Economics is the only field in which two people can
get a Nobel Prize for saying exactly the opposite thing.
Economist Jokes ---
http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/JokEc.html
Jensen in a Blue Suit: The head is somewhat familiar but where
did that body come from?
I agree with you, we wouldn't want Bob any
other way. Bob is so energetic, he sends out links to all the
interesting and related sites that I could ever possibly use. I recall
when Ed tatooed a Nike swoosh on Bob's forehead. I've come to think of
Bob as Superman in a crew cut. Can anybody come up with this image?
David Albrecht
September 27, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Amy and David,
Thank you for the kudos. I hate to take too much credit for some
things that are mostly due to circumstance.
My wife is in New Hampshire awaiting my retirement from teaching in
May. Aside from short visits once each month this fall and less next
spring due to risks of blizzards in the mountains, I don't have much
else to do besides work seven days per week. I've never really handled
leisure very well.
I'm too old (and too poor) to chase wild women, and my single malt
allotment is one ounce per day. In some ways the AECM is my therapy.
Many years ago I was a library crawler in the stacks. I'm still a
library crawler, but the stacks I wander through are now on the Web.
The example that I'm trying to set in academe is one of open sharing.
My hope that some of our many lurkers will be become sharers in the
likes of Jensen, Dunbar, Albrecht, Beresford, Fordham, Williams,
Jagdish 1, Jagdish 2, Bonicker, Sansing, Campbell, Scribner, and the
various others who weekly make the AECM something special. I include in
this list the many of you who make less frequent but often more useful
comments/replies on the AECM. I am truly grateful when we hear from
subscribers outside the United States (even you Mac) who help to make
this a smaller world and closer world.
And what I really like is the academic way in which we can vigorously
debate issues without taking anything personally, even when Fordham and
Williams go off on lengthy and sometimes emotional tangents (I love it).
I'm actually grateful when Sansing, Williams, and others point out my
errors and shortcomings. They do a great service to me personally by
helping me to learn and to keep me from spreading long-lasting errors on
the AECM.
What often disappoints me is that some lurkers need to be
specifically prodded to share. They only tell us about their experiences
with a type of software or database when a Dunbar or somebody else
specifically requests a response. It would be better if they shared
their experiences early on with new software and databases and
interesting Websites before being prompted to reply on the AECM. Richard
Campbell is very good about early-on sharing with software.
And I would truly like to inspire some of our younger and newer
members of this profession to share more frequently with us. It seems
like our most active contributors are getting along somewhat in years.
We need to learn more from younger whippersnappers. I also wish that
more of the leading current researchers in our top journals more openly
shared on the AECM. It would be great if they discussed their research
with us.
I'm forever grateful the Barry Rice for starting this listserv and
the rest of you who truly work at making it one of the better forums in
the world in terms of adding value to our teaching, our research, and
even our entertainment.
Thanks for the good times,
Please turn up your speakers and
Imagine All the People ---
http://www.jessiesweb.com/imagine.htm
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of
the page and turn it on
Bob Jensen
September 27, reply from David Albrecht (using a picture provided by Ed
Scribner)
Ed,
I believe you have captured the vision I have
of Bob!
Where do you see yourself in five
years?
This is the great-granddaddy of goofy questions, and I give
you permission, if you have any misgivings about a job
opportunity, to walk out the door when you hear it. It's
such a time-waster that only the most hidebound interviewers
will utter it, but it lives on.
Here's why it's dumb. No company will guarantee you a job
for five years, much less a career path. To construct such a
plan for yourself, you'd have to make predictions about
industries, companies, and your likes and dislikes that
could only serve to constrain your choices. And in any case,
why is it so all-fired important to have a dang career plan
in mind? Every successful entrepreneur and many top
corporate people will tell you their key to success: I did
what I felt driven to do at the moment.
So when you get asked this question, you can say: "I intend
to be happy and productive five years from now, working at a
job I love in a company that values my talents" and leave it
at that. Or you can give the expected answer and say: "I
hope to be three levels up the ladder, here at Happy Corp."
Or you can say: "I hope to own this company," just to shake
things up.
But for an interviewer to ask the question at all is a bad
sign. Come on, people! There are millions of thoughts in the
human brain. Can we change the ones we use in job interviews
every decade or so?
If you were an animal/a can of soup/some other random
object, which one would you be?
This is a question typically asked of new grads, because
it's considered cute. It's supposed to test how people
think. But it's asinine. You can pretend to think about your
answer for a moment (eyes to the ceiling, chin resting on
hand) and then come up with something. Or stare blankly at
the interviewer and say, deadpan: "Are you serious?" Or try
one of these answers:
(Animal) "Oh, any crepuscular animal would do well for me --
a rabbit or a bat, perhaps." (Crepuscular means most active
during dawn and dusk, so you'll get to show off your
extensive vocab.)
(Soup) "Probably the low-sodium chicken broth." Fix the
interviewer with a penetrating gaze -- she won't know
whether you're mocking her imbecilic question or are deadly
serious.
What are your weaknesses?
By now, such a large percentage of the job-seeking public
has gotten clued in on the politically correct answer to
this one -- which is, "I'm a hopeless workaholic" -- that
the question's utility is limited. But it's also offensive.
This is a job interview, not a psychological exam. It's one
thing for an interviewer to ask you what you do particularly
well. It's another thing to ask what you don't do well and
expect to get a forthright answer -- in a context where it's
clear to both parties that you're being weeded in or out.
The most honest answer might be this: "That's for me to know
and you to find out." But that won't help your chances.
So if you can't bear to repeat the "workaholic" line, I'd
say something that is true of yourself but also terribly
common -- like the fact that you get bored easily, or prefer
numbers to people or vice versa. None of these is actually a
weakness, but that's O.K.
What in particular interested you about our company?
Now, on one level this is a reasonable question. If you say:
"I'm interested in this job because it's three blocks from
my apartment," you might not be the world's best candidate.
But the disingenuous, and therefore offensive, aspect of
this question is that it assumes that you have unlimited job
opportunities and have pinpointed this one because of some
dazzling aspect of the role or the company.
I mean, please. Most of the job-seeking population is living
on the lower two-thirds of Maslow's pyramid, where the most
appealing thing about any job is that you got the darned
interview. Why am I interested? Because you guys called me
back. But you can't say that, so you have to rhapsodize
about the company's wonderful products and services and the
world-class management team and so on.
Now, it's important to show that you know a lot about the
company. But you have lots of ways to demonstrate that in an
interview (and lots of ways for the interviewer to ask you
to do so) without pretending that the company had to fight
every employer in town to get an audience with you.
Everybody involved knows the company is shredding 10 times
the number of résumés it's reading, so let's not pretend it
was your breathtaking credentials that got you the
interview. It was the fact that the company responded
to your overture, unlike 90% of the employers you contacted.
Below the director level or so, where it might be reasonable
to assume you sought out the company for particular
job-hunting attention, it's not necessary to pretend that
you carefully chose it from a raft of others pursuing you.
So unless you approached the outfit in the absence of a
posted job opportunity, it's just silly to ask: "Why us?"
Rather, the interviewer can say: "When you saw our ad on
Monster.com, what made you respond?" And, of course, the
logical answer is: "Because I know I can do the job that was
posted." Duh. No one said job-hunting was easy.
What would your past managers say about you?
This is a fine question, but it's not a true interview
question. It's an intelligence question. It's like the
question on one of those "honesty" tests that are becoming
more and more popular in the hiring process (to add insult
to injury, they're often called Personality Profiles): "Do
you think it's O.K. to steal from your employer?"
These are intelligence questions because you have to have
the intelligence to know the answer in order to be smart
enough to go and get a job.
The trick here is to say something sufficiently witty or
pithy to make you stand out from the crowd, because the
standard answers are so tired: My managers would say that
I'm hard-working, loyal, reliable, and a great team player.
Snoozeville.
Why not try: My past managers would say that I was an
outstanding individual contributor who also supported the
team 100%. Or: My managers would say that I came up with
breakthrough solutions while never losing track of the
bottom line. You can probably dream up something better.
The point is, this is a softball: Don't think too much about
it. It says more about the interviewer (who lacks the moxie
to think up unique or penetrating questions) than it ever
will about you.
The secret of good job interviewers is that they never ask
traditional, dorky interview questions. They don't need to.
They jump into a business conversation that does three
powerful things in a one-hour chat:
a) Gets you excited about this opportunity (or, as valuably,
makes it clear that you and this job are not a good fit)
b) Reveals to the interviewer how you'll fit into the role
and the company, based on your background, perspective,
temperament, and ideas
c) Gives you a ton of new information about the job, the
management, the goals, the culture, and what life at this
joint would be like.
If any of this doesn't happen, it's a problem. If you're
lukewarm on the job when you leave the interview, or if you
don't feel you've had a chance to show what you know and how
you think, or -- worst of all -- if the interviewer used
your time together to satisfy his need for more information
about you while sharing almost nothing about the job, that's
an enormous red flag.
And if you get called back for a second interview while
you're still information-deprived, say so. "I'm interested
in learning more about the opportunity before a second
interview," you can say. "Would a phone call with the hiring
manager be an effective way to help me get up to speed?"
That kind of suggestion respects the hiring manager's time
and won't waste yours on a second, no-new-data interview.
Try it. You might save yourself some aggravation -- along
with some extra time you can use to work on your five-year
career plan and on tackling those pesky weaknesses of yours
before the next interview.
Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher
Education
If we are really concerned about academic
standards, then we should apply those standards uniformly to the University
of Phoenix and the major universities now listed in the Top 25 NCAA Division
1 football, basketball, and baseball rankings.
Battle Over Academic Standards Weighs On For-Profit Colleges Now Congress appears poised to pass legislation
that favors the for-profits, a group of heavily marketed schools that are
often owned by publicly traded companies. Traditional colleges -- the public
and private nonprofit institutions from the Ivy League to state universities
that long have formed the backbone of U.S. higher education -- are fighting
the changes. The traditional colleges question the rigor of many of these
newer rivals, which offer degrees in such subjects as auto repair and
massage therapy but have also branched out into business and other courses
of study. The eight regional associations that have long set standards for
traditional colleges recognize only a few of the thousands of for-profit
colleges. These gatekeepers evaluate everything from the faculty's level of
preparedness to the quality of libraries. Meanwhile, some for-profit
graduates have been left with heavy debts and unfulfilled goals.
John Hechinger, "Battle Over Academic Standards Weighs On For-Profit
Colleges: Many Traditional Schools Don't Accept Degrees; Congress
Ponders New Law," The Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2005;
Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112804419660556426,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment
I remind readers that there is a definitional definitional difference
between the commercialization of colleges and the corporate (or for-profit)
colleges. Commercialization of not-for-profit colleges is in many ways
a much more serious (at least much bigger) problem as is noted by former
Harvard President Derek Bok ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q3.htm#EducationCommercialization
The debate is really not over distance versus non-distance education
except from the standpoint where both non-profit (even Harvard) and
for-profit (notably the University of Phoenix) might try to cut costs and
use distance education as a cash cow. Bok lists this as one of his
three most serious problems with the commercialization of non-profit
universities. For example, the 100,000 online students at the
University of Wisconsin provide a serious source of revenue.
The so-called corporate model is simply a form of ownership that allows
newer colleges and training schools to raise equity capital for financing
new operations. I personally don't think the model is necessarily bad
per se. Some corporate universities are quite rigorous and
prestigious. These typically are affiliated with prestigious
corporations and consulting firms that help draw quality students into the
programs. The problem is that most for-profit schools are newer
institutions that do not have established reputations required for drawing
top students. A university can never have academic respect without
quality students. In spite of Jay Leno's continued snide remarks about
community college students, some of these students have great abilities and
become outstanding students. Jay now has dug himself into a hole on
this one by ignoring appeals from community colleges to cease and desist.
My bottom line advice is to be careful about definitions.
Commercialization is an enormous problem for academic standards, curricula,
and program growth/decline in not-for-profit as well as for-profit colleges.
So is the problem of academic standards when full-time basketball players
from UCLA sue the university after four years because they still can't read.
If we are really concerned about academic standards, then we should apply
those standards uniformly to the University of Phoenix and the major
universities now listed in the Top 25 NCAA Division 1 football, basketball,
and baseball rankings.
Community colleges are upset with Jay Leno Leno had perturbed leaders of two-year colleges
with his occasional cracks and gibes questioning the intelligence of those
who’ve attended the institutions, and by ignoring
letters they’d written urging him to stop. So in
June, Young, president of Ohio’s Northwest State Community College, hit upon an
idea: inviting (daring?) Leno to hop on one of his Harley-Davidsons and ride
with the motorcycle-driving Young while talking about community colleges. The
comedian (or, more likely, his publicists) ignored that invitation, too, and so
last month, the college announced that Young and some of her aides would head
out to Hollywood, where Leno tapes “The Tonight Show,” on a seven-day swing in
which they would also tout the crucial role that two-year institutions in
preparing workers and educating lifelong learners.
Doug Lederman, "Letting Leno Have It (Gently)," Inside Higher Ed,
September 29, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/29/leno
Big time college sports are a mess. While headlines
hype the new football season and speculate on an eventual champion, accounts
surface daily of athletes' stealing, assaulting women and getting busted on
alcohol and drug charges. And when a title game is played, shadowing the
coverage will be news of woeful graduation rates.
Meanwhile, the juggernaut that is college sports
keeps getting bigger, with more television networks airing more games, not
just on weekends but during the week, and colleges expanding their seasons
to meet TV's unquenchable thirst -- up to 40 games each basketball season
and 70 in baseball.
. . .
College sports' current crisis has generated
unprecedented reform efforts by groups inside and outside the establishment.
The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics and the 16-year-old Knight
Commission on Intercollegiate Athletes, for example, both work in
cooperation with the NCAA. The Drake Group has bypassed the NCAA; its plan
for full disclosure of all classes taken by athletes was read into the
Congressional Record in March by Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky in hopes of
getting Congress involved.
Their combined efforts have netted tougher NCAA
academic requirements, but reform energy still gets bogged down in issues
like the political correctness of team names. Substantive improvement has
been minimal. The system is broken, and the impact is far reaching.
"The transgressions that universities commit in the
name of winning sports undermine the values of the institution," says Derek
Bok, former president of Harvard. "In all too many cases, they tarnish the
reputation of the university by compromising its admissions standards, its
grading practices, and the academic integrity of its curriculum."
To create winning teams, reformers believe,
universities break rules on training, on the allocation of funds to
athletics, and most frequently on athletes' eligibility. Deception begins
early, when schools recruit sports prodigies who are ill-equipped -- or
uninterested -- in academics. Popular rhetoric maintains that these students
are preparing for pro careers, just as medical students are training to be
doctors. This is naïve thinking. The best 1% to 3% may become professionals,
but far too many of the rest are left with no degree and a clouded future.
"The biggest problem is recruiting fine athletes
who should not be in college," says Andy Geiger, who retired this summer as
Ohio State's athletic director after 11 years that included a national
football championship and scandals in football and basketball. "Do we really
want a gifted athlete at our school for any reason other than our own gain?
Are we only in it to use these kids and then spit them out?"
At the core of the college sports problem is an
obsession with winning. Winning is admittedly the goal in all competitions
and is a treasured American characteristic, but universities are supposed to
live by different standards from those that govern big business, the New
York Yankees, or war.
Having gone through this with a son in sports, I
find the whole thing a joke. I applauded the requirement of 12 units of C to
stay eligible. However, I didn't realize they are not at class most of the
semester -- they seem to be at away games most of the time. Scholarship
offers came with tutorial help (tutoring turns out to be all but non
existent (not to mention that you need to be in the area for the tutor to
tutor). Sports and education don't mix. I only observed one team whose coach
I respected for trying to enforce eligilbility (after the ball game the
athletes went to dinner, then had a mandatory study hall from 8-9 pm at away
games). However, I questioned how much the students absorbed at that hour
and after a big game and dinner!!! But, kudos to the coach for attempting to
keep "education" in the college experience.
Carol
Jensen Comment
I think the problem lies heavily with professional sports team owners.
College is a free way that they can filter out the best athletes who are
put to the test and dump the majority of others who just don’t quite cut it.
It would be analogous to sending all young people to war and then making
professional soldiers out of the ones that win medals.
I think sports are important to the physical and social development of
young people as well as giving them confidence and pride. But I like the way
Trinity does it in NCAA Division 3 where there are no athletic scholarships
and athletes are not dreaming of professional contracts.
Bob Jensen
September 15, 2005 reply from Paul Williams
Carol, et al,
You have pointed out the real problem in college
athletics for the athlete. Of course it is
hypocritical for the Wall Street Journal to
harumph about college sports. College athletics is big business increasingly
funded and promoted by big business. At NC State we have completed a third
phase of a four phase renovation of the football stadium -- total projected
cost over $100 million dollars. It sits beside the RBC Center (named after a
corporation), where the Wolfpack plays basketball (and the Carolina
Hurricanes play hockey) -- total cost $170 million. When all is said and
done, there will be $300 million dollars invested in two college sports.
Both facilities are plastered with ads for corporations and the luxury
seating (the biggest cost of the facilities) is rented by corporations for
the purpose of entertaining clients. Major college sports are entertainment,
merely a medium for advertising and corporate promotion. Wealthy alumni and
the business community are the prime movers behind the enormous investment
in athletic facilities and the prime providers of the money. The university
goes along because it has Title IX obligations it must finance and the big
revenue sports are what fund it. Women's la crosse does not generate time on
ESPN. And before we bash Title IX, the explosion in women's participation in
sports at the collegiate level indicates that all women lacked was
opportunity. Women crave the opportunity to participate in sport. Women and
the men in the minor sports play for the love of playing. No lucrative pro
career awaits a woman or man playing la crosse, but they work as hard at it
as any of the revenue players.
What to do for the athletes since no university
administrator is going to say let's just scrap our $300 million investment
in facilities -- the alumni would have their head. Let's just quit being
hypocritical about the "student athlete." Much of the problem is the NCAA
and its rules that have a rather Victorian smell to them. Trivial behavior
is criminalized by the NCAA in a vain attempt to foster a prissy rectitude
that has never existed in the history of humankind.
When Tiger Woods was still a college player at
Stanford he played at Bay Hill in Florida. Arnold Palmer wanted to meet with
him, took him to lunch in the grill room, picked up the tab for a burger and
fries and voila put Arnie, Tiger and Stanford in violation of NCAA rules.
The tab was less than $20. There is no longer the amateur athlete -- look
who competes for the US during the Olympics. The problem for the athlete is
being a student AND an athlete at the same time.
Why don't we face the reality of big time college
athletics and take the pressure off of the athlete? During the season, let
the athletes play their sports -- why do they have to be a students at the
same time? Every sport can have a season that corresponds to one semester or
another. Football is played during the fall semester and the bowl season
ends before the start of the second semester. So football players play
football in the fall and are full time students during spring and summer.
Basketball doesn't need to start in November. It could start after final
exams in the fall and, instead of March madness, we could have April
madness. Basketball players would be students in fall and summer semesters.
There is no sport whose season could not be accommodated to just one school
term or another. If a student wanted to and could take classes during the
season, then all well and good. But they shouldn't be made to take them.
As Bernie Sliger, president of FSU when I was
there, harped on constantly, "The more successful the athletic program, the
more money people give to academics." It may be a brutal truth about college
athletics, but most of the brutality is absorbed by the athletes because of
archaic notions of the "scholar/athlete." And we on the academic side
benefit as well. Those athletes bring a lot of resources to us academics,
too. Perhaps a lot of the "crimes" athletic programs commit could be
alleviated if we let young people be a scholar sometime and an athlete
sometime, but quite expecting them to be both.
Paul Williams
September 15, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Paul,
Well said about the new NCS Stadium. This reminds me of Rochester/Simon
School's new investment in "games" intended to lift its US News MBA program
ranking from 26th into the Top 10 or Top 5. Has the Wolfpack ever made it
into the media's Top 5 in basketball or football? Perhaps your new $300
million investment will pay off --- if that's the real anticipated payoff.
Also, I think you just made my point when choosing the word "hypocritical"
when the WSJ reported a position harmful of big business. The WSJ is really
two newspapers wrapped into one, where one of those "papers" is allowed to
roam free and call it like some very good reporters roaming about.
How can the media and professors achieve greater credibility?
You probably observed that I quote a lot from both The Wall Street
Journal (WSJ) and The New York Times (NYT). Both have
credibility in spite of their opposing biases on the editorial pages.
The WSJ is unapologetic in its biases for financial institutions and
business enterprises. And yet the WSJ is the best place to look for
damning criticism of particular accounting firms, financial
institutions, and corporations. CEOs live in fear of WSJ reporters.
For example, when Enron was riding high, before the Watkins memo, WSJ
reporters did some very clever investigations and wrote articles that
commenced the slide of Enron share prices (particularly dogged reporters
named John Emshwiller and Jonathan Weil). The NYT sometimes has
editorials that make me want to vomit. But the Business Section of the
NYT is one of the best places to go for balanced coverage of business
and finance news.
Certainly not all of my accounting professor friends agree with me about the
WSJ. David's Fordham's book length reply is just too long to paste in
here. Some others like Bobbi Lee agree with him.
The proof is in the pressure to change grades: Repeating
the same frauds year after year in academe Louisiana State University has settled
a lawsuit by a former instructor who said that she was pressured
to change the grades of football players, the
Associated Pressreported. No
details of the settlement were released and the university
denied wrongdoing. Last year, LSU settled a similar suit for
$150,000. Inside Higher Ed, September 19, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/19/qt
Coach Takes the Test
More evidence that many universities are losing (or never had) quality
control on athlete admissions and grading The National Collegiate Athletic Association
punished Texas Christian University’s men’s track program on Thursday for a
set of rules violations that included some of the most egregious and unusual
examples of academic fraud in recent history. They included an instance in
which a former assistant coach took a final examination alongside a track
athlete — with the consent of the faculty member in the course — and then
swapped his version of the test with the athlete’s, allowing him to pass.
Doug Lederman, "NCAA Finds Fraud at TCU," Inside Higher Ed, September
23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/23/tcu
Athletics is the first area subject to Bok’s
critique. Candidly and mercilessly, he summarizes the ugly history of
intercollegiate football—its failed promise to "build character," its
unsupportable claim to have helped minorities achieve a high-quality
education, and its grievous undermining of academic standards. Students
whose academic achievement and potential would hardly qualify them for
careers in any learned profession are not only routinely admitted to
universities of every quality but are even turned into national celebrities.
Looking at the revenue-generating sports, mainly football and basketball,
Bok informs the reader that as of 2001, some thirty coaches were earning in excess of a million dollars
annually, far more than most college and university presidents. Bok strongly
focuses on the almost complete disconnect between athletic prowess and
academic achievement. He builds a powerful indictment:
What can intercollegiate sports teach us about
the hazards of commercialization? First of all, the saga of big-time
athletics reveals that American universities, despite their lofty
ideals, are not above sacrificing academic values—even values as basic
as admission standards and the integrity of their courses—in order to
make money.
Indeed, Bok reaches the conclusion, described by
him as "melancholy," that through their athletic programs, "universities
have compromised the most fundamental purpose of academic institutions."
Turning to his second area, scientific research,
Bok maintains that the record has been no less dismal and the battles
between the worlds of intellect and industry no less ruthless: Scientists
have been prohibited from publishing (or even discussing at conferences)
results unfavorable to their commercial sponsors’ marketing goals. Companies
have punished universities by threatening to withhold promised financial
support should scientists dare to publish data unfavorable to sponsors’
interests. Researchers have been threatened with lawsuits, even grievously
defamed. Companies have imposed a militarylike secrecy upon faculty who work
with them, severely edited scholars’ reports, and even had their own staffs
write slanted drafts to which university researchers were expected to attach
their names. By Bok’s account, some elements of the commercial sector merely
look upon faculty and graduate students as company agents—virtual employees,
hired guns—charged to produce a stream of research from which will follow a
stream of revenue for their businesses. Bok’s charges are not vague hints;
he cites prestigious institutions, names researchers whose careers were
jeopardized or damaged by threats and personal attacks, and provides many
poignant details.
In the third area, higher education itself, Bok
outlines the temptations of easy money, ostensibly available via
universities’ willingness, indeed eagerness, to use the income from distance
education (both domestically and abroad) to finance programs only indirectly
linked to higher education. Bok further suggests that some schools willingly
exploit the Internet more for the money than for any possible social
benefit.
"Is everything in a university for sale if the
price is right?" asks the book jacket. Are universities now ready to accept
advertising within physical facilities and curricula? Will they permit
commercial enterprises to put company names on the stadium, team uniforms,
campus shuttle buses, book jackets sold at the campus bookstore, plastic
cups at food service points, or even on home pages? Will universities sell
the names of entire schools as well as of buildings? Worse yet, will some
schools be tempted to accept endowed professorships to which the sponsors
seek to attach unacceptable or harmful restrictions and conditions? There
appears to be no end to the opportunities.
To respond to these and similar troubling
questions, Bok’s two concluding chapters lay out practical steps the
academic community might consider to avoid sinking into a quagmire of
commercialism in which the academy is sure to lose control of both its
integrity and its autonomy. Throughout his work, Bok reminds his readers of
the obvious, but sometimes camouflaged (or ignored), distinction between the
academy and commerce: The mission of the former is to learn, that of the
latter to earn. Conflict between these missions is inevitable, and should it
disappear, the university as we know it also may vanish. We may not like
what replaces it.
In line
with Bok's "Commercialization of Higher Education," a newer
(2005) book explores the role of market forces in changing
higher education — and the danger of market forces having too
much influence Three longtime observers of higher
education explore the ways — positive and negative — that
universities are changing inRemaking the American University(Rutgers University Press). The authors are Robert Zemsky,
a professor and chair of the Learning Alliance at the University
of Pennsylvania; Gregory R. Wegner, director of program
development at the Great Lakes Colleges Association; and William
F. Massy, a professor emeritus of higher education at Stanford
University and currently president of the Jackson Hole Higher
Education Group. The three authors recently responded (jointly)
to questions about their new book. Scott Jaschik"Remaking the American University,"
Inside
Higher Ed, September 21, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/21/remaking
Q: Of the trends
you examine, which ones are most worrisome
to you?
A:
What
worries us most is that universities and
colleges have become so preoccupied with
succeeding in a world of markets that they
too often forget the need to be places of
public purpose as well. We are serious in
arguing that universities and colleges must
be both market smart and mission centered.
Not surprisingly, then, we are troubled by
how often today institutions allow their
pursuit of market success to undermine core
elements of their missions: becoming
preoccupied with collegiate rankings,
surrendering to an admissions arms race,
chasing imagined fortunes through impulsive
investments e-learning, or conferring so
much importance on athletics as to alter the
character of the academic community on
campus.
By far the most
troublesome consequence of markets
displacing mission, though, is the reduced
commitment of universities and colleges to
the fulfillment of public purposes. More
than ever before, these institutions are
content to advance graduates merely in their
private, individual capacities as workers
and professionals. In the rush to achieve
market success, what has fallen to the
wayside for too many institutions is the
concept of educating students as citizens —
graduates who understand their obligations
to contribute to the collective well-being
as active participants in a free and
deliberative society. In the race for
private advantage, market success too often
becomes a proxy for mission attainment.
Q: We’ve just come
through rankings season, with U.S. News
and others unveiling their lists. Do you
have any hope for turning back the ratings
game? Any ideas you would offer to college
presidents who are fed up with it?
A: On this
one there is no turning back — the rankings
are here to stay. Two, frankly contradictory
ideas are worth thinking about. First,
university and college presidents should
accept as fact that the rankings measure
market position rather than quality. An
institution’s ranking is essentially a
predictor of the net price the institution
can charge. The contrary idea is to make the
rankings more about quality by having most
institutions participate in the
National Survey of Student Engagement
and agree to have the
results made public. Even then, we are not
sure that prestige and market position would
not trump student engagement.
Continued in article
In line
with Bok's "Commercialization of Higher Education," a newer
(2005) book explores the role of market forces in changing
higher education — and the danger of market forces having too
much influence Three longtime observers of higher
education explore the ways — positive and negative — that
universities are changing inRemaking the American University(Rutgers University Press). The authors are Robert Zemsky,
a professor and chair of the Learning Alliance at the University
of Pennsylvania; Gregory R. Wegner, director of program
development at the Great Lakes Colleges Association; and William
F. Massy, a professor emeritus of higher education at Stanford
University and currently president of the Jackson Hole Higher
Education Group. The three authors recently responded (jointly)
to questions about their new book. Scott Jaschik"Remaking the American University,"
Inside
Higher Ed, September 21, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/21/remaking
Q: Of the trends
you examine, which ones are most worrisome
to you?
A: What
worries us most is that universities and
colleges have become so preoccupied with
succeeding in a world of markets that they
too often forget the need to be places of
public purpose as well. We are serious in
arguing that universities and colleges must
be both market smart and mission centered.
Not surprisingly, then, we are troubled by
how often today institutions allow their
pursuit of market success to undermine core
elements of their missions: becoming
preoccupied with collegiate rankings,
surrendering to an admissions arms race,
chasing imagined fortunes through impulsive
investments e-learning, or conferring so
much importance on athletics as to alter the
character of the academic community on
campus.
By far the most
troublesome consequence of markets
displacing mission, though, is the reduced
commitment of universities and colleges to
the fulfillment of public purposes. More
than ever before, these institutions are
content to advance graduates merely in their
private, individual capacities as workers
and professionals. In the rush to achieve
market success, what has fallen to the
wayside for too many institutions is the
concept of educating students as citizens —
graduates who understand their obligations
to contribute to the collective well-being
as active participants in a free and
deliberative society. In the race for
private advantage, market success too often
becomes a proxy for mission attainment.
Q: We’ve just come
through rankings season, with U.S. News
and others unveiling their lists. Do you
have any hope for turning back the ratings
game? Any ideas you would offer to college
presidents who are fed up with it?
A: On this
one there is no turning back — the rankings
are here to stay. Two, frankly contradictory
ideas are worth thinking about. First,
university and college presidents should
accept as fact that the rankings measure
market position rather than quality. An
institution’s ranking is essentially a
predictor of the net price the institution
can charge. The contrary idea is to make the
rankings more about quality by having most
institutions participate in the
National Survey of Student Engagement
and agree to have the
results made public. Even then, we are not
sure that prestige and market position would
not trump student engagement.
Continued in article
September 29, 2005 reply from Kim Robertson
Bob,
Somewhat related to your recent email: There is
a "survey of higher education - The Brains Business" in the Sept 10,
2005 edition of The Economist magazine.
Kim
The Brains Business For those of a certain age and educational
background, it is hard to think of higher education without thinking of
ancient institutions. Some universities are of a venerable age—the
University of Bologna was founded in 1088, the University of Oxford in
1096—and many of them have a strong sense of tradition. The truly old ones
make the most of their pedigrees, and those of a more recent vintage work
hard to create an aura of antiquity.… "The brains business,"
The Economist, September 10, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/BrainsBusiness
01. Harvard University (MA)
02. Stanford University (CA)
03. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
04. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)
06. Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)
University of California–Berkeley (Haas)
08. University of Chicago
09. Columbia University (NY)
10. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross)
The entire ranking system is now considered dysfunctional to program
integrity and is being studied as a huge academic problem by the AACSB (See
below)
MBA (Casino?) Games: The house plays the odds and hopes to come out
ahead! Resorting to contests and prizes shows just how
tough times are for full-time M.B.A. programs. The Graduate Management
Admission Council reports that 72% of full-time M.B.A. programs experienced
an application decline this year as more people opted to keep their jobs and
seek a part-time, executive or online M.B.A. degree instead . . . Simon's
business-strategy contest resulted from a challenge put to students on the
school's advisory council to concoct ways to improve the M.B.A. program. As
an incentive, alumni kicked in $10,000, half for the students with the best
proposal and half to implement their idea. Several student projects focused
on the application slump, which clearly is the most pressing issue at Simon.
Applications were down 23% this year, following a 24% drop in 2004. This
fall, the incoming class of about 110 students compares with 150 last year
and 185 in 2003. "These are the toughest years in management education I
have ever seen," says Dr. Zupan.
"MBA Program Hopes Online Game Will Lure Recruits with Prizes," The Wall
Street Journal, September 13, 2005; Page
B12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112657077730738778,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Since curriculum revisions are not working well to reverse the slide of MBA
applications, some universities not happy with their US News, Forbes,
WSJ, and Business Week rankings may turn to gaming with sizeable
rewards Can an online game offering thousands of dollars in
prizes reverse the slide in master of business administration applications?
The University of Rochester certainly hopes so. Starting Sept. 26, potential
M.B.A. applicants to Rochester's William E. Simon Graduate School of
Business Administration will begin playing a business-simulation game that
promises a full scholarship of more than $70,000 to the winner, plus smaller
scholarships for the runners-up. The goal is to attract top-notch applicants
who may never have heard of the Simon School but find the game, and the
scholarship money, enticing. "We hope to get a little viral marketing going
so that people spread the word that Simon is an innovative place worth
taking a look at," says Dean Mark Zupan.
"MBA Program Hopes Online Game Will Lure Recruits with Prizes," The Wall
Street Journal, September 13, 2005; Page
B12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112657077730738778,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
The following tidbits were in my August 29 edition of Tidbits:
Earlier threads on the business school ranking controversies
01. Harvard University (MA)
02. Stanford University (CA)
03. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
04. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)
06. Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)
University of California–Berkeley (Haas)
08. University of Chicago
09. Columbia University (NY)
10. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross)
The entire ranking system is now considered dysfunctional to program
integrity and is being studied as a huge academic problem by the AACSB (See
below)
What's Really Wrong With U.S. Business
Schools?
by Harry DeAngelo, Linda DeAngelo, Jerold Zimmerman:
Wow, it sounds bad. I (Jim Mahar)
am very glad I chose a small university (St.
Bonaventure). However, the choice leads me to not really comment on the
paper since being at a small university removes me from many (but not
all) of the problems cited in the paper. Moreover, I do not feel I can
add any value to what the authors say.
Rather I will only give you the abstract and
link.
Abstract:
"U.S. business schools are locked in a dysfunctional competition for
media rankings that diverts resources from long-term knowledge
creation, which earned them global pre-eminence, into short-term
strategies aimed at improving their rankings. MBA curricula are
distorted by 'quick fix, look good' packaging changes designed to
influence rankings criteria, at the expense of giving students a
rigorous, conceptual framework that will serve them well over their
entire careers. Research, undergraduate education, and Ph.D.
programs suffer as faculty time is diverted to almost continuous MBA
curriculum changes, strategic planning exercises, and public
relations efforts. Unless they wake up to the dangers of
dysfunctional rankings competition, U.S. business schools are
destined to lose their dominant global position and become a classic
case study of how myopic decision-making begets institutional
mediocrity."
Cite:
DeAngelo, Harry, DeAngelo, Linda and Zimmerman, Jerold L., "What's
Really Wrong With U.S. Business Schools?" (July 2005).
http://ssrn.com/abstract=766404
Jensen Comment:
The DeAngelos and Jerry Zimmerman are leading advocates of capital market
research and positivist methodology. Harry and Linda are from the
University of Southern California and Jerry is from the University of
Rochester. Their business schools rank 23 and 26 respectively in the latest
US News rankings. Their WSJ rankings are 23 and 20.
I think the authors overstate the problem with media rankings and
curricula. I don’t think curriculum choices or PR enter into the rankings
in a big way. Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton will almost always come out on
top no matter what the curriculum or PR budget. What counts heavily is
elitism tradition and alumni networking (helps Harvard the most),
concentration of researchers/names (helps Stanford the most), and insider
tracks to Wall Street (helps Wharton the most). These, in turn, affect the
number of MBA applicants with GMAT scores hovering around 700 or higher.
The GMAT scores, in turn, impact most heavily upon media rankings. The
raters are looking for where the top students in the world are scrambling to
be admitted. Can the majority of applicants really tell us the difference
between the business school curriculum at USC versus Stanford versus
Rochester? I doubt it!
Media rankings
differ somewhat due to differences in the groups doing the rankings. The
US News rankings are done by AACSB deans who tend to favor schools with
leading researchers. The WSJ rankings are done by corporate
recruiters who are impressed by the credentials of the graduating students
and their interviewing skills (which might indirectly be affected by a
curriculum that is more profession oriented and less geeky).
August 27, 2005 reply from Dennis Beresford (University of Georgia)
Bob,
Thanks for this link. The DeAngelo, DeAngelo, and Zimmerman paper is
quite interesting. Because football season doesn't start until next
week, I had a little time to kill this afternoon and used it to read
this paper.
My own rather short academic experience causes me to agree with the
paper's assertion that MBA program rankings tend to drive much of what
happens at a business school. We recently proudly reported that we were
number 30 in the US News rankings (without
pointing out that there was a 30 way tie for that spot).
And we also trumpeted the fact that the Forbes rankings just out
reported that our MBA graduates earned $100,000 in starting pay vs.
$40,000 when they entered the program. (I think the ghosts of Andersen
must have developed those numbers.)
We went through a curriculum revision a couple of years ago and we now
emphasize "leadership." (I suspect this puts us in the company of only
about 90% of MBA programs that do the same.) Most of our classes are now
taught in half semesters. Perhaps there is good justification for this
but it seems to me to encourage a more superficial approach. And
managerial accounting is no longer a required part of the curriculum in
spite of our pointing out that most of the elite schools still require
this important subject.
While I agree with the premise that MBA programs are focusing too much
on rankings and short term thinking, I believe the paper's arguments on
how to "cure the problem" aren't well supported. In particular, while I
strongly agree with the idea that MBA programs should primarily help
students develop critical thinking and analytic skills, I think the
authors are too critical of the practical aspects of business education
as described by Bennis and O'Toole in their earlier Harvard Business
article. The authors of this paper seem to feel that more emphasis on
research published in scholarly journals will bring more of a long-term
focus to MBA education and will address the concerns about rankings,
etc. I think a better response would be to balance the practical and
theoretical - although I know that is a very hard thing to do.
As a final note, would you agree that the capital asset pricing model
and efficient markets research "inspired" indexed mutual funds?
Asserting such a causal connection seems like a pretty big stretch to
me.
Denny Beresford
August 29, 2005 response from Paul Williams at North Carolina State
University
And we all know what rigorous conceptual
framework these folks have in mind. This paper is the knee-jerk response
to the Bennis/ O'Toole paper. This is an argument that has been going on
since business schools were started. It's the on-going argument over
case method vs modeling as the proper way to teach business.
Odd that such believers in market solutions
should question what is obviously working -- would universities play
this game if it didn't work? Or is it only universities that are
irrational? (I'll bet Rochester and Southern Cal are playing the game,
too. What kind of research do you suppose Bill Simon expects for his
millions?) Passions run so high and retribution is swift. Note what
happen to Bob Kaplan's service on the JAR board when he suggested (after
he got some religion at Harvard) that case studies might be a worthwhile
thing for us to consider.
Denny, et al:
You have made some very good points about blending. A very long time
ago, Aristotle, in the Nichomachean Ethics, described three types of
knowledge: techne, episteme, and phronesis. Techne = technical knowledge
(how to bake a pie). Episteme = scientific knowledge. Phronesis (the
highest form) = wisdom, i.e., the knowledge of goodness; how to be a
good citizen. Business is a practice and the Harvard approach is one
that acknowledges that "wisdom can't be told" (the title of the classic
1950s essay on the value of the case approach). Modelers miss a key
element of management. It is not a constrained optimization problem, but
a process of intervention. Experience matters
The ratings game is played because it pays off. Duke didn't have a
graduate program in business until 1970 compared to UNC's, which
predated Duke's by about 25 years. When Tom Keller became dean he had a
stroke of genius and hired a public relations firm to promote the MBA.
Duke always marketed itself from the day it was founded as the "Harvard
of the South" and was able to attract wealthy Northeasterners not able
to get into Ivy league schools. Now Duke is able to attract highly
talented students, high priced faculty and big donattions (note that
Wendy's founder Dave Thomas didn't raise millions for Eastern State U.).
Marketing works -- look how many pick-up trucks with 1975 technology
under the hood got sold as Sport Utility Vehicles (Pick- up Trucks with
Walls doesn't have the same ring). Half the battle at becoming the best
is telling people you are, a fact every con man knows. People don't give
money to Harvard because it needs it -- they give to Harvard to say they
gave to Harvard. Do you think any of the terminally vain people who give
money to get their names chiseled on the buildings do so because they
have read all of the brillians academic papers people inside the
building have produced? No, they give it because someone has told them
that the people inside the building are writing brilliant academic
papers.
It really becomes a post-modern moment when the people writing the
papers truly believe they are brilliant.
The study precedes an upcoming AACSB International report that calls
for the media to change the way it assigns rankings to business
degree granting institutions. The AACSB document, to be released in
September, calls the ranking methods used by BusinessWeek, Financial
Times, U.S. News & World Report, and other media outlets flawed
because of inconsistent and unverified data, which confuses rather
than helps the consumer.
As accounting courses in MBA core are shrinking, finance
courses are increasing
Core Finance Trends in the Top MBA Programs
in 2005 by Kent Womack, Ying Zhang:
Following Friday's mention of the DeAngelo,
DeAngelo, and Zimmerman paper that looks at what is wrong with MBA
programs at some universities, I was sent the following paper by Womack
and Zhang. They survey MBA programs to see what trends exist.
The good news?
More finance! "Five of the nineteen schools responding have increased
hours spent in the finance core substantially, compared to results of
our earlier survey in 2001."
The bad news (at least for students): fewer
electives:
"The recent survey results, however, suggest in
general that most other schools seem to be migrating in the other
direction, towards more required course hours."
The paper is full of many really cool things.
For instance focusing on finance:
"Principles of Corporate Finance by Brealey,
Meyers, and Allen (BMA) and Corporate Finance by Ross, Westerfield,
Jaffe (RWJ), were used by 8 and 6 schools this year respectively, and
remain the prevailing main textbook choices by most schools." “Average
outside class hours expected per session”. The mean for all schools
responding is 4.2 hours, with a wide range of 2 to 8 hours."
"...programs continue to spend significant amount of time (on average,
9% of in-class time) on Present Value and other primary background
topics. Diverse professional backgrounds and entry mathematic
proficiency levels demand finance professors “level the playing field”
before teaching other challenging topics."
VERY Interesting for anyone in an MBA program!
The is available from SSRN as well as from
Womack's web site.
Cite: Womack, Kent L. and Zhang, Ying N., "Core Finance Trends in the
Top MBA Programs in 2005" .
http://ssrn.com/abstract=760604
The
study precedes an upcoming AACSB International report that calls for the
media to change the way it assigns rankings to business degree granting
institutions. The AACSB document, to be released in September, calls the
ranking methods used by BusinessWeek, Financial Times, U.S. News & World
Report, and other media outlets flawed because of inconsistent and
unverified data, which confuses rather than helps the consumer.
The long-awaited PCAOB auditor inspection reports
Denny Beresford clued
me into the fact that, after several months delay, the Big Four and
other inspection reports of the PCAOB are available, or will soon be
available, to the public ---
http://www.pcaobus.org/Inspections/Public_Reports/index.aspx
Look for more to be released today and early next week.
The firms themselves
have seen them and at least one, KPMG, has already distributed a
carefully-worded letter to all clients. I did see that letter from
Flynn.
Denny did not mention
it, but my very (I stress very) cursory browsing indicates that the
firms will not be comfortable with their inspections, at least not some
major parts of them.
I would like to state
a preliminary hypothesis for which I have no credible evidence as of
yet. My hypothesis is that the major problem of the large auditing
firms is the continued reliance upon cheaper risk analysis auditing
relative to the much more costly detail testing. This is what got all
the large firms, especially Andersen, into trouble on many audits where
there has been litigation ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#others
While doing some grading, I have been listening to the Webcast of
the February meeting of the PCAOB Standing Advisory Group
(see
http://www.connectlive.com/events/pcaob/)
(yes, I know, I have no life! <g>).
There is an interesting discussion on the role/future of the
risk-based audit. Seehttp://tinyurl.com/8f5nt at
42 minutes into the discussion. A variety of viewpoints are
expressed in the discussion. This refers back to an earlier
discussion we had on AECM.
Roger
--
Roger Debreceny
School of Accountancy
College of Business Administration
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
2404 Maile Way
Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
www.debreceny.com
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on
September 20, 2005
TITLE: SEC Chief Gets More Posts to Fill as Accounting Overseer
Resigns
REPORTER: Deborah Solomon
DATE: Sep 24, 2005
PAGE: B3
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112748562811949862,00.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Public Accounting, Sarbanes-Oxley Act
SUMMARY: William J. McDononough announced that he is stepping down
from his post as chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight
Board (PCAOB).
QUESTIONS:
1.) How and why was the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)
formed?
2.) What is the purpose of the PCAOB and what are its functions?
3.) Given the changes described in this article for entities under
the purview of the SEC, what do you think is the tenor of public company
regulation at this point in time?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
The changes taking place at BDO Seidman demonstrate the challenges
facing second-tier accounting firms as they confront an era of tougher
regulation and instill more investor confidence.
In KPMG's shadow, 95-year-old BDO, the nation's
sixth-biggest accounting firm with $440 million in revenue, has had its
share of tax-shelter woes. Like KPMG, it faces civil lawsuits in state
courts, filed by former clients now facing potential IRS penalties.
However, at least for now, according to a BDO
spokesman, the Internal Revenue Service has put its BDO tax-shelter
probe on administrative hold, meaning it isn't under active pursuit. An
IRS spokeswoman declined to comment on the probe's status. A BDO
spokesman said the Justice Department hasn't interviewed anyone at the
firm on the matter.
. . .
The changes also included Mr. Kolins's election
as chairman. With about four decades of audit experience at BDO, Mr.
Kolins, 61, signaled a shift from Denis Field, who hailed from the tax
side and was BDO's youngest-ever CEO, at 41, back in 2000. Mr. Kolins
serves on an advisory group at the Public Company Accounting Oversight
Board, the auditing profession's main regulator.
In February, in a letter to the PCAOB, he said
BDO "strongly support[s] the broad objectives" of the board's proposal
to restrict sales of tax services to audit clients.
BDO last year picked up more new clients, 109,
than any other big accounting firm, according to proxy-advisory firm
Glass Lewis & Co. The average new client had about $100 million in
stock-market value, though BDO also audits larger clients like Barnes &
Noble Inc. and Jones Apparel Group Inc.
The heightened focus on audit work meant BDO's
tax-services division contributed just 26% of total revenue in the 2005
fiscal year ended June 30. By comparison, four years before, tax
services represented 47% of the firm's $420 million in annual revenue.
Expanding the audit side hasn't come without
its own risks. Some new clients taken on by BDO last year were rejects
of the Big Four. They were shed as the bigger firms, flush with new
accounting assignments created by the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley
securities-overhaul act, got pickier about their client base. Besides
KPMG, the Big Four consists of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Deloitte &
Touche LLP and Ernst & Young LLP.
More in the article
Google Desktop Search (GDS) and ScanSoft Plug-ins
September 25, 2005 message from
I've just given up on a two week attempt to get
GDS functioning on my primary system.
The deciding factor came when I was trying to
figure out why the ScanSoft GDS plug-in was blowing things up so badly.
I read the ScanSoftGDS.ini file and learned the following:
"; Note that Google Desktop Search 1.0 indexes
more text if recognized by ; our plugin. The difference could be large,
e.g. it would index the first ; 7 pages with its built-in PDF reader
while it would index the first ; 24 pages with our plugin. ; The
built-in PDF reader creates nicely formatted text in Google's cache, ;
while our plugin creates unformatted text."
And
"; Note that Google Desktop Search 1.0 itself
limits the indexable size ; to 37500 characters. No words over this
length limit are indexed, even ; if we recognized them [in the OCR].
This may change in the future."
Being able to fully search PDF files was rather
important to me in terms of trying to operate on a paperless basis. I
have over 16,000 of them, some scanned documents but most not, and many
are hundreds if not thousands of pages. Almost always more than seven,
or even 24 pages. So even if I give up on the idea of OCR and indexing
on scanned documents, the page limitation is the deal killer.
If anyone knows a way to verify or modify that
limitation, I would be interested.
I probably won't re-try the ScanSoft plug-in
though. The initial index update that begins when it installs never
seems to finish, even seems to go backwards at times. I killed all
unessential processes and services, and even raised the priority of the
Scansoft software in task manager.
Other than that, I learned that it works best
to install the GDS software without plug-ins initially. Then immediately
upon installation go into preferences and uncheck all file types, and
enter any search restrictions you have in mind.
This lets Googledesktopcrawl finish the initial
indexing in the least amount of time - a single digit number of hours
rather than days for a large number of files like I have.
Then you can check the boxes for all file types
you want indexed.
As files are created or modified, they will be
added to the index. To be considered modified, the files date/time stamp
must change, so all you have to do is change something that is
inconsequential to your use - a field in the file metadata (aka
properties) for example.
This way you can control the files that get
added, and control the use of system resources.
The killer for me was when I added the ScanSoft
GDS plug-in, lost what I had gained on the indexing, and learned about
the page limitations.
Scott Bonacker, CPA
Springfield, Missouri
A person can be a professional thief only if he is
recognized and received as such by other professional thieves. Professional
theft is a group way of life.”
Edwin Sutherland
What is the main temptation of white collar criminals? Why do
auditors often lose professionalism?
Who are the two richest Enron executives to emerge unscathed by
Enron's scandal?
What are some of the main lessons learned from the Enron
scandal?
How many facts at the height of Enron's success can your
recite? For example what were its 1999 sales, profits, and cash on hand
(at least as reported in Enron's somewhat fictional 1999 financial
statements? How big were the subsequent earnings and debt
restatements? Who held the most stock? What was CEO Ken Lay's
salary before other benefits? How many employees did Enron have on the payroll
in 1999?
When was Enron formed and who founded it?
When Enron's name became Enron, a consulting firm was
paid over $1 million to recommend a name that turned into a laughing
stock. What was that absurd name that became an embarrassing joke?
Who were the leading executives and Board of Director members
and what did they eventually earn from their stock sales until paying fines or
being forced to return money to Enron?
What executive committed suicide by gunshot after Enron
imploded?
What are some of the leading books that have been written about
Enron?
What set Andy Fastow and Michael Kopper apart from most of the
other Enron executives prior to the illegal self declarations of bonuses from
a secret bank account set up just before Enron declared bankruptcy?
What was the main source of the idea that Enron (before it was
named Enron) should extend into the energy trading line of business in
addition to its gas transmission line of business? Who did this person
work for at the time (it wasn't Enron)?
In the simplest of terms, what is a special purpose entity (SPE)
and why is it allowed by the SEC to remain off the accounting books (the FASB
mainly went along with the SEC rule on these entities)? Discuss the pros
and cons of allowing SPEs to be unconsolidated in the books of the primary
investor.
What was the first SPE formed by Enron that was approved by the
Board of Directors? What did Andy Fastow promise the Board, a promise
that he violated in the worst of possible terms?
The first SPE was set up to hedge Enron's investment
appreciation in Rhythms NetConnection. A contractual obligation
prevented sale of the investment at a time when its high value was
volatile. Andy Fastow proposed an SPE designed to hedge against a fall
in the value of the Rhythms investment. What type of derivative
financial instrument was proposed to carry out this hedge? Explain how
the hedge would've worked optimally.
What is most unusual and actually unethical about the way
Enron's SPEs were managed? How were these related party dealings
disclosed and yet obscured in the infamous Footnote 16 of Enron's Year 2000
Annual Report?
Frank Partnoy presented the best testimony before the U.S.
Senate about Enron's misuse of derivative financial instruments after Enron
imploded and was being investigated. Summarize Partnoy's major
conclusions about these hedging activities and their accounting.
In round numbers, what is the amount Andy Fastow ultimately
admitted to skimming from over 3,000 SPEs he set up in Enron? What is
the best estimate of the actual amount he stole from his company?
Was Andy Fastow considered a financial genius by financial
experts within Enron? Elaborate.
Enron's auditing firm was Arthur Andersen (or just
Andersen). In the early 1990s, who was the managing partner on the Enron
audit from the Houston Office? What was Enron earning in audit billings
to Enron per year? What were the consulting fees per year paid to the
Andersen's Houston office?
David Duncan became Andersen's managing partner of the Enron
audit in what year? Was Duncan a great accountant? What were his
credentials when Andersen made him the managing partner on the Enron
audit?
At one point in 1999 Duncan privately agreed with his Andersen
colleague Carl Bass that Enron should take an added $______ charge to
earnings, but that these were not material. How much was this charge? Why do you really think Duncan did not want to force Enron to
make this charge?
A WSJ reporter was the first to uncover Enron's secret "Related Party
Transactions." What reporter was this and what are those transactions
that he/she investigated?
What is Chewco and why did it ultimately lead to a major split
between Enron and Andersen?
Virtually all of Enron's executives benefited from massive
fraud just prior to the declaration of bankruptcy by Enron in December of
2001. What was this fraud?
What Time Magazine's Woman of the Year was noted for a very foul
mouth? Hint: She's best known for her whistle blowing memo. She was an
undervalued accounting executive without much to do. She finally took the
trouble on her own to unravel the exceeding complexity of one of Andy Fastow's
most complex SPEs that "had no skin."
Did Rebecca Mark have a high level position in Enron? Was
she competent? What famous accounting ratio could she just not
comprehend?
Aside from Andy Fastow's suggested use of SPEs for off-book
transactions, who was the main instigator of accounting irregularities for
items on the books of Enron? What were some of the most typical
types of accounting irregularities? Also mention some of Fastow's
accounting irregularities.
Just wondering if anyone has seen this
movie/documentary? Interested in feedback and if it is a good teaching
tool?
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (M)
Directed by Alex Gibney, this is the inside
story of one of history’s greatest business scandals, in which top
executives of America’s 7th largest company walked away with over one
billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything. Based on
the best-selling book The Smartest Guys in the Room by Fortune reporters
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind and featuring insider accounts and
incendiary corporate audio and videotapes, Gibney reveals the almost
unimaginable personal excesses of the Enron hierarchy and the utter
moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy. The film comes to a
harrowing end as we hear Enron traders’ own voices as they wring
hundreds of millions of dollars in profits out of the California energy
crisis. As a result, we come to understand how the avarice of Enron’s
traders and their bosses had a shocking and profound domino effect that
may shape the face of our economy for years to come. [M] 109 mins.
<http:// www.enronmovie.com>.
The movie is entertaining and
factual. It has reduced some of the complex issues to make the subject
more accessible to people not familiar with things such as derivatives,
SPEs, etc. I liked it. Particularly, since it includes the video clip of
Jeff skilling's Titanic joke. As a resident of California I took it the
rip-off of California electicity users by Enron (and others) personally.
It has been argued that the movie is too "left". However, i am not sure
how one can ignore the close political ties of Enron and the current
administration.
I have seen the film in its opening in new york.
i have been involved with a "cooking the books" course for a long time
and was wondering about its educational value.... my conclusion was that
the film really did not deal with any accounting issues as the movie
makers did not understand them and in certain parts they were very
sensationalistic and unfair to the parties involved...
however i always recommend my students to see
the film as it raises awareness of many things.
The correct site is
www.netflix.com
(for the Enron DVD) - just type the name of the
movie in the search box and it apparently is available.
I saw the movie this summer. I went into it
with an open mind and left feeling like I learned a few more details
about the situation or whatever spin one wants to put on it. I figured
it would be critical of the people who ran the company and it was. The
movie was not geared toward an audience of accountants. They even said
toward the beginning that this was a story about the people. It could be
called the Lemony Snickets of accounting and a series of unfortunate
events. If you are on the lookout for good stuff to add to your course,
the "biggest" problem with the movie is that it's two hours long and I
don't see how one would easily fit it into an accounting or auditing
course. The second problem is that its not available on DVD yet (or at
least it wasn't in August or I would have just purchased it The book is
available.). DVDs are cheap so it's certainly worth a rental (if you can
find one) or a purchase. I teach an advanced auditing course, which
covers a number of cases including ZZZZ Best, Regina, ESM, and Enron. I
use the "Cooking the Books" video as well because the clips on ZZZZ
Best, Regina, and ESM are short and they are interesting. Even if the
"Smartest Guys" video were available, I think you could only show a few
parts of it and those parts would be mostly examples of ethical matters
or the perils of executive management. It's certainly worth a look, but
think it will take a lot of thinking to figure out how to use.
AccountingWEB.com - Sep-29-2005 - The Journal
of Accountancy is celebrating its centennial. The official publication
of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA’s)
continuous publication for 100 years is being recognized with an
official proclamation congratulating the Journal on the accomplishment.
“The history of the Journal of Accountancy is really the history of the
nation’s accounting profession,” Barry Melancon, AICPA President and CEO
said in a prepared statement. “Everything that has happened over the
past 100 years to make this a robust, important profession has been
reflected in the magazine’s pages.”
In its formative years, the Journal was the
lone source of technical information. Before there even was a Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Journal reported on, analyzed and
influenced the accounting profession and now accounting terms are as
common in daily newspapers as mayoral campaigns. Along the way 1,200
issues have been published, circulation has climbed to 368,000, and many
awards for excellence have been earned.
A special 100th Anniversary issue is already
available in hard copy and an electronic copy will be available on the
AICPA web site beginning October 1. The issue includes features delving
into the history of the magazine and the accounting profession along
with articles exploring the issues and ideas that will shape the
industry and carry it into the future successfully.
It will probably be no surprise that a highlight for me each month is the
section called Smart Stops on the Web. The folks who find those
"smart stops" do a great job.
Introducing Microsoft's intended Quickbooks killer and other news from
Richard
September 28, 2005 message from Richard Campbell
Here is a link to a free trial of "Small
Business Accounting 2006".
KPMG was eventually fired, due to SEC pressure, from the enormous
Fannie Mae audit.
"New Fannie Mae Violations Surface: Accounting Flaws Include Possible
Overvalued Assets, Insurance to Hide Losses," by Dawn Kopecki, The Wall
Street Journal, September 29, 2005; Page A3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112793973737254864,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Investigators combing through Fannie Mae's
finances have found new accounting violations, including evidence that
the company may have overvalued assets, underreported credit losses and
misused tax credits, according to people close to or previously involved
in the inquiries.
Some people familiar with the examination said
evidence also indicates the company may have bought so-called finite
insurance policies to hide losses after they were incurred. Securities
regulators, including New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, are
cracking down on corporations that they say bolstered earnings by using
abusive financial reinsurance policies that are more akin to loans,
where little or no risk is transferred to the insurer.
These people didn't provide details on the new
violations, and it isn't clear how much new damage -- if any -- these
problems will create for the company. But the people indicated that the
alleged new accounting violations were designed to embellish the
company's earnings and are in addition to the violations that the
company and its regulator have already disclosed.
According to the people who have been involved
with or are close to the investigations, for example, there are
questions about how Fannie booked certain tax credits, including those
used to lower its annual tab with the Internal Revenue Service. Fannie
reduced its corporate-tax rate in 2003 from a statutory minimum of 35%
to an effective rate of 26% by recording tax savings of $988 million in
tax credits and an additional $479 million from its tax-exempt
investments, according to its year-end earnings disclosure.
Earlier this year, Fannie Mae acknowledged that
it violated accounting principles in recording its derivatives and other
transactions, estimating a possible cumulative after-tax loss for the
restatement period from 2001 through mid-2004 of as much as $10.8
billion, based on the company's finances as of Dec. 31, 2004. The
company has said that its restatement process won't be completed until
the second half of 2006.
In a statement released late yesterday, Fannie
Mae noted that its regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise
Oversight, has found that the company was "adequately capitalized" at
the end of the second quarter. The company also said it believes it is
"on track" to reach an Ofheo mandate that it build up its capital to 30%
above the normal requirement by the end of this month. Regarding the
various investigations, the company said: "We will continue to provide
updates through our regulatory filings as issues are identified and
resolved."
Ofheo said Fannie's projected surplus over
minimum capital requirements "is sufficient to absorb uncertainties in
the estimated impact to capital of the [company's] accounting errors,
based on current information."
News that investigators may have found new
accounting irregularities triggered a selloff in Fannie Mae stock, which
dropped 11%, the largest percentage decline since the stock-market crash
of 1987. The stock was off $4.99 to $41.71 in 4 p.m. composite trading
on the New York Stock Exchange. That is the lowest closing price since
July 1997.
The company's board initiated its own review of
Fannie's finances after Ofheo accused executives of manipulating
accounting rules in a scathing report delivered to the board 12 months
ago. Fannie vehemently defended its accounting until the Securities and
Exchange Commission sided with Ofheo last December and directed the
company to correct errors in its application of two rules under
generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. Fannie began its
multiyear earnings restatement and ousted Chief Executive Franklin
Raines and Chief Financial Officer Timothy Howard shortly thereafter.
We have no proprietary information about Fannie
Mae, but what is publicly known is scary enough. As you may recall, last
December the SEC required Fannie to restate prior financial statements
while the Office of Federal Oversight (OFHEO) accused the company of
widespread accounting regularities that resulted in false and misleading
statements. Significantly, the questionable practices included the way
Fannie accounted for their huge amount of derivatives. On Tuesday, a
company press release gave some alarming hints on how extensive the
problem may be.
The press release stated that in order to
accomplish the restatements, “we have to obtain and validate market
values for a large volume of transactions including all of our
derivatives, commitments and securities at multiple points in time over
the restatement period. To illustrate the breadth of this undertaking,
we estimate we will need to record over one million lines of journal
entries, determine hundreds of thousands of commitment prices and
securities values, and verify some 20,000 derivative prices…”
“…This year we expect that over 30 percent of
our employees will spend over half their time on it, and many more are
involved. In addition we are bringing some 1,500 consultants on board by
year’s end to help with the restatement…Altogether, we project devoting
six to eight million labor hours to the restatement. We are also
investing over $100 million in technology projects to enhance or create
new systems related to accounting and reporting…we do not believe the
restatement will be completed until sometime during the second half of
2006…”
Disaster Kits (Especially note Mossberg's disaster gadgets)
September 22, 2005 message from Jim Borden
Scott,
Not sure if this is the type of emergency
checklist you were looking for, but it may be helpful nonetheless. from
WSJ.com - A Doctor's Emergency Kit ---
Water-purification tablets. Those are the top
priority in the survival kit of Tom Kirsch, the emergency-department
operations director at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Kirsh, who
has 15 years of experience in disaster response, also keeps a
pocket-sized LED, or light-emitting diode, flashlight, which can last
for hundreds of hours (a regular flashlight will last only four to
five).
Regardless of how "wireless" communications
technology has become, your laptop, cellphone, BlackBerry, radio or TV
will keep working only if the batteries can be recharged. These gadgets
may be your communications lifeline, but, as we saw during Hurricane
Katrina, they can become useless if the electrical grid is down for days
or weeks -- just when you need them most.
Of course, if you stock numerous extra
batteries for each device, and keep them charged fastidiously, you might
ride out a long power outage. But that takes a fat wallet and an iron
will. You could use a car charger to keep these gadgets going in a power
outage, but during Katrina many people couldn't get gasoline to power
their cars. You could recharge your gadgets from a home generator, but
few people own them or stockpile the fuel they consume.
So this week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I
tested gadgets that are specifically designed to work in emergency
situations. We tested two radios that use cranks to recharge their
batteries, including one with a built-in cellphone charger. We also took
a look at disposable chargers for cellphones, smart phones and even iPod
music players.
Obviously these products won't help you stay
connected should the communications infrastructure itself go down, as
happened during Katrina. If the cellphone towers, Internet providers,
and TV and radio stations are knocked offline, even a well-charged
laptop, phone or radio might be useless. But it's best to have your end
of the system ready if some of these networks do remain operational, or
come back on line during the crisis.
The crank radios were pretty easy to set up and
use, which is a relief for anyone who might buy them and not learn how
to use them until actually necessary. We found the $50 Multi-Purpose
Radio FR300 by Eton Corp. at Hammacher Schlemmer (
www.hammacher.com
) and liked its multifaceted functionality, which
includes picking up the audio signal from TV stations.
This sturdy-looking, square radio has a
carrying handle on top and comes with a case. Its front displays a
speaker, small flashlight, and tuning display for five settings: AM, FM,
the TV1 and TV2 television audio bands, and a "WX" band for the
government's weather channels. Katie used a slide bar just below that
display to choose which she wanted to hear. She turned the tuning knob
to hear a specific radio station; a smaller knob built into the larger
knob allows for more precise tuning. There is a collapsible antenna.
To generate power for the FR300, we simply
folded a plastic crank out from the radio's side, and turned it for a
little while, evoking a loud whirring sound. Eton says that two minutes
of cranking should suffice for an hour of radio play time, but we got 35
minutes out of a 30-second crank, which is even better than that
estimate.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
broadcasts can be tuned in on the FR300 by setting the slide bar to the
WX setting. A separate tuning knob lets you turn to whichever is the
strongest of the seven NOAA channels. You can set another separate knob
on "Alert" so as to hear whenever the NOAA announces emergency weather
news in your area. A siren is also built into this radio.
A small cellphone-charging piece plugs into the
back of the FR300, and five included adapters permit charging of certain
Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson phones. Katie easily
plugged her Samsung cellphone into the adapter and had it charging after
a few cranks.
The $70 Freeplay Eyemax Weather Band Radio from
Innovative Technologies Distribution Inc. (
www.windupradio.com
) was similar to the FR300, but it lacked a few
features. This radio has its crank, speaker and tuning display all lined
up on the front, with a tiny flashlight at one end and an antenna at the
other.
A solar panel on its top can be used to operate
the radio in direct sunlight, which might be a nice feature if you're
not up for repeated hand-cranking. The Freeplay also comes with an AC
adapter, unlike the FR300. But the FR300 can run on three AA batteries,
which might be more useful during an evacuation; the Freeplay had no
option for disposable batteries.
While the Freeplay Eyemax is also advertised to
receive seven NOAA weather-band channels, its weather-tuning display is
confusingly represented on the same display as AM/FM tuning. We liked
the FR300's separate weather-channel knob better because it allowed us
to set one weather station and not have to change it after listening to
the radio.
The Freeplay's estimated crank/run time was
more accurate -- as the company said, 30 seconds of cranking enabled the
battery to work for 35 minutes, the same as the FR300.
Katie and I also re-tested a product we have
reviewed in the past -- Cellboost by Compact Power Systems Inc. These
are tiny disposable cellphone chargers that can give your phone 60
minutes of usage time or 60 hours of standby time. But this month, the
company introduced the same devices for smartphones, which are
cellphones designed for email and Web browsing. Other new Cellboost
models power portable game stations, camcorders and even iPod music
players -- though these aren't necessarily emergency lifelines.
I use the Treo 650 smart phone every day, for
email and phone calls, so I tested the $8 Treo Cellboost, which promises
60 minutes of talk time. As soon as I attached the Cellboost and flipped
its on/off switch, it worked like I had plugged my smartphone into its
wall charger. Katie tried the $8 BlackBerry charger and the $10 iPod
mini charger with the same simple results. The Cellboosts for iPod and
iPod mini each afford eight hours of play time.
Compact Power Systems also introduced a product
called the iRecharge, a rechargeable portable battery that fits snugly
around your iPod, iPod mini or iPod shuffle giving the iPod and iPod
mini 12 hours of extra play time and the iPod shuffle 40 extra hours. It
has an on/off switch, so you can charge your iPod as needed, as well as
a charge-level indicator that glows to tell you how much juice is left.
Katie used the iRecharge with her mini, and it
worked easily. The iRecharge for iPod and iPod mini is sold for $80 in a
Value Pack with a disposable iPod Cellboost, belt clip and a leather
carrying case. The iPod shuffle's iRecharge Value Pack costs $40.
We highly recommend getting a couple of
Cellboosts to keep in your briefcase, purse or glove compartment; each
charger remains usable for up to two years. And we recommend a crank
radio as well. But, while Cellboosts are an inexpensive solution for
recharging your gadgets, crank radios are more of an investment. Be sure
to look for one with as many power sources as possible -- such as a slot
for disposable batteries and AC adapter -- and make sure it includes a
good flashlight.
Then, pray you don't have to use any of these
things.
Modern Finance vs. Behavioural Finance: An
Overview of Key Concepts and Major Arguments by Panagiotis Andrikopoulos
It is about the time of the semester when many
finance classes turn their attention to market efficiency. Thus, it is
perfect timing for Andrikopoulous' refresher comparing and contrasting
Modern Fiance and Behavioural Finance.
SSRN-Modern Finance vs. Behavioural Finance: An
Overview of Key Concepts and Major Arguments by Panagiotis Andrikopoulos:
A quick look in:
"Modern Finance has dominated the area of
financial economics for at least four decades. Based on a set of
strong but highly unrealistic assumptions its advocates have
produced a range of very influential theories and models." "The
importance of these two psychological biases in the under- and
overreaction hypotheses is that investors under conservatism will
only partially evaluate new publicly available information, or even
disregard it altogether if it is not in favour of their beliefs"
"Under the representativeness heuristic, investors will consider a
series of positive company performances as representative of a
continuous growth potential, and ignore the possibility that this
performance is of a random nature." "Overreaction and under-reaction
to new information may be viewed as a combination of three distinct
inefficiencies; firstly, the inability of investment players to
correctly distinguish between the length of the short-run and the
long-run...; secondly, the excessive optimism of all investment
agents due to biased self-attribution, and thirdly, the influence
that one investment group has on another."
Of course, not everyone believes this new
Behavioural School of thought. Again from the paper:
"Soon after the first empirical papers on
behavioural finance were published, their claims came in for
considerable criticism from supporters of the modern finance
paradigm."
"important counter-argument disputes the
existence of certain regularities and argues for the existence of
research biases and other methodological shortcomings in behavioural
finance studies. More commonly, the evidence on the existence of
pricing anomalies is accepted but in that case, the most important
response concerns the existence of additional risk factors, e.g.
value premium can be explained as compensation for bearing
additional systematic risk."
In this light of continually counter-punching
against evidence suggesting rationality does not dominate
"It is also claimed that the positive
contributions of modern finance are at an end and that its energies
are now devoted to protecting itself in various ad hoc ways from the
threat posed by the vast and growing anomalies literature. The
simplifying models of modern finance, under this view, should be
regarded as merely rough first approximations to how markets really
behave, and that they stand in need of substantial revision and
extension."
Andrikopoulos concludes:
"Nevertheless, the rational expectations
model and the efficient markets model can never become obsolete,
since they represent an ideal market. Should the behavioural finance
revolution succeed, its applications in practice will simply move
real markets closer to the ideal of semi-strong market efficiency."
Very nice. I like the perspective it gives even
though at times I thought he made the division stronger than it
generally appears to be.
My view? Probably be that modern finance is a
very good first approximation and more often than not, the correct view.
That said, I will concede (and indeed stress) that markets are far from
perfect and behavioural finance is rightly here to stay for it does add
to our understanding and (as Andrikopoulos points out) most assuredly
moves markets closer to the ideal held by modern finance.
