http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=8854

In this case the only salvation remaining was war… If the Jew with the help of his Marxist creed is victorious over the peoples of this world, then his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity… Thus I believe today that I am acting according to the will of the almighty Creator: when I defend myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf

On the Gulf Coast of Florida, just south of the metropolitan Tampa Bay area, lies once-sleepy Manatee County, which today is experiencing gang warfare waged on its beaches by illegal aliens.
James H. Walsh, NewsMax, May 4, 2007 --- http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/5/4/133806.shtml?s=lh

We must remember that there are many men who, without being productive, are anxious to say something important, and the results are most curious.
Goethe as quoted in the bottom of an email message from Jagdish Gangolly

A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.
Daniel Webster as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-05-05-07.htm

A sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
Washington Irving (1783-1859) --- Click Here

To speak to an operator go back in time to 1965.
Cartoon in The Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2007

She lived with her husband 50 years and died in a confident hope of a better life.
Epitaph quoted in the Readers Digest, March 2007, Page 180.

Do more than anyone expects, and pretty soon everyone will expect more.
As quoted at the bottom of a recent email message from Aaron Konstam

From the Opinion Journal on May 4, 2007
The Associated press asked the candidates for president what they would most like to have if stranded on a desert island. Here are the responses:

-Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Duncan Hunter and Mitt Romney said they'd bring their wives.
(Notably, Hillary Clinton did not say she'd bring her husband.)

-Mrs. Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama and John McCain all said books. Rudy Giuliani said "books and music."

-Chris Dodd said "coffee with cream and sugar."

-Sam Brownback said a tarp.

-Mike Huckabee said a "laptop with satellite reception."

-Tom Tancredo said a boat.

-Bill Richardson said "BlackBerry and a Davidoff cigar."

Jensen Comments
Spouses somehow bring Donner Pass to mind.
Books and music --- not very practical for survival.
Coffee with cream and sugar is not a bad idea if it's a year supply. Probably better to order bottled water, dried fruit, canned food, and a can opener (remember the economist versus the mathematician versus the cleric).
A tarp is less useful in a desert climate, but a rubber raft and a water dehydrator would be more practical.
Now the laptop with satellite reception is a good idea but not much help if you've no clue as to where you're located.
A Blackberry without a nearby service provider is not as wise as black berries.
Nobody mentioned a fishing pole with bait.
Now me, I'd wish for a genie in a bottle that would grant at least three wishes with no strings attached.
If there's no genie, them maybe Deborah Palfrey and a few of her friends.

Question
How did they overlook Bob Jensen as one of the most influential people in the world?
Who is the accounting/finance professor on the list and where’s in from?

• Artists & Entertainers
• Scientists & Thinkers
• Leaders & Revolutionaries
• Builders & Titans
• Heroes & Pioneers

"The Most Influential People in The World," Time Magazine Cover Story --- http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100?internalid=AOT_h_05-04-2007_the_most_influe

I'll never tell a backdated "Lie"

University of Iowa finance professor Erik Lie has been named one of the world's most influential people by Time magazine....In the overall list, Lie is included with other notables that include Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Roger Federer, Tony Dungy, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, John Roberts, Pope Benedict XVI, Al Gore, Elizabeth Edwards, Condolezza Rice and Chien-ming Wang. Lie was named to the list for his work in uncovering the stock options backdating scandal currently roiling corporate America.
Iowa City Press Citizen, May 3, 2007 --- Click Here

From ABC News: The Great Ethanol Fraud
There was a great piece on 20/20 last night about the ethanol fraud, read it here: http://abcnews.go.com  For example: But if ethanol made so much sense, we wouldn't have to subsidize it or mandate its consumption. Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute said, "If you can make a profit in this economy by putting something on the market, the government doesn't need to put a gun to your head."
John Stossel and Andrew G. Sullivan, "Sacrificing Our Children to the 'Corn God':  Ethanol May Not Be the Miracle It's Made Out to Be," ABC News, May 2, 2997 --- http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3130684&page=1 

Link forwarded by Richard Campbell
What Not to Do in PowerPoint (Video) --- http://blog.wildform.com/2007/04/death_by_powerpoint_a_comedy_v.html 

"European Science Foundation Report Examines Peer Review Issues," University of Illinois Issues in Scholarly Communication blog, April 24, 2007 --- http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/

The European Science Foundation (ESF), France, has published a report which reveals some concern on the shortcomings of peer review and outlines some possible measures to cope with them. The report, ‘Peer review: its present and future states’, draws on ideas from an international conference held in Prague in October 2006. Scientists are questioning whether peer review, the internationally accepted form of scientific critique, is able to meet the challenges posed by the rapid changes in the research landscape. The ESF report showcases a number of options that could lead to greater openness in innovative research. A central theme of the report is that the current peer review system might not adequately assess the most pioneering research proposals, as they may be viewed as too risky. The conference called for new approaches, enabling the assessment of innovative research to be embedded in the peer review system. Participants agreed that the increasing importance of competitive research funding has also added on the pressure on referees and on research funding agencies. All contributors to the conference report agreed that peer review is an essential part of research and that no other credible mechanism exists to replace it.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

The AICPA's Financial Literacy Helper Site --- http://www.360financialliteracy.org/

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the U.S. --- http://www.fdi.net/

James Kazoun writes (ArabicNews)  that Iraq and Lebanon should declare bankruptcy --- http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/070501/2007050127.html

Jensen Question
What nations should not declare bankruptcy?
Certainly the U.S. should declare bankruptcy ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm

Question
What online pharmacies are selling fake drugs?

"FDA Warns About Fake Internet Drugs FDA Says 24 Web Sites May Be Involved in Distributing Counterfeit Prescription Drugs," by Miranda Hitti, WebMD, May 1, 2007 ---
http://www.webmd.com/news/20070501/fda-warns-about-fake-internet-drugs

The FDA today strongly cautioned consumers about purchasing drugs from 24 web sites that may be involved in the distribution of counterfeit drugs.

The FDA links two of the 24 web sites to counterfeit versions of the weight loss drug Xenical.

The FDA says that Xenical's maker, the drug company Roche, tested three phony Xenical pills obtained from brandpills.com and pillspharm.com.

One phony Xenical pill contained the active ingredient in another weight loss drug. The two other fake Xenical pills contained only talc and starch, according to the FDA.

The FDA has previously linked four of the 24 web sites to counterfeit versions of the flu drug Tamiflu and counterfeit versions of the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis.

Overseas Web Sites

The web sites, which the FDA says appear to be operated outside the U.S., are:

• AllPills.net
• Pharmacy-4U.net
• DirectMedsMall.com
• Brandpills.com
• Emediline.com
• RX-ed.com
• RXePharm.com
• Pharmacea.org
• PillsPharm.com
• MensHealthDrugs.net
• BigXplus.net
• MediClub.md
• InterTab.de
• Pillenpharm.com
• Bigger-X.com
• PillsLand.com
• EZMEDZ.com
• UnitedMedicals.com
• Best-Medz.com
• USAPillsrx.net
• USAMedz.com
• BluePills-Rx.com
• Genericpharmacy.us
• I-Kusuri.jp

The 24 web sites appear on pharmacycall365.com under the "Our Websites" heading, the FDA notes.

FDA's Advice to Consumers

The FDA says consumers using online pharmacies should be wary if there is no way to contact a web site pharmacy by phone, if prices are dramatically lower than the competition, or if no prescription from your doctor is required.

The FDA's web site includes these safety tips for people buying prescription drugs online:

• Make sure the web site requires a prescription.
• Make sure the web site has a pharmacist available for questions.
• Buy only from licensed pharmacies located in the U.S.
• Don't provide personal information such as credit card numbers unless you're sure the web site will protect that information.

The FDA urges consumers to visit www.fda.gov/buyonline for more information before buying prescription drugs over the Internet.

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

Bob Jensen's consumer fraud site is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm

Accounting Controls in the State of Colorado Have at Least Ten Million Leaks
The amount Department of Revenue supervisor Michelle Cawthra allegedly stole from state coffers is now up to $10 million, double the initial estimate, lawmakers learned Friday. Cawthra's supervisor, Janet Swaney, was placed on administrative leave Friday as the investigation continued into how such a large amount could have been diverted without anyone noticing.
"Missing state money now put at $10 million:  Revenue chief testifies; boss of suspect on leave," Rocky Mountain News, May 5, 2007 --- Click Here

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

Global Business Traveler Knowledge Center on BusinessWeek.com
The Global Business Traveler Knowledge Center on BusinessWeek.com offers practical and business-related travel information on global destinations. From getting the and where to stay, to getting around and business etiquette, it holds all the useful tips and links you need for you next business trip ---
http://knowledgecenter.businessweek.com/business_travel/

Question
Do our mathematics skills peak at age seven?