Cite: Andrikopoulos, Panagiotis, "Modern Finance vs. Behavioural
Finance: An Overview of Key Concepts and Major Arguments" (June 2005).
http://ssrn.com/abstract=746204
This is an example of one of those very interesting studies in need of
replication on a wider scale with real investors making real portfolio
decisions.
"Brain Regions Blamed for Bad Investment Ideas: Risky vs. Safe
Investment Mistakes May Spring From Different Brain Regions," by Jennifer
Warner, WebMD, August 31, 2005 ---
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/110/109839.htm
A new discovery may help explain where
boneheaded investment ideas and get- rich-quick schemes come from.
Researchers say two different brain regions may
be involved in making risky vs. conservative investment mistakes, a
finding that may eventually help economists build better models of
people's investment behavior.
"Overall, these findings suggest that
risk-seeking choices (such as gambling at a casino) and risk-averse
choices (such as buying insurance) may be driven by two distinct [brain
regions]," write Camelia Kuhnen of the Stanford University School of
Business and colleagues in the Sept. 1 issue of Neuron.
They say activating either of these two areas
can lead to a shift in risk preferences, which may explain why casinos
surround their guests with reward cues, such as inexpensive food, free
liquor, surprise gifts, and potential jackpot prizes.
This anticipation of reward stimulates the
risk-seeking area of the brain and may increase the likelihood of
individuals switching from conservative, risk-aversion investment
behavior to risky investment behavior. A similar story in reverse may
also apply to marketing strategies used by insurance companies.
Where Bad Investment Ideas Come From
In the study, researchers used brain imaging to
analyze brain region activity in a group of adult volunteers who were
asked to make investment decisions between two stocks and a bond by
pressing a button.
Before each session, researchers told the
participants they would receive a percentage of the cash that they made
by investing or would lose cash from their participation fee if they
were not successful.
Continued in article
I really hate to be the bearer of bad news for an organization I love
(the AICPA), but here goes. This may be the end of Barry Melancon.
The 118 year old American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants (AICPA, the Institute), the profession’s
trade organization and one of its standard setting boards, while
adjusting to changes in its role and focus resulting from the accounting
scandals, is facing charges from some of its own members that its
financial reporting does not clearly describe the AICPA’s financial
activities. CPAs Reforming Our Profession (CROP) ( www.cpas4reform.com )
is an organization of 160 AICPA members, who began their activities in
2002 and presented a detailed report analyzing and criticizing the
AICPA’s financial information to Council in May 2004.
CROP founders Andrew Blackman, Mitchell
Freedman, Harold Katz, John Levy, Stan Mills and Kendall Wheeler,
presented an updated report at the Spring 2005 Council meeting and
continue to press the Institute to provide more explanation for various
business transactions and business practices. In addition, CROP has
criticized the AICPA’s presentation of financial information for lack of
transparency.
CROP questions the financial relationship
between the AICPA and CPA2Biz (C2B) (www.cpa2biz.com) the AICPA-sponsored
web portal that has incurred huge operating losses since 2001. The CROP
reports contain very detailed analysis of the transactions surrounding
the disposition of Capital Professional Advisors, Inc. (CapPro), a
subsidiary of C2B. CROP has also questioned the changes in the AICPA’s
asset composition in recent years and its impact on financial liquidity,
and has noted a decline in affinity income.
Phyllis Bernstein, writing an opinion for NPA
Magazine about the CROP reports said “CROP has questioned data they
found unclear and requested information which, in their opinion, was
dribbled to them in small batches without enough “Meat on their bones”
to answer their questions.” Bernstein writes, “In my opinion, a not-for
profit organization should issue financial statements in which the
numbers “get up and dance” and tell the story of what’s happening.
Barry Melancon, the AICPA’s CEO responded to
Ms. Bernstein’s opinion in the same issue of NPA Magazine saying, “The
annual report includes a formal Management Discussion & Analysis (MD&A),
which goes beyond what is required of a not-for-profit entity, but is
consistent with our belief in transparency.” Melancon, whose second
5-year contract as CEO of the Institute will expire at the end of 2005,
claims that the AICPA had met with CROP numerous times. He said that the
current Chair, Robert Bunting, and Vice Chair had met with CROP this
past spring.
The authors of the CROP report continue to
press for more information about the complex stock transaction by which
Nationwide Financial Services in October 2002 purchased CapPro with C2B
preferred stock. CROP also questions the net gain on disposal of CapPro,
recorded by the Institute in the 2003 financial statements. Stock
valuations generally fluctuated widely during the period C2B owned
CapPro, from July 2001 to October 2002.
CapPro was initially purchased by C2B in July
2001 for a $3,000,000 note and $140,000 of stock, according to the CROP
reports and the AICPA’s 2002 Annual Report. CapPro incurred significant
losses in the short period that C2B owned it, according to CROP.
AICPA management described the sale and the
reported gain in the Management’s Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) of the
2003 Annual Report.
In October 2002, CPA2Biz completed the sale of
Capital Professional Advisors, Inc. (”CapPro”) to an investor holding
CPA2Biz common stock and Series A Preferred Stock. The Purchaser
exchanged all of their CPA2Biz equity instruments in exchange for the
common stock that CPA2Biz held in CapPro. The financial statements are
presented to reflect CapPro as a discontinued operation for all periods.
The loss from the discontinued operations was $0.7 million and $3.1
million in 2003 and 2002, respectively. The current year loss is offset
by a gain on the disposal of $6.3 million.
CROP reports that the net gain on the sale was
$5.6 million.
The Purchaser, Nationwide Financial Services,
was named provider of the Member Retirement Plan in July 2002 and
Preferred provide, retirement savings plans for CPA Clients in April
2003.
CROP continues to question the financial ties
between the AICPA and C2B. AICPA management, which asserted in the MD&A
for 2003 that the Institute as a stand-alone entity is not liable for
C2B obligations, acknowledged C2B’s losses in their MD&A discussions for
2003 and 2004 saying in 2003, “CPA2Biz sustained significant losses
during its first two and one-half years of operations. . . .CPA2Biz
completed several initiatives [in 2003] to improve its liquidity and
better position itself under current market conditions.”
The AICPA’s 2003 Notes to the Combined
Financial Statements, for example, describe changes in a note granted to
C2B by the AICPA, “The unsecured note bore interest at 10% and required
a principal payment of $3,600,000 in March 2004. In July 2003, the loan
was modified to bear interest at 5% and is payable in various
installments through May 2008. The effect of the substantial
modification of debt terms resulted in a gain of approximately $61,000.”
(Note 8).
The CROP reports compare financial data on
AICPA liquidity from 1998 to 2004. They say “In spite of the two recent
and significant dues increases, liquidity of the AICPA assets has
declined substantially since 1998. They report that unrestricted net
assets have dropped from a $48 million surplus in 1998 to a $60 million
deficit in 2004.
According to the published financial statements
for the past three years, unrestricted net assets for 2002, 2003 and
2004 totaled $(49 million), $(54.9 million), and $(60.6 million),
respectively. C2B’s impact on unrestricted assets was $(80 million) in
2002, $(90 million) in 2003 and $(101 million) in 2004. Total assets
report C2B preferred stock valued at $87 million in 2002, $80.9 million
in 2003 and $82.3 million in 2004.
Some of the detail in the CROP reports suggests
that CROP has had access to more information than what is provided in
the published financial statements. For example, CROP was able to note
the monthly losses of CapPro. CROP makes reference to Board of Directors
minutes in the reports as well as conversations with AICPA personnel.
Barry Melancon refers to recent contact with
CROP according to NPA Magazine. He said that AICPA personnel discussed
the Institute’s accounting for deferred costs related to the
computerized CPA exam with CROP. He describes the accounting treatment
by saying “our contractual arrangement with our exam partners requires
that we break even. Therefore we appropriately classified those
expenditures as deferred costs, a cumulative $32.3 million asset on our
books as of April 30, 2005.” He adds, “We fully expect to recoup that
investment through our contractual share of exam fees on or before
2014.”
CROP has also criticized the AICPA’s
consolidation of not-for profit with for-profit entities in its
financial statements, saying that does not lead to clarity. The AICPA
notes in its financials that the accounts of the for-profit and
not-for-profit entities have been combined in accordance with Statement
of Position 94-3, Reporting of Related Entities by Not-for-Profit
Organizations. (SOP 94-3).
I
love New Zealand’s Robert Walker. He has a way of turning almost any
message into scholarly theory.
His brief reference to Ijiri refers to the following Tidbit:
Dr. Ijiri was one of my major professors in the doctoral program at
Stanford. I'm naturally drawn to things he writes. He is one of the
long-time advocates of historical cost based accounting. He is in fact much
more dedicated to it than
Bill Paton (but not
Ananias Littleton) where Paton and Littleton are best known advocates of
historical cost accounting. The following is the lead article in the
Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, July/August 2005, pp. 255-279.
US
accounting standards and their environment:
A dualistic study of their 75-years of transition
Yuji
Ijiri Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
Abstract This article examines the 75-year
transition of the US accounting standards and their environment. It
consists of three parts, each having two themes: Part (1) Past changes:
1. The first market crash and the second market crash; 2. Facts-based
accounting and forecasts-based accounting, Part (II) Present issues:
3. The reform legislation (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) and the reform
administration; 4. Procedural fairness and pure fairness, and Part (III)
Future trends: 5. Forecast protection and forecast separation; 6.
Principles-based systems and rules-based systems. These themes are each
examined from dualistic perspectives by contrasting two fundamental concepts
or principles. The article concludes with the strong need to focus on
"procedural fairness" in establishing accounting standards as well as in
implementing the reform legislation and administration, in contrast to "pure
fairness" that is almost impossible to achieve by anyone.
Below
you will find Robert Walker’s reply to my posting of the recent AICPA
message on the CPA-L list.
Bob Jensen
Reply from Robert Walker
I would like to begin
by thanking Bob Jensen for continuing to supply material to this forum.
He has come up with two gems of late in regard to which I am sure we can
resume our periodic debates on matters other than those related to
taxation (important but boring*). The two matters to which I refer are:
§The most
recent contribution regarding a ‘ginger group’ called CROP.
§A
reference to the recent article by Ijiri.
In this message I will
concentrate on the first of these as I have only just secured a copy of
Ijiri’s latest musings. I shall digest it and attempt to provoke a
debate. Perhaps I could say this: Ijiri proves that it is possible to
both a genius and wrong.
In respect to the
matter of CROP, I read the manifesto to which Bob has directed us. It
was if I had a sense of déjà vu. The list of demands or theses, shall
we say in imitation of Luther, strike a strong resonance with me here in
New Zealand far from the apparently vastly over-complicated world of the
AICPA. The issues identified are the same as apply to the Institute of
Chartered Accountants of New Zealand (and, for that matter the ICAEW of
which I am also a member).
There is one thesis
upon which I would like to comment and it is thesis 3, which states:
Provide better mechanisms for the voice of opposition in
AICPA publications and communications and evaluate the ideas of those
with thoughts contrary to the "common wisdom".
To me contention is the
very essence of a professional body. Even were I to accept Ijiri’s
contention in regard to cash accounting (see the article Bob directed us
to), I would still say that we do not deal in mathematical certainties.
In the absence of such certainty, human truth, if that be the right
word, is derived from a process of disputation – that is, thesis,
antithesis, synthesis or point, counterpoint, harmony. Nietzsche might
have it thus:
‘The falseness of a judgment is to us
not necessarily an objection to a judgment … The question is to what
extent it is life-advancing, life-preserving … and our fundamental
tendency is to assert that the falsest judgments (to which synthetic
judgments a priori belong) are the most indispensable to us, that
without granting as true the fictions of logic, without measuring
reality against the purely invented world of the unconditional and
self-identical, without a continual falsification of the world by means
of numbers, mankind could not live. (Beyond Good and Evil verse 4)
The continual
falsification of the world by means of numbers is what accounting is.
The picture we create, or more importantly the technique we use, has
utility in its time and its place, in its context. When the context
changes the picture created and the technique used must be changed to
suit the new context. We must be very alert to the change of context to
ensure we adapt the picture and the technique to new circumstances to
create the next false judgment that has utility. The process of
accounting necessitates an intellectual openness, a willingness to see
the other point of view, to engage in debate, to dispute. For if it
does not have this it becomes ossified, fixed in amber and useless. In
other words, the “common wisdom” must inevitably be wrong at some point
in the passage of time and the way this ‘wrongness’ is revealed is by
the dissenter challenging the orthodox view. The dissenter is the most
precious person of all.
Some years ago I read a
review of a book in the New York Review which compared medieval guilds
with modern professional associations. The case advanced by the book
was that if they were not careful professional associations will go the
way of the guilds as they serve the same purpose in their respective
contexts. From memory the reviewer disagreed and gave the example of
the medical profession. Apparently, doctors and their students have
some sort of mock diagnosis and treatment disputes. A set of symptoms
is put to two or more disputants. A furious debate takes place in which
different treatments are advocated and eventually some sort of
resolution is reached. The purpose of doing this is self-evident – it
is the stone against which the medical blade is sharpened, new and
different approaches are formulated and disseminated, knowledge (human
truth) is shared and developed. The professional organization which
facilitates these debates is therefore essential to its practitioners.
It is in consequence vibrant and will survive. It understands its role
– it is to enhance the practice of its discipline by a process of
learning through disputation.
What then will become
of those professional bodies that stifle debate, that behave as a form
of totalitarian state? The answer is simple: they have denied their
central purpose and should and will die.
Forgive me Scott & others.
Robert B
Walker [walkerrb@ACTRIX.CO.NZ]
September 17, 2005 reply from Robert Walker
I am just pleased that someone listens to what
I say. New Zealand has something of an anti-intellectual tradition and
accountants are not dissimilar anywhere. Being an intellectual
accountant is almost an oxymoron.
I attach a piece of paper with quotations that
summarise the sources of my thought.
The first is about having a single theme
driving what one does and thinks. In my case, and in Yuji Ijiri’s case
for that matter, it is double entry bookkeeping.
The second is about the nature of time and its
flow past a single point, being now. That too has relevance to
accounting of course. Despite what Ijiri might want otherwise, we now
stand as those who scan the future to try to make sense of the fragments
we see.
The great irony is that The Theory of
Accounting Measurement provides the road map for implementing forward
looking accounting. But then that is the reason Ijiri doesn’t like it.
That is because he knows how over-whelmingly complex, even with
computers, it will become. It is sad that Ijiri is removed from the
mainstream because he is labeled the defender of HC. However, I note
that Denny Beresford was as keen to get the latest article as me.
Another great irony for me is that I came upon
Ijiri as I wanted to preserve historic cost accounting too (in about
1990) and for the same reason as him – we both perceived the attack on
HC to be an attack on double entry. Anyway he discussed Wittgenstein
early in his book. I went to the library to get a copy of Tractatus (or
whatever) and it sat next to a translation of Nietzsche’s works. I had
just then be reading Fukuyama’s The End of History in which he advocates
following Nietzsche’s theories and so I took a copy of that as well. I
was soon hooked. Ijiri and Nietzsche in the same company, that slightly
flatters the first but not by much and that is high praise indeed. I
envy you being taught by him.
Robert
September 24, 2005 message from David Fordham
Google needs to be more careful. They are going
to blow their cover. By expanding so much, they will arouse suspicion
and mistrust, thus nullifying their basic goal of becoming the epitome
of our Orwellian older male sibling. If people become suspicious, they
will be unable to fulfill their objective of being the undercover
watchdog of our society, and then we will be back to resorting to
wiretaps, search warrants, undercover cops, and other such primitive
data-gathering techniques for our safety and security.
Multiple choice question: What does Google
stand for?
a. Great Opportunity to Operationalize a
Gullible Luddite Exploitation?
b. Gargantuan On-Line Operation of Government Law Enforcement?
c. Gradually Overcoming Our Ghastly Legal Environment?
d. Grand Omniscient, Omnipotent God-Like Entity?
e. All of the above
Regarding (a), I enjoyed some more mirth this
morning when a friend, who voluntarily uses Gmail, uses Google searches
numerous times per day, and even has a Google desktop program running on
his always-on computer, complained about the installation of a traffic
camera on a Virginia interstate as an invasion of his privacy. Stop and
think about it.
Regarding (b), I was brought up watching
Mission Impossible, and my brother-in-law who works in the Pentagon has
convinced me that there are covert operations which even the
above-average American cannot begin to imagine, involving data mining,
artificial intelligence analyzing patterns, looking for potential
threats, etc. in unimaginable volumes of electronic data. It is not
beyond my imagination to believe that we have already been the
beneficiary of some of this effort in the form of a prevention of some
form of terrorist attack or other prevented mischief which we will never
know about. Granted, I'm a fan of James Bond movies, and I could be
overestimating governments' abilities somewhat, but I believe the
average American grossly underestimates the capabilities of our
undercover technological operations, and it's a good thing, too.
Regarding (c), the readers of this list know
where I stand with respect to the formidable challenge that our
protectors have in overcoming the hands-tying roadblocks they face in
their jobs. By developing a system whereby citizens voluntarily
participate in a data-gathering effort, they can overcome some of the
legal hindrances posed by an involuntary data-gathering effort.
Regarding (d), the religious zealots who
worship the ground George Orwell walked on rejoice at the fulfillment of
his prophecy, even if it exists primarily in a virtual, rather than
literal, sense.
I myself subscribe to (e). Because of the life
that I lead and the choices I make, I feel much safer, more secure, and
enjoy far more individual liberty and happiness as more and more
knowledge is generated, whether by raw creation or by assembly. Being
accountants, and more importantly, being accounting professors, we are
inextricably part of the ghastly plot to efficiently and effectively
collect, analyze, and disseminate knowledge. Any differentiation of
knowledge as personal, corporate, private, public, etc., is purely
arbitrary and capricious, dependent upon manmade definitions and
semantics rather than objective natural characteristics.
Okay, remove tongue from cheek. Let's see how
much heat, smoke and light we can generate on this list from this one.
David Fordham
Pot-Stirrer to the Max
James Madison University
September 25, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi
David,
I
think all your multiple choices are absurd. You might even have
borrowed them from the ACLU.
Anybody knows, or should know, that whatever is placed on a Web server
is public information. The Web crawlers were with us before the Google
geeks even started their first year at Stanford. The Pentagon may have
invented the Internet (not the Web), but I hardly attribute the
invention of Web crawlers to Big Brother.
Plugging into the library of the world is a voluntary act, and Google
hardly owns or controls this library. Google’s 100,000+ computers
simply crawl around the stacks trying to help us in a better way than
any of the bumbling competition like Microsoft.
Actually Microsoft may be more of a risk, because who knows what Trojan
horses Big Bill buried deep in his secretive systems that run our PCs
even when they are not connected to the Internet. Other companies, like
Google, providing software that we install inside our PCs are also
threats.
I
hardly blame law enforcement for becoming more active on the Web. The
bad guys were the first cowboys in the Web’s Wild West (the eventual
WWW), and I’m thankful that the roaming marshal’s are smart enough to
start bringing electronic detection into sexual and financial
exploitation. As of yet, however, this seems to be a losing battle
since the unruly West became the entire World. Some of our real enemies
around the world are out to destroy the “West”ern world.
You and David Albrecht are frightened by Big Brother. I’m more
frightened by anarchy and revolution in an era where a few zealots with
airplanes can down skyscrapers, poison water reservoirs, unleash dirty
bombs, and flood a rebuilt New Orleans anytime they feel like it. And
zealots aren’t afraid to sacrifice their own lives in their destructive
causes.
I’m very frightened by a vicious and technologically-savvy Russian mafia
that makes the old Sicilian bunch look like pretty nice guys henpecked
by their wives.
I’m not frightened by Big Brother. In fact he gives me comfort in an
increasingly lawless and vicious world at the dawn of anarchy with every
other mother’s son roaming about with an AK-47 and a trunk full of
fertilizer. I like video cameras on every corner of town. I don’t want
them inside my house, but I’m even willing to let them inside if my
neighbors are inside their houses plotting to destroy me.
We’ve both grown overly paranoid David. You’re frightened by Big
Brother. I’m more afraid of unknown neighbors far and wide.
I’m forever grateful that a small-minded Osama grew impatient. Instead
of patiently waiting with his billions until he could buy weapons of
mass destruction (particularly biological weapons) under our
totally-trusting noses and soft bellies, he let his intentions be known
by blowing up a number of buildings which, on a world scale, were
totally insignificant.
We
eventually may fail to prevent worldwide holocaust, but now it won’t be
because we did not harden our bellies and put up some type of guards,
albeit bumbling Big Brother guards that are probably too little too
late. There’s always a risk that Big Brother will be owned by the bad
guys, but I have faith that this will not happen as long as our media/blogs
remain vigilant and free.
Ben
Franklin said “THOSE THAT WOULD SELL THEIR FREEDOMS FOR A LITTLE
SECURITY DESERVE NEITHER.” But the worst weapons Ben Franklin
faced were single-ball muskets and some microbes that could be
quarantined. As for me in the 21st Century, I’m willing to
sell my freedoms for the sake of continued living in a civil world.
Bob Jensen
Later
David sent a long reply pointing out that I totally misinterpreted him by
equating his Big Google remarks with Big Brother. I apologized for
this and contemplated removing my above remarks. Then I decided that
since David actually agrees with my main points it's best to leave them in,
but please do not think of him as against Big Brother surveillance.
You are right that to be on the web, the pages
have to be world-readable/executable. However, you can prevent web
robots from indexing whichever pages you don't want them to index by
using robot.txt file in your root directory. The details are at
http://www.robotstxt.org/
Jagdish
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on September
30, 2005
SUMMARY: This article provides an excellent review of the securitization
process. Related articles help students to understand the role of Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac as well as the potential losses that might occur in an
economic downturn.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is the process of securitization?
2.) Why do market participants want to buy mortgage-backed securities?
Why do banks want to sell off the mortgage receivables they generate in
their lending practices?
3.) What is the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in this mortgage
process? Why are those entities playing a smaller role in this area than
they had in the past? You may refer to a related article to help answer this
question.
4.) In general, what are the accounting issues associated with the
securitization process? What accounting standard or standards governs the
treatment of these transactions for the original lending institution that
sells the mortgage loans to an investment bank?
5.) What are the accounting issues associated with the investment in the
mortgage-backed security? What accounting standard or standards governs the
accounting for a mortgage-backed security if the holder is a business
preparing financial statements?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Turn up your speakers
KatrinaUSA PowerPoint File (after it loads hit your spacebar or right arrow
key) ---
http://snipurl.com/KatrinaUS
For me this show also runs automatically while passing from picture to
picture. I really like the music.
Petrea Sandlin visited Sugar Hill this summer and took
the picture below
of New Hampshire's new Old Man on the Mountain
The building in the background is where I plan to continue
to inundate you with Tidbits after I retire in May 2006
(Unless I'm too tempted by the golf course behind my study.)
National Portrait Gallery: Portrait Search
http://npgportraits.si.edu/code/emuseum.asp
There are a lot of images plus a lot of missing images. When testing how it
works, I suggest you dip back into history such as searching for pictures of
Abe Lincoln.
Some good news from Louisiana:
Scientists discover
how fish oil protects the brain Louisiana State University scientists say they have
discovered how the fatty acids found in fish oil help protect the human
brain from the type of cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer's
disease. Their study shows that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fatty
acid found in coldwater fish such as mackerel, sardines and salmon, reduces
levels of a protein known to cause damaging plaques in the brains of
Alzheimer's patients. What's more, the researchers discovered that a
derivative of DHA, which they dubbed "neuroprotectin D1" (NPD1), is made in
the human brain. That natural substance plays a key role, too, in protecting
the brain from cell death, the study showed.
"Scientists discover how fish oil protects the brain," Tehran Times,
September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=9/12/2005&Cat=7&Num=10
Jensen Comment: And the other good news is that two cans of
sardines are only about a buck.
CNN's negative coaching before interviews Pundit Michael Kinsley, certainly
no conservative, says CNN
has been coaching guests to "get angry" when they appear on the cable news
channel to discuss Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Kinsley, once employed by CNN,
opines for the Los Angeles Times these days. The question viewers should be
asking -- "Is it news or is it Jerry Springer?"
"The Thursday wrap," The Pittsbugh Tribune-Review, September 15, 2005
---
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/archive/s_374160.html
NBC should've coached more Lauer and Couric each tried repeatedly to focus on
the NEGATIVE while interviewing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and New
Orleans Police Chief, but both responded POSITIVELY.
"Katie and Matt glum-faced on (the NBC) Today Show after being
upstaged by optimistic disaster "victims", Free Republic, September
8, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1480048/posts
The pegs have been coached If the peg is removed from the holder and the
holder predicts rain, the peg locks itself shut, preventing clothes from
being hung out.
"Clever clothes pegs check the weather," CNN, September 13, 2005 ---
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/09/12/spark.pegs/
Does this mean liberals are never stale (as opposed to 'fresh") and
that liberals themselves never take sides that are "things that are dark,
mysterious, taboo"?
At least you're admitting your "defined" biases Terry! Still, (Terry)
Gross, who interviews both cultural and political figures on "Fresh Air,"
said that arts-themed programming is liberal by definition. "Art is about
keeping an open mind to things that are dark,
mysterious, taboo," she said. "Which is exactly
the type of thing that certain people in the religious right don't want us
to be thinking about."
Clayton Warfolk, "NPR's Gross Challenges Claims of Media Bias," NPR,
September 14, 2005 ---
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ngno/stories/016709.html
Jensen Comment: I'm critical of liberals that are always deconstructing,
by "definition," anything conservative and "Grossly" unable to criticize
liberals even when the emperor on the left side of the street is sometimes
naked. Neither Milton Friedman nor Ward Churchill nor Bill Moyers is always
right (or wrong). Do Berkeley journalism professors/students ever find
fault on the naked emperor on left side of the street? Or are emperors on
the right always wrong by absolute "definition?" ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm
I had an uneasy feeling watching Bill Moyers last night on PBS. As an
interviewer he was obviously following a liberal pre-scripted "definition"
of globalization as inherently evil. Actually the person being interviewed
was quite articulate and made some very good points in my judgment, but in
Moyers' mind his arguments had to be inherently wrong before the interview
even started. Moyers was most certainly not keeping an "open mind to things
that are dark, mysterious, and taboo."
I prefer the younger Moyers I admired for so many years, a Moyers who
avoided fiery sermons and was open to opposing viewpoints. When I learn something new—and it happens every
day— I feel a little more at home in this universe, a little more
comfortable in the nest.
Bill Moyers ---
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/moyers.html
This is the older (wiser?) Bill Moyers. I almost thought he was Rush
Limbaugh looking into a mirror that reverses right and left. “I believe this nation can’t survive half democracy
and half oligarchy, just as it can’t survive half slave and half free,” said
Moyers, who at times had the air of a Southern Baptist minister preaching to
his congregation. Moyers derived much of Tuesday’s lecture, held in the
muggy Ben Light Gymnasium, from his latest book “Moyers on America: A
Journalist and His Times.” Moyers, whose three-day visit to the college
was part of the annual Park Distinguished Visitor Series, said three forces
have aligned to take control of the nation. “The political right, the
religious right and joined with the corporate right create a powerful force
in American life,” Moyers said in a media session earlier in the day. “The
religious right provides the foot soldiers, the political right provide the
ideas and the corporate right provides — through all the subsidies and
offshore tax breaks — the spoils of victory.” During his public lecture
later that night, he said, “The vultures are circling the carcass of
democracy.”
Jim Harvern, "Bill Moyers up in arms about the state of democracy," The
Itacan Online," September 15, 2005 ---
http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0509/15/news/8bill_moye.htm
Jensen Comment: So what will we ever do if liberals sink further in the
2008 election Mr. Moyers? Should we incite more youth to despise business
and religion? Or should the liberals perhaps soften up with something more
practical and constructive to work within the business system that supplies
the wages and taxes of the economy? Socialists in Russia tried to destroy
the business/religious system itself and turn government into one big
bungling enterprise. That experiment failed miserably. Even socialism's
most ardent advocate (Heilbrenner)
declared socialism to be dead.
I think globalization is inevitable. America will sink faster than a
rock with high tariffs and more entitlements. There are stances against
globalization, tax cuts, the military, and religion that are killing
liberalism on election day. Are you preaching on the decks of the Titanic
Mr. Moyers rather than helping to launch the lifeboats of liberalism in the
next election? I think Hillary Clinton's less-liberal strategy, like that
of her husband before her, is on a better track to possibly (albeit
remotely) win the Presidency. She's certainly well in front in the
Democratic polls at the moment.
Charitable Deductions for an added two thirds of taxpayers!
September 15, 2005 message from Scott Bonacker
[lister@BONACKERS.COM]
Nine hundred and forty-two nonprofits sent a
September 12 letter to Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa,
asking him to support the reinstatement of the charitable deduction for
the "more than two-thirds of Americans" who do not itemize their
deductions; the letter says that group donates $36 billion annually to
charities.
An excellent idea, as long as the money is
distributed better. If everyone did all their giving to the Red Cross
for example there would be lots of gaps.
Scott Bonacker, CPA
Springfield, Missouri
Jensen Comment: The main worry is that many people are suckered in by
phony or nearly-phony charities that solicit funds and keep most of it for
"profits" to themselves. This bill should be passed with a mandate that the
IRS do better job denying life to many, many phonies out there.
Barf Opinion:
It's time to starve the (charity) beast and leave it all to government
private charities used by the government to justify the abdication of its
duties to its citizens. Hurricane Katrina has prompted Americans to donate
more than $700 million to charity, reports the Chronicle of Philanthropy. So
many suckers, so little foresight. Government has been shirking its basic
responsibilities since the '80s, when Ronald Reagan sold us his belief that
the sick, poor and unlucky should no longer count on "big government" to
help them, but should rather live and die at the whim of contributors to
private charities. The Katrina disaster, whose total damage estimate has
risen from $100 to $125 billion, marks the culmination of Reagan's
privatization of despair. The American Red Cross leads the post-Katrina
sweepstakes, quickly closing in on the $534 million it took in just after
9/11. But Red Cross spokeswoman Sheila Graham told the AP it needs another
half billion "to provide emergency relief over the coming weeks for
thousands of evacuees who have scattered among 675 of its shelters in 23
states." . . . Granted, in terms of popularity of likelihood of success,
trying to make a case against giving money to charities compares to lobbying
against puppies. The impulse to donate, after all, is rooted in our best
human traits. As we watched New Orleanians die of thirst, disease and
anarchic violence in the face of Bush Administration disinterest and local
government incompetence, millions of us did the only thing we thought we
could to do to help: cut a check or click a PayPal button. Tragically, that
generosity feeds into the mindset of the sinister ideologues who argue that
government shouldn't help people--the very mindset that caused the levee
break that turned Katrina into a holocaust and led to official
unresponsiveness. And it is already setting the stage for the next avoidable
disaster. It's time to "starve the beast": private charities used by the
government to justify the abdication of its duties to its citizens.
"CHARITIES ARE FOR SUCKERS," by Ted Rall, Yahoo News, September 14,
2005 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050914/cm_ucru/charitiesareforsuckers&printer=1
Jensen Comment: Barf! Giving money to government does not necessarily make
government more responsible about what it does with that money. To the
contrary feeding more money to government may make it less responsible.
Leaving restorations to government in a nation this size of the U.S.
makes efforts like Katrina cleanup dependent upon bureaucratic and
Congressional choices as to funds allocation between competing demands such
as military versus the U.S. Postal Service versus recovery versus an endless
line up of pork barrels. The winners are the ones are generally biggest
lobbies.
Charity is voluntary and allows for gifts of service as well as clothing,
vehicles, housing, food, etc. Charities generally allow for designation of
gifts to a certain degree (not usually to naming a particular individual
recipient but to specific causes such as blood banks, battered women,
hospitals, etc.). Sure some charities are infiltrated with criminals and/or
incompetents who waste gifts. I don't put much faith that government is
less criminal or wasteful. Crime and waste follow the money trail whether
it is within government, private enterprise, churches, or charities.
At least when we give to charity we have some choice as to which charity
is more honest, helps causes of particular interest to us, and sometimes
engages in the act of raising funds in our churches, communities, etc.
Government is generally funded forcefully from taxes, the spending of which
we have no direct controls and weak indirect controls afforded by being one
among millions in an election of people who probably will not represent our
interests on each and every issue (pork barrel) that comes up.
Counter Opinion: Countries are not governed by the will
of the people
Sixty-five percent of citizens across the world
do not think their country is governed by the will of the people, a poll
commissioned by the BBC suggests. The Gallup International Voice of the
People 2005 poll questioned more than 50,000 people in 68 states for the
BBC World Service survey about power.
Only in Scandinavia and South Africa do the
majority believe that they are ruled according to their wishes.
But 47% thought elections in their countries
were free and fair.
The figure is 55% for the US and Canada and up
to 82% in EU countries - but just 24% in West Africa.
The survey also found that only 13% of people
trusted politicians and only 16% thought they should be given more
power.
About a third of those asked thought more power
should go to writers and academics.
A quarter felt more should go to religious
leaders - who are also seen as the most trusted group.
A fifth of those asked thought military,
business leaders and journalists should be given more power.
Other key findings include: (see article)
Counter Opinion: What happens sometimes when you leave
it to bureaucrats?
I wish I were kidding. Hundreds of
firefighters who volunteered to help with Katrina relief were held up for
days in Atlanta while they took classes on sexual harassment and community
relations, all courtesy of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency in
charge of coordinating federal relief. At the White House, concerns about
overriding the female governor of Louisiana reportedly contributed to the
decision not to take control of a national disaster that clearly had
overwhelmed state and local officials.
I liked this one on unlikely heroes. Bravo to the three of them! But by
law they never should've done these things without first having sexual
harassment training in Atlanta?
Katrina's detritus will be months in the
sifting, but what best reveals what went wrong may be found in the
contrast between bureaucrats ensnared in red tape and three individuals
who sprang into action as circumstances required.
Their names are Deamonte Love, Jabbar Gibson
and Sheriff Warren C. Evans.
Deamonte Love is probably the most familiar. He
is the 6-year-old who led a troupe of tiny refugees to safety after
rescuers separated them from their parents. Deamonte was the oldest of
the group, which included his 5-month-old brother, three toddlers in the
2-year-old range, a 3-year-old and her 14-month-old brother.
All held hands as Deamonte led the group along
Causeway Boulevard in New Orleans, where he identified himself and his
associates to authorities. In a sea of helpless victims, while heartier
adults dithered or complained, Deamonte found the guts and fortitude to
take care of himself, his family and friends.
Another victim of the storm, Gibson is perhaps
better known as the 20-year-old who commandeered a school bus and drove
70 homeless passengers from New Orleans to the Houston Astrodome,
beating the other 25,000 or so refugees awaiting evacuation from the
Superdome by officials still trying to figure out who was in charge.
When no one is in charge, as seems to have been
the case for too long in New Orleans, a leader eschews the clipboard and
takes action. While city officials couldn't find their way to use
hundreds of available school buses to evacuate some 100,000 residents
without transportation, Gibson "stole" a bus and rescued 70 strangers.
A photo of the abandoned and eventually
submerged school buses has become an iconographic image in Katrina's
record — a kaleidoscopic history that would qualify as comedy if the
results had not been so tragic. At times like this, bureaucracy isn't
just a frustrating boondoggle; it is a faceless accomplice to negligent
homicide. "No one is to blame because, sir, we were just following the
rules."
Not Warren C. Evans. The sheriff of Wayne
County, Mich., which includes Detroit, ignored his own governor's pleas
to wait for "formal requests" and put his leadership instincts to better
use. While other law enforcement volunteers were held up for 2-3 days
dealing with paperwork, Evans led a convoy of six tractor-trailers,
three rental trucks and 33 deputies to Louisiana.
Explaining his pre-emptive action to The New
York Times, Evans said: "I could look at CNN and see people dying, and I
couldn't in good conscience wait for a coordinated response."
Meanwhile, other more obedient citizens and
potential rescuers, as well as evacuation vehicles, medical and food
supplies, even a floating hospital, were stalled or unused as officials
and politicians bickered over territory and protocol and — in an
indictment that speaks for itself — gender sensitivity concerns.
I wish I were kidding. Hundreds of
firefighters who volunteered to help with Katrina relief were held up
for days in Atlanta while they took classes on sexual harassment and
community relations, all courtesy of FEMA, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency in charge of coordinating federal relief. At the White
House, concerns about overriding the female governor of Louisiana
reportedly contributed to the decision not to take control of a national
disaster that clearly had overwhelmed state and local officials.
There are other examples of such absurdities
too numerous to list, but two stand out. Amtrak offered to evacuate
people from New Orleans, but city officials declined and the last train
left the city — empty. A Navy hospital ship, the USS Bataan, which was
in the Gulf of Mexico through the storm, had 600 empty hospital beds and
six operating rooms, awaiting relief orders while the injured and ill on
land were without aid. Although the Bataan was among the first to help
in rescue missions, federal authorities were slow to use the ship's
other resources.
Poverty
Comparing states using 3-year-average poverty rates for 2002–2004 shows
that the poverty rate for Mississippi (17.7 percent)—not statistically
different from the rates for Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas,
West Virginia, and the District of Columbia— was higher than the rates
of the other 44 states (Table 10).
At the other end of the
distribution, the 3-year-average poverty rate for New Hampshire (5.7
percent)—not statistically different from the rate for Minnesota—was
lower than those for the other 48 states and the District of Columbia.
Based on 2-year moving averages
(2002–2003 and 2003–2004), Figure 9 shows that the poverty rate declined
for three states and increased for seven states. The poverty rate
decreased in Arkansas, Hawaii, and Oklahoma. Four of the states that
experienced increases were in the Midwest (Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and
Wisconsin), two were in the South (Kentucky and Maryland), and one was
in the Northeast (Pennsylvania
Health Insurance Coverage
Comparing states using 3-year-average
uninsured rates for 2002–2004 shows that Texas (25.1 percent) had the
highest proportion of uninsured, while Minnesota (8.5 percent) had the
lowest (Table 11). Comparisons of 2-year moving averages (2002–2003 and
2003–2004) show that the proportion of people without coverage fell in
three states and rose in eight states (Figure 10).
The uninsured rate decreased for
Idaho, New York, and Wyoming. Five of the states that experienced
increases were in the South (Delaware, Florida, Oklahoma, South
Carolina, and Tennessee), one was in the West (Montana), and two were in
the Northeast (Massachusetts and New Hampshire).
Government versus business social actions
Many people who think that government is the answer to our problems do not
bother to check out the evidence. But it can be eye-opening to compare how
private businesses responded to hurricane Katrina and how local, state and
national governments responded. Well before Katrina reached New Orleans,
when it was still just a tropical depression off the coast of Florida,
Wal-Mart was rushing electric generators, bottled water, and other emergency
supplies to its distribution centers along the Gulf coast. Nor was Wal-Mart
unique. Federal Express rushed 100 tons of supplies into the stricken area
after Katrina hit. State Farm Insurance sent in a couple of thousand special
agents to expedite disaster claims. Other businesses scrambled to get their
goods or services into the area. Meanwhile, laws prevent the federal
government from coming in without the permission or a request from state or
local authorities. Unfortunately, the mayor of New Orleans and the governor
of Louisiana are of a different party than President Bush, which may have
something to do with their initial reluctance to have him come in and get
political credit.
Thomas Sowell, "FEMA versus Wal-Mart," Jewish World Review, September
14, 2005 ---
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell091405.asp
What would Milton Friedman say about Wal-Mart's
monumental efforts to aid Katrina victims?
Jensen Comment: Nobel Prize Economist Milton Friedman years ago advised
against benevolence of corporations and goals of being social responsible
beyond strict adherence to the laws of the land. He argued that social
accountability beyond adherence to law was not mission of private enterprise
and not generally in the best interest of investors. That of course in no
way blocks corporate employees from making personal sacrifices as long as
they do not use significant amounts of corporate resources in the process.
Although I'm a strong believer in the brilliance of Milton
Friedman, I must admit that this is one area where I disagree with him.
Businesses control such a vast amount of the wealth and resources of the
nation that I think it is imperative for them to have societal goals beyond
just that of making profits. And I think corporate responsibility is often
just plain good business in the best long-term interests of the companies
and industries. But there are dangers in becoming overly political or in
failing to recognize that social choices by corporations are not social
choices as elected representatives of competing constituencies. This is
remains a paradox in capitalist economies.
Here are the basics of Friedman's argument:
"Corporate Social Responsibility A Dialogue," by T. Franklin Harris, Jr. ---
http://snipurl.com/Adialog
The Profit Motive Theory Plato: Milton Friedman accepts your argument concerning the
fraudulence of "corporate accountability." Therefore, he believes
businesses should be allowed to function freely in an unregulated
environment. This does not, however, mean that businesses have no
responsibilities.
Aristotle: Yes, but Friedman
acknowledges the validity of only one responsibility: to make a profit
within the bounds of the "rules of the game." But what are those rules?
Plato: To operate within the rules of
the game means to "engage in open and free competition without deception
or fraud." (Friedman 1990) But Friedman's argument goes further than
simply to require that corporations seek to earn a profit. The profit
motive theory expressly forbids corporate involvement in social activity
even if it is done freely, without government coercion.
Aristotle: Why is that?
Plato: The basis for this claim rests on
the necessity to play by the rules of the game, which means honoring
contracts. The managers and executives of corporations are the employees
of the business's shareholders. As such, they have a contractual and
thus, moral-responsibility to their employers: "That responsibility is
to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which
generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to
the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those
embodied in ethical custom." (Friedman 1990)
Thus, it is the moral duty of corporate
executives to carry out the wishes of the shareholders, who, in the
main, invest in order to make a profit. Managers cannot morally engage
in any activity that reduces the corporation's profitability.
Continued in article
New college student site for conservative thinking
The Center of the American Experiment, a conservative group
in Minnesota, on Tuesday launched a new Web site,
IntellectualTakeout.com,for
college students. Organizers said that they hoped to provide
information and ideas in the battle of ideas on campus.
Inside Higher Ed, September 14, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/14/qt
St. Paul - Center of the
American Experiment today launched the groundbreaking
IntellectualTakeout.com website, which will bring
intellectual diversity to Minnesota college campuses by
exposing students to conservative free-market ideas that
are not always readily available in the classroom.
"IntellectualTakeout.com is
about the free exchange of ideas and giving college
students the tools they need to decide for themselves
where they stand on the issues," said Center of the
American Experiment CEO Annette Meeks. "Our goal is not
to indoctrinate students but to instead spur thoughtful
debate and discussion of ideas on campus."
IntellectualTakeout.com, which
is a project of American Experiment's FACT program,
provides students with quick access to a menu of
conservative ideas and perspectives on a number of
topics, including Cultural Studies, Economics,
Education, Environmental Studies, Foundations in
Liberty, History, Political Science, and Hot Topics. The
information on IntellectualTakeout.com, which has been
compiled by American Experiment policy experts and
university professors, comes from a number of
distinguished and credible sources.
The "Ideas to Go" section of
the website provides quick one-page issue summaries that
students can take to class or use as a quick reference
for other school work. The summaries provide students
with both liberal and conservative perspectives on a
number of issues. The "Ask the Professor" feature on the
website allows students to submit questions directly to
policy experts on a wide variety of issues and topics.
The website, which is available at no cost, also
connects students with other like-minded students and
alumni, and assists them in job searches.
Meeks highlighted the need for
IntellectualTakeout.com by citing a recent study, funded
by the Randolph Foundation, which found that a startling
72 percent of those teaching at American universities
and colleges identify themselves as being liberal. In
sharp contrast, only 15 percent identified themselves as
being conservative. She also cited incidents at
Minnesota college campuses, such as St. Olaf College's
decision this year to require incoming students to read
a one-sided essay on the environment.
"Evidence clearly shows that
the liberal ideological perspective dominates the ivory
towers on our campuses," said Meeks. "Not only are
students shortchanged, but the intellectual health of
colleges and universities suffers when only one
ideological point of view dominates campus discourse and
stifles dissent."
American Experiment will be
promoting IntellectualTakeout.com during a number of
visits to Minnesota college campuses this fall. Those
visits will be part of a larger media and promotional
campaign to make Minnesota college students aware of the
website.
Who were the least popular
presidents of the U.S. in modern times? Clues: One of them won a Nobel Peace Prize and another was a Bush who
does not have "W" as a middle initial.The other dubious "winner"
resigned the presidency in order to get a legal pardon from his replacement. Over all, 41 percent of respondents approved of
Mr. Bush's performance in office, while 53 percent disapproved. Those
figures are in line with other national polls conducted in the last week,
roughly equal to the worst ratings Mr. Bush has ever received, comparable to
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton's worst ratings, but well above the worst
ever posted by the president's father, Jimmy Carter and Richard M. Nixon.Support
for Bush Continues to Drop, Poll Shows ""(Bogus! Big time oversample of
Dems) NY Times," Free Republic, September 15, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1484963/posts
President Bush has an opportunity to recover
from his post-Hurricane Katrina political doldrums, but Democrats do
themselves no good by trying to take political advantage of a national
tragedy.
There's no question that Bush's initial
response to Katrina was late and uninspiring. Or that his
administration's emergency management showed deep and troubling flaws,
especially in view of a continuing terrorist threat.
One particular worry that's gone unmentioned so
far is: If Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has functionally
had to assume the role of director of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, who's minding the store on terrorism?
Already wounded by high casualty rates in Iraq
and exploding gasoline prices, Katrina has sent Bush's approval ratings
down to 40 percent in the latest Pew poll and 42 percent in a CBS/New
York Times poll.
The record suggests, however, that Bush is
often slow on the uptake in crises and then manages to recoup. He could
do it again.
Meanwhile, Democrats have had practically
nothing constructive to say and are losing credibility by placing blame
solely on the federal government.
Bush did a miserable job of attending to the
terrorist threat prior to Sept. 11, 2001. His immediate performance that
day was weak. But he came roaring back to rally the country, and he
boosted his fortunes in the process.
The immediate Bush response to the Indian Ocean
tsunami also was tepid. But then all-out U.S.-led relief efforts became
possibly one of the most important steps yet taken in the contest with
Islamic extremists.
Continued in the article
Jensen Comment: I think Bush eventually emerges as a "winner" in all but
national opinion about Iraq because he's too chicken to turn down money
requests for almost any cause. He never vetoes appropriations requested by
Congress. This irresponsibility can make you popular while you're in office
but turns you into a huge loser among future generations who have to pay for
the mounting national debt (not the biggest problem) and entitlements (the
biggest problem) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm
America's always fast-flowing river of
race-obsessing has overflowed its banks, and last Sunday Sen. Barack
Obama, Illinois' freshman Democrat, applied to the expression of old
banalities a fluency that would be beguiling were it without content.
Unfortunately, it included an amazing criticism of the government's
"historic indifference" and its "passive indifference" that "is as bad
as active malice." The senator, 44, is just 30 months older than the
"war on poverty" that Lyndon B. Johnson declared in January 1964. Since
then the indifference that is as bad as active malice has been expressed
in more than $6.6 trillion of antipoverty spending, strictly defined.
The senator is called a "new kind of Democrat,"
which often means one with new ways of ignoring evidence discordant with
old liberal orthodoxies about using cash
to cope with cultural collapse. He
might, however, care to note three not-at-all recondite rules for
avoiding poverty: graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you
are married, don't marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey
those rules, poverty is minimal.
Continued in article
Racism is the forever obsessing the U.S. The number one
problem is not skin color per se as much as it is fear that segregates poor
and colored in housing and schools. "Color Of Crime, Sound Of (Big Media) Silence"
by Jared Taylor ---
http://vdare.com/taylor/050913_crime.htm
For anyone who ever wondered just how much more
likely
blacks or
Hispanics are than whites to commit various
crimes, the answers are here.
It takes hard work to pry the facts out of the
reluctant grip of federal crime databases. But the
results are eye-opening:
Blacks are just 13 percent of the population
but they commit more than half the
muggings and
murders in the country. Hispanics commit
violent crimes at about three times the
white rate.
The proportion of blacks and Hispanics in an
area is the single best indicator of how
dangerous it is. The racial mix is a much better
predictor of crime rates than
poverty,
unemployment, and
dropout rates combined
Although Jesse Jackson and Bill Cosby wring
their hands over black-on-black mayhem, blacks
actually commit more violent crime against
whites than blacks. A black is about 39 times
more likely to do violence to a white than the
other way around, and no less than 130 times
more likely to rob a white.
And yes, everyone's suspicions about rape
are correct: Every year there are about 15,000
black-on-white rapes but fewer than 900
white-on-black rapes. There are more than 3,000
gang rapes of whites by blacks—but
white-on-black gang rapes are so rare they do
not even show up in the statistics.
There is plenty more—but just as interesting will
be how the Mainstream Media will treat these facts.
Back in 1999, we
released an earlier, less detailed version of
this report. [PDF]
Even before publication, the Associated Press,
Time, CBS Evening News, National Public Radio,
Knight-Ridder, and the Washington Times
wanted copies. A dozen other media organizations,
including the Washington Post, attended the
press conference with which we launched the
report. At the same time, we arranged to have copies
delivered to more than 450 news organizations with
offices in the Washington, DC area.
The result: complete silence—with one exception.
The Washington Times ran a substantial story
on the report, in which it interviewed several
prominent criminologists who confirmed the accuracy
of our numbers but said they were too inflammatory
to be
discussed publicly. [VDARE.COM
note: One other
exception: Dr. Walter Williams, in his
Creator's Syndicate column.]
Maybe no other editors thought people are
interested in
race and crime.
Or maybe they were afraid people are too
interested.
Some years back, a group called Violence Free
Duluth in
Duluth, Minnesota, studied a year's worth of the
city's gun crimes. They looked into type of gun
used, whether
liquor or
drugs were involved, the relationship between
shooter and victim; age, race, and sex of criminal,
etc.
Frank Jewell, head of the organization,
explained that "we didn't include it because it
might be misinterpreted."
Duluth's deputy police chief
Robert Grytdahl added that race might distract
whites from the real problem: "It's a comfortable
place for white people to park the [gun crime]
problem. It would be a huge distraction, and we
wanted to focus on firearms." [Duluth
Gun, Crime Study Withholds Race Data, [Pay
Archive] By Larry Oakes, Minneapolis Star
Tribune, April 30, 1999.]
Mr. Jewell and Mr. Grytdahl are saying,
almost in so many words, that the people of
Duluth can't be trusted with the truth.
Duluth is about 90 percent white. What if it
turned out most of the gun crime was committed by
the other 10 percent?
Someone might think Duluth has, not a gun
problem, but a minority problem.
When an organization deliberately suppresses its
findings like this, it is not doing research: it is
putting out propaganda.
It is impossible to know whether the national
media suppressed the findings in our earlier report
or just didn't think they were
newsworthy. But if they thought no one was
interested in race and crime they were wrong. Radio
talk show hosts greeted the report with shouts
of joy.
Over the years, I have spoken on hundreds of
radio programs. But no other subject has ever caught
the attention of hosts and listeners the way this
one did.
Over and over, I was asked to stay on the program
longer than scheduled because listeners could not
get enough. Producers called up a week later and had
me back again because listeners demanded it. Some
producers even called because they had heard me on a
rival station and wanted a piece of the ratings
bonanza.
Most whites lose the power of speech when the
subject is race, but they can tuck right into a
purely factual discussion of crime rates.
Everybody—and I mean everybody—knows blacks
commit crime
way out of proportion to their numbers. People
want to know just how way out the proportions are.
Needless to say, some listeners didn't want to
hear that blacks are
in jail for robbery at 15 times the white rate.
A surprising number of black callers claimed our
"racist" white government cooks the statistics.
Most white callers said one of two things: either
that I was "racist" or that I was brave.
(Somehow, no one ever thought I was a brave racist.)
It is a sorry day in America when you are either
brave or racist if you dig up and publicize crime
data the Department of Justice has been collecting
for decades.
The main point of the "racism" accusation
was that, even if the numbers were true, publicizing
them only encourages other "racists" and
feeds stereotypes. This is the Frank Jewell
argument: White people can't be trusted with the
facts.
In fact, more and more people are laughing
outright at mainstream prudery. When I talked about
crime on the radio, talk-show hosts were exultant:
"You didn't read about this in the
Baltimore Sun did you? That's right, folks,
this is where you get the real news."
This time around, it would be pleasant if AP or
the
LA Times wrote about The Color of Crime.
But we're not counting on it.
The internet and talk radio will get the word
out—and big media will sink just a little further in
the minds of people who are tired of being told they
can't be trusted with the truth.
Jensen Comment:
I might note that I found the above link yesterday, somewhat surprisingly,
at the NPR site. Perhaps the "media" is "silent" about racial crime
statistics because of worry that obsessing on these crime statistics will
only further divide the white and colored sides of our streets. Our
long-standing traditional money-throwing solutions of project housing,
school subsidies, tax breaks and subsidies for factory relocation, busing,
prison rehabilitation, and police force size and brutality are pretty much
failures. Before Katrina, New Orleans was one of our worst crime-infested
cities, but the same problems can be found in Detroit, Cleveland,
Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, Newark, Camden, Los Angeles, and literally
every other city in the U.S. Segregation problems have been with us for
centuries, but in modern times they've been greatly exacerbated with
opportunities to pursue the American Dream by dealing in drugs. There are
no simple solutions to our race-obsessing problems.
One experiment that offers some hope is the legalizing of
narcotics coupled with severe sanctions for letting drugs get into the hands
of children. By severe sanctions I mean a minimum of thirty years in prison
without parole so that there is a high incentive to protect children from
addiction. And the sanctions must apply equally to whites. Reducing the
illegal drug trade, however, is only one small solution to a much larger
poverty problem. For the bigger and better solutions I defer to our
sociology scholars who study racism and crime in depth. Most drug addicts
are lousy parents. I think ethical birth control and abortion incentives
should be greatly expanded for addicts.
The Manhattan Solution: Some Louisiana
leaders want to leave refugees in Texas Some parish leaders in the area have
concerns about FEMA's plans to temporarily house evacuees in trailers and
mobile homes, and leaders in Livingston Parish voted not to allow them
there. Livingston Parish President Mike Grimmer said his parish is already
overcrowded and lacks the infrastructure to handle the additional influx.
Some residents say they feel bad for the evacuees, but they agree with
Grimmer's position.
Ellen Tandy, "Livingston votes no to FEMA housing," The Advocate,
September 15, 2005 ---
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/091405/new_livingstonfema001.shtml
Jensen Comment: Some Louisiana politicians are hoping to use Katrina's
devastation as an opportunity to invoke what might be called the Manhattan
Solution to poverty and crime in New Orleans. The Manhattan Solution
entails making real estate too high priced for the poor. It worked to some
extent on the Island of Manhattan, but the outcome was to relocate more
vicious street crime and poverty to Brooklyn, Newark, and other surrounding
NYC areas.
And I admit that racism and street crime in Manhattan have not been
solved with real estate pricing. Rent is too low in Harlem to drive all the
poor out of Manhattan, and criminals still commute into Manhattan to commit
muggings and to sell narcotics to Wall Street's suits and ties. The
Manhattan Solution has taken place in other cities. San Francisco real
estate prices drove the poor to nearby Oakland. But the streets of San
Francisco have hardly become crime free.
I think some Louisiana officials are hoping to relocate their hundreds
of thousands of poor refugees out of Louisiana entirely. If the Federal
Government does not insist on construction of low income housing, the newly
constructed homes and condos in New Orleans will be quite unaffordable.
Bigger names in Mississippi politics have long
obscured Thad Cochran's steady rise in Congress. But in Hurricane
Katrina's wake, no lawmaker is more important to the Gulf Coast, or a
more calming force amid the chaos engendered by the storm.
As chairman of the Senate Appropriations
Committee, Mr. Cochran has been instrumental in securing $62 billion for
the disaster recovery. A greater test will come in the months ahead as
questions mount about paying for and managing the federal reconstruction
effort.
"An enormous amount of money is going to be
made available to rebuild," says Mr. Cochran, a veteran of more than
three decades on Capitol Hill. "It's a challenge, but an opportunity for
improvements that could have lasting consequences."
Mr. Cochran must protect the
credibility of the process by controlling his committee's appetite --
and his own -- for pork-barrel spending. Katrina's costs will complicate
his task of completing the regular spending bills for the fiscal year
beginning Oct. 1. The Senate has borrowed heavily from defense funds to
fill gaps in the president's domestic budget, and as chairman, Mr.
Cochran is vulnerable to conservative criticism for being a big spender.
Continued in article
Smoke Breaks Boost Memory Cigarette smokers have known for centuries that
lighting up can help them concentrate. Now pharmaceutical companies are
trying to create cleaner, safer ways to improve upon that effect . . .
Earlier this summer, biopharmaceutical company
Targacept reported
that a compound called ispronicline acted like nicotine to increase memory
and concentration in elderly test subjects. Targacept next plans to test the
drug on people with Alzheimer's disease.
Brandon Keim, "Smoke Breaks Boost Memory," Wired News, September 9,
2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68712,00.html
Thin and bald: Why Dieters' Hairlines Sometimes Recede Hair loss can be triggered by a variety of factors
including pregnancy, stress, surgery and age-related hormonal changes, to
name a few. But few people realize that weight loss can also cause hair to
shed, likely due to a nutritional deficiency. Although iron deficiency is
often associated with diet-related hair loss, a range of nutrient
deficiencies can result in thinning hair, dermatologists say. Changes in
levels of zinc, magnesium, protein, essential fatty acids and vitamins D, B
and A can all trigger episodes of shedding hair. The problem affects both
men and women, but women are more likely to notice it and seek treatment,
say doctors.
Tara Parker-Pope, "Why Dieters' Hairlines Sometimes Recede Along With Their
Waistlines," The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112656550533838620,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
But for those who want to keep their heavy hair, we have
new "chic" fashions The plus-size market is starting to incorporate the
latest fashion trends -- including gaucho pants, camisoles and form-fitting
jackets -- in its collections as quickly as the rest of the apparel
industry.
Ellen Byron, "For Plus-Size Women, More Chic Choices," The Wall Street
Journal, September 13, 2005; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112656531750338613,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Question
Historically, what is the "pulp" meaning of pulp fiction and how does it
different from "slick" fiction? Clue: It has nothing to do with the content of the fiction itself, at
least not directly.
India's new WPA program: A piñata of graft for bureaucrats The REGB, recently passed in parliament with
unanimous support across political parties, is supposed to provide 100 days
of work in a year to every rural household across the country that wants it.
This is expected to cost around $9.1 billion, which amounts to 1.3% of GDP.
And by some estimates, costs may reach four times that figure. The bill is
in line with the rhetoric of the Congress-led coalition government, which
came into power last year disdaining the liberalization policies of the
preceding BJP government, and promising to introduce "reforms with a human
face." . . . Whatever money does make it through all the confused
bureaucracy could still be siphoned away at the end of the line, where local
distribution is meant to take place. The recently passed Right to
Information Act, a welcome move that is supposed to increase transparency by
forcing the government to make its paperwork available to anyone who wants
to see it, can only be of limited help. Most of the country does not even
know about it, or would not dare to use it against an oppressive local
government.
Amit Varma, "Good Intentions, Bad Ideas," The Wall Street Journal,
September 15, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112672807076840768,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Podcasts--those amateur or professional audio
or video programs delivered automatically to a subscriber's computer or
MP3 player--let consumers listen to their favorite shows whenever and
wherever they want. But though the technology for podcast subscriptions
has been around for several years, the mainstream has only recently
caught on.
An explosion in podcasts' popularity in the
first half of this year, culminating in the launch of a podcast
directory at Apple's iTunes online music service, has providers
scrambling to keep up with server demands and businesses looking for
ways to turn a profit.
Several factors may have sparked podcasting's
new popularity: Broadband access and new applications and directories
make acquiring podcasts painless, for example, and other programs make
creating them a snap. Phenomenal sales of iPods and other portable
digital music players, which let people take the show on the road, also
likely have helped.
01. Harvard University (MA)
02. Stanford University (CA)
03. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
04. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)
06. Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)
University of California–Berkeley (Haas)
08. University of Chicago
09. Columbia University (NY)
10. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross)
The entire ranking system is now considered dysfunctional to program
integrity and is being studied as a huge academic problem by the AACSB (See
below)
MBA (Casino?) Games: The house plays the odds and hopes to come out
ahead! Resorting to contests and prizes shows just how
tough times are for full-time M.B.A. programs. The Graduate Management
Admission Council reports that 72% of full-time M.B.A. programs experienced
an application decline this year as more people opted to keep their jobs and
seek a part-time, executive or online M.B.A. degree instead . . . Simon's
business-strategy contest resulted from a challenge put to students on the
school's advisory council to concoct ways to improve the M.B.A. program. As
an incentive, alumni kicked in $10,000, half for the students with the best
proposal and half to implement their idea. Several student projects focused
on the application slump, which clearly is the most pressing issue at Simon.
Applications were down 23% this year, following a 24% drop in 2004. This
fall, the incoming class of about 110 students compares with 150 last year
and 185 in 2003. "These are the toughest years in management education I
have ever seen," says Dr. Zupan.
"MBA Program Hopes Online Game Will Lure Recruits with Prizes," The Wall
Street Journal, September 13, 2005; Page
B12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112657077730738778,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Since curriculum revisions are not working well to reverse the slide of MBA
applications, some universities not happy with their US News, Forbes,
WSJ, and Business Week rankings may turn to gaming with sizeable
rewards Can an online game offering thousands of dollars in
prizes reverse the slide in master of business administration applications?
The University of Rochester certainly hopes so. Starting Sept. 26, potential
M.B.A. applicants to Rochester's William E. Simon Graduate School of
Business Administration will begin playing a business-simulation game that
promises a full scholarship of more than $70,000 to the winner, plus smaller
scholarships for the runners-up. The goal is to attract top-notch applicants
who may never have heard of the Simon School but find the game, and the
scholarship money, enticing. "We hope to get a little viral marketing going
so that people spread the word that Simon is an innovative place worth
taking a look at," says Dean Mark Zupan.
"MBA Program Hopes Online Game Will Lure Recruits with Prizes," The Wall
Street Journal, September 13, 2005; Page
B12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112657077730738778,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
The following tidbits were in my August 29 edition of Tidbits:
What's Really Wrong With U.S. Business
Schools?
by Harry DeAngelo, Linda DeAngelo, Jerold Zimmerman:
Wow, it sounds bad. I (Jim Mahar)
am very glad I chose a small university (St.
Bonaventure). However, the choice leads me to not really comment on the
paper since being at a small university removes me from many (but not
all) of the problems cited in the paper. Moreover, I do not feel I can
add any value to what the authors say.
Rather I will only give you the abstract and
link.
Abstract:
"U.S. business schools are locked in a dysfunctional competition for
media rankings that diverts resources from long-term knowledge
creation, which earned them global pre-eminence, into short-term
strategies aimed at improving their rankings. MBA curricula are
distorted by 'quick fix, look good' packaging changes designed to
influence rankings criteria, at the expense of giving students a
rigorous, conceptual framework that will serve them well over their
entire careers. Research, undergraduate education, and Ph.D.
programs suffer as faculty time is diverted to almost continuous MBA
curriculum changes, strategic planning exercises, and public
relations efforts. Unless they wake up to the dangers of
dysfunctional rankings competition, U.S. business schools are
destined to lose their dominant global position and become a classic
case study of how myopic decision-making begets institutional
mediocrity."
Cite:
DeAngelo, Harry, DeAngelo, Linda and Zimmerman, Jerold L., "What's
Really Wrong With U.S. Business Schools?" (July 2005).
http://ssrn.com/abstract=766404
Jensen Comment:
The DeAngelos and Jerry Zimmerman are leading advocates of capital market
research and positivist methodology. Harry and Linda are from the
University of Southern California and Jerry is from the University of
Rochester. Their business schools rank 23 and 26
respectively in the latest US News rankings. Their WSJ
rankings are 23 and 20.
I think the authors overstate the problem with media rankings and
curricula. I don’t think curriculum choices or PR enter into the rankings
in a big way. Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton will almost always come out on
top no matter what the curriculum or PR budget. What counts heavily is
elitism tradition and alumni networking (helps Harvard the most),
concentration of researchers/names (helps Stanford the most), and insider
tracks to Wall Street (helps Wharton the most). These, in turn, affect the
number of MBA applicants with GMAT scores hovering around 700 or higher.
The GMAT scores, in turn, impact most heavily upon media rankings. The
raters are looking for where the top students in the world are scrambling to
be admitted. Can the majority of applicants really tell us the difference
between the business school curriculum at USC versus Stanford versus
Rochester? I doubt it!
Media rankings
differ somewhat due to differences in the groups doing the rankings. The
US News rankings are done by AACSB deans who tend to favor schools with
leading researchers. The WSJ rankings are done by corporate
recruiters who are impressed by the credentials of the graduating students
and their interviewing skills (which might indirectly be affected by a
curriculum that is more profession oriented and less geeky).
August 27, 2005 reply from Dennis Beresford (University of Georgia)
Bob,
Thanks for this link. The DeAngelo, DeAngelo, and Zimmerman paper is
quite interesting. Because football season doesn't start until next
week, I had a little time to kill this afternoon and used it to read
this paper.
My own rather short academic experience causes me to agree with the
paper's assertion that MBA program rankings tend to drive much of what
happens at a business school. We recently proudly reported that we were
number 30 in the US News rankings (without
pointing out that there was a 30 way tie for that spot).
And we also trumpeted the fact that the Forbes rankings just out
reported that our MBA graduates earned $100,000 in starting pay vs.
$40,000 when they entered the program. (I think the ghosts of Andersen
must have developed those numbers.)
We went through a curriculum revision a couple of years ago and we now
emphasize "leadership." (I suspect this puts us in the company of only
about 90% of MBA programs that do the same.) Most of our classes are now
taught in half semesters. Perhaps there is good justification for this
but it seems to me to encourage a more superficial approach. And
managerial accounting is no longer a required part of the curriculum in
spite of our pointing out that most of the elite schools still require
this important subject.
While I agree with the premise that MBA programs are focusing too much
on rankings and short term thinking, I believe the paper's arguments on
how to "cure the problem" aren't well supported. In particular, while I
strongly agree with the idea that MBA programs should primarily help
students develop critical thinking and analytic skills, I think the
authors are too critical of the practical aspects of business education
as described by Bennis and O'Toole in their earlier Harvard Business
article. The authors of this paper seem to feel that more emphasis on
research published in scholarly journals will bring more of a long-term
focus to MBA education and will address the concerns about rankings,
etc. I think a better response would be to balance the practical and
theoretical - although I know that is a very hard thing to do.
As a final note, would you agree that the capital asset pricing model
and efficient markets research "inspired" indexed mutual funds?
Asserting such a causal connection seems like a pretty big stretch to
me.
Denny Beresford
August 29, 2005 response from Paul Williams at North Carolina State
University
And we all know what rigorous conceptual
framework these folks have in mind. This paper is the knee-jerk response
to the Bennis/ O'Toole paper. This is an argument that has been going on
since business schools were started. It's the on-going argument over
case method vs modeling as the proper way to teach business.
Odd that such believers in market solutions
should question what is obviously working -- would universities play
this game if it didn't work? Or is it only universities that are
irrational? (I'll bet Rochester and Southern Cal are playing the game,
too. What kind of research do you suppose Bill Simon expects for his
millions?) Passions run so high and retribution is swift. Note what
happen to Bob Kaplan's service on the JAR board when he suggested (after
he got some religion at Harvard) that case studies might be a worthwhile
thing for us to consider.
Denny, et al:
You have made some very good points about blending. A very long time
ago, Aristotle, in the Nichomachean Ethics, described three types of
knowledge: techne, episteme, and phronesis. Techne = technical knowledge
(how to bake a pie). Episteme = scientific knowledge. Phronesis (the
highest form) = wisdom, i.e., the knowledge of goodness; how to be a
good citizen. Business is a practice and the Harvard approach is one
that acknowledges that "wisdom can't be told" (the title of the classic
1950s essay on the value of the case approach). Modelers miss a key
element of management. It is not a constrained optimization problem, but
a process of intervention. Experience matters
The ratings game is played because it pays off. Duke didn't have a
graduate program in business until 1970 compared to UNC's, which
predated Duke's by about 25 years. When Tom Keller became dean he had a
stroke of genius and hired a public relations firm to promote the MBA.
Duke always marketed itself from the day it was founded as the "Harvard
of the South" and was able to attract wealthy Northeasterners not able
to get into Ivy league schools. Now Duke is able to attract highly
talented students, high priced faculty and big donations (note that
Wendy's founder Dave Thomas didn't raise millions for Eastern State U.).
Marketing works -- look how many pick-up trucks with 1975 technology
under the hood got sold as Sport Utility Vehicles (Pick- up Trucks with
Walls doesn't have the same ring). Half the battle at becoming the best
is telling people you are, a fact every con man knows. People don't give
money to Harvard because it needs it -- they give to Harvard to say they
gave to Harvard. Do you think any of the terminally vain people who give
money to get their names chiseled on the buildings do so because they
have read all of the brillians academic papers people inside the
building have produced? No, they give it because someone has told them
that the people inside the building are writing brilliant academic
papers.
It really becomes a post-modern moment when the people writing the
papers truly believe they are brilliant.
The
study precedes an upcoming AACSB International report that calls for the
media to change the way it assigns rankings to business degree granting
institutions. The AACSB document, to be released in September, calls the
ranking methods used by BusinessWeek, Financial Times, U.S. News & World
Report, and other media outlets flawed because of inconsistent and
unverified data, which confuses rather than helps the consumer.
You're invited you to join BW
Online's new MBA Blog feature as a guest blogger
STORY TOOLS Printer-Friendly
Version E-Mail This Story
Our upcoming MBA Blog feature
is an online community where you can interact and share
your pursuits of an MBA, job search, life as a grad
student, and much more. Whether you want to create your
own web log online, exchange advice, or launch a
professional network - come join our MBA Blog ---
http://mbablogs.businessweek.com/
As James Cagney would've said: "Those dirty rats!"
Up to 40,000 people are facing hunger in northern Nicaragua because rats
have devoured their crops, officials say. The plague has affected Miskito
Indian communities which live by the Rio Coco river on the country's
Caribbean coast. Last week, the area - which is also regularly hit by
flooding - was declared a disaster area, but the rats have yet to be
exterminated. A UN team has visited the area to see how much aid is needed.
Nicaragua is one of the world's poorest countries. The UN mission is due to
release its findings in the capital, Managua, on Friday... "Rat plague leads to hunger fears ," BBC News, September
8, 2005 ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4227074.stm
Database of Historical Erotica (actually
Porn) The pictures illustrate the evolution of
photography and of erotica over more than a hundred years. Some of the
images pre-date the Civil War; the site also features drawings first
published hundreds of years before that. Others hail from more recent
decades, up to 1979. Regina Lynn, "This Old Porn Is New Again ," Wired News,
September 9, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68790,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
Jensen Comment: Aside from search engines like Google and Yahoo,
porn sites are the most popular sites on the Web. They are also the most
likely place to catch computer diseases like viruses, spyware, Trojan
horses, etc. Much of the porn is now generated by a mean criminal
organization called the Russian Mafia. These dangerous animals exploit and
terrorize women of poverty from all parts of the world. They also are
trying to get porn customer credit card numbers and other personal
information for purposes of robbery and extortion.