A mathematical problem that just doesn't add up
Most of us share it and it seems a safe enough assumption: mathematical skills and performance develop and advance as students progress through their elementary school years. However, a new study by University of Notre Dame psychologist Nicole M. McNeil suggests that for at least one type of math problem, 7-year-old students are outperforming 9-year-olds.
PhysOrg, May 5, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news97508859.html

Cheating Scandal in the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University
In the biggest cheating scandal ever at Duke University’s business school, 34 students are facing penalties for collaborating on exam answers, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported. Nine students face expulsion, while others face a range of penalties, including one-year suspensions from the MBA program.
Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/30/qt
The ABC News account on May 1, 2007 is at http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3105733
 

"Duke MBAs Fail Ethics:  Test Thirty-four Fuqua School of Business students are accused of violating the school's honor code by cheating on an exam,"  by Alison Damast, Business Week, April 30, 2007 --- Click Here  

Cheating on the Rise

Business-school leaders have reason to be concerned. Fifty-six percent of graduate business students admitted to cheating one or more times in the past academic year, compared to 47% of nonbusiness students, according to a study published in September in the journal of the Academy of Management Learning & Education (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/24/06, "A Crooked Path Through B-School"). Donald McCabe, the lead author of the study and a professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School, says the large number of students implicated in the Duke case is above average. "It's certainly not the biggest, but it's one of the bigger ones," he says of academic scandals involving all kinds of students.

One of the larger cases in the past five years was a cheating scandal in a physics class at the University of Virginia in 2002. The school eventually dismissed 45 students and revoked three graduates' degrees. In 2005, Harvard Business School rejected 119 applicants accused of hacking the school's admissions Web site (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/9/05, "An Ethics Lesson for MBA Wannabes").

The Duke occurrence came to light in mid-March, when the professor for the class noticed some unusual consistencies among students' answers on the final exam and as well as on assignments given during the course.

Stiff Penalties

The students were brought before the school's Judicial Board and are facing a range of wide range of punitive measures, including expulsion. The board is made up of three faculty members, three students, and one nonvoting faculty chair who only votes in case of a tie.

Thirty-eight students were initially investigated, only four of whom were found not guilty of violating the honor code. (Of the 38 students, 37 were accused of cheating and one of lying.) Of the remaining 34 students, 9 will be expelled, 15 will be suspended for one year and receive an F in the class, and the remaining 9 will receive an F in the course. The penalties for the students will not go into effect until June 1, after which students will have 15 days to file an appeal. The school did not release the names of the students involved or name the professor.

Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor who is chair of the Fuqua Honor Committee, said in a written summary of the board hearings that the board spent several weeks "deliberating at length" the circumstances of the case. "It is my utmost hope that all of the individuals found guilty of violating our Honor Code will learn how precious a gift honor and integrity is," he wrote. "I know from my interactions with many of them that they will forever be changed by this experience."

Academic Pressures

The faculty and student body at Duke were informed of the committee's decision on the afternoon of Apr. 27, and the news spread throughout the campus and on Internet chat groups. Charles Scrase, Fuqua's student body president, was surprised by the charges: "The classmates I work with on a day-to-day basis are ethical, outstanding individuals," he says. "We're shocked that [cheating] could've occurred to this degree."

Sonit Handa, a first-year Fuqua student, suggests the students involved in this case might have been tempted to cheat because they wanted to ensure they did well in the class: "Duke is a hectic MBA business school, and employers want good grades, so there's a lot of pressure to do well."

The pressure, of course, is not confined to Duke. Many schools have policies that encourage an open dialogue on business ethics. Students at the Thunderbird School of Global Management sign a Professional Oath of Honor similar to doctors' Hippocratic Oath, while Penn State created an honor committee of students and faculty last year to help foster academic integrity on campus.

Codes Not Foolproof

One of the more recent examples is the new graduate honor court at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. In January, the business school established a student-run honor court, a body devoted to investigating student violations of the honor code. Between 30 and 40 students, from the school's five MBA programs, are involved with the court, according to Dawn Morrow, a second-year MBA student who serves as the student attorney general for the court.

Before this, student honor code violations were dealt with through the graduate honor court system, which handled cases from other graduate programs. Morrow says that students have been eager to get involved with the honor court because they want to ensure that the school's values are upheld inside and outside the classroom. Rutgers' McCabe estimates that 50 to 100 colleges and universities have honor codes.

Schools with extensive honor codes, such as Duke, tend to have less cheating in general, McCabe says. Still, he says, it's not a foolproof measure. Business-school students are more competitive than other students, and some use cheating as a way to ensure they get ahead: "It's kind of like a businessperson who has the opportunity to embezzle money in the dark of night," says McCabe. "Sure it's more tempting, but we still expect them to be honest."

Continued in article

Huge Cheating Scandals at the University of Virginia, Ohio, and Duke Universities --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#UVA

Jensen Comment
There are two broad types of student honor codes. The toughest one is where each student signs an oath to report the cheating of any other student. This is a rough code that, in my opinion, must be backed by a college commitment to back the whistle blowing student if litigation ensues in the very litigious society of the United States (where 80% of the world's lawyers reside.)

The second kind is a softer version where students are not honor bound to report cheating by run their own honor courts to dole out punishment recommendations for cheating reported by others, usually their instructors. This may actually result in harsher punishments than instructors would normally dole out. For example, professors often think an F grade is sufficient punishment. Honor courts may recommend more severe punishments such as in the Duke scandal noted above.

One problem with honor courts is that they are more of a hassle for instructors having to take the time to report details of the infraction to the court and then appear before the court as witnesses. An even more controversial problem is that the inherent right of an instructor to assign a course grade punishment for cheating is taken out of the hands of the instructor and passed on to the honor court. Instructors generally do not like to lose their authority and responsibility for assigning grades.

Question
What should you ban when students are taking examinations? Baseball caps? iPods?

Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious - students were writing the answers under the brim. Then, schools started banning cell phones, realizing students could text message the answers. Nick d'Ambrosia, 17, holds up his iPod inside a classroom at Mountain View High School in Meridian, Idaho Friday, April 13, 2007. In Idaho, Mountain View High School recently enacted a ban on iPods, Zunes and other digital media players. Some students were downloading formulas and other cheats onto the players, although none were ever caught.
Rebecca Boone, PhysOrg, April 27, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news96865353.html

April 28, 2007 reply from Patricia Doherty [pdoherty@BU.EDU]

Well, as I've said before, you can drive yourself, and also the majority of your students, who are honest, crazy with trying to prevent cheating. One solution I came up with eliminates the reason for many of the cheating options (save texting questions and answers back and forth): I allow one sheet of notes, 8-1/2 x 11, double sided, handwritten, at my exams. They can write anything they want on it - formulas, definitions, problems, prayers. Many students actually find it a good study tool - by the time they condense 4 or 5 chapters onto one sheet of paper and write it up neatly so they can read it, they've learned the material pretty well. Of course, there are always those I notice scribbling frantically in the auditorium 5 minutes before the test. Some people never learn.

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

Say what?
Why bother entering into contracts that are not enforceable?
Do unenforceable contracts create emerging problems in accounting theory and in practice?
"The Best Way to Construct Unenforceable Contracts," by Erica Plambeck, Stanford Graduate School of Business Newsletter, April 2007 --- http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/mfg_plambeck_contracts.shtml

Strong relationships are frequently more important than legally binding contracts when companies outsource key operational activities.

Researchers say that as more firms form international relationships—particularly in innovation-intensive industries such as biopharmaceuticals or high tech—ironclad legal agreements can be impractical, if not impossible. Overburdened court systems around the world and the growing complexity of the types of collaborative deals being forged mean that increasingly firms rely on the threat of loss of future business rather than the court system to enforce those deals.

“When an innovative product is under development and a supplier must invest in capacity up front, it can be difficult—if not impossible—to write a court-enforceable contract that specifies exactly what will be delivered,” says Erica Plambeck, associate professor of operations, information, and technology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

For example, she says, electronics giant Toshiba is continually making design changes, frequently substantial ones, throughout the development process. If Toshiba’s suppliers delayed making capacity investment for manufacturing a new product until the design was finalized and a court-enforceable procurement contract could be negotiated, Toshiba would miss the small windows of opportunity that the consumer electronics market allows for releasing state-of-the-art products. Therefore, Toshiba needs suppliers to build capacity early, without a contract. In a one-off transaction, a supplier would be likely to build far too little capacity, anticipating that Toshiba would attempt to negotiate a low price for production once the capacity investment was made. But within the context of an ongoing, cooperative relationship, Toshiba could offer more generous compensation, and convince the supplier to expand its capacity—and both firms’ profits—even without a contract.