The good news is that the dangers that now lurk in porn surfing are becoming
a wonderful preventative for addiction.
Anonymity Debate InformationWeek Daily Newsletter, September 12, 2005
Last week my colleague Tony Kontzer
expressed concerns over a presentation he heard about
the Stealth Surfer drive:
"... a pocket USB storage device
that's commercially available, highly affordable, and
undoubtedly one of the biggest pains in the rear end
ever to hit cybercrime-fighting. Pre-loaded with a
Mozilla Firefox browser and an assortment of clever
little applications, including one called the Anonymizer
that uses SSL encryption to hide all IP activity, the
Stealth Surfer allows a PC to be used for browsing,
E-mail, and God-knows-what-other online activities with
nary a shred of evidence left behind. That's because all
the caching, history, cookies, keystrokes, and data is
stored on the device. Even the applications run entirely
on the device, making them invisible to network
administrators. (As you can see, this would also be an
extremely handy device for anyone wanting to job hunt on
company time.)
"A few cops, images of evidence
walking away dancing in their heads as they listened, let
out sighs and whews and sheeshes and any other low-key
indicator of shock and dismay they could muster."
I'm sufficiently mistrustful of
authority that I'm glad that gadgets like the Stealth Surfer
exist.
By definition, anonymity is used to
hide behavior that the user doesn't want other people to know
about. In a free society, those activities are usually immoral
and sometimes illegal. They can include criminal activities such
as child pornography, terrorism, and drug trafficking. They also
include activities that are legal but that many people would
like to eliminate, such as viewing porn involving adults.
So it's easy to see why some people
would view anonymity as a threat.
But even in a free society, anonymity
is often used to protect beneficial activities. People go online
to learn about addictions, sexual problems, diseases they fear
they might have. We might prefer that they learn about these
things through more open channels--we might prefer that the
teenager who feels unwholesome sexual longings go to a parent,
guardian, clergyman, or teacher to discuss the issues--but
sometimes people are afraid. And anonymity can help a person
feel less afraid, less alone, and get the courage to step
forward and face a problem head-on.
So far, I've been talking about
anonymity in free societies. Totalitarianism brings
another layer of complication into the discussion.
Anonymity is essential to dissent and planning political
change in totalitarian regimes. Here in America, we take
for granted the right to go on the Internet, denounce
powerful people as thieves, liars, and cowards, and
proceed on with our day without fear of any
recrimination at all (except for nastygrams from people
who like the leadership, of course). But in other
countries, you can get
thrown into prison for engaging in political speech the
government doesn't like.
In those nations, anonymity is an essential tool for
political change.
Continued in article
Not Good Enough For Congressional Auditors The FBI is managing its enterprise architecture
program in accordance with many best practices, but other needed procedures
have yet to be adopted, the GAO says.
"FBI Progress On Enterprise Architecture Management Not Good Enough For
Congressional Auditors ," InformationWeek, September 9, 2005 ---
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170701993
Does anybody have any experience with
Microsoft’s OneNote? What caught my eye was the mention in an article
that you can use OneNote to record audio (e.g., during a meeting) on
your computer (like a tape recorder). I was looking at the program on
the Microsoft site and see that OneNote is software for organizing stuff
(note, files, graphics, etc.).
Any thoughts for comments on OneNote? Any
comments on other programs that I could use to record audio? I
particularly want to record during meetings. I know that there are stand
alone recorders, but it is one more thing to take to the meeting.
Glen L. Gray, PhD, CPA
Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business & Economics
California State University, Northridge
Northridge, CA 91330-8372
818.677.3948
http://www.csun.edu/~vcact00f
I would think there is a problem with audio hardware much the same as
I have a problem with my video camera at meetings. Unless I sit in the
front row, it is difficult to pick up the speaker’s voice. If there is
audience/class discussion throughout a room, it is very difficult to
capture individual speakers.
The FBI probably has better audio capturing hardware than we can put
on our laptops, but I would not expect OneNote software to magically
allow us to get quality recordings at many meetings.
That does not mean that we should not download the free trial offer
just to test out OneNote for all the many features claimed in the review
above. It would seem that it will work optimally with a Tablet PC.
Bob Jensen
September 8, 2005 reply from Amy Dunbar
I don’t have experience with OneNote,
but capturing audio is always a struggle for me. Camtasia is
wonderful for screen capture video with audio, but to just
record audio has presented more problems for me. I used to use
the Microsoft Sound Recorder (under Accessories in Windows) and
convert the wav file to an .rm file using Real Producer. Now
that I have left the Real world (;-)), I am recording in
Screenblaster and rendering the file as an MP3 file. I find it
annoying, however, to have a music program, like ITunes, open
it. I just want it to immediately play when the student clicks
the link. If anyone has a better solution for converting wav
files to a better format, I would love to hear about it. A UConn
ITS person recommended CDEX
Back to what you were asking, Glen. How
would you capture everyone’s voices unless they had mics? I know
audio conference tools can capture everyone, but in that case,
each person is speaking into a mic at his/her computer.
And speaking of audio conferencing,
does anyone know how many people can be in a Skype audio
conference? I have only experienced three at a time. I am
teaching a small PhD class, and I have asked my students to
download Skype (
www.skype.com
) so we can easily find each other because
all of us work at home a lot (which is a good thing in these
times of skyrocketing gas prices). When a California colleague’s
cell phone connection was to weak to have a conversation, we
switched to Skype, and it worked like a charm.
We use it at my local Church to record
all of our ministry. You need to also download and install LAME
to be able to export to mp3.
Cheers.
Jim Richards
Murdoch Business School
Murdoch University South Street
MURDOCH WA 6150 Phone: 61-8-9360-2706 Fax: 61-8-9310-5004
September 8, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Amy,
But I want to add that the new version of Camtasia allows for
camcorder input so that the image is no longer just confined to
computer screen images. Even though digital video takes up
massive amounts of space, Camtasia videos do not have to be
space hogging full screens and the videos can be compressed in
the final production.
The big problem with video capturing at meetings is that the
video is often less interesting than the audio unless the
speaker is using visual aids. Capturing video of a talking head
is a total waste of space digitally speaking. I still use an
analog camera and space is no problem since video tapes are
cheap ways to store lots of video.
My problem of course is that my hundreds of video tapes will
soon be as obsolete as my withering 8-track audio tapes. Soon we
won’t be able to buy new machines that will play video tapes, so
take good care of the old players in your house or office. And
consider putting them to DVD in the near future.
HotRecorder™ is a new technology that
allows users to record and add sound effects (Emotisounds™) on
voice communications held over the internet. It also includes
voice mail for Google Talk™ and Skype™!
HotRecorder™ is a unique application
that works in conjunction with Google Talk™, Skype™, AIM™,
Net2Phone™, Yahoo! Messenger™ 7 and FireFly™.
The creation of HotRecorder™ responds
to the growing demand of users throughout the world, for a tool
that will allow them to record, play, save, send and search
their voice communications, plus many other options.
Jensen Comment: This product is on the vanguard of a new
generation of software and textbooks that are either free (with
pop-up advertising) or fee-based (without any advertising). Don't
you wish more things in life were like that, including cable
television shows?
Also note that recording of telephone conversations without
permission is legal in some states and legal in others ---
http://www.pimall.com/nais/n.recordlaw.html I assume
one party consent means that a lurker cannot record a conversation
without the consent of at least one party (such as a bank) to the
conversation.
There are
twelve states that require all party consent. They are:
California
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Illinois
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Montana
New Hampshire
Pennsylvania
Washington
There are
38 states that permit one party consent. They are:
Alaska
Arkansas
Colorado
District of Columbia
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Nebraska
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
September 12, 2005 reply from Amy Dunbar
YIKES! Something new to worry about. I
just downloaded the "premium" version of HotRecorder (the
advertising was so annoying, I popped for the $15 very quickly).
I enabled HotRecorder to work with Skype, called my brother, and
recorded our conversation. Nothing happened on his end to tell
him the conversation was being recorded. So now we have to be
careful what we say on the phone, too, at least when we are
talking on Google Talk™, Skype™, AIM™, Net2Phone™, Yahoo!
Messenger™ 7 and FireFly™. It looks like you choose the
application you want the recorder to work wtih. I have the
choice of Skype or AIM because those are the two programs I have
installed. I can switch back and forth, depending on what I am
using for audio.
Has anyone use
http://www.freeconferencecall.com ?
The "free" is for the use of the conferencing technology. Each
conference attendee pays for the land line charges to call the
number. The number I was given for the next 120 days is
605-772-3001. I wonder what the charges for the long-distance
call will be.
Amy Dunbar
UConn
September 12, 2005 reply from Fred
Barbee
I am what is generally considered a
lurker but this is a very interesting topic to me. I currently
use a tablet PC and an LCD projector in class. My latest toy is
a wireless adaptor for the projector that allows me to move my
Tablet PC to various places around the classroom and still use
the projector. I am interested in recording (using Camtasia)
portions of my lecture - specifically when I work problems on
the tablet pc. I would like to have a good quality wireless
microphone to allow for a little more flexibility. Are any of
you doing this? If so, can you give me some feedback?
Fred Barbee, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Accounting
University of Alaska Anchorage
College of Business & Public Policy afrfb@uaa.alaska.edu
Converting Home Videos to DVDs
Q: Are there services that will take home video and burn
it to a DVD that can be played anywhere? I know I can do this on my
PC, but it takes too much time and I keep running into problems when
I try it.
A: There are such services. One
that I have tested and found to be good is called YesVideo
(yesvideo.com). You bring your videos into a store that works with
YesVideo -- including CVS, Walgreen, Best Buy and Target -- and they
send the tapes to YesVideo, which converts them to a very nice DVD.
You also can get the same service online, at Sony's ImageStation
site (
www.imagestation.com ). Sony calls its service Video2DVD, but it
really is just the YesVideo service. My full review of the service
is at: ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20040128.html. Because
YesVideo works through retailers, prices vary, but are usually
around $25-$35 for a two-hour video. Each DVD is divided into
chapters based on a YesVideo process that tries to detect scene
changes in your videos. At the end, there are three 60-second music
videos made from scenes on your videos. The company also will put
your prints, slides and even old film onto DVD, but this costs more
and is handled by fewer retailers. Details are at the YesVideo Web
site. Walter Mossberg, "Converting Home
Videos to DVDs," The Wall Street Journal, August 25,
2005; Page B3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112492084317722331,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
At last there will be a way to efficiently store
digital video But this is no ordinary recording process.
The disc has more than 60 times the storage capacity of a standard
DVD, while the drive writes about 10 times faster than a
conventional DVD burner. That means the disc can store up to 128
hours of video content--almost twice enough for the full nine
seasons of Seinfeld--and records it all in less than three hours.
Holographic Memory By Gregory T. Huang , "Holographic
Memory," MIT's Technology Review, September 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/issue/feature_memory.asp?trk=nl
Powerful Video Decompiler that
supports decompiling video files to extract the individual image frames.
Supports AVI to WMV, AVI to GIF, AVI to (PNG, JPEG, JPG, EMF, WMV, BMP,
and more). Video Decompiling (Supported formats AVI to GIF, AVI to PNG
(Portable Network Graphics), AVI to JPEG, AVI to TIFF, AVI to EMF, AVI
to WMV). Convert multiple video files at once (Batch Conversion). Many
modern features were added to the latest versions. Now you can save and
load video conversion and effects settings using XML.
I am making a presentation later this month to
professionals that are returning to the University for continuing
education. I want to focus participant's attention on particular line
items on my PowerPoint slides. I will be using an add-in for PowerPoint
called PopOut Presenter that does 60-minute type call-outs or tear-outs.
Experts at PowerPoint can do some of what it does within PowerPoint, but
this is easy, quick and only cost $15. It is available at:
Thank you for linking to a useful product that I
never heard about before.
There is a helpful PowerPoint FAQ page that
discusses add-ins of various types at
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
It is interesting to search at the above site using the phrase "pop out"
Bob Jensen
Links to two Bob Jensen helpers for tools are as follows:
The Council was established by
Andrew Carnegie in 1914 to work toward the ideal of world peace. Today it is
the world's premier forum for research and education in ethics and
international policy. We provide a home for those who explore the ethical
dilemmas posed by issues such as deadly conflict, human rights violations,
environmental protection, global economic disparities, and the politics of
reconciliation
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs ---
http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/index.php
EDUCATION PAPERS IN SEPTEMBER ISSUE OF
FIRST MONDAY
Several papers in the latest issue of FIRST MONDAY (vol. 10, no. 9,
September 5, 2005) have an education theme:
"Professors 0nline: The Internet's Impact on College Faculty," by Steve
Jones and Camille Johnson-Yale, reports on findings from a nationwide survey
of Internet use by U.S. college faculty.
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_9/jones/index.html
"Using Virtual Lectures to Educate Students on
Plagiarism" by Laura A.
Guertin discusses the value of using virtual lectures, as well how to create
and distribute them. Guertin provides a sample template for a virtual
lecture on plagiarism.
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_9/guertin/index.html
"Cats in the Classroom: Online Learning in Hybrid
Space" by Michelle M.
Kazmer explores how teachers and students can create an online environment
that compensates for the "loss of face–to–face interaction in the shared
space of a physical classroom."
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_9/kazmer/index.html
"Electronic Courseware in Higher Education" by Maureen
C. Minielli and S. Pixy Ferris explores "electronic course management
systems from a pedagogical perspective, with the goal of aiding educators to
effectively utilize electronic courseware in the classroom."
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_9/minielli/index.html
First Monday [ISSN 1396-0466] is an online,
peer-reviewed journal whose aim is to publish original articles about the
Internet and the global information infrastructure. It is published in
cooperation with the University Library, University of Illinois at Chicago.
For more information, contact: First Monday, c/o Edward Valauskas, Chief
Editor, PO Box 87636, Chicago IL 60680-0636 USA; email:
ejv@uic.edu ; Web: http://firstmonday.dk/
.
Powell takes the heat for WMD exaggerated fears Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state who
told the United Nations that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass
destruction, has conceded the assertion will always be a "painful blot" on
his record. During a lengthy TV chat with Barbara Walters, the queen of the
serious interview, Mr Powell tried to explain how the West had made mistakes
in the run-up to war. Asked whether the statement about WMD tarnished his
reputation, the former general responded: "Of course it will. It's a blot.
I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world and
[it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."
The soldier-statesman made a dramatic and detailed presentation to the UN
Security Council a month before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It
relied on the extensive use of intelligence material, which later turned out
to be inaccurate.
Francis Harris, "WMD a painful blot, says Powell," Sydney Morning Herald,
September 11, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/09/10/1125772731299.html
Terrorist novels before and after 9/11 The authors of recent terrorist novels have more or
less conceded they would not have handled their material in the same way had
they started work after 9/11.
Benjamin Kunkel, "Dangerous Characters," The New York Times,
September 11, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/books/review/11kunkel.html
Einstein on Religion Scientific materialists, who regard all forms of
religious belief as superstition, are often puzzled and even embarrassed by
Einstein's frequent remarks about God. But conventional religious believers
- knowing that Einstein was a Jew - often jump to the conclusion that he was
referring to the traditional Judaeo-Christian God, and invoke his authority
in support of their own beliefs. I suspect that both groups have
misunderstood Einstein and that we should all read more carefully what he
wrote about science and religion. In 1940, for example, he submitted a paper
to a conference on this subject in which he clearly stated that, in his
view, there could be no "legitimate conflict between science and religion".
The main source of conflict between the two, he argued, lay in the concept
of "a personal God". As the physicist Max Jammer describes in his 1999 book
Einstein and Religion, that remark created a furor at the time. Many people
in the US assumed that by denying the existence of a personal God, Einstein
was denying any kind of God. What we now call the "religious right" was then
vocal in its criticisms (and probably would be today).
"Subtle are Einstein's thoughts," PhysicsWeb,
September 2005 ---
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/9/2/1
When there's fraud in education, look first at the Board of Trustees When David Cary Hart was appointed chief executive
of Drake Business Schools in February 2004, the schools had virtually no
money, they were behind on their rent, and New York State was demanding
repayment of roughly $5 million in tuition grants. Mr. Hart moved quickly to
save the company, long regarded as a flagship in a troubled industry. He
dismissed two top executives. He had the former comptroller arrested on
theft charges. He even found a way to interest banks in lending Drake money.
Then, just before Memorial Day, as he entered the subway near Drake's Queens
campus in Astoria, he was shot, and the police speculated that the attack
might have been related to his inquiry into Drake's finances. As he lay in
the hospital, Drake's trustees shut the schools and filed for bankruptcy.
Karen W. Arenson, "The Decline and Fall of Drake Business Schools: A
Textbook in Crisis Nonmanagement," The New York Times, September 11,
2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/nyregion/11drake.html
Starting Salary Survey Accounting firms lead all other employers in hiring
new college graduates according to the summer 2005 issue of Salary Survey of
the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the Westchester
County Business Journal reports. Starting salaries for new hires in
accounting will average $43,370, an increase of 5.3 percent over last year.
"Starting Salaries Increase for Accounting Grads," AccountingWeb,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101269
I was wandering the web and came across your
page at:
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/book99b.htm and saw that you had
bookmark links on your page. I work with a site called Purity Planet and
our site offers information about air and water filters, vacuums,
humidifiers and more. Clean air and water is essential to everyone. I
wanted to take the time to email you and suggest it as a link for your
page. I enjoyed my visit to your site and thank you for taking the time
to read over my suggestion.
I think a few other people got this letter from Gerald
Grinstein
PS: I'm flying to New Hampshire free in October courtesy of my Skymiles
account with Delta
AS ALWAYS, DELTA AT YOUR SERVICE
Dear Dr. Jensen,
As you may know, Delta Air Lines filed to
reorganize under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. We have taken
this action as part of our ongoing efforts to make Delta a simpler, more
efficient and cost-effective airline. On behalf of the tens of thousands
of Delta employees worldwide who look forward to welcoming you onboard
every day, I want to assure you Delta is open for business as usual:
Your travel plans are secure -- We are
operating our full schedule of flights, honoring tickets and
reservations as usual, and making normal refunds and exchanges. You can
count on the convenience and choice you've come to expect from the more
than 7,500 daily flights to 502 destinations in 88 countries that we,
along with our SkyTeam(R) and codeshare partners, provide worldwide.
Your SkyMiles(R) are secure -- The
award-winning SkyMiles program has not been affected, and you can
continue to enjoy the program's benefits--including Delta Crown Room
Clubs, double miles on qualifying purchases with the Delta SkyMiles
Credit Card from American Express(R), and the opportunity to earn and
redeem miles on the thousands of flights offered by SkyTeam and our vast
network of global airline alliances.
Delta is honored to have been named "the Most
Preferred Airline" this year by business travelers* and we thank you for
voting our SkyMiles program as the Best Frequent Flyer program in a
Travel Savvy magazine survey. From upgraded features on delta.com, to
refurbished cabins, to new routes and international destinations, to
fewer restrictions and service fees, we're transforming Delta to be even
better for you.
We encourage you to send comments and
suggestions via e-mail to restructure.delta@delta.com. You can also
learn more about our reorganization by visiting delta.com/restructure.
Click here to email
restructure.delta@delta.com: mailto:restructure.delta@delta.com
Click here to visit delta.com/restructure:
http://e.delta.com/ct/click?q=e9-gd8pQxVJO9NIP8X9R4f5P1qd5XTJ
Today, as always, Delta's proud team of
dedicated professionals is at your service. As the people of Delta work
together to become a more competitive airline, we appreciate your
loyalty and the opportunity to meet your personal and business travel
needs--now and in the future.
Thank you for choosing Delta.
Sincerely,
Gerald Grinstein
Chief Executive Officer
Forwarded by Betty Carper
One Flaw in Women
By the time God made woman, He was into his sixth day of working
overtime. An angel appeared and said, "Why are you spending so much time on
this one?" And God answered, "Have you seen my spec sheet on her? She has to
be completely washable, but not plastic, have over 200 movable parts, all
replaceable and able to run on diet coke and leftovers, have a lap that can
hold four children at one time, have a kiss that can cure anything from a
scraped knee to a broken heart -and she will do everything with only two
hands."
The angel was astounded at the requirements. "Only two hands!? No way!
And that's just on the standard model? That's too much work for one day.
Wait until tomorrow to finish." But I won't," God protested. "I am so close
to finishing this creation that is so close to my own heart.
She already heals herself when she is sick AND can work 18 hour days."
The angel moved closer and touched the woman. "But you have made her so
soft." "She is soft," God agreed, "but I have also made her tough. You have
no idea what she can endure or accomplish." "Will she be able to think?",
asked the angel. God replied, "Not only will she be able to think, she will
be able to reason and negotiate."
The angel then noticed something, and reaching out, touched the woman's
cheek. "Oops, it looks like you have a leak in this model. I told you that
you were trying to put too much into this one." "That's not a leak," God
corrected, "that's a tear!" "What's the tear for?" the angel asked. God
said, "The tear is her way of expressing her joy, her sorrow, her pain, her
disappointment, her love, her loneliness, her grief and her pride." The
angel was impressed. "You are a genius. You thought of everything! Woman is
truly amazing." And she is!
Women have strengths that amaze men. They bear hardships and they carry
burdens, but they hold happiness, love and joy. They smile when they want to
scream. They sing when they want to cry. They cry when they are happy and
laugh when they are nervous. They fight for what they believe in. They stand
up to injustice. They don't take "no" for an answer when they believe there
is a better solution.
They go without so their family can have. They go to the doctor with a
frightened friend. They love unconditionally. They cry when their children
excel and cheer when their friends get awards. They are happy when they hear
about a birth or a wedding. Their hearts break when a friend dies. They
grieve at the loss of a family member, yet they are strong when they think
there is no strength left.
They know that a hug and a kiss can heal a broken heart. Women come in
all shapes, sizes and colors. They'll drive, fly, walk, run or e-mail you to
show how much they care about you. The heart of a woman is what makes the
world keep turning. They bring joy, hope and love. They have compassion and
ideals. They give moral support to their family and friends. Women have
vital things to say and everything to give.
HOWEVER, IF THERE IS ONE FLAW IN WOMEN, IT IS THAT THEY FORGET THEIR
WORTH.
If you think
a gallon of gasoline or heating oil is expensive, think of how cheap it is
to make a gallon of soda (a little sweetener
mixed with a lot of water) or beer (mostly fermented water) relative to what
it takes to get oil deep from out of the ground and put it through a very
complex and possibly explosive refining process. And you're still willing
to pay more for a gallon of Coke or Miller Lite or even bottled sring water
without protesting? Bob
Jensen Think about it while, for a moment, not letting
your disdain for oil company executives and Middle Easter sheiks overtake
your reasoning.
Big Bands Database (many
bands from around the world, but no samples) ---
http://www.nfo.net/
This Is No Two-Bit Music Player ---
http://www.onebitmusic.com/ If one geek's trash is another geek's treasure,
start sending all those CD jewel cases you've been tossing to New York City,
care of digital media artist Tristan Perich. Perich is the man behind One
Bit Music, a project that uses simple electronics to turn clear, plastic CD
cases into personal, lo-fi music players.
Rachel Metz, "This Is No Two-Bit Music Player," Wired News, September
15, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68826,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
Trillions of
your tax dollars allegedly down the drain in
accounting adjustments To the right
(on the opening page of the site below)
you will find a
running total of the amount of "unsupported
adjustments" used by the Department of
Defense in FY2000 to balance its books. This
total is based on the report of DoD's
inspector general. The counter runs on a
calendar year. It is a simple attempt to
demonstrate the scale of ENRON style
accounting in the US government.
"How fast does $1.1 trillion disappear in a
year?" ---
http://www.whereisthemoney.org/
Jensen Comment:
Bush is making an enormous mistake that we
will one day regret!
This is why I think New Orleans should not
be rebuilt below Lake Ponchetrain:
A photograph
of that huge building in Oklahoma City with
its entire face blown off on April 19, 1995
will forever live in my memory. Aside from
the carnage, what impressed me most was the
sheer power of cheap fertilizer chemicals in
the back of a small rental truck parked some
distance from the building. This is a
frightening thought when you consider the
following:
If an
18-foot rental truck can carry so much
cheap and relatively easy-access
explosive power, what destruction can be
packed into a 54-foot moving van?
Perhaps and enormous bomb could be
placed on a ship tied up on a dock in
New Orleans or a barge being pushed down
river from up north where a lot of
fertilizer is readily made available.
Perhaps a bomb might not be necessary at
all on a Kamikaze airplane crashing
straight into a levee.
Hundreds of thousands of New Orleans
residents were able to flee before
Katrina hit because of technology that
allows for early warning and tracking of
hurricanes. In Oklahoma City in 1995
there was not one second of advanced
warning before a fertilizer bomb killed
hundreds of innocent children and
adults.
Suppose
a vicious drug cartel becomes
exceedingly angry because we succeeded
in squeezing its revenues. For revenge,
the cartel could set off a little bomb
that would put a small crack in a Lake
Ponchetrain levee and afterwards try to
extort millions by threatening that the
next explosions at several places on the
levee will be 1,000 times more powerful.
Who's
willing to kill hundreds of thousands of
people and inflict billions of dollars worth
of damage in a newly-rebuilt New Orleans?
The list of possible bombers is endless?
As I
mentioned above, it could be a drug
cartel or an organized crime group bent
on extortion. Instead of risky nuclear
extortion, it might be a less risky
extortion endeavor by North Korea or
some dissident dictator.
It
could be a Timothy McVeigh-type angered
by being passed over for a Special
Forces assignment and not being issued a
green, red, or black beret. It could be
a soldier angered about being assigned
to dangerous Iraq. It could be an
relatively ordinary citizen angered by a
costly Tax Court decision.
It
could be a Eric Robert Rudolph-type
angered by a rumor that an abortion took
place in the Tulane Medical Center that
is very close to the Lake Ponchetrain
levee.
It
could be a white supremacist with
visions of a hundred thousand welfare
mommas floating face down in the muck
who could no longer bring a million new
n_____s into the world. Media coverage
during Katrina (was there a single white
victim shown of television?) and the
aftermath of increased government
assistance makes it much more likely
that white supremacists will accelerate
and magnify atrocities against African
Americans ---
http://www.publiceye.org/racism/white-supremacy.html
It
could be carried out by any one of
thousands of hate groups like Al Qaeda.
Or it could just be two brothers from
Afghanistan who are upset because U.S.
bombs killed their parents.
It
could be some bipolar mental case having
a bad day..
I'm no
expert on explosives. Perhaps the levees
will be rebuilt strong enough to withstand
truck bombs and Kamikaze crashes. In that
case, I think an Al Qaeda cell might be
eager to take on a more complicated
undertaking because of the glory that a
complicated killing of hundreds of thousands
of Americans would reap in Allah's
hereafter. Terrorists could design an
underground/underwater mission that is more
complicated than blowing up the Bridge on
the River Kwai.
In a
statistical sense, the rebuilding of New
Orleans on its present site is a disastrous
mistake due to the high probability of
future breaches in the levees. For maximum
impact, the evil doers may have to patiently
await a tidal surge, but such surges are
common in New Orleans. And tidal surges are
much more dangerous in recent years due to
the frightening disappearance of the
Mississippi Delta that historically
cushioned New Orleans from the sea.
I should
also think that Holland is also nervous with
the rising threat of Islamic militants in
that nation below sea level. And I doubt
that Russia would be stupid enough to
rebuild a city under sea level with angry
Chechnyans all about. Why is the U.S. so
naive? It's like we keep forgetting that we
do have enemies, millions (billions?) of
them!
New Orleans
is more vulnerable to attack in the future
because of Katrina's media coverage and the
costly havoc she reaped.
Media
coverage during Katrina (was there a single
white victim shown of television?) and the
aftermath of increased government assistance
makes it much more likely that white
supremacists will accelerate and magnify
atrocities against African Americans ---
http://www.publiceye.org/racism/white-supremacy.html
Black activists are also giving white
supremacists ideas that initially (honestly)
inspired my above tidbit on why New Orleans
should not be re-built south of Lake
Ponchetrain.
Nation of
Islam leader and Air America may reap what
they sow Liberal radio
asserts that white people deliberately blew
up the levees to kill as many blacks as
possible
Two hosts at the liberal radio network Air
America are defending Nation of Islam leader
Minister Louis Farrakhan - saying he's not
wrong to suspect that white people
deliberately blew up the levees in New
Orleans. "You cannot blame people for coming
up with conspiracy theories," Air America
host Chuck D. said, after he was asked
Thursday about the paranoid pronouncement by
MSNBC's Tucker Carlson . . . But the Air
America host refused to budge, insisting
instead that there was a chance Farrakhan
could be right.
"Air America Hosts: Farrakhan Not Wrong on
Levees," NewsMax, September 15, 2005
---
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/16/11533.shtml
September
16, 2005 reply from David Fordham
. . .the Dutch aren't terribly concerned
about threats to their dike, because
they don't have "a dike". They have LOTS
and LOTS of little dikes. If something
happens to one, the "downstream"
protectors start kicking in. In America,
we seem to be eliminating everything
small in favor of "mega-" everything. We
abandon small rail lines and take them
up and put the money into single
mainlines. We shut down small generating
stations and build mega- humongous ones.
We close down small colleges and build
huge universities. We close down
neighborhood schools and build huge
magnets where no one, not even the
principal, can know all the kids names.
("Anonymity supports criminality" will
one day become a famous quote.) We close
down little military bases and
consolidate them into megabases. (I
heard that we now have only two
submarine bases on the whole Atlantic
coast...
I guess we are following Will Rogers'
advice to "put all your eggs in one
basket, then watch that basket!") If New
Orleans is rebuilt at all, they need to
do like the Dutch, and cut lots and lots
of canals to get lots and lots of earth
and build lots and lots of dikes. That
way, when one fails, you have a minor
flood which inconveniences, rather than
a major disaster which devastates.
I'm still trying to figure out how the
Flemish have been able to build
buildings for 600 years that don't
crack. If you tour Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Brugge, Oostende, Knokke, or any of the
other Flemish or Dutch towns, you see
these old, old buildings which are
leaning because the sand and silt they
were built on has settled. But THEY
DON'T CRACK! The brickwork is still all
together in one solid piece! I don't
know how they do it. My home, built in
1985, is cracking due to the "ground
settling", according to the contractor,
yet these Flemish buildings lean 3
degrees from vertical and don't have a
crack anywhere in the masonry. Puzzling.
David Fordham
September
18, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Mac,
I changed the n-word to n______s in
tomorrow's above tidbit. I had a
not-so-surprising number of private
emails complaining about my use of the
n-word. It seems to be a more banned
word than the increasingly popular
f-word or its equivalents which are hard
to avoid on any given day in the media
and the movies and overheard campus
conversations.
I previously avoided the MDB movie,
because I naively expected another Rocky
I, Rocky II, Rocky III, and so on. I was
wrong, especially about my
wrongly-anticipated MDB ending. I guess
that's because MDB is based on a true
story whereas Rocky is Hollywood
fiction.
I was startled when hearing the n-word
in MDB movie. Hollywood manages to carry
on its n-word tradition to make us aware
and uncomfortable, and I guess I was
trying to do the same in the above
tidbit. But I should've remembered that
Mark Twain's n-word book Huckleberry
Finn is the most banned book in
American libraries even though new books
are shelved daily that are filled with
the famous f-word, the other f-word
demeaning gays, and worse. Those are
allowed even in some high school
libraries and most certainly in college
and community libraries.
For my above Bush-Mistake module, I
would like to thank David Fordham for
his comments about Holland's dikes. I
added his comments to my Tidbit.
Cheers,
Bob Jensen
September
18, 2005 reply from Eric Press
Predictably,
someone is quick to ask Jensen if he
really used the n-word. I'll give good
odds he did. The man has freed himself
from fears of retribution; I've noted
the loosening of bonds for a while.
Once upon a time, no one would ask
Jensen if he wrote the sentence. That's
not because back in the good old days
everyone was all racists anyway. Rather,
once readers were willing to reason
before their knees jerked, and less
inclined to conjure up some
umbrage. It was obvious from his
context that Jensen is referencing the
mental state of a white supremacist. He
articulates a view of the consequences
of the supremacist's vile act, in the
supremacist's terms.
Alas, we have lost our licenses.
Everything is literal, and the words we
utter before students and colleagues are
freighted with the peril that, should
they cross a shifty bound defined by a
vocal if ill-educated crowd, one has put
a career at risk. Thus, administrators
are fired because, referring to a
penurious deed, they describe it as
"niggardly". It does not matter that the
word's origins have nothing to do with
"negro," much less its pejorative form,
the dreaded n-word.
The subjugation of human dignity by
pettyfoggers who hunt for nuanced racial
slander is widespread. Jensen'
transgression is a bold step. He's
probably sick of small mindedness, and
figures at this stage (he's about to
retire), nothing can hurt him anyway.
The sharpest satire on where language
police and PC-witch hunts lead is
Phillip Roth's The Human Stain. Lillian
Hellman's Children's Hour doesn't do a
bad job, either.
Eric Press -----
September 18, 2005 reply forwarded from a
friend
Personally, I
never had a doubt about you or had a
problem understanding what you were
doing.
This is meant as a message of
support, hopefully you aren't feeling
like you need it though.
September 17, 2005 reply from Carol
Flowers
I find this
whole conversation about the n word
amusing. I think referring to these
words as the n and f words is
ridiculous. It sounds so politically
correct and I'm sick of politically
correct!
I don't think being politically
correct changes attitudes. It merely
masks them.
Can't we
make a political exception for Katrina
victims in this time of crisis?
Teachers
unions demand Katrina's education funding
relief to be limited to only children
enrolled in public schools
Department of
Education announced a plan today to pay 90
percent of the educational costs of students
and schools affected by Hurricane Katrina
for one year. But the plan, which seeks $2.6
billion in new hurricane relief spending,
came under immediate attack from Democrats
and officials of the nation's two largest
teachers' unions, who asserted that a major
component - payments to families with
children in private schools - amounted to a
national voucher program.
Michael Janofski, "Plan Will Pay 90% of
Costs for Students Hit by Storm," The New
York Times, September 16, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/education/16cnd-educ.html
Jensen
Comment: In New Orleans, enrollments in
private schools are mostly from middle
income and even lower income families. This
is particularly true in Catholic schools in
New Orleans since the Roman Catholic church
has a dominant presence in New Orleans.
Come on
teachers unions! Lay off the political
pressures for the sake of all children
caught up for a short time in the wake of
the Katrina disaster.
Look for a
barrage of Katrina coverage
Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel, WI - Sep 13, 2005 ... horizon, dubbed "Higher
Ground." This one, featuring Wynton
Marsalis, Norah Jones, Elvis Costello
and Diana Krall, is a National
PublicRadio production, but
...
Equal
Education: A Long-Range Goal Achieving true
diversity at the college level won't happen
without erasing a significant black-white
"achievement gap" that persists in America
to this day. And true to O'Connor's
expectation, doing so will likely be the
work of decades, if not a quarter century.
That is because you really can't close the
white-black achievement gap at the college
level. Rather, it must be done in the early
childhood development years. And doing so
won't be as easy as providing need-based
financial aid. Rather, it will require a
sustained commitment by society to providing
a range of quality neonatal and early
childhood health care, day care, parental
education and pre-school services for
at-risk youngsters, both white and black.
"Justice O'Connor's expectation is realistic
if, and only if, the nation acts promptly to
put in place the measures that would
eliminate or substantially reduce racial
disparities that occur between birth and
young adulthood," Lisbeth B. Schorr,
director of Harvard University's Pathways
Mapping Initiative, argued in an essay
published last year.
"Equal Education A Long-Range Goal," The
Ledger, September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050912/NEWS/509120310/1036
"He ain't
heavy; he's my buddy"
. . . On second thought, he's too damn
heavy! (Ker plop) Scientists at
RTI International Health, Social and
Economics Research and the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention used two data
sets that encompass more than 45,000 full
time workers between the ages of 18 and 64
for the new analysis. They compared figures
that included body mass index (BMI), sick
days and total medical expenditures. In
general, a BMI greater than 25 is considered
overweight. The researchers found that as
BMI increased, so too did medical expenses
for both men and women. The additional costs
ranged from $162 for slightly obese men to
an extra $1,524 for men with a BMI greater
than 40. For overweight women, these costs
ranged from $474 to $1,302. When the team
factored in the cost of lost work days for
obese employees, they calculated that the
per capita cost of obesity amounts to
between $460 and $2,485 annually.
"Study Assesses Annual Cost of Obesity to
Employers," Scientific American,
September 14, 2005 ---
http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000F169F-356B-1327-B0E183414B7FFE87
Ernie Pyle, the legendary correspondent,
understood soldiers. He knew how they
marched, how they mourned, how they
endured. With few exceptions, the
coverage coming out of Iraq today
doesn’t portray the grunts in the same
deeply personal light. It is a different
era, and most journalists have never
served in the military and have only a
passing acquaintance with the worlds
that most soldiers come from. But for
readers who want a taste of the
soldier’s life, a modern-day Ernie Pyle
is no longer necessary; soldiers
themselves are blogging their
experiences from the front lines.
Since combat began in Iraq in March
2003, “milblogs,” as they’re called,
have been cropping up in increasing
numbers. Some are sophomoric and laced
with obscenities, while others offer
frank and poignant accounts of what it’s
like to fight this war. Their popularity
has drawn the interest of book
publishers, along with the scrutiny of
military higher-ups concerned that
milblogs could breach operational
security. For the Pentagon there is also
something else at play here: how to
manage the flow of information from the
field — especially when the military’s
official version of events is
contradicted by blogging soldiers.
In August 2004, a twenty-eight-year-old
Army infantryman named Colby Buzzell,
writing anonymously under the handle
CBFTW (the last three letters stand for,
alternately, “fuck the war” or “fuck the
world”), posted his account of a vicious
firefight with insurgents on his blog,
My War. “We were driving there on that
main street when all of a sudden all
hell came down all around on us. I was
like, this is it, I’m going to die. I
cannot put into words how scared I was.”
The battle received scant media
attention, and the Pentagon played down
the extent to which Buzzell’s brigade
had even been involved in the fighting —
crediting Iraqi security forces with the
victory. Days later, though, a report in
the Tacoma, Washington, News Tribune,
which covers Buzzell’s Fort Lewis-based
detachment, noted the discrepancy
between Buzzell’s version and the
Pentagon’s. This drew attention to
Buzzell’s blog, and soon his officers
learned his identity. Buzzell was later
briefly confined to base, an experience
he details in his forthcoming book, My
War: Killing Time in Iraq, due out in
October.
Since then, the military has paid closer
attention to milblogs. Some have been
censored, others ordered to shut down.
The crackdown, though, may have
unintended consequences for the
military. The best of these blogs offer
Americans back home a chance to connect
with soldiers in ways that today’s media
coverage does not.
Continued in article
Really
personal personal finance blogs Open talk about the
details of personal finance may break a
social taboo. It certainly seemed so when
Mr. Wang first did it in April. "I'm going
to take the plunge and join the level of
financial transparency that other personal
finance blogs are willing to reveal," he
wrote. If other financial bloggers can "bare
it all (and have for quite some time), I
think I can do it, too," he said. "I'll
detail, to the cent, my spending this month
along with my budgetary targets."
Elizabeth Harris, "Psst: Want to Know My Net
Worth?" The New York Times, September
18, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/business/yourmoney/18blog.html
New
search tool from Google: Putting order into
the wild west of the Blog Frontier
It's tough
to make money in a chaotic
environment, and things don't get
more rough-and-tumble then in
today's blogosphere. The universe of
blogs has everything from little
Johnny's web diary to serious
journalism and corporate marketing.
Nevertheless, there's money to be
made, and Google is taking the first
step to finding that pot of gold.
The Mountain View, Calif., company
has launched a
blog-search tool
that looks to
bring order to the unruly
blogosphere. Experts say some blogs,
such as those doing credible work in
journalism and commentary, are
beginning to show commercial
potential. The problem, however, is
to find and categorize them, which
is something Google does better than
anyone.
InternetWeek Newsletter, September
15, 2005
Also see
http://www.internetweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=170703264
Until the colour of
a man's skin is of no more significance than
the colour of his eyes - everywhere is war.
Bob Marley
Bear
Bryant: The Last Coach "The Last Coach"
(W.W. Norton & Co., 546 pages, $26.95) is
Allen Barra's attempt to do for Bryant what
David Maraniss did for Vince Lombardi in
"When Pride Mattered": take a legend and
bring him to life. While "The Last Coach"
lacks the narrative sparkle of Mr.
Maraniss's portrait, it is a worthy work
that does much to separate myth from fact
and to restore our sense of Bryant himself,
as he actually was. Though Bryant was
successful early on -- at Maryland, Kentucky
and Texas A&M -- it was back at his alma
mater that he truly made his mark, building
Alabama into the most dominant school in
football over the course of 25 seasons. His
often undersized Crimson Tide teams executed
fundamentals splendidly and out-hit even
their bigger opponents. Bryant himself mixed
homespun cordiality (he was a terrific
salesman on the recruiting trail), a nearly
sadistic will to win (his training camps
were the stuff of legend) and a mastery of
gamesmanship. Though he would often
mispronounce or just plain forget his
players' names, he rarely lost the battle of
the sidelines. Former assistant Bum Phillips
paid Bryant the ultimate coach's tribute
when he said: "Bear can take his'n and beat
your'n, or he can take your'n and beat
his'n."
Michael Maccambridge, "The 'Bear'
Essentials," The Wall Street Journal,
September 15, 2005; Page D7 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112673668988841027,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Jensen
Comment:
Coach Bryant probably did more for civil
rights in Alabama colleges than any other
human being. Coach Bryant recognized the
value of African American athletes' pride
and skills. He also made them study and
learn in their courses. Years ago when I
was on the faculty at Michigan State
University, a speech by renowned MSU Coach
Duffy Dougherty made me appreciate Coach
Bryant at Alabama. I can't remember the
exact words, but Duffy's key quotation went
approximately as follows: "I once sent a
letter to Bear Bryant complaining that he
was recruiting players too aggressively in
MSU territory." Duffy was not referring to
Michigan. He was referring to Alabama where
for years Duffy recruited top black athletes
who could not be admitted to the University
of Alabama because of their race. Bear
Bryant changed all that.
I also
remember that Bear Bryant brought dignity to
college sports. He wanted his many fans to
be courteous to opponents win or lose and to
dress for games --- I mean coats and ties in
the stadium. And he was painfully honest in
defeat. He did not want the south to
project an image of redneck fools. Once
when I was invited to give a lecture at
Alabama, my friends took me to a game
between Alabama and Notre Dame. Notre Dame
solidly won the game. That same evening on
television, the "Bear" did not try to make
excuses or complain about referees. He
announced that Notre Dame was a bigger and
faster team that could probably win any day
of the week. That's my kind of man and my
kind of coach.
Black Colleges Confront Challenges Like many academic conference-goers these days, a
lot of the presidents, other college administrators and government officials
attending a meeting on historically black colleges in Washington this week
had a not-insignificant distraction for their hearts and minds. That doesn’t
mean that they didn’t dive headlong into the issues and topics they were
here to address in the formal sessions of the National HBCU Week Conference,
which was put on by the White House Initiative on Historically Black
Colleges and Universities: barriers to college access for African Americans
and other minority students, black colleges’ relationship with the federal
government, and institutional governance, to name a few.
Doug Lederman, "Black Colleges Confront Challenges," Inside Higher Ed,
September 14, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/14/hbcu
Treasury, IRS Announce Special Relief to Encourage Leave-Donation
Programs for Victims of Hurricane Katrina Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue
Service officials announced Thursday special relief intended to support
leave-based donation programs to aid victims who have suffered from the
extraordinary destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. Under these programs,
employees donate their vacation, sick or personal leave in exchange for
employer cash payments made to qualified tax-exempt organizations providing
relief for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Employees can forgo leave in
exchange for employer cash payments made before Jan. 1, 2007, to qualified
tax-exempt organizations providing relief for Hurricane Katrina victims.
Employees do not have to include the donated leave in their income.
Employers will be permitted to deduct the amount of the cash payment.
"Treasury, IRS Announce Special Relief to Encourage Leave-Donation Programs
for Victims of Hurricane Katrina," SmartPros, September 9, 2005 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x49695.xml
Making the simple complicated is commonplace;
making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
Charles Mingus as quoted by Mark Shapiro at the link shown below.
Bonding with your kids in the age of cell
phones It's not that we don't have anything in common, but
he's 17 going on 18 and I'm 21 going on 29 going on 50-something, and we are
a few generations apart. We are supposed to have different perspectives and
different outlooks on things. That's the way it goes. However, when my son
and I are in the same vehicle, assuming none of his friends pass by in their
vehicles, call him on his cell phone, and interrupt our bonding moments,
sometimes we hit upon a subject we can talk about without one of us losing
patience with the other. ...
Felice Praeger, "Totally Awesome in a Groovy Far-out Kind of Cool Way, Not,"
The Irascible Professor, September 12, 2005 ---
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-09-12-05.htm
Jensen Comment: But mom can get even by phoning her son when he's with his
friends.
The Žižek Effect It’s not just her willingness to
let Slavoj Žižek be Slavoj Žižek — responding bitterly to an
orthodox
deconstructionist in the audience at a lecture at Columbia
University, for example, or revisiting some familiar
elements of his early work on the theory of ideology. Nor is
it even her willingness to risk trying to popularize the
unpopularizable. The film ventures into an account of
Žižek’s claim of the parallel between Marx’s concept of
surplus value and Lacan’s “object petit a.” (This is
illustrated, you may be relieved to know, via a cartoon
involving bottles of Coke.) Beyond all that, Žižek! is very
smart as a film. How it moves from scene to scene — the
playful, yet coherent and even intricate relationship
between structure and substance — rewards more than one
viewing.
Scott McLemee, "The
Žižek Effect," Inside Higher Ed, September 14, 2005
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/13/mclemee
Croak Scientists will meet this weekend to launch an
action plan aimed at stemming the global decline in amphibians. About a
third of frog, toad and salamander species are facing extinction; threats
include fungal disease, pollution and habitat loss. The Washington DC
meeting is expected to call for the establishment of a large-scale captive
breeding programme. The cost of preserving amphibians from extinction may
run into tens of millions of US dollars per year.
Richard Black, "Frog action plan to cost
millions," BBC News, September 14, 2005 ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4244554.stm
Necessity: Military Tribunals and the
Loss of American Civil Liberties “In a time of war,” wrote Cicero, “the laws are
silent.” (That’s “inter arma silent leges,” in case some nuance is missing
from the usual English rendering.) Related stories Real Knowledge, July 12
Throat Culture, July 7 Ambiguous Legacy, June 21 Show Clio the Money!, May
31 Few Rules for New Constitution Day Requirement, May 25 E-mail Print Well,
perhaps not quite silent. Marouf A. Hasian’s In the Name of Necessity:
Military Tribunals and the Loss of American Civil Liberties, available next
month from the University of Alabama Press, revisits more than 200 years of
American argumentation for and against the legitimacy of “military justice.”
Scott McLemee and Scott Jaschik, "Necessary Evils," Inside Higher Ed,
September 15, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/15/mclemee
SmartPros Book Digests
SmartPros Book Digests features more than 600 online business book summaries
adapted from the most popular titles on the market. Each book is carefully
condensed into 300, 600 and 4,500 word digests, enabling the subscriber to
quickly and easily absorb a book’s core concepts. The annual subscription
features as many as 50 new digests each year. All digests are published in
PDF format, allowing subscribers to quickly download, read and/or print.
Annual subscriptions include
full access to all new reviews and the complete archive. Users can also
purchase individual digests. You can access SmartPros Book Digests at:
www.smartpros.com/bookdigests
For those of you who will be visiting San
Antonio, I have some helpers that I wrote up for the 2002 American
Accounting Association Annual Meeting in San Antonio ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/SanAntonioJensen.htm There might even be a
Spurs game. Bob Jensen
Call for Papers, Academy of Business Education
(ABE) Conference Riverwalk, San Antonio, Texas: April 5-6, 2006
The 2006 ABE conference will be held at the historic Menger Hotel, next
door to the Alamo and at the entrance to Riverwalk, in beautiful San
Antonio, Texas.
I am serving as the accounting track chair for the 2006 ABE meeting. As
such, I am soliciting paper submissions and other proposals. Papers in
any area of accounting education are appropriate for presentation at the
meeting. To be considered authors should send a two-page abstract
(minimum) to me (destout@ysu.edu). Submission deadline is NOVEMBER 1,
2005.
Need an idea? Want to know what the ABE annual meeting is like? Take a
look at the most recent meeting by clicking on "2005 Program" at the
following site:
www.abe.villanova.edu
I look forward to seeing you in San Antonio!
David E. Stout
Youngstown State University
Accounting Track Chair
2006 ABE Meeting
office tel: (330) 941-3509
home tel: (330) 965-9504
Free Trade and the EU: The EU is not as protectionist as we're led to
believe in the U.S. media We know we shouldn't, but most of us can't resist
clinging to a few comforting illusions that reinforce our view of the world.
Here's one: The European Union is a bureaucratic monster whose protectionist
policies and cosseted agricultural sector do great harm to developing
countries. I have a surprise for you: In fact, the opposite is true. Today
the EU is the most open market in the world for the poorest countries, and
their largest trading partner. Our trade preferences for developing
countries are used more widely than any others. Imports under these
specially reduced tariffs are higher than those under the equivalent
American, Japanese and Canadian trade preferences combined. Equally, the
reality of our common agricultural policy is rather unlike the caricature.
After a decade of reforms, the wine-lakes have dried up and the butter
mountains have melted away. These reforms won't stop. But we shouldn't
dismiss what has been achieved already.
Jose Manuel Barroso, "The EU Throws Down the
Gauntlet," The Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2005; Page A16 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112649175648837703,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Fraud Reveals Workings of Internet Theft The illicit haul arrived each day by e-mail, the
personal details of computer users tricked by an Internet thief: a victim's
name, credit card number, date of birth, Social Security number, mother's
maiden name. One more Internet "phishing" scam was operating. But this time,
private sleuths soon were hot on the electronic trail of a thief whose
online alias indicated an affinity for the dark side. The case moved ahead
in part because of an underground tipster and the thief's penchant for
repeatedly using the same two passwords _ "syerwerz" and "r00tm3."
Ted Bridis, "Fraud Reveals Workings of Internet
Theft," The Washington Post, September 11, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/11/AR2005091100550.html?referrer=email
Well before we come across this anecdote in "I
Is for Infidel" (PublicAffairs, 186 pages, $25), we have grown
accustomed to Ms. Gannon's enterprising instincts and, not least, her
eye for the telling detail. Her closely observed chronicle of
Afghanistan's descent into chaos, and its attempts to rebound, is full
of vivid incident and astute analysis. She conveys with particular skill
the Afghans' sense of despair as the world abandoned them and their
country slid into anarchy, only to be taken over by the Taliban and al
Qaeda.
For causing this tragedy Ms. Gannon takes
everyone to task: the former anti-Soviet mujahideen for turning their
country into a killing field and for committing unspeakable crimes; the
U.N. for ignoring the Taliban's gruesome rule in the forlorn hope that
to do so would promote peace; and the U.S. for failing to court moderate
Taliban members and later for sacrificing Afghanistan's security for the
sake of prosecuting the war in Iraq. But she saves her sharpest
indictment for Pakistan's military and intelligence service. She argues
that it has been in cahoots with terrorist groups for decades, groups
driven by a "jihad ideology" according to which Islam justifies all
kinds of violence.
The military's omnipresence in Pakistani life,
Ms. Gannon notes, is in part a legacy of British rule, under which
Hindus dominated the civilian bureaucracy and Muslims the military. When
the British left, a feudal ruling class arose. Its members included,
alongside major landowners, military men with a strong religious sense
of mission and no interest in establishing democratic institutions. As
one Pakistani general tells Ms. Gannon: "Jihad has always been a
motivating concept for our troops from day one." The concept motivated
Pakistan's military all the more forcefully, in the decades after
independence, with each of Pakistan's humiliating defeats at the hands
of India.
Here's a gloomy thought for you: America is
going to be lonely for a very long time. After reading the October issue
of The American Enterprise, "Red America, Blue Europe," that's the only
conclusion one can draw. There is a grand myth that the world,
particularly Europe, loved America before George W. Bush came into
office. The reality is that it only dislikes us a bit more than it used
to.
Anti-American books tore up the best-seller
list in France throughout the Clinton presidency. The staged
anti-globalization riots during the 1990s were not love letters to
America or the Democratic party. In 1999, Bill Clinton needed 10,000
policemen to protect him from Greek activists who aimed to firebomb him.
Protesters in Athens continually pulled down a statue of Harry Truman.
Despite the relentless jackassery of people like Michael Moore and
others who attributed 9/11 to Bush's policies — including our failure to
sign the Kyoto Treaty (stop laughing) — al-Qaeda got its operation up
and running throughout the sunny days of Bill Clinton and the dotcom
bubble.
In the 1980s, anti-Americanism was also a big
problem, but fortunately the elites of Europe generally understood —
with some lamentable exceptions — it was better to have America as a
friend than the Soviet Union as a ruler.
But now that the Cold War is over, European
elites have been liberated from the need to play well with the United
States. Elections in Germany and France have largely been won in recent
years by running against America. The U.S. is the only superpower and
European elites don't think anyone but them should be superpowers. The
Chinese have a similar attitude, of course, and pretty much every
foreign policy article and expert I can find says we're going to be
playing Cold War-style games with China for the next 50 years.
In other words, we are facing at minimum two
enormous problems that will far, far outlast the Bush presidency, and,
unlike in the past, it's not entirely clear we can rely on our friends
to stand with us. This is a broad generalization, which means that it's
open to contradiction by a great many facts while still, I think,
remaining true. We do have some real friends, most notably Britain,
Japan and Australia.
But much of Europe seems lost to us. There are
many reasons for this, but two stick out. First, they're free riders.
They know that America is the only country left with the means and the
will to maintain international order. Our economy keeps their economy
afloat. We keep the sea lanes open. Our scientific innovation gives them
medical breakthroughs they buy on the cheap.
Second, because we're behind the wheel, they
can indulge their vanity by playing backseat drivers. They reject the
basic assumptions of American strategic imperatives. So they toy with
selling weapons to the Chinese. They play games about whether or not
Islamic radicalism is even really a problem. They are always willing to
credit the worst possible explanation of American actions.
A columnist for the British Sun wrote this
week, "America may have given the world the space shuttle and, er,
condensed milk, but behind the veneer of civilization most Americans
barely have the brains to walk on their back legs." Then he got
offensive, writing that the people of New Orleans were "finding
themselves being blown to pieces by a helicopter gunship."
Are casinos really
important for (French) national security?
Don't do it France! I
hope they come to their senses. This would entrench management even
more.
French Anti-Takeover
Plan Under Fire: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance: "A
soon-to-be-published decree, touted by ministers after rumors of a
PepsiCo Inc. bid for French food company Danone SA provoked a political
outcry in July, would give the government a veto over takeovers in 10
industries deemed sensitive to national security.
Sectors on the list,
already confirmed by the Finance Ministry, include several over which
most states retain tight control, such as arms manufacturing and
encryption.
But the decree
also covers companies with activities in biotechnology, data security,
casinos
and antidote production -- fueling concern that it
could lead to a broader kind of protectionism."
Jim Mahar
Bait and Switch: Investigative
Adventures in Unemployment Nobody reads Barbara Ehrenreich without developing
a heightened sense of how American business operates. So readers of her new
book, "Bait and Switch," will notice how closely its publisher
has made it conform to her last one, the best seller "Nickel and Dimed."
Their titles have the same ring. Ms. Ehrenreich uses the same basic
investigative reporting methods. Perhaps inflation or an extra 16 pages
accounts for a $1 rise in price.
Janet Maslin, "Investigative Adventures in Unemployment," The New York
Times, September 15, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/books/15masl.html
How to find out-of-print books, music, and movies Alibris is the world's most comprehensive source of
used, new, and hard-to-find books, music and movies. Visitors to Alibris
shop millions of new, used, out-of-print, foreign language, and collectible
titles from our worldwide network of independent sellers and from our very
own shelves. With great customer service and a satisfaction guarantee,
Alibris helps people find the books, movies and music they want.
Alibris ---
http://www.alibris.com/help/gettingstarted.cfm?S=R
Ancient Eastern Music Meets Modern Technology The robot was a flop. The laser koto was intriguing. And the two
electronic music concerts presented here last week under the rubric Project
RITE (Reinventing Tradition and Environment) revealed the fertile
explorations taking place outside major concert venues -- explorations
informed by everything from computer science to the ancient Japanese court
music called gagaku.
Barbara Jepson, "Ancient Eastern
Music Meets Modern Technology," The Wall Street Journal, September
15, 2005; Page D7 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112673539312040977,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Photographs
Move your mouse around and experience the dynamic panorama (free
Quicktime required)
At panoramas.dk you can see interactive 360
degree panoramas also called VR Photography by some of the best VR
Photographers in the world. They are presented in Fullscreen and you need
Quicktime New panoramas are presented weekly. Scroll down for the last
features. The Archive contains more than 160 panoramas from all the world.
Never seen a fullscreen 360 degree QTVR panorama before? Just click on the
image to see the featured panorama this week. Panorams.dk ---
http://www.panoramas.dk/
Why is a student at Our Lady of the Lakes University (San Antonio)
asking the Justice Department to ferret out a problem at that university? A student at Our Lady of the Lakes University
has asked the U.S. Justice Department to rule that the San Antonio
institution is violating her rights by barring her ferret from classes,
according to KSAT news. The student says that she suffers from a variety of
mental disorders and needs the ferret to get through the day.
Inside Higher Ed, September 22, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/22/qt
Bush Pays Off
Bush's proposed spending on Katrina amounts to $400,000 per family!
Whatever It Takes' Is Bush's big spending a bridge to nowhere? In his Katrina policy the president is telling
Democrats, "You can't possibly outspend me. Go ahead, try. By the time this
is over Dennis Kucinich will be crying uncle, Bernie Sanders will be
screaming about pork." That's what's behind Mr. Bush's huge, comforting and
boondogglish plan to spend $200 billion or $100 billion or
whatever--"whatever it takes"--on Katrina's aftermath. And, I suppose,
tomorrow's hurricane aftermath.
Peggy Noonan, "'Whatever It Takes' Is Bush's big spending a bridge to
nowhere?" The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2005 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110007291
When Katrina slammed into New Orleans, FEMA quickly dispatched 200
trucks full of ice --- to Maine!
Do you suppose they're filling up to head for Fairbanks when Rita slams into
the Texas coast? The trucks started arriving this weekend, and
they're expected to keep coming through Sunday. City officials say they have
no idea why the trucks are here, only that the city has been asked to help
out with traffic problems. But the truck drivers NEWSCENTER spoke to said
they went all the way down to the gulf coast with the ice -- stayed for a
few days -- and then were told by FEMA they needed to drive to Maine to
store it. The truck drivers, who are from all over the country, tell us they
were subcontracted by FEMA . . . The truck drivers, who are from all over
the country, tell us they were subcontracted by FEMA. They started arriving
over the weekend, and city spokesperson Peter Dewitt says as many as 200
trucks could come to the city by the end of the week.
"FEMA Sends Trucks Full Of Ice For Katrina Victims To Maine,: Ksdk.com,
September 21, 2005 ---
http://ksdk.com/news/us_world_article.aspx?storyid=85020
The Inevitable Water versus Wind Homeowner Claims Disputes Homeowners on the Gulf Coast say insurers such as
State Farm, Allstate, and Nationwide aren’t playing fair. If floodwaters are
swept into a home, is the wind to blame?
John Simmons, "A Civil War Over Claims?" Fortune, October 3, 2005 ---
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,1105654,00.html
PLANET-DISSOLVING DUST CLOUD IS HEADED TOWARD EARTH!
Is this a tabloid headline or is it a distinct possibility?
I lean toward the tabloid side and will not yet commence constructing an ark
in my barn in New Hampshire.
"The existence of this so called chaos cloud is only a theory.
Americans shouldn't panic until all the facts are in."
Scared-stiff astronomers have detected a
mysterious mass they've dubbed a "chaos cloud" that dissolves everything
in its path, including comets, asteroids, planets and entire stars --
and it's headed directly toward Earth!
Discovered April 6 by NASA's Chandra X-ray
Observatory, the swirling, 10 million-mile- wide cosmic dust cloud has
been likened to an "acid nebula" and is hurtling toward us at close to
the speed of light -- making its estimated time of arrival 9:15 a.m. EDT
on June 1, 2014.
"The good news is that this finding confirms
several cutting- edge ideas in theoretical physics," announced Dr.
Albert Sherwinski, a Cambridge based astrophysicist with close ties to
NASA.
"The bad news is that the total annihilation of
our solar system is imminent."
Experts believe the chaos cloud is composed of
particles spawned near the event horizon of a black hole (a form of
what's called Hawking Radiation) that have been distorted by mangled
information spewed from the hole.
"A super-massive black hole lies about 28,000
light-years from Earth at the center of our galaxy," explained Dr.
Sherwinski.
"Last year the eminent physicist Stephen
Hawking revised his theory of black holes -- which previously held that
nothing could escape the hole's powerful gravitational field. He
demonstrated that information about objects that have been sucked in can
be emitted in mangled form.
"It now appears that mangled information can
distort matter.
"Just imagine our galaxy the Milky Way as a
beautiful, handwritten letter.
"Now imagine pouring a glass of water on the
paper and watching the words dissolve as the stain spreads. That's what
the chaos cloud does to every star or planet it encounters."
To avoid widespread panic, NASA has declined to
make the alarming discovery public. But Dr. Sherwinski's contacts at the
agency's Chandra X-ray Observatory leaked to him striking images of the
newly discovered chaos cloud obliterating a large asteroid.
"It's like watching a helpless hog being
dissolved in a vat of acid," one NASA scientist told Dr. Sherwinski.
Ordinarily, Hawkings Radiation is harmless.
"It's produced when an electron- positron pair
are at the event horizon of a black hole," Dr. Sherwinski explained.
"The intense curvature of space-time of the hole can cause the positron
to fall in, while the electron escapes."
But when "infected" by mangled information from
the black hole, the particles become a chaos cloud, which in turn
mangles everything it touches.
"If it continues unchecked, the chaos cloud
will eventually reduce our galaxy to the state of absolute chaos that
existed before the birth of the universe," the astrophysicist warned.
Some scientists say mankind's best hope would
be to build a "space ark" and hightail it to the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.1
million light-years away.
"We wouldn't be able to save the entire human
population, but perhaps the best and the brightest," observed British
rocket scientist Dr. David Hall, when asked about the feasibility of
such a project.
But even if such a craft could be built in
time, evacuating Earth might prove fruitless if theories about the
origin of the chaos cloud are correct.
"A black hole at the center of Andromeda is
about 15 times the size of the one in our own galaxy," Dr. Sherwinski
noted. "It might be like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire."
Speaking under the condition of anonymity, a
senior White House official said the president's top science advisors
are taking the findings in stride.
"This is a lot like global warming, where the
jury is still out on whether it's real or not," said the official.
"The existence of this so called chaos cloud is
only a theory. Americans shouldn't panic until all the facts are in."
After reading through the above module, I
decided I really need the module below.
There's hope for all of you if Bob Jensen
heeds the message!
"Time saving tips on wasting time on the web," Christian Science
Monitor, September 14, 2005 ---
http://csmonitor.com/2005/0914/p25s01-stct.htmlThere are only a few pins on this sad map Mailinator is about saving you from spam. But in
the process it ends up getting plenty of its own (averaging over a million
emails a day!). This map
shows (in semi-realtime) ip addresses that are currently sending the most
spam to Mailinator ---
http://www.mailinator.com/mailinator/map.html
When will you meet your Braine L'Alleud?
. . . most people don't know that the battle of Waterloo (famous as
Napoleon's defeat) was NOT fought in Waterloo, or even anywhere NEAR
Waterloo! It was fought outside the town of Braine L'Alleud, towards the
town of Mont St. Jean (where Hugo wrote Les Miserables). But everyone
believes Napoleon lost at "Waterloo", because that's what the London Times
reported!
David Fordham, James Madison University
Princeton University students need to work
harder for the A’s.
The university released results
Monday of the first year under a new grading policy,
designed to tackle the issue of grade inflation. In the
last academic year, A’s (including plus and minus
grades) accounted for 40.9 percent of all grades
awarded. That may not be consistent with a bell curve,
but the figure is down from 46.0 percent the previous
year, and 47.9 percent the year before that.
Princeton’s goal is to have A’s
account for less than 35 percent of the grades awarded.
Nancy Malkiel, dean of the college at Princeton, said
that based on progress during the first year, she
thought the university would have no difficulty
achieving that goal.
The data indicate that some
fields have come quite close to the target while others
lag. The only category that stayed the same the year the
new policy took effect (natural sciences) was already
near the target.
Percentage of Undergraduate
A’s at Princeton, by Disciplinary Category
Discipline
2004-5
2003-4
Humanities
45.5%
56.2%
Social sciences
38.4%
42.5%
Natural sciences
36.4%
36.4%
Engineering
43.2%
48.0%
The university did not impose
quotas, but asked each department to review grading
policies and to discuss ways to bring grades down to the
desired level. Departments in turn discussed
expectations for different types of courses, and devised
approaches to use. For independent study and thesis
grades, the Princeton guidelines expect higher grades
than for regular undergraduate courses, and that was the
case last year.
Malkiel said that she wasn’t
entirely certain about the differences among
disciplines, but that, generally, it was easier for
professors to bring grades down when they evaluate
student work with exams and problem sets than with
essays. She said that by sharing ideas among
departments, however, she is confident that all
disciplines can meet the targets.
Universities should take grade
inflation seriously, she said, as a way to help their
students.
“The issue here is how we do
justice to our students in our capacity as educators,
and we have a responsibility to show them the difference
between their very best work and their good work, and if
we are giving them the same grades for the very best
work and for their good work, they won’t know the
difference and we won’t stretch them as far as they are
capable as stretching,” she said.
Despite the additional pressure
on students who want A’s, she said, professors have not
reported any increase in students complaining about or
appealing the grades.
In discussions about grade
inflation nationally, junior faculty members have
complained that it is hard for them to be rigorous
graders for fear of getting low student evaluations.
Malkiel said that she understood the concern, and that
Princeton’s approach — by focusing attention on the
issue — would help. “What this institution is saying
loud and clear is that all of us together are expected
to be responsible. So if you have a culture where the
senior faculty are behaving that way, it will make it
easier for the junior faculty to behave that way.”
Melisa Gao, a senior at
Princeton and editor in chief of The Daily
Princetonian, said that student reactions to the
tougher grading policy have varied, depending on what
people study. Gao is a chemistry major and she said that
the new policy isn’t seen as a change in her department.
Professors have drawn attention
to the new policy at the beginning of courses, and Gao
said that some students say that they are more stressed
about earning A’s, but that there has not been any
widespread criticism of the shift.
Many companies are recruiting
on campus now, and Gao said that students have wondered
if they would be hurt by their lower grades. Princeton
officials have said that they are telling employers and
graduate schools about the policy change, so students
would not be punished by it.
But, Gao added, “at the end of
the day, you have a number on a transcript.”
Katrina a Textbook in What Not to Do Katrina is what classrooms call a teachable moment.
Everyone is picking through the mistakes from all levels of government for
lessons that will spare more lives and property when disaster visits the
country again.
"Katrina a Textbook in What Not to Do," SmartPros, September 19, 2005 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x49790.xml
The Big Will Just Get Bigger
Will Windows Upgrade Hand Power to Big Media? Microsoft's successor to the Windows XP operating
system, known as Windows Vista, will come with new technologies meant to
provide a secure digital media environment. The idea is to make it easier to
download HDTV-quality video to your desktop or laptop. But, in the process,
critics fear you will lose something: the freedom to use whatever hardware
or software you want. So what you'll hear about Vista depends on whom you
ask. According to Microsoft representatives, the new operating system (which
was known until recently by its Microsoft code name, Longhorn, and is now
scheduled to ship in late-2006) will be a vastly more secure platform for
delivering high-quality entertainment content. But ask analysts at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the well-known Internet civil-rights
organization based in San Francisco, and you'll hear talk of Vista turning
into a highly restrictive sandbox--where only the major movie studios decide
who can play.
Andy Patrizio, "Will Windows Upgrade Hand Power to Big Media?" MIT's
Technology Review, September 19, 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/articles/05/09/wo/wo_091905patrizio.asp?trk=nl
A Katrina Fill Up for Every Pork Barrel:
The frenzy to pay for Katrina reminds me a lot about the frenzy at Enron
just before it imploded with creative accounting rather than sane financial
management: Bush just can't say no with his unused veto pen!
There's an old adage that no one in Washington
can tell the difference between $1 million and $1 billion. Seldom has
that Beltway learning disability been more vividly demonstrated than in
the weeks since Katrina.
When President Bush announced last Thursday
that the feds would take a lead role in the reconstruction of New
Orleans, he in effect established a new $200 billion federal line of
credit. To put that $200 billion in perspective, we could give every one
of the 500,000 families displaced by Katrina a check for $400,000, and
they could each build a beach front home virtually anywhere in America.
This flood of money comes on the heels of a
massive domestic spending build-up in progress well before Katrina
traveled its ruinous path. Federal spending, not counting the war in
Iraq, was growing by 7% this year, which came atop the 30% hike over Mr.
Bush's first term. Republicans were already being ridiculed as the Grand
Old Spending Party by taxpayer groups. Their check-writing binge in
response to the hurricane only confirmed, as conservative leader Paul
Weyrich put it, that "the GOP, once the party of small government, has
lost its bearings and the Republican establishment doesn't seem to get
the message that the grass roots of the party is enraged."
Congressman Todd Aiken of Missouri complains
that Congress was forced to vote on the $62 billion first installment of
funds "even though we knew a lot of the money may go to waste." Mr.
Aiken and several dozen other House conservatives proposed an amendment
to the $62 billion hurricane relief bill that would offset at least some
of the emergency spending by cutting other government programs a meager
2.5 cents out of every dollar that federal agencies spend.
Was the amendment defeated? No. The Republican
leadership would not even allow it to come to a vote, on the grounds
that there was no waste which could be easily identified and cut.
Dozens of other reasonable proposals to offset
Katrina's tidal wave of deficit spending have been similarly repelled.