Alternatively, she says, there are cases where assurances about the quality or quantity of output cannot be legally enforceable. “Frequently, producing a viable product depends on the collaborative efforts of both parties, and it’s difficult to determine fault if something goes wrong,” she says. A case in point: A biopharmaceutical firm could hand over genetically modified cells and the liquid medium in which to multiply them to a supplier, who then would be responsible for managing that fermentation process to produce a therapeutic protein. If the protein yield is unexpectedly low, a court would have difficulty determining whether the cells and medium were of poor quality or the supplier made mistakes in managing the fermentation process.

“This kind of complicated business arrangement can be difficult to specify in a contract in a manner that a court could enforce,” says Plambeck. “Under such conditions, an ongoing relationship between partners is critical to cooperation.”

Plambeck has written a series of papers on so-called relational contracts—agreements enforced by the value of the ongoing cooperative relationship—research she has conducted with Terry Taylor, an associate professor in the business school at Columbia University. Plambeck became interested in relational contracts after realizing that there was an almost universal assumption in the operations and supply chain management literature that all contracts were court-enforced.

“By recognizing that the strength of incentives for investment in design, capacity, and inventory are limited by the value of the future business, one obtains qualitatively different managerial insights and policies for operations and supply chain management,” she says. There is a rich body of economics research in this area—indeed, it was a Stanford economics professor, Robert Gibbons (now at MIT) who coined the phrase “relational contracts.” Plambeck and Taylor build on this existing work by taking the abstract idea of relational contracts and applying it to dynamic problems of collaborative product development, capacity, production, and inventory management.

Plambeck has some high-level recommendations for managers.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on intangibles in accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#TheoryDisputes

Question
For affirmative action college admissions, will any black student do?

A study released this year put numbers on the trend. Among students at 28 top U.S. universities, the representation of black students of first- and second-generation immigrant origin (27 percent) was about twice their representation in the national population of blacks their age (13 percent). Within the Ivy League, immigrant-origin students made up 41 percent of black freshmen. Wilcher would like to know why. She asks if her cause has lost its way on U.S. campuses, with the goal of correcting American racial injustices replaced by a softer ideal of diversity--as if any black student will do.
Cara Anna, "Among black students, many immigrants," Yahoo News, April 30, 2007 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070430/ap_on_re_us/colleges_black_students_4

Bob Jensen's threads on affirmative action college admissions and academic standards are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#AcademicStandards

400 Students Pay for an A:  Sure beats having to work for one
Authorities at the institution, Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, about 40 miles east of here, said in a statement issued late Thursday that at least 74 students might have paid someone to change lower grades to higher ones. The college authorities said as many as 400 grades recorded on computer transcripts might have been altered in a five-year period. The interim president at Diablo Valley College, Diane Scott-Summers, said the administration had transferred all records, the names of students who might be involved and other materials to the Contra Costa County district attorney’s office, which is investigating.
Carolyn Marshall, "Students May Have Paid Cash to Change Grades, College Says," The New York Times, May 5, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/us/05grades.html

"Deathbed Confession of Howard Hunt Fingers LBJ in JFK Murder:  Wider Conspiracy Revealed," by Ranger, AC Associates --- Click Here 

E. Howard Hunt, a CIA covert agent and Foreign Station Chief, was the Leader of the White House "plumbers" team, who's burglary eventually brought about the resignation of then President Richard Nixon. E. Howard Hunt, who passed away at the age of 88, was involved in many of the CIA's most notorious operations in Cuba and Central & South America. Hunt is considered by some investigators to be one of the "tramps" detained, photographed and released without arrest or charges near the grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza. All sources agree that Hunt could have had knowledge of the players, and motives in the most mysterious assassination in US history. Many life-long students of this event are having a hard time ignoring this new evidence.

. . .

Fast forward to the present, now the eldest son of E. Howard Hunt, Saint John Hunt, has come forward with his father's deathbed confession tapes, revealing that Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy's Vice President, and thereby the man with the most to gain, orchestrated a larger conspiracy to eliminate JFK. First Lady Jackie Kennedy always suspected LBJ, from the day of her husband's death. Late in the day of November 22nd, she stood by at LBJ's swearing in as President, still wearing the pink dress stained with the President's blood. When asked by reporters why she did not change, she replied, "I want them to see what they have done to my husband." A mistress of LBJ did publically admit that the former president had confided to her his role in the crime, but her admission has been discounted for years. A best-selling biography of LBJ in the 1990s seemed to point in this direction as well. Other criminals, with connections to the French underworld, have admitted to being part of other shooting teams at Dealey Plaza. A trial in the 1960s, led by the District Attorney in New Orleans (Garrison), centered on elements of the mafia working with the CIA as part of the conspiracy, but was unable to obtain any convictions.

Continued in article

Should a professor get fired for selling his own textbook to his own students or other students in his college?
The director of Florida International University’s online education arm stepped down this week amid an investigation into charges that he arranged for students to buy their electronic textbooks from a company that he and a former colleague reportedly owned.
Andy Guess, "An Online Course in Ethics," Inside Higher Ed, May 4, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/04/fiu
Jensen Comment
I think much involves prior disclosure and ethical distribution of the profits (if any). Years ago authors of textbooks widely adopted their own textbooks and pocketed the royalties from publishing companies. A few authors returned the royalties from their students back to their academic departments, although in a way they were distributing student money to the university.

A few decades back several accounting professors purchased a publishing company and sold their company's books to their own students at least two large and prestigious universities in Texas. They apparently got away with it and never hid the fact that they owned the company.

Can some of you out there flesh in some details here about college policies in this regard?
As a matter of fact, in the past publishing companies often sought out coauthors with the main purpose of capturing a huge market in universities that employed those coauthors. In some instances I think the contribution of a coauthor was more in persuading a textbook adoption (e.g., for over 2,000 introductory accounting students) than in writing parts of the textbook.

May 4, 2007 reply from Patricia Doherty [pdoherty@BU.EDU]

From what I have seen (and I have not written a full textbook myself), writing a textbook requires an enormous commitment of time and effort - it is virtually a full time job in itself. And no sooner is the book off the press, than the revisions and updates begin. Why is it unethical for someone to be compensated for that effort? I could see that if the adoption were over the objections of other faculty teaching the course, brooked no competition, done secretly. But if it is open and above-boards, don't the students benefit from being taught by the person who wrote the script? Just my $.02.

p

Freedom isn't free ... someone has to pay for it. attributed to Bob Hope

Patricia A. Doherty
Department of Accounting
Boston University School of Management
595 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, MA 02215

May 4, 2007 reply from Ron Huefner [rhuefner@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]

This case doesn't seem to be about a professor requiring his own text, but rather about the professor owing the bookstore to which students were directed. This is more reminiscent of the flap some years ago about doctors owning pharmacies.

A textbook is above board, in that you can see who the author is. In this case, one of the issues seemed to be that the ownership of the bookstore was not disclosed.

Ron Huefner

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

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

Website Citations

April 30, 2007 message from by Jean Heck [jean.heck@yahoo.com]

Bob,

Here is a link to the authority on web site citation:

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite5.html#1 

Rarely are page number listed on web citations. There are many online journals now that have to deal with that and all of the ones I'm familiar with do not use page numbers.

Jean

More Banking Dirty Tricks and Special Privileges

"Banks Tap Social Security Funds Too," by Ellen E. Schultz, The Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2007; Page A10 ---
Click Here

James Cain, a terminally ill Florida veteran, got his first Social Security disability payment last month. Before he could withdraw any of it to pay for his medicine or mortgage, his bank took it out of his account.

His wife's Social Security check went in the same day. The bank took most of that, too. It withdrew the money to make payments to itself on a car loan the bank had made to the Cains.

Federal law says Social Security can't be taken to repay debts. So how can banks do it?

They don't use the technique of debt collectors, which is to file garnishment orders on bank accounts -- orders that succeed because by and large no one is enforcing the exemption (see adjoining article).

Banks have a different rationale. They say the federal ban on taking Social Security benefits to repay debts doesn't apply to them. The reason: They aren't really collecting debts.

Auto Loan at the Bank

They cite the doctrine of "set-off," which says banks can collect money that customers owe them by taking it out of customers' accounts. All agree this traditional practice makes sense for routine fees like monthly account charges. But banks apply it broadly, to other money customers owe them. Banks argue that when they take cash out of a customer's account -- including cash from a Social Security check -- they aren't really collecting a debt, just "setting off" what's owed them.