Mike Pence of Indiana suggested a one-year delay on the multitrillion
dollar new prescription drug benefit for senior citizens. For 220 years,
seniors have managed without this give-away; one more year of waiting
would hardly be an act of cruelty. It would save $40 billion, but there
were no takers. Then there was the well-publicized idea by Republicans
and several Democrats in Congress to cut $25 billion for bike paths,
train-station renovations, nature trails, parking garages, auto museums
and 6,000 other such pork projects in the just-enacted highway law. It
was torpedoed by the powerful committee chairmen who patched this
abominable bill together in the first place.
It's only been 10 days since reconstruction
funds were voted out of Congress, but there are already stories of
misspending. For example, the Louis Vuitton store reported selling two
monographed luxury handbags for $800 each, both paid for by women with
FEMA's $2,000 emergency disaster relief debit cards.
Rapacious trial lawyers are already on the hunt
rounding up Katrina's victims to unleash a barrage of multimillion
dollar lawsuits. Now they have been empowered by Congress to finance
these lawsuits against taxpayers … with taxpayer dollars.
The government has just allocated $250 million
for "counseling and legal services." After 9/11, the federal government
authorized tens of millions of dollars for "counseling" to traumatized
families of the victims. A Republican Study Committee audit discovered
that millions went for "peace" and "diversity" workshops, a "yearlong
celebration of trees, gardens and other healing places," theater
workshops, anger-management classes and multiculturalism programs to
discuss "who we are and why we are here." (Isn't that what churches are
for?)
Politicians from seemingly every congressional
district appear to be elbowing their way to the orgy table for a slice
of this $200-billion pie. At last count, 12 governors declared their
states emergency disaster areas, and thus eligible for federal aid.
Iowa, Michigan and Utah, for example, states nowhere near the Hurricane,
are lining up for disaster relief funds.
Conspicuously missing from the post-Katrina
spending debate is a question for some brave soul in Congress to ask,
What is the appropriate and constitutional role here for the federal
government? Before the New Deal taught us that the federal government is
the solution to every malady, most congresses and presidents would have
concluded that the federal government's role was minimal. One of our
greatest presidents, Democrat Grover Cleveland, vetoed an appropriation
for drought victims because there was no constitutional authority to
spend for such purposes. Today he would be ridiculed by Ted Kennedy as
"incompassionate."
We all want to see New Orleans rebuilt, but it
does not follow that this requires more than $100 billion in federal
aid. Chicago was burned to the ground in 1871; San Francisco was leveled
by an earthquake in 1906; and in 1900 Galveston, Texas, was razed by a
hurricane even more ferocious than Katrina. In each instance, these
proud cities were rebuilt rapidly and to even greater glory -- with
hardly any federal money.
Alas, in the world of compassionate
conservatism, the quaint notion of limited federal power has fallen to
the wayside in favor of an ethic that has Uncle Sam as first, second and
third responder to crisis. FEMA, despite its woeful performance, will
grow in size and stature. So will the welfare state. Welcome to the new
New Dealism of the GOP.
Both political parties are now willing and
eager to spend tax dollars as if they were passing out goody-bags to
grabby four-year-olds at a birthday party. The Democrats are already
forging their 2006 and 2008 message: We will spend just as many
trillions of dollars as Republicans, but we will spend them better than
they do. After witnessing the first few Republican misappropriations for
Hurricane Katrina, the Democrats may very well be right.
FEMA Battered by Waste, Fraud The national disaster response agency that
mishandled the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe has for years been fraught with
waste and fraud. In five years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
poured at least $330 million into communities that were spared the
devastating effects of fires, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes, an
investigation by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has found. Taxpayers' money
meant to help victims recover from catastrophes has instead gone to people
in communities that suffered little or no damage, including . . .
Sally Kestin, "FEMA Battered by Waste, Fraud: After some recent disasters,
money poured into areas that suffered little or no damage," South Florida
Sun-Sentinel, September 18 2005 ---
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/college/la-na-fema18sep18,0,1386746.story
Vive la Difference
Author unknown (at least to me)
Race, class and gender: Gender differences debunked The theory that "men are from Mars
and women from Venus" is a myth, according to new research.
Psychologists in the US have found that the two sexes are
far more similar than we have been led to believe. And they
say the stereotype may be hampering both sexes in their
personal and professional lives. The best-selling 1993
self-help book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
suggests that better communication between the sexes can be
promoted by conceiving of them as coming from different
planets, with different behaviour and value systems. But
researchers from the University of Wisconsin reviewed 46
studies conducted during the last 20 years looking at gender
differences. They say the idea that men and women are so
psychologically distant has been vastly overestimated in the
media, and that they are in fact more similar in
personality, communication, mental skills and leadership
than has been realised.
Jonathan Lessware, "Gender theory brought back to earth,"
Scottsman, September 19, 2005 ---
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1960102005
Race, class, and gender: Class hypocrisy among
professors “Though academics are good at
theorizing class when it happens to other people,” as Hayot
puts it, “in my experience they’re not great at explaining
or even seeing it as it operates in their own world....
Class in the American university is a subject that fades
continually into the background, like a photograph that
wishes incessantly the return to its condition as unmarked,
unfixed film.”
Scott McClemee, "Class Dismissed, Inside Higher Ed,
September 20, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/20/mclemee
That N-word on campus
Bob Jensen's threads about hypocrisy in academia the media are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisy.htm I especially
complained about cartoonist depictions of Condoleezza Rice.
When Kanye West blasted
President Bush’s treatment of poor black people in New
Orleans after Katrina hit, the rapper unintentionally
set off a hurricane of words in Florida.
The Independent
Florida Alligator, the student
newspaper, ran a
cartoon last
week that criticized West’s statements
by showing him holding a large playing
card marked “The Race Card,” and having
Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of
state, exclaim with scorn at West:
“Nigga Please!” Since the cartoon ran,
there have been multiple rallies against
the student newspaper, with the latest
drawing several hundred on Monday; the
president of the university and other
senior officials have condemned the
cartoon and called on the paper to
apologize for it; and there have been
reports that students reading the paper
on campus have had other students come
up and grab the paper away from them,
saying that it is racist.
In a statement
published in the newspaper, Bernie
Machen, Florida’s president, said of the
cartoon, “Such depictions reinforce
hurtful and damaging stereotypes. They
poison the ongoing struggle to overcome
the racial barriers that divide our
country, and give comfort to bigots who
seek affirmation for their racism.” He
added that he and many students and
faculty members were “disgusted by the
image and discouraged that such an
insensitive cartoon could be published
in a newspaper that, while independent
from the university, is written and
edited by UF students.”
The newspaper
is holding its ground and refusing to
apologize. In fact, it is going on the
offensive, calling many of its critics
hypocrites. An
editorial
published Monday noted that the
university has invited West and numerous
other performers to its campus, paying
them tens of thousands of dollars — even
though they use various forms of the
n-word in their work.
In addition,
the editorial noted that some of the
students who are leading attacks on the
paper use forms of the n-word in their
profiles on Facebook, the popular Web
site with which college students meet
others and stay in touch with their
friends. Many black students at Florida,
the editorial said, are members of a
group called “N*ggas That Pledge.”
Mike Gimignani,
editor of the paper, said in an
interview Monday that the university was
using “double standards” to criticize
the paper. Editorial cartoons need to be
short and to the point, and good
cartoons get people talking and
thinking, he said, adding that this one
succeeded. “I would run it again
tomorrow,” he said.
It seems more likely that the New Orleans police officers themselves
were hiding it? It was like a modern-day treasure map: a
computerised diagram of neighbourhoods with codes marking the addresses
where US National Guard soldiers discovered caches of goods taken by looters
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "There's probably still loot out
there," said Capt. Gregg McGowan. "We're not going house to house looking
for it, but if we find it, we secure it so police can check it." In the
chaos that followed Katrina's flooding, looters targeted everything from
grocery stores to gun shops to trendy women's clothing boutiques.
"Katrina's hidden loot," News24.com, September 19, 2005 ---
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1772966,00.html
Divorce Myths Versus Facts (from a sociology professor)
Fact: Nearly half of all marriages end in
divorce.
Fact: There are ten myths of divorce.
Divorce Myth 1: Because people learn from
their bad experiences, second marriages tend to
be more successful than first marriages.
Fact: Although many people who divorce
have successful subsequent marriages, the
divorce rate of remarriages is in fact higher
than that of first marriages.
Divorce Myth 2: Living together before
marriage is a good way to reduce the chances of
eventually divorcing.
Fact: Many studies have found that those
who live together before marriage have a
considerably higher chance of eventually
divorcing. The reasons for this are not well
understood. In part, the type of people who are
willing to cohabit may also be those who are
more willing to divorce. There is some evidence
that the act of cohabitation itself generates
attitudes in people that are more conducive to
divorce, for example the attitude that
relationships are temporary and easily can be
ended.
Divorce Myth 3: Divorce may cause
problems for many of the children who are
affected by it, but by and large these problems
are not long lasting and the children recover
relatively quickly.
Fact: Divorce increases the risk of
interpersonal problems in children. There is
evidence, both from small qualitative studies
and from large-scale, long-term empirical
studies, that many of these problems are long
lasting. In fact, they may even become worse in
adulthood.
Divorce Myth 4: Having a child together
will help a couple to improve their marital
satisfaction and prevent a divorce.
Fact: Many studies have shown that the
most stressful time in a marriage is after the
first child is born. Couples who have a child
together have a slightly decreased risk of
divorce compared to couples without children,
but the decreased risk is far less than it used
to be when parents with marital problems were
more likely to stay together "for the sake of
the children."
Divorce Myth 5: Following divorce, the
woman's standard of living plummets by 73
percent while that of the man's improves by 42
percent.
Fact: This dramatic inequity, one of the
most widely publicized statistics from the
social sciences, was later found to be based on
a faulty calculation. A reanalysis of the data
determined that the woman's loss was 27 percent
while the man's gain was 10 percent.
Irrespective of the magnitude of the
differences, the gender gap is real and seems
not to have narrowed much in recent decades.
Divorce Myth 6: When parents don't get
along, children are better off if their parents
divorce than if they stay together.
Fact: A recent large-scale, long-term
study suggests otherwise. While it found that
parents' marital unhappiness and discord have a
broad negative impact on virtually every
dimension of their children's well-being, so
does the fact of going through a divorce. In
examining the negative impacts on children more
closely, the study discovered that it was only
the children in very high-conflict homes who
benefited from the conflict removal that divorce
may bring. In lower-conflict marriages that end
in divorce — and the study found that perhaps as
many as two thirds of the divorces were of this
type — the situation of the children was made
much worse following a divorce. Based on the
findings of this study, therefore, except in the
minority of high-conflict marriages it is better
for the children if their parents stay together
and work out their problems than if they
divorce.
Divorce Myth 7: Because they are more
cautious in entering marital relationships and
also have a strong determination to avoid the
possibility of divorce, children who grow up in
a home broken by divorce tend to have as much
success in their own marriages as those from
intact homes.
Fact: Marriages of the children of
divorce actually have a much higher rate of
divorce than the marriages of children from
intact families. A major reason for this,
according to a recent study, is that children
learn about marital commitment or permanence by
observing their parents. In the children of
divorce, the sense of commitment to a lifelong
marriage has been undermined.
Divorce Myth 8: Following divorce, the
children involved are better off in stepfamilies
than in single-parent families.
Fact: The evidence suggests that
stepfamilies are no improvement over
single-parent families, even though typically
income levels are higher and there is a father
figure in the home. Stepfamilies tend to have
their own set of problems, including
interpersonal conflicts with new parent figures
and a very high risk of family breakup.
Divorce Myth 9: Being very unhappy at
certain points in a marriage is a good sign that
the marriage will eventually end in divorce.
Fact: All marriages have their ups and
downs. Recent research using a large national
sample found that 86 percent of people who were
unhappily married in the late 1980s, and stayed
with the marriage, indicated when interviewed
five years later that they were happier. Indeed,
three fifths of the formerly unhappily married
couples rated their marriages as either "very
happy" or "quite happy."
Divorce Myth 10: It is usually men who
initiate divorce proceedings.
Fact: Two-thirds of all divorces are
initiated by women. One recent study found that
many of the reasons for this have to do with the
nature of our divorce laws. For example, in most
states women have a good chance of receiving
custody of their children. Because women more
strongly want to keep their children with them,
in states where there is a presumption of shared
custody with the husband the percentage of women
who initiate divorces is much lower. Also, the
higher rate of women initiators is probably due
to the fact that men are more likely to be
"badly behaved." Husbands, for example, are more
likely than wives to have problems with
drinking, drug abuse, and infidelity.
Copyright 2002 by David Popenoe, the National
Marriage Project at Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, N.J.
David Popenoe is professor of sociology at
Rutgers University, where he is also co-director
of the National Marriage Project and former
social and behavioral sciences dean. He
specializes in the study of family and community
life in modern societies and is the author or
editor of nine books. His most recent books are
Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence
That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable
for the Good of Children and Society and
Promises to Keep: Decline and Renewal of
Marriage in America.
Divorce: The problem more likely than not is money rather than sex The annual cost of owning, not the price of the
house itself, is what homebuyers should (and do) consider when contemplating
a purchase. And when comparing the cost of owning with annual rent or annual
income -- which is a good way of determining whether house prices are out of
whack in relation to the rental market or families' ability to pay -- annual
cost is the right measure to use. That cost is simply the net cash outflow
required to own a house for a year -- namely, the after-tax cost of
financing the purchase price either by borrowing or through the lost
risk-adjusted return on the equity tied up in the house, plus carrying costs
such as maintenance and economic depreciation -- less the expected
appreciation on the property. Chris Mayer and Todd Sinai, "Bubble Trouble? Not Likely," The Wall
Street Journal, September 19, 2005; Page A16 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112708454245544394,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Divorce: Go to the boutiques to shop for a lover after your divorce Online social networking is moving from the
dating warehouses found on sites like Yahoo and Match.com to boutiques where
people can find companions with similar interests. Sites aimed at all types
of people from animal lovers and cowboys to boat enthusiasts are popping up
all over the Internet. These emerging niches, according to a story on
today's InternetWeek, are part of an overall market that's becoming big
business—$473 million last year. InternetWeek Newsletter, September 19, 2005
It's going to be a close shave: Gillette's new five-blade wonder Yet there's good reason to believe Fusion can
repeat Mach history. For starters, it offers compelling technology. Like
Mach3, it incorporates multiple innovations -- not just more blades. By
spacing the blades 30% closer than before, Gillette says it has created a
new "shaving surface" that reduces irritation. Fusion also features a
smoother coating on its blades, and an enhanced "Lubrastrip" infused with
vitamin E and aloe. As it goes head to head with Schick, Gillette maintains
that the combination of these improvements produces a shaving experience
that most men find significantly superior. Peter Hoffman, president of
Gillette's Blades & Razors Div., says Fusion was tested on some 9,000 men,
who compared it to both Mach3 products and Quattro. "They preferred Fusion
by a 2-to-1 margin over its rivals," says Hoffman. That's the same kind of
overwhelming preference men showed for Mach3 over its rivals back in 1998.
William C. Symonds, "Gillette's Five-Blade Wonder," Business Week,
September 15, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/NewRazor
Jensen Comment: Can you imagine the shelf space stores must now take up
with refills from the past four decades of different types of blade razors
from multiple companies?
Tiresome articles (she's written at least two) about gender
differences in bitching
that I just don't think exist in my university: We have equal opportunity
bitching here,
and I haven't yet discovered the "Golden Boys" on our campus. Despite our sexually progressive campus,
bitches must be women, and golden boys will be boys. Good soldiers alone
promise equal access to all. Bitches and golden boys needn’t work very hard
to earn their titles. Often, the die is cast before heels or oxfords touch
down on sod. A woman, rumor has it, might have asked for too much start-up
money upon receiving her offer. Golden boy status is often earned far, far
earlier — frequently, birth, does the trick. While many bitches belie the
canine etymology of their label — many of our local brood are quite stunning
— for men, being golden often means, well, being golden. And tall.
"Bitches, Good Soldiers and Golden Boys," Inside Higher Ed, January
19, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/19/haberle
Is she from Mars? I don't think my liberal arts college would
sanction a men's caucus?
"The Quotidian Miasma of Discrimination," by "Phyllis Barone," " Inside
Higher Ed, August 17, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/17/barone
Brown University discovers the real meaning of diversity by hiring a
particular African American Loury, an economist who doesn’t like the way he
is tagged by some as a conservative, freely acknowledges that he stands out
as a black scholar who rejects some views that are widely held among black
scholars. For example, Loury has questioned the value of affirmative action.
So where is Loury now? He has moved to Brown University, an institution
frequently mocked and attacked by conservatives for being politically
correct. Loury says that his move may suggest that he and his new university
both may not be what others assume.
"A Less Leftist Brown," Inside Higher Ed, September 16, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/16/brown
How sad that more can't be done for cities worse off than
New Orleans
Detroit: America's worst junk yard Like Eminem, Paul Clemens is
white. But unlike Eminem, Mr. Clemens grew up inside the
city itself, not in its suburbs. "Made in Detroit: A South
of 8 Mile Memoir" (Doubleday, 244 pages, $23.95) is an
insightful but ultimately despairing tale of coming of age
in one of America's tougher cities. "By the time I was
born," asserts Mr. Clemens, "civilization surrounded the
city and the Wild West lawlessness was contained within." .
. . Not surprisingly, Mr. Clemens tends to see Detroit's
recent history as an indicator of what may lie ahead for
American society as a whole. "Whites, a minority in Detroit
for many decades now, may some decades hence become a
national minority," he writes. "The Motor City, as ever,
remains ahead of the racial curve -- a case study, or
cautionary tale." No doubt Detroit is a cautionary tale,
though of exactly what is harder to say. For one thing, the
city's decline began well before Coleman Young. Nearly two
million people lived in Detroit at its postwar peak; the
population had already declined to 1.5 million by 1970. (The
latest Census estimate is less than 900,000.)
Tom Bray, "Running on Empty," The Wall Street Journal,
September 20, 2005; Page D8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112716634130345377,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Detroit has surpassed Cleveland as the nation's most
impoverished big city, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau's American Community Survey. Survey figures released
Tuesday show 33.6 percent - more than one-third - of
Detroit's residents lived at or below the federal
poverty line in 2004, the largest percentage of any U.S.
city of 250,000 or more people. The top five were
Detroit; El Paso, Texas (28.8 percent); Miami (28.3
percent); Newark, N.J. (28.1 percent); and Atlanta (27.8
percent). Detroit has lost about half its population
since a half-century ago. It is now the country's 11th
largest city with just over 900,000 residents.
Cleveland, which was No. 1 in 2003, dropped to No. 12 as
the percentage of its residents living in poverty fell
from 31.3 percent to 23.2 percent. The poverty threshold
differs by the size and makeup of a household. A family
of four with two children was considered living in
poverty if their income was $19,157 or less. For a
family of two with no children, it was $12,649. It was
$9,060 for a person 65 or over who was living alone.
Nearly half of Detroit's children under age 18 are
impoverished, according to the survey. With 47.8 percent
of its children living in poverty, Detroit trailed only
Atlanta (48.1 percent) among the largest cities.
"Detroit now ranks as nation's poorest big city,"
Free Republic, August 31, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1473961/posts
Jensen Comment:
New Orleans (before the Katrina disaster) in 2004 ranked
low in household income at 62 out of 70 cities ranked.
However, well over half the families in New Orleans
earned enough to pay income taxes on earnings.
Students under stress in Canada Canadian students are smoking fewer
cigarettes than they were six years ago but the effects of
binge drinking and the prevalence of psychological stress
are high and worrisome, according to the
2004 Canadian Campus Survey.
Inside Higher Ed, September 16, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/16/qt
Jensen Comment: Because of the way students preparing to
become Chartered Accountants must combine work experience
with a series of rugged examinations, I sense that many of
those students are particularly stressed, especially in
graduate school. I doubt that any of them have time for
cocktails let alone binge drinking.
Should our students seriously study foreign
languages? Our colleges and universities encourage study
abroad, develop internationalization initiatives, and welcome international
students, but American students and faculty flee from the serious study of
languages other than English. We teach the literature of our international
trading partners in translation because so few of our students can read
anything of substance in someone else’s language. And, as we usually do in
American academic circles, we worry about all this a lot. John Lombardi, "Should Our Students Study Chinese?" Inside
Higher Ed, September 16, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/16/lombardi
The mission of the Institute
for Higher Education Policy is to foster access and success in
postsecondary education through public policy research and other
activities that inform and influence the policymaking process.
This U.N Document is "is still a remarkable expression of world unity" The "outcome document" adopted last Friday at the
end of the United Nations world summit has been described as "disappointing"
or "watered down." This is true in part -- and I said as much in my own
speech to the summit on Wednesday. But taken as a whole, the document is
still a remarkable expression of world unity on a wide range of issues. And
that came as welcome news, after weeks of tense negotiations. As late as
last Tuesday morning, when world leaders were already arriving in New York,
there were still 140 disagreements involving 27 unresolved issues. A final
burst of take-it-or-leave-it diplomacy allowed the document to be finalized,
but so late in the day that reporters and commentators had no time to
analyze the full text before passing judgment. It is no criticism of them to
say that many of their judgments are now being revised, or at least nuanced.
Kofi A. Annan, "A Glass at Least Half-Full," The Wall Street Journal,
September 19, 2005; Page A16 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112708454142944392,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Tyco Fraud Update
First a quote from 2004
PricewaterhouseCoopers also fell prone to faulty risk assessments. In July,
the SEC forced Tyco, the industrial conglomerate, to restate its profits,
which it inflated by $1.15 billion, pretax, from 1998 to 2001. The next
month, the SEC barred the lead partner on the firm's Tyco audits from
auditing publicly registered companies. His alleged offense: fraudulently
representing to investors that his firm had conducted a proper audit. The
SEC in its complaint said that the auditor, Richard Scalzo, who settled
without admitting or denying the allegations, saw warning signs about top
Tyco executives' integrity but never expanded his team's audit procedures.
"Behind Wave of Corporate Fraud: A Change in How Auditors Work: 'Risk
Based' Model Narrowed Focus of Their Procedures, Leaving Room for Trouble,'
" by Jonathan Weil, The Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2004, Page A1
You can read a longer part of the above article at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#PwC
Jensen Comment: Dennis Kozlowski is
eligible for parole in eight years on a 25-year sentence. This is far too
lenient and once again shows how white collar crime is punished much too
lightly ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays
But at least Dennis is not going to do his 8/25 in Club Fed (of course in
Club Fed he would probably not get such an early parole opportunity.
There aren't any $6,000 shower curtains in New
York state prisons, where Tyco felons Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz
will be enjoying all or part of the next 25 years. The former CEO and
CFO were sentenced yesterday for their roles in looting $600 million
from their company and paying off one or more directors to avert their
eyes. They won't become eligible for parole until about seven years.
Thus concludes one of the sorrier chapters in
U.S. business history. And while it took a while -- the first Tyco trial
ended in mistrial -- the outcome strikes us as just. Not because of
their greed -- there's no law against lavish living yet -- but because
of their crimes. Messrs. Kozlowski and Swartz were convicted in June on
22 counts of grand larceny and conspiracy. The verdicts were a victory
for Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who last week
survived a tough primary challenge.
Of all the fin de siècle corporate scandals,
the Tyco heist has always seemed the most audacious, a case of stealing
money in plain sight. If you want to liven up the conversation at a
business lunch, mention former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and Chairman
Ken Lay and whether they were complicit in the fraud for which several
former executives have been convicted. There are still those who believe
former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was unaware of the fraud that was
taking place under his nose, despite his conviction. The Tyco scandal
didn't inspire such ambiguities.
Messrs. Kozlowski and Swartz aren't headed for
Club Fed by the way; under New York correctional policy, criminals with
their sentences usually serve their time in maximum-security prisons. In
addition, they were ordered to pay restitution and fines of $175
million. A case of justice in plain sight.
Just wondering if anyone has seen this
movie/documentary? Interested in feedback and if it is a good teaching
tool?
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (M)
Directed by Alex Gibney, this is the inside
story of one of history’s greatest business scandals, in which top
executives of America’s 7th largest company walked away with over one
billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything. Based on
the best-selling book The Smartest Guys in the Room by Fortune reporters
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind and featuring insider accounts and
incendiary corporate audio and videotapes, Gibney reveals the almost
unimaginable personal excesses of the Enron hierarchy and the utter
moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy. The film comes to a
harrowing end as we hear Enron traders’ own voices as they wring
hundreds of millions of dollars in profits out of the California energy
crisis. As a result, we come to understand how the avarice of Enron’s
traders and their bosses had a shocking and profound domino effect that
may shape the face of our economy for years to come. [M] 109 mins.
<http:// www.enronmovie.com>.
The movie is entertaining and
factual. It has reduced some of the complex issues to make the subject
more accessible to people not familiar with things such as derivatives,
SPEs, etc. I liked it. Particularly, since it includes the video clip of
Jeff skilling's Titanic joke. As a resident of California I took it the
rip-off of California electicity users by Enron (and others) personally.
It has been argued that the movie is too "left". However, i am not sure
how one can ignore the close political ties of Enron and the current
administration.
I have seen the film in its opening in new
york. i have been involved with a "cooking the books" course for a long
time and was wondering about its educational value.... my conclusion was
that the film really did not deal with any accounting issues as the
movie makers did not understand them and in certain parts they were very
sensationalistic and unfair to the parties involved...
however i always recommend my students to see
the film as it raises awareness of many things.
The correct site is
www.netflix.com
(for the Enron DVD) - just type the name of the
movie in the search box and it apparently is available.
I saw the movie this summer. I went into it
with an open mind and left feeling like I learned a few more details
about the situation or whatever spin one wants to put on it. I figured
it would be critical of the people who ran the company and it was. The
movie was not geared toward an audience of accountants. They even said
toward the beginning that this was a story about the people. It could be
called the Lemony Snickets of accounting and a series of unfortunate
events. If you are on the lookout for good stuff to add to your course,
the "biggest" problem with the movie is that it's two hours long and I
don't see how one would easily fit it into an accounting or auditing
course. The second problem is that its not available on DVD yet (or at
least it wasn't in August or I would have just purchased it The book is
available.). DVDs are cheap so it's certainly worth a rental (if you can
find one) or a purchase. I teach an advanced auditing course, which
covers a number of cases including ZZZZ Best, Regina, ESM, and Enron. I
use the "Cooking the Books" video as well because the clips on ZZZZ
Best, Regina, and ESM are short and they are interesting. Even if the
"Smartest Guys" video were available, I think you could only show a few
parts of it and those parts would be mostly examples of ethical matters
or the perils of executive management. It's certainly worth a look, but
think it will take a lot of thinking to figure out how to use.
Prof. John Schatzel
Stonehill College
September
16, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Actually, the most factual account that I’ve seen is the recent book: Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy
of Fools: A True Study, (Broadway Books, 2005).
This book is very long
and in some parts is very dreary with fact after fact. Although Kurt
Eichenwald’s a New York Times liberal who would love to play up
the role Republican leaders played in Enron’s crimes, their direct roles
are virtually non-existent except for Senator Gramm and his wife Wendy.
And even in the case of Phil Gramm, it seems likely that he was
legislating on free market dogma rather than his own get rich crimes. I
think I was overly tough on Wendy, who served on Enron’s Board, in my
early account of the Enron scandals at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm
In any case, Wendy should’ve never been allowed to serve on Enron’s
board given her former government executive position in energy
regulation and her marriage to a powerful senator whose voting directly
impacted on Enron’s future.
Enron’s Board of
Directors is less criminal than many of us thought. They were certainly
not competent, and Fastow, Skilling, and Lay were really, really good at
serving up cooked accounting books for Enron’s Board. Ken Lay comes off
better than expected in terms of not being a vile crook, and even Jeff
Skilling is duped (I think in most instances because he just plain
didn’t want to listen to McMahan and other whistle blowers). The CEO at
the very top, Ken Lay, focused to a fault on external relations with
politicians and customers. He showed almost no interest in looking
inward at his company even when criminality clues were thrown in his
face. Lay and Skilling were like the parents who never ask why somebody
else's blood is smeared all over the clothes of their son.
Everybody was afraid
of Andy (is that Adolph?) Fastow, including his bosses Jeff Skilling and
Ken Lay. Literally everybody in Enron who dealt with Andy considered
him a scheming little prick. They just did not realize he was skimming
off $60 million in hidden "management" fees for managing off-balance
sheet SPE funds for which he'd promised Enron's Board that there would
be no fees to him since he was being paid to be the CFO of Enron. Herr
Fastow channeled most of these ill-gotten fees through Michael Kopper or
Kopper's secret gay lover who nobody knew anything about.
The book details how
Fastow and Kopper were the dastardly co-conspirators who stole from
Enron itself in a series of high crimes, especially in their outright
fraudulent JME-fund SPEs intended to hedge Enron's share prices.
Instead, the cash was skimmed off or squandered with ineptitude and
replaced with Enron shares themselves. It's impossible to hedge a
company's equity share values by holding the shares themselves. That's
what Sherron Watkins meant, in her whistle blowing memo to Ken Lay, when
she asserted "there's no skin in these funds."
Their schemes worked
with unbelievable luck and lies, because both Fastow and Kopper come off
as also being unbelievably and arrogantly stupid and foolhardy
“conspiring fools.” There were inquiries over time from several
executives within Enron, but Fastow always steered them off by
threatening their year-end bonuses if they tried to investigate Fastow's
domain of over 3,000 off-book SPE funds. Even Fastow's worst enemies
buckled at the mere hint of reducing their compensation. Greed ruled
over ethics everywhere in Enron.
Financial institutions
(Merrill Lynch, Citibank, etc) who participated in Fastow’s schemes were
sometimes duped by and heavily pressured by Fastow. In a few instances
it appears they went along with what they knew to be unscrupulous
dealings by Andy Fastow. Like Enron's auditing firm Andersen, these
financial institutions just did not want to lose Enron as a client since
Enron gave them so much business. As CFO of Enron, Fastow had the power
to give them business or take it away.
There were also
outright criminals in the energy trading side of Enron, but Fastow was
not particularly involved in those crimes of market manipulation of
energy prices. Enron was an incredibly complex conglomerate with
business ventures that really did not do much communicating with one
another.
When Enron's finances
were caving in just before declaring bankruptcy, virtually all the top
executives turned covertly criminal by sneaking $200 million (about all
that was left in cash) into an obscure bank and writing themselves
generous bonuses on cashiers checks. I say "virtually all" because it
is not clear the the executives at the very top were involved in the
bonus scam. Before then Skilling had resigned and Fastow was fired by
the Board of Directors. Members of the Board had no knowledge of these
self-declared executive bonuses. And Ken Lay never seemed to know
anything about anything except where the next dinner parties were
scheduled in Washington DC.
I’ve not yet finished
with the book, but it would seem that Fastow and Kopper got off way too
light in retrospect. Fastow should get life in prison without parole.
Kopper should sit in the same cell for 35 years, and some of the energy
traders should be in cells across the hallway. Lay, Skilling, and most
other Enron executives should be stripped of their entire fortunes, but
I don’t think they deserve prison time. Some would argue about where
the buck stops, but I’m more inclined to ask where it starts in the case
of Enron. The worst crimes, and there were many, lead back to Fastow,
his stooge Kopper, and the traders who delighted in stealing from state
treasuries, especially from California. Oregon, and Washington.
If you care to know
what Enron officials (the Cast of Characters) received in stock sales,
you can see a listing at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#StockSales
An obscure and incompetent trading executive named Lou Pai is the
biggest winner (over $270 million) but that was sheer luck because he
got a divorce long before Enron's share prices plunged. He didn't
particularly want to sell at that time, but when he got a strip tease
dancer pregnant Lou's wife demanded a cash settlement in the divorce.
That turned out to be the luckiest timing in her life or his life. I
don't know how much the dancer got in the end.
What's clear is that
Enron had way too many unethical and unbelievably incompetent executives
(“fools”) like Rebecca Mack who kept throwing billions after badly
invested billions and took most of her pleasures in life in corporate
jets and luxury hotels. She was a very high level executive in charge
of all international operations, including huge electricity and water
generating plant constructions and operations. Skilling and Lay never
could teach her the simple fact that the Return on Investment (ROI)
ratio has a denominator. Up to the very end when Skilling fired her
(too long after her billions in damages), she kept screaming “look at
the numbers” where the numbers she presented were only based on the ROI
numerator.
It’s entirely clear at
last that literally every Enron executive considered accounting and
banking games in which the only goal was to manage earnings and
otherwise cook the books. Andersen’s managing partner, David Duncan,
comes out very badly in this book. He ceased being an auditor and
turned into an ardent advocate of Enron book-cooking, especially when it
came to making presentations to good Andersen auditors like Carl Bass.
Bass is a hero (well only sort of because he could’ve been more forceful
at Andersen’s headquarters), and Duncan is what we least want in our
auditors --- ever!
Duncan didn’t want to
give up the Andersen Houston Office’s $1 million per week billings from
Enron no matter how burned up (from cooking) the books became. Duncan
is also portrayed as an accounting light weight who spent far more time
on the golf course than in his office. Duncan should also have a cell
near Fastow, but Duncan will probably get off because after being
arrested he helped nail Fastow, Skilling, and Lay.
It must be sad for
David Duncan to live with the fact that he was the lynch pin that
brought down the huge worldwide Andersen auditing and consulting firm.
But Andersen probably would’ve toppled anyway. Andersen’s top
executives gave up total quality management (TQM) of audits (e.g., in
Waste Management, Worldcom, etc) long before Enron’s implosion. Looking
back at the deterioration in audit quality in Andersen, Andersen
deserved to die as an auditing firm.
If you think a gallon of
gasoline or heating oil is expensive, think of how cheap it is to make a
gallon of soda (a little sweetener mixed with a lot of water) or beer
(mostly fermented water) relative to what it takes to get oil deep from out
of the ground and put it through a very complex and possibly explosive
refining process. And you're still willing to pay more for a gallon of Coke
or Miller Lite or even bottled spring water without protesting? Bob
Jensen Think about it while, for a moment, not letting
your disdain for oil company executives and Middle Easter sheiks overtake
your reasoning.!
What happens when the oil tanks are empty? Prophets have been warning Americans of the
terrible things in store for decades, but Kunstler joins a fresh corps whose
numbers seem to have been increasing as quickly as the price of gas. The
past two years have seen books with titles like Paul Roberts's The End of
Oil, Richard Heinberg's The Party's Over, Tom Mast's Over a
Barrel, and David Goodstein's Out of Gas and a film called The
End of Suburbia by Gregory Greene, to name a few, and to leave out their
long and unsettling subtitles, most of which approximate Roberts's choice,
which is On the Edge of a Perilous New World. These authors may someday join
the ranks of the dated alarmists--Jeremy Rifkin, among countless others,
issued similar warnings in Entropy in 1980--but then again, they may be
right. One may demonstrate that the alarm rings too often and too soon, but
that does not mean that danger will never come. Kunstler's predictions may
seem excessively dire to many, but a significant number of people are paying
attention and getting ready. His book has been hovering in the top 1,000 on
Amazon.com for months, and the topic of peak oil has gained traction beyond
the encouraging environment of the Internet. In the past 18 months, 82
groups with about 2,000 registered members in cities around the world have
been organized through Meetup.com to discuss the issue. At a recent meeting
of the 100-member New York forum, participants were quoting Kunstler
repeatedly--during, for instance, a discussion of where to move after the
crash.
Bryant Urstadt, "The Get-Ready Men," MIT's Technology Review, October
2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/10/issue/review_ready.asp?trk=nl
Solutions Scenario A growing, influential body of writers believes
that the exhaustion of cheap oil will be disastrous. In this issue, we take
a look at The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of
the Twenty-First Century, by James Howard Kunstler. The author, a
novelist and journalist who has written for the Atlantic and Rolling Stone,
writes that we will fall into "an abyss of economic and social disorder on a
scale that no one has seen before." Are he and his fellow doomsayers right?
Hardly. To agree with Kunstler is to believe that alternative sources of
energy cannot replace oil. This means dismissing the combined powers of
natural gas, solar power, wind, coal, hydroelectric, biomass, and nuclear
power. Doomsayers argue that these alternatives are a "mirage," as Kunstler
puts it, because they will never produce as much energy as cheaply as oil.
But that assumes we will not devise ways to use energy more efficiently. It
also ignores the rapid progress in improving energy technologies,
particularly in solar, wind, and nuclear power.
"Solutions Scenario," MIT's Technology Review, October 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/10/issue/readme_solutions.asp?trk=nl
Prior to the legislation, Mississippi was known
as the "jackpot justice capital of America." The American Tort Reform
Association had labeled certain jurisdictions "judicial hellholes." A
survey of more than 1,200 senior in-house counsels for the U.S. Chamber
Commerce ranked Mississippi 50th in virtually every category of judicial
system nationwide. Insurance companies were fleeing the state. Others
were refusing to write new policies. The medical field was particularly
strained: Liability insurance was in many cases unaffordable, and in
some cases unavailable.
One year later, the story is very different.
Mass Mutual Insurance Group, St. Paul Travelers, World Insurance Co. and
Equitable Life Insurance Co. are returning to Mississippi. State Farm
Insurance eased its growth restrictions for homeowners' insurance and
lowered its rates on property insurance.
The Medical Assurance Company of Mississippi,
which writes 60% of the medical malpractice coverage for doctors in the
state, had raised its rates 20% the year prior to the tort reform
legislation. After its passage, MACM did not raise its rates at all.
"Those people who said tort reform would not work and actively fought
any civil justice reform," Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George
Dale said. "I think this indicates they were wrong." MACM also recently
announced an end to its moratorium on new business; it also just
declared it will cut its rates for 2006.
Cleaning out the Vatican's unwanted The Vatican has ordered investigators to look
for gay students and faculty members at Roman Catholic seminaries in the
United States, The New York Times reported. The investigators have also been
asked to look for faculty members who dissent on church teachings.
Inside Higher Ed, September 15, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/15/qt
An Unwanted the Vatican Overlooked The Catholic Diocese of Austin is investigating
after a priest called about 15 children to come forward during evening Mass
so he could prick them with an unsterilized pin to demonstrate the pain
Jesus suffered during crucifixion. "What I was trying to teach them is that
suffering is a part of life," said the Rev. Arthur Michalka, 78, on Friday.
"Priest Pricks Children With Pin," CBS News, September 17
Big time college sports are a mess. While
headlines hype the new football season and speculate on an eventual
champion, accounts surface daily of athletes' stealing, assaulting women
and getting busted on alcohol and drug charges. And when a title game is
played, shadowing the coverage will be news of woeful graduation rates.
Meanwhile, the juggernaut that is college
sports keeps getting bigger, with more television networks airing more
games, not just on weekends but during the week, and colleges expanding
their seasons to meet TV's unquenchable thirst -- up to 40 games each
basketball season and 70 in baseball.
. . .
College sports' current crisis has generated
unprecedented reform efforts by groups inside and outside the
establishment. The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics and the
16-year-old Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletes, for example,
both work in cooperation with the NCAA. The Drake Group has bypassed the
NCAA; its plan for full disclosure of all classes taken by athletes was
read into the Congressional Record in March by Illinois Rep. Jan
Schakowsky in hopes of getting Congress involved.
Their combined efforts have netted tougher NCAA
academic requirements, but reform energy still gets bogged down in
issues like the political correctness of team names. Substantive
improvement has been minimal. The system is broken, and the impact is
far reaching.
"The transgressions that universities commit in
the name of winning sports undermine the values of the institution,"
says Derek Bok, former president of Harvard. "In all too many cases,
they tarnish the reputation of the university by compromising its
admissions standards, its grading practices, and the academic integrity
of its curriculum."
To create winning teams, reformers believe,
universities break rules on training, on the allocation of funds to
athletics, and most frequently on athletes' eligibility. Deception
begins early, when schools recruit sports prodigies who are ill-equipped
-- or uninterested -- in academics. Popular rhetoric maintains that
these students are preparing for pro careers, just as medical students
are training to be doctors. This is naïve thinking. The best 1% to 3%
may become professionals, but far too many of the rest are left with no
degree and a clouded future.
"The biggest problem is recruiting fine
athletes who should not be in college," says Andy Geiger, who retired
this summer as Ohio State's athletic director after 11 years that
included a national football championship and scandals in football and
basketball. "Do we really want a gifted athlete at our school for any
reason other than our own gain? Are we only in it to use these kids and
then spit them out?"
At the core of the college sports problem is an
obsession with winning. Winning is admittedly the goal in all
competitions and is a treasured American characteristic, but
universities are supposed to live by different standards from those that
govern big business, the New York Yankees, or war.
Having gone through this with a son in sports,
I find the whole thing a joke. I applauded the requirement of 12 units
of C to stay eligible. However, I didn't realize they are not at class
most of the semester -- they seem to be at away games most of the time.
Scholarship offers came with tutorial help (tutoring turns out to be all
but non existent (not to mention that you need to be in the area for the
tutor to tutor). Sports and education don't mix. I only observed one
team whose coach I respected for trying to enforce eligilbility (after
the ball game the athletes went to dinner, then had a mandatory study
hall from 8-9 pm at away games). However, I questioned how much the
students absorbed at that hour and after a big game and dinner!!! But,
kudos to the coach for attempting to keep "education" in the college
experience.
Carol
Jensen Comment
I think the problem lies heavily with professional sports team
owners.
College is a free way that they can filter out the best athletes who
are put to the test and dump the majority of others who just don’t quite
cut it. It would be analogous to sending all young people to war and
then making professional soldiers out of the ones that win medals.
I think sports are important to the physical and social development
of young people as well as giving them confidence and pride. But I like
the way Trinity does it in NCAA Division 3 where there are no athletic
scholarships and athletes are not dreaming of professional contracts.
Bob Jensen
September 15, 2005 reply from Paul Williams
Carol, et al,
You have pointed out the real problem in
college athletics for the athlete. Of course it is
hypocritical for the
Wall Street Journal to harumph about college sports. College athletics
is big business increasingly funded and promoted by big business. At NC
State we have completed a third phase of a four phase renovation of the
football stadium -- total projected cost over $100 million dollars. It
sits beside the RBC Center (named after a corporation), where the
Wolfpack plays basketball (and the Carolina Hurricanes play hockey) --
total cost $170 million. When all is said and done, there will be $300
million dollars invested in two college sports. Both facilities are
plastered with ads for corporations and the luxury seating (the biggest
cost of the facilities) is rented by corporations for the purpose of
entertaining clients. Major college sports are entertainment, merely a
medium for advertising and corporate promotion. Wealthy alumni and the
business community are the prime movers behind the enormous investment
in athletic facilities and the prime providers of the money. The
university goes along because it has Title IX obligations it must
finance and the big revenue sports are what fund it. Women's la crosse
does not generate time on ESPN. And before we bash Title IX, the
explosion in women's participation in sports at the collegiate level
indicates that all women lacked was opportunity. Women crave the
opportunity to participate in sport. Women and the men in the minor
sports play for the love of playing. No lucrative pro career awaits a
woman or man playing la crosse, but they work as hard at it as any of
the revenue players.
What to do for the athletes since no university
administrator is going to say let's just scrap our $300 million
investment in facilities -- the alumni would have their head. Let's just
quit being hypocritical about the "student athlete." Much of the problem
is the NCAA and its rules that have a rather Victorian smell to them.
Trivial behavior is criminalized by the NCAA in a vain attempt to foster
a prissy rectitude that has never existed in the history of humankind.
When Tiger Woods was still a college player at
Stanford he played at Bay Hill in Florida. Arnold Palmer wanted to meet
with him, took him to lunch in the grill room, picked up the tab for a
burger and fries and voila put Arnie, Tiger and Stanford in violation of
NCAA rules. The tab was less than $20. There is no longer the amateur
athlete -- look who competes for the US during the Olympics. The problem
for the athlete is being a student AND an athlete at the same time.
Why don't we face the reality of big time
college athletics and take the pressure off of the athlete? During the
season, let the athletes play their sports -- why do they have to be a
students at the same time? Every sport can have a season that
corresponds to one semester or another. Football is played during the
fall semester and the bowl season ends before the start of the second
semester. So football players play football in the fall and are full
time students during spring and summer. Basketball doesn't need to start
in November. It could start after final exams in the fall and, instead
of March madness, we could have April madness. Basketball players would
be students in fall and summer semesters. There is no sport whose season
could not be accommodated to just one school term or another. If a
student wanted to and could take classes during the season, then all
well and good. But they shouldn't be made to take them.
As Bernie Sliger, president of FSU when I was
there, harped on constantly, "The more successful the athletic program,
the more money people give to academics." It may be a brutal truth about
college athletics, but most of the brutality is absorbed by the athletes
because of archaic notions of the "scholar/athlete." And we on the
academic side benefit as well. Those athletes bring a lot of resources
to us academics, too. Perhaps a lot of the "crimes" athletic programs
commit could be alleviated if we let young people be a scholar sometime
and an athlete sometime, but quite expecting them to be both.
Paul Williams
September 15, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Paul,
Well said about the new NCS Stadium. This reminds me of
Rochester/Simon School's new investment in "games" intended to lift its
US News MBA program ranking from 26th into the Top 10 or Top 5. Has the
Wolfpack ever made it into the media's Top 5 in basketball or football?
Perhaps your new $300 million investment will pay off --- if that's the
real anticipated payoff.
Also, I think you just made my point when choosing the word "hypocritical"
when the WSJ reported a position harmful of big business. The WSJ is
really two newspapers wrapped into one, where one of those "papers" is
allowed to roam free and call it like some very good reporters roaming
about.
How can the media and professors achieve greater credibility?
You probably observed that I quote a lot from both The Wall
Street Journal (WSJ) and The New York Times (NYT). Both
have credibility in spite of their opposing biases on the editorial
pages. The WSJ is unapologetic in its biases for financial
institutions and business enterprises. And yet the WSJ is the best
place to look for damning criticism of particular accounting firms,
financial institutions, and corporations. CEOs live in fear of WSJ
reporters. For example, when Enron was riding high, before the
Watkins memo, WSJ reporters did some very clever investigations and
wrote articles that commenced the slide of Enron share prices
(particularly dogged reporters named John Emshwiller and Jonathan
Weil). The NYT sometimes has editorials that make me want to
vomit. But the Business Section of the NYT is one of the best
places to go for balanced coverage of business and finance news.
Certainly not all of my accounting professor friends agree with me about
the WSJ. David's Fordham's book length reply is just too long to paste in
here. Some others like Bobbi Lee agree with him.
Association of College and Research Libraries January 2004, Vol. 65, No.
1
Book Review Bok, Derek. Universities in the Marketplace: The
Commercialization of Higher Education. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ.
Pr., 2003. 233p. alk. paper, $22.95 (ISBN 0691114129). LC 2002-29267.
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crljournal/crl2004/backjan2004/bokbookreview.htm
Athletics is the first area subject to Bok’s
critique. Candidly and mercilessly, he summarizes the ugly history of
intercollegiate football—its failed promise to "build character," its
unsupportable claim to have helped minorities achieve a high-quality
education, and its grievous undermining of academic standards. Students
whose academic achievement and potential would hardly qualify them for
careers in any learned profession are not only routinely admitted to
universities of every quality but are even turned into national
celebrities. Looking at the revenue-generating sports, mainly football
and basketball, Bok informs the reader that as of
2001, some thirty coaches
were earning in excess of a million dollars annually, far more than most
college and university presidents. Bok strongly focuses on the almost
complete disconnect between athletic prowess and academic achievement.
He builds a powerful indictment:
What can intercollegiate sports teach us
about the hazards of commercialization? First of all, the saga of
big-time athletics reveals that American universities, despite their
lofty ideals, are not above sacrificing academic values—even values
as basic as admission standards and the integrity of their
courses—in order to make money.
Indeed, Bok reaches the conclusion, described
by him as "melancholy," that through their athletic programs,
"universities have compromised the most fundamental purpose of academic
institutions."
Turning to his second area, scientific
research, Bok maintains that the record has been no less dismal and the
battles between the worlds of intellect and industry no less ruthless:
Scientists have been prohibited from publishing (or even discussing at
conferences) results unfavorable to their commercial sponsors’ marketing
goals. Companies have punished universities by threatening to withhold
promised financial support should scientists dare to publish data
unfavorable to sponsors’ interests. Researchers have been threatened
with lawsuits, even grievously defamed. Companies have imposed a
militarylike secrecy upon faculty who work with them, severely edited
scholars’ reports, and even had their own staffs write slanted drafts to
which university researchers were expected to attach their names. By
Bok’s account, some elements of the commercial sector merely look upon
faculty and graduate students as company agents—virtual employees, hired
guns—charged to produce a stream of research from which will follow a
stream of revenue for their businesses. Bok’s charges are not vague
hints; he cites prestigious institutions, names researchers whose
careers were jeopardized or damaged by threats and personal attacks, and
provides many poignant details.
In the third area, higher education itself, Bok
outlines the temptations of easy money, ostensibly available via
universities’ willingness, indeed eagerness, to use the income from
distance education (both domestically and abroad) to finance programs
only indirectly linked to higher education. Bok further suggests that
some schools willingly exploit the Internet more for the money than for
any possible social benefit.
"Is everything in a university for sale if the
price is right?" asks the book jacket. Are universities now ready to
accept advertising within physical facilities and curricula? Will they
permit commercial enterprises to put company names on the stadium, team
uniforms, campus shuttle buses, book jackets sold at the campus
bookstore, plastic cups at food service points, or even on home pages?
Will universities sell the names of entire schools as well as of
buildings? Worse yet, will some schools be tempted to accept endowed
professorships to which the sponsors seek to attach unacceptable or
harmful restrictions and conditions? There appears to be no end to the
opportunities.
To respond to these and similar troubling
questions, Bok’s two concluding chapters lay out practical steps the
academic community might consider to avoid sinking into a quagmire of
commercialism in which the academy is sure to lose control of both its
integrity and its autonomy. Throughout his work, Bok reminds his readers
of the obvious, but sometimes camouflaged (or ignored), distinction
between the academy and commerce: The mission of the former is to learn,
that of the latter to earn. Conflict between these missions is
inevitable, and should it disappear, the university as we know it also
may vanish. We may not like what replaces it.
The proof is in the pressure to change grades: Repeating
the same frauds year after year in academe Louisiana State University has
settled a lawsuit by a former instructor who said that she
was pressured to change the grades of football players, the
Associated Pressreported. No
details of the settlement were released and the university
denied wrongdoing. Last year, LSU settled a similar suit for
$150,000. Inside Higher Ed, September 19, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/19/qt
Derek.Bock, Universities in the Marketplace: The
Commercialization of Higher Education. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton Univ. Pr., 2003. 233p. alk. paper, $22.95 (ISBN
0691114129). LC 2002-29267.
In line with Bok's "Commercialization of Higher
Education," a newer (2005) book explores the role of market
forces in changing higher education — and the danger of
market forces having too much influence Three longtime observers of higher
education explore the ways — positive and negative — that
universities are changing in
Remaking the American University
(Rutgers University Press). The
authors are Robert Zemsky, a professor and chair of the
Learning Alliance at the University of Pennsylvania; Gregory
R. Wegner, director of program development at the Great
Lakes Colleges Association; and William F. Massy, a
professor emeritus of higher education at Stanford
University and currently president of the Jackson Hole
Higher Education Group. The three authors recently responded
(jointly) to questions about their new book.
Scott Jaschik"Remaking the American University," Inside
Higher Ed, September 21, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/21/remaking
Q: Of the
trends you examine, which ones are most
worrisome to you?
A: What
worries us most is that universities and
colleges have become so preoccupied with
succeeding in a world of markets that
they too often forget the need to be
places of public purpose as well. We are
serious in arguing that universities and
colleges must be both market smart and
mission centered. Not surprisingly,
then, we are troubled by how often today
institutions allow their pursuit of
market success to undermine core
elements of their missions: becoming
preoccupied with collegiate rankings,
surrendering to an admissions arms race,
chasing imagined fortunes through
impulsive investments e-learning, or
conferring so much importance on
athletics as to alter the character of
the academic community on campus.
By far the most
troublesome consequence of markets
displacing mission, though, is the
reduced commitment of universities and
colleges to the fulfillment of public
purposes. More than ever before, these
institutions are content to advance
graduates merely in their private,
individual capacities as workers and
professionals. In the rush to achieve
market success, what has fallen to the
wayside for too many institutions is the
concept of educating students as
citizens — graduates who understand
their obligations to contribute to the
collective well-being as active
participants in a free and deliberative
society. In the race for private
advantage, market success too often
becomes a proxy for mission attainment.
Q: We’ve just
come through rankings season, with
U.S. News and others unveiling their
lists. Do you have any hope for turning
back the ratings game? Any ideas you
would offer to college presidents who
are fed up with it?
A: On
this one there is no turning back — the
rankings are here to stay. Two, frankly
contradictory ideas are worth thinking
about. First, university and college
presidents should accept as fact that
the rankings measure market position
rather than quality. An institution’s
ranking is essentially a predictor of
the net price the institution can
charge. The contrary idea is to make the
rankings more about quality by having
most institutions participate in the
National Survey of Student Engagement
and agree to have
the results made public. Even then, we
are not sure that prestige and market
position would not trump student
engagement.
Continued in article
Coach Takes the Test
More evidence that many universities are losing (or never
had) quality control on athlete admissions and grading The National Collegiate Athletic
Association punished Texas Christian University’s men’s
track program on Thursday for a set of rules violations that
included some of the most egregious and unusual examples of
academic fraud in recent history. They included an instance
in which a former assistant coach took a final examination
alongside a track athlete — with the consent of the faculty
member in the course — and then swapped his version of the
test with the athlete’s, allowing him to pass.
Doug Lederman, "NCAA Finds Fraud at TCU," Inside Higher
Ed, September 23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/23/tcu
In a speech Monday at Fordham University School
of Law in Manhattan, Dan Rather claimed there was a "new journalism order":
politicians applying pressure to news conglomerates, "dumbed-down,
tarted-up" news coverage, 24-hour cable competition and a "chase for rating
and demographics" — all of which creates an "atmosphere of fear"
Dan Rather ---
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/53734.htm
. . . claimed there was a "elite MBA program
order": deans applying pressure to faculty, "dumbed-down, tarted-up" course
coverage, law school competition and a "chase
for media rankings" — all of which creates an
"atmosphere of fear" Just re-working
the quotation a bit
The Wall Street Journal Flashback, September 16, 1985
Oil Turmoil: Saudi Arabia has decided to increase oil
production and cut oil prices, moves that could trigger a global price war.
Prices could conceivably fall by next spring to $18 a barrel from the
current market average of about $26.
The alternative meeting site for the upcoming
Diversity Section Meeting (moving from New Orleans) is Embassy Suites
Hotel Atlanta-Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta, Georgia on the same
dates, October 6-8, 2005. Program agenda and related information can be
found on the AAA homepage (
http://aaahq.org) or at
http://aaahq.org/meetings/2005DIV_program.htm
We are excited and energized as our inaugural
meeting program now consists of several concurrent sessions that focus
on critically important diversity topics, in addition to other
accounting and tax topics that are of immediate concern to academicians
and practitioners. The Friday evening reception will provide the
opportunity for attendees to receive information about grant supported
diversity research. The panel sessions on Saturday will address
controversial diversity issues. Saturday’s schedule will also feature a
panel of editors from high quality journals who will address their
journals’ interest in diversity research and effective research methods.
The deadline to make your hotel reservations is
TUESDAY, September 27. Additional information is available online.
If you have not previously registered, please
take this opportunity to register at
http://aaahq.org/meetings/2005DIV_online.htm .
The early conference registration fee is available on or before
September 22.
To register for the Diversity Section Meeting
online you will need your AAA username and password. The site is
case-sensitive so please be sure to enter your username and password
exactly as they appear below. Your username and password are:
Username: aaa1783 Password: Jens1783
Please note that faculty/doctoral candidates
interested in interviewing or administrators wishing to submit job
announcements and receive candidate information can contact Dr. Leslie
Weisenfeld (weisenfeldL@wssu.edu).
Psssst!
Did you hear what happened when Stanford University took charge of a
minority high school?
What major changes were implemented and what are the outcomes to date? Led by education Professor Linda
Darling-Hammond, Stanford this summer formally took control of East Palo
Alto High School, which emphasizes project learning, individual attention
and a culture that promotes academic achievement.
"For East Palo Alto, a Stanford-Run High School," Stanford Magazine,
September/October 2005 ---
http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2005/sepoct/farm/news/school.html
Harvard welcomes military recruiters on campus: Fighting would be a
losing battle A sign that hangs over one of Harvard Yard's gates
tells students: "Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind." This
week, it befell Harvard administrators to take a step of their own -- albeit
a small and grudging one -- in that direction. The news is that Harvard Law
School dean Elena Kagan will allow military recruiters on campus. It was a
decision made under duress. As recently as last November, Ms. Kagan had
upheld the school's longstanding ban on military recruiters on account of
the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals, which, she
claimed, violated the school's nondiscrimination and equal-opportunity
principles. But then the Pentagon threatened to block $400 million in
federal grants, or about 15% of the university's budget, and Harvard caved.
Now we know where Harvard stands when given the choice between sticking to
its "principles" and feeding from the government trough.
"To Serve Better Thy Country," The Wall Street Journal, September 22,
2005; Page A16 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112735655824448291,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Jensen Comment: What's interesting is that resistance does not officially
focus on anti-war policy.
U.S. Supreme Court to decide on law affecting military
recruitment on all college campuses A reconfigured U.S. Supreme Court
is set to
decide the constitutionalityof
a law that restricts the flow of federal funds to colleges
that deny military recruiters the same access to students
they give to other employers. Now, a broad array of
institutions, law students and professors, and other groups
have weighed in with legal arguments on behalf both of the
federal government and of the law schools that are
challenging the law.
Doug Lederman, "A Supreme Battle Takes Shape," Inside
Higher Ed, September 22, 2004 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/22/solomon
Opening for a College President For the second time, Glendale Community College
has come close to picking a new president — and has decided to re-open the
search instead, The Arizona Republic reported. The aborted searches come at
a time that many community colleges report increasing difficulty in finding
new presidents.
"Inside Higher Ed," September 22, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/22/qt
Never have so many good wines been available so
(relatively) cheap
The John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation today named 12 professors among its 25
new fellows, who will receive $500,000 in “no strings
attached” support over the next five years. The academic
fellows are: Terry Belanger of the University of Virginia,
Lu Chen of the University of California at Berkeley, Claire
Gmachl of Princeton University, Sue Goldie of Harvard
University, Pehr Harbury of Stanford University, Nicole King
of Berkeley, John Kleinberg of Cornell University, Michael
Manga of Berkeley, Todd Martinez of the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Kevin M. Murphy of the
University of Chicago, Olufunmilayo Olopade of the
University of Chicago, and Emily Thompson of the University
of California at San Diego. Complete biographies of all the
fellows will be available today on the foundation’s
Web site---
http://www.macfound.org/
Inside Higher Ed, September 20, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/20/qt
a molecular biologist
reconstructing the emergence of
multicellular organisms from unicellular
life (Nicole
King)
a sculptor integrating
architecture and the optical effects of
color and light into exquisitely
constructed, contemplative spaces (Teresita
Fernández)
a pharmacist reducing preventable
drug and drug delivery errors in the
healthcare industry (Michael
Cohen)
a laser physicist engineering
state-of-the-art lasers for novel and
important applications in such fields as
environmental monitoring, medicine,
industry, and communications (Claire
Gmachl)
a conservation biologist
protecting endangered, diverse and
previously unknown plants and animals of
Madagascar (Steven
Goodman)
a violinmaker producing new and
world-class instruments for the twenty-first
century (Joseph
Curtin)
a clinician/researcher
translating findings on the molecular
genetics of breast cancer in African and
African-American women into innovative
clinical practices in the United States and
abroad (Olufunmilayo
Olopade)
a rare book preservationist
raising the profile of the book as one of
humankind’s greatest inventions (Terry
Belanger)
a photographer using the
personalizing power of portraiture to bring
the faces of the world’s displaced into
focus (Fazel
Sheikh)
a fisherman fusing the roles of
applied scientist and lobsterman to respond
to increasing threats to the fishery
ecosystem (Ted
Ames)
Perhaps the largest fraud in history More than a billion dollars has been plundered
from Iraq's defence ministry, seriously affecting the newly-installed
government's ability to combat the insurgency, according to a British
newspaper report. It is believed the money was siphoned overseas in cash and
has since disappeared to finance buying arms in Poland and Pakistan. "It is
possibly one of the largest thefts in history," "$1B DEFRAUDED FROM IRAQI ARMY," World News Australia, September
19, 2005 ---
http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=120957®ion=6
Econ-E
score is shorthandforeconomic-efficiency
score. This measure is constructed by investigating votes in the 106th
and 107th Congresses on issues where economic efficiency was
at stake. Simply put, we included votes on legislation that economists
would widely agree should yield national benefits that
exceed costs (efficiency enhancing) or nationwidecosts
thatexceed benefits (efficiency diminishing). Efficiency
enhancing policies increase the size of the national economic pie;
efficiency diminishing policies reduce its size. This
measurement of efficiency does not depend on who gets the slices of the
pie, but rather just its size. Economic efficiency is an important
criterion used by economists, but not the only criterion, when assessing
the desirability of public policies. Our intention in constructing the
Econ-E score is to report the performance of Congressional members
relative tothis important criterion and then toseek an explanation for their voting pattern. Presently, this site
simply reports the Econ-E score for members; we will add our explanation
for their voting pattern later. To include enough votes
for reliability, we only score members seated in both the 106th
and 107th Congresses. We plan to add additional
Congressional data over time.
Now, Every Keystroke Can Betray You In a twist on online fraud, hackers and identity
thieves are infecting computers with increasingly sophisticated programs
that record bank passwords and other key financial data and send them to
crooks over the Internet.
Joseph Menn, "Now, Every Keystroke Can Betray You," Los Angeles Times,
September 18, 2005 ---
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-keyloggers18sep18,0,1672126.story
As the number of American graduates going into top MBA programs
continues to plunge, the number of graduates from India (and China) is
surging upward The burgeoning Indian economy is creating a
serious demand for high-quality managers to oversee the nation's growing
businesses. That makes the MBA a valuable commodity that insures a quick
return on investment. And the growth of India's middle class means more
Indians than ever before are able to afford brand-name American degrees. As
a result, even though foreign applications to American B-schools have
dropped overall since visa restrictions were tightened after September 11,
2001, applications from Indian students are increasing.
"India's MBA Gold Rush: To get an edge in the country's exploding economy,
more Indian students are seeking business degrees -- both abroad and at
home," Business Week, September 13, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/IndiaMBA
Top women graduates who are not bound for professional careers in a
dog-eat-dog world
This is one of the reasons for plunging demand for elite MBA programs
"Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood," by Louise
Story, The New York Times, September 20, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/MBAmothers
At Yale and other top colleges, women are being
groomed to take their place in an ever more diverse professional elite.
It is almost taken for granted that, just as they make up half the
students at these institutions, they will move into leadership roles on
an equal basis with their male classmates.
There is just one problem with this scenario:
many of these women say that is not what they want.
Many women at the nation's most elite colleges
say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in
favor of raising children. Though some of these students are not
planning to have children and some hope to have a family and work full
time, many others, like Ms. Liu, say they will happily play a
traditional female role, with motherhood their main commitment.
Much attention has been focused on career women
who leave the work force to rear children. What seems to be changing is
that while many women in college two or three decades ago expected to
have full-time careers, their daughters, while still in college, say
they have already decided to suspend or end their careers when they have
children.
"At the height of the women's movement and
shortly thereafter, women were much more firm in their expectation that
they could somehow combine full-time work with child rearing," said
Cynthia E. Russett, a professor of American history who has taught at
Yale since 1967. "The women today are, in effect, turning realistic."
Continued in article
Perhaps the women above would rather be "sweeping beauties."
A quotation from "Sweeping Beauty" by Faith Shearin
The aunts won't be dickered down,
they’ll tell you a buck is a buck,
as they wash and rinse freezer bags,
scrape off aluminum foil.
The aunts know exciting ways
with government cheese,
have furnished trailer homes
with S&H green stamp lamps and Goodwill sofas;
brook trout and venison thaw
in their shining sinks.
With their mops and feather dusters
and buckets of paint on sale,
with their hot glue guns and staplers
and friendly plastic jewelry kits,
with their gallons of closeout furniture stripper,
the aunts are hurricanes who'll marbleize
the inside of your closets
before you've had time
to put coffee on.
New from Wharton:
The 'Masculine' and 'Feminine' Sides of Leadership and Culture: Perception
vs. Reality Workers' general notions about the
effectiveness of male and female managers can be as important as their
actual leadership abilities or business results, according to a recent
Wharton Executive Development program entitled, "Women in Leadership:
Legacies, Opportunities & Challenges." As a result, women executives need to
be exceptionally aware of their own leadership styles and strengths -- as
well as changes underway in their organizations -- in order to make an
impact. Participants also discussed the role a strong corporate culture has
played in the success of such companies as cosmetics giant Mary Kay Inc. "The 'Masculine' and 'Feminine' Sides of Leadership and Culture:
Perception vs. Reality " Knowledge@Wharton, September 22, 2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1287
New from Wharton:
The Upgraded Digital Divide: Are We Developing New Technologies Faster than
Consumers Can Use Them? TiVos and Treos and BlackBerrys. Wi-Fi and HDTV
and plasma screens. Picture phones, digital cameras, iPods and now iPod cell
phones. Complexity among consumer technology products has never been greater
-- a good thing if the complexity means product improvement. But Wharton
experts say new bells and whistles pose challenges to businesses and
consumers alike. Complexity -- along with choice -- can have a big impact on
how firms make and market new and improved gizmos, and on the decision
processes of the people expected to buy them. Are we at a point, one
commentator asks, where the next innovation will actually be the idea that
ease of use is the most compelling feature of tech products?
"The Upgraded Digital Divide: Are We Developing New Technologies Faster than
Consumers Can Use Them?" Knowledge@Wharton, September 22, 2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1292
Anti-terrorism Help: Thank You Canada Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Winnipeg is in on
her way back to Canada from her six-month deployment to the Persian
(Arabian) Gulf region as part of Operation ALTAIR, Canada’s continuing
campaign against terrorism. The Canadian Patrol Frigate has been away since
April 10, working with a coalition of naval forces including the United
States, Great Britain, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Pakistan and
Japan. “The professionalism and hard work of the crew has never failed to
impress me,” said Cmdr. Kevin Greenwood, Commanding Officer of HMCS Winnipeg
. “I wish people could see how well this group works together; the sense of
pride and teamwork that we benefit from. They make my job easy, every day.”
"HMCS Winnipeg Begins Journey Home," National Defense Canada, September 21,
2005 ---
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/newsroom/view_news_e.asp?id=1762
Canada demands justice over photographer murdered in Iran Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew said he
had told his Iranian counterpart that Ottawa expected justice to be rendered
in the murder of Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi. Pettigrew had a
rare meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki here Tuesday
on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "I have indicated to him that
Canada was determined in going to the bottom of Madame Kazemi's case," he
told reporters.
"Canada demands justice over photographer murdered in Iran," Yahoo News,
September 21, 2005 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050921/wl_mideast_afp/irancanadaunjustice_050921192151
This is one rip off that replaces some of the North Korean nukes North Korea's government is producing
high-quality counterfeit $100 bills and is working with criminal groups in
China to sell the fake U.S. money internationally, U.S. officials say. Some
details of the production of what federal officials call "supernotes" were
disclosed after arrests last month in several U.S. cities of people linked
to a major Asian crime ring trafficking in fake money, arms, drugs and
cigarettes. A senior Bush administration official said one of the 10
indictments in the case contains the first disclosure of the North Korean
government's role in the counterfeiting. The indictment identifies Chao Tung
Wu, a Taiwanese national in custody on charges of dealing in counterfeit
bills. He told an FBI undercover agent that "the government of a foreign
country," identified only as "Country 2," is "making counterfeit U.S.
currency which Wu could sell to the" agent.
Bill Gertz, "Arrest ties Pyongyang to counterfeit $100 bills," The
Washington Times, September 20, 2005 ---
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050920-121229-5045r.htm
Deloitte & Touche LLP has paid a huge sum to
settle litigation with a group of Japanese insurers over the collapse of
an obscure North Carolina reinsurance agent, underscoring the legal
risks faced by auditing firms from their work for even the smallest of
clients.
The precise amount of the settlement is
confidential, but it appears to be in the range of $250 million, based
on a disclosure by one of the Japanese firms. Aioi Insurance Co., which
had the biggest potential claim, said Friday it would post an
extraordinary gain from the settlement of 10.6 billion yen, or $95
million. Because the gain was an after-tax figure, the actual cash
payment to Aioi was likely even larger.
The settlement -- which arose from a dispute
over "finite" reinsurance, a controversial financial product that
regulators have been probing more broadly -- appears to be one of the
largest ever paid by an accounting firm over its audit work. The biggest
such settlement was a $335 million payment in 2000 by Ernst & Young LLP
in a shareholder suit related to the Cendant Corp. scandal.
The Japanese firms and a related Bermuda entity
had sued Deloitte in state court in Geensboro, N.C., in connection with
its audit work for Fortress Re, a reinsurance agent that sold policies
on behalf of a pool of Japanese companies. The plaintiffs claimed that
Deloitte improperly let Fortress hide liabilities that should have been
on the books. Reinsurance is purchased by insurance companies to spread
risks in case they are hit by large claims.
Fortress, which specialized in reinsurance for
aviation risk, collapsed after the 2001 terrorist attacks, leaving the
Japanese firms with losses they estimated at $3.5 billion. The case had
been scheduled to go to trial earlier this month.
Deborah Harrington, a Deloitte spokeswoman,
declined to comment on the size of the settlement, saying only that "the
litigation was settled amicably."
FINANCIAL REPORTING: MORE SCIENCE, LESS ART Governments and investors alike now demand more
financial transparency from public companies. And, given the impressive
evolution of technology and business practices, there is no excuse for
reporting that is anything but spot-on. Intangible factors that are not
taken into account when following U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting
Principles (G.A.A.P.) -- such as brand value, intellectual capital, growth
expectations and forecasts, and corporate citizenship -- are now being
recognized as important drivers of shareholder value. A new white paper from
Accenture explores "Enhanced Business Reporting" as a means for businesses
to gain and communicate a clearer picture of company goals and performance.
Frank D'Andrea, "FINANCIAL REPORTING: MORE SCIENCE, LESS ART," Double
Entries, September 21, 2005 ---
http://accountingeducation.com/news/news6481.html
For nearly half of 600
bloggers surveyed, blogging is a form of therapy,
America Online said Friday, referring to research
conducted by Digital Marketing Services. Around a
third of the respondents said they write frequently
about subjects such as self-esteem and self-help,
while around 16 percent said they blog because of an
interest in journalism. Another 12 percent said they
do it remain on top of
newsand gossip. About
8 percent said they are interested in exposing
political information.
"Blogging the Blues Away," ZDNet,
September 16, 2005 ---
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5868949.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed
Don't believe the EPA fuel economy reports on cars: Even the new
hybrid cars don't economize so well
"The EPA tests don't correspond to the way most
of us drive," Kleman said. "Their tests represent driving on a 75-degree
day on a road with no curves or no hills, which is ideal for maximizing
fuel economy."