The Cains, of Palm Coast, Fla., took out a $31,000 loan from a SunTrust bank to buy a Ford Expedition in 2005. But last summer, Mr. Cain was diagnosed with bladder cancer and soon was unable to work. His wife, Elna, tried to find someone to take over the $690 monthly payments but couldn't, so she surrendered the SUV to the bank this January. After selling it at auction for $16,000, the bank told the Cains they owed it a balance of $15,703, which included late charges, repossession expenses and interest.

Mrs. Cain, 63, says she told the bank her husband's cancer had spread and he was confined to a wheelchair. They lost their health coverage when he had to quit working. A Vietnam vet, Mr. Cain has applied for veteran's benefits, but isn't yet receiving them.

He also applied for Social Security disability. On March 14, both his first disability check, $1,343, and Mrs. Cain's $1,161 regular Social Security hit their SunTrust account through direct deposit.

The same day, SunTrust took $1,924 out of their account. The next week, the Cains got a letter from SunTrust Recovery Department, dated March 15, thanking them for their payment.

Exempt Funds

Besides Social Security, the Cains' account received money from Mrs. Cain's pension from the American Red Cross. In Florida, that is also exempt from collection to repay a debt.

The Cains contend they had never given SunTrust permission to debit their account. SunTrust Banks Inc. pointed to its deposit agreements, which say that the bank can use money in customers' accounts to offset debts to the bank.

Asked whether the bank believes its set-off right makes it legal to seize exempt funds such as Social Security, the bank said in a statement: "We cannot publicly disclose the specifics of individual client relationships. However, in cases when we offset accounts for delinquent loans, we as a matter of policy exclude exempt funds and provide proper notice to the customer."

Mark Budnitz, a Georgia State College of Law professor and co-author of "Consumer Banking and Payment Law," said, "It's an abuse of the right of set-off to use it to take money from Social Security funds.... Banks are flouting federal policy."

California Lawsuit

A case before the California Supreme Court is testing the issue. The court has agreed to review a suit alleging that Bank of America Corp. seeks to profit from Social Security recipients by charging high fees and taking them from the recipients' accounts.

The suit cites a case where the bank charged a Santa Cruz man five overdraft fees in one day, totaling $160, based on debit-card purchases that totaled $11. It took this out of an account funded by Social Security disability benefit checks for the man, the victim of a disabling head injury.

The fees are steep because of a newer type of overdraft protection common with direct-deposit accounts set up to receive Social Security. Instead of a line of credit, which preferred customers get, this newer type creates a short-term loan to the account holder every time he or she writes a check or makes an ATM withdrawal from an account with insufficient funds.

Each such loan carries a fee, typically $25 to $30, instead of interest. And instead of giving the customer time to repay, the bank repays itself out of the account as soon as the customer puts some more money in it.

Continued in article

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

Bob Jensen's "Rotten to the Core" threads are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

Math Teaching and Learning Center --- http://www.uwstout.edu/cas/mathtlc/

Free Online Statistics Education Journals and Tutorials

Journal of Statistics Education --- http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/

Statistics Education Research Journal --- http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications.php?show=serj

Teaching Statistics --- http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications.php?show=serj

Bob Jensen's links to math and statistics free online tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

National Academy of Sciences: Webcast Archive --- http://www.nap.edu/webcast/webcast_list.php

Science and Engineering Encyclopedia http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/h/o/home/source.html

Exploring Magnetism on Earth --- http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/themis/pdf/explore_mag_on_earth.pdf

Northwest Center for Sustainable Resources --- http://www.ncsr.org/

Penn State University Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization ---  http://www.cneu.psu.edu/

Bob Jensen's links to free online science tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science

Not Just A Number (Violence in Oakland, CA) ---  http://www.bayareanewsgroup.com/multimedia/iba/njn/index.html

Bob Jensen's threads about free online tutorials in economics and social science --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social

"An iPod Rival With an Edge Music Player Uses Wi-Fi Connection; No Search on Device," by Katherine Boehret, The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2007; Page D10 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/the_mossberg_solution.html

But despite improvements on the original iPod, none has enabled interaction with other players or wireless Internet connectivity -- two features that competitors are eager to offer so as to chip away at iPod's huge market share. Microsoft Corp.'s Zune music player, for example, was shipped with built-in Wi-Fi, enabling song sharing -- albeit limited -- with nearby Zunes. Apple is about to bring out its own wireless music player in the iPhone, which combines a full iPod with Wi-Fi and cellphone connectivity. But so far, it's unclear whether you'll be able to use the iPhone to download or share music. This week, I tested San-Disk's $250 Sansa Connect player, a collaborative effort from SanDisk Corp., Yahoo Inc.'s Yahoo Music and Zing Systems Inc. that comes with built-in Wi-Fi for more than just limited sharing with other players. Unlike the iPod, which must be plugged into a computer to load new music, Sansa Connect can play and download content on the player whenever a Wi-Fi network is available, including photos, Internet Radio, songs from Yahoo's music store or recommendations from friends. The Sansa Connect isn't without flaws. Downloading music on the go requires a subscription plan that costs $144 a year or $15 monthly, so you never outright own this content. The player also relies on a Wi-Fi connection for much of its functionality, and you may not always be within Wi-Fi range. Another problem is that Yahoo's music store doesn't sell videos and offers fewer songs than Apple's iTunes: roughly two million versus five million. Lastly, the Sansa Connect doesn't enable searching the store for specific music. Instead, you're limited to Internet radio or play-lists suggested by Yahoo, a caveat that can be maddening if you want to find a certain title or artist. But overall, I really liked the Sansa Connect. It forced me to look at my portable player as an evolving, untethered device that introduced me to lots of songs. When it wasn't connected to Wi-Fi, I was disappointed to not be downloading new songs. My iPod suddenly seemed old-fashioned. The four-gigabyte, black Sansa Connect isn't as handsome as the iPod, and has a stubby Wi-Fi antenna protruding from its top edge. It measures about a half an inch wider than and two and a half times as thick as the comparably priced iPod Nano, which has twice as much memory -- eight gigabytes rather than four. The Sansa Connect has a microSD card slot for expanding its capacity, but doesn't come with such a card. The Sansa has a movable scroll wheel similar to that found on the original iPod. This wheel aids navigation tremendously, as does its smart interface. A colorful 2.2-inch display showed seven menus in a fan formation at the bottom of the screen, and I flipped through each by turning the wheel. A tiny speaker is built onto the back of the device, which came in handy more often than I anticipated. I cut right to the chase when I opened my Sansa Connect, testing its Wi-Fi capabilities by playing an Internet radio station through the device. The player detected my Wi-Fi network, I entered my Yahoo username and password and seconds later was listening to a new Carrie Underwood song on one of 16 pop stations. Even without a paid subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go, owners of the Sansa Connect can access about 100 Internet Radio stations; subscribers get twice as many. Each player comes with a free 30-day subscription. You can also view uploaded digital photos without a subscription. The Sansa Connect links to Yahoo's free photo-sharing site, Flickr.com, so you can see your images as well as the top 50 photos Flickr labels as Today's Most Interesting -- but you can't view friends' albums. These photos looked good on my Sansa Connect screen, automatically adjusting to fit the screen in landscape or portrait views depending on the image. With a subscription, the Sansa Connect's Wi-Fi connection becomes more useful. While a song is playing, you can press a button to download it or the whole album to your player. I tried this with Mat Kearney's "Nothing Left To Lose," opting first to download just that song but then deciding to get the entire album. One by one, the songs downloaded, averaging about 10 seconds each at best, until they were loaded in the player's My Music section. Finding exact songs, artists or albums using the Sansa Connect is complete hit or miss. Rather than gaining access to Yahoo's entire store on your player, you're limited to choosing from general genres via the Internet Radio section, top songs on Yahoo Music or Yahoo's recommendations for what you'll like. So if you want to hear a certain band, you'll have to guess which category the band falls under in Internet Radio, hope to see one of its songs and then download as the song plays. Though this lack of a search process is frustrating at times, it also might force you to discover music that you haven't yet heard. This is a different way of thinking for iPodders, so it may not catch on as easily as the Sansa player's creators hoped. But remember: The Sansa Connect is Wi-Fi capable so it can receive software updates wirelessly, adding new features to the player at any time. Its developers say search on the device is something they're looking at for the future. Continued in article

Future Lab (in the U.K.):
Developing innovative learning resources and practices that support new approaches to education for the 21st century.
By bringing together the creative, technical and educational communities, Futurelab is pioneering ways of using new technologies to transform the learning experience.
FutureLab Innovation in Education --- http://www.futurelab.org.uk/index.htm