The EPA tests haven't changed in 30 years, so
they don't take into account today's driving conditions. There's a lot
more congestion, idling in traffic, and widespread use of air
conditioning.
Consumer Reports runs its own fuel economy
tests. The engineers say these tests—done outdoors—give a much more
accurate assessment of the actual mileage you'll get from a car.
Consumer Reports' tests often turn up results
that are substantially different from the EPA's—especially for
stop-and-go city driving.
For instance the EPA says you'll get 22 miles
per gallon with a Jeep Liberty diesel, but Consumer Reports found you'll
get just half that—11 miles per gallon.
With a Chrysler 300 C, the EPA says you'll get
17 miles per gallon, but Consumer Reports' tests get only 10.
As for a Honda Odyssey minivan, the EPA gets 20
miles per gallon; Consumer Reports gets just 12.
The differences Consumer Reports turned up with
hybrids in city driving are even greater. The EPA says the Honda Civic
hybrid gets 48 miles per gallon; Consumer Reports measured just 26.
Kimmunications: Investment Return Doesn't Mean
Diddly
Even when the stock market goes up, investors
may lose out if they try to time the market. The extent to which market
timing occurs is debateable but no doubt substantial. That is the gist
of a recent blog entry over at Kimmunications.
Kimmunications cites a Dalbar study that finds
individual investors lose a great deal as a result of this attempt to
time the market.
"over the 19 year period 1984 to 2002, the
S&P 500 was up an average of 12.9%. U.S. stock mutual funds had a
return over the same period of only 9.6%. That is the investment
return of U.S. equity mutual funds. But the stock mutual fund
investor had a return of only 2.7%!"
Without seeing more of the study, I have always
had by questions on how investors could do that poorly (I would have to
guess that many investors got in right at the top), but unfortunately
the paper is not available online (I did email them for a copy).
That said, the idea is sound and I absolutely
love the figure that shows that actual stock picking makes up only a
small portion of overall returns---it will be an excellent teaching
tool!
What do parents do with these adult children after
they're too old for K-12 schools? Faced with the difficulty of
getting scarce help for their mentally or physically frail
children, some parents are resorting to measures they once
considered unthinkable. A Chicago mother dropped off her
adult daughter, who has the mental functioning of a
7-year-old, at a shelter, after being told only the homeless
or orphans could get into a supervised group home. A couple
in Georgia, raising four other children, went to court and
let their autistic son become a ward of the state in a bid
to get him into therapeutic foster care. Nationwide, an
estimated 80,000 developmentally disabled people are waiting
for in-home help or an opening in a group home. Some have
been on waiting lists for more than a decade. In Texas,
there are 46,000 people waiting for such help -- or about
four times the number of people actually receiving
assistance.
Clare Ansberry, "Needing Assistance, Parents of Disabled
Resort to Extremes: Demand for Aid Increases As Children
Get Older," The Wall Street Journal, September 20,
2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112718367988545842,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
How well do these sex offenders registries really
work?
From InformationWeek Between The Lines newsletter
on September 20
I
learned all of this depressing but
valuable information in two minutes
using a new Web site developed under
the leadership of the U.S.
Department of Justice in close
concert with 28 states across the
country. The site is called
www.nsopr.gov—NSOPR
stands for "National Sex Offender
Public Registry"—and it provides
real-time access to public
sex-offender data to help parents
safeguard their children. And if
value to the public can be measured
in Web-site traffic, this one has
been a monster success: The site
received 27 million hits in its
first 48 hours of operation, and
since then has added bandwidth,
load-balancing servers, and access
to more than 1,000 related sites.
Is Gwyneth Paltrow a Genius? If X is the amount of actual
mathematics in a given movie, then X was pretty close to
zero in
Proof,
the Hollywood version of the Pulitzer Prize winning play
about mathematical genius, according to three math graduate
students who attended its premier Friday in New York City.
David Epstein, "Is Gwyneth Paltrow a Genius?" Inside
Higher Ed, September 19, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/19/proof
From The Washington Post on September 19, 2005
Yahoo, the number one e-mail service, is
shifting to a more dynamic design that mimics the look and feel of a
computer desktop application like Microsoft's Outlook. Who's number two?
In time for the new school year, the Government
Accountability Office has released a sobering report on the soaring
price of textbooks. Over the past two decades, the report tells us,
"college textbook prices have risen at double the rate of inflation."
We're used to paying $25 for a hardcover novel,
but my casebook on contracts now sells to students for $103, and the
best-selling general chemistry textbook (co-authored by my
father-in-law) costs $148. At state universities, textbooks and supplies
account for 26 percent of all student fees, including tuition. At junior
colleges, they are a whopping 72 percent.
The G.A.O. report falls short, however, by
attributing this run-up in prices to the development of "CD-ROM's and
other instructional supplements." The real problem is the lack of price
competition. A series of mergers has ensured that although there are
hundreds of textbooks to choose from, the five largest publishers
control 80 percent of the market.
It's easy for prices to drift upward when the
person choosing the product doesn't really care how much it costs.
Instead of competing on price, publishers compete for professors'
attention with an excess of computerized bells and whistles.
Indeed, the pricing problems with textbooks are
eerily analogous to those affecting prescription drugs. In both cases
you have doctors (Ph.D.'s or M.D.'s) prescribing products. In neither
case does the doctor pay for the product prescribed - in many cases, he
or she doesn't even know what it costs. And the clincher is that in both
cases, the manufacturers sell the same product at substantially reduced
prices abroad.
The analogy to prescription drugs suggests a
possible solution. Perhaps universities can take a lesson from managed
health care. Health maintenance organizations are often criticized for
being too stingy, but let's not forget that they've played an important
role in containing health care costs.
So just imagine what would happen if
universities started to provide textbooks to their students as part of
the tuition package. Of course tuition would have to rise, but for the
first time universities would start caring about whether their
professors were too extravagant in the selection of class materials.
This "textbook maintenance organization"
wouldn't require a huge centralized bureaucracy. Universities would
probably give professors a textbook budget per student. Those who
exceeded the budget would have to seek their deans' approval. Some
enlightened colleges might even give a share of the savings to
professors who don't use up all of their budgets.
Even publishers might not do so badly under
this new system. Under the current arrangement, many students protest
exorbitant prices by simply refusing to buy textbooks. They make do with
slightly older editions, read library copies or share with other
students.
Not only do publishers lose these sales, but
teachers are irritated because students cannot read along in class or
look up information that is relevant to the discussion. Under textbook
maintenance organizations, we'd return to the old days where everyone
was on the same page.
Still think a system where schools provide free
textbooks would never work? Well, we already have one at the elementary
and secondary levels. Unlike Hogwarts, which requires Harry Potter to
buy books each year, most American public schools own their assigned
books and buy new editions only when it's absolutely necessary.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment on September 16, 2005
In fairness, there may be something to the claims by textbook publishers
that profits are cut hard by costs of sales representatives and losses of
new book sales in used book markets that return nothing to the original
publishers. Whether or not we want the sales representatives stopping by
our offices every semester, these sales representatives are paid only from
the new book sales. This does not, however, justify the occasional practice
of publishers to come out with "new" editions that are not very new in
content and are solely aimed at destroying the used book market for an
"older" edition. A new addition should have substantial new material and
substantive rewrites.
Here's a university that "rents" textbooks to students!
September 16, 2005 reply from Chuck Pier
We already have a system similar to this at
Appalachian State. We are one of the few (I have heard, but not verified
the number to be around 7 in the U.S.) 4 year universities that have a
textbook rental system.
How does it work?
The answer depends on who you ask. If you ask
the students, alumni and parents they love it. Why? Because they pay one
fee (currently $76 per semester) and they get a rental textbook which
they return at the end of the semester in almost all of their classes.
They must purchase textbooks if their class requires more than one text
(they get the "lead" textbook free all others must be purchased); if
they are in graduate school; or in other particular circumstances (e.g.
lab books, or tax textbooks which are updated every year).
If you ask the professors (which we have via
surveys) about 80% do not like the system. Why? The professor must
choose a book and live with that choice for three years. We chose an
Intermediate textbook recently that we found we did not like, but we
must continue to use it for three years, despite our dislike of the
text. If there are multiple sections for a course, everyone must agree
and use the same text. There is also the mention that students place a
value on an item based on what they pay, therefore a rental text does
not have much value to the student. The lack of students buying
textbooks has also limited the free market from working around the
campus. We do not have private bookstores because they cannot compete
with the rental system. This causes the cost of books that are not in
the rental system to be high because there is no competition over these
books other than the internet; the University Bookstore is the only game
in town.
My feelings are quite divided. For the most
part I am not bothered by the textbook rental system, other than being
locked into a textbook I do not like, or a selection by my colleagues
that I disagree with. We as a department already choose a textbook for
each course anyway (1 intermediate text, 1 principles text, etc.). I
also teach a lot of tax courses so I am not tied to the textbook rental
system. Perhaps the biggest selling point for the textbook rental system
from my view is this; all the students pay the rental fee as part of
their tuition and are entitled to a textbook. I know that every student
in my class will have the textbook. At other schools where I have taught
without the rental system up to 1/3 of my class may not actually buy the
book.
We are currently studying the system and I feel
that there will be changes made, but for the most part I feel that it
will stay as part of the tradition at Appalachian.
Charles A. Pier, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor Department of Accounting
Walker College of Business
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
email: pierca@appstate.edu
Jensen Comment on September 17, 2005
Textbooks three and four decades ago were even
more pricey after inflation adjustments. This was true even in those
glorious years of many competing publishers.
Textbooks were pricey in those competitive years
(before the days of computer supplements) largely due to the expensive
way in which they were marketed. Unlike pulp fiction novels that are
marketed to street bookstores through wholesale distribution networks,
textbooks were marketed by all those many book representatives/salesmen
(I mean men in those days) who gave us a lot of time and free samples.
This was a very expensive way to market textbooks, and it also badly
disrupted many of our days on campus.
Now the monopolist publisher (is there more than
one?) still has book representatives and salespersons, but the cost is
much lower because there are so few textbook salespersons in the nation,
along with fewer choices of books. Instead on three reps per week, I
now maybe see three per semester standing in my doorway.
Some years back almost every large accounting
program (Texas, Michigan State, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, etc.) each
had at least one author with a name on a Principles of Accounting
textbook. There was almost enough of a market in two large universities
to justify the fixed cost of publishing the home author's book.
Publishers deliberately tried to get at least
two authors from two large universities on a book. A book hit gold if
each partner author was from a large university such as the Eureka
Success of signing a Texas and an Illinois professor to "author" an
accounting textbook.
In some cases, my suspicious mind wonders if
some of those "authors" mostly lent their names and affiliations rather
than their sweat. In fairness, I think the books that stuck around
edition after edition after edition were really authored legitimately by
hardworking professors. Even in those cases, however, the test banks
and other supplements were cheaply outsourced, which generally meant
that the test banks were much lower in quality than the textbook's
illustrations and problems.
My point is that textbooks cost more because of
the way they were/are marketed.
I might add that I am slow to blame the campus
bookstore for the price of textbooks. Typically the bookstore's margin
is relatively small given the cost of shelving and handling so many
books. What saves the butts of campus bookstores is the publishing
company's tradition of buying back unsold new books. But even that
entails a lot of un-boxing, shelving, storage, and re-boxing.
If campus bookstores had to survive only on
textbooks they would go out of business. On our campus the bookstore is
selling textbooks almost at a net loss. What keeps it going is the
extremely high (and I do mean high) markups on other items like
logo-clothing, supplies, and electronic goods.
And I don't buy into the publishers' arguments
today that the high accounting textbook prices are due to the computer
supplements. Virtually all the accounting textbook supplements today
(the CDs, the online test banks, the videos, etc.) are really cheap
shots. The accounting textbook market just isn't big enough to warrant
what publishers spend dearly for in large markets of economics,
mathematics, biology, and other disciplines having courses in a
college's core curriculum taken by every student on every campus (not
just business majors).
What is hurting the publishers badly is the used
book market. So what? The used car market is also eating the lunch of
GM, Ford, and Chrysler new car plants in spite of built-in obsolescence
ploys used by publishers and car manufacturers. McDonalds has it made
because there is no second hand market for a Big Mac with fries.
On the spot: What Schröder's devious strategy in Germany Gerhard Schröder was publicly jubilant despite his
party's defeat at the polls in the German election last night. Roger Boyes,
correspondent for The Times in Berlin, explains the wily political
operator's plot to turn defeat into victory. "By claiming victory today,
Gerhard Schröder is bluffing - he's basically trying to disorientate Frau
Merkel. His ambition is to reach a position where there is a grand coalition
with himself as Chancellor despite his party's second place, and he is
playing a typically complex tactical game to get there.
"On the spot: What Schröder is up to," Times Online, September 19,
2005 ---
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1787883,00.html
September 19, 2005 message from MacEwan Wright, Victoria
University [Mac.Wright@VU.EDU.AU]
I am seeking some guidance as to what sort of
fees are charged for subjects that are purely web based delivery, and
how these compare to standard face to face delivery fees.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I have been warned that web based delivery with
chat pages etc can be extermely time consuming. Has anyone definite
experience in this regard?
With respect to experience ranging from almost no student-faculty
interaction (e.g., Stanford's Master of Engineering degree under ADEPT)
to high student-faculty interaction (Dunbar's Instant Messaging), you
can see some discussion of this at the following two sites:
September 18, 2005 message from somebody (I don't think I
like him) named James Francis at a dupont.com email address
Do you want a University Degree without
studying? An Income that starts off high? The 0pportunity to just get in
the door?
We can help. We have a LEGAL Offshore
University that issues valid Degree's in any subject for a small fee.
Our Degree's work worldwide. Here's an example.
"I had no exper1ence at all in Marketing. I
applied as a marketing consultant for a company. My University Degree &
reference letters(issued with degree) got me the job in 1 week! My
income is now $90,000 a year vs. $25,000. They still have no idea about
not going to University, but love me at work for my creativity. You guys
rock!."
- Jared T. xxxxxx Miami, Florida
Call Today: 1-206-984-(you
don't want to know)
Registrar Office Kathy Helm
Actually I got identical messages from names other than
James Francis. This could possibly be a phishing fraud that does not even
give out fake diplomas.
Liar's Poker
Wall Street Journal Flashback, September 19, 1991 Salomon investment bankers complain that Goldman
Sachs and Morgan Stanley were the two firms that most aggressively sent
their clients free copies of "Liar's Poker," which depicts Salomon
traders as adolescents and gamblers. Goldman denies sending out the books.
I did, however, gain useful insight
into the nature of literary criticism: you need not make sense, add anything
new to the body of human knowledge or spend much time researching a given
topic to publish a monograph with a respectable publishing house..
Mike Grayson as quoted by Mark Shapiro at
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-09-20-05.htm
A few years ago, while researching
Catch-22 for my Master's thesis on Joseph Heller, I came across a book
promising "a new approach" to that seminal piece of postmodern American
fiction. The author of the critical study in question admits on the
first page of his book that he had, in fact, "been entirely unfamiliar
with the previous criticism" on Joseph Heller as he wrote the book,
allowing him to "come to a different assessment of what Heller was
doing…far from the interpretation of the herd, so to speak." Needless to
say, I was rather excited to have located a book that could potentially
enlighten me as I sought to complete my thesis (and degree) in time to
start work on my doctorate.
. . .
With the remarkable emphasis
placed on publishing, we seem often to forget the students we teach. The
sad fact that an impressive publishing record is more important to
hiring committees at many large research institutions than the ability
to teach undergraduates only exacerbates the problem. If the goal of
most junior and adjunct faculty is to land a tenured position, teaching
frequently figures somewhere below finding a parking space on many
academics' list of priorities. After all, why would teaching help you
get a teaching job?
2 Jan 2002 Featured Article The Further Education (Part Two)
An examination of the importance of studying history from all angles, in the continuing education of the world
27 Nov 2001 The New and Free Media
An examination and call for a free media/news, a probing look into the flow of information, and it's necessity.
20 Nov 2001 Indicting The Canon
An attack on the literary canon, best sellers and all the other crap that is ruining Literature
13 Nov 2001 THE GREAT RIP OFF: My Tribute to Ken Kesey
A good-bye to Ken Kesey, and a look at how his philosophy of life/art, and his works influenced myself and many of the friends and authors I know
If you like these articles, there are more articles available.
Memepool Tidbits (I've never used this before, but
it's a bit like Jensen's Tidbits. but these are a bit more weird in my
viewpoint) --- http://memepool.com/ You might want to click on the link to "Recent Articles." It also has a
search link. Type in a search term and hit the Enter key.
College is sometimes a time for transgendering T.J., who is studying student
affairs administration, is one of four transgender students
featured in
TransGeneration,an eight-part
Sundance Channel series premiering tonight. The series
follows the students through the 2004-5 year at college as
they take on not only the rigors of academics, but also
various stages of transitioning from their birth sex.
David Epstein "College Is a Time of Changes." Inside Higher
Ed, September 20, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/20/transformation
Average starting salary offers to new college
grads continue to increase, according to the Fall 2005 issue of Salary
Survey, a quarterly report published by the National Association of
Colleges and Employers (NACE). The Fall issue is NACE’s final salary
report for the college Class of 2005.
“Overall, starting salary offers rose
consistently over this past academic year with the majority of
disciplines reporting higher increases this year than they did last
year,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.
Business graduates reported healthy growth in
salary offers. Management information systems graduates, for example,
posted a 5 percent increase to their average starting salary offer,
raising it to $43,653. And, average offers to marketing grads rose by
4.9 percent, boosting their average offer to $36,409.
Accounting grads saw a 4.6 percent increase,
raising their average starting salary offer to $42,940. Business
administration/management graduates witnessed offers that rose 3.2
percent, bringing their average offer to $39,480.
For the most part, those graduating with
degrees in the computer sciences saw smaller increases than those in the
business disciplines—but their actual salary offers were higher than
those to most business grads. Salary offers among computer science
graduates, for example, rose just 3.3 percent over last year, but that
increase spiked their average salary offer to $50,664. Information
sciences and systems grads also fared well this year, posting a 3.6
increase that raised their average offer to $43,902.
Among engineering graduates, most reported
increases to their average starting salary offers. Chemical engineering
grads saw one of the smaller increases, only 2.1 percent, inching their
average offer to $53,639, still the second highest of all the
engineering majors. Civil engineering graduates posted a stronger
increase of 4.1 percent, raising their average offer to $43,774.
Computer engineering graduates saw a 1.8
percent increase to their average salary offer, raising it to $52,242,
and electrical engineering grads received a 1.3 percent increase,
bumping their average offer to $51,773. The average salary offer to
mechanical engineering graduates rose by 3.3 percent, pushing the
average offer to $50,175.
For the most part, liberal arts grads as a
group fared well, with some individual disciplines posting significant
changes. Liberal arts and sciences majors saw a notable increase of 10.1
percent to their average starting salary offer, boosting it to $32,725.
Psychology majors saw a healthy increase of 6.5 percent, raising their
average starting salary offer to $30,073, and offers to sociology grads
were 7.5 percent higher than last year, boosting their average offer to
$31,368.
NACE will publish its first set of salary
statistics for the college Class of 2006 in February, when it releases
the Winter 2006 Salary Survey report.
About Salary Survey: Salary Survey is a
quarterly report of starting salary offers to new college graduates in
70 disciplines at the bachelor's degree level. The survey compiles data
from college and university career services offices nationwide. Salary
Survey is issued in Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall, with the Fall
issue serving as the year-end report. (Salaries reported in this press
release reflect offers to bachelor’s degree candidates.)
Yahoo: Mistrust Is Popping Up Yahoo has been taking a beating in the blogosphere
lately. On Sept. 6 came the revelation that it provided information that
helped Beijing jail a journalist. Days earlier, a report said Yahoo was
actively supporting the companies that spawn pop-up ads. Around the same
time, bloggers started griping about new Yahoo software downloads that
change the preferences on users' PCs.
Ben Elgin, "Yahoo: Mistrust Is Popping Up: A string of issues related to
its trustworthiness, especially about adware, could tarnish the portal's
reputation on the Net," Business Week, September 12, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/YahooMistrust
Update on Worldcom Fraud Former WorldCom Investors can now claim back
some of the billions of dollars they lost in a massive accounting fraud,
after a federal judge approved legal settlements of "historic proportions."
The deal approved Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, will divide
payments of $6.1 billion among approximately 830,000 people and institutions
that held stocks or bonds in the telecommunications company around the time
of its collapse in 2002.
Larry Neumeister, "Judge OKs $6.1B in WorldCom Settlements," The
Washington Post, September 22, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/WorldcomSettlement
Black Women and the Web When pundits talk about African Americans and the
Internet, they often focus on the Digital Divide -- the fact that fewer
black people have online access than their white counterparts. But a new
study released on Sept. 14 suggests that black women also approach the Net
differently, devoting little time to personal e-mails or other recreational
pursuits. Moreover, they're much more apt to go online to investigate
companies before buying their products or services.
"Black Women and the Web: A new study suggests they're more inclined to
take a "strictly business" approach to the Internet than those from other
ethnic groups," Business Week, September 15, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/BlackWomenWeb
An accounting firm tracks facts about automobiles (kinda
weird huh? But it's quite good.) PricewaterhouseCoopers AUTOFACTS ... is a team
of analysts and advisors within the PricewaterhouseCoopers Automotive
Practice dedicated to the continuous analysis of the global automotive
industry. AUTOFACTS' organisational structure, processes and technology have
been designed to support high quality, strategic automotive analysis,
delivered on-line.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Autofacts ---
http://www.autofacts.com/index.html
From The Wall Street Journal Weekly Accounting Review
on September 16, 2005
TITLE: Delta and Northwest Are Poised to File for Bankruptcy Protection
REPORTER: Evan Perez and Susan Carey
DATE: Sep 14, 2005
PAGE: A1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112665062604939713,00.html
TOPICS: Bankruptcy, Board of Directors, Debt, Debt Covenants, Financial
Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Pension Accounting
SUMMARY: �The carrier�s boards [were] each scheduled to meet Wednesday to
decide whether they�ll file for bankruptcy protection� By Thursday, Delta
and Northwest both announced that they had, in fact, filed for bankruptcy
protection. Questions ask students to understand the implications of
bankruptcy filing under Chapter 11 for management, workers, customers and
oters. Financial reporting issues include a financing deal for Delta led by
General Electric Company�s commercial lending unit and issues in pension
funding.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is a bankruptcy filing? How can a company file for bankruptcy and
leave customers, such as air passengers in this case, unaffected?
2.) What are the management issues associated with operating a company
that is under a bankruptcy filing?
3.) Both the main article and the related one discuss the ways that
accounting information is used to assess likely future outcomes from
operating under bankruptcy protection. Identify the accounting information
and the ways in which it is used to assess potential future issues.
4.) In the main article, the author describes 4 specific items of debt
payments that are due by this coming year end. List each of these items and
describe where each is classified in the financial statements.
5.) General Electric Co. led a group that provided financing to Delta
about one year ago. Why do you think GE is involved in financing of Delta
Airlines?
6.) What authority establishes requirements for pension payments? How
does that required payment differ from the yearly cost of operating a
pension? Do you think these airlines have been fully funding the annual cost
of operating their pensions? Explain your answer with a citation from the
article.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
In the past I've provided links to various types of music
available free on the Web.
This weekend I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Imagine All the People ---
http://www.jessiesweb.com/imagine.htm
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of the
page and turn it on.
Bruce Cockburn's What is the Soul of a Man? ---
http://cockburnproject.net/flash.html
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of the
page and turn it on.
Colleges pay a flat sum for unlimited online music Those colleges enroll more than 670,000 students —
and many other institutions are expected to join the list soon. The idea of
offering these deals, pioneered at Pennsylvania State University, is to pay
a flat sum for unlimited online music. The motivation is simple: Colleges
are tired of being caught in the middle as the music industry tries to crack
down on students who engage in illegal file sharing, frequently involving
college networks. The report on how colleges are responding was prepared by
the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities,
which is led by Graham Spanier, president of Penn State, and Cary Sherman,
president of the Recording Industry Association of America.
Scott Jaschik, "The Spread of Legal Online Music," Inside Higher Ed,
September 22, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/22/filesharing
Did you know that your recorded television shows may self destruct:
You'll never be able to show them to your grandchildren
But then why would you ever want to watch them your self or with anybody
else?
From The Washington Post on
September 23, 2005
TiVo's latest software upgrade gives broadcasters the ability to erase
recorded material after a certain date. What shows recently sparked online
complaints after users discovered they were marked for deletion?
EVERY now and then, humanity wakes up, looks at
itself in the mirror and realizes that it's been wasting a lot of effort
doing things the old way just for the sake of tradition. From the
caveman who first put a bunch of rolling logs under something heavy, to
the genius who packed four times more orange juice onto a truck by
condensing it first, history is filled with "Aha!" moments that propel
society forward.
. . .
The result of this brainstorm was the new
Everio G series: tiny, lightweight, reasonably priced camcorders that
contain iPod-type miniature hard drives. There are four models in all,
ranging from the GZ-MG20 to the GZ-MG50. The differences are the prices
($750 to $800 online), light sensitivity, hard drive capacity (20 or 30
gigabytes), zoom lens power (15X or 25X), and the resolution of the
low-quality still photos (0.3 megapixel or 1.3). Not one of them uses a
tape or DVD.
The hard drive holds five or seven hours of
video at top quality - easily a vacation's worth. The 2.5-inch screen
displays each shot as a thumbnail image (or as an entry in a
chronological list), so you can jump directly to anything filmed without
having to rewind or fast-forward. You can assemble up to 99 video
playlists on this screen, too (selected scenes that play back in a
certain order). And who among us hasn't, at one point or another,
accidentally recorded over something important on a videotape? (Oh,
sorry - touchy subject.) On a hard-drive camcorder, that is impossible.
UNLIKE JVC's Everio MC200 camcorders, which
feature lower-capacity, removable hard drive cards, the Everio G's drive
is permanent and built in. (It's mounted on gel supports for shock
resistance, and uses a laptop-style motion sensor to protect the drive
from sudden jolts.) Once it fills up, that's it; the camcorder is out of
commission until some hard drive space is emptied.
You can do that by deleting some scenes, using
the thumbnail table of contents view. You can play the video back on a
TV (both RCA-type and S-video jacks are built right into the camera),
while recording it with a VCR or set-top DVD recorder, then delete the
originals.
But you're really supposed to transfer the
video directly to a computer, edit it, and maybe burn it to a DVD. When
you get right down to it, this camcorder doesn't make much sense for
people who don't ordinarily edit their own video on a computer
On September 1, Mossberg’s
Personal Technology column, “New Services Give You
Reliable Ways to Keep All You Files Updated,” talked
about three products. Two of them looked promising
to me.
Either service looks much
easier than using HandyBackup software to
synchronize all my school-computer files to an
Iogear Ion drive and resynchronizing when I get home
to home computer.
Any comments?
Amy Dunbar
University of Connecticut School of Business
Accounting Department
2100 Hillside Road, Unit 1041 Storrs, CT 06269-1041
I've been
using PowerSync from linkpro.com for several years
to maintain a synchronised backup on an external USB
hard drive. The only compromise I've had to make is
because of the way that Windows handles daylight
savings time. I turned off the automatic change
feature in windows, and have to check the system
clock periodically to make sure it doesn't try to
drop/add an hour. Otherwise I am forced to totally
renew all backup files twice a year when the time
changes.
It has been
a lifesaver several times. All of the dynamic data
files are backed up regularly, and all of the
information I need to restore the applications is
maintained on a daily basis.
I use a portable 2.5" USB 2.0 HD -- 40GB. I have had
this physical drive in three different containers.
This HD contains all file types.
Essentially, I port the HD between the office and
home and sometimes take it on the road with me. The
current container is both USB and Firewire capable.
I back up this HD to the desktop at home and my
laptop using a program called ViceVersa. Prior to
going on a road trip, I will back the HD to the
laptop and reverse the process when I get home. I
find this approach works for me and have been doing
this for the last five years.
Essentially all my files are in one place (the
portable HD) and for the most part don't have to
worry about version control.
Pepper Pad: First Look: Wireless Internet Media
Player My dissatisfaction started soon
after I powered up the Pepper Pad. From a cold boot,
this "instant-on" device takes nearly 2 minutes to get
up and running. You can then put the unit in a sleep
mode for faster subsequent startups, but the battery
continues to drain. And I was surprised by the battery's
short life span: During my informal tests, the unit
lasted less than 2 hours on a full charge. The
Pepper Pad's SVGA (800-by-600 resolution) LCD screen
provides a bright but just less-than-crisp display of
text, photos, and videos. MP3 music sounded decent from
the front-mounted stereo speakers. Video playback was
even, and videos saved to the hard drive played
smoothly, without any fluttering. Pepper's
preloaded software includes a Mozilla-based browser, a
game pack, an Internet radio player, an MP3 music
player, and AOL instant messaging. You can buy
Pepper-specific apps from the company's online store
(but you cannot run other Linux or Windows apps
Considering that there are more powerful (and more versatile)
notebook computers available for the same or a lower
price, I can't recommend this first iteration of the
Pepper Pad. Michael Lasky, "First Look: Wireless
Internet Media Player--Too Little, Too Late, The
Washington Post, September 23, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/PepperPad
Warnings when you are checking to see if all or parts of a student's
paper are plagiarized:
It is best to first get implied consent from students to store their papers
on your computer
My University has a licence to use this
plagiarism check software. I have made use of this on regular basis
within the policy laid down in course outline beforehand. We also have
developed an academic integrity committee at University level with
student reps in membership. I represent Business School and we have made
AI policy as an integral part of senate bye-laws for future legal
repercussions. My experience of catching cases of plagiarism has been
extremely successful. However, you will
have to seek 'informed consent' of the students concerned that work
submitted by them may be placed for turnitin check and if any one
refuses to do so will have to be provided some other mean of assessment
or else. Our policy is made after reviewing many policies in Canadian
and US Schools and the related case laws.
It will be interesting to place some of the
research papers received for review to such test for your own
satisfaction as turnitin database has grown manyfold by now.
It is OK if you do not allow this software
(Turnitin)
to store your student paper in database for ethical purposes BUT this
practice also restricts you in many ways. For example, if this paper is
resubmitted by some other student after some time lag, you may assess it
unknowingly for a different student and turnitin will once again give
you same result what it gave in case of first time submission! (which'll
be a real unethical case in fact.) Secondly, some topics of papers may
fit well with more than two courses like 'ethical practices' fit well in
accounting, management, marketing and even MIS area. If a paper on this
topic is submitted in one term to accounting area, next term to
management area, and further next term to marketing area by the same
student who knows full well that his/her paper is not in turnitin
database. What is the remedy left to a faculty in such instance?
Whereas, by permitting your paper in database,
you or the author of the paper gets ethical advantages. Turnitin NEVER
permits any one to see your paper without explicit permission from you.
Turnitin will simply tell that while issuing report that certain
percentages are copied from such and such paper submitted to such and
such school. If instructor desires to know the contents of that turnitin
cited paper, he/she will have to send a mail through turnitin to the
original author of paper and who may or may not permit you to look at
the contents of the paper.
I have had a case where a student in EDP
Auditing distance course submitted a case study which was found to have
been copied verbatim (97%) from one MS dissertation of Mid-West
technical university of US. I wanted to double check the output of
turnitin by looking at the contents of the dissertation, and therefore
sent an e-mail through turnitin to the original author of dissertation
who replied to me in next 15 minutes in affirmative and also wondered
that her family has originally come from Windsor only, though some years
back!
Jagdish Pathak, PhD Guest Editor- Managerial
Auditing Journal (Special Issue) Associate Professor of Accounting &
Systems Accounting & Finance Area Odette School of Business University
of Windsor 401 Sunset Windsor, N9B 3P4, ON Canada
Question
What may be a leading cause of the rise in obesity among teens?
Answer Excess body fat in teens -- even those who aren't
overweight -- seems to be linked to less-elastic blood vessels, a condition
that can mean future cardiovascular disease, researchers say in a study. The
findings underscore the dangers of the obesity epidemic, even in youngsters.
An estimated 30% of schoolchildren are believed to be overweight. "The
message about this is that it's yet another reason to be concerned about the
rise in overweight and obesity among young people," said Peter Whincup, lead
author of the study and professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at St.
George's Hospital Medical School in London.
"Teens' Fat Linked to Blood Vessels," The Wall
Street Journal, September 22, 2005; Page D3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112734090049947854,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Question
How can you really, really erase your hard drive?
Q: I am giving my PC to my sister and I
would like to completely erase my files from the hard drive. How can I
do this?
A: What you need to do is wipe out the
files in a way that is more thorough than merely deleting them in the
standard manner. This process is often called "wiping" files, and makes
the files impossible, or at least very difficult, to recover. It works
by overwriting the portion of the hard disk formerly occupied by a
file's data with nonsense characters.
You could format the disk, but that also would
wipe out the operating system, which would require your sister to buy
and install a new copy. So you need a program that wipes out only the
folders and files you target. On an Apple Macintosh, this capability is
built in. You just move the files to the trash and then select "Secure
Empty Trash" instead of the usual "Empty Trash" command.
On Windows, you need add-on software. There are
many programs that do this, but one that I have tested and can recommend
is Window Washer, which is available at webroot.com for $30. You can
find others by doing a Web search for "file wipe" or by doing a similar
search at download.com.
How Informative are Analyst Recommendations and Insider Trades? A new academic study fills that void - and
concludes that when insiders and analysts directly disagree, the insiders
are usually right. The study was written by three finance professors: James
Hsieh of George Mason University and Lilian Ng and Qinghai Wang, both of the
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. It has been circulating in academic
circles over the past year; a copy is at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=687584
Mark Hulbert, "The Analysts vs. the Insiders," The New York Times, September
25, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/business/yourmoney/25stra.html
"How Informative are Analyst Recommendations and Insider Trades?"
JIM HSIEH George Mason University
LILIAN K. NG University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee - School of Business
Administration
QINGHAI WANG University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee - School of Business
Administration
Link ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=687584
Abstract:
This study jointly evaluates the informativeness of insider trades and
analyst recommendations. We show that the two activities often generate
contradictory signals. Insiders in aggregate buy more shares when their
firm's stock is unfavorably recommended or downgraded by analysts than
when it is favorably recommended or upgraded. This result is robust to
various controls such as varying degrees of analyst coverage, firm size,
book-to-market ratios, and stock price momentum. We find that analyst
recommendations affect insider trading decisions, but not vice versa.
Our further analysis shows that insider trading is informative when
signaling positive information, and analyst recommendations are
informative when conveying negative information. The overall results
imply that corporate insiders and financial analysts do not substitute
each other's informational role in the financial market.
What are the 18 poorest nations that will have their World Bank debt
dropped? Finance ministers from around the world reached
agreement on Saturday on a plan to wipe out as much as $55 billion in debt
owed by impoverished countries. The deal still needs to win support from the
major shareholders of the World Bank, which would forgive a large portion of
the outstanding loans, but American and European officials said they were
confident the plan would win approval on Sunday. The agreement, which will
initially affect about 18 countries, came after two years of grinding debate
between the United States, Japan, Britain and most of the wealthy nations in
Europe.
Edmund L. Andrews, "Deal Is Reached to Drop Debt of 18 Poor Nations," The
New York Times, September 25, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/politics/25imf.html
The Bank has been at the forefront of debt relief
initiatives for years. It therefore welcomes the recent proposal by leaders
of the eight richest industrialized countries, the G8, to cancel the debt of
18 of the poorest countries in the world. It is another positive step in
providing the financing poor countries need if they are to reach the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an international set of development
targets to be reached by the year 2015. The Bank has provided debt relief to
low-income countries through the joint World Bank and IMF Debt Initiative
for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC Initiative) which started in 1996.
Two thirds of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs, 28 countries) are
receiving debt relief which will amount to US$56 billion over time. The
World Bank’s contribution to the HIPC Initiative for the 28 countries
approved so far is expected to be about US$14 billion over time.
World Bank Debt Relief ---
http://snipurl.com/Sept2005DebtRelief
An ancient manuscript gives up its secrets Last spring, researchers from a Baltimore
museum traveled to Palo Alto with three pages of a 1,000-year-old goatskin
manuscript in a sealed container the size of a cigar box. For five days in
May, Uwe Bergmann, a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
and his team painstakingly X-rayed the fragile leaves of a palimpsest
believed to include the oldest known writings of Archimedes.
"When Archimedes Met the Synchrotron X-rays help decipher an ancient
manuscript," Stanford Magazine, September/October 2005 ---
http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2005/sepoct/farm/news/manuscript.html
Question
What's the most booming business in the world?
Answer
"Dutch Court Fight Lays Bare Reality Of Kidnap Industry: Mr. Erkel's
Two-Year Ordeal Ended in Ransom Payment Despite the Usual Denials A
Mysterious Intermediary," by Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison, The Wall
Street Journal, September 22, 2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112735374607948223,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
From Iraq to Chechnya to China, the kidnap
industry is booming. According to companies that offer ransom insurance
and groups that track the problem, kidnapping generates hundreds of
millions of dollars a year, enriching criminal gangs and helping fuel
armed insurgencies. In almost all cases, for fear of encouraging the
practice, governments and companies that pay ransoms deny cooperating
with kidnap groups.
In Mr. Erkel's case, this script has unraveled.
In an unusually public spat, the Dutch Foreign Ministry has gone to
court in Geneva to try and force the Swiss branch of Médecins Sans
Frontières, or MSF, to pay back the money it says was used to purchase
Mr. Erkel's freedom -- plus 9.2% interest. Documents in that case, which
was filed in June 2004, plus numerous interviews in Europe and Russia,
lift the veil on the kinds of shadowy negotiations often held between
kidnappers, intermediaries and victims' governments, employers and
families.
European countries, in particular, often bend
their no-ransom pledges, according to many people who work in this
field. A string of French and Italian hostages were freed in Iraq
earlier this year and few experts believe government denials that
ransoms were paid. The U.S. government sticks to its stated policy of
not paying. American companies and individuals, however, often cough up
through intermediaries hired by insurance companies, says Greg Bangs, a
specialist in kidnap and ransom policies for Chubb & Son, an insurance
company.
The practice is buoyed by the tangled
relationships in many parts of the world between kidnap gangs and the
local law-enforcement agencies ostensibly charged with capturing them.
In June, the Kremlin-backed president of Chechnya, Alu Alkhanov, told
reporters that Russian forces were responsible for as much as 10% of the
reported kidnappings in the region -- though he said the practice was
legal because they were detaining suspected insurgents. Human-rights
groups say families often pay Russian troops to secure the release of an
arrested relative. The local police chief investigating the Erkel case
says a portion of ransom payments often ends up in the pockets of
security officials.
Continued in article
Sixty Minutes (CBS on 9/25/2005) ran a module where a kidnap victim had
to live blindfolded in a basement room with up to nine other people for ten
months. All were blindfolded in an concrete room below ground that was only
eleven feed long and eight feet wide. It had no plumbing or fresh air. He
was eventually rescued.
Question
What is another booming business in the world?
I think I'm just blogging on the wrong topics!
Answer
Blog network pioneers keep their finances close to the chest, but salary
information for scribes behind hit sites like Gizmodo, Fleshbot and Gawker
is starting to trickle out. Time to quit your day job and blog for a living?
When it comes to the profit
potential of blogs, Nick Denton, founder of Gawker
Media, calls himself a skeptic.
It's a surprisingly
pessimistic perspective coming from the Brit who has
launched a network of 13 theme blogs -- including
Fleshbot
(porn),
Gawker
and
Defamer
(gossip),
Gizmodo
(gadgets) and
Wonkette
(politics). His most popular
properties (Defamer, Gizmodo and Gawker) report
between 4 million and 6 million
visits per month and
millions more pageviews, he and his top talent have
been featured in articles in the ink-and-pulp press
(Wired,
The New York Times Magazine)
and
Denton
rarely misses an opportunity
to trumpet ads on his sites for blue-chip companies
like Absolut, Audi, Sony, Nike, Viacom, Disney and
Condé Nast.
What is a booming business on the Gulf Coast, albeit not for all
companies? Mr. Garrett's complaints are being echoed by a
growing number of minority business owners across the Gulf Coast who say
they're being shut out of the first wave of Katrina-related contracts. They
blame longstanding ties between federal and state officials and white-owned
companies, as well as Bush administration moves that eased
affirmative-action rules for new contracts as long as a state of emergency
exists. The critics say they are particularly concerned by provisions of the
federal Katrina relief funds that temporarily waive a requirement that
federal contractors provide written affirmative action plans and that double
the size of the contracts that can be awarded without giving special
opportunities to the economically disadvantaged.
Yochi J. Dreazen and Jeff D. Opdyke, "Minorities Say Katrina Work Flows
to Others," The Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2005; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112743429825649371,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Jensen Comment: I have this feeling that the problem gets worse when
Louisiana politicians and bureaucrats let contracts.
Art detective exposes hidden images to fuel Da Vinci Code conspiracies Amid the obsessive scholars and scheming prelates
who inhabit Dan Brown's global blockbuster, The Da Vinci Code, there is a
real person. Maurizio Seracini works in a high-ceilinged, colourfully
frescoed palazzo just across the river from the Uffizi gallery in Florence.
His premises are packed with machines that look as if they belong in a
hospital or laboratory. Brown calls him an "art diagnostician", which is not
a bad description for someone who probes paintings with
state-of-the-art-technology, often to advise museums, dealers and collectors
on their restoration.
John Hooper, "Art detective exposes hidden images to fuel Da Vinci Code
conspiracies," Guardian, September 20, 2005 ---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1573915,00.html
Why do I feel good about this Microsoft failure? A study conducted earlier this year concluded that
more consumers found MSN's search results to be less relevant to their
queries following the switchover, say people familiar with the matter.
Meantime, MSN executives say they have been surprised at how quickly Google
has increased the average ad revenue it generates for each consumer search.
Within the MSN unit, Microsoft is pushing hard to increase the relevance of
the results it returns to users. And it is planning an ambitious marketing
campaign to bolster the MSN brand against Google, which commands the leading
share of search queries despite buying almost no advertising.
Kevin J. Delaney and Robert A Guth, "New Search Engine From Microsoft Gets
Cool Welcome," The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2005; Page B1
---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112735486532848253,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Keynote
is not so keynoting According to The Wall Street Journal, Keynote, at
the request of Microsoft, withheld a consumer survey that would have shown
the software maker's MSN search engine slipping. The study, according to the
newspaper, found that based on its ability to find relevant results, MSN
fell to No. 5 from No. 3.
Antone Gonsalves, "Search Engines Missing The High Road," InternetWeek
Newsletter, September 23, 2005
New from Wharton:
Around the World on $48 (or So): How High Can Discount Airlines Fly? As two more major U.S. airlines, Delta and
Northwest, file for bankruptcy protection, it's the discount carriers that
appear to be winning the battle for America's skies. But it's not only in
the U.S. that discounters are giving the more established carriers a run for
their money. Discounters are taking off in Mexico, India, China, Europe and
points in between. What kind of competition do these discounters face, from
the majors and from each other? And what obstacles, especially in countries
like China, are governments and regulators putting in their way?
"Around the World on $48 (or So): How High Can Discount Airlines Fly?"
Knowledge@Wharton, September 22, 2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1286
New from Wharton:
A Month after Katrina: Lessons from Leadership Failures Hurricane Katrina not only devastated the city of
New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast of the U.S., it initiated a bitter
debate about the leadership -- or lack thereof -- exhibited by government
officials before, during and after the storm. Called into question have been
the actions of an array of leaders: President Bush, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen
Babineaux Blanco, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff and former Federal Emergency Management Agency director
Michael Brown. To identify some of the leadership challenges raised by the
New Orleans disaster, Knowledge@Wharton interviewed two Wharton faculty
members and a former Wharton vice dean who is now dean of the business
school at Arizona State University.
"A Month after Katrina: Lessons from Leadership Failures "
Knowledge@Wharton, September 22, 2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1289
New from Wharton:
From Pro Footballer to Businessman: You're a Rookie All Over Again Hall of Fame footballer Ronnie Lott is sitting in
front of a classroom, lecturing a small group of fellow players about the
importance of learning the playbook. But the playbook that he is discussing
has nothing to do with running and tackling. Lott is counseling a group of
current and former NFL players on making the transition from pro football to
business. It's part of a year-long executive education program called
"Entrepreneurial Management: Transitioning with Success," organized by the
Wharton Sports Business Initiative and sponsored by the NFL and the NFL
Players Association. Lott's talk is one of the follow-up sessions that are a
key part of the program, which focuses on everything from financial analysis
and entrepreneurship to real estate development and stock market investing.
"From Pro Footballer to Businessman: You're a Rookie All Over Again,"
Knowledge@Wharton, September 22, 2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1290
SmartPros has some good summaries of recent top selling books (longer
reviews are available for a fee)
Here
are three summaries on some of this year's bestsellers:
The Medicare and Medicaid health programs are
two of the most influential government policies. Signed into law forty
years ago, they have continued to provide medical protection to a wide
range of people in American society. To celebrate and document the
achievements of this program, the Kaiser Family Foundation has created
this site, which contains a number of helpful materials, including a
retrospective video, a timeline of key developments in the history of
Medicare and Medicaid, and some key statistics on the program. The site
also provides access to a number of crucial articles from the journal
Health Affairs. Some of these pieces include “Medicare, Medicaid, And
Health Care Quality” by William L. Roper and “What Does It Take To
Run Medicare and Medicaid?” by Nancy-Ann DeParle.
With a genuine and informed concern for the
American populace, the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) is a
non-profit, non-partisan organization that is “dedicated to saving lives
by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease
prevention a national priority.” By assembling a team of topical experts
and policy analysts, they have been able to offer broad appraisals of
the various public health issues (and potential crises) that are
affecting the country. Their website provides the web-browsing public
ample access to the wide range of material they have generated through
their work. The “Current Reports” area on the homepage contains such
timely reports as “How Obesity Policies are Failing in America 2005” and
“Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities:The Search for Causes and
Cures”. Another very helpful feature is the “Your State’s Health”
section. Here, visitors can click on any state they might be interested
in and receive some brief statistics on such areas as the percentage of
adults with asthma or the percentage of obese adults. Additionally,
visitors can learn about each state’s cancer tracking mechanisms and
bioterrorism preparedness.
Public perception and understanding of science
and technology can be a difficult and daunting subject. This latest
report from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
authored by Dr. Jane Macoubrie, explores public attitudes toward the
growing field of nanotechnology. In its 31- pages, the report reveals
that the public is interested in the potential advances afforded by this
technology, which exploits the unique behavior of materials and devices
when engineered at a scale of roughly between one and one hundred
nanometers. The report also shows that people are concerned about the
general lack of consumer awareness of the field and the potential lack
of government oversight of this rapidly emerging technology. As David
Rejeski, the director of the Project on Emerging Technologies commented
recently, “The kinds of safety measures and disclosure the public wants
make sense in terms of both long-term corporate strategy and good public
policy”.
The world of the visual arts is, at times, a
chaotic one. There are a myriad of different institutions attempting to
garner the attention of experts in the field, the general public, and
various philanthropic organizations. It can be a complex landscape, but
this latest report from the RAND organization goes a long way to
document the many challenges that the visual arts community faces. While
some pundits have described a largely positive portrait of the visual
arts, this 152-page report released in August 2005, offers a bit of a
more critical perspective on the current situation. Among its many
findings, the report notes that the growth in overall museum attendance
in recent years is primarily a product of population growth and higher
education levels, rather than a result of museums' attempts to broaden
the diversity of their audience. The report also suggests that the
majority of the art museums around the country will need to ask a number
of key questions, including what their primary goal is and how will they
measure their success.
White collar crime punishments are a joke even if whistle blowing does
make them less funny The main whistle-blower in the accounting fraud
at HealthSouth Corp. received the longest sentence so far in the case, while
another former executive received probation. U.S. District Judge Robert
Propst sentenced former Chief Financial Officer Weston Smith, 45 years old,
to 27 months in prison, one year of probation and ordered him to pay $1.5
million in forfeited assets. He pleaded guilty in March 2003 to conspiracy,
fraud and violating the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-reporting law. Assistant
U.S. Attorney James Ingram, who asked the judge for a five-year sentence,
said Mr. Smith was the first person to reveal a $2.7 billion fraud at the
Birmingham, Ala., rehabilitation and medical-services chain and would
deserve an even longer sentence had he not come forward when he did.
"HealthSouth Ex-Finance Chief Is Given 27-Month Prison Term," The Wall
Street Journal, September 23, 2005; Page C3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112741852577848939,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
It pays to be an accounting cheat because you don't have to return
your bonus that you got by cheating Hundreds of companies have restated earnings in
recent years - 414 in 2004 alone, according to a recent study by the
Huron Consulting Group. And in many cases, the revisions came in the
wake of discoveries of questionable accounting or other possible wrongdoing
that meant the numbers leading to bonuses were inaccurate. But a review of
restatements by large corporations shows that companies very, very rarely -
as in almost never - get that money back. The list of restatements was
compiled for Sunday Business by Glass Lewis & Company, a research firm based
in San Francisco.
Jonathan D. Glater, "Sorry, I'm Keeping the Bonus Anyway," The New York
Times, March 13, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/business/yourmoney/13restate.html?
This is absolutely unfair! If a CEO loots his/her company, the
company pays insurance for all legal costs of the CEO even if he's convicted
of looting the company that pays the insurance premiums. A company that insured Tyco International Ltd.
executives must pay legal bills for former Chief Executive L. Dennis
Kozlowski, who is on trial on corporate-looting charges, an appeals court
said. In a 5-0 ruling, the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division left
open the possibility that Federal Insurance Co., a Chubb Corp. subsidiary,
could later recover some of the costs from Mr. Kozlowski. A lower court
judge had ruled that Federal Insurance, which provided liability coverage to
Tyco, was required to pay Mr. Kozlowski's legal bills . . . Mr. Kozlowski
and Mark H. Swartz, Tyco's former chief financial officer, are accused of
stealing $170 million from the conglomerate by hiding unauthorized pay and
bonuses and by abusing loan programs. They also are accused of making $430
million by inflating the value of Tyco stock by lying about the company's
finances. Their retrial in Manhattan's State Supreme Court on charges of
grand larceny, falsifying business records and violating state business laws
is ending its second month. Their first trial ended in a mistrial in April.
Associated Press, "Insurer to Pay Kozlowski's Costs," The Wall
Street Journal, March 24, 2005; Page C3 --http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111161345997387951,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Bob Jensen's threads on how white collar crime pays even if you get
caught.
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays
For example Andy Fastow stole over $60 million from Enron and was required
to pay back less than $30 million. Where will the
remainder be when he emerges a free man in a few years?
Effects and Unintended Consequences of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on
Corporate Boards
JAMES S. LINCK University of Georgia - Department of Banking and Finance
JEFFRY M. NETTER University of Georgia - Department of Banking and Finance
TINA YANG University of Georgia - Department of Banking and Finance
SSRN
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=687496
In response to the high-profile scandals like
Enron and WorldCom, President Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)
into law on July 30, 2002. The Act represents the most sweeping overhaul
of the securities law since the Great Depression and brings significant
changes to corporate governance and boards of directors. Using a sample
of nearly 7,000 public firms, we study the impact of SOX on corporate
boards. We find that board independence - characterized as the
percentage of non-employee directors (outsiders) on the board, the
percentage of firms with a majority of outsiders on the board, and the
percentage of firms with separate CEO and Chairman - increases
significantly after the passage of SOX. Firms increase board
independence by adding non-executive directors rather than removing
executive directors, resulting in larger boards. Further, board changes
are most significant for firms that are targeted by SOX and for firms
with large managerial ownership. In addition, director turnover and
replacement increases significantly after the passage of SOX. Executive
directors are less likely to be added to the board in the post-SOX
period than in the pre-SOX period, while non-executive directors are
more likely to receive the nomination. Finally, we provide preliminary
evidence of some of the effects of Section 404, specifically increased
numbers of committees and committee meetings. There is also strong
evidence that SOX has imposed disproportionate burdens on small firms.
For example, small firms paid $5.91 to non-employee directors on every
$1,000 in sales in the pre-SOX period, which increased to $9.76 on every
$1000 in sales in the post-SOX period. In contrast, large firms incurred
13 cents in director cash compensation per $1,000 in sales in the
Pre-SOX period, which increased only to 15 cents in the Post-SOX period.
Those who leave faculty appointments to write
mystery novels, travelogues, self-help books, and biographies are
usually not seen again in the academy. Some make a lot of money, and
some, very little. But they all own themselves, and although the work is
hard, they can sleep late in the morning. They are not promoted, and
when they fail, they only make their families, cashiers, and waiters
miserable. Still they disappear without a trace like everyone else.
On the other hand, those who go into academic
associations, government, or, as in our case, academic administration,
choosing steady income and health and retirement benefits, either gather
moss in middle management jobs, or rise to higher levels of the
administrative ladder — directorships, deanships, vice presidencies,
presidencies, etc. In all sectors of the economy, as the Peter Principle
describes, administrators typically rise to their levels of
incompetence, and then fail — quietly usually, but sometimes in
magnificent blazes of failure.
As you read this, academic administrator, you
may be rising, stagnating, or failing in your career. Whichever stage
you are in, if you are an executive academic administrator, you probably
are reporting to someone who is in the process of failing. (This
corresponds to the existential truism that everyone alive is dying.) If
your boss is in the terminal stages of failure, and s/he is after your
hide, your life may seem to you to be unbearable. It should not be, for
there are ways of understanding your situation and your boss’s situation
that can give you a more serene and humane outlook on the pain your
supervisor is inflicting on you, as well as a glimpse at your own
future.
I offer words of enlightenment, which, I hope,
will help you safeguard your heart and your job, no matter how
temporarily.
Continued in article
Student governments of Emory and Washington University declare war on
one another
What with the lingering U.S. presence in Iraq,
the devastation of Katrina, and the uncertain economy, it’s no surprise
that some students feel troubled.
The student government at Emory University is
trying a novel approach to helping students: declaring “war” on
Washington University in St. Louis. At Wash U., however, students appear
to have other concerns and most of them are ignoring the war, possibly
forcing Emory combatants to take both sides in a war of insults.
Last weekend, graffiti, leaflets with insults,
and toilet paper in trees appeared on both campuses. But sources
familiar with the skirmishes said that Emory students staged not only
the “attack” on Washington, but also the one at Emory, in hopes of
riling students. Most Emory students have not fled to bomb shelters (or
anywhere for that matter). But the president of the student government —
a senior named Amrit P. Dhir — held an emergency meeting of the student
government and announced that he was abolishing the legislative branch
and replacing it with himself as “supreme leader.” The war declaration
banned students from wearing Washington University clothing (unless it
contained insults) and said that freedom of the press was “to be
tolerated ... for now.”
Continued in article
I volunteered for this (face) transplant: I hope they remove extra
chins In the next few weeks, five men and seven women
will secretly visit the Cleveland Clinic to interview for the chance to have
a radical operation that's never been tried anywhere in the world. They will
smile, raise their eyebrows, close their eyes, open their mouths. Dr. Maria
Siemionow will study their cheekbones, lips and noses. She will ask what
they hope to gain and what they most fear.
"Facing Up to Ultimate Transplant," Wired News, September 19, 2005
---
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68907,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_7
This is a really big deal: What's the latest in fighting restenosis? Today, restenosis in coronary arteries afflicts
less than 10 percent of patients thanks to the development of the
drug-eluting stent (DES), which slowly releases a drug that inhibits the
growth of scar tissue. Drug-eluting stents now command more than 90 percent
of the $3 billion U.S. coronary-stent market, according to the Millennium
Research Group. DESs have not been approved for peripheral arteries. Johnson
& Johnson pioneered the new generation of stents, but the $50 billion
company lost its dominant market position to a partnership between
medical-device company Boston Scientific of Natick, MA, and Angiotech
Pharmaceuticals of Vancouver, BC. The two companies signed a pact in 1997
that led to the development of Boston Scientific's Taxus stent, which was
introduced in the U.S. in March 2004.
Jim Kling, "The Lucrative Elution," MIT's Technology Review, October
2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/10/issue/brief_elution.asp?trk=nl
Why was this poor man ever jailed in the first place? This was
really, really stupid!
Did Barney make the arrest in Mayberry? The mother of a quadriplegic man who died while
serving a 10-day jail sentence filed a lawsuit today against District of
Columbia officials and Greater Southeast Community Hospital over the
deficient care that led to her son’s death. Mary Scott, mother of Jonathan
Magbie, joined the American Civil Liberties Union and local attorneys at a
press conference on the courthouse steps this morning to announce the
lawsuit. “My son died last year because doctors at the Jail and Greater
Southeast Hospital completely ignored his medical needs,” said Scott.
“Today, I am seeking justice for my son and my family. The wrongdoers must
be held accountable for Jonathan’s death.”
"ACLU and Local Attorneys File Lawsuit Over Quadriplegic Left To Die At DC
Jail," ACLU, September 20, 2005 ---
http://www.aclu.org/
Many people have rushed to pronounce the Orange Revolution dead. Opponents of Ukrainian democracy -- foremost in a
Kremlin visibly nervous that this experiment might catch on in the
neighborhood -- want to declare last year's political turnover a fatal
mistake. The European Union for its part points to the troubles in Kiev to
justify its preferred hands-off approach to Ukraine. To these doubters,
Ukrainians can respond that democracies are seldom placid. The upheavals in
the Berlin Republic this past week are a good reminder that open,
competitive politics can be messy. But, as the recently freed peoples of the
New Europe would rush to attest, it's better than the alternative. In
Ukraine until recently, and in Germany two generations ago, and in Russia
today, that alternative is authoritarianism. Ukraine's current crisis grew
out of the Orange Revolution. It's not a betrayal of it.
"Orange Crushed," The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112733645300747723,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Thanks David, but what if we look inside and find it empty? I'm
reminded of a senior professor years ago who served at a renowned accounting
research university for six years in a city known for its winds. His
comment was: "I looked into that black box and found that there was nothing
inside?"
Elinor Mills, a writer for ZDNet news, has an
interesting article out today. In it, she speculates about Google's
apparent long-term strategy. It is found at: Google builds an empire to
rival Microsoft
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5875433-2.html?tag=st.next
By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet
News: September 21, 2005, 8:00 AM PT
To a certain extent, it builds one of her
earlier articles: Google balances privacy, reach
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5787483.html?tag=nl
Elinor Mills, CNET News.com Pblished on ZDNet
News: July 14, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
If one can dream about future Internet-based
computing power while at the same time overlooking issues of privacy
(the other David has written that there is no such practical thing as
privacy), then today's article is certainly thought-provoking. In many
ways, I look forward to the day when computing is no longer constrained
by storing programs and data on either desktop or laptop.
As an aside, we wouldn't need Turnitin, because
plagiarism detection would take place automatically, even as a person
writes the first draft of a paper.
Education would be much different, I think, if
everything ever done on a computer is stored forever in Google's data
base. Since Google is thinking big, perhaps everything ever spoken into
a phone or communicated via radio or television would also be so stored.
If home conversations get recorded (a by-product of Internet-based home
management applications), then everything except a person's innermost
secret thoughts would get recorded and stored in a data base.
This would eventually lead professors to get to
the stage where they finally can peer into the minds (virtual minds) of
students to see what they truly think, to determine what the student
knows today, to offer the chance for the student to learn something new,
and then to assess the actual quality of the student's learning
experience.
Trends in cell phone television So far, companies are exploring three major
business models, which offer subscriptions to pre-recorded video clips, live
network television, or customized content prepared specifically for cell
phones. Verizon is putting a big marketing push behind its video-clip
subscription service, VCast. The service offers fare such as sports
highlights, comedy shows, and CNN segments, along with various games, and is
currently available in more than 60 metropolitan areas in the United States.
Verizon offers the service within its high-speed EvDo wireless networks. To
subscribe to VCast, Verizon users must first sign up for the company's EvDo
service ($60 per month), then pay an additional $15 per month. The clips are
downloaded at speeds typically around 500 kb/s-- less than half the speed of
a home DSL modem, but almost ten times faster than existing cellular data
networks.
Eric Hellweg, "TV to Go," MIT's Technology Review, September 23, 2005
---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/wo/wo_092305hellweg.asp?trk=nl
What is MIMO and how will it affect your life? Still, each new generation of wireless gadgets gets
better, generally cheaper, and seemingly more popular. Now an emerging
wireless networking technology called MIMO promises real breakthroughs in
speed, accessibility, and reliability. That has implications for today's
corporate networks, home Wi-Fi networks, and cellular networks. MIMO stands
for "multiple input, multiple output." Wi-Fi routers based on the technology
use a series of radios in conjunction with several "smart" antennas to send
and receive signals simultaneously. Handling multiple signals makes possible
much stronger, more reliable, and faster transmissions--in theory. Consumers
will see MIMO in a new class of wireless networking products categorized as
"pre-n," after the nomenclature of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers' 802.11 wireless Ethernet standards committee. The
IEEE wireless standards with the broadest impact have been, in the order in
which they reached market, 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g.
Michael Fitzgerald, "Hearing Multiple Signals," MIT's Technology Review,
October 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/10/issue/review_signal.asp?trk=nl
Learning now not to manage employees at
Microsoft It appears Microsoft is listening to its critics.
The company
has overhauled its business operations on the heels
of media reports that its bureaucracy had led to a lot
of unhappy employees. Indeed, the company has lost scores of workers, some
to competitors, with executive
Kai-Fu Lee's jumpto Google causing the biggest
stir.
InternetWeek Newsletter on September 21, 2005
A National Bureau of Economic Research working
paper by Eric Hanushek, John Kain, Daniel O'Brien and Steven Rivkin
called "The Market for Teacher Quality" sheds some light on these
contentious issues. (A summary of the paper and a link to the text are
at
www.nber.org/digest/aug05/w11154.html.)
. . .
From my reading of the paper, both effects
appear important and there is no simple answer. The data do suggest,
however, that teacher effectiveness is pretty clear by the end of the
second year, so the information to make an informed decision is
available at that time.
The authors also investigate the contentious
issue of racial matching of students and teachers. Here they find strong
evidence that minority teachers tend to be more effective with minority
students. "Students who have had both a black and a white teacher
perform better relative to classmates during the year in which they had
a teacher of their own race," they said. Again, it is unclear whether
this is because of a role model effect (students respond better to a
teacher of their own race) or an empathy effect (teachers empathize
better with students of their own race) or something else entirely.
The authors also look at teacher mobility.
There is some evidence that teachers who quit teaching or switch schools
tend to be below average in effectiveness. This is consistent with the
survival-of-the-fittest model.
Continued in article
How time flies
The Wall Street
Journal Flashback, September 21, 1990
The two German parliaments independently ratified the treaty
that will officially unify their nations Oct. 3. The
1,000-page unification treaty details how all functions of
the East German state will be united with those of West
Germany.
I wonder if the victim's name is Humpty Dumpty When police arrived Monday, Contreras Alvarez held
out his wrists to police, said Mint Hill Police Chief Brian Barnhardt. Then
he showed officer a torso on the bedroom floor. He later helped police find
the dead man's head, legs and arms scattered across hundreds of feet in a
wooded area behind the home, police said. Police did not release the name of
the man killed because they were still trying to notify his family . . .
"N.C. roommate charged with murder after dismembered body found,"
News-Record.com, September 21, 2005 ---
http://beta.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050921/NEWSREC0101/50921005
Perhaps these pensions should not be included since these airlines are
probably going to dump their pension obligations on the Federal Government
anyway.
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Week in Review on
September 22, 2005
TITLE: Delta, Northwest Omit Pensions from Filings
REPORTER: Susan Carey and Evan Perez
DATE: Sep 16, 2005
PAGE: A3 LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112683441976042541,00.html
TOPICS: Advanced Financial Accounting, Financial Accounting, Pension
Accounting
SUMMARY: The article discusses pension funding requirements, the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), and legislative actions in detail.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is the implication of the statement in the article title that these
two airlines have omitted pension payments from bankruptcy court filings.
2.) What is an underfunded pension plan? What are possible different
measures of a pension plan's funding level? Who establishes requirements for
funding pension plans?
3.) What is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC)?
4.) Why might U.S. Congress enact a law to delay requirements for funding
company pension plans? In your answer, consider the plight of the PBGC as
described in this article.
5.) Why are discount airlines better able to compete and remain
profitable than are so-called legacy airlines?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Question
Have U.S. Post Offices stopped accepting dollar bills because of the wording
on each bill reading "In God We Trust?'
Warning: There are to be no pictures of money on Federal Property!
September 22, 2005 message from Will Christensen
. . . Post Offices in Texas were forced to
remove posters which said “In God We Trust” from their lobbies. In
response, a movement has been started to write “In God We Trust” on the
back or front of the envelopes of the letters we mail.
Try not to let your mind wander...It is too
small and fragile to be out by itself.
Unknown but perceptive author (forwarded by Dick Haar)
Killin' Time ---
http://www.jessiesweb.com/time.htm
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of the
page and turn it on.
In the past I've provided links to various types of music
available free on the Web.
This weekend I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Writing is a way of talking without being
interrupted.
Jules Renard
Inbred Historians: Diversity Problem in History Departments
Only applicants from elite universities need apply Recent decades have opened up history faculties
so that they include more female and minority scholars. But a new report
released by the American Historical Association says that in key respects
history departments are becoming “less diverse.” Top doctoral programs are
admitting Ph.D. students from a narrow group of mostly private institutions
and top departments are in turn hiring from a narrow range of institutions,
the report says. The preference of elite institutions to admit graduate
students from other elite institutions is, of course, nothing new. But the
history report says the discipline — having become more egalitarian — is now
shifting back with regard to its mix of public and private graduates. In
1966, 57 percent of history Ph.D.’s had received their undergraduate degrees
from private institutions, 37 from public institutions, and the remainder
from international institutions. In the 1980s, public and private graduates
had achieved parity. But in the 90s, the gap returned, growing to a 47-42
percent edge for private institutions, even though far more undergraduates
attend public institutions.
Scott Jaschik, "Inbred Historians," Inside Higher Ed, September 26,
2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/26/history
Jensen Comment on the X-Chromosome Problem.
Elite colleges of business also have an inbreeding problem. Often its the
same lack of diversity of hiring found among Ivy-type history programs
hiring their own as described above. If it isn't that, there is the
X-Chromosome Problem that leaves selected doctoral programs with an overage
of X chromosomes. Professor XR1 at top University R has a doctoral student
XC2 who gets tenure at University C. XC2 then has a doctoral student XR3
who is hired back at old University R. XR3 then has a doctoral student XC4
who is hired at University C. XC4 then has doctoral student XR5 who is
hired . . .
Ruse by the industry to make you think you are eating less salt
How much (Salt) should you eat? Note that 2.5g sodium = 1g salt
The health authorities advise eating no more
than 6g per day. This includes processed foods so check the ingredients
lists on labels.
Note that sodium (often noted on labels in
place of salt) is more than twice the strength of salt. So 2.5g sodium
equals 1g salt. It is a ruse by the industry to make you think you are
eating less salt.
Always taste food before adding salt because
it may not need it. Be aware that salt is "hidden" in or added to many
everyday foods, including breakfast cereals, biscuits, stock cubes,
soup, ready-cooked meals (especially those containing meat), crisps and
other snack foods
Liking some women less and less: Even before Rita the
Katrina oil spill was a huge disaster on U.S. Gulf Coast Hurricane Katrina unleashed at least 40 oil spills
from ruptured pipelines, approaching the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez
tanker spill. And the delicate environmental situation has worsened as the
influx of salt water has damaged the area's wetlands.
Ken Wells, "Oil, Saltwater Mar Louisiana Coast, Threaten Future:
Katrina Dumps 193,000 Barrels Over Damaged Marshlands; Fishing Areas Are
Polluted," The Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112743511286949395,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Where were the protective fathers when Katrina warnings grew more
urgent? It took the media a while to acknowledge that most
of Katrina's victims were black. Apparently, it will take longer to mention
that most of the victims were women and children. I noticed three
commentators who brought up the delicate subject of the mostly missing
males--George Will, Gary Bauer, and Thomas Bray, a columnist for the Detroit
News. Will noted that 76 percent of births to Louisiana's African-Americans
are to unmarried women, and probably more than 80 percent in New Orleans,
since that is the usual estimate in other inner cities. Will wrote: "That
translates into a large and constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented
adolescent males, and that translates into chaos, in neighborhoods and
schools, come rain or come shine."
John Leo, "All in the Family," Townhall.com, September 26, 2005 ---
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/johnleo/jl20050926.shtml
The Gulf Coast: A Victim of Global Warming? There are troubling signs in the meteorological
record of a link between global warming and hurricane intensity, says
Emanuel, a professor in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary
Sciences. But the best available science suggests that the now-scattered
populations of the Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coasts are the
victims of mere happenstance. There are simply too few examples of
catastrophic hurricanes hitting U.S. shores to make out any statistical
trend, says Emanuel. "It would be absurd to attribute the Katrina disaster
to global warming," Emanuel wrote on his website this month.
Wade Roush, "The Gulf Coast: A Victim of Global Warming?" MIT's Technology
Review, September 24, 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/wo/wo_092405roush.asp?trk=nl
TCU Coach Takes the Test
More evidence that many universities are losing (or never had) quality
control on athlete admissions and grading The National Collegiate Athletic Association
punished Texas Christian University’s men’s track program on Thursday for a
set of rules violations that included some of the most egregious and unusual
examples of academic fraud in recent history. They included an instance in
which a former assistant coach took a final examination alongside a track
athlete — with the consent of the faculty member in the course — and then
swapped his version of the test with the athlete’s, allowing him to pass.
Doug Lederman, "NCAA Finds Fraud at TCU," Inside Higher Ed, September
23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/23/tcu
Smoking Grasso: Is It Time to Dumb Down or Shut Down Engineering
Colleges? With the return of students to campuses this month
comes annual hand wringing over the lack of diversity in our science and
engineering classes. The United States is at a 14-year low in the percentage
of women (16.3 percent) and African Americans (7.1 percent) enrolling in
engineering programs. An engineering student body that is composed largely
of white males is problematic not only because of its narrow design
perspective, but also because failing to recruit from large segments of the
population means the number of new engineers we produce falls well short of
our potential. Although this is not a new problem, it is becoming ever more
urgent. We are faced with an engineering juggernaut emanating from India and
China, with more than 10 Asian engineers graduating for every one in the
United States. Educated at great institutions like the Indian Institutes of
Technology or Tshingua University, these engineers are every bit as
technically competent as their American counterparts. So here we sit at the
beginning of the 21st century, in the most technologically advanced nation
on the planet, with a comparatively small supply of home grown engineers,
facing an explosion of technical mental horsepower overseas . . .
If we do, our progeny stand a fighting chance of
having a life worth living. And by giving engineering a larger, more
socially relevant framework, expanding it beyond the narrow world of
algorithms, the field should prove more attractive to women, minorities, and
other underrepresented groups.
Domenico Grasso, "Is It Time to Shut Down Engineering Colleges?" Inside
Higher Ed, September 23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/23/grasso
Jensen Comment: Grasso's proposal to take the hard technical courses out of
engineering curricula for the sake of diversity hardly gives me comfort in
his vision of future "engineering" graduates. Let's dumb down our engineers
so they can compete better with Asians and Indians? Give us a break! If we
want more diversity lets try harder to get improve the skills and motivation
of diverse inputs into the programs rather than dumb down the programs
themselve.
Down's Syndrome Mice Offer Hope Scientists have transplanted a nearly entire human
chromosome in mice in a medical and technical breakthrough that could reveal
new insights into Down's syndrome and other disorders. The genetically
engineered mice carry a copy of the human chromosome 21. It is the smallest
of the 23 pairs of human chromosomes with about 225 genes. Children
suffering from Down's syndrome, which is one of the most common genetic
disorders, inherit three copies of the chromosome instead of two. The
achievement caps 13 years of research by scientists at the National
Institute for Medical Health in London and the Institute of Neurology. "We
are very optimistic that we will be able to get insights into what goes
wrong with people with Down's," said Dr Victor Tybulewicz, who headed the
research team.
"Down's Syndrome Mice Offer Hope," Wired News, September 23, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68972,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4
"The Real Reasons You're Working So Hard ...and what you can do about
it," Business Week Cover Story, October 3, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/BWOct3
The good news -- if there is any,
time-challenged amigo -- is that you are not alone. More than 31% of
college-educated male workers are regularly logging 50 or more hours a
week at work, up from 22% in 1980. Forty percent of American adults get
less than seven hours of sleep on weekdays, reports the National Sleep
Foundation, up from 31% in 2001. About 60% of us are sometimes or often
rushed at mealtime, and one-third wolf down lunch at our desks,
according to a survey by the American Dietetic Assn. To avoid wasting
time, we're talking on our cell phones while rushing to work, answering
e-mails during conference calls, waking up at 4 a.m. to call Europe, and
generally multitasking our brains out.
. . .
This epidemic of long hours at the office --
whether physically or remotely -- defies historical precedent and common
sense. Over the past 25 years, the Information Revolution has boosted
productivity by almost 70%. So you would think that since we're
producing more in fewer hours, such gains would translate into a
decrease in the workweek -- as they have in the past. But instead of
technology being a time-saver, says Warren Bennis, a University of
Southern California professor and author of such management classics as
On Becoming a Leader, "everybody I know is working harder and longer."
And the long-hour marathons aren't a result of
demanding corporations exploiting the powerless. Most of the groggy-eyed
are the best-educated and best-paid -- college grads whose real wages
have risen by more than 30% since the 1980s. That's a change from 25
years ago, when it was the lowest-wage workers who were most likely to
put in 50 hours or more a week, according to new research by Peter Kuhn
of the University of California at Santa Barbara and Fernando A. Lozano
of Pomona College.
With so many managers and professionals stuck
at work, there is a growing consensus among management gurus that the
stuck-at-work epidemic is symptomatic of a serious disorder in the
organization of corporations. The problem, in a nutshell-to-go is this:
Succeeding in today's economy requires lightning-fast reflexes and the
ability to communicate and collaborate across the globe. Coming up with
innovative ideas, products, and services means getting people across
different divisions and different companies to work together. "More and
more value is created through networks," says John Helferich, a top
executive and former head of research and development at Masterfoods
usa, a division of Mars Inc. and the maker of such products as M&Ms.
"The guys who are good at it are winning."
Unfortunately, the communication, coordination,
and teamwork so essential for success these days is being superimposed
on a corporate structure that has one leg still in its gray flannel
suit. Without strict gatekeepers (read secretaries), Tom, Jane, and
Harry feel free to plug themselves into your electronic calendar. You
and a colleague in another part of the company may dream up a great idea
for a new product -- but it takes months to get approvals from your
boss, his boss, and their boss. Or the corporate bigwigs order you to
join a taskforce that is supposed to promote collaboration and
innovation -- but it ends up taking a big chunk of your time. And no
matter how many layers of management were supposed to be taken out,
there always seem to be more people on the e-mail distribution lists.
You are not imagining things. Despite years of
cutting corporate bloat, managers are a much bigger share of the
workforce than they were 15 years ago. "We've added a new set of
standards without fully dropping the old," says Thomas H. Davenport,
professor of information technology and management at Babson College and
author of the new book Thinking for a Living.
Continued in the article
Getting Angry Can Be a Good Thing ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4859208
Cecilia Munoz is vice president of the Office of Research, Advocacy and
Legislation at the National Council of La Raza. Born in Detroit to Bolivian
immigrants, she has worked on behalf of Hispanic-Americans. Munoz was named
a MacArthur Fellow in 2000.
"Teaching the Benefits of Balance More B-schools are including courses on
managing the complex relationship between your career and your life," by
Jeffrey N. Gangemi, Business Week, October 3, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/BWOct3b
And it may be even more important in attracting
and retaining top-notch women workers. According to "The New Workforce
Reality," a study by the
Simmons School of Management and Bright
Horizons Family Solutions, an organization based in Watertown, Mass.,
that provides work-life counseling, 88% of women respondents listed
respect for family and personal time as an important attribute in an
employer, and 82% said they place value on working for an organization
that's flexible in granting time off.
That's why B-schools are trying to help students better juggle their
varied responsibilities. Stewart Friedman, a professor of organizational
management at the
Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania, teaches "Total Leadership," a course for both full-time
and executive MBA students that preaches greater integration between
personal and professional life.
. . .
BEYOND GOOD PAY.
If any successful company is a model that embodies the opposite of
"caffeine culture," says Hunt, it's SAS Institute, a privately held
software company based in Cary, N.C. Hunt leads students through a case
study that examines why SAS enjoys a 98% customer-retention rate
year-to-year, when the average in U.S. industry is 80%. It also shows
consistent growth and profits in the highly competitive software
industry.
Students observe connections between customer satisfaction and SAS's 97%
employee-retention rate, which alone is estimated to save between $60
million to $75 million annually in HR costs. And with on-site day care,
health care, and workout centers, hours that employees would otherwise
spend driving to the doctor's office conserved an additional million
dollars last year, estimates Jeff Chambers, the vice-president for human
resources at SAS.
"I thought the best job was the one that paid the most money," says Marc
Vaglio-Laurin, manager of certification test development at SAS, who got
his MBA from Duke University
Fuqua School of Business in 1989. But having
spent seven years in corporate finance with four different companies,
Vaglio-Laurin says even after 10 years at SAS, he would never
voluntarily leave his post.
Continued in article
Fewer American Women Dying of Breast Cancer There is more good news in the battle against
breast cancerbreast cancer. Newly released figures show that deaths continue
to decline, dropping about 2% a year since 1990. The drop was most dramatic
among women under the age of 50, whose breast cancers tend to be more
aggressive and harder to treat. The number of breast cancer deaths for this
age group declined by 3.3% annually between 1990 and 2002. The figures were
published today by the American Cancer Society, which reports each year on
breast cancer trends. ACS officials credited earlier diagnosis and better
treatments for the "slow, steady drop" in breast cancer deaths over the
12-year period.
Salynn Boyles, "Fewer American Women Dying of Breast Cancer: Deaths Have
Dropped Steadily for More Than a Decade," WebMD, September 22, 2005
---
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/112/110386.htm?z=1727_00000_5024_hv_03
Teflon is a wonder product. Before Teflon,
washing a pan or pot was among the most disagreeable of tasks. Cleaning
up is a very different task in today’s post-Teflon world.
There are even some unintended health and
safety benefits from Teflon kichenware. You can cook using less fat,
grease or oil, which is better for your heart, and there’s less chance
of fire.
It’s a wonderful example of how a profit-minded
company, in this case DuPont, came up with something that makes life
easier, healthier and safer — all at once.
But no good deed goes unpunished in today’s
legal system. In July, attorneys filed a $5-billion class action lawsuit
against DuPont over the alleged health effects of perfluorooctanoic
acid, or PFOA.
There are 14 plaintiffs, “but the class of
potential plaintiffs could well contain almost every American that has
purchased a pot or pan coated with DuPont’s nonstick coating,” explained
attorney Alan Kluger.
Best Places to Work in Federal Government 2005 Best Places to Work rankings, which rate job
satisfaction among federal government employees at 248 organizations. Here
you will find ratings of employee satisfaction, rankings by demographic
group, and "Best in Class" scores for 10 workplace quality measurements,
such as "Effective Leadership" and "Work/Life Balance." The rankings are
created by the Partnership for Public Service and American University's
Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.
"Best Places to Work in Federal Government," US News and World Report
---
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/best-places-to-work/home.htm
Thanks George: Dumb and Dummers in charge of government agencies?
How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There? A Time Magazine inquiry finds that at top positions
in some vital government agencies, the Bush Administration is putting
connections before experience . . . The Bush Administration didn't invent
cronyism; John F. Kennedy turned the Justice Department over to his brother,
while Bill Clinton gave his most ambitious domestic policy initiative to his
wife. Jimmy Carter made his old friend Bert Lance his budget director, only
to see him hauled in front of the Senate to answer questions on his past
banking practices in Georgia, and George H.W. Bush deposited so many friends
at the Commerce Department that the agency was known internally as "Bush
Gardens." The difference is that this Bush Administration had a plan from
day one for remaking the bureaucracy, and has done so with greater success.
As far back as the Florida recount, soon-to-be Vice President Dick Cheney
was poring over organizational charts of the government with an eye toward
stocking it with people sympathetic to the incoming Administration. Clay
Johnson III, Bush's former Yale roommate and the Administration's chief
architect of personnel, recalls preparing for the inner circle's first trip
from Austin, Texas, to Washington: "We were standing there getting ready to
get on a plane, looking at each other like: Can you believe what we're
getting ready to do?"
Mark Thompson, Karen Tumulty, and Mike Allen, "How Many More Mike Browns Are
Out There?" Time Magazine, September 25, 2005 ---
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1109345,00.html
Mossberg: Yahoo Email Delivers That Desktop Feel Most Users Expect Web-based email programs, like Yahoo Mail, have
long been inferior to email programs that take the form of standard
applications installed on your computer. The Web offerings have been short
on features, short on email storage and clumsy to use. Lately, however, that
has begun to change. A number of major Web-mail providers have introduced
versions that offer much more of the ease of use and power of desktop email
programs like Microsoft Outlook. Yet they still retain the core advantage of
Web-mail services: They can be accessed from any computer, Windows or Mac,
with your settings and preferences always present. All you need is an
Internet connection and a Web browser.
Walter Mossberg, "Yahoo Email Delivers That Desktop Feel Most Users Expect,"
The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2005; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,personal_technology,00.html
The Dow moved from $600 to over $10,000 in 40 years The Wall Street Journal Flashback, September 26, 1961 Stocks broke to new low ground on the current
decline, with aluminum, aircraft and missile shares under special pressure.
The Dow-Jones industrial average sank 9.71 points, or 1.38%, to 601.86, its
lowest level since July 25, just prior to President Kennedy's Berlin crisis
speech.
They were dubbed "Dumb and Dumber" because of
the clues they left.
Even Carroll's lawyer described the crime as
"absurd".
Mr Smith pointed to the fact Carroll and Prince
robbed the WestStar Bank, where they were regular customers. Their
Australian accents made them easily identifiable.
During the robbery, the pair wore name tags
from the Vail sports store they worked at, and tried to buy plane
tickets to Mexico with the stolen loot.
Prosecutors denied it was a robbery committed
by bumbling fools.
"Two athletic young men going into a bank with
what looked like real firearms and pushing people around is an horrific
event," assistant US lawyer Greg Holloway said.
Both Carroll and Prince were also ordered to
pay $US21,658, which represents the funds not yet recovered from the
bank robbery.
Brain scans reveal truth about lying: it's easier to be honest Lying is more difficult than telling the truth, and
that may be the key to a better lie-detection test, researchers say.
Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania said they made the discovery
when they watched brain scans of volunteers as they gave honest answers or
told lies. The brain's frontal lobe, the region that regulates thinking,
puts a lot more effort into devising a lie than telling the truth, and brain
scans document that activity. The finding, in the journal Human Brain
Mapping and discussed in an article in the latest issue of the journal
Nature, is said to advance the science of detecting deception.
"Brain scans reveal truth about lying: it's easier to be honest," Sydney
Morning Herald, September 24, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/09/23/1126982230876.html
We're dopes about drug use: Ecstasy preferred over booze even among
adults Everyone knows but doesn't say that the reason
nightclubs want to charge for water is they don't make enough from alcohol
because their young customers prefer ecstasy. During the millennium New
Year's Eve celebrations in the city, police were stunned by the good
behaviour of the record crowd. Drug experts claimed the mob's docility was
due to its widespread consumption of ecstasy instead of alcohol. While the
prohibition of heroin has been widely embraced because of the drug's
addictive nature and obvious social problems it engenders, society has
turned a blind eye and come to an uneasy truce with other illicit drugs. But
with drug use no longer solely the province of the experimenting young, that
truce may come under threat. Harm minimisation advocates say the increasing
disconnect between public rhetoric and private drug use is hypocritical and
doomed. They beaver away on legalisation and demonising zero-tolerance
advocates.
Miranda Devine, "We're dopes about drug use," Sydney Morning Herald,
September 25, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/09/24/1126982266527.html
"Is Meth A Plague, A Wildfire, Or the Next Katrina? Or is it a million
times more horrible than all of them combined?" by Jacob Sullum, Reason
Magazine, September 2, 2005 ---
http://www.reason.com/sullum/090205.shtml
Conflicts of Interest
Is this what is behind the New York Times support for eminent domain
that empowers developers? Those “values” and “democratic ideals” included
using eminent domain to forcibly evict 55 businesses—including a trade
school, a student housing unit, a Donna Karan outlet, and several
mom-and-pop stores—against their will, under the legal cover of erasing
“blight,” in order to clear ground for a 52-story skyscraper. The Times and
Ratner, who never bothered making an offer to the property owners, bought
the Port Authority–adjacent property at a steep discount ($85 million) from
a state agency that seized the 11 buildings on it; should legal settlements
with the original tenants exceed that amount, taxpayers will have to make up
the difference. On top of that gift, the city and state offered the Times
$26 million in tax breaks for the project, and Ratner even lobbied to
receive $400 million worth of U.S. Treasury–backed Liberty Bonds—instruments
created by Congress to help rebuild Lower Manhattan. Which is four miles
away . . . Nowhere was this anti-populist, ends-justify-the-means approach
on more naked display than after the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling in Kelo
v. City of New London. That June 23 decision upheld governments’ broad
leeway to use eminent domain to transfer property from one private owner to
a richer one—in that particular case, from Connecticut homeowners to an
upscale real estate development. While much of the country howled in protest
at the fact that, in the words of dissenting Justice Sandra Day O’Connor,
“nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a
Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory,”
the Times, in an editorial entitled “The Limits of Property Rights,” let out
a lusty cheer. Kelo, the paper declared, is “a welcome vindication of
cities’ ability to act in the public interest” and “a setback to the
‘property rights’ movement, which is trying to block government from
imposing reasonable zoning and environmental regulations.”
Matt Welch, "Why The New York Times ♥s Eminent Domain," Reason Magazine,
October 2005 ---
http://www.reason.com/0510/co.mw.why.shtml
A very negative book review
"Under the Spell of Malthus: Biology doesn’t explain why societies
collapse," by Ronald Bailey, Reason Magazine, August/September 2005 ---
http://www.reason.com/0508/cr.rb.under.shtml
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or
Succeed, by Jared Diamond, (New York: Viking, 592 pages, $29.95)
Jared Diamond’s new book, Collapse: How
Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, is neither “superb” (The New
Statesman), “incisive” (The Washington Post), “magisterial”
(BusinessWeek), nor “insightful and very important” (Boston Herald). It
is, instead, a telling example of how a smart man can be terribly misled
by a fixation on one big idea. In this case, Diamond, a biologist, is
trying to apply biology’s master narrative to human societies.
In 1838 the founding father of modern biology,
Charles Darwin, read the 1798 edition of the Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus’
Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus famously concluded that
human population increased at an exponential rate, while food supplies
grew at “arithmetic” rates. Thus population would always outstrip food
supplies, dooming some portion of humanity to perpetual famine. As a
description of human behavior, it was, as we shall see, a wildly
inaccurate argument. But it sparked a genuine revolution in the life
sciences.
Reading Malthus was a “eureka” moment for
Darwin, who declared in his autobiography, “I had at last got a theory
by which to work.” Darwin realized that Malthus’ thesis applied to the
natural world, since plants and animals produce far more offspring than
there is food, nutrients, and space to support them. Consequently,
Darwin noted, “It at once struck me that under these circumstances
favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones
to be destroyed. The results of this would be the formation of a new
species.” This insight launched one of the most important modern
scientific theories, the theory of biological evolution by means of
natural selection.
. . .
Similarly, Diamond describes how Polynesian
seafarers settled Easter Island by 900 A.D. This 66-square-mile island
is one of the more remote scraps of land on the planet. It lies in the
South Pacific 2,300 miles from Chile and 1,200 miles from the next
nearest Polynesian island. Easter Islanders don’t seem to have had any
contact with outsiders until Dutch explorers stumbled on them in 1722.
Archaeological evidence shows that Easter Island was once covered with a
subtropical forest which was home to the world’s biggest species of palm
(now extinct). Today, no native tree species exceeds seven feet in
height. Evidently the Easter Islanders cut down all of their trees by
1600, leaving none to regenerate the forests. This complete
deforestation caused severe soil erosion, which cut farmers’ crop
yields, leading to starvation and cannibalism. Easter Island society
apparently “collapsed” in a civil war around 1680, at which time the
island’s population may have declined by 70 percent.
When Diamond discusses the “collapse” of the
Mayan civilization in Central America around 900 A.D., he hauls out the
standard Malthusian explanation: “It appears to me that one strand
consisted of population growth outstripping available resources: a
dilemma similar to one foreseen by Thomas Malthus in 1798.” This
population/resource imbalance led to civilization-destroying warfare,
which Diamond declares is “not surprising when one reflects that at
least 5,000,000 people…were crammed into an area smaller than the state
of Colorado.” Before nodding your head in sage agreement with this
analysis, keep in mind that Colorado itself is today crammed with 4.5
million people whose standards of living are vastly more luxurious than
those of 10th-century Mayan nobles and peasants.
Anthropologist Lisa Lucero of New Mexico State
University at Las Cruces told USA Today that she disagrees with
Diamond’s analysis of the “collapse” of the Mayan civilization: “There’s
no evidence for massive violence and massive disease among the classic
Maya.” She believes the evidence indicates that the Mayans simply moved
on because of widespread drought.
. . .
Meanwhile, Diamond calls on Americans,
Europeans, and Japanese to reject their “traditional consumer values.”
So in essence, Diamond’s solution to the problems he believes humanity
faces is to reduce the living standards of the world’s wealthiest
societies (U.S., Europe, Japan) and curb economic growth in the poorer
countries. This is Malthus’ legacy at its worst, and when Diamond
embraces it, Collapse collapses into claptrap.
U.S. money is not doing the job in securing nuclear sites in Russia
Despite U.S. Help, Program Faces Resistance, Delays Amid Chill in Relations
A Warehouse Sits Empty The warehouse shows how the effort to secure
Russia's vast arsenal remains an uphill battle even as concerns about
nuclear terrorism have risen in the post-9/11 world. So far, the U.S. has
provided state-of-the-art security for 48 of the 85 nuclear warhead storage
and handling sites slated for upgrades, but there could be dozens more sites
that the two sides may never agree to work on. With Russian nationalism and
oil revenues on the rise, the relationship is increasingly uneasy. Russian
officials say flatly that they will never allow the Americans near two huge
weapons assembly facilities that are believed to hold a quarter of the
country's highly enriched uranium and plutonium not already in warheads.
Since 1991 the U.S. has spent about $7 billion on Russian nuclear security
and achieved some important successes. To help Russia meet its arms-control
treaty commitments, the U.S. has paid to slice hundreds of nuclear-launch
missiles, submarines and bombers into scrap metal. Thousands of weapons
scientists have received at least temporary nonweapons work. In a separate
commercial venture, 250 metric tons of highly enriched uranium taken from
dismantled warheads have been blended down and burned as fuel in American
nuclear-power reactors.
Carla Ann robbins and Alan cullison, "In Russia, Securing Its Nuclear
Arsenal Is an Uphill Battle," The Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2005;
Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112770020335451782,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Save the face of communism and starve the people North Korea has formally told the UN it no
longer needs food aid, despite reports of malnutrition in the country . . .
Analysts say North Korea might be worried that accepting more food aid now
could be perceived as a sign of weakness. The North may also have lost
patience with efforts by foreign agencies to monitor deliveries of food,
according to the BBC's Seoul correspondent, Charles Scanlon. In recent
years, the UN and other international agencies have been feeding up to six
million of the poorest and most vulnerable North Koreans.
"North Korea rejects UN food aid," BBC News, September 23, 2005 ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4273844.stm
What is ADEC?
ADEC is a non-profit distance education consortium composed of
approximately 65 state universities and land-grant colleges. The
consortium was conceived and developed to promote the creation and
provision of high quality, economical distance education programs and
services to diverse audiences, by the land grant community of colleges
and universities, through the most appropriate information technologies
available.
ADEC Mission and Guiding Principles The driving
vision behind the organization is the extension of educational content
and opportunity beyond the traditional boundaries of the university
walls, to serving not simply on-campus students but lifelong learners,
broader domestic and international communities, under-served populations
and even K-12 schools and the corporate/business community.
Through ADEC, members engage in a teaching and
learning model that epitomizes a university without walls that is open,
accessible, and flexible. The model seeks to provide instructional
delivery and/or access anywhere, anytime, and to virtually anyone who
seeks it.
Primary emphasis is placed on educational and
informational programs and services that fall within the traditional
areas of competitive advantage for land-grant institutions.
Specifically, this includes programs related to food and agriculture;
nutrition and health; environment and natural resources; community and
economic development; and children, youth, and families.
Guiding Principles
The consortium draws upon the best and most effective subject matter
specialists and information resources to share knowledge and content
with learners. ADEC programming is offered locally, regionally,
nationally, and internationally and is characterized by the following
guiding principles:
Principle: Distance learning opportunities are
effectively and flexibly supported.
Develop and maintain the technological and
human infrastructure.
Principle: The provider of distance learning
opportunities has both a technology plan and a human infrastructure.
Sustain administrative and organizational
commitment.
Principle: Distance education initiatives are
sustained by an administrative commitment to quality distance education.
ADEC members seek to meet local, state,
national and international demands through provision of distance
education opportunities and place equal emphasis on each of the
traditional land grant imperatives of teaching, research and service.
ADEC is designed to serve diverse audiences
using appropriate combinations of technologies including: Internet2,
commodity Internet, satellite uplinks, downlinks, VSATs, digital
television and audio conferencing. These communications tools help ADEC
member institutions interact with learners domestically and
internationally. Typical methods of distance learning include: one-way
video/two-way audio satellite, two-way video and audio conferencing,
multiple user audio-only conferencing, Internet based access to
educational programs.
Turmoil at the University of Wisconsin in Madison: Is
demotion sufficient? Paul Barrows, a former vice
chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who
left his position after having
an affair with a graduate student,
is suing Madison, charging that he was
disciplined by the university without being given full due
process,
The Capital Timesreported.
Madison officials have faced a barrage of criticism for not
firing Barrows and they released
a report
Thursday that said he could not be fired, but that he could
be demoted, which the university did. Inside Higher Ed, September 23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/23/qt
THE OTHER WAR By Stephanie Gutmann (Encounter, 280 pages, $25.95)
More sad evidence of media bias and incompetence She gives us a number of other examples in
convincing detail. There is the famous case of 12-year-old Mohamed al-Dura,
killed during a crossfire between Palestinians and Israeli troops. France 2,
a large, state-financed TV network, disseminated a 10- to 20-second scrap of
videotape filmed by a Palestinian stringer with a narrative line saying that
the boy had been shot by Israelis. This claim was accepted as gospel by
other channels. A painstaking investigation later proved that, because of
the caliber of the bullets used and the angle of fire, the Israelis could
not be charged with the boy's death. This exoneration came too late to have
any effect on world perception. The list is endless -- slovenly reporting
coupled with bias makes for distorted journalism. Ms. Gutmann feels that the
situation is improving. For one thing, the Israelis have tightened up the
process of granting press cards, filtering out "reporters" with strong
prejudices and flimsy credentials. For another, readers and viewers have
discovered that journalists can be as self-serving as anyone else. A number
of Web sites have come into being to bring truth and objectivity to
otherwise distorted accounts. "The Other War" has a similar purpose and
accomplishes it forcefully.
Sol Schlindler, ""Bookmarks," The Wall Street Journal, September 23,
2005; Page W12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112743140458249257,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal
Dressing up accounting reports under FAS 106: Retired Sears employees
get 106'd Sears Holdings Corp. has begun to notify its
retirees that it will make further cuts to their medical benefits, citing
rising health-care costs and competition from retailers that provide little
or no medical coverage to retired employees. The moves are the latest in a
series of cuts in retiree benefits in recent years. In the past, such cuts
helped Sears generate income, thanks to accounting practices that transform
reductions in retiree benefits to accounting gains.
Amy Merrick, "Sears Plans More Cuts To Retirees' Medical Benefits," The
Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2005; Page A2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112742906285649152,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Riding on the rims Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. said Friday it will
close an undisclosed number of plants in various locations, part of a
sweeping restructuring aimed at improving its North American tire business
and saving up to $1 billion over the next three years. The Akron, Ohio,
company, one of the world's largest tire makers, did not say how many jobs
would be affected. It also did not say how many plants it will close or
their locations, but added that cutting high-cost capacity will be a key
consideration. Goodyear said it plans to cut high-cost manufacturing
capacity between 8 percent and 12 percent, resulting in expected annual
savings of $100 million to $150 million. The company also said it would
increase sourcing from Asia and seek other ways to boost productivity. The
company said it would record restructuring charges between $150 million and
$250 million over the next three years. The company said it is targeting
total cost cuts between $750 million and $1 billion by 2008.
"Goodyear Tire to Shut Down Plants," Earthlink, September 23, 2005 ---
http://start.earthlink.net/article/bus?guid=20050923/43337dc0_3ca6_1552620050923-166254225
The Truth About Oil
From Fortune Magazine's Preview Guide on September 26, 2005
"The Truth About Oil," pp. 102-111: The talk of travelers
this summer was rising gas prices, and as we move into autumn,
prices don't seem to be falling with the leaves. This has left
many Americans angry, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
First of all, while the magnates of Big Oil are certainly raking
in the profits, they're not the ones setting the sky-high prices
— the markets are. Hedge funds aren't to blame, either. They
account for less than 3% of volume in oil futures. Besides, fear
of a dwindling supply drives oil prices harder than speculation.
That fear itself may be misguided. While oil is not a renewable
resource, economists expect that high fuel prices will spur oil
companies to dig deeper and farther afield for oil, eventually
leading to larger supplies and cheaper prices. In fact, the
Department of Energy projects that worldwide refining capacity
will increase 61% over the next 20 years in plenty of markets
that will be more than happy to supply gasoline and other
refined petroleum products to the U.S. Should the government
intervene in the interim? It depends on whom you talk to, but
the last time the federal government imposed price controls in
the 1970s, the end result was shortages, gas lines, and little
change in prices.
Students will see how myths about the current oil pinch have
Americans directing their ire at the wrong targets.
Discussion Questions:
How has the spike in gasoline
prices impacted gas station owners? When do station owners
make the biggest profits? How do they attempt to raise their
profit margins?
Define peak-oil theory. What are
some of the flaws in the theory? Do you agree with the
contention that the worldwide oil supply will critically
trail demand in the near future? Why or why not?
How is the U.S. especially
vulnerable to oil shocks? Short of enforcing bureaucratic
controls, in what ways can the U.S. government help bring
down energy prices?
Will the last departing person from Hollywood please turn out the
lights Ever since jumping into the entertainment business
in 2002, Wagner and his outspoken partner, Mark Cuban (
http://www.blogmaverick.com ), have been openly
challenging established modes of distribution in Hollywood. They're building
a high-tech, new-model, vertically integrated studio. Their 2929 Prods. and
digital production house HDNet Films produce low-cost movies; HDNet Film
Sales raises financing for them overseas; Magnolia Pictures Distribution
books them on the 200-screen art-house Landmark Theater chain; and for the
first time, with "Bubble" in January, the high-definition cable channel
HDNet Movies will air the films at the same time that they go out through
their nascent DVD division. "I like Mark and Todd's energy and enthusiasm,"
Soderbergh says. "They're free-thinking." . . . Last summer, Soderbergh shot
the murder mystery "Bubble" on location along the southern Ohio/West
Virginia border, with locals who had never acted. Soderbergh used three of
the same high-definition Sony 950 cameras George Lucas deployed on the "Star
Wars" movies. "I just wanted to make a movie about love and jealousy,"
Soderbergh says, "but in an environment that you don't often get to see in
movies. The whole appeal was the simplicity of it. The idea was just to not
tart it up. These cameras make it easy to go in without any lights, on all
real locations." "Bubble" is downright radical. Debbie Doebereiner, its
40-ish star, is the blue-eyed, chubby general manager of a Kentucky Fried
Chicken in Parkersburgh, W. Va. Casting director Carmen Cuba scoured the
area, approaching people who fit writer Coleman Hough's descriptions, then
interviewed them at length on tape.
Anne Thompson, "Soderbergh challenges 'out of whack' studios,"
Breitbart.com, September 23, 2005 ---
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/23/MTFH01570_2005-09-23_11-00-19_SCH325697.html
No yen for it, at least not enough
Japan's government debt, already the highest in the
industrialized world, rose 1.7 percent to a record high of 795.8 trillion
yen ($7.1 trillion) at the end of June, according to a report released by
the Finance Ministry.
"Japan's National Debt Hits Record High," Yahoo News, September 23, 2005 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050923/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_government_debt
New Politics of Race at Berkeley Berkeley has had a lot of Asian American students
for years, but never so many as now. Last year, according to the Office of
Student Research, Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander students made
up just over 40 percent of the student body. This year’s freshman class was
just under 48 percent Asian, a record high, according to admissions
officials, who said that, once the final tally of registered students is
completed, the number of Asian and white students on campus will be nearly
the same. In this year’s freshman class, white enrollment is 31 percent,
Latino enrollment 11 percent, and black enrollment 3 percent, with the
remainder divided among “other” and those who did not identify their race or
ethnicity. Part of the reason for the increasing Asian percentages,
according to Richard Black, associate vice chancellor for admissions and
enrollment, is simply that Berkeley’s environs have a lot of Asian families.
There may be more to it, though. Not only is Berkeley accepting Asian
applicants at a higher rate — 34 percent as opposed to 27 percent for the
overall population in 2005 – but Asian students are choosing Berkeley more
often, too. Of all Asian applicants accepted to the university, 49 percent
chose to attend Berkeley, as compared to only 43 percent of students
generally, Black said, a “modest indication that Asian students receive
greater opportunities at Berkeley as compared to some other [ethnic
groups].”
David Epstein, "New Politics of Race at Berkeley," Inside Higher Ed,
September 23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/23/berkeley
NEVER ACT ON RETIREMENT ADVICE FROM ANYONE WHO
EARNS A COMMISSION AT YOUR EXPENSE!
The Motley Fool Newsletter on September 27, 2005
Stockbrokers? Ha! They wrecked more retirement
plans than anybody when they pushed lousy stocks like Enron and WorldCom
right up to the crash.
Financial planners? Estate planners? Nix that
too! Most work for big banks and financial firms and are nothing more
than insurance or annuity salesmen in disguise. They're after a fat
commission that will come out of your pocket.
Your brother-in-law? Probably not! Let's face
it -- to really be on top of everything that impacts how well you live
in retirement, you'd need to be a tax expert... Medicare benefits
guru... stock picker... economist... senior's law expert... and Social
Security advisor all rolled into one.
It's a real dilemma. On the one hand, you'll
probably leak fewer dollars trusting no one but yourself with your
retirement. On the other hand, it's next to impossible for you to
maximize the profit-power of your retirement dollars on your own and to
be an expert in all of the areas that impact what you do with your nest
egg.
I saw this item on tidbits and think these are
good questions for students to consider in a social view of the pension
situation in the United States. However, besides the social
implications, accounting students should have a controllership view of
pension issues. Otherwise, when the PBGC bail out happens, they may not
be prepared. Several additional questions.
1. The principle of conservatism requires
pension plan valuations to assume a discount rate at a point in time,
yet the return on assets assumption reflects an estimated long term
rate. Discuss the reasonableness of those rates in light of liabilities
that will be paid over the next 50 years?
2. What is the incentive for contributions to
the pension plan and how does it appear in the financial statements?
3. Why would a pension plan sponsor over fund
the plan? Discuss the implications of the discount rate and return on
asset assumptions in over funding.
4. What is pension immunization and when does
it make sense to immunize?
Mark S. Eckman
And remember, ERISA stands for Every Ridiculous Idea Since Adam.
Mark was referring to the following Tidbit on Perhaps these pensions should not be included since these airlines are
probably going to dump their pension obligations on the Federal Government
anyway.
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Week in Review on
September 22, 2005
TITLE: Delta, Northwest Omit Pensions from Filings
REPORTER: Susan Carey and Evan Perez
DATE: Sep 16, 2005
PAGE: A3 LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112683441976042541,00.html
TOPICS: Advanced Financial Accounting, Financial Accounting, Pension
Accounting
SUMMARY: The article discusses pension funding requirements, the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), and legislative actions in detail.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is the implication of the statement in the article title that these
two airlines have omitted pension payments from bankruptcy court filings.
2.) What is an underfunded pension plan? What are possible different
measures of a pension plan's funding level? Who establishes requirements for
funding pension plans?
3.) What is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC)?
4.) Why might U.S. Congress enact a law to delay requirements for funding
company pension plans? In your answer, consider the plight of the PBGC as
described in this article.
5.) Why are discount airlines better able to compete and remain
profitable than are so-called legacy airlines?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
PARADISE LOST By John Milton, an illustrated edition introduced by
Philip Pullman (Oxford, 374 pages, $28)
Unadorned by scholarly apparatus, the book is meant
to facilitate direct exposure to the poem without mediation from editors and
notes. Mr. Pullman readily admits that, in such a barebones format, "ten
thousand jewels have had to lie untouched," and he urges further reading in
any number of annotated editions. What his volume lacks in learned detail,
though, it amply makes up for in verve and sweep and in the sheer pleasure
derived from Milton's language. Mr. Pullman heightens the drama of the story
-- Satan's infiltration of Paradise and the fall of man -- with brief
introductions to each of the poem's twelve books, and the illustrations,
mostly by Michael Burgers from 1688, are apt and elegant. Presented in this
way, the poem is so enticing that readers may ultimately agree with Mr.
Pullman that "no one, not even Shakespeare, surpasses Milton in his command
of the sound, the music, the weight and taste and texture of English words."
David Yezzi, "Bookmarks," The Wall Street Journal, September 23,
2005; Page W12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112743140458249257,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal
Are there wrinkles in your broadband?
Some new BROADband exports from Germany Germany is the homeland of the nudist movement. In
the late 19th century, youngsters from teeming cities formed back-to-nature
clubs. Called Freikoerperkultur, or "Free Body Culture," nudism soon grew
into a mass movement. Briefly outlawed by the Nazis, nudism kept a faithful
following. In Communist East Germany, it was a cherished and tolerated
expression of freedom. Today, Germany's nudist organizations are losing
members, and the people still in the game are a wrinkled bunch. Just 50,000
Germans now belong to nudist clubs, less than half the number of the early
1970s, and most are over the age of 50. In the U.S., nudism is said to be
growing. The American Association for Nude Recreation, which says it has
50,000 members, says it got a boost in the 1990s, when the Internet helped
nudists find others sharing their pastime. Now, too, there are
clothing-optional resorts and cruises. With new features like spas and
broadband connections, most of today's nudist clubs are a far cry from the
rustic nudist colonies of the past.
Cecili Rohwedder, "Why German Nudists Are Wearing Frowns As Others Disrobe,"
The Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112743477668449388,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
This may come as a surprise to those of you not living in Las Vegas but
there are more Catholic churches there than casinos. Not surprisingly, some
worshippers at Sunday services will give casino chips rather than cash when
the basket is passed.
Since they get chips from so many different casinos, the churches have
devised a method to collect the offerings. The churches send all their
collected chips to a nearby Franciscan Monastery for sorting and then the
chips are taken to the casinos of origin and cashed in. This is done by a
chip monk.
Forwarded by Dick Haar
Two blondes are sitting in StarBucks. One looks at the newspaper and sees
the headline,
"12 Brazillian Soldiers Killed In Conflict".
She then looks to the other blonde and asks, "How many is a Brazillian?"
Jensen Helper:
To date economists estimate that the Iraq war has cost the U.S. about 3,500
brazillians.
Forwarded by Maria
I was testing the children in my Sunday school class to see if they
understood the concept of getting to heaven. I asked them,
"If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money
to the church, would that get me into Heaven?"
No the children answered.
"If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept
everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?"
Again, the answer was, "NO!"
By now I was starting to smile. Hey, this was fun! "Well,
then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children,
and loved my husband, would that get me into Heaven?" I asked
them again. Again, they all answered, "NO!"
I was just bursting with pride for them.
"Well," I continued, "then how can I get into Heaven?"
A five-year-old boy shouted out,
"YOU GOTTA BE DEAD."
Forwarded by Dick Haar
An elderly couple was sitting together, watching their favorite Saturday
night TV program.
During one of those commercial breaks, the husband asked his wife:
"Whatever happened to our sexual relations?"
After a long thoughtful silence, the wife, during the next commercial
break, replied:
"You know, I don't really know--I don't even think we got a Christmas
card from them this year."
Forwarded by Paula
More proof that gasoline prices are out of control:
I pulled into a full service gas station today and asked for five dollars
worth of gas.
The guy farted, took my five and walked away.
Forwarded by Bob Overn
A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the
heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium."
Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons,
and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mess of 312. These
312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are
surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be
detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into
contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over
four days to complete, when it would normally take less than a second.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 years; it does not decay, but
instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant
neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium's mass
will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more
morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron
promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed
whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical
quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium - an
element which radiates just as much energy as the Governmentium, since it
has half as many peons but twice as many morons.
Forwarded by Dick Haar
01) Life isn't like a box of chocolates, it's more like a jar of
jalapenos: you never know what's going to burn your a__.
02) I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as
they go flying by.
03) Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.
*4) Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If they aren't there the
first time, chances are you won't be needing them again.
5) I don't have an attitude problem, you have a perception problem.
*6) Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I
thought to myself, where in the hell is the ceiling?
07) My reality check bounced.
08) On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.
09) I don't suffer from stress. I am a carrier!!!
10) You are slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut
butter.
11) Everyone is someone else's weirdo.
*12) Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then
beat you with experience.
13) Be careful .. a pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick
in the ass.
14) Don't be irreplaceable --- if you can't be replaced, you won't be
promoted.
*15) The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.
16) You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a
clipboard.
17) So this isn't Home Sweet Home . . Adjust!
18) Ring bell for maid service. If no answer, do it yourself!
19) I came, I saw, I decided to order take out.
20) Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never
cease to be amused.
21) I'd love to live life in the fast lane, but I'm married to a speed
bump.
22) The tranquilizer pills are in the bottle with the teeth marks.
Not a politically correct evacuation plan for Huston as Rita approached
· Hispanics use 59 South to Mexico.
· Cajuns use I-10 East to Lafayette.
· Rednecks use 59 North to East Texas or 45 North to stop off at the
deer lease.
· Republicans fly Continental to Washington DC.
· Yankees and Democrats use 45 South to Galveston (where the
hurricane is presently headed)
· Longhorns use 290 West to Austin.
· Aggies use 610 Loop to get around town (and go round and round)
Forwarded by Paul Golliher
THE OIL SHORTAGE A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an
oil shortage here in America.
Well, there's a very simple answer.
Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting
low.
The reason for that is purely geographical.
Our OIL is located in Alaska, California, Oklahoma and TEXAS.
Our DIPSTICKS are located in Washington DC
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:
1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the
second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.
I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor
(an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart
finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) ---
http://www.financeprofessor.com/
Click on
www.syllabus.com/radio/index.asp for
a complete list of interviews with established leaders, creative thinkers
and education technology experts in higher education from around the
country.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Sometimes the key mover in Enron's shady dealings, CFO Andy Fastow,
was portrayed by the media as a financial genius. This may not be the
case. Somebody called in Kaminski. He was
soft-spoken yet excitable, a man who quickly assessed colleagues' brainpower
--- and Fastow had never made it high on his list of high-voltage
intellects. Long ago, when Fastow had incorrectly boasted that his
business was unaffected by interest rate, Kaminski had concluded the man was
a lightweight . . . Kaminski smiled to himself. "How could a man
like this be in charge of a business?" A hedge could only offset declines in
an asset's value, not operating losses from a failing business. The
only hedge for a money-losing business was a moneymaking business---and one
of those certainly wasn't going to be coming out of this meeting. Kurt Eichenwald, Conspiracy of Fools (Broadway Books,
2005, pp. 9394).
Nor are Andersen's managing partners on the Enron audit portrayed as
rocket scientists. Kurt Eichenwald, Conspiracy of Fools (Broadway Books, 2005, pp.
138-139).
Since 1990, Stephen Goddard at Andersen had
overseen Enron--meeting the board, reviewing deals, auditing
financials. Goddard wasn't Hollywood's idea of an accountant; this was
no boring technocrat with green eyeshades. He was a specialist in
client services, a backslapper who maintained a close relationship with
the managers whose numbers his team reviewed.
Thanks in part to that familiarity, Andersen
and Enron developed an unusually close relationship. The firm was both
its auditor and its consultant. Veterans of Andersen's Houston office
jumped to Enron as internal auditors; even Rick Causey, Enron's top
accounting guru, had been an Andersen manager. The relationship
couldn't have been cozier.
But by February 1997, things had to change.
Andersen rotated partners on accounts every seven years, and Goddard's
time was up. Some partners lobbied to move up Tom Bauer, a top-notch
accountant, who audited Enron's trading operations. But Goddard thought
there was only one candidate--David Duncan, a thirty-six-year-old who
had worked on Enron for years. With Goddard's support, Duncan got the
nod.
Duncan rarely impressed anyone as a towering
intellect, and his background was unremarkable. Born in Lake Charles,
Louisiana, and raised in Beaumont, Texas, Duncan attended Texas A&M,
where he studied accounting. In college he had been something of a
party boy; he and a group of friends had formed what amounted to a co-op
for illicit drugs, purchasing large quantities of marijuana that they
divided among themselves. Often, Duncan and his pals could be found
around campus laughing it up, stoned.
In 1981, straight out of college, Duncan joined
Andersen's Houston office but didn't change his ways. For years, he and
his friends kept up their mass drug buying. Several days a week he
would leave the staid accounting world and head home to toke up;
sometimes he branched out to cocaine. But a few years after starting on
the Enron engagement, Duncan straightened up. He didn't use illegal
drugs since.
Enron seemed the ideal assignment. In his
early days at Andersen, Duncan struck up a friendship with Causey, then
just another accountant in the Houston office. The two became close,
often lunching, golfing, or going out with their wives. Now his buddy
was Enron's top accountant.
Clearly, Duncan was no accounting whiz, but
nobody worried about that; like most partners, he would rely on the
experts in the firm's Professional Standards Group to rule on tough
issues. But he struck some partners as top-flight where it
mattered--his familiarity with Enron and a close relationship with its
executives. His good looks and disciplined organization didn't hurt,
either.
In early February, Goddard and Duncan had an
appointment with Lay, to notify him of the coming change. Lay was
polite, if not particularly interested; he vaguely knew Duncan and
thought he seemed competent enough.
"I'm very excited about the opportunity to work
more closely with Enron," Duncan said. "It's really an honor."
Lay smiled. "We'll have a lot of fun," he
said.
By any measure, Duncan seemed a man on the
precipice of big things. But it was not to be; the great opportunity at
Enron would be his last high-profile accounting job.
Jensen Comment: It was Enron CEO Jeff Skilling who really got Enron into its
illegal trading practices, although in fairness he did not view them as
illegal when he came up (while a consultant to Enron from McKinsey) with
some very clever ideas for getting Enron into the energy trading business.
Skilling is portrayed as the brightest of Enron's dim-light bulb executives
but he also became the least mentally and emotionally stable. He was
great when things were rolling well but collapsed badly under pressures and
pending bad news.
While some young adults know how to make money,
they might not know how to manage it. Parents still usually control, or
have a hand in controlling, their children’s personal and even their
business finances. Protecting a grown child’s money may seem natural but
with education costs, spiking home costs, not to mention rising loan and
credit card debt, transitioning control might be the best idea. “What is
new is the increasing number of young adults unable to succeed
financially on their own,” said John Gallo, an estate-planning attorney
speaking with the Associated Press. “Parents have not been responding to
those increased social factors by teaching their kids how to manage
money.” Gallo co-authored “The Financially Intelligent Parent” and
“Silver Spoon Kids” with his wife Eileen.
Involvement by both the parent and child is
ideal in the sometimes complex decisions to be made that can mark
younger lives into the future. Eileen Gallo speaking with the Associated
Press said, “If parents can think of it in terms of a process, not a
cutoff, it can help.” She is a licensed psychotherapist.
“The type of people who make wealth like to
make decisions themselves, and want to make decisions for their kids,”
said Tom Rogerson, senior director for Mellon Private Wealth Management
speaking with the Associated Press. “They may make better decisions for
the money, but they leave their kids less capable and confident to make
decisions themselves.”
Teaching independence and setting financial
goals are part of setting boundaries. Establishing clear terms for
possible parental loans will help define repayment methods or systems
and savings values. Understanding investments are important as well.
One problem seen by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) involves taking advantage of educational tax
breaks. The GAO looked at 1.8 million tax returns targeting those taking
tax breaks and found that about one in four taxpayers failed to take an
allowable educational tax break or tuition deduction. Taking either of
these deductions might have reduced their tax bill by an average of $169
while ten percent of that group might have reduced their tax bills $500
or more.
Rules limit the number of tax breaks that a
parent or student may take in a tax year, leaving them to ferret out
information and understand the tax laws, apply the laws correctly as
well as keeping tax records. Making the best choice of the options
offered is not always easy or correct.
The Treasury Department has prompted the
Congress to simplify the system of educational tax system breaks. In
fact, a presidential panel is currently developing recommendations for
Congress concerning the simplification for the tax code, including tax
credits and deductions. The panel is expected to present their
recommendations in September
Teaching financial independence to the 2005 best in the NFL
Michael Vick Quarterback, Atlanta Falcons Earnings: $23.1 million Comment: Big star, big paycheck. While his passing stats
aren't great (he ranked 21st in QB rating last year), the wins
keep coming: The Falcons captured their first division title in
seven years. Mr. Vick's new contract gives him $37 million in
guaranteed bonus money overall, most in the NFL and 7% more than
Indianapolis Colts QB Peyton Manning.
Rudi Johnson Running Back, Cincinnati Bengals Earnings: $11 million Comment: Yes, Rudi. While not the biggest name in the
NFL, he scored 12 touchdowns last year in his second full
season. San Diego's LaDainian Tomlinson, the league's 2004
rushing leader, has a bigger overall deal, but Mr. Johnson's new
pact is more front-loaded, giving him about $9 million in bonus
cash next March on top of a $1.8 million salary.
Muhsin Muhammad Wide Receiver, Chicago Bears Earnings: $8.66 million Comment: Only in the NFL. After catching 93 passes,
scoring 16 TDs and making the Pro Bowl, Mr. Muhammad was let go
by Carolina because they couldn't afford to fit him under the
league salary cap. Then the lowly Chicago Bears swept in with $8
million in bonus money. Talk about a happy ending....
Antonio Gates Tight End, San Diego Chargers Earnings: $6.38 million Comment: A summer of public grumbling earned Mr. Gates a
one-game suspension...and a lucrative new contract (He was
scheduled to earn $380,000 in '05). Even though he's played only
two years, he led all NFL tight ends last season with 13 TDs.
Other tight ends (Tony Gonzalez and Todd Heap) have signed
larger overall deals, but it's still amazing what a difference
one good year can make.
Orlando Pace Offensive Lineman, St. Louis Rams Earnings: $16 million Comment: Chalk it up to market forces. Mr. Pace, a
6-foot-7, 320-pounder, is the latest offensive lineman to cash
in on the NFL's increasing infatuation with the passing game.
The trick: He plays left tackle, the position that protects the
blind side of a right-handed quarterback. Bona fides include two
Super Bowls and six consecutive Pro Bowls.
Adam Vinatieri Kicker, New England Patriots Earnings: $2.76 million Comment: No arguments here. In addition to booting two
Super Bowl-winning field goals in four years, Mr. Vinatieri, a
nine-year veteran, also led the NFL with 31 field goals in '04.
Don't expect him to fall off the list soon: He's a free agent
after the season.
Defense
Shaun Ellis Defensive End, New York Jets Earnings: $8.59 million Comment: The Nice Guy approach. While other players were
howling about dollars, Mr. Ellis made it clear he wanted to
remain with the Jets, who rewarded him with this princely deal,
even though he actually had a bit of an off year in '04. The
only hitch: now Jets linemate John Abraham wants the same deal.
Marcus Stroud Defensive Tackle, Jacksonville Jaguars Earnings: $10.34 million Comment: A perfect example of negotiating from strength.
Mr. Stroud's new contract extension, completed without fanfare
in April, rewarded his Pro-Bowl play and remarkable durability
(40 straight games) with a $100,000 "workout bonus," a $3.2
million "roster bonus," and a $6.5 "signing bonus," all of which
will be paid by the end of next March. The only player in our
survey represented by the famously combative agent Drew
Rosenhaus.
Keith Bulluck Linebacker, Tennessee Titans Earnings: $10.25 million Comment: Timing is everything. Thanks to a salary-cap
mess in Tennessee (and his league-leading 152 tackles in 2004),
the unheralded Mr. Bulluck was able to restructure his contract
to pad his cash bonus by $1.2 million. "You always want to force
the team's hand," says his agent, Gary Wichard.
Samari Rolle Cornerback, Baltimore Ravens Earnings: $12 million Comment: One interception goes a long way. Cornerbacks
have maintained their status as marquee players at the
negotiating table because passing (and defending the pass) is
all-important in today's NFL. Even more surprising: Mr. Rolle
signed his deal after a February arrest for domestic assault.
Darren Sharper Safety, Minnesota Vikings Earnings: $5 million Comment: In the NFL, it pays to get cut. After the
Packers released him in a cap move, Minnesota picked up Mr.
Sharper in a deal that strikes some as a gross overpayment. The
veteran has played in two Pro Bowls, but partially tore a
ligament in his left knee last season and turns 30 in November.
One of three players on our list represented by agent Joel
Segal.
Joe Gibbs Head Coach, Washington Redskins Earnings: $5.5 to $6 million Comment: You'd think New England's Bill Belichick, winner
of three Super Bowls, would be atop the cash heap, but instead
it's Mr. Gibbs, the former Redskins coach who returned to try to
save the franchise last year. But after a 6-10 season, the
pressure is on. Paychecks for coaches, which don't count against
the salary cap, appear to have hit a ceiling: Seattle coach Mike
Holmgren, who topped our list in '99, made about as much back
then.
September 9, 2005 reply from Robert Bowers
If I may -
Living in Baltimore, I am an old Colts
(Baltimore Colts, that is) fan. Unitas, Berry, Marchetti, Ameche, etc.
John Unitas had both knees replaced and had no
use of his arm before his recent sad death.
Art Donovan (tackle) had both knees and a hip.
Bill Pellington (linebacker) had knees and
hips. And on and on.
This from players from the 50's-60's era, when
a tackle weighed 220-240.
Today tackles can weigh 380 or more. I shudder
to think of the kinetic energy developed when 2 380 pounders slam
into each other at the snap of the ball.
Ray Lewis, the all star of the current
Baltimore Ravens, has both shoulders damaged, one dislocated, is
constantly in pain - now.
Jamal Lewis, he of the outstanding rushing
records, has 2 blown knees.
What kind of shape will these players be when
they are 50 and 60?
I know all these guys are getting astronomical
salaries to play these days.
I hope is was worth it.
Still intact with all my body parts, I am,
Robert Bowers
A Closer Look at the First Mandatory E-filing System Using XBRL The first mandatory e-filing system using XBRL will
officially be launched on October 1. The system, known as the Call Report
Modernization Project utilizes the Central Data Repository (CDR) a secure
shared database containing the quarterly filings of the nation’s estimated
8,400 financial institutions. Call Reports collect the basic financial data
from commercial banks in the form of balance sheets, income statements and
supporting schedules. They are used to supervise and evaluate the financial
condition of the institutions. The Call Report Modernization Project is
intended to simplify and increase the transparency of the call report
process. Currently, call report filings are comprised of 2,000 fields of
data requiring 400 pages of instructions. Some 1,500 formulas are used to
validate the data, which is used by the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the public. The Federal Financial
Institutions Examinations Council (FFIEC) estimates that more than 192,500
hours are spent compiling and filing call reports each year.
"A Closer Look at the First Mandatory E-filing System Using XBRL,"
AccountingWeb, September 1, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101260
As powerful, and useful, as eXtensible Business
Reporting Language (XBRL) is for sharing information between
organizations, there is more to business, and accounting than just
reporting. There is also more to XBRL than just financial reporting
taxonomies. In July, XBRL International release the latest version of
XBRL GL, the General Ledger taxonomy which allows for more efficient
handling of financial and business information within an organization.
The XBRL GL taxonomy represents any information found in a chart of
accounts, journal entries or historical transactions. Because it does
not require a standardized chart of accounts it can help unite legacy
charts of accounts to accounting detail across disparate systems
together to create a standard chart of accounts in a cost effective way.
XBRL GL is the language of improved and more
efficient communication between accountants. It provides a holistic
approach by creating a standardized vocabulary for expressing
information from the business documents that flow into financial and
business reports. XBRL GL offers a standardized format for moving
information between spreadsheets, accounting systems, and service
providers both inside and outside the organization.
It offers several advantages over existing
solutions, including:
Reporting Independence – meaning the
information can be collected and represented through flexible links
to XBRL for reporting purposes.
System Independence – meaning accounting
software developers can create a single import/export routine for
converting information to XBRL GL.
Consolidation – meaning information can be
moved between systems or combined easily.
Flexibility – meaning the limitations of
other approaches can be overcome for enhanced information exchange
and reporting.
“It has always been a goal of XBRL to involve
the entire Business Reporting Supply Chain,” states Eric E. Cohen, XBRL
Global Technical Leader and Founding Chair of XBRL GL. “To me, that has
meant standardizing the data that flows in from transactions and
business events, and bridging between transactions and reporting
(financial, tax, operational, statutory, etc.). That is the role of XBRL
GL.”
Answer The following appears in the Journal of Information Systems, Vol.
19, Number 1, Spring 2005, pp. 1-18.
Financial Reporting and Auditing Agent
with Net Knowledge (FRAANK)
and eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)
Matthew Bovee The University of Vermont
Alexander Kogan Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Kay Nelson The Ohio State University
Rajendra P. Srivastava The University of Kansas
Miklos A. Vasarhelyi Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
ABSTRACT: This paper describes the development and
applications of FRAANK--Financial Reporting and Auditing Agent with New
Knowledge. The prototype of FRAANK presented here provides automated access
to, and understanding and integration of, rapidly changing financial
information available from various sources on the Internet. In particular,
FRAANK implements intelligent parsing to extract accounting numbers from
natural-text financial statements available from the SEC EDGAR repository.
FRAANK develops an "understanding" of the accounting numbers by means of
matching the line-item labels to synonyms of tags in an XBRL taxonomy. As a
result, FRAANK converts the consolidated balance sheet, income statement,
and statement of cash flows into XBRL-tagged format. Based on FRAANK, we
propose an empirical approach toward the evaluation and improvement of XBRL
taxonomies and for identifying and justifying needs for specialized
taxonomies by assessing a taxonomy fit to the historical data, i.e., the
quarterly and annual EDGAR filings. Using a test set of 10-K SEC filings,
we evaluate FRAANK's performance by estimating its success rate in
extracting and tagging the line items using the year 2000 C&I XBRL Taxonomy,
Version 1. The evaluation results show that FRAANK is an advanced research
prototype that can be useful in various practical applications. FRAANK also
integrates the accounting numbers with other financial information publicly
available on the Internet, such as timely stock quotes and analysts'
forecasts of earnings, and calculates important financial ratios and other
financial-analysis indicators.
FOUNDATION Construction Accounting Software Wins Award FOUNDATION Software received the award as the
software supplier for Lighthouse Electric, a two-time winner of the
prestigious Silver Vision Award in the subcontractor category. Lighthouse
earned its second Vision Award for innovative labor management plan that
promises to save over $100,000 in labor costs each year. By using the
features of FOUNDATION, as well as those form Congistics ControlBoard, a
tracking and scheduling application, Lighthouse was able to create a
separate function for the management of manpower that utilizes a single
powerful Microsoft SQL database. “Our challenge was to utilize technology
and procedures in a way that would easily disburse and control our biggest
cost: labor,” Ron Felix, CIO of Lighthouse Electric said in explaining how
technology and business came together for his company.
"FOUNDATION Construction Accounting Software Wins Award," AccountingWeb,
September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101265
Cheryl Dunn is an exceptional Book Review Editor for the Journal of
Information Systems. She focuses more on the reviewers than the
items being reviewed on the theory that good scholars will provide good
stuff when they pick their favorite(s).
In the Spring 2005 edition (pp. 155-158) the scholar is the Brian Sommer.
This issue includes two book
reviews by Brian Sommer, the founder and president of TechVentive, a
technology strategy and consulting firm that serves leading technology
firms and Fortune 500 companies. Brian was the longest running
and most senior director Accenture's (formerly Andersen Consulting)
Software Intelligence Unit--a position that required him to choose
software solutions for hundreds of clients. In addition to being a
voracious reader, Brian has published a variety of articles, leadership
thought pieces, and training programs. Brian has also contributed to
the information systems literature as an editorial advisor for
IHRIM.link and the Review of Accounting Information Systems.
Thanks to Brian for contributing to the JIS book review section.
GERALD ZALTMAN, How Customers
Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, (Boston, MA:
Harvard Business School Press, 2003, ISBN: 1578518261, 352 pages,
($29.95)
PACO UNDERHILL, Why We Buy: The
Science of Shopping, (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1999, ISBN:
0684849135, 256 pages, $25.00)
We are rapidly approaching the end of one of the golden ages of IT:
the age of transaction processing/record keeping systems. Since the
1950s, firms have used IT to automate manual processes and to process
business events more efficiently and effectively.
But little real knowledge can
be gleaned from transaction data alone. The new "golden age" will
involve a redefinition of IT professionals and the kinds of solutions
they create. This age will involve new levels of customer understanding
that will focus on more than UPC, RFID, shopping cart, or register
data. As evidence of this new wave, consider the importance of customer
intimacy, customer retention and customer growth issues to CEOs in any
recent Conference Board study (e.g., CEO Challenge 2003). If IT
professionals are part of the knowledge economy, then why do they know
so little about what goes on inside customers' heads?
How will IT professionals lean
about customers? Not from CRM, supply chain, or sales force automation
solutions. At best, CRM solutions identify buyers and provide scant
demographic data about their name, address, and previous purchase data.
CRM will not tell you why a person is likely to buy again, what changes
are going on in their job or family that will drive new solution needs,
and so forth. To get insights into the psyche of buyers, IT
professionals need reset their understanding of what customers are and
how they buy. To understand the customer, one must put away the
programming manuals and prepare to re-learn what it means to be a buyer
or consumer.
I've chosen two books to
review: Gerald Zaltman's How Customers Think and Paco Underhill's
Why We Buy.
Dr. Ijiri was one of my major professors in the doctoral program at
Stanford. I'm naturally drawn to things he writes. He is one of
the long-time advocates of historical cost based accounting. He is in
fact much more dedicated to it than
Bill Paton (but not
Ananias Littleton) where Paton and Littleton are best known advocates of
historical cost accounting. The following is the lead article in
the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, July/August 2005, pp.
255-279.
US accounting standards and
their environment:
A dualistic study of their 75-years of transition
Yuji Ijiri Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
Abstract This article examines the 75-year transition of the US accounting
standards and their environment. It consists of three parts, each
having two themes: Part (1) Past changes: 1. The first market
crash and the second market crash; 2. Facts-based accounting and
forecasts-based accounting, Part (II) Present issues: 3. The
reform legislation (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) and the reform administration;
4. Procedural fairness and pure fairness, and Part (III) Future
trends: 5. Forecast protection and forecast separation; 6.
Principles-based systems and rules-based systems. These themes are each
examined from dualistic perspectives by contrasting two fundamental
concepts or principles. The article concludes with the strong need to
focus on "procedural fairness" in establishing accounting standards as
well as in implementing the reform legislation and administration, in
contrast to "pure fairness" that is almost impossible to achieve by
anyone.
U.K. Accounting Hall of Fame
Professors David Otley and Ken Peasnell of the Department of Accounting and
Finance are two of the fourteen founding members of the British Accounting
Association’s Hall of Fame. The ceremony (pictured here) took place at the
British Accounting Association 2004 Annual conference at York in April 2004
---
http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/news/3806/
This may not affect most professors and college staff who
are simply in the main TIAA and CREF accounts. But it is worth noting
for others. What it indicates is how you may still be getting gouged
in mutual fund fees from mutual funds other than TIAA-CREF. Always
check the fees and compare with lower cost funds such as those in Fidelity
and Vanguard.
Investment giant TIAA-CREF is considering
closing or liquidating nine of its actively managed institutional mutual
funds after failing to win shareholder approval to raise fees.
TIAA-CREF had been pushing for the fee
increases, which it said would help stem losses related to several
funds. But outside observers criticized the idea that TIAA-CREF, which
has long been known for low costs, would be in some cases quadrupling
fees on some of its funds.
Shareholders balked as well, rejecting new
investment-advisory agreements that would have brought the increases.
The vote now puts in doubt the future of several TIAA-CREF institutional
funds, namely its Growth Equity, International Equity, Small-Cap Equity,
Large-Cap Value, Real Estate Securities, Social Choice Equity, Bond,
Inflation-Linked Bond, and Money Market funds. TIAA-CREF, which has $350
billion in assets under management, said its board will now consider
closing some or all of those funds to new investors, or even liquidating
some of the funds.
The "no" votes marked a blow to the firm, which
took the unusual step of hiring a proxy-solicitation firm to gather
shareholder votes. TIAA-CREF, based in New York, argued that its
mutual-fund management unit had for years been setting fees too low to
cover the operating costs of the funds. Because of this, TIAA-CREF said
this year in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it
"cannot continue as an effective investment manager for the funds under
the current fee structure." TIAA-CREF has not provided details of how
much money the firm has lost on the funds.
"It is very surprising that they brought out
their big guns and they still failed," said Christopher Davis, an
analyst with Morningstar Inc. in Chicago.
It was also unusual because mutual-fund
investors are known for being lackadaisical in their approach to fund
governance. "Most shareholders really don't care about voting in a proxy
contest," Mr. Davis said. "Investment managers seem to always get their
way."
Shareholders didn't reject all of TIAA-CREF's
proposed fee increases. New investment-management agreements that
included increases were approved for two actively managed funds, the
Growth & Income and Mid-Cap Value funds.
For its part, TIAA-CREF had little reaction to
the vote. "We felt that we went to the shareholders with a very fair
proposal that would continue to rank us in the bottom quintile of fees,"
said TIAA-CREF spokeswoman Stephanie Cohen Glass, after the vote tally
was announced.
TIAA-CREF's proposal to increase fees raised
eyebrows among many in the fund industry, which has seen a trend of
declining fees over the past several years. In some cases, the fee
increases on the institutional funds would have been steep. The
Small-Cap Equity fund, for instance, would have seen its annual expense
ratio rise to 0.55%, from 0.15%.
An increase, though, still would have ranked
TIAA-CREF below most industry averages on management fees.
The results for one fund, the TIAA-CREF Mid-Cap
Growth Fund, are up in the air after too few votes were cast to allow a
decision. TIAA-CREF will reconvene the meeting for that fund once a
quorum is established, with a result possible in September, Ms. Cohen
Glass said.
Real versus faked coin flips Dr. Theodore P. Hill asks his mathematics students
at the Georgia Institute of Technology to go home and either flip a coin 200
times and record the results, or merely pretend to flip a coin and fake 200
results. The following day he runs his eye over the homework data, and to
the students' amazement, he easily fingers nearly all those who faked their
tosses. "The truth is," he said in an interview, "most people don't know the
real odds of such an exercise, so they can't fake data convincingly." There
is more to this than a classroom trick. Dr. Hill is one of a growing number
of statisticians, accountants and mathematicians who are convinced that an
astonishing mathematical theorem known as Benford's Law is a powerful and
relatively simple tool for pointing suspicion at frauds, embezzlers, tax
evaders, sloppy accountants and even computer bugs.
"Following Benford's Law, or Looking Out for No. 1 By Malcolm W. Browne
(From The New York Times, Tuesday, August 4, 1998) ---
http://www.rexswain.com/benford.html
"Forensic accounting" sleuths are taking advantage of sophisticated
programs to catch the crooks in action
In the 1920s, Frank Benford, a physicist at
General Electric (GE ), discovered an astonishing mathematical law: In
just about any given set of numerical data, numbers occur as the first
or second digit at a predictable rate. For example, "1" will appear as
the first digit 31% of the time, but "9" will appear first only 5%.
While that sounds unlikely, Benford tested lists of numbers from many
different sources -- accounting ledgers, geographic data, even magazine
articles -- and found that the same probability persisted.
Applied to accounting, Benford's Law makes for
a great way to check to see if numbers are fabricated (since when liars
make up figures, they usually don't follow the same statistical pattern
Benford identified). The law is now enjoying booming popularity as the
basis for a fairly easy, routine test that's used to uncover accounting
fraud. Easy, that is, if you have a sophisticated software package and
enough high-powered computers to crunch numbers from reams of documents.
In 2002, Darrell Dorrell, a principal at accounting firm Financial
Forensics in Lake Oswego, Ore., used a computer program to apply
Benford's Law to more than 21,000 payroll records of a health-care
company accused of defrauding investors. He found that the number "0"
turned up as the second digit in the payroll records twice as often as
it should have, and "5" showed up 60% more often than would be expected.
With that information, plus lots more evidence from other tests, he
reported to the company's receiver that the records "appear to be
contrived."
FUELED BY FEAR.
Benford's Law provides just one small example
of the way in which technology used to uncover accounting fraud has been
growing in both sophistication and popularity. The growth hasn't really
been stimulated by technological innovation, which has mostly amounted
to fine-tuning sleuthing programs so that they issue fewer false alarms,
customizing such programs for use with new industries, and upping raw
computing power so the programs can crunch more data. Instead, the boom
is being fueled by accounting scandals, terrorism threats, and new
regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley financial-disclosure law and the
Patriot Act, which both require companies to be more vigilant about
avoiding financial fraud and about keeping employees honest.
All of those threats "have made businesses more aware of the potential
catastrophic damage to organizations that fraud presents," says Toby
Bishop, president of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. "In
the past, companies were unwilling to spend money on solutions until
they had a bad experience," he adds. But over the past couple of years,
"financial-statement fraud has risen to the top of the agenda."
Partly, that's because of the weak economy, says Carolyn Newman,
president and co-founder of Houston-based Audimation Services, which
sells software that's used by forensic accountants. "When individuals
have a financial need, or a need to protect their jobs, they're more
likely to commit or participate in fraud," she says.
EYE-GRABBING RESULTS.
However, despite the high-profile instances of
malfeasance that have plagued Corporate America lately, the companies
leading the charge to find fraud are trying to root out dishonest
customers more than crooked executives. In the last 10 years,
credit-card companies have cut their losses due to card theft in half
using programs like Fair Isaac's (FIC
) Falcon Fraud Manager, which flags potentially bogus transactions at
checkout based on analysis of past spending patterns by cardholders. And
software that's used to spot insurance fraud typically delivers a return
on investment of more than 300%, says Bishop. "Those are figures that
will grab the eye of any chief financial officer," he adds.
Returns are so high because fraud-finding
software, including programs used by auditors to check a company's
financial records, is better than ever. While auditors typically sample
small portions of data to check that accounting policies are being
followed, now they can easily check every transaction, a capability
identified by the oxymoron "100% sampling."
"We're in a complex business environment where the number of
transactions companies have to monitor has increased in conjunction with
more regulation," says Harald Will, chief executive of Vancouver (B.C)-based
ACL Services, a leading provider of software for internal audits. ACL
will debut its "Continuous Monitor" suite of software tools in
mid-October. "Companies need to manage the risks, ensure that controls
are working properly, monitor the integrity of transactions -- and they
need to do it continuously," Will says. "The only way they can do that
is with technology."
CONFLICT CHECKERS. Increasingly, companies
are also using outside databases to look for relationships between
potential new hires and business units, with an eye to uncovering
conflicts of interest or illegal activity. The latest systems will
scroll through payment information looking for suppliers that aren't
listed in any online commercial database -- a possible sign that they
aren't legit -- or that operate from addresses that have been associated
with fraud in the past.
From its Springfield (Va.) home base, a company called I2 sells the
"Analyst's Notebook," a program developed for law-enforcement agencies
but becoming more widely used in corporate settings. One of its
corporate tasks is to check for conflicts of interest on a company's
board of directors. The software will troll through open databases, like
D&B (DNB ) or
LexisNexis, to look for connections between individuals and companies.
Then it will illustrate the connections graphically, with lines
connecting people and organizations.
"We can take three feet of written documents and turn them into a
picture that shows relationships," claims Jack Reis, I2's president. He
has noted increasing demand from forensic accountants -- those who look
for fraud. "I expect we're going to see more," he says.
Continued in the article
The Journal of Accountancy ran an article showing how a Benford's Law
application in Excel led to discovery of a fraud.
In case you missed our demonstration at the
American Accounting Association conference in San Francisco, we hope you
will find the information below helpful.
FinancialZ, Inc. is a financial software
company based in Tempe, AZ. We have an Educational version of our
software, Financial Grammar, which is currently being used at
universities across the country.
The software is best utilized in managerial
finance courses to teach analysis of financial data. It is designed as a
teaching enhancement tool to accelerate students' learning of financial
analysis concepts (i.e. how to spot red flags). It can be used in either
MBA or undergraduate classes. In addition, some of our
client-universities currently use it in entrepreneurial courses,
financial statement analysis and business development courses. The
software is CPA- engineered, (US) GAAP compliant and can be used for
AICPA review courses.