Literature reviews:		a series of reviews into areas such as thinking skills, games, e-assessment, mobile technologies and 14-19 education
Futurelab handbooks:		themed findings from related projects, including creativity and collaboration, designing with users, and games
Opening Education:		a series of publications designed to open up areas for debate and stimulate new visions for education
Personalisation report:		a report presenting the key issues of the personalisation agenda (includes the Learner's Charter)
Innovations reports:		outcomes from a series of workshops looking at the impact of different technologies in the future
ESRC seminars report:		a report on improving the design of interactive media for children (includes Directory of Educational Researchers)
Discussion papers:		articles that aim to raise questions and prompt debate
Other publications:		externally-published books and articles by Futurelab staff

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

Bob Jensen's threads on tools of education technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

Center for Systems Security and Information Assurance ---] http://www.cssia.org/

Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center --- http://www.matec.org/

Computer Graphic News ---  http://www.cgnews.com/

Major Inventions of the 19th Century
Workshop of the World --- http://www.workshopoftheworld.co.uk/

Bob Jensen's links to history and museums --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History

Moral Hazard in Mortgage Brokering
In the old days, most homeowners obtained mortgages from their local bank or credit union, which adhered to strict lending rules. Nowadays, the lion's share of homebuyers' business (70 percent) goes to independent mortgage brokers — some of whom get bonuses for steering borrowers to higher-interest loans. Experts say many recent borrowers were put into ARMs that are likely to cost far more over the life of the loan than if they'd chosen a fixed-rate option. Often, consumers could have locked in fixed-rate loans at low interest rates, but lenders downplayed the advantages of these loans.
Chris Arnold, "Mass. Homeowners Rally Against Foreclosures," NPR, April 27, 2007 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9870466

Subprime Mortgages: A Primer
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are demanding answers from regulators and lenders about subprime mortgages. Many worry that rising mortgage defaults and lender failures could hurt America's overall banking system. Already, the subprime crisis has been blamed for steep declines in the stock market. But just what is a subprime loan — and why should you care? Here, a primer:
"Subprime Mortgages: A Primer," NPR, March 23, 2007 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9085408

Bob Jensen's advice on mortgages --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#MortgageAdvice

Color-Editing for Dummies
A new Xerox prototype aims to let people use simple natural-language commands to tweak photos and documents, avoiding complex color-editing tools.
David Talbot, MIT's Technology Review, May 1, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18612/

How do lenders rate on treats at the University of Texas?
Officials at the University of Texas at Austin — already facing scrutiny over how they recommended lenders to students — have a new embarrassment to face. The Daily Texan obtained and published documents showing that the office rated lenders not just on the quality of services provided to students, but on the “treats” provided to the aid office — treats like fajita lunches, happy hours, birthday cakes and more.
Inside Higher Ed, May 1, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/01/qt

Bob Jensen's threads on the student loan scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Accountability

Green Atlas --- http://greenatlas.org/

Green Map System is an adaptable framework for charting nature and culture in hometown environments. Since 1995, we have: helped citizens of all ages identify, promote and link their communities’ ecological and cultural resources   built inclusive networks that extend civic participation and accelerate progress toward sustainability   promoted model greening efforts underway across the globe   used the info-web in service of the web-of-life

Each locally-created Green Map is a fresh perspective encouraging discovery, personal involvement and greener everyday choices through a shared visual language of Green Map Icons. Project funding can be derived from several sources, but all Mapmakers pledge that content is not influenced by sponsors, and that they will do their best to be accurate, fair and inclusive. Since global transformation takes hold gradually through local action, Green Maps help address unhealthy conditions, climate change, species loss and inequity as they celebrate heroic efforts to restore and conserve the assets of each community

Failing Leadership and Cowardice in Higher Education

Undergraduate education today bears no resemblance to the instruction masters and tutors gave to the trickle of adolescents entering one of the nine colleges that existed prior to the American Revolution.
Our Underachieving Colleges, by Derek Bok, ISBN: 0691125961 # Pub. Date: January 2006
(You can read free excerpts in the Amazon.com Reader)
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Bok

The Former President of Harvard Takes a Dark View of the State of Learning and the Future State of Learning
Both Harry Lewis and Derek Bok have entered a devastating judgment on contemporary university leadership
"As Goes Harvard. . . ," by Donald Kagan, Commentary Magazine, September 2006 ---
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=12202034_1
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Bok

"Balancing Fundamental Tensions," by Daniel H. Weiss, Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/04/30/weiss 

Last year — my first as the president of a liberal arts college — I attended a gathering of about 40 college and university presidents along with various experts on higher education where the challenges of higher education were being discussed. At one point during the meeting, all other attendees were asked to exit the room, leaving just the college leaders. The idea was to give us the opportunity to have an honest and forthright discussion, to offer questions and answers about issues such as increasing diversity and improving accessibility that we had all agreed were crucial.

I asked: since we effectively had the power in that room to transform the world of higher education, why weren’t we doing it? Much to my consternation, one of my peers responded that we are “lacking in both the individual and collective courage to do so.” This is indeed troubling.

I’ve been struck by the challenges facing higher education today. And, as someone who has spent his career in higher education, first as an academic and then as an administrator, I believe the issues facing higher ed leaders now are more profound than at any other time in the last several decades — and are perhaps even unprecedented.

We face mounting pressure from all sides to do well in the rankings and increase revenue; but, as our institutions become significantly more market driven, we’re in grave danger of losing touch with our core academic missions. Reports like the one issued by the Spellings Commission are escalating the demands on leaders for new approaches to the pressing issues facing higher education including affordability, access, and outcomes assessment. There are also genuine real-world problems — challenges that impinge directly on our institutions and missions — from trying to keep pace with the breathtakingly rapid changes in technology to facing a global environment rife with injustice, violence, and a deepening divide between world cultures and religions.

And what do people hear about us, the leaders of these institutions? Often, media coverage characterizes college and university presidents as highly compensated career opportunists more concerned with our generous perks and benefits than in tackling the tough issues facing our institutions today.

It is therefore disconcerting to me that the traditional model of college leadership does not appear to be up to the challenge. The new and evolving demands being placed on our leadership need new and creative strategies. And we educational leaders must look to each other for examples of successful experimentation and innovation as well as for counsel and criticism.

There is cause for optimism. If we look beyond the overheated rhetoric, we see individual examples of educational leaders rising to meet these challenges. Deborah Bial, founder of the Posse Foundation, for example, is helping bring about greater social and intellectual pluralism on American campuses. Lloyd Thacker is working to restore reason and educational values to calm the admissions frenzy through the Education Conservancy. And with his colleagues, William Bowen has done groundbreaking work in setting a national agenda for substantive assessment and reform in the areas of race sensitive admissions, college athletics, and most recently, socioeconomic status and educational attainment.

At Lafayette College, we are in the throes of developing a strategic plan and using a very inclusive, time-consuming, and at times down-right frustrating process. The challenge has been to make this process open and interactive enough to gain the benefit of valuable individual contributions while creating a vision that is widely embraced and actively supported.

As we move forward, it seems increasingly clear to me that presidential leadership must acknowledge that fundamental tensions exist between what we feel pressured to do to be successful leaders today (such as raising funds and worrying about rankings) and what, ethically, we need to do (improving the quality of the academic core of the institution, increasing diversity and accessibility, and producing an engaged and enlightened citizenry.) As educational leaders, the most important challenge facing us today is balancing these fundamental tensions.

As we continue the work on our strategic plan here at Lafayette, we have been thinking about how to balance some of these conflicting pressures:

1) The commitment to educational excellence with the prudent management of costs. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. To reach this seemingly straightforward objective, two fundamental facts have to be addressed.

First, especially at liberal arts colleges, our model of education — that of faculty working closely with individual students — is inherently inefficient and always will be. There is no substitute for individual mentoring, teaching in small classes, or interaction between students and faculty outside of the classroom. But there are opportunities to do this work more effectively, beginning with more efficient use of technology and better use of faculty time. (As a start, we might reduce by half the number of committees on which our faculty members are required to serve which would free up several additional hours per month for each of our professors to work with students).

Second, it requires college leadership to understand that a hand-tooled education is, above all else, what makes a student’s college experience distinctive — and it is worth the cost. If we acknowledge these factors, we set priorities more clearly and manage more effectively.

2) The enduring values of a liberal education with support for the skills needed in an increasingly professional marketplace. Students and their families have begun to question the utility of a broad, values-based curriculum in this fast-paced, skills-driven economy. They are concerned, and justifiably so, about outcomes and their prospects for gainful employment. However, we need to make clear that, for most of our students, the real value of time at college is to obtain a liberal education: to encourage individual growth, the cultivation of ethics, new capacities for expression, and most important, the skills and desire to continue learning.