In order to download a trial version, go to:
www.financialzinc.com . If you look under the
PRODUCTS tab, a PDF formatted brochure can be downloaded.
The software can be delivered via CD-Rom or
downloaded to the student's computer. The cost is $34.95/per student/per
course. If you are interested in incorporating this tool in just one
class it can be purchased, by the student, directly from our website
using a designated school code.
I invite you to download and experience our
software. I will follow up with you again next week to answer any
questions that you may have. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to
contact me at the number below.
If you were working in Silicon
Valley in the 1990s, you probably have employee stock options to thank
for your Porsche, your second home, and the gratitude of your spouse.
If, more recently, you lost your job, you can thank stock options for
that, too.
The long debate over whether companies should
be forced to account for options is really a debate about what sort of
high-tech industry one wants. Will honest bookkeeping tame the goblins
of extreme greed that bring bubbles and busts? Or as the ardent
champions of options have long maintained, will accounting for options
so flatten entrepreneurial zeal as to snuff out serious investment in
the Valley?
Cisco Systems' newly proposed plan for valuing
its employee stock options has at least introduced a novel idea into a
debate that has flared since the early 1990s. Corporate watchdogs have
insisted that employee options represent a cost to the public companies
that issue them--and that the cost should be properly expensed in
financial statements. Those on the other side--who come mostly from the
high-tech industry--have argued that the obligation to account for
options would discourage companies from granting them and thus diminish
a primary method by which the industry attracts talented employees.
This dispute would seem unimportant, if only
the stakes were not so high. According to Jack Ciesielski, publisher of
The Analyst's Accounting Observer, by failing to book the costs of
options, high-tech companies in the S&P 500 inflated their profits last
year by 31 percent. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently
ruled that companies must begin accounting for options in their first
fiscal year after June 15, 2005.
That hasn't quelled the controversy. A bill
before the U.S. Congress would reverse the SEC mandate, and William
Donaldson, the SEC chairman who pushed for the expensing rule, resigned
in June. His proposed replacement, Christopher Cox, a congressman from
Newport Beach, CA, has been a fervent opponent of expensing. (Hearings
to confirm Representative Cox are expected soon.)
What Cisco is proposing has the appearance of a
compromise. To understand this, you need to think a little about how
options work--in particular, the options that companies such as Cisco
grant to their executives and their ordinary employees.
From the point of view of the recipients,
options are free. But as Alan Greenspan and Warren Buffett have
observed, they aren't "free" in an economic sense. Like other forms of
compensation, options bear a cost to the corporation. But what is that
cost?
An option conveys the right to purchase a given
number of shares at some specified price (called the strike price)
within a specified time frame. If the stock rises above the strike
price, the option's owner can exercise the option--that is, purchase
shares from the corporation--at a price that is now below-market, and
thus turn a profit. Frequently, to restrain dilution, the issuer will go
into the marketplace and buy back shares--paying, of course, the market
price. In the 1990s, corporations such as Microsoft and Cisco spent
hundreds of millions of dollars on such buybacks.
On the other hand, if the stock price does not
rise, then the option will expire worthless. Since every future stock
price represents a different potential outcome, the number of such
potential outcomes is limitless. And since we can't know in advance what
the stock will do, the value of the option at the time it's granted must
take into account the full range of possibilities.
Academics have been devising formulas to value
stock options for decades; the creators of the Black-Scholes formula,
the first such attempt to be widely adopted, won a Nobel Prize. Under
Black-Scholes,
the value of an option varies with the price of the stock, its
volatility, the duration of the option, the dividend rate, and interest
rates. But a good rule of thumb is that a 10-year option to buy stock at
$100 is worth about $30 or $40 today.
Jensen Comment:
Empirical studies show that the Black-Scholes model most likely overstates
the value of employee stock options because it underestimates market fears
that the options will tank. This and other controversies of employee
options accounting are discussed at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm
As you may recall, Cisco and other companies
in the past have taken a tremendous advantage of a discrepancy
between GAAP rules and tax rules prior to the revised FAS 123 due to
be implemented next year.
When the options are exercised there is cash foregone rather than a
cash outlay. The company simply issues stock for cash at the
exercise price and foregoes the intrinsic value (the difference
between the market value and the exercise price). In spite of fact
that cash never flows for intrinsic value of employee stock options,
Cisco has enjoyed a tremendous tax break (millions in some years and
over a billion in at least one other year) in tax deductions for the
cash foregone. In other words, a company like Cisco might report
over $1 billion in net profit to shareholders and a net loss to the
IRS when requesting a a large tax refund. The revised FAS 123
eliminates the intrinsic method of GAAP accounting for stock options
and forces fair value to be expensed at the time of vesting. Now
Cisco is proposing a method of reducing the reported “fair value.”
Here's a look at five
recent books that promise to aid parent-teacher communication
and help parents get involved in their kids' education:
The Mom Book Goes to
School: Insider Tips to Ensure Your Child Thrives in Elementary
and Middle School Stacy DeBroff, Free Press, 2005, 400 pages
Collection of tips for how to help a child succeed at school
without alienating teachers. Topics: When to send notes to the
teacher, how to address learning disabilities. Helpful Point: If you barrage a teacher with questions
about minor issues or requests for conferences, teacher may
become evasive. Headscratcher: "Even if your child will not admit to
being bullied, there are a number of signs: He comes home with
bruises..."
*
* *
Parent Talk!: The Art
of Effective Communication With the School and Your Child Cheli Cerra and Ruth Jacoby, Jossey-Bass, 2005, 128 pages
Easy-to-read book (lots of charts, room to jot notes) presents
common parental issues with schools, with strategies for
addressing them. The goal: take-charge, organized parents who
advocate for their child's best interests. Helpful Point: For parents who work or can't afford to
donate money, 30 ways to assist the school. (Examples: donate
old books and toys). Headscratcher: Sections devoted to issues like "The
school bus is failing to pick up my child."
*
* *
Understanding
Independent School Parents: An NAIS Guide to Successful
Family-School Relationships Michael G. Thompson and Alison Fox Mazzola, National
Association of Independent Schools, 2005, 58 pages
This book focuses on helping teachers communicate with parents,
based on the theory that in independent schools, every teacher
will be confronted sooner or later with a difficult, even
irrational, parent. But it also can help parents avoid being
labeled difficult. Helpful Point: Tell teachers your hopes and fears for
your children. Headscratcher: The assumption that, in general,
independent school parents are "driven, controlling and
anxious."
*
* *
Teacher Says: 30
Foolproof Ways to Help Kids Thrive in School Evelyn Porreca Vuko, Perigee Books, 2004, 320 pages
Grade-specific advice on how to help a child be a better student
-- from keeping a child healthy to improving science skills. Helpful Point: Includes tools for teaching (such as
foreign language resources) and book lists organized by age for
kids who don't like reading. Headscratcher: The section on hygiene: "Encourage Junior
to use his knuckle or elbow to press an elevator button."
*
* *
The Essential
Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn from Each
Other Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Random House, 2003, 288 pages
The author, a Harvard education professor, examines teacher
defensiveness and barriers that make parents feel unwelcome at
schools. A psychotherapeutic look into how parents' and
teachers' childhood experiences can impact their adult
expectations and how their kids are educated. Helpful Point: Parents should understand that teachers
bring their own baggage to the classroom. Headscratcher: All the teachers used to illustrate points
are female.
September 7, 2005 message from David Fordham, James Madison
University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
. . . one of the courses I teach is
graduate level Information Security, and one of our major principles is
the idea of "layered" security. This concept of layers of protection is
the primary distinction between the "mislukking" (literally, the "bad
luck incident", or "disaster") of the southwestern part of the
Netherlands in 1953 and the current "full scale catastrophe" of New
Orleans.
If the news reports are to be believed (see
footnote below), the scale and scope of the New Orleands incident far
exceeds the "Mislukking", which was a drop in the bucket.
The 1953 incident killed 1,835 people, which is
why it is considered a disaster, especially since that represented about
10% of the population of the area affected, most while they slept. But
in reality, it was a relatively minor incident, even for the
Netherlands.
The Dutch incident flooded only a couple of
polders (only two of which, Stavenesse and Margareta, held villages),
and partially flooded about six more, most of which held only farmland.
Less than 20,000 people and about five square miles were affected in
total, whereas the news reports we are getting say half a million or
more are affected in New Orleans and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of square
miles are under water.
With almost half of its land area below sea
level (including major cities such as Amsterdam, Ultrecht, Rotterdam,
the Hague, Haarlem, and Broeklaan), the incident in 1953 would have been
a true calamity but for one thing: In addition to the dikes holding back
the sea, the Dutch have criss-crossed their country with "layers" of
dikes, partitioning it into tens of thousands of "polders". If the sea
breaches a dike, a polder fills up, but hopefully, the dikes between
polders will limit the damage to that one polder. That's exactly what
happened in 1953. The sea dikes (zeedijken) were breached in several
places, and half a dozen polders flooded, but the secondary dikes held,
and thus the damage was relatively limited and did not affect the tens
of thousands of other polders. No large towns or major cities were
affected.
Since the area of Zeeland was at the time very
rural, most of the affected polders contained only farms and farmhouses.
Two of them contained villages with populations of about 5,000 - 8,000
people, and of course those people suffered greatly.
In fact, it was the relatively rural nature of
the Zeeland province which was the cause of the problem: the money had
been spent on good dikes for the more populous areas, and the rural
areas weren't as well protected. (sound familiar?)
The Netherlands covers an area a little less
than the state of Delaware. If you blew the entire country map up to a
square meter (square yard) in size, your thumb could cover the entire
area affected in 1953, thanks to the system of "layered protection"
dikes. By contrast, at the same scale, it would take both your hands and
then some to cover the flooded area of New Orleans (this comparison
isn't my own, I saw it on Channel 1, the Antwerp TV station. See the
footnote!)
When I was in New Orleans for the AAA a few
years ago, I remember seeing the floodgates in the wall down by the
river. But I don't remember seeing any secondary dikes or walls or
levees or dams in other places in the city as I do in Dutch or Belgian
cities. Once the water came into town in New Orleans, unless I missed
something, it would seem that it could cover a huge area unimpeded.
The Dutch, by bad luck experience, have learned
that if you have secondary dikes creating lots of little polders, a
breach will fill up a polder rather quickly, and the water level reaches
equilibrium rapidly. Once equilibrium is reached, the water stops
flowing, and you can repair the breach relatively easily, even during
the height of a storm. If you don't have secondary dikes, it takes a
long time for the entire countryside to fill up, thus the water is
rushing through the breach for a longer time, and much more water is
involved, taking longer to pump back out, covering far more area, and
doing far more damage.
One of the hallmarks of the human race is the
ability to learn from the "bad lucking" suffered by others. New Orleans
offers a great object lesson to my InfoSec students. In Information
Security, you have to assume the frontline defense will be breached, and
you have to have secondary and tertiary defenses in place and ready.
(I have to wonder why the idea of "layers of
security" and redundancy in checks/balances isn't emphasized more in
audit and fraud detection classes. Perhaps it is, and my unfamiliarity
with the modern content of those courses may be leading me to needless
worry.)
Incidently, the Dutch area of Zeeland
(literally, sea-land) is very similar to the coastal marshes and
wetlands of the coastal U.S. While the bayou's have trees, the zeeland
was formerly mud flat, created by the Delta of the rivers (Maas, Scheldt,
and Rhine, just like Louisiana's Mississippi delta region). After
building the dikes, the dutch constructed windmills to run pumps to pump
out the water. One consequence of drying out the land is that the land
then sinks even further. So what was originally right AT sea level soon
becomes lower than sea level once it dries out. Since the soil is sandy,
the salt quickly gets washed into the ground, leaving a rich loose
tillable soil. The saying goes, "God made the world, but the Dutch made
Holland".
(Footnote: Media reports, especially
sensational ones, are notoriously inaccurate. I generally take them with
a grain of salt until confirmed by a source which I consider accurate by
my own previous experience. The sensationalism promulgated by the U.S.
press and media here in Europe about New Orleans is "standard fare" and
no more sensational than the coverage afforded stuff like the movie star
scandals. Like all the other sensations, most intelligent people here
don't put much stock in the U.S. media. However, this time, I received
an email from Jim and Debby Carter (trusted) friends of ours in rural
Louisiana, who confirmed that New Orleans is indeed almost completely
under a foot to six feet of water, and while still sensationalized and
biased towards overreporting criminal activity (and disdain for
governmental aid or lack thereof), most media outlets have generally
described the destruction and damage with surprising faithfulness.
According to the Carters, the deaths reported are likely close to the
real figures, making this a truly terrible tragedy, akin to the results
of hurricanes which rake the Caribbean islands periodically -- where
tens of thousands often perish in a single storm. By contrast, European
media tend more (not completely, but more) to report factual data using
well-researched, mathematically-accurate objective data, letting the
readers draw their own conclusions instead of giving conclusions for
them. Hence I rely on the "thumb vs. two-hand" area comparison from
Antwerp TV more than I would if that same comparison appeared in the NY
Times or Wall Street Journal. And I believe my friends who are
first-hand witnesses even more. Our sympathies here are with the people
of the bayous and the city of New Orleans and its environs.)
David Fordham
James Madison University
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on September
9, 2005
TITLE: Education Companies Learn a Revenue Lesson
REPORTER: Steven D. Jones
DATE: Sep 07, 2005
PAGE: C3
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112605771096933552,00.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Accounting Changes and Error Corrections, Restatement,
Revenue Recognition
SUMMARY: Two for-profit educational institutions, both clients of Ernst &
Young, restated earnings because of a change in revenue recognition
practices.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What does it mean to state that a company "recognizes revenue"? In your
answer, specifically describe the accounting entries made when a student
pays tuition to an educational institution. Identify which entry or entries
occurs when revenue is recognized.
2.) What are the two bases for timing revenue recognition that are
described in this article?
3.) What is the problem that led to the restatements by Corinthian
Colleges Inc. and Career Education Corp? Why did the restatements end up
reducing earnings by such substantial amounts? In your answer, define the
principle of matching and comment on its relationship to the issues in this
case.
4.) What accounting standard requires restatement of past financial
results because of the issues in this case? What does the restatement imply
about the original accounting that was done by these entities?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
This school year, at least a couple of
for-profit education companies will be hitting the books -- but not
those books.
The lesson plan: Get revenue recognition right.
Last month, Corinthian Colleges Inc. restated
three years of earnings to reflect changes in the way the company
records revenue from tuition. Career Education Corp. unveiled a similar
accounting change and restatement earlier this year.
Previously, both companies had booked tuition
income as revenue over just the time a student spent in classroom
instruction -- a practice out of step with the reality of the degree
programs being offered. A push to ensure students are job-ready at
graduation now means internships -- or externships, in the latest lingo
-- of as long as two years for students earning certification as
surgical, respiratory and radiology technicians, for example, or
becoming nurses or paralegals.
Corinthian's restatement trimmed a total of $28
million from earnings back to 2002. That includes cuts of four cents a
share from this year's first-quarter earnings and one cent a share from
third-quarter earnings. The company said there would be no change to
second-quarter earnings.
In a securities filing, Santa Ana, Calif.-based
Corinthian, which operates more than 40 campuses, said it would begin
recognizing revenue twice a month rather than monthly and "through the
end of each student's externship period." The full restatement will
appear in the company's annual report in September.
SUMMARY: Eisinger analyzes stock price jumps on August 31 and argues that
the phenomena may be indicative of window-dressing at one particular hedge
fund.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What are the three types of investment portfolios identified in the
accounting literature? What type of investment portfolio is discussed in
this article?
2.) Describe the accounting for the three types of investment portfolios.
What is the biggest difference in the accounting practices' effect on
reported profits?
3.) Define the term "window dressing." How does that issue relate to
using market values for financial reporting and to their impact on
performance shown in the income statement?
4.) Suppose you are an auditor for the hedge-fund identified in this
article. How would you assess the potential impact of these issues on your
audit procedures? Would you react to the information published? Identify all
steps you might take both in your audit steps within the hedge-fund and any
external steps you might consider.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
SUMMARY: As were the financial effects of the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001, the losses associated with Hurricane Katrina will not be
afforded extraordinary item treatment.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What are the requirements for an item to be treated as extraordinary?
What accounting standard(s) establishes those requirements?
2.) What is the presentation afforded to items that are given
extraordinary item treatment? How is that treatment useful to financial
statement users?
3.) What are the reasons that losses from Hurricane Katrina will not be
afforded extraordinary item treatment? In your answer, comment on the sheer
dollar size of the economic losses and their impact on deciding whether an
item should receive extraordinary item treatment.
4.) Besides extraordinary item treatment, what other ways of disclosing
the financial effects of the hurricane might convey the clearest information
to financial statement users? In your answer, comment on any points made in
the article about this issue.
5.) What types of losses are businesses experiencing from the effects of
Hurricane Katrina? List all that you can think of. Then, supposing that the
item were afforded extraordinary item treatment, what accounting steps would
you take to properly present this information? In addition, describe the
steps you would take to present financial statement disclosure that you
describe in answer to question 4.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Jensen Comment:
Hurricanes across New Orleans are not extraordinary. But the breaks in
levees that destroyed the entire city are extraordinary in my viewpoint.
Levee breaks themselves around the world perhaps aren't all that
extraordinary, but levee breaks with such massive destruction are indeed
very rare events. It seems to me that if the distinction between
ordinary versus extraordinary is to mean anything in GAAP other than a bad
joke, then the New Orleans losses are extraordinary. But I'm just one
lowly bookkeeper among a crowd of accounting standard authorities on this
issue.
Tidbits and Quotations Between September 1
and September 14
Guess what the worst one is (Hint: It's in Q Magazine's Top
100 List)? Maxim Magazine's 30 Worst Albums of All Time ---
http://listsofbests.com/list/64/
Many local communities housing victims (such as Houston and San Antonio)
are seeking funds and other aid to help those victims. Some of the local
banks, churches, newspapers, and TV stations have set up ways to channel
that support. Avoid door-to-door scammers.
Where will all the college students forced out by Katrina find new
colleges? Hurricane Katrina kicked students out of New
Orleans colleges, and institutions around the state and the country are
welcoming them with open arms. Meanwhile, the closed colleges in Louisiana
must wait for a time their students can return – and many hope that they
will not have to abandon this semester.
David Epstein, "Finding New Homes or Temporary Home," Inside Higher Ed,
September 2, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/02/katrina
Two brilliant explanations of what caused the catastrophic damages
from Katrina
Were there rainbow flags
whipping about in Louisiana and Mississippi last week? In 1998 the city
fathers of Orlando, Fla., decided to hang rainbow flags from lampposts
in honor of Disney World's "gay day." Zany televangelist Pat Robertson
issued an admonition: "I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way
of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags
in God's face if I were you." ---
http://snipurl.com/GayCauses
*******************
Does Bobby, Jr. have any recollection of Galveston on September 8,
1900 when the world's horsepower was still energized by horses and not
hydrocarbons? Now we are all learning what it's like to reap
the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence. . . . Our destructive addiction
has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and--now--Katrina is
giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our
children ---
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/afor-they-that-sow-the-_b_6396.html
Question
What is the next big thing about to be announced from Apple Corporation?
Answer Apple Computer Inc. has a tradition of tightly
guarding its announcements, but the prevailing expectation among industry
observers is that the event will be the unveiling of a long-awaited cell
phone from Motorola Inc. that will contain built-in support for Apple's
iTunes software, with a connection to Apple's popular online music store. Mike Musgrove, "Tech World Awaits Apple's Latest 'Surprise'," The
Washington Post, August 31, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083001899.html?referrer=email
Jensen Comment: Be careful with this. You would not want the phone to
answer a call from your boss with a rendition of Johnnie Paycheck's "Take
This Job and Shove It."
"The Fate of Africa" (PublicAffairs, 752
pages, $35) ... is a heavy book, but it is light reading
because it is so unfashionably straightforward. Martin Meredith has written
a narrative history of modern Africa, devoid of pseudointellectual frills,
gender discourse or postcolonial angst. He takes each of the larger African
countries and tells you what happened there after independence. In
chronological order. It is a joy. Africa's rulers will hate it.
Robert Guest, "So Badly Misled," The Wall Street Journal, August 31,
2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112543868461627062,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Recolonizing Africa Radical Islam seeps into the neglected continent For decades, sub-Saharan Africa has been treated as
nothing more than a dumping ground for humanitarian aid -- an instrument the
West occasionally employed to ease its collective guilt for slavery,
colonialism and its own prosperity, only to turn its attention elsewhere as
soon as that guilt was temporarily assuaged. This arrangement unfortunately
obscured the mechanism by which the West might truly have invested itself in
the region's well-being. The fact that the subcontinent is an important
piece of the international security framework, due primarily to the level of
Islamist penetration it has experienced, has yet to sink in.
David McCormack, "Recolonizing Africa," The Wall Street Journal,
August 31, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112544315528227170,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
The Marriage Advantage — for Men Male graduate students who have wives drop out less
frequently and finish their Ph.D.’s more quickly than their single
counterparts.
Scott Jaschik, "The Marriage Advantage — for Men," Inside Higher Ed,
August 30, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/30/marriage
Malcomb Gladwell on Tipping Points and Moral Hazard Gladwell:
The home-run tipping-point notion is really quite fascinating. One of the
things that always interests me in sports is how extraordinarily sensitive
athletic performance is to social expectations. My favorite example is the
four-minute mile. For years, no one even comes close. Then Roger Bannister
breaks the record in 1954, and suddenly, everyone can break four minutes.
Did runners get "better" in 1954? Not really. They simply became aware that
running four minutes was possible. Same thing with baseball players and the
Dominican Republic. Dominicans are not "better" infielders than everyone
else. But if you are a nine-year-old kid playing in San Pedro de Macoris,
you know that it's possible to be a major leaguer, in a way that the same
kid growing up in Maine does not. When symbolic barriers are broken -- the
first man from the Dominican Republic to make the majors, the first person
to break four minutes -- the context in which we think of achievement
changes dramatically.
Rob Neyer, "The interview: Malcolm Gladwell," ESPN Baseball, June 4,
2005 ---
http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1390690.html
Jensen Comment: Malcomb Gladwell is a clever writer who spent about 10
years with The Washington Post and, since 1997, is a staff writer
with The New Yorker. One of his best known works is The Tipping
Point ---
http://snipurl.com/TippingPoint . His latest contribution is in the
August 29, 2005 issue of The New Yorker where he laments the sad
state of health care insurance in America --- "THE MORAL-HAZARD MYTH The bad
idea behind our failed health-care system" ---
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050829fa_fact#top
I think moral hazard is in fact a much more serious problem than he
concludes, but I like the way he writes about the problem. Gladwell often
take angles on things that are quite clever and is very articulate. I might
not agree with everything he writes, but I always like the way he writes it.
People without health insurance (in the U.S.)
have bad teeth because, if you're paying for everything out of your own
pocket, going to the dentist for a checkup seems like a luxury.
Malcomb Gladwell," The Terrible Tooth About America, The New Yorker
---
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050829fa_fact
The British, of course, have socialized
medicine, which we guess explains why they have such great teeth.
Carol Muller, Opinion Journal, August 30, 2005
Lives at Risk: Single-Payer National Health Insurance Around the
World, by John C. Goodman, Gerald L. Musgrave, and Devon M. Herrick,
Lanham, Md.: Rowan & Littlefield, 263 pages, $22.95
Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why
Canada Isn’t the Answer, by Sally C. Pipes, San Francisco: Pacific
Research Institute, 219 pages, $14.95
No more low riding cleavage teasers at Northwestern University The new code asks students to keep midriffs
covered, and to leave items like tank tops, hats, athletic shorts, and tops
with spaghetti straps in the closet when they come to class. “In a
professional environment, and with professional education, we’re not only
concentrating on facts and didactic material, but professional behavior and
appearance,” Wilson said. She added that, so far, she has not seen anyone in
the halls in open defiance of the new code.
David Epstein, "Fashion Police," Inside Higher Ed, August 31, 2005
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/31/dress
Jensen Comment: What fun is navel jewelry if it can't be displayed? Now if
we could only require ear muffs, at least among the male students. Or have
I become a fuddy duddy in my advancing years?
Long lost 1948 speech in the files of the American Association for
Higher Education
When the American Association for Higher Education
shut down this spring, many of its files went to Clara M. Lovett, its last
president. She recently found a speech given in 1948 at the annual meeting
of the higher education division of the National Education Association,
which helped create the AAHE. Lovett thought the speech — about challenges
facing higher education as the U.S. confronted the Cold War — had relevance
today. With thanks to Lovett for the find and to the NEA for permission to
reprint the text, we offer the following thoughts from an earlier
generation. Ernest O. Melby , "The Role of the University in Building World Peace,"
Inside Higher Ed, August 31, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/31/melby
Is soy everything that's promised? Soy is widely considered to be something of a
medicinal super food, touted as helping to prevent conditions as diverse as
heart disease, hot flashes, osteoporosis, kidney disease, Alzheimer's
disease, and even cancer. But a new government-sponsored review of soy
research shows little to justify the hype. An analysis of close to 200 soy
studies conducted over the past two decades showed only limited evidence of
specific health benefits associated with eating soy products or taking soy
supplements.
Salynn Boyles, "Jury Still Out on Soy and Health," WebMD, August 25, 2005
---
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/110/109766.htm?z=1727_00000_5024_hv_03
Newspaper fabricates series on Iraq The Daily Egyptian, the student
newspaper at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale,
published a series of articles about the experiences of a
young girl whose father was a soldier in Iraq. While the
articles moved many students and faculty members, the girl
and her father both turned out to be fabrications. The
Chicago Tribune
exposed the hoax when it
investigated reports of the father’s death. The student
newspaper has published an
apology. Inside Higher Ed, August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/29/qt
Texas A&M is investing millions of dollars to win the trust of
minority students Tadesse, who graduated third in his class from the
nearly all-black Jack Yates High School in Houston, is part of Texas A&M's
bold effort to increase its minority enrollment without considering race in
admissions. The goal is a student body that reflects the diversity of Texas.
The state's second-largest university has invested millions of dollars to
attract students who didn't have the luxury of wealth or the best schools.
The campaign reversed a seven-year decline in the number of black and
Hispanic freshmen last fall, and the university is projecting big percentage
increases again as classes start today. Officials are pleased with the
numbers, but realize that recruitment is a first step. Retention is another.
For years, a lower percentage of black and Hispanic students have graduated
within six years from Texas A&M than their white classmates. The university
is staking a lot on Tadesse, knowing his success could help draw more
minority students. He is resilient and earnest and does not plan to leave
without a bachelor's degree. "People change in college because they haven't
seen things in life," he said. "I feel right now that I'm a grown man."
Mathew Tresaugue, "Deeply rooted in tradition, Texas A&M is investing
millions of dollars to win the trust of minority students," The Houston
Chronicle, August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3328964
Jensen Comment: This initiative is above and beyond the huge influx of
minority students at Texas A&M and the University of Texas arising from
having to accept the top 10% of students from all public high schools in
Texas irrespective of admission test scores and grades.
Florida Colleges Note Fewer Black Students
As (Florida's) state college students
begin another fall term, many schools are reporting a decline in the
percentage of black students admitted to one of Florida's 11 public
universities. That trend has state Sen. Les Miller, D-Tampa, worried. As the
Senate Democratic leader and a member of Florida Caucus of Black State
Legislators, Miller said he is among those who questioned whether Gov. Jeb
Bush's 1999 initiative to end race-based university admissions would
ultimately hurt minority students.
Lloyd Dunkelberger, "Colleges Note Fewer Black Students," TheLedger,
August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050829/NEWS/508290317/1039
Florida A&M Students Returning To a College in Turmoil After a year of scandals, investigations and
financial difficulties at Florida A&M University, interim President Castell
Bryant is intent on restoring the school's respect. Since she took over the
school in January, Bryant has been faced with a slew of problems. The
athletics program conceded nearly 200 rules violations, two professors were
collecting paychecks while working full time out of state, the National
Science Foundation investigated misuse of grant money and more.
Brent Kallestad, "FAMU Students Returning To a College in Turmoil,"
TheLedger, August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050829/NEWS/508290321/1134
Many of the largest U.S. credit-card companies
require customers to sign away their ability to take disputes to court
and instead settle disagreements in arbitration.
Now that practice itself is under attack in
court. A lawsuit filed recently in federal court in New York City
alleges the credit-card companies held secret meetings where they
colluded to promote arbitration, in violation of federal antitrust laws.
The complaint alleges that eight of the
nation's biggest card issuers -- Bank of America Corp., Capital One
Financial Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley's Discover
unit, Citigroup Inc., MBNA Corp., Providian Financial Corp. and HSBC
Holdings PLC of the United Kingdom -- "combined, conspired and agreed to
implement and/or maintain mandatory arbitration."
Some of the banks named allegedly convened a
group in 1999 called the "Arbitration Coalition" or "Arbitration Group,"
the complaint says.
The suit, which was filed last month and is
seeking class-action status, claims that bank representatives spoke or
met at least 20 times from 1999 to 2003 to share experiences from
arbitration as well as advice on how to set up arbitration agreements
with consumers that would withstand challenges in court.
Amazon.com Nonprofit Innovation Award Amazon.com, Inc. today announced the 10 nonprofit
organizations that are finalists for the Amazon.com Nonprofit Innovation
Award. This award is designed to recognize and reward nonprofits whose
innovative approaches and breakthrough solutions most effectively improve
their communities or the world at large. Amazon.com, in partnership with the
Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford University Graduate School of
Business and a panel of expert advisors, selected the 10 finalists. These
organizations will be featured on Amazon.com web site through September 30,
2005, and customers can vote for their favorites by making contributions at
www.amazon.com/nonprofitinnovation. Stanford University Graduate School of Business Newsletter, July 19,
2005
Study Finds Most States Get Short End of Tobacco Deals A study by Stanford Professor Jeremy Bulow
indicates 29 states would have been better off passing a $4 excise tax on a
carton of cigarettes rather than signing the multibillion-dollar tobacco
settlement agreement.
"Study Finds Most States Get Short End of Tobacco Deals," AOL News,
August 6, 2005 ---
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/business/article.adp?id=20050806085909990003&_ccc=2&cid=403
Sharpe Point: Risk Gauge Is Misused Past average experience may be a terrible
predictor of future performance
The so-called Sharpe Ratio has become a cornerstone
of modern finance, as investors have used it to help select money managers
and mutual funds. Now, many academics -- including Sharpe himself -- say the
gauge is being misused . . . The ratio
is commonly used -- "misused," Dr. Sharpe says -- for promotional purposes
by hedge funds. Bayou Management LLC, the Connecticut hedge-fund firm under
investigation for what authorities suspect may have been a massive fraud,
touted its Sharpe Ratio in marketing material. Investment consultants and
companies that compile hedge-fund data also use it, as does a new annual
contest for the best hedge funds in Asia, by a newsletter called AsiaHedge.
"That is very disturbing," says the 71-year-old Dr. Sharpe. Hedge funds,
loosely regulated private investment pools, often use complex strategies
that are vulnerable to surprise events and elude any simple formula for
measuring risk. "Past average experience may be
a terrible predictor of future performance,"
Dr. Sharpe says. Ianthe Jeanne Dugan, "Sharpe Point: Risk Gauge Is Misused,"
The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2005;
Page C1---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112545496905527510,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
This fall’s college freshmen were the last to
take the old SAT — and they did well on the mathematics portion, posting
a 2-point gain, to an average of 520. Over the last 10 years, the
average math score increased by 14 points, a gain that College Board
officials said was significant and attributed to increases in the number
of students taking rigorous math courses in high school.
But the statistics released by the
College Board on Tuesday also had plenty of sobering
news: Verbal scores were flat. And over 10 years, verbal
scores increased by only 4 points, to an average of 508.
In addition, over the last 10 years gaps in performance
levels among members of ethnic and racial groups have
grown. Over the last decade, for example, the average
score for Asian Americans rose by 25 points on the SAT
math test, while the score for black increased by an
average of 9 points. That leaves the average for African
American students, 431, at 149 points behind the Asian
American average of 580.
The following table shows the
breakdowns on scores and gains by racial and ethnic
groups.
SAT Average Scores and
Gains, by Race and Ethnicity, 2005
Racial/ Ethnic
Group
% of
SAT Takers
Verbal Average
1-Year Verbal Gain
10-Year Verbal Gain
Math
Average
1-Year Math Gain
10-Year Math Gain
Native
American
1%
489
6
9
493
5
17
Asian
10%
511
4
19
580
3
25
Black
12%
433
3
1
431
4
9
Mexican American
5%
453
2
0
458
5
5
Puerto Rican
1%
460
3
12
457
5
13
Other
Hispanic
4%
463
2
-2
469
4
1
White
62%
532
4
7
536
5
15
Other
4%
495
1
-12
513
5
3
All students
100%
508
0
4
520
2
14
Continued in the article
William and Mary joining Yale and some other universities The College of William and Mary has announced a
new aid program that will cover all student costs for families with incomes
of up to $40,000. Under theGateway William
and Mary Program,students will not be asked to
borrow at all. William and Mary’s move follows those of other public
universities, such as the Universities of Michigan, North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, and Virginia, to increase aid packages for students from low-income
families. Inside Higher Ed, August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/29/qt
If you download files often and are frustrated by download times, you
may be interested in the following software:
Download Accelerator Plus 7.5 ---
http://www.speedbit.com/
Why States Shouldn’t Accredit If such a provision becomes law, we will see
exactly why some states refuse to recognize degrees issued under the
authority of other states: It is quite possible to be state-approved and a
low-quality degree provider.Which states allow poor institutions to be
approved to issue degrees? Here are the Seven Sorry Sisters: Alabama (split
authority for assessing and recognizing degrees), Hawaii (poor standards,
excellent enforcement of what little there is), Idaho (poor standards, split
authority), Mississippi (poor standards, political interference), Missouri
(poor standards, political interference), New Mexico (grandfathered some
mystery degree suppliers) and of course the now infamous Wyoming (poor
standards, political indifference or active support of poor schools).
n L. Contreras, "Why States Shouldn’t Accredit," Inside Higher Ed,
August 30, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/30/contreras
He should've just called her fluffy Efforts to tackle soaring obesity rates in the
US have taken a knock after a doctor was censured for telling a patient she
was fat. Terry Bennett, of New Hampshire, told the woman her weight was
harming her health, that her husband was obese and would probably die before
her, and, given her weight, she would have problems finding another man. The
doctor's comments became public at the same time as a new report that said
more than 119 million Americans are now considered overweight or obese. The
patient, who was reported to have weighed about 110 kilograms and to have
been suffering from diabetes, was upset and reported Dr Bennett to state
medical authorities. Her complaint, filed about a year ago, was investigated
by a panel of the New Hampshire Board of Medicine, which recommended Dr
Bennett be sent a confidential letter of concern. The board rejected the
suggestion in December and asked the Attorney-General's office to
investigate. Dr Bennett rejected that office's proposal that he attend a
medical education course and acknowledge he made a mistake. "I told a fat
woman she was obese," Dr Bennett said. "I told her, 'You need to get on a
program and peel off the weight that is going to kill you' ." Trust for
Americans' Health, an independent advocacy group that released this week's
report, F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America, 2005, says
the nation has been let down by ineffective anti-obesity policies.
Francis Harris, "Doctor censured for telling patient she is dangerously
fat," Sydney Morning Herald, August 27, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/26/1124563027265.html
Epidemiologists are hot on the trail of the obesity pathogen
Watching the Detectives Epidemiologists are hot on the trail of the obesity
pathogen," by Jacob Sullum, Reason Magazine, August 26, 2005 ---
http://www.reason.com/sullum/082605.shtml
So much for blowing the whistle on Halliburton A top Army contracting official who criticized
a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in
Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance.
Erik Eckholm, "Army Contract Official Critical of Halliburton Pact Is
Demoted," The New York Times, August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/international/middleeast/29halliburton.html
Talk about conflicts of interest in auditing Investors who are worried about the fate of the
money they turned over to the Bayou Group, a Connecticut firm that is under
investigation by federal and state authorities, will not be happy to learn
that there were close ties between the firm and the auditor of its hedge
funds. Public documents show that the chief financial officer and head of
compliance for the Bayou Group was also a principal in an accounting firm
that audited the hedge funds' books.
Gretchen Morgensen, "At Defunct Fund, Close Ties to Auditor," The New
York Times, August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/business/29bayou.html
"Who Killed PayPal? 'Consumer advocates' can make life miserable
for consumers," by Radley Balko, Reason Magazine, August/September,
2005 ---
http://www.reason.com/0508/cr.rb.who.shtml
Jensen Comment: Actually PayPal is not dead. But its effort to be an
independent company, apart from eBay, was killed primarily by the banking
industry who used their favorite guns, in Washington, to block competition.
Question:
What is the most popular electronic supplement for successful textbooks?
Answer
Probably electronic test banks and homework assignments/solutions.
Automatic grading of homework and exams is becoming extremely popular.
The introductory economics
textbook business can be a lucrative one. Principles
of Economics, by
N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard
professor, brought an advance of $1.4 million in 1997,
and has since become common shelf material in college
bookstores.
Several other intro texts have
made professors rich. The new books, for which only
microeconomics portions have been unveiled so far, are
from authors on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Krugman is famous for his anti-Bush tirades in The
New York Times, while Hubbard was on the Bush
administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, helping
to engineer tax cuts. For the most part, though, the
content of their books may not be startlingly different
from each other, or from the books already out there.
“It’s like adding Pepsi to the
shelf with Coca-Cola. You have more choices. You might
have Shasta and Canada Dry, too, but it’s mostly more of
the same,” said Fred Gottheil, an economics professor at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who
teaches intro courses and is the author of his own
textbook,
Principles of Economics.
The book publishers, however,
beg to differ. They say the books are unique, from each
other and from other texts on the market. “Each chapter
is going to follow a real case of a real business,” said
David Hakensen, a spokesman for Prentice Hall, which
published
Microeconomics, which Hubbard
wrote with Anthony P. O’Brien, an economics professor at
Lehigh University.
Krugman’s book,
Economics, which he wrote with
his wife, Robin Wells, also a Princeton professor,
“takes a story-driven approach that focuses on
real-world economics at work,” according to the Worth
Publishers Web site.
Both books will sell in the
range of $100, give or take $20 depending on the markup.
Hakensen noted that a digital, SafariX version of
Hubbard’s text is available. What about the Krugman
competitor? “With Aplia, students can use the digital
book and professors can give homework online,” said
Craig Bleyer, publisher for economics at Worth
Publishers.
Some professors don’t think the
digital options really break new ground. “I’m on the
bloody Internet, on your screen answering questions,”
Gottheil said of an option to which book owners can log
in for help via video. “What’s Krugman going to do new,
tell jokes? Unless he comes on 3-D. Then, OK, he beat
me.”
In fact, Krugman did show up in
person to the University of Pittsburgh last year, where
Shirley Cassing, an economics professor, was promised a
visit if she tried using his book during testing last
year. “It was so cool. He’s not very dynamic or
flamboyant in person,” she said, “but the sheer force of
his ideas made it engaging.” Cassing is a fan of
Krugman’s book. “We’re all familiar with his writing,”
she added. “Even if you don’t share his views, the
writing in the book is still really good, and there’s no
obvious bias.”
Cassing said the Aplia option
allowed her to assign homework that is done online and
graded automatically to her 200 students. She credits
that for part of improved student performance over the
past, when she used Mankiw’s book and homework was
essentially optional because all 200 problem sets could
not be graded.
Being an academic may make you ineligible to be the Chancellor of the
State University System Six of the seven members have no professional
experience in higher education, though many serve on the board of governors
that oversees the (Florida) state's universities. Political
allies of Gov. Jeb Bush, including big GOP donors such as
Fort Lauderdale physician Zachariah P. Zachariah
and St. Joe Corporation president Peter Rummell, dominate the search
committee. And Rummell, who chairs the search committee, made it clear
during the group's initial conference call Thursday that an academic
background is not especially critical for the new chancellor. The
qualifications drafted by Rummell for posting at the state's Web site seem
to favor a political background more than university experience: "The
successful candidate must possess significant demonstrated and proven
effective leadership experience -- specific experience in the state of
Florida political and educational environment being a plus -- that would
prove beneficial for leading the State University System."
"Academics for Universities' Chancellor?," TheLedger.com, August 28,
2005 ---
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050828/NEWS/508280337/1036
My brain/genes/hormones made me do it” catch-all excuse The keynote address was given by renowned Harvard
University psychologist Steven Pinker, who described a neuromorality of
personal responsibility. In Pinker’s view, the worry that a biologically
based understanding of human behavior will turn into a “my
brain/genes/hormones made me do it” catch-all excuse stems from a basic
fallacy: the assumption that bad acts deserve to be punished only if they
result from some fully autonomous “free will” exempt from biological or
other causation. How can we “salvage the core of responsibility” without
such mystical notions? For Pinker, the answer is to shift the focus from the
unanswerable question of whether an act was truly “freely chosen” to whether
the perpetrator has a normally functioning brain with a normal response to
the stimuli of reward and punishment.
Cathy Young, "Soul Survival: Is “the new neuromorality” a threat to
traditional views of right and wrong?" Reason Magazine,
August/September 2005 ---
http://www.reason.com/0508/co.cy.soul.shtml
Galton’s eugenics dreams were adopted with
singular earnestness by others, most notoriously Nazi Germany. Less well
remembered is the extent to which eugenics also became a significant factor
in the policies of democratic nations such as the United States and Sweden.
In the U.S., more than 60,000 people in 30 states received involuntary
sterilizations under eugenics-based laws in the early and mid 20th century;
they included the mentally ill or retarded, physically ill or disabled, and
others deemed socially inadequate. Eugenics also gave new impetus to
immigration restrictions, racial segregation, and bans on interracial
marriage. Largely in reaction against eugenics, the social sciences have
veered sharply from biological and hereditary explanations during the last
half-century. Today Galton’s specter rises again, as critics of
biotechnology warn against a new era of eugenics it will supposedly enable.
Kenneth Silber, "The First Eugenicist: Was Francis Galton wrong to want to
improve the human race?" Reason Magazine, July 2005 ---
http://www.reason.com/0507/cr.ks.the.shtml
Question
Why are President Bush and the porn industry united against the proposed
.xxx top-level domain?
"Oh hi dear! I'm glad you're home." She then turned to the doll seated on her lap.
"Hi, honey," Shackelford said gently to Amazing Amanda, a blond, blue-eyed
figure bearing more than a remote likeness to its creator. "Hello, my name
is Amanda," the doll replied as Shackelford smiled warmly at its rosy face.
"We're going to have the best time together," the doll promised. Amazing
Amanda, scheduled for release next month by Playmates Toys, is expected to
cost $99, said Shackelford, the chief executive of J. Shackelford &
Associates, a product and marketing company in Moorpark, Calif., that
specializes in toys and children's entertainment. At that price, the same as
Apple's entry-level iPod Shuffle digital music player, the 18-inch-tall doll
promises -- right on the box it will be sold in -- to "listen, speak and
show emotion." Some analysts and buyers who have seen Amanda say it
represents an evolutionary leap from earlier talking dolls like Chatty Cathy
of the 1960s, a doll that cycled through a collection of recorded phrases
when a child pulled a cord in its back.
Michel Marriott, "A Doll That Can Recognize Voices, Identify Objects and
Show Emotion," The New York Times, August 25, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/technology/circuits/25doll.html
It's a pity, then, that brilliant letters are
about as likely to be written by young poets today as odes to Psyche.
This isn't the fault of the poets. The letter has always been an
awkwardly balanced genre -- part practical necessity, part literary
performance, part cowardly way to break up with your girlfriend -- and
advances in technology have made the letter's modern incarnations
smaller, faster, flatter and more ephemeral. These qualities enhance the
functional side of letter writing at the expense of the casual,
cloudlike accumulations of thought that often lead to the most
incandescent poetic observations. And let's face it, the modern letter
equivalent makes for a lousy read. Consider, for example, a text message
version of Keats's famous explanation of ''negative capability'' (as
originally set forth in a letter to his brothers, George and Thomas,
it's a kind of artistic disinterest):
JKEATS1: Iz tryN 2 dev mor neg cap
G&TKEATS: watz dat?
JKEATS1: dats bn N uncertainties -- misteries
-- doubts w/o NE irritable reachN aftr fact & reasN : -)
G&TKEATS: kewl
There's nothing wrong with text messages --
they're terrifically useful and often very funny -- but they 8nt Xactly
gud 2 look @. Even e-mail messages, which bear some resemblance to
letters, are probably too short (not to mention too easily disposable)
to maintain the letter's literary position.
So we're likely down to our last few poet
correspondents. Fortunately, as ''A Wild Perfection: The Selected
Letters of James Wright'' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $40) demonstrates,
it's a formidable bunch. Wright, who died in 1980 at the age of 52, was
born in the industrial town of Martins Ferry, Ohio -- and as a poet, he
never entirely left it. Having graduated from Kenyon College with the
assistance of the G.I. Bill, Wright began his career as an earnest,
tender, technically adroit writer who embraced traditional forms, and he
kept the earnestness, the tenderness and the technical polish even after
he largely abandoned pentameter. Wright's letters (as chosen by his
wife, Anne Wright, and Saundra Rose Maley) trace his development from
young, poor Army enlistee scrambling for time to read Catullus (''he
most deliciously soared upon his physical and spiritual consciousness'')
to famous midcareer writer communing with fellow eminence Galway Kinnell
(''I think you and I have always shared something so deep as to be
terribly difficult to welcome into words''). Along the way are major
correspondences with Donald Hall, Theodore Roethke, James Dickey, Robert
Bly and others.
Continued in article
Labor Day Thoughts: Democrats' new line of attack against the Bush
tax cut policies Now that the economy has created some four million
new jobs over the past two years and the unemployment rate has fallen to a
five-year low, the left's jabs about the Bush "jobless recovery" have lost
their sting. So just in time for Labor Day, the Democrats' new line of
attack against the Bush tax cut policies is "stagnant wages." The
union-funded Economic Policy Institute alleges that wages are falling "at
their fastest rate in 14 years." Middle-income families are said to be
trapped on an economic treadmill sprinting ever faster just to avoid falling
behind financially. Some critics have even trotted out contorted statistics
which suggest that workers have made almost no income gains since the late
"70s. It's a grim picture that suggests that the best days of the American
worker are behind us and that The Brady Bunch lived better than Bart
Simpson's family does today. But the reality is that the economic well-being
of the American family has never been better -- as measured by income,
consumption, and wealth (see nearby chart). And these gains have continued
over the past five years, despite the recession and stock-market crash of
2000-01. The typical household today has a disposable income higher than any
other time in history, and when taking into account all forms of benefits
that workers now receive, compensation to workers is about 27% higher in
real terms than 25 years ago. Workers earn in less than four days a week
what their parents earned in five, and they make in three days on the job
what their grandparents earned in five.
Stephen Moore, "The Wages of Prosperity," The Wall Street Journal,
August 29, 2005; Page A9 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112527218346525075,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Labor Day Thoughts: What Women Want Why have these changes occurred? Interviews
conducted by sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas with more than 150
Philadelphia-area single mothers shed light on a dismal situation. Most of
these women express a strong desire to marry and view extramarital
childbearing as "second best." Yet almost all remained single. The authors'
explanation: Expectations for marriage have risen across the board. A house,
a well-paying job, and enough money for a nice wedding are now needed to tie
the knot. But wages at the bottom have stagnated or declined, so few of the
unskilled can afford to marry. The authors' message is clear: Out-of-wedlock
childbearing is simply a matter of money. Raise economic prospects and the
problem will fix itself. That objective is best addressed through government
programs, not individual or community reform.
Amy L. Wax, "What Women Want," The Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2005;
Page A8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112527883394625240,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Labor Day Thoughts: Casualties of the increase in minimum wage
barriers to entry Buried within the good news in the recent U.S.
job creation report is one sobering statistic: Unemployment among America's
teenagers remains stubbornly high at 16%. Even more frustrating is that the
jobless rate for African-American teens is close to 33% -- higher than
during the Great Depression. To be sure, many of these teens aren't
aggressively searching for jobs, so the official statistics somewhat
overstate the problem. But what seems equally clear is that teens and
unskilled workers face barriers to entry when they attempt to join the job
market for the first time. The scandal here is that these barriers are
created in large part by liberal policymakers who claim to represent the
best interests of unemployed workers.
"Job Slayers," The Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2005; Page A8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112527778040525221,00.html?mod=opinion%5Fmain%5Freview%5Fand%5Foutlooks
This is one tough way to stamp out a nation's drug abuse problem Australian tourists visiting Bali's nightspots
will face random urine tests under an escalating anti-drugs crackdown on the
Indonesian holiday island. Bali police drug squad chief Bambang Sugiarto
told The Sun-Herald he would adopt the hardline tactic, controversially
trialled in recent raids on Jakarta clubs, to stamp out the drug trade.
Mark Forbes, "Random drug tests for Aussie tourists in Bali," Sydney
Morning Herald, August 28, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/27/1124563063281.html
Jensen Comment: We don't expect to see many professional baseball players
from the U.S. passing through Bali.
Medical lab in a suitcase Acting swiftly and efficiently, a flight attendant
pulls a small device from the overhead compartment, takes a throat sample
from the ailing passenger, and identifies the virus as the influenza. On
landing, all the travelers are quarantined -- and the spread of the flu is
thwarted. It's a scenario that may become a reality in the not-too-distant
future, thanks to a group of researchers who've been working on ways to
derive genetic information from human DNA more efficiently. Furthermore, if
combined with a wireless network, it could track the spread of flu strains
throughout the world.
Sarah J. Heim, "Lab on a Swab," MIT's Technology Review, August 29,
2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/wo/wo_082905.asp?trk=nl
Steinem on a Balance Between Nature and Nurture So I no longer believe the conservative message
that children are naturally selfish and destructive creatures who need
civilizing by hierarchies or painful controls. On the contrary, I believe
that hierarchy and painful controls create destructive people. And I no
longer believe the liberal message that children are blank slates on which
society can write anything. On the contrary, I believe that a unique core
self is born into every human being -- the result of millennia of
environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never
happen before or again. The truth is, we've been seduced into asking the
wrong question by those who hope that the social order they want is inborn,
or those who hope they can write the one they want on our uniquely long
human childhoods.
Gloria Steinem, "A Balance Between Nature and Nurture," NPR, August
22, 2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4805246
New Challenge to Evolution A group of Christian schools sued the University of
California in federal court last week, charging that it engages in religious
discrimination by refusing to certify certain high school courses at
religious schools as meeting the system’s admissions requirements. The
courses in question teach alternatives to evolution, including creationism
and “intelligent design.” But the dispute goes beyond science to other
courses taught from a “Christian perspective.”
Scott Jaschik, "New Challenge to Evolution," Inside Higher Ed, August
29, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/29/ucsuit
Southern Illinois University must recognize a Christian group A federal appeals court has ordered Southern
Illinois University to recognize a Christian group — regardless of the fact
that the group’s procedures may violate other anti-bias rules at the campus.
The ruling granted an injunction that restored the recognition for the
campus chapter of the Christian Legal Society at the university’s Carbondale
campus. The order by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Seventh Circuit was not a final decision on the case. But the ruling —
and a strongly worded dissent — provide a good indication of the thinking of
the appeals court on the debate over religious groups at public colleges.
Scott Jaschik, "Conflicting Rights," Inside Higher Ed, August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/29/siu
Summer Fading, Hollywood Sees Fizzle: Telling it like it is Multiples theories for the decline abound: a
failure of studio marketing, the rising price of gas, the lure of alternate
entertainment, even the prevalence of commercials and pesky cellphones
inside once-sacrosanct theaters. But many movie executives and industry
experts are beginning to conclude that something more fundamental is at
work: Too many Hollywood movies these days, they say, just are not good
enough.
Sharon Waxman, "Summer Fading, Hollywood Sees Fizzle," The New York Times,
August 24, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/NYT824
Multimedia Evidence of Ivory-Billed Woodpecker There's new evidence suggesting the majestic
ivory-billed woodpecker, once thought to be extinct, is indeed alive in
eastern Arkansas. Researchers have captured the sounds of bird calls and
woodpecker rapping that reinforces earlier videotaped evidence of the bird
in flight.
Christopher Joyce, "Audio Evidence of Ivory-Billed Woodpecker," NPR,
August 25, 2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4814860
The ACLU is on guard against prayers A Georgia county is being sued by the American
Civil Liberties Union over its pre-meeting prayers. The suit claims one
prayer at a recent Cobb County Commissioners' meeting ended "in the name of
Jesus our Savior," which phrase, according to the ACLU, puts the invocation
in violation of the Constitution of the United States. However, attorney
Steve Crampton of the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy,
protests that the Cobb County officials' prayers are entirely legal, and the
commission members have the right to open meetings with prayers
acknowledging Jesus if they so choose. Allie Martin, Agape Press, August 26, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1472675/posts
Huffing and puffing for more burley For Speaks and thousands of other tobacco growers
in North Carolina, the nation's leading tobacco growing state, this is the
first year in decades without the quota. Congress approved a $10.1 billion
buyout of the Depression-era price support system last year, leaving most
growers wrestling with market forces for the first time. For some growers in
central and eastern parts of the state, it led to experiments with burley
tobacco. Until this year, about 70 percent of domestically grown burley has
come from Kentucky. "The tobacco companies use burley to enhance the taste
of a cigarette," Speaks said. "It's like baking a cake. You need flour and
sugar and flavorings to get just the right blend." The 2005 crop from
Kentucky was expected to be the smallest in nearly 80 years, the result of a
loss of producers after the buyout and a summer drought. That created a need
that farmers elsewhere have rushed to fill, said Blake Brown, who studies
the economics of tobacco at North Carolina State University. "With the
buyout, it's now possible to grow tobacco anywhere and whatever kind you
want to grow," Brown said. "When the companies found out they could not get
the volume of burley they needed from states like Kentucky, they went
elsewhere. They also are looking at Mississippi and Illinois and some other
states."
Paul Nowell, "N.C. Farmers Experiment With Burley Tobacco," Yahoo News,
August 25, 2005 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050825/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_2
Where are the hacksaws? There are times in a Wal-Mart store when customers
need a little assistance from associates, but a request for help Tuesday by
a Pittsburg teenager wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs had clerks
calling police. “He asked them for a hacksaw,” said Conway Police Lt. Joe
Faia. It turned out that Joha D. Turner, 18, had not escaped any official
custody, but was instead pulling a prank. But now he’s going to court next
month to answer a charge of disorderly conduct, after being freed on his own
recognizance.
"Store prankster charged at Conway Wal-Mart," New Hampshire Union Leader,
August 26, 2005 ---
http://www.unionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=59609
Web cartoonists face jail after leader's lampoon goes too far ANYWHERE else in Europe, political cartoons would
be considered harmless satire, designed more to amuse than to undermine the
State. Not so in Belarus. When animated mini films featuring President
Lukashenko appeared on the internet, the KGB, the Belarussian security
service, responded immediately. It raided three apartments in Minsk,
confiscated 12 computers and interrogated Andrei Obuzov and Pavel Morozov,
the two men who put the cartoons on their website for five hours.
Prosecutors have begun legal proceedings against them and Oleg Minich, the
creator of the cartoons, which could result in jail sentences of five years.
Jeremy Page, "Web cartoonists face jail after leader's lampoon goes too
far," TimesOnLine, August 24, 2005 ---
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1748367,00.html
Putting hate for the U.S. on the line Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called the
United States the “most savage, cruel and murderous empire that has existed
in the history of the world. They cruelly entice our youth with designer
clothes and rock-and-roll music. They savagely flaunt their freedoms.”
“Socialism is the only path to save a world threatened by the abundance of
U.S. capitalism,” said Chavez. “Cuba is the model society. Castro has led
his people away from Yankee materialism to a socially just equality of
poverty. Chavez warned the U.S. not to mess with Venezuela. “We will resist
imperialistic attempts to bring freedom to our land,” said Chavez. “We will
drown the Americans in our blood.”
John Semens, "U.S. Is the “Most Savage, Cruel and Murderous Empire” in World
History," The Arizona Conservative, August 26, 2005 ---
http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm
Ice cream funding of anti-war protestors Their bills are being paid for by True
Majority, a non-profit set up by Ben Cohen -- of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
fame. Ben Cohen, True Majority: "People are willing to listen to her and we
want to do as much as we can to make her voice heard." Cohen's group has
teamed up with Berkeley based MoveOn.org, an anti-Bush group co-founded by
Joan Blades.
Mark Matthews, "PR Machine Behind Cindy Sheehan?" KGO-TV/DT, August
25, 2005 ---
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=3382521
If you believe this I've got some Arizona ocean front property for
sale The U.S. Forest Service admitted Wednesday to
making a "serious'' mistake that allowed 17 acres to be logged inside a rare
tree reserve as part of the salvage harvest of timber burned by the 2002
Biscuit fire. The logging inside the 350-acre Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area,
created in 1966 to protect Brewer spruce and other rare plant species on the
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, was discovered last week by
environmentalists after the Fiddler timber sale was harvested and a forest
closure intended to bar protesters was lifted. Forest Service personnel
mismarked the border of part of the Fiddler timber sale next to the
botanical area — though just who did it or how it happened was not
immediately clear, said Illinois Valley District Ranger Pam Bode. Normally
trees are marked with stapled tags and paint to show the boundaries of
timber sales and reserves within them. "It is the Forest Service's intent to
manage the Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area to minimize human intervention in
the ecological process,'' Bode said. "For us to have changed the ecology in
that area through removal of these dead trees is a serious error. And we
will do all we can to determine the best path to move forward from here.''
Barbara Ullian, conservation director of the Siskiyou Project group that
discovered the damage, called for a formal investigation into the blunder
and said it demonstrated the importance of allowing the public to monitor
logging operations on national forests. "This is no small little slip across
the border and a few trees,'' Ullian said.
Jeff Barnard, "Forest Service admits error," Albany Democrat-Herald,
August 27, 2005 ---
http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2005/08/25/news/oregon/state01.txt
Food for something other than thought
The August 25, 2005 Scout Report newsletter provided the following
links about food:
Regard the past, arrogant youth THE new political correctness of the ratbag right
decrees that nobody must compare the unhappy result of the Vietnam war to
the wonderful march of democracy in Iraq. Anyone who mentions the word
quagmire can only be a pathetic baby boomer, dissolute and decrepit, pining
for the bad old days of moratorium demos, Whitlamism, bell-bottom pants,
Jane Fonda, etc. This view is trumpeted most loudly by the thirtysomething
know-alls of the right-wing blogosphere, whose ferocious enthusiasm for the
Iraq war is matched only by their reluctance to take part in it. (Perhaps
they have other priorities, as Dick Cheney once explained his decision not
to enlist for Vietnam.)
Mike Carlton, "Regard the past, arrogant youth," Sydney Morning Herald,
August 27, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/26/1124563025440.html
Are you
lonely, single, tired of the dating scene? Do you want someone to help pay
your children's medical bills because your ex husband is a lazy out-of-work
deadbeat? If you're ready to be razzle-dazzled by the most eligible bachelor
on the internet, follow the link to
Bob's unofficial fan page and find out how you can make your dreams (and
his) come true. Or just email
Bob with a photo. Sorry ladies, only one entry per family.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Governor Blanco (pronounce that Bunko) appears to have been more
focused on securing federal funds Before hurricane Katrina made landfall, Gov.
Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana appears to have been more focused on
securing federal funds for post-hurricane relief than ensuring that
necessary troops were deployed to carry search and rescue missions, deliver
food and water, and protect the citizens of Louisiana against marauding
street thugs. President Bush had offered the governor federal aid, including
additional troops. He declared Louisiana a disaster area before Katrina
arrived. To the dismay of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the governor told the
president she wanted 24 hours to decide whether to accept the offer because
Mr. Bush, as commander-in-chief, wanted control of the troops. Many of the
governor's constituents died because of the delay.
"The governor procrastinates," The Washington Times, September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050906-093817-7790r.htm
Katrina victims that a fearful Governor Blanco (Bunko) attempts to
avoid sheltering in Louisiana As hurricane victims are being moved hundreds of
miles from home, the president of the New Orleans City Council is demanding
to know why Louisiana isn't housing more of them. Oliver Thomas says
Louisiana has many government buildings and gymnasiums that could be made
into shelters. But instead, he says people are being even more uprooted and
sent to places like Texas and Georgia and Utah.
Thomas believes exaggerated fears of violence have
kept some Louisiana cities from offering more help.
But the mayor of Baton Rouge says the problem is managing large crowds, that
too many people in...
"Some leaders wonder why Louisiana isn't housing more, KLFY, September 4,
2005
http://www.klfy/Global/story.asp?S=3804405
Jensen Comment: Once the flood water is drained and power is restored, the
Gulf Coast will commence to rebuild. One problem will be that many victims
housed in other states will elect not to return home. This will create
labor shortages, tax revenue shortages, and critical delays in the
rebuilding process. In the long run, Louisiana would especially have been
better off if it had sheltered more of its own victims.
Bravo Texas!
Texas purportedly is providing shelter and life support to over 250,000
victims, well over half the former population of New Orleans.
Listen to the NPR broadcast at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4831880
Jensen Comment: A very high proportion of these victims will never return
to Louisiana to live. Texas schools that were overcrowded before Katrina
are now scrambling to put over 100,000 children in certified school
systems. The same can be said for strained employment, medical service, and
criminal justice systems. This is a storm surge of people that will be
served as quickly as possible under the circumstances. Many of these people
have special needs that require special attention. Bravo to Texans who've
showed genuine caring and southern hospitality.
Too Much Too Late? Maybe so, maybe not! Now that the military is moving huge convoys of
soldiers, concerns that too strong a military presence in space could cause
accidents, crashes.
"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished as Today Show Now Frets Too Many Troops in New
Orleans," Newsbusters, September 5, 2005 ---
http://newsbusters.org/node/931
Jensen Comment: Getting arsonists, looters, squatters and New Orleans
police out of the many stores, homes, and hotel rooms may take a lot of
troops.
They're not like the long-haul exhausted police and firefighters in
NYC after 9/11 A day after two police suicides and the abrupt
resignations or desertions of up to 200 police officers, defiant city
officials on Sunday began offering five-day vacations - and even trips to
Las Vegas - to the police, firefighters and city emergency workers and their
families.
Joseph Treaster, "City to Offer Free Trips to Las Vegas for Officers,"
The New York Times, September 4, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05vegas.html
Firefighters and families get Las Vegas vacation
LAS VEGAS Nearly a week after first seeing disaster and desperation, New
Orleans firefighters and their families are on vacation, thanks to the city
of Las Vegas. The City of Lights plans to host up to 400 police,
firefighters and their families for short stays at a hotel-casino off the
Las Vegas Strip. So far, 43 people have made the trip. One fire captain says
he's looking forward to some rest and that anyone would be crazy to turn
down an all-expenses paid-trip to Las Vegas.
"Firefighters and families get Las Vegas vacation," KLFY, September
5, 2005 ---
http://www.klfy.com/
New Orleans Police: Show the Boobs Your Breasts "At one point, there were a load of girls on the
roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us
what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts," he told
the Liverpool Evening Echo. "When the girls refused, they said 'Fine' and
motored off down the road in their boat." At one point he had to wade
through filthy water to barricade the hotel doors against looters. He said
the experience made him want to vomit.
"RESCUERS: 'LIFT YOUR TOPS'," Sky News ---
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-13431086,00.html?f=rss
Many of New Orleans' finest bravely did their jobs in the worst times
of the crisis Police killed several men who shot at Army
contractors; helicopters divided the city into grids and searched for waving
survivors; and officials warned that the recovery of the dead would be
ghastly. One week after Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, the latest issue
for rescuers is residents who still refuse to leave.
"Rescuers in New Orleans encounter violence, other obstacles," Houston
Chronicle, September 5, 2005 ---
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/3339653
The scammers (especially Web and telephone scammers) are already
moving to get your cash that you intended to help Katrina victims. For a
discussion of how you can really help legitimate agencies, go to the FTC
site at
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/09/katrina.htm
Many local communities housing victims (especially Houston, Dallas, and
San Antonio) are seeking funds and other aid to help those victims. Some of
the local banks, churches, newspapers, and TV stations have set up ways to
channel that support. Avoid door-to-door scammers.
Forwarded by Meredith Ruiz
Here’s a housing directory specifically for those fleeing the destruction:
http://www.hurricanehousing.org
September 2, 2005 Message from Jason Hardin
For those who might have trouble envisioning
just how big a catastrophe this really is, this animation is revealing
(and horrifying).
ZOOM IN! (The default zoom is far out to let people most
easily get to the area they are interested in; the map will be very hard
to use unless you first zoom in using the slider on the map).
To create a new marker with information, first navigate the
map to find the location you wish to mark (you can move the map by
dragging it, you can zoom in and out, etc.). Put the information about
that area into the "Text to add:" textbox, then click on "Add marker",
and click on the map where you want the marker to go.
To add information to an existing marker, first navigate the
map to find the marker you wish to add information to (you can move the
map by dragging it, you can zoom in and out, etc.). Put the information
you wish to add into the "Text to add:" textbox, then click on "Append
text to existing marker", and click on the marker you wish to add
information to.
Tulane and other regional colleges closed for Fall Semester Tulane University canceled its fall semester Friday
because of Hurricane Katrina and encouraged its students to take classes
through others schools while the New Orleans university tries to clean up
from the flooding. Several schools already have offered to take in displaced
Gulf Coast college students - as many as 100,000 in the New Orleans area
alone, according to the American Council on Education . . . Tulane President
Scott Cowen, working from Houston, said the school of 8,000 undergraduates
would accept credit from any regionally accredited university and was
encouraging students to take courses they would otherwise be taking at
Tulane. Cowen also said the school would work to keep its sports teams
together and continuing to represent Tulane by relying on other schools for
practice and playing facilities. "Our student-athletes are an integral part
of this plan. We want our athletes to carry the torch, face, and name of
Tulane University during this difficult time," he said. Marvalene Hughes,
president of Dillard University, a historically black college in New
Orleans, said she was planning further discussions with staff Friday night
but was exploring a range of options and was not yet prepared to give up on
the semester. "I don't give up that easily," said Hughes, who has been
president for just two months and was staying with family in Alabama. Norman
Francis, president of Xavier University in New Orleans, had been located and
was safe after being out of touch for several days because of the hurricane,
Hartle said. There was no immediate word from other colleges but Hartle said
he expected most schools in New Orleans would be closed until at least
January. Officials have said it will be months before the city is
functioning again.
Justin Pope, "Tulane Cancels Fall Semester Because of Hurricane Katrina,"
Associated Press, September 2, 2005 ---
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBS4X485DE.html
Jensen Comment: Imagine how difficult it is to try to pay salaries and
wages in universities, business firms, and other organizations whose revenue
streams have been shut off. Many are continuing to somehow meet payrolls in
order to retain their skilled and dedicated employees. It will require
massive aid to restore these systems to their former states.
FYI - Scott Cowen is an accounting professor by
background. He spent many years at Case Western Reserve University in
the accounting department and then as Dean of the business school. I
think he has been President of Tulane for about 4-5 years. What a
challenge he has in front of him!
Denny Beresford
Bravo to The University of Houston and its new Napoleonic Code
Much to their dismay, legal scholars at the
University of Houston know quite a bit about flooding.
In 2001, Tropical Storm Allison
hit the campus hard, especially the
law library, where more than
200,000 volumes were submerged under water and countless
other materials were damaged or destroyed. So when
Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, law professors
were ready to reach out and help their colleagues. And
on Tuesday, the law school of Loyola University New
Orleans announced that it would
relocate for the fall semester
to the University of Houston.
The University of
Houston has agreed to find offices for
Loyola law professors, open libraries
and other facilities to students, turn
over all classrooms to Loyola on Friday
afternoons and weekends, as well as one
large auditorium throughout the week.
Several hundred of Loyola’s 800 law
students are expected to start the fall
semester in Houston soon, where they
will be taught by a cadre of at least 20
Loyola professors.
Brian
Bromberger, Loyola’s law dean, said that
the idea for the relocation came from
Seth Chandler, vice dean at Houston’s
law school, and was immediately embraced
with “incredible generosity” by others
at Houston.
Generally,
colleges in New Orleans are encouraging
students to enroll elsewhere as visiting
students and then to transfer those
credits back when campuses re-open. Law
schools in Louisiana are unusual,
however, because much of
Louisiana law is based on the Napoleonic
Code. Many
courses taught at the state’s law
schools are thus not comparable to what
would be taught in any other state.
Continued in article
500 frequent flyer miles for a $50 to qualified Katrina nonprofits Two air carriers, United Airlines and American
Airlines, are pledging one-time bonuses of 500 frequent-flier miles to
reward members who donate at least $50 to certain nonprofits aiding the
Hurricane Katrina relief effort. Both airlines will recognize donations to
the American Red Cross, which is coordinating relief efforts in the region.
United also will honor gifts to AmeriCares and Operation USA. Donors who
give to multiple charities will receive only one bonus. American's program
ends Sept. 30, and United will honor donations made through October. To
receive the miles, members must fax a copy of their donation receipt to the
airline. Details are available on the airlines' Web sites.
Christina S.N. Lewis, "Donating Miles for Katrina Relief ," The Wall Street
Journal, September 6, 2005; Page D7 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112596000555732126,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Jensen Comment: I don't have the details, but Southwest Airlines and
possibly some other airlines are flying victims to out-of-state shelters.
The overwhelming
majority of families in New Orleans filed 2004 income tax returns and
paid income taxes
Please advise Katrina victims that they should possibly file amended 2004
tax returns to get refunds
The IRS free phone number for help is
866-562-5227
The IRS Website for Katrina victims is at ---
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=147085,00.html
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on September
2, 2005
TITLE: Hurricane Victims Can look Back In Claiming Losses on Tax Forms
REPORTER: Tom Herman
DATE: Aug 31, 2005
PAGE: D2
LINK: Print Only (Not online)
TOPICS: Personal Taxation, Tax Laws, Taxation
SUMMARY: Herman discusses issues in deciding when to take casualty
losses; describes services and information packages available from the IRS,
AICPA, FEMA and others; and identifies special relief measures undertaken by
the IRS for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is an amended tax return? On what form does one file such a return?
2.) What are casualty and theft losses? What are the deductions allowed
for these losses on personal income tax returns, and to what limits are they
subject?
3.) Given the disastrous results of Hurricane Katrina, how do you think
this year's occurrences of casualty loss deductions on U.S. personal income
tax returns will compare to last year? In your answer, comment on the limits
to deducting casualty losses on personal income tax returns.
4.) What are the timing options available to victims of Hurricane Katrina
in deciding when to deduct their casualty losses? What are the issues in
making this decision? How did the president's decision in the wake of this
disaster bring about this option for individual taxpayers devastated by the
storm?