3) Preparing students to function in a global environment, regardless of where they are located or the limitations of resources. By providing them with an educational experience that is international in reach and presence, they will have a basis for understanding what it really means to be global citizens. I see this not so much as a technological or logistical challenge as a creative one requiring new thinking about curriculum, allocation of faculty resources, and campus climate. For example, at no additional cost, a small number of existing faculty positions might be redeployed to support a program for visiting international faculty in various content areas.

4) Strengthening our core programs by reaffirming our commitment to community and civic engagement. Our institutions need to show by example the type of community partners we can and should be. At Lafayette, service learning has been used to great educational and community benefit in many of our departments, including civil engineering, English, economics, sociology and mathematics. By modeling values and principles we espouse and encouraging students to join us in this work, we can help instill greater recognition of the importance of civic engagement and an educated citizenry. We serve our educational mission best when we foster our role as vital and engaged citizens, connected in myriad ways to our communities and to the world.

5) Embracing technology as a fundamental component of the educational process not merely its infrastructure. This too, at bottom, is not a resource problem — it’s a question of vision. We must understand that technology is no longer a productivity enhancer nor a marginal benefit. Rather it is a core element of our educational system just as it is for our society. It’s difficult to be a technological leader if we can’t keep pace with the technological sophistication of our own students. This was brought home to me recently when a student complained about a faculty member who was still using old-fashioned e-mail rather than a hand-held PDA. Academic and facilities planning must include various perspectives on how technology contributes to learning across the disciplines and the campus.

6) Pursuing excellence and an agenda of pluralism. True diversity — social and intellectual pluralism — enriches the educational possibilities by a measure greater than any other means. Diversity in its broadest sense must be a core value of higher ed institutions because it provides us with the optimal access to talent, quality of learning environment, and service to our social mission. To achieve this, however, it requires rethinking the admission and financial aid paradigm, the structure of the curriculum, and the very nature of the communities we create. Difficult though it is, initial success in student recruitment is far easier than the ongoing challenge of maintaining a vibrant community that is fundamentally diverse.

The challenges are great but the opportunities to do the right things on the right issues are greater. If we wish to succeed in the new century — if we wish to have a transformative impact on higher education in America and throughout the world — we must accept the challenge that we can do more for our students and the broader communities that we serve. The work ahead will require both individual and collective courage.

Daniel H. Weiss is president of Lafayette College. He was formerly the James B. Knapp Dean of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. An authority on the art of medieval Europe in the age of the Crusades, Weiss also was a professor of art history at Johns Hopkins.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

‘Dirty Little Secrets’ in Women’s Sports
Last month’s resignation of Louisiana State University’s women’s basketball coach amid allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct with her players has once again raised an issue that has long dogged women’s sports: the perceived prevalence of lesbian coaches. Some advocates for women’s athletics fear that the incident involving Pokey Chatman will have negative ramifications for female coaches and encourage the use of “negative recruiting” aimed at some coaches and programs. Yet, more hopefully, they say the incident is galvanizing discussion around issues of homophobia in women’s sports that have long been silently suppressed, and has cast light on the double standard that surrounds player-coach relationships.
Elizabeth Redden, "‘Dirty Little Secrets’ in Women’s Sports," Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/30/sports

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

Report says Internet is an important tool for extremists' recruiting
Extremist Islamic groups have come to value the Internet so much for its ability to spread their message that some have said the keyboard is as important as a Kalashnikov rifle, a report for Congress says. The report, to be presented Thursday to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, says terrorists have increased their use of the Internet to make their activities faster, cheaper and more secure. Use of the Internet for communications, propaganda and research has grown to include recruitment and training, says the report prepared by a panel of experts brought together by George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute and the University of Virginia's Critical Incident Analysis Group.
MIT's Technology Review, May 2, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/18653/

From the Scout Report on May 4, 2007

Shiira 2.0 --- http://shiira.jp/en.php 

While many browsers offer a seamless experience, Shiira has a touch of elegance in its overall visual appearance that merits a closer look. Designed specifically for use on Macs, the browser features tabs as small preview images, and another feature called “Shelf”, which gives users the ability to access bookmarks immediately. Shiira also has complete RSS support and a webpage holder feature. This version is compatible with all computers running Mac OS X 10.4

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podLoadr 1.0 --- http://www.podloadr.com/ 

With all the content on the web, visitors may be interested in taking some of this material with them on their iPod as they go from place to place in their travels. podLoadr 1.0 is a great way to make this happen, as visitors can place documents on their devices, along with RSS feeds, radio shows, and so on. Visitors should note that while this version will work on all computers, they will need to have iTunes 7.0.1 or later installed.

 

Magicians sue TV stations for divulging coin-trick secrets ---
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070502a7.htmlv

Pros and Cons About Accountability Measures of Colleges

May 2, 2007 message from Carnegie President [carnegiepresident@carnegiefoundation.org]

A different way to think about ... accountability Alex McCormick's timely essay brings to our attention one of the most intriguing paradoxes associated with high-stakes measurement of educational outcomes. The more importance we place on going public with the results of an assessment, the higher the likelihood that the assessment itself will become corrupted, undermined and ultimately of limited value. Some policy scholars refer to the phenomenon as a variant of "Campbell's Law," named for the late Donald Campbell, an esteemed social psychologist and methodologist. Campbell stated his principle in 1976: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decisionmaking, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."

In the specific case of the Spellings Commission report, Alex points out that the Secretary's insistence that information be made public on the qualities of higher education institutions will place ever higher stakes on the underlying measurements, and that very visibility will attenuate their effectiveness as accountability indices. How are we to balance the public's right to know with an institution's need for the most reliable and valid information? Alex McCormick's analysis offers us another way to think about the issue.

Carnegie has created a forum—Carnegie Conversations—where you can engage publicly with the author and read and respond to what others have to say about this article at http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/april2007 .

Or you may respond to Alex privately through carnegiepresident@carnegiefoundation.org .

If you would like to unsubscribe to Carnegie Perspectives, use the same address and merely type "unsubscribe" in the subject line of your email to us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Lee S. Shulman
President The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Jensen Comment
The fact that an assessment provides incentives to cheat is not a reason to not assess. The fact that we assign grades to students gives them incentives to cheat. That does not justify ceasing to assess, because the assessment process is in many instances the major incentive for a student to work harder and learn more. The fact that business firms have to be audited and produce financial statements provides incentives to cheat. That does not justify not holding business firms accountable. Alex McCormick's analysis and Shulman's concurrence is a bit one-sided in opposing the Spellings Commission recommendations.

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment of schools and students can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#AdmissionTesting

Also see Full Disclosure to Consumers of Higher Education at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#FullDisclosure

From the Scout Report on April 27, 2007

Orbit Downloader 1.5.4 --- http://www.orbitdownloader.com/

Looking for a faster way to download large research papers or massive audio file? Well, both situations can be addressed by utilizing Orbit Downloader 1.5.4. This application is a download manager that helps facilitate downloads of just about every type of media, and it can also be used to resume broken or interrupted downloads. This particular version is compatible with computers running Windows 95 and newer.

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Wikyblog 1.4.9 --- http://www.wikyblog.com/ 

A number of people have been intimately involved in blending the worlds of the wiki and the blog together into one efficient and engaging application, and Wikyblog is one of the very fine results of those ruminations. Designed as a piece of open source software, Wikyblog allows users to create their own different data types, and to arrange various fields and variables as they see fit. Visitors can download this software, and also take advantage of the “how-to” section offered on the Wikyblog homepage. This version is compatible with all computers.

 

From The Washington Post on May 1, 2007

Which country is not on the U.S. copyright piracy watch list?

A. Thailand
B. Israel
C. Chile
D. Greece

From The Washington Post on May 3, 2007

What percent of American adults use Wikipedia?

A. 15 percent
B. 23 percent
C. 36 percent
D. 41 percent

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

May 2, 2007

• Soup First Cuts Calories Later
• 24 Web Sites Selling Fake Drugs
• Passive Smoke Ups Dementia Risk
• Brain Changes for Gulf War Vets
• Sneak Veggies Into Kids’ Diets

May 3, 2007

• Melamine Feed: Low Human Risk
• Best Sun Defenses: Shade, Cover
• Sibling Had Stroke? Your Risk Up
• Once-Yearly Drug Cuts Fractures
• Losing Money May Be Painful

May 4, 2007

• CDC Predicts Arthritis Boom
• Doing Enough for Blood Pressure?
• Gene Variant May Hurt Heart
• Epilepsy Drug Linked to Low IQ
• Infant Mortality Rate Unchanged

Question
Can Bob Jensen get the same benefits from a pill as from one hour on his fast-moving treadmill?

"The Benefits of Exercise in a Pill," by David Ewing Duncan, MIT's Technology Review, May 1, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/duncan/posts/

I just spent an hour at the gym only to discover in an article on Forbes.com that one day soon I may not need to pump out the miles on that stationary bike or groan out those sit-ups. (Or listen to retro '70s disco to a hip-hop beat over the loudspeaker.) If a team at Salk led by Ronald Evans is right, mice can now take a pill that will allow them to have fit little bodies without having to run around on those little metal wheels. Can humans be far behind? As is always the case with mouse testing, no one knows. "We're very excited by the potential extension to humans," Evans told Forbes. The reason for his optimism is that his new chemical turns on a genetic switch called PPAR-d that apparently occurs in both mice and man. It revs up metabolism in a way similar to what happens during a heavy workout. According to Forbes.com, When given the drug in the form of a liquid or powder, the bodies of mice appear to act as if they are exercising even when they aren't, causing their metabolism to speed up, Evans explained. "You then have lower fatty acid levels in your blood, lower triglyceride levels, and lower sugar levels," he said. "They all appear to be linked." When the mice exercised after taking the new drug, they could last twice as long, said Evans, turning them into "marathon mice." Evans is discussing his results today at the annual meetings of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, in Washington, D.C. However, the purpose of the pill is not to make healthy people into superhumans; it's to treat the obese and overweight with what may be the long-sought "cure" for fatness--a treatment that succeeds where diets and diet pills often fail. This can't come a moment too soon to treat the rising epidemic of obesity and diseases such as type II diabetes that often result from people being overweight. This is good news, though I admit to having a nagging voice inside my head that undoubtedly comes from my Puritan ancestors, who offered admonitions that could be summed up as "No pain, no gain." My ancestors would have meant this literally, in the sense that rewards come only to those who work hard. Yet there is another aspect of "No pain, no gain" that might be lost with a pill that makes us skinny and fit. This is the part of the pain and gain that is not just physical, but also mental. I exercise to stay fit but also because it's a Zen-like experience in which for a few hours a week I set aside work and various concerns and anxieties and let the blood flow. I relax my brain and stretch my muscles, and it feels good and invigorating. Evans says that the pill will work best in humans (if it works at all) combined with exercise and a good diet--which I guess means that I can work out and get my Zen moment and also become a marathon man. But isn't this cheating? Under current rules, this pill would be illegal for athletes, and it almost certainly would wreck havoc with sports already battered by waves of new chemicals to make one run faster, throw harder, and jump higher. But what if, unlike steroids, this chemical has no side effects? What if it's served up in a flashy container like Red Bull, or in chewing gum? Or in a Big Mac? You've got to wonder if the fast-food industry is cheering this latest discovery, which might come just in time to staunch the growing movement to encourage healthy eating and to remove fatty foods from public schools. Of course, there are other reasons to avoid fatty foods high in sodium (read my blog "Killer Salt"), although there is little doubt that a fat pill will keep millions of people healthier (and leaner) than they are now. But will people truly be healthier in mind as well as body?

The PhysOrg May 1, 2007 account of this new exercise pill is at http://physorg.com/news97255127.html

How does soy promote weight loss?
Scientist finds another clue Research shows that when soy consumption goes up, weight goes down. A new University of Illinois study may help scientists understand exactly how that weight loss happens.
PhysOrg, May 1, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news97247222.html 

World Health Organization: The Department of Gender, Women and Health ---
http://www.who.int/gender/en/index.html

How Famous Artists (Degas and Monet) Changed as Their Eyesight Commenced to Fail
A Stanford researcher has studied the eye diseases in two great impressionistic painters, Edgar Degas and Claude Monet, and recreated images of some of their masterpieces to show how the artists' may have seen their own work. The results may shed light on how the painters' work changed as their eyesight failed.
Tracie White, "Eye diseases changed great painters' vision of their work later in their lives Degas, Monet had significant loss of vision from retinal disease and cataracts, ophthalmologist and art enthusiast says," Stanford News, April 11, 2007 --- http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april11/med-optart-041107.html

Aspirin may be less effective heart treatment for women than men
A new study shows that aspirin therapy for coronary artery disease is four times more likely to be ineffective in women compared to men with the same medical history.
PhysOrg, April 27, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news96910872.html

Research demonstrates link between domestic violence and asthma
The link between environmental exposures and asthma has been clearly described, but a new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) finds a strong association between domestic violence and asthma. The study, in the upcoming June issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology, (published advance online Feb. 28, 2007) raises questions about the role of stress in the development of this common respiratory condition.
PhysOrg, May 1, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news97242385.html

Anti-dandruff compound may help fight epilepsy
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the same ingredient used in dandruff shampoos to fight the burning, itching and flaking on your head also can calm overexcited nerve cells inside your head, making it a potential treatment for seizures. Results of the study can be found online in Nature Chemical Biology.
PhysOrg, April 27, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news96895108.html

Lesbians have more than double the risk for obesity
Ulrike Boehmer of the Boston University School of Public Health and colleagues looked at a 2002 national survey of almost 6000 women, and found that lesbians were 2.69 times more likely to be overweight.
"Lesbians at higher risk for obesity - study," Reuters, April 27, 2007 --- http://in.news.yahoo.com/070427/137/6f34u.html

Scientists Identify 7 New Diabetes Genes
Researchers said yesterday that they had identified seven new genes connected to the most common form of diabetes — the latest result of an intensifying race between university researchers and private companies to find genes linked to a range of diseases. The findings, presented in three reports by university scientists and one by a private company, offer novel insights into the biology of a disease that affects 170 million people worldwide. And the sudden spate of new results mark an acceleration, and perhaps a turning point, in the ability to find disease genes, the long-promised payoff from the human genome project that began in 1989.
Nicholas Wade, The New York Times, April 28, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/27diabetes.html

New animal study may explain why alcohol consumption increases breast cancer risk
For the first time, scientists have used a laboratory mouse model to mimic the development of human alcohol-induced breast cancer.
PhysOrg, April 28, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news97034599.html

Depression may be early Parkinson's sign
U.S. researchers say depression may be an early symptom of Parkinson's disease.
PhysOrg, April 28, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news96984011.html

Faster-Healing Artificial Skin
In work that has implications for those with severe burns, researchers have demonstrated in mice a new way to encourage skin regeneration.
Katherine Bourzac, MIT's Technology Review, April 30, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/18601/

KFC to Switch to Oil With No Trans Fat
KFC's fried chicken buckets soon will be stamped with a health message along with the famous likeness of its founder, Colonel Harland Sanders. The banner proclaims that its chicken has zero grams of trans fat per serving.
Bruce Schreiner, PhysOrg, April 30, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news97119467.html

"Expensive Lesson for Maine as Health Plan Stalls," by Pam Belluck, The New York Times, April 30, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/30maine.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

When Maine became the first state in years to enact a law intended to provide universal health care, one of its goals was to cover the estimated 130,000 residents who had no insurance by 2009, starting with 31,000 of them by the end of 2005, the program’s first year.

So far, it has not come close to that goal. Only 18,800 people have signed up for the state’s coverage and many of them already had insurance.

. . .

But as Maine tries to reform its reforms, it faces some particular challenges: It has large rural, poor and elderly populations with significant health needs. It has many mom-and-pop businesses and part-time or seasonal workers, and few employers large enough to voluntarily offer employees insurance. And most insurers here no longer find it profitable to sell individual coverage, leaving one carrier, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, with a majority of the market, a landscape that some economists said could make it harder to provide broad choices and competitive prices.

Some parts of the state’s current program — named Dirigo after the state motto, which means “I lead” in Latin — are seen as promising. These include the creation of a state watchdog group to promote better health care, and an effort to control costs by asking hospitals to rein in price increases and spending, although experts and advocates said those cuts needed to be greater.

But a financing formula dependent on sizable payments from private insurers has angered businesses and is being challenged in court.

And while some people have benefited from the subsidized insurance, which provides unusually comprehensive coverage, others have found it too expensive. And premiums have increased, not become more affordable, because some of those who signed up needed significant medical care, and there are not enough enrollees, especially healthy people unlikely to use many benefits.

“It was broad-based reform that just never got off the ground,” said Laura Tobler, a health policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “The way that they funded the program became controversial. And getting insurance was voluntary and it wasn’t that cheap.”

Governor Baldacci said in an interview that when the Legislature enacted the Dirigo Health Reform Act in 2003, it gave him less money and more compromises than he had wanted. He said his administration had now learned more about what works and what does not.