5.) Why does filing an amended 2004 tax return offer a more speedy result
than other options available to taxpayers? How might this help Katrina's
victims?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
More than 20 countries have offered to help the
United States recover from Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane devastated New
Orleans and other parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing hundreds and
possibly thousands. The State Department said offers so far had come from
Belgium, Canada, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, China, Australia,
Jamaica, Honduras, Greece, Venezuela, the Organization of American States,
NATO, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, the Dominican Republic, El
Salvador, Mexico, South Korea, Israel...
Danielle George, "International Aid Offered To Help Overcome Katrina,"
AllHeadlineNews, September 1, 2005 ---
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/2251239720
Cuban President Fidel Castro offered Friday to
help his longtime enemies to the north, the United States, by sending 1,100
doctors and medicines to treat the victims of hurricane Katrina. Some 100
doctors could board a flight to Houston, Texas, as soon as Friday and 1,000
could arrive Saturday and Sunday, Castro said in a radio and television
address. Cuba would also send 26.4 tonnes of medicines. "Cuba is ready to
help immediately," he said. "We offer concrete things: doctors to the site
of the tragedy, which is exactly what is missing now."
IRB News ---
http://www.iribnews.ir/front_en.asp?sec=front_en
Muslim organization with over fifty chapters,
including those in Houston, Dallas and New Orleans, has teamed up with
Islamic Relief USA, a U.N. NGO and member of the U.N. Economic and Social
Council, with its offices in 30 countries. MAS and its Freedom Foundation
will announce...
Muslim American Society ---
http://www.masnet.org/pressroom_release.asp?id=2726
Meanwhile, Kuwait is donating $500 million worth
of oil products and other humanitarian aid to the United States, KUNA
reported on Sunday. "The humanitarian aid is oil products that the
devastated (U.S.) states need in these circumstances, plus other
humanitarian aid to lessen the devastation these three states have been
subjected to," Kuwaiti Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah was
quoted as saying. Al Bawaba, September 4, 2005 ---
http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Kuwait/188475
Don't count on this Abu Musab Al Qaeda group in Iraq, which is led by Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, on Sunday praised in an Internet statement what it said was the
"start of the collapse" of the United States after the devastation caused by
Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina "Congratulations to the Islamic nation,
to our sheikh Osama abu Abdullah (Osama bin Laden) and to sheikh Ayman
Zawahiri (bin Laden's deputy) for the destruction of America, which is at
the forefront of evil. It is the start of its collapse." Al Bawaba, September 4, 2005 ---
http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Kuwait/188475
The media is slow to report success stories of those working so very
hard and risking their own lives
Katrina created so many hurricane heroes, but we
hardly hear about any of them. Start with the amazing Coast Guard rescue
teams who dangled from the sky to pluck thousands to safety, gently cradling
old women and terrified children hour after hour after hour, all through the
night. In just a few days, they did more rescues than they normally do in a
year, each one a test of skill and courage. Now ask yourself: How many
interviews with these heroes have you heard?
Deborah Orin, "LET'S HEAR ABOUT THE HEROES," The New York Post,
September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/52937.htm
Mississippi Power employees and outside crews were
able to turn lights on in numerous parts of the company’s service area
Thursday, three days after the region was slammed by Hurricane Katrina. “We
were able to restore service to small pockets along the Coast and around
Hattiesburg, which were among the hardest hit areas,” said Kurt Brautigam,
company spokesman. “It was a real lift for everyone to see some visible
signs of success.
"Mississippi Power Restoration Update – Day 4," Mississippi Power
http://newsinfo.southernco.com/article.asp?mnuType=sub&mnuItem=ni&id=1865&mnuOpco=mpc&category=008
Alabama Power Company Update #20: Sept. 2, 4:30
p.m. Friday, September 02, 2005 Birmingham – Alabama Power crews, assisted
by utilities from at least 20 states and the District of Columbia, have
restored power to 82 percent of customers statewide who were affected by
Hurricane Katrina.
Alabama Power Company Update #20: Sept. 2 ---
http://newsinfo.southernco.com/article.asp?mnuType=sub&mnuItem=ni&id=1866&mnuOpco=apc&category=0
Technology Responds to Hurricane Katrina The missive was posted at 10:19 a.m. CDT on
Thursday, September 1, 2005, in the Lost and Found section of Craigslist's
New Orleans page. According to Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, their Lost
and Found section typically has one or two posts a day. Now it's seeing
hundreds of them. "On Tuesday [August 30], there were 712 posts," Buckmaster
says. "The traffic [Wednesday] was on pace to double that." Even the site's
Missed Connections and Women Seeking Men sections -- typically areas
reserved for romance seekers -- have turned into search-and-rescue
repositories scattered with notes of condolences and support. In fact, the
entire Craigslist New Orleans site has become an eerie virtual facsimile of
the missing-persons flyers that were found all over lower Manhattan after
9/11. All across the Internet, blogs and websites such as Craigslist are
assisting with mobilizing relief -- and trying to make sense of the
catastrophe unfolding in the Crescent City and along the entire Gulf Coast.
Eric Hellweg, "Technology Responds to Hurricane Katrina," MIT's
Technology Review, September 2, 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/wo/wo_0901hellweg.asp?trk=nl
How Did This Happen?
The hurricane was the least of the surprises. Why a natural disaster became
a man-made debacle--and what this catastrophe says about our rescue
capabilities four years after 9/11.
Amanda Ripley, "How Did This Happen?" Time Magazine, September 4,
2005 ---
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101331,00.html
Criminality beyond theft
There also are reports of criminality that goes
far beyond theft. "We have individuals who are getting raped, we have
individuals who are getting beaten," New Orleans police chief Eddie
Compass tells the Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050902/ap_on_re_us/hurricane_katrina .
The Voice of America
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-09-01-voa51.cfm
tells of "roving gangs of armed delinquents who are sometimes
interfering with the relief operations." In one case, across the
Mississippi in Gretna, "Tenet Healthcare Corp. asked Louisiana state
police to help evacuate Meadowcrest Hospital after armed bandits
attempted to hijack a truck carrying food, water and drugs in the
predawn hours on Thursday," the Chicago Tribune
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3335880
reports. Opinion Journal, September 2, 2005
The meanest of our free media
Some parts of the media are turning the Katrina tragedy into a political
opportunity to incite anarchy Air America radio talk radio host Randi Rhodes
repeatedly urged listeners in the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast to go out
and loot, insisting the poor should be allowed to steal goods at will. The
leftist host, who has sparked controversy in the past for advocating the
assassination of President Bush, said hurricane victims should avoid
discount centers such as Wal-Mart and focus their looting on higher-end
stores in order to get good quality products, according to Ned Rice, a
contributor to National Review Online's weblog "The Corner."
"Radio host urges poor to loot Randi Rhodes advises Gulf Coast listeners,"
WorldNetDaily, September 3, 2005 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46124
What constitutes re-primitivization? In the Atlantic Monthly a few years back,
Robert D. Kaplan went to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other failed
jurisdictions of West Africa and concluded that many of the "citizens" of
these "states," roaming the streets raping and killing, belonged to a
phenomenon called "re-primitivized man." Anyone watching TV in recent days
will have seen plenty of "re-primitivized man," not in Liberia or Somalia,
but in Louisiana. Cops smashing the Wal-Mart DVD cabinet so they can get
their share of the booty along with the rest of the looters, gangs firing on
a children's hospital and on rescue helicopters, hurricane victims being
raped in the New Orleans Convention Center. . . . If you're minded, as many
of the world's anti-Americans are, to regard the United States as a depraved
swamp, it was a grand old week: Mother Nature delivered the swamp, but
plenty of natives supplied the depravity.
Mark Steyn, "Proof that nothing changed after Sept. 11," Chicago Sun
Times, September 4, 2005 ---
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn04.html
Pork-Barrel Congress and the Levee Projects President Bush hasn't vetoed a single
(spending) bill. Questions about spending on these
(Corps of Engineers) projects need to be asked, but
the roles of all the participants need to be addressed. And those should
come after the question of whether the proposed spending would have done any
good in this particular instance.
James Naso, "Pork-Barrel Congress and the Levee Projects," The Wall
Street Journal, September 6, 2005; Page A29 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112596134010232161,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Mayor blames Governor Frustrated and grieving, Mayor Ray Nagin on Sunday
again ripped the painfully slow response of state and federal authorities to
the plight of tens of thousands of stranded New Orleanians in the days
following Hurricane Katrina, saying their inaction cost lives and caused
needless misery. Nagin singled out Gov. Kathleen Blanco for criticism,
saying that the governor had asked for 24 hours to think over a decision
when time was a luxury that no one, especially refugees, had. New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 4, 2005 ---
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09.html
Former Louisiana Legislator Blames Governor and Mayor The primary responsibility for dealing with
emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local
and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the
crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by
local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state
governor and his/her emergency operations center. The actions and inactions
of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure
to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and
city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by
the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed
written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people.
The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the
event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented,
thousands of lives would likely have been saved.
Bob Williams, "Blame Amid the Tragedy," The Wall Street Journal,
September 6, 2005; Page A28 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112596602138332256,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
The Mayor blames bureaucracy, but the fact is that top federal
officials were left out of loop State and local officials did not inform top
federal officials early on of the deaths and lack of food among hurricane
victims in the Superdome or convention center, Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff said yesterday. Mr. Chertoff said neither he nor Federal
Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown was told of the
deteriorating situation in New Orleans until Thursday night.
Audrey Hudson, "Top federal officials left out of loop," The Washington
Times, September 5, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050905-120743-9482r.htm
Louisiana political machine: Showering organized/disorganized crime
with tax dollars
September 6, 2005 message from Linda Kidwell, University of Wyoming
[lkidwell@UWYO.EDU]
As someone who got her degree in Baton Rouge
and then taught for three years in Shreveport, I am horrified, but
somehow not surprised, by some of the unpreparedness, slow response,
lack of leadership, and chaos we all saw last week. When I've seen the
shock expressed by some in the media, I've thought they must never have
left the French Quarter or the Garden District. The extreme poverty and
desperation of the poor in New Orleans is well known to those who've
explored Louisiana a bit.
This brings me to my point in the subject line.
I am very concerned about the control over relief money. I trust the Red
Cross and the Salvation Army to be very careful with their funds -- in
fact my concern is not addressed toward any of the relief agencies. I am
concerned over the huge amounts of federal money that will be headed
there. Louisiana does not exactly have the best history of fiduciary
responsibility, and I'd hate to think of the folks who were so
incompetent on the front end having control in the aftermath. I hope the
powers that be will appoint someone with a track record of integrity to
oversee the spending of money, the selection of contract bids, and so
on.
Where's Dan Kyle these days? He was a professor
at LSU my first year there, then he became the Legislative Auditor for
many years. He was even rumored to be in the top list of candidates last
time the GAO needed a new head. In that time, he was excellent at
sniffing out fraud, even when it was politically dangerous to do so. He
knows the state well -- I'd like to see him called into action. I'm sure
there are a few other folks knowledgeable about both Louisiana politics
and keeping track of money. Maybe one of the displaced accounting
faculty from Tulane, UNO, or elsewhere? I'm keeping my fingers crossed
that such a person will be in place to make sure none of the funds so
desperately needed go to places and people it shouldn't.
In the meantime, I'm thinking of friends like
Bob Braun at Southeastern Louisiana University and praying they are
okay. I'm sure many of you have friends at other impacted universities,
and my prayers are with them as well.
Linda Kidwell
September 6, 2005 reply from Paul Williams
Linda,
Louisiana politics won Robert Penn Warren a
Pulitzer Prize for "fiction," and Broderick Crawford an academy award.
Southern politics is the stuff of good stories -- you just can't make
this stuff up.
Between a rock and a hard place: Environmentalists are to blame in
large measure . . .
environmentalists may have prevented building floodgates that would have
prevented the flooding from Hurricane Katrina. The 5-28-05 New Orleans
Times-Picayune states, “Under the original plan, floodgate-type
structures would have been built at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes to
block storm surges from moving from the Gulf into Lake Pontchartrain. Those
plans were abandoned after environmental advocates successfully sued to stop
the projects as too damaging to the wetlands and the lake's ecosystem, Naomi
said. Now the corps wants to take another look using more environmentally
sensitive construction than was previously available.”
Michael P. Tremoglie, "Compassionate Liberalism Part II: Blaming the Iraq
War and Tax Cuts for New Orleans Flooding," Men's Daily News,
September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1478361/posts
Greens vs. Levees With all that has happened in the state, it’s
understandable that the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club may not have
updated its website. But when its members get around to it, they may want to
change the wording of one item in particular. The site brags that the group
is “working to keep the Atchafalaya Basin,” which adjoins the Mississippi
River not far from New Orleans, “wet and wild.” . . . The Army Corps was
planning to upgrade 303 miles of levees along the river in Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Arkansas. This was needed, a Corps spokesman told the Baton
Rouge, La., newspaper The Advocate, because “a failure could wreak
catastrophic consequences on Louisiana and Mississippi which the states
would be decades in overcoming, if they overcame them at all.” But a suit
filed by environmental groups at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans
claimed the Corps had not looked at “the impact on bottomland hardwood
wetlands.” The lawsuit stated, “Bottomland hardwood forests must be
protected and restored if the Louisiana black bear is to survive as a
species, and if we are to ensure continued support for source population of
all birds breeding in the lower Mississippi River valley.” In addition to
the Sierra Club, other parties to the suit were the group American Rivers,
the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and the Louisiana, Arkansas and
Mississippi Wildlife Federations.
John Berlau , "Greens vs. Levees: Destructive river-management philosophy,"
National Review, September 8, 2005 ---
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/berlau200509080824.asp
Too Good to Grade: How can these
students get into doctoral programs and law schools if their prestigious
universities will not disclose grades and class rankings? Why grade at all
in this case? Students at some top-ranked B-schools have a secret. It's something they
can't share even if it means losing a job offer. It's one some have worked
hard for and should be proud of, but instead they keep it to themselves. The
secret is their grades. At four
of the nation's 10 most elite B-schools -- including Harvard, Stanford, and
Chicago -- students have adopted policies that prohibit them or their
schools from disclosing grades to recruiters. The idea is to reduce
competitiveness and eliminate the risk associated with taking difficult
courses. But critics say the only thing nondisclosure reduces is one of the
most important lessons B-schools should teach: accountability (see
BusinessWeek, 9/12/05,
"Join the Real World, MBAs").
It's a debate that's flaring up on B-school
campuses across the country. (For more on this topic, log on to our
B-Schools Forum.) And nowhere is it more
intense than at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where students,
faculty, and administrators have locked horns over a school-initiated
proposal that would effectively end a decade of grade secrecy at
BusinessWeek's No. 3-ranked B-school. It wouldn't undo disclosure rules but
would recognize the top 25% of each class -- in effect outing everyone else.
It was motivated, says Vice-Dean Anjani Jain in a recent Wharton Journal
article, by the "disincentivizing effects" of grade nondisclosure, which he
says faculty blame for lackluster academic performance and student
disengagement.
"Campus Confidential:
Four top-tier B-schools don't disclose grades. Now that policy is under
attack," Business Week, September 12, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/BWSept122
Jensen Comment: Talk about moral hazard. What if 90% of the applicants
claim to be straight A graduates at the very top of the class, and nobody
can prove otherwise?
The impression I have (perhaps I'm misinformed) is that most MBA classes
result in nearly all A's and B's to students. If that's the case, I
wonder how much a grade point average really matters.
Denny Beresford
September 2, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
One of the schools,
Stanford, in the 1970s lived with the Van Horn rule that dictated no
more than 15% A grades in any MBA class. I guess grade inflation has
hit the top business schools. Then again, maybe the students are just
better than we were.
I added the following to
my Tidbit on this:
Talk about moral hazard.
What if 90% of the applicants claim to be straight A graduates at the
very top of the class, and nobody can prove otherwise?
After your message Denny,
I see that perhaps it's not moral hazard. Maybe 90% of the students
actually get A grades in these business schools, in which nearly 90%
would graduate summa cum laude.
What a joke! It must be
nice teaching students who never hammer you on teaching evaluations
because you gave them a C or below.
The crucial quotation is
"faculty blame for lackluster academic performance and student
disengagement." Isn't this a laugh if they all get A and B grades for
"lackluster academic performance and student disengagement."
I think these top schools
are simply catering to their customers!
At Tuck, we have a five tiered grading system:
Honors, Satisfactory+, Satisfactory, Low Pass, Fail. Bounds are imposed
on the maximum number of each type of grade that should be assigned.
Typically I assign about 20% Honors, 40% Satisfactory+, and 40%
Satisfactory. Low Pass grades are infrequent (perhaps a 2% rate) and
Fail is rare (I have assigned one failing grade in my seven years here.)
Richard C. Sansing
Associate Professor of Business Administration
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
100 Tuck Hall Hanover, NH 03755
Most asbestos lawsuits are probably phony, but the lawyers are wealthy The other excitement was an extraordinary exchange
between Judge Jack and trial lawyer Richard Laminack. (We reprint part of it
nearby.) The judge had remanded most of the bogus silicosis suits to state
court, but she kept one -- originally filed by Mr. Laminack's firm in her
Texas jurisdiction. The "Alexander suit" includes about 100 plaintiffs who
all claim to have silicosis. Yet Judge Jack's pretrial hearings helped
discover that nearly 70% of these claimants had previously filed an asbestos
claim. Experts testifying in Judge Jack's court had made clear that it is
extremely rare for a person to have both asbestosis and silicosis. When
Judge Jack brought this troubling fact up again in last week's hearing, Mr.
Laminack shocked everyone by explaining that he doubts his clients ever had
asbestosis. Put another way, so eager was Mr. Laminack to support the
credibility of his silicosis claims that he admitted in federal court that
he believed his clients had previously filed fraudulent asbestos claims. His
admission is all the more notable because Mr. Laminack was indicting some of
the lions of the asbestos bar -- Dickie Scruggs, for instance -- who
(according to defense attorneys) were among those filing "Alexander"
asbestos claims.
"Case of the Vanishing X-rays," The Wall Street Journal, August 31,
2005; Page A8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112544438428727225,00.html?mod=opinion%5Fmain%5Freview%5Fand%5Foutlooks
Now I'm almost sorry San Antonio beat Detroit in the NBA playoffs
Detroit has surpassed Cleveland as the nation's most impoverished big city,
according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Survey figures released Tuesday show 33.6
percent - more than one-third - of Detroit's residents lived at or below the
federal poverty line in 2004, the largest percentage of any U.S. city of
250,000 or more people. The top five were Detroit; El Paso, Texas (28.8
percent); Miami (28.3 percent); Newark, N.J. (28.1 percent); and Atlanta
(27.8 percent). Detroit has lost about half its population since a
half-century ago. It is now the country's 11th largest city with just over
900,000 residents. Cleveland, which was No. 1 in 2003, dropped to No. 12 as
the percentage of its residents living in poverty fell from 31.3 percent to
23.2 percent. The poverty threshold differs by the size and makeup of a
household. A family of four with two children was considered living in
poverty if their income was $19,157 or less. For a family of two with no
children, it was $12,649. It was $9,060 for a person 65 or over who was
living alone. Nearly half of Detroit's children under age 18 are
impoverished, according to the survey. With 47.8 percent of its children
living in poverty, Detroit trailed only Atlanta (48.1 percent) among the
largest cities.
"Detroit now ranks as nation's poorest big city," Free Republic,
August 31, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1473961/posts
Jensen Comment:
New Orleans (before the Katrina disaster) in 2004 ranked low in household
income at 62 out of 70 cities ranked. However, well over half the families
in New Orleans earned enough to pay income taxes on earnings.
Many of you know Don
Edwards, better known as "James Don." Don gave me my first
faculty job (Michigan State). Don and his wife Clara are
among my best friends in life. Don served as Department
Chair and/or Dean at the universities of Georgia, Minnesota,
and Michigan State. He's a noted business consultant and
accounting historian. He raised funds and guided more
accounting professors to their doctoral degrees than any
other administrator, some of whom are now our best known
scholars, teachers, and researchers.
Don is the only accounting
professor to receive an honorary doctorate from the
University of Paris. For over five decades he loyally
served the American Accounting Association. He raised the
funds and gave birth to the AAA's highly successful annual
Doctoral Consortium. He's a member of the Accounting Hall
of Fame that lists some of his many accomplishments at
http://fisher.osu.edu/acctmis/hall/members/edwards_j/index.html
Now in retirement in Athens,
Georgia, Don fortunately has the health, wealth, and
dedication to continue working on his textbooks.
On September 5, Don sent me
the following message concerning an accounting textbook that
can now be downloaded FREE
by anybody in the world:
We now have the first
Internet-based Financial Accounting textbook. Future
textbooks will be Accounting Principles and Managerial
Accounting released later this year. You may want to
view this website:
And one more quote about
Don (this one in 1997)
In the
midst of an active session of the Georgia House of
Representatives, all business ceased for the time being when
Don entered the chamber. He was then asked to address the
House. Later, a group of legislators and senators escorted
him to the Govornor's office. The Democratic Govornor later
accompanied the solid Republican Don Edwards to the U.S.
Whitehouse for a luncheon. This was all in respect for what
Don had accomplished for higher education in the State of
Georgia. See
http://www.legis.state.ga.us/Legis/1997_98/leg/fulltext/hr738.htm
I’m not sure that Edwards had
the first free on-line accounting text. There is also a
free text available at
www.principlesofaccounting.com .
This site does not have any ads.
Cheryl L. Prachyl, Ph.D, CPA
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Accounting
Box 19468
University of Texas at Arlington
Arlington, TX 76019
Is College Preparation for Life? Grads Weigh In
The study,which is based on a
2003 survey of 1992-93 bachelor’s degree recipients, offers
an intriguing if slightly historical sense of how college
and grad school look to a set of graduates as they peer back
in time.The answers support many pieces of conventional
wisdom about higher education — for instance, that a liberal
arts degree doesn’t seem to prepare students as well for
work and career as science and professional fields do, and
that students at private colleges tend to value the quality
of their undergraduate instruction more than those at public
colleges — but raise doubt about some others.
Doug Lederman, "Is College Preparation for Life? Grads Weigh
In," Inside Higher Ed, September 2, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/02/nces
Question
Who would want the job of a college dean?
Answer My recent service on a search committee for the
dean of my university’s College of Education left me thinking about the
future of these positions . . . Unless the job of dean of education is
redefined into a doable set of tasks, the type of people we want to apply —
people with integrity, a sense of balance, a sense of humor, a commitment to
the well-being of students and children — are going to pass and stick to a
faculty role. This would be a real tragedy for our field, as those are
precisely the people we need to lead us into an uncertain future.
Russell Olwell, "The Job No One Wants," Inside Higher Ed, August 30, 2005
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/careers/2005/08/30/olwell
College Tuition Blues: Flashback from The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal, September 2, 1959
American parents, who this month will be dispatching
their offspring to colleges in record numbers, will face
this hard fact of economic life: The cost of a college
education still is climbing. Boston University is
boosting tuition charges to $950 a year from $800.
College bans on certain types of speech become a "dangerous game"
Unfortunately, many colleges —
eager to ban speech that administrators or students do
not like — have latched onto the “threat” exception of
the First Amendment to justify banning speech that is
not actually threatening (as the term has been defined
by the law) but instead is merely offensive to the
listener. Redefining a “threat” as anything that offends
is a dangerous game that discredits accusers,
underestimates students’ ability to cope with ideas they
dislike, and trivializes the seriousness of actual
threats of violence.
The latest example of this
disturbing trend comes from
William Paterson University, a
public university in New Jersey. Jihad Daniel, a
master’s student and university employee, privately
responded to a mass e-mail message sent by a professor,
Arlene Holpp Scala, announcing a campus showing of
Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House, a film
Scala described as a “lesbian relationship story.” The
e-mail provided a link so that recipients could contact
Scala. In his response, Daniel, a devout Muslim, wrote,
“Do not send me any mail about ‘Connie and Sally’ and
‘Adam and Steve.’ These are perversions. The absence of
God in higher education brings on confusion. That is why
in these classes the Creator of the heavens and the
earth is never mentioned.” That is the entirety of his
response. All too predictably on the contemporary
campus, Scala brought charges against Daniel for making
her “feel threatened at [her] place of work.” Showing
complete disregard of the right to dissent protected
under the First Amendment, the university found Daniel
guilty of “discrimination” and “harassment.”
Scala’s reliance
on the claim that she felt “threatened”
is especially disturbing. Did she really
fear that this 63-year-old man would
harm her, just because they disagree
about homosexuality? Yes, many people
might find Daniels’ opinion offensive,
but the expression of a religious
opinion is hardly a threat.
Sadly, Daniel’s
case is just one example of how threat
allegations are abused on campus. For
example, Ursula Monaco, a part-time
student at
Suffolk County Community College,
on Long Island,
was punished in 2003 for an e-mail
message she accidentally sent to her
professor in which she referred to the
professor as a “cunt.” Even though that
the e-mail was clearly addressed to
someone else and that the First
Amendment has no exception for even the
c-word, Monaco was found guilty of both
“harassment” and “intimidation.”
Continued in article
Norway's police shoot the least A major survey of police weapon use in the Nordic
region shows that Norway is the country where shots are most seldom fired,
and that access to weapons means more shooting. The survey shows that,
adjusted for population, shots are fired 13 times as often as in Norway and
the number killed is ten times higher. In dangerous situations Norwegian
police pull back, request arms and wait for reinforcements. Swedish police
are far more often placed in self-defense situations where shots are fired
under extreme stress and from close range. Aftenposten, September 2, 2005 ---
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1106865.ece
Jensen Comment: Actually Norway's police shoot the least because they
are too late to stop the crime. They're delayed waiting for taxi cabs.
In Norway, call the police a taxi before you dial 911 Area police have had their fleet of
vehicles trimmed from two to one due to budget cuts, and have
repeatedly had to ring a taxi when needing another car to respond to
a call, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports. The mayor is so
exasperated that he is considering donating a kick-sled to the force
for the winter.
"Police forced to take taxis," Aftenposten, August 22, 2005 ---
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1100542.ece
College Withdraws Credits Awarded in Distance Education Scheme Otterbein announced that it was revoking thousands
of credits awarded to hundreds of Florida teachers, enabling some of them to
receive certification, recertification or raises. The college also announced
that it would donate the funds it received for the courses to a charity in
Florida. The college’s involvement with the distance education programs in
Florida was “inconsistent with the standards and integrity long associated
with Otterbein,” said a statement from Thomas C. Morrison, chairman of the
college’s board.
Scott Jaschik, "College Withdraws Credits Awarded in Distance Education
Scheme," Inside Higher Ed, September 2, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/02/otterbein
Why (there's a good reason) Google requires its tremendous Gmail
service to be by invitation only and how you can circumvent this process to
get a fre Gmail account.
There's no other major item most of us own that
is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers.
Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.
Here are a few questions about computers I've
received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited
and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox
contained questions about signing up for Gmail, iPod-to-computer
transfers and switching your computer's power options.
If you have a question, send it to me at
mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg's
Mailbox.
Q: Your recent article mentioned that
Google's new Google Talk instant-messaging service was available only to
users of Google's Gmail email service. But Gmail isn't open for new
sign-ups. How can I get onto Gmail?
A: You are correct that people can't just sign
up for Gmail from their computers. There are two ways to get a Gmail
account. You can receive an invitation from an existing member to sign
up. Or, Google now allows anyone to join, provided you sign up using
your cellphone and its SMS, or text-messaging, feature. Instructions for
doing this are at:
https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup1
I have tested this cellphone method, and found
that it works fine. Once you sign up via your cellphone, you can use
Gmail with your PC or Macintosh. You don't have to keep using your
cellphone. Google says it requires the cellphone signup in order to
thwart spammers who might want to use automated computer programs to
obtain multiple Gmail accounts and use these accounts as a platform for
sending millions of spam emails.
Q: I have my entire music library on my
iPod, placed there using Apple's iTunes software on my main PC. Now, I
want to move all the music to a second computer. But the iPod doesn't
have the capability to synchronize music to a second computer, even
using the Apple iTunes software. When I try, iTunes warns that it will
overwrite my iPod with its own library, which, on this second computer,
is empty. Is there a way to do this?
A: Yes. Apple did cripple iPod-to-computer
transfers, in order to please the record industry, which feared the iPod
might be used to copy music to the computers of people who hadn't
purchased it, either from Apple's iTunes store or in the form of CDs.
But many utility programs have been created to allow iPod-to-computer
transfers.
I have tested two such programs, and found they
work well. One, for Windows, is CopyPod, which costs $19.90, at
copypod.ouvaton.org. The other, for the Macintosh, is iPodRip, at $15,
from
www.thelittleappfactory.com .
Q: To conserve power, my monitor shuts down
automatically after five minutes or so of inactivity. This is OK most of
the time, but if I want to leave a photo slide show running
occasionally, I'd like to be able to override this feature. Can you tell
me how? I'm running Windows XP.
A: The simplest way is to go into the
computer's control panel and change the setting that turns off the
monitor. Click on the Start button, then click on Control Panel. Then,
open the panel called Power Options. (Depending on how your computer is
set up, you may have to first click on the category called "Performance
and Maintenance.")
Next, on the tab called Power Schemes, change
the setting for "Turn off monitor" to "Never," or to a time period long
enough for your slide show to play. Then, click "OK." To resume your
typical five-minute turnoff, just go into this control panel again and
change the setting back to "After 5 mins." If you play slide shows often
enough that doing this each time would be a pain, keep the setting at a
period lengthy enough to accommodate the slide shows.
If the slide show is triggered as a screen
saver, rather than as a manual process, you should be able to use the
Display control panel to start it after five minutes, instead of turning
off the monitor, and then set the monitor to shut off, using the Power
Options panel, at a later time, after the slide show has had a chance to
run for a while.
Protection against network ID theft using a key chain With identity theft and other crimes on the rise,
America Online and E-Trade have each taken a strategy from the corporate
world to make customers feel safer. Both are inviting their users to try out
a different way to log in to their sites. In addition to typing a user name
and password, they can obtain a key-chain-sized token with a tiny screen
that displays a new six-digit number every minute.
Mike Musgrove, "A New Key to Fighting Identity Theft," The Washington
Post, August 28, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/27/AR2005082700227.html?referrer=email
Baby to assume Ma's Name As telecom giant SBC prepares to close its
acquisition of AT&T , it might seem that the 120-year-old telecom brand is
about to fade into history. Don't bet on it. SBC, which was spun off from
AT&T amid the breakup of the Bell telephone system in 1984, will assume its
former parent's name, BusinessWeek Online has learned. The plan, which is
consistent with speculation that followed SBC's bid for AT&T earlier this
year, reflects SBC's new national identity and its desire to market AT&T's
Internet phone service to consumers around the country. And it gives SBC a
marketing weapon to use against its rivals.
"So Long, AT&T? Not So Fast," Business Week, August 31, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/BabyNamedMa
Jensen Comment: Accordingly San Antonio will be the new world headquarters
for AT&T
Consumer Spending the American Way U.S. consumers spent more than they earned in
July for just the second time in the last 46 years, the Commerce Department
said Thursday. Personal incomes increased 0.3% in July, while spending
soared ahead by 1%. As a result, the personal savings rate tumbled to
negative 0.6%, the lowest since monthly records began in 1959.
Rex Nutting, "U.S. savings rate falls below zero: Inflation wipes out
gains in personal," Market Watch, September 1, 2005 ---
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid={D09C8048-99F1-40E4-9805-16EDAB3834B0}&siteid=mktw
NSF Proposes Next-Generation Internet The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has
proposed a next-generation Internet with built-in security and functionality
that connects all kinds of devices, with the government agency challenging
researchers to look at the Internet as a "clean slate." Grant
Gross, "NSF Proposes Next-Generation Internet," PC World, August 29,
2005 ---
http://pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122344,00.asp
Coffee may be good for your health That morning cup of coffee may do more than just
perk you up. A new study shows that coffee is the primary source of
antioxidants for Americans. This finding may come as a surprise to some
since scientists and nutrition experts usually tout fruits and vegetables as
the best source of antioxidants – chemicals that prevent cellular damage.
But, this study shows for the first time that Americans get most of their
antioxidants from their daily fix of java. “Americans get more of their
antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source,” said study leader
Joe Vinson of the University of Scranton. “Nothing else comes close.” And
don’t worry if you can’t handle the full strength stuff – this study
suggests that decaf provides similar antioxidant levels. This comes as good
news for the nearly half of all Americans that depend on coffee for that
morning pick-me-up.
Bjorn Carey, "Coffee: Does a Body Good?" Live Science, August 29, 2005 ---
http://livescience.com/humanbiology/050829_coffee_health.html
Intelligent design may be harmful to your children
Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these
controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one.
It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a
philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion
class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a
biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a
physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases,
the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly,
in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for
the theory that the Holocaust never happened? So, why are we so sure that
intelligent design is not a real scientific theory, worthy of "both sides"
treatment? Isn't that just our personal opinion? It is an opinion shared by
the vast majority of professional biologists, but of course science does not
proceed by majority vote among scientists. Why isn't creationism (or its
incarnation as intelligent design) just another scientific controversy, as
worthy of scientific debate as the dozen essay topics we listed above?
Here's why. If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it,
gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals.
This doesn't happen. It isn't that editors refuse to publish ID research.
There simply isn't any ID research to publish. Its advocates bypass normal
scientific due process by appealing directly to the non-scientific public
and - with great shrewdness - to the government officials they elect.
Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, "One side can be wrong: Accepting
'intelligent design' in science classrooms would have disastrous
consequences, warn," The Guardian, September 1, 2005 ---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1559743,00.html
The landmark cases of the next five years won't
concern civil rights or abortion but property rights.
Edwin Meese III
Electronic maps of legal precedents that offer at least some semblance
of the Herculean panorama of law
IN A spate of wishful thinking, an American
legal philosopher, Ronald Dworkin, once invented an imaginary but ideal
judge, named Hercules, who had complete knowledge of every case ever
decided. Hercules saw the law as a seamless web of past precedents, and
could come to one right answer to decide any particular case. Of course,
no actual judge possesses such a supernatural reasoning ability.
Recently, though, scholars have built electronic maps of legal
precedents that offer at least some semblance of the Herculean panorama
of law.
One such map, of the network of links between
United States Supreme Court cases, has been devised by Seth Chandler,
professor of law at the University of Houston. Mr Chandler obtained some
26,000 opinions issued by the Supreme Court between the early 19th
century and the present day. He treated each of these cases as a node
and each citation from one case to another as a link. The result was a
complicated web resembling a map of cities linked by dozens of airlines.
. . .
Related work, by James Fowler, a political
scientist at the University of California at Davis, and Sangick Jeon, a
political-science student at the same place, shows how Supreme Court
jurisprudence has developed over time. As they report in a recently
completed paper, they, too, constructed an electronic network of linked
Supreme Court opinions, this time using the majority opinions gathered
from about 30,000 cases issued between the late 18th century and today.
Dr Fowler's network treated links between nodes
as directional arrows rather than simple lines. He did this by
separating opinions into two types: authorities, which are cited by many
other cases; and hubs, which cite many other opinions. Using linear
algebra to calculate all the cases' authority and hub scores, Dr Fowler
arrived at his list of most important cases. He then charted which cases
were the most salient at each point in time.
Continued in article
"Testing the Flexibility Of Web-Based Calendars: Two Offerings Allow You
To Update, Share Schedules With Anyone, Anywhere," Walter Mossberg, The
Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2005; Page D5 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,the_mossberg_solution,00.html
So, for the past three months, my
assistant Katie Boehret and I have been testing two Web-based
organizer programs to see which one would replace Lotus. We
tested a free organizer called
AirSet by
Airena Inc., as well as a $39.95 per year (after a free
two-month trial) program called
Trumba OneCalendar by Trumba Corp.
Each
company set us up with our own password-protected calendars, and
we quickly learned a few things. Because of the Internet's
nature, we had to adjust to waiting a bit for Web pages to load
before performing tasks such as viewing future months or dates
to add appointments. The Web also prevented us from simply
dragging and dropping appointments from one calendar square to
another, like we did in Lotus. And of course, when the Internet
isn't available, neither is my schedule.
Trumba is
primarily a calendar, while AirSet is a broader service that
includes a rich address book, automatic map links to meeting
locations and a coming program that will work with mobile phones
to access and update your calendar.
But we
focused on the calendar features in each, as calendars are the
most heavily used feature in most people's computer organizers.
We didn't pick a winner because tastes in calendars can vary
with work style. For us Trumba was better and easier, but for
you, it might be AirSet. Both work well.
If you're
hoping to transfer your currently used calendar over to either
of these, both programs will automatically synchronize with
Microsoft Outlook, and AirSet also syncs with Palm Desktop. But
any other type of calendar can only be moved using a special
file format and it won't synchronize perfectly.
Both
programs also allow you to "publish," or share, your calendar
with other people, using different colors to represent each
colleague or family member. And each allows you to "subscribe"
to other people's calendars, or to public calendars, like sports
team or school schedules. The dates on such calendars are added
to your own, and can be turned on or off.
New Accounting Software EmeraldKey Technologies, Inc. introduced Envision
Accounting Software for accounting and financial professionals last week.
Envision Accounting Software provides a comprehensive solution to meet all
business management needs, including financial accounting, project
management, client management, time and expenses, billing, payroll,
budgets/forecasts, real-time reporting and Web-enablement.
"Introducing Envision Accounting Software for Accounting & Financial
Professionals," AccountingWeb, August 24, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101233
Insurer Reveals What Doctors Really Charge Aetna is the first major health insurer to publicly
disclose the fees it negotiates with physicians. Some in the health-care
industry say the move is likely to push more insurers to follow suit, which
in turn would give a significant boost to consumer-driven health plans.
Vanessa Fuhrmans, "Insurer Reveals What Doctors Really Charge: To Help
People Compare Fees, Aetna Posts Some Online; A Potential Bargaining Tool,"
The Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112432102051916089,00.html?mod=article-outset-box
Here's a previous module in Tidbits How do selected hospitals
in your city/region compare (you choose the criteria and the hospitals)?
When I compared San Antonio's Baptist Health System with the
Methodist System, I got some surprising results. In
a move to provide clear, unbiased information about the quality of hospital
care, Medicare is launching a Web-based database that consumers can use to
see for themselves how local institutions stack up against each other. The
Web site, Hospital Compare, went live late yesterday, offering data on 17
widely accepted quality measures in treating heart attack, heart failure and
pneumonia. It shows how most of the nation's general hospitals perform
compared with state and national averages, as well as against their peers.
"This is another big step toward supporting and rewarding better quality,
rather than just paying more and supporting more services," says Mark
McClellan, a physician who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, which oversees federal health-care programs for seniors and
low-income people. The government "ends up paying more when a patient gets
poor-quality care and is readmitted" to the hospital, he added.
Rhonda L. Rundle, "Medicare Puts Data Comparing Hospitals Onto Public Web
Site," The Wall Street Journal,
April 1, 2005; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111231128175394880,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Mutual interdependence of men and women
One of the reasons for the failure of feminism to dislodge deeply held
perceptions of male and female behaviour was its insistence that women were
victims, and men powerful patriarchs, which made a travesty of ordinary
people's experience of the mutual interdependence of men and women.
Rosalind Coward as quoted by Mark Shapiro at
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-08-28-05.htm
This
commentary was motivated by the confluence of three
events: the arrival in my campus mailbox of the
annual
Almanac Issue of The Chronicle of Higher
Education,
the
arrival of the Fall 2005 Calendar of Events for the
Women's Center/Adult Reentry Center
here at
Krispy Kreme U. (Cal State Fullerton), and my
noticing a
recent story in The Times
(the
one published in the U.K.) by Carol Midgely that
reviews a new book by Marian Salzman, Ira Matathia,
and Ann O'Reilly entitled The Future of Men.
In
2000 the IP published a commentary,
"Where have all the boys gone?",
that
highlighted the decline in the percentage of males
attending college. The following year he published
a more extensive study in the
Cal State Fullerton Senate Forum
that
showed that relative declines in male enrollment
here at Cal State Fullerton were more severe for
underrepresented minority males than they were for
Asian and white males though for all ethnic groups
including whites and Asians female students
substantially outnumbered male students.
Unfortunately, this gender imbalance in favor of
female students has not raised the same level of
concern that the imbalance in favor of male students
did a few decades ago. A small number of articles
have been written on the subject, and a few
conference sessions have touched on the issue. But,
by and large, little action has been taken to
address the issue. For some reason, it seems to be
politically incorrect to talk about the problems
that male students have either at the K-12 level or
in college.
The
data from the 2005 edition of the Almanac
confirm that female undergraduate enrollments
continue to exceed male enrollments significantly.
Unfortunately, there is a lag between the gathering
and the reporting of enrollment data at the national
level, so the latest information available for
enrollments by gender is for the Fall 2002
semester. At that time females comprised 60.4% of
the American Indian enrollment, 53.1% of the Asian
enrollment, 64.2% of non-Hispanic Black enrollment,
57.9% of the Hispanic enrollment, and 56% of the
non-Hispanic white enrollment. These data combine
information from students across the spectrum of
higher education -- public and private universities
and colleges as well as community colleges.
At
the time the IP wrote the earlier articles, that
data indicated that male undergraduates still had a
higher persistence to graduation than females.
However, the latest data from the Almanac
show that female persistence to graduation now is
higher than that of males. The six-year graduation
rates for freshman entering four-year institutions
in 1996 were 38.6% for American Indian females
compared to 34.6% for American Indian males, 66.2%
for Asian females compared to 58.7% for Asian males,
42.2% for non-Hispanic Black females compared to
32.3% for non-Hispanic Black males, 48.3% for
Hispanic females compared to 40.6% for Hispanic
males, and 60.1% for non-Hispanic white females
compared to 53.9% for non-Hispanic white males. It
seems that not only have the college-going rates for
males declined substantially over the past few
decades; but, that graduation rates for male
college students now are declining as well.
Continued in article
How New Heart-Scanning Technology Could Save Your Life Mike Fackelmann had no reason to think he had heart
disease. Although his cholesterol was a touch on the high side, he had never
experienced any chest pains and had just passed a stress test with flying
colors. So last November, when a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic
Foundation Hospital asked the then 49-year-old registered nurse to help
demonstrate an experimental new cardiac scanner, neither the physician nor
Fackelmann expected to see anything out of the ordinary. The idea was simply
to slide Fackelmann through the machine and show what finely detailed images
of the heart it could produce.
"How New Heart-Scanning Technology Could Save Your Life: More and more,
doctors are diagnosing coronary disease without any invasive tests whatever,
Time Magazine, August 28, 2005 ---
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1098960,00.html
Dirty politics: Starving charter schools One problem is that teachers unions use their
political clout to weaken state charter laws or limit the ability to attend
the schools. Some states cap charter enrollment (New Jersey), refuse to
grant new charters to for-profit outfits (Connecticut), or restrict which
official bodies can authorize charter school petitions (Arkansas and
Georgia). But the worst tactic is simply to starve charter schools of money,
says Chester Finn, who heads the Fordham Institute and is one of the study's
authors. The funding gap ranges from a few hundred dollars to upward of
$5,000 per student; the national average is $1,800, or 21% less money for
charters than for a district school. For a typical 250-student charter, this
translates into a $450,000 budget gap, or eight more teachers or an
after-school program with tutors for a small school.
"Starving Charters," The Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112527810666625231,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Jensen Comment: A criticism of charter schools is that their students on a
nationwide average do not score better than traditional pubic schools on
standardized tests. It should, however, be pointed out that charter schools
are often serving as an alternative for minority/poor students in lousy
public schools that typically are the lowest on these tests.
Collins is
an unusual columnist, in that he not only notices what is going on, but he
also remembers it. He is aware of the
German Kyoto Hoax,
for example, and the farce over the European stability pact, which exposed
rule zero of the EU. Successful organisms learn
from experience, but the leaders of the EU do not come into this category.
The Russian Government is also heading for interesting times, having chosen
to ignore its own scientists and attend instead to the bribes from the EU.
Virtually none of them is going to reach the target, but will they pay the
fines? It is all very well to argue that black is white (or, more aptly, red
is green) in the debating chamber, and to convince yourselves that it is
true, but when you choose to back your hunches with an economy-crushing
system of fines you are likely to come up against that brick wall known as
reality, the result being a bloody nose.The leaders of the old EU have
lectured the world from their high podium and, intoxicated with the
exuberance of their own high blown rhetoric, ignored the fact that the time
comes when you have to deliver. They have wrecked their own economies with
well-meaning environmental and social legislation and are genuinely
surprised that others seem unwilling to follow them. With any luck they will
soon be gone. Unfortunately for civilisation there is no such practical test
for international organisations such as the UN IPCC and WHO. They can
continue to peddle their snake oil, indulge in outrageous fraud and
misdirection, safe in the knowledge that they will not be put to the test
and that the taxpayer dollars will continue to roll in unimpeded. John Brignell,
From The Washington Post Technology
Newsletter on September 1, 2005
Non-technology companies are out to transform the way Americans consume
technology. What high-tech service is McDonald's NOT testing?
Not the brightest light bulb Waterbury police say a bank robbery was stymied
because one of the robbers was afraid his electronic tracking ankle bracelet
would alert his probation officer. Police say convicted rapist Delome Small
had chosen a bank close to home to rob Tuesday because he worried the
electronic tracker would go off if he was gone for too long. Police says
Small choose The Bank of America on Cooke Street because he could quickly
get back to the condominium where he lives with his mother. If away from
home too long, his ankle bracelet would alert probation officers that he was
out of bounds, and that would violate his probation for two 1999 sexual
assault convictions. Police say small and an older brother did enter the
bank Tuesday morning, but cut the robbery short because the cash drawers
were locked and because Delome Small worried his tracking monitor would go
off. They walked away empty-handed and are being held on $500,000 bond each.
"Bank robbery stymied by electronic angle bracelet," WTNH TV, September 1,
2005 ---
http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=3792591
Humor: There's nothing very humorous at this soon after Katrina.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Impromptu movie screenings and executive
PowerPoint presentations will soon be possible thanks to a pocket-sized
portable projector developed by Toshiba. The battery-powered device is
small enough to be slipped into a handbag and can be plugged into a
laptop computer or mobile phone.
Whereas existing projectors use a bright white
lamp and a rapidly rotating wheel with red, green and blue filters to
generate a projected picture, Toshiba’s new system uses red, green and
blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead.
And since the LEDs generate very little waste
heat there is no need for a bulky cooling fan, which means the unit can
be made small and light - its dimensions are just 136 millimetres x 39
mm x 100 mm. LEDs also last for thousands of hours and can be turned on
and off quickly, while conventional projector lamps take a while to
warm-up and cool-down.
Tax Court Ruling Allows Deduction On M.B.A. Degree Business-school students may soon have better
luck deducting their tuition expenses, thanks to a new tax-court ruling.
People who pursue a master's degree in business administration are allowed
under Internal Revenue Service rules to deduct as a business expense
school-related costs, which can exceed $40,000 a year at top-tier
institutions. But in recent years, the IRS has increasingly challenged these
deductions. A string of recent court decisions have also ruled against
taxpayers. Now, there may be a glimmer of hope. Last week, the U.S. Tax
Court ruled in favor of one petitioner's ability to deduct his M.B.A.
expenses. Tax experts say the decision could be used as a precedent for
other courts and taxpayers to follow. "After all we've seen in the past
couple of years, [this case] seems to swing the pendulum back a little bit,"
says Robert Willens, a tax and accounting expert at Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc.
Jane J. Kim, "Tax Court Ruling Allows Deduction On M.B.A. Degree," The
Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2005; Page D2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112614408942834853,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
On September 8, tax professor Richard Sansing (Dartmouth) writes that the
ruling will not necessarily restrict this to business majors.
How can you make phone calls when the lines are down and the cell
phone towers are knocked out? Satellite phones -- one of the least successful
product introductions of the late 1990s -- are in fresh demand in the wake
of Hurricane Katrina from storm-ravaged communities without functioning
cellular and wire-line networks. But while sales are up sharply in recent
days, retailers say it remains difficult to get handsets where they're
needed.
Joanna Glaser, "Sat Phones Surge After Katrina," Wired News, September 7,
2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,68768,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
I suspect San Antonio will offer Tom a $10 trillion new stadium Despite nearly four decades of on-field
mediocrity, the New Orleans Saints have been a beloved local symbol, a
big-league team in a small-market city. But Hurricane Katrina has turned the
Saints' stadium, the Superdome, into a national symbol of squalor, and the
National Football League team into a vagabond, unsure where it will play
"home" games this season. The Saints' owner, Tom Benson, has emerged as a
visible face of the dilemma confronting thousands of businesses in the
storm's aftermath: Should I stay or should I go? For Mr. Benson, the
question is complicated by the fact that before the hurricane hit he had
riled local fans by making noises about moving the team. Leaving might
appear as if he is deserting the city in its time of need. The Saints have
relocated temporarily to San Antonio, where Mr. Benson, who made his fortune
in car dealerships and banks, has a home and business interests.
Stefan Fatsis, "Football's Saints Ponder Whether To Relocate," The Wall
Street Journal, September 8, 2005; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112613850993434721,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Katrina Victim ID Thefts Social Security cards, driver's licenses, credit
cards and other personal documents are literally floating around New
Orleans, raising the prospect some hurricane survivors could be victimized
again, this time by identity thieves. Betsy Broder, the attorney who
oversees the Federal Trade Commission's identity-theft program, said the
agency hasn't received any complaints yet. However, it's still early after
the disaster and people have been focusing on more pressing needs, such as
shelter, food and medicine. "This is probably not the most immediate concern
that people have, but at a certain point they need to stop and take stock of
their financial health," Ms. Broder said.
"Hurricane Survivors May Become Victims Of Identity Theft," The Wall
Street Journal, September 7, 2005; Page D3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112605804644733560,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Jensen Comment: Many of the thefts arise when looters rifle through private
possessions in homes and apartments. Also can you imagine the problem
credit card companies and other vendors are having in locating victims
scattered across the nation? I suspect the interest will accumulate on
unpaid credit card accounts.
Phishing for Katrina dollars and credit card information A Missouri federal judge signed a temporary
restraining order against Frank Weltner, 64, of St. Louis, Mo., that
prohibits him from accepting donations through the slew of Web sites he
registered with names like www.donate-katrina.com, www.clergydonations.com,
and www.internetdonations.org.
"Missouri Attorney General To Sue Katrina Phisher," The Washington Post,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/
Not a giving spirit for an opportunist named Steve Parker Acting on an emergency request from the American
Red Cross, the FCC on Friday handed over control of the toll-free number
1-800-RED-CROSS to the nonprofit group, unceremoniously plucking it from the
hands of corporate digit-squatters who'd been hoping for a six-figure
payday. "They weren't going to give it to us, and they were going to charge
us ridiculous amounts of money to use it," says Chuck Connor, senior vice
president of communication and marketing for the American Red Cross. "They
were talking about the kinds of money that changed hands for 1-800-FLOWERS,
which is ridiculous."
Kevin Poulsen, "Red Cross Gets Squatter's Number," Wired News,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/hurricane/0,2904,68774,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_9
New Orleans Past and Not-so- Optimistic Future This week in the magazine and online, Nicholas
Lemann writes about his home town, New Orleans, in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina. Here, with Daniel Cappello, he discusses the city’s past, present,
and uncertain future.
Nicholas Lehman, "The Battered Bayou, The New Yorker, September 9,
2005 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/050912on_onlineonly01
Louisiana officials did not use federal money that was available for
levee improvements But research into more than ten years of reporting
on hurricane and flood damage mitigation efforts in and around New Orleans
indicates that local and state officials did not use federal money that was
available for levee improvements or coastal reinforcement and often did not
secure local matching funds that would have generated even more federal
funding.
Jeff Johnson, "Louisiana Officials Could Lose the Katrina Blame Game,"
CNS News, September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\\Nation\\archive\\200509\\NAT20050907a.html
Litigation mania: Environmentalists are to blame in large measure . . .
environmentalists may have prevented building floodgates that would have
prevented the flooding from Hurricane Katrina. The 5-28-05 New Orleans
Times-Picayune states, “Under the original plan, floodgate-type
structures would have been built at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes to
block storm surges from moving from the Gulf into Lake Pontchartrain. Those
plans were abandoned after environmental advocates successfully sued to stop
the projects as too damaging to the wetlands and the lake's ecosystem, Naomi
said. Now the corps wants to take another look using more environmentally
sensitive construction than was previously available.”
Michael P. Tremoglie, "Compassionate Liberalism Part II: Blaming the Iraq
War and Tax Cuts for New Orleans Flooding," Men's Daily News,
September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1478361/posts
Greens vs. Levees With all that has happened in the state, it’s
understandable that the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club may not have
updated its website. But when its members get around to it, they may want to
change the wording of one item in particular. The site brags that the group
is “working to keep the Atchafalaya Basin,” which adjoins the Mississippi
River not far from New Orleans, “wet and wild.” . . . The Army Corps was
planning to upgrade 303 miles of levees along the river in Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Arkansas. This was needed, a Corps spokesman told the Baton
Rouge, La., newspaper The Advocate, because “a failure could wreak
catastrophic consequences on Louisiana and Mississippi which the states
would be decades in overcoming, if they overcame them at all.” But a suit
filed by environmental groups at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans
claimed the Corps had not looked at “the impact on bottomland hardwood
wetlands.” The lawsuit stated, “Bottomland hardwood forests must be
protected and restored if the Louisiana black bear is to survive as a
species, and if we are to ensure continued support for source population of
all birds breeding in the lower Mississippi River valley.” In addition to
the Sierra Club, other parties to the suit were the group American Rivers,
the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and the Louisiana, Arkansas and
Mississippi Wildlife Federations.
John Berlau , "Greens vs. Levees: Destructive river-management philosophy,"
National Review, September 8, 2005 ---
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/berlau200509080824.asp
Since much of the Federal aid will go to Katrina victims themselves in
one way or another, how will the Gulf Coast infrastructure rebuilding really
be financed?
Speaking of the Hurricane, a few more financial
points to note. The IRS has relaxed some rules and deadlines for those
affected and even has advice for those who give to charities. Bloomberg
reports on New Orleans' Muni debt:
"The reconstruction of New Orleans and the
other ports on the Gulf Coast that were devastated by the hurricane
is going to be a municipal market story. The bankers who design and
sell municipal bonds, ordinarily a much-maligned group, are going to
figure as superheroes in this modern Battle of New Orleans. Rated
Baa2 by Moody's Investors Service and BBB+ by Standard & Poor's --
in other words, almost junk -- New Orleans already carried what the
rating companies call a ``high debt burden'' and low financial
reserves. So it would probably be a good idea for the state to set
up a special authority to sell several billion dollars in bonds
designed to help rebuild the city."
In related news, Bloomberg also reports that
the economy may not be hurt by as much as some fear from Katrina.
"This paradoxical economic benefit can be
seen on a large scale as well. Woodward found that South Carolina's
rebuilding efforts following Hurricane Hugo in 1989 delayed the
start of the early 1990s recession for the state. The U.S. Bureau of
Economic Analysis doesn't estimate the effects of a disaster on the
national economy, but my own analysis of gross domestic product data
from 1947 to 2005 shows that, with a two-quarter lag, a hurricane
will boost growth by 0.3 percentage points.
Similarly, when a hurricane-force storm
struck Denmark in December 1999, causing extensive and serious
damage, the Danish Ministry of Finance calculated that the effect of
the storm was to lift GDP by 0.8 percent in 2000 compared with what
it would have been, and by a further 0.3 percent in 2001."
In addition to providing loot for looters, Wal-Mart is cranking up a
monster relief program Over the next few days, Wal-Mart's response to
Katrina -- an unrivaled $20 million in cash donations, 1,500 truckloads of
free merchandise, food for 100,000 meals and the promise of a job for every
one of its displaced workers -- has turned the chain into an unexpected
lifeline for much of the Southeast and earned it near-universal praise at a
time when the company is struggling to burnish its image. Michael Barbaro and Justin Gillis, "Wal-Mart Responds to Katrina With
Massive Relief Effort," TheLedger, September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050907/NEWS/509070330/1178
Jensen Comment: Charity has its amount and time limits. For thousands
of victims now scattered around the U.S., Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and other
large retail chains will also provide badly needed jobs with full medical
benefits. In the final analysis, the most important assistance for many of
the victims, especially parents, will be new jobs that allow them to carry
on with car payments, house payments, and other bills that carry on in spite
of being displaced and blown out of work. And the oldsters and some
severely handicapped can become Wal-Mart greeters.
Ear phones may be damaging your hearing Compared with larger headphones that cover the
entire ear, some insertable headphones, like the white ones sold with iPods,
increased sound levels by up to nine decibels. That may not seem like much,
but because decibels are measured in logarithmic units, it can mean the
difference between the noise output of an alarm clock (about 80 decibels)
and that of a lawnmower (about 90 decibels). The other problem, a second
study found, is that insertable headphones are not as efficient at blocking
background noise as some larger ones that cover the ear, so there is more
incentive to turn up the volume.
Anahad O'Connor, "The Claim: MP3 Players Can Cause Hearing Loss," The New
York Times, September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/health/06real.html
A Critical Look at Medical Education Medical students may be subject to “unrecognized
influence” by the marketing efforts of drug companies and medical residents
who consistently work long hours suffer impairment that is comparable to if
they worked half the number of hours but had an alcoholic drink or two,
according to two studies published Tuesday in theJournal of the American
Medical Association
Doug Lederman, "A Critical Look at Medical Education," Inside Higher Ed,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/07/medical
No Comment
The New York Times linked to classroom "successes?" in political
science Juan Carlos Huerta and Joseph Jozwiak — political
scientists at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi — said that requiring
students to read The New York Times and linking the Times to class
discussions can have a major impact. Students at their campus are generally
not very politically aware or engaged in civic activities, Jozwiak said, and
he hoped that the Times would help students “see social problems as their
own” and make them “want to take action.”
Scott Jaschik, "Classroom Successes," Inside Higher Ed, September 7,
2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/07/polisci
The biggest source of spam is the U.S. Speaking at today's Westminster eForum on spams and
scams in London, David Evans, senior guidance and promotion manager for the
ICO, admitted the government was failing to stop spammers. Evans said: "The
biggest source of spam is the US. Much as investigations teams would love to
go and arrest people there, we don't have the power or resources. We would
like the power to act but we would like the resources to use these powers."
Evans added that the ICO, which is part of the Department of Trade and
Industry, was forced to prioritise cases in favour of investigating phishing
scams before general spam.
Dan Ilett, "Give us the power to can spam, says ICO," Silicon.com,
September 6, 2005 ---
http://software.silicon.com/malware/0,3800003100,39152000,00.htm
Use you head before you leap into an interest-only mortgage obligation The newfangled mortgages have been heralded in the
industry as useful tools for buyers who would otherwise be shut out of the
surging real estate market. That's because they reduce borrowers' monthly
payments by allowing them to pay only interest initially while charging a
lower interest rate that remains fixed for a few years before starting to
adjust annually for the rest of the term, typically 30 years. But critics
say they are riskier than standard mortgages, as they are prone to two
payment spikes - one when the interest-only period expires and another when
the fixed-rate period ends and the borrower faces potentially much higher
interest rates. Critics also worry that offering extra-risky financial
products that permit financially vulnerable buyers to get ever bigger
mortgages is particularly perilous now, when many experts say the housing
bubble may be near a breaking point.
Eduardo Porter, "Good News, Bad News: Your Loan's Approved," The New York
Times, August 31, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/business/yourmoney/28loan.html
About half persons eligible for food stamps don't participate even
though they are like cash equivalents for food Only about one-half of all individuals in major
metropolitan areas who were eligible for food stamps received benefits in
1999. Participation rates ranged widely across the nation, from a low of 21
percent in the Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, NJ, metro area to a high of 94
percent in El Paso, TX. Midwestern metropolitan areas reported aboveaverage
participation rates, and some urban counties exhibited considerably higher
or lower participation rates than their respective metro areas. Matt Fellowes and Alan Berube, "Leaving Money (and Food) on the Table:
Food Stamp Participation in Major Metropolitan Areas and Counties,"
Brookings Institution, May 2005 ---
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20050517_FoodStamp.pdf
Down Syndrome May Hold Clues to Fighting Cancer: Recent research shows that people with Down
syndrome, a genetic condition with a range of physical and intellectual
disabilities, have a significantly lower-than-expected rate of breast
cancer, lung cancer, mouth cancer and other common solid tumors. They are at
significantly greater risk of getting a rare type of leukemia, called acute
myeloid leukemia (AML), when they are children -- but they have a
substantially higher survival rate and lower relapse rate than children in
the general population.
Amy Dockser, "Down Syndrome May Hold Clues to Fighting Cancer: Researchers
Probe Why Those With Disorder Are Less Likely to Develop Certain Tumors,
The Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112595866884032091,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Contrary to popular belief among scientists The federal government obligated $26.656 billion
for science and engineering to colleges and universities in 2003, an
increase of 9.1 percent over the previous year and the largest amount ever,
according to a National Science Foundation
report released Friday.
Doug Lederman, "U.S. Funds for Science Rose 9% in 2003," Inside Higher Ed,
September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/06/nsf
Jensen Comment: But nothing went to badly needed stem cell research
"Google Book Copying Seen As Legal," InternetWeek
Newsletter on September 6, 2005
Book publishers and writers won't be happy
to hear what legal experts have to say about Google's plan to
digitize as many library books as it can. While to some of us it
may seem unfair that a business can copy someone's work without
paying for it, the fact is such a practice may be legal,
depending on the circumstances.
Today's InternetWeek includes
a feature by freelancer Christopher
Heun, who talked with legal experts about the Google Print
Library Project. The experts were pretty much in agreement that
Google is on solid legal ground.
Among the factors working in its favor
is the social value of making electronic copies of library
books, including those still protected by copyright. The
benefits of having the content of the world's libraries in
digital form would outweigh the damage done to copyright
holders. In addition, Google isn't making money directly from
the copyrighted material, so there's nothing to share with its
owners.
New Gadgets on the Way
I wonder of Apple Corporation will sell Beano Sony, which invented portable music players but
now lags far behind Apple, has turned to the jelly bean for inspiration. The
company plans to start selling the Walkman Bean in October in an
effort to draw buyers from Apple's popular iPods. The pop design targets
"young people and women," according to Saori Takahashi, a Sony spokeswoman.
She said that the market for music players had been dominated by men "in
their late 20s or older who like cutting-edge gadgets, but demand is now
spreading to younger age groups and women."
"Gadgets of the week: Why Sony is full of beans," International Herald
Tribune, September 3, 2005 ---
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/02/business/ptgadgets03.php
Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like
dogs.
George Chapman
For some things it just doesn't pay to go cheap Demerjian said that the university paid just under
$2 million to build the facility in 1986, and that it would cost many times
that sum to fix the building, so it makes more sense to tear it down (along
with one next to it) and build a better structure. When the Gehry building
went up, Demerjian said, California was skimping on construction costs, and
used “very inexpensive materials,” which is why he thinks so many things are
wrong with the building. At Irvine, he said, the fact that a building is “a
Gehry” was one factor in the discussions about what to do with it. But it
wasn’t a deciding factor.
Scott Jaschik, "Tearing Down a Gehry," Inside Higher Ed, September 6,
2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/06/gehry
U.S. Expects to Indict At Least 12 More Over KPMG Shelters The lead prosecutor in the KPMG LLP tax-shelter
investigation said the government expects to seek indictments against at
least 12 more individuals in the coming weeks, on top of the nine people who
were arraigned yesterday in a federal court in Manhattan. The additional
defendants will be named as part of a superseding indictment and could
include additional charges against the nine people whose bond requirements
were set yesterday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. The government's
lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Weddle, said the additional
charges in the superseding indictment likely would include obstruction of
justice, as well as tax evasion, in addition to the existing conspiracy
count.
Jonathan Weil and Kara Scannell, "U.S. Expects to Indict At Least 12 More
Over KPMG Shelters," The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2005; Page
C1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112603926421333075,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Key points • UN believes
countries' poverty will kill most of the
apes within fifty years • UN reports that
growing development is destroying apes'
natural habitat • UN survey concludes
as few as 350,000 apes in total remain
in wild
Key
quote
"We have a duty to rescue our closest
living relatives as part of our wider
responsibilities to conserve the
ecosystems they inhabit" - Klaus
Toepfer, United Nations Environment
Programme executive director
Let the sunshine in Nowhere is this trend more apparent than in
California, where rolling blackouts still affect a power-hungry population.
It's not surprisingly, then, that California may host the largest
solar-energy project in history. Southern California Edison (SCE), with 13
million customers, has just announced a deal with Phoenix-based Stirling
Energy Systems that could result in a huge solar farm. The California
utility is already the nation's largest purchaser of renewable energy,
providing its customer with more than 2,500 megawatts of wind, geothermal,
solar, biomass, and small hydroelectric-derived energy, or around 18 percent
of its total power load. Now SCE has agreed to purchase upwards of 500
megawatts of electricity from Stirling Energy Systems -- enough to provide
all the energy needs to 278,000 homes -- or more than all other U.S. solar
projects combined. While neither company has disclosed the financial
details, SCE said the system will not require state subsidies.
Tim Gnatek, "A Sunshine Deal," MIT's Technology Review, September 6,
2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/wo/wo_090605gnatek.asp?trk=nl
Big clue to start of universe is a very small thing If you want to hear a little bit of the Big Bang,
you're going to have to turn down your stereo. That's what neighbors of
MIT's Haystack Observatory found out. They were asked to make a little
accommodation for science, and now the results are in: Scientists at
Haystack have made the first radio detection of deuterium, an atom that is
key to understanding the beginning of the universe. The findings are being
reported in an article in the Sept. 1 issue of Astrophysical
Journal Letters.
"Researchers find clue to start of universe," Physorg.com, September
2, 2005 ---
http://physorg.com/news6184.html
Gender Gap in Publishing Women make up about one third of political
scientists and are earning 42 percent of Ph.D.’s awarded in the discipline.
But research presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American
Political Science Association indicated that, in publishing, women lag far
behind men. Women were the lead authors of 20.9 percent of the papers
published in eight leading journals in political science from 1999 through
2004, according to a study by Marijke Breuning, associate professor of
political science at Truman State University and editor of the Journal of
Political Science Education. Breuning’s data also indicated that the
percentage was even lower — 17.7 percent — at the APSA’s flagship journal,
American Political Science Review. Only one journal in the field,
Comparative Politics, had a percentage of women as lead authors — 32.5
percent — that was comparable to the female representation in the field. And
several journals besides APSR had percentages below 20. They were the American Journal of Political Science (17.9 percent), the
Journal of Politics (17.9 percent) and International Studies Quarterly
(19.4 percent).
Scott Jaschik, "Gender Gap in Publishing," Inside Higher Ed,
September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/06/publishing
Question
Who would want the job of a college dean?
Answer My recent service on a search committee for the
dean of my university’s College of Education left me thinking about the
future of these positions . . . Unless the job of dean of education is
redefined into a doable set of tasks, the type of people we want to apply —
people with integrity, a sense of balance, a sense of humor, a commitment to
the well-being of students and children — are going to pass and stick to a
faculty role. This would be a real tragedy for our field, as those are
precisely the people we need to lead us into an uncertain future.
Russell Olwell, "The Job No One Wants," Inside Higher Ed, August 30, 2005
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/careers/2005/08/30/olwell
Forwarded by Denny Beresford on September 6,
2005
Stefanie Scott
800-644-NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MCI’S
SKYTEL LAUNCHES VEHICLE-TRACKING DEVICE
FOR
PARENTS OF TEEN DRIVERS
SkyGuard
Combines Wireless, GPS to Provide Parents Peace-of-Mind
CLINTON,
Miss. – September 6, 2005 – MCI,
Inc.’s (NASDAQ: MCIP)
SkyTel unittoday
announced the launch of SkyTel SkyGuard, a vehicle-tracking device
made especially for parents of teenage drivers. SkyGuard uses
next-generation wireless and state-of-the-art GPS technologies to
automatically collect location, speed and other vehicle information
and relay that information to a secure website.
SkyGuard allows
parents to view trip information on the Internet and see where a
vehicle has traveled. In addition, parents can set up zones
around areas of interest (like school or home) and areas that should
be avoided. SkyGuard can also be used to remotely unlock or lock
doors and disable a vehicle’s starter, preventing the vehicle from
restarting once it has been turned off.
“SkyGuard
allows parents to know their children’s whereabouts, giving them
peace-of-mind,”said Bruce Deer, SkyTel
president. “By utilizing our wireless and IP capabilities, we are
able to provide a product that is accessible 24 X 7, easy to use and
helps parents encourage their children to behave responsibly while
driving.”
Unlike other
tracking products, SkyGuard offers a remote alert feature that
notifies parents via e-mail or mobile phone if there is an unusual
occurrence such as the vehicle being driven when it should be
parked, the vehicle is traveling at an unsafe speed or the car has
entered a restricted zone.
SkyGuard works
by installing a small device (about the size of a bar of soap) in
the vehicle and connecting it to a power source. The device can also
be wired to control door locks and the starter circuit. When the
vehicle is running, the device collects and processes GPS and other
vehicle information every two minutes and sends this data through
MCI’s SkyTel network to the SkyGuard databaseevery 10 minutes.
Parents receive secure login information to their personal SkyGuard
website.
“Parents who
know where their kids are, who they're with and what they're doing
are less likely to have children who engage in risky activity, or to
be around others that do,’’ said
Kenneth Beck,
Professor in the Department of Public and Community Health at the
University of Maryland at College Park. ”Unfortunately, the research
shows that parents are usually not aware of what their teens are
doing and fail to establish and enforce rules and boundaries, and
monitor what their teens are doing."
SkyGuard
services are available throughout SkyTel’s national network, which
covers most metropolitan areas across the contiguous United States.
(Check
www.skytel.com/skyguard or call 1-800-395-6741
for pricing and availability.)
September 6,
2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi
Denny,
My
reply to Noah --- “Too bad, but it’s only because I care so much about you.”
"Here's the story,"
Schmidt told them when he decided to begin tracking them about a year
ago. "24/7, I can tell where your phone is, what speed it's going.... So
(even) days later, I can look and see that 'Oh my gosh, you were going
80 miles an hour on the Interstate at 2 o'clock in the morning.'"
It might sound invasive,
but Schmidt is convinced it's keeping his kids safer _ partly because
they know they're being watched.
His 15-year-old son,
Noah, who's been caught a few places he wasn't supposed to be, isn't
nearly as pleased.
"It's annoying," the
high school sophomore complains. "It gives the parents too much
control."
Continued in article
Don't buy "HDTV ready"
I wonder if Amy is referring to using one's
computer as essentially a TIVO system without the subscription fee. My
husband bought a card that is easily installed in one's computer that
allows it to capture TV signals. We do not have cable, so he's also had
to buy an antenna for our computer (the kit came with an antenna, but we
needed an amped, or powered, antenna). I think it might be easier to get
this thing to work if you do have cable or satellite, but it might need
its own cable connection