His new proposals include requiring people to have insurance and employers to offer it and penalizing them financially if they do not; making the subsidized insurance plan, DirigoChoice, more affordable for small businesses; creating a separate insurance pool for high-risk patients; instituting more Medicaid cost controls; and having the state administer DirigoChoice, which is now sold by Anthem Blue Cross.

“We’ve got a reform package that takes Dirigo to the next level,” Mr. Baldacci said. “It takes the training wheels off.”

The proposed overhaul seems to include something each of Maine’s constituencies can embrace and something each opposes, so there is no guarantee which changes will be adopted by the Legislature.

“It’s very hard politically to deal with the underlying costs of the system,” said Andrew Coburn, director of the Institute for Health Policy at the Muskie School of Public Service in Portland. “And Maine is just not wealthy enough to cobble together enough resources to fully cover the uninsured.”

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on the disaster of entitlements are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm

Link forwarded by Scott Bonacker
"The E-Mail Addict Stop using, start living," by Michael Agger, Slate, May 2, 2007 --- http://www.slate.com/id/2165452/nav/tap1/

The first step to health is admitting that you have a problem, and then turning off Microsoft Outlook's automatic send and receive. The second step is very steep: "You must commit to emptying your Inbox every time you go in there."

Have you ever emptied your inbox? It's like hacking off a limb. With no e-mail to reply to, I feel a disorientating lightness. I am at loose ends and have no way to fill those little holes in the day. That's also part of the problem, according to Egan and her fellow productivity coaches. E-mail, which is innately reactive, has become the default method of "working." The idea behind emptying your inbox is to convert all those e-mails into actions. You're allowed to deal with any mail that will take less than two minutes to answer. Otherwise, you should file your outstanding messages into folders such as "Pending," "Reply To," "Archive," and "YouTube Links" and deal with them as a unit later, when you've mapped out your day and polished off those urgent TPS reports. Egan notes that people have a tendency to simply open their inboxes and scroll up and down for several minutes, knocking off two or three messages so they feel better. She calls this inefficient process "e-noodling." You get the e-idea yet?

Continued in article

Dealing With Disturbed and Possibly Dangerous Students

"Deciding When Student Writing Crosses the Line," by Joseph Berger, The New York Times, May 2, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/education/02education.html

A writing teacher is sometimes like the Michael Douglas detective in “Basic Instinct,” trying to decide whether Sharon Stone’s sultry novelist is toying with him in her potboilers or telegraphing plans for murder. Teachers also know that literature — “Hamlet,” “Oedipus Rex,” “Anna Karenina” — is pocked with mayhem or self-destruction in which violence is essential. As C. J. Hribal, a professor of English at Marquette, said, Oedipus’s rapping his knuckles would not have packed the same tragic wallop as Oedipus’s tearing out his eyes.

But when do violent passages need watching, even attending to? And how does a teacher prepare a response that is therapeutic rather than invasive?

There is a case for delving deeper, teachers say, when the darkness of the prose matches the student’s mood or behavior. A Sylvia Plath-like exploration of depression may be more alarming when it is matched by a Sylvia Plath-like withdrawal and deep unhappiness.

At Virginia Tech, Mr. Cho’s teachers stepped in when he wrote his play “Richard McBeef,” in which a teenager threatens to kill his stepfather to prevent his own rape, because Mr. Cho was also frightening students with erratic behavior, like asking to be called Question Mark. One teacher tutored Mr. Cho, another banished him, others alerted deans. Still, the authorities never put all their concerns together to make a case for his removal.

Mr. Chee, Amherst’s visiting writer, recalled that when he was teaching graduate students in New York, one wrote a memoir in which she told of having been a closeted lesbian preparing to become a nun and trying to kill herself.

“I didn’t go on red alert precisely, even though I was deeply alarmed,” Mr. Chee said. “I wrote back to her, ‘Where’s the chapter where the character talks to a therapist about trying to kill herself?’ ”

He learned that the student had been treated at a hospital for a suicide attempt but had never discussed it with her therapist. He urged her to do so.

Another student of Mr. Chee’s, whom he taught at Wesleyan, wrote a story about a girl who cuts her flesh. In conference, she confided that writing about cutting was not quieting her own impulses. She was not in therapy, so Mr. Chee told her how therapy had helped him.

But writing teachers face a quandary: What some observers consider warning signs could be misleading, and intervening could squelch a young writer’s voice.

“A creative writing class should be a place where you can write things that are disturbing without people thinking you’re disturbed,” said Sam Maurey, a junior in Mr. Chee’s class. Moreover, as Mr. Chee explained, there is a “typical male student” who “writes things that try to shock,” and these violence-filled works need to be seen in perspective.

“They break certain cultural taboos, but in those cases, the students are usually quite socialized and not the kind of shut-down loner we saw at Virginia Tech,” Mr. Chee said.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

"Ban on 'mom' and 'dad' considered – again California agenda would require K-12 'gay' indoctrination," Bob Unrah, WorldNetDaily, April 27, 2007 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55413

A plan that has been launched in the California state Assembly – again – could be used to ban references to "mom" and "dad" in public schools statewide by prohibiting anything that would "reflect adversely" on the homosexual lifestyle choice. It's similar to a plan WND reported was approved by lawmakers last year, but fell by the wayside when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it. She noted that Los Angeles schools already have implemented most of the proposals now pending for districts across the state, and among the changes are: "Mom" and "dad" and "husband" and "wife" would have to be edited from all texts.   Cheerleading and sports teams would have to be gender-neutral.   Prom kings and queens would be banned, or if featured, would have to be gender neutral so that the king could be female and the queen male.   Gender-neutral bathrooms could be required for those confused about their gender identity.   A male who believes he really is female would be allowed into the women's restroom, and a woman believing herself a male would be allowed into a men's room.   Even scientific information, such has statistics showing AIDS rates in the homosexual community, could be banned. "It's embarrassing that we've got kids who can't pass their exit exams, but we add all sorts of complications [to school]," she told WND. She cited an informational document published by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network and the Transgender Law Center. Continued in article

 

Humor

From the mouths of babes (Readers Digest, March 2007)

The doctor asked a five year old girl which arm she preferred for her vaccination shot.

"Yours," she replied.

Forwarded by Maria

The Broken Mower 

When our lawn mower broke and wouldn't run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed. But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first, the truck, the car, playing golf - always something more important to me. 

Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing scissors.

I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house. I was gone only a minute, and when I came out again I handed her a toothbrush. I said, "When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway." 

The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp. 

Moral of this story: Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right, and the other is the husband.

Senior Bumper Stickers forwarded by Jim Kirk for my birthday

Tidbits Archives --- 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/.

Three Finance Blogs

Jim Mahar's FinanceProfessor Blog --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
FinancialRounds Blog --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/
Karen Alpert's FinancialMusings (Australia) --- http://financemusings.blogspot.com/

Some Accounting Blogs

Paul Pacter's IAS Plus (International Accounting) --- http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm
International Association of Accountants News --- http://www.aia.org.uk/
AccountingEducation.com and Double Entries --- http://www.accountingeducation.com/
Gerald Trite's eBusiness and XBRL Blogs --- http://www.zorba.ca/
AccountingWeb --- http://www.accountingweb.com/   
SmartPros --- http://www.smartpros.com/

Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

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

Shared Open Courseware (OCW) from Around the World: OKI, MIT, Rice, Berkeley, Yale, and Other Sharing Universities --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Free Textbooks and Cases --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

Free Mathematics and Statistics Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

Free Science and Medicine Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science

Free Social Science and Philosophy Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social

Free Education Discipline Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm

Teaching Materials (especially video) from PBS

Teacher Source:  Arts and Literature --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/arts_lit.htm

Teacher Source:  Health & Fitness --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/health.htm

Teacher Source: Math --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/math.htm

Teacher Source:  Science --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/sci_tech.htm

Teacher Source:  PreK2 --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/prek2.htm

Teacher Source:  Library Media ---  http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/library.htm

Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

VYOM eBooks Directory --- http://www.vyomebooks.com/

From Princeton Online
The Incredible Art Department --- http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/

Online Mathematics Textbooks --- http://www.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.html 

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives --- http://enlvm.usu.edu/ma/nav/doc/intro.jsp

Accountancy Discussion ListServs:

For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a ListServ (usually for free) go to   http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm

AECM (Educators)  http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/  AECM is an email Listserv list which provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets, multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc Roles of a ListServ --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm

CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/  CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or education. Others will be denied access.

Yahoo (Practitioners)  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be anything  from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA.

AccountantsWorld  http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1  This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and taxation.

Business Valuation Group BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com  This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag [RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM]

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone:  603-823-8482 
Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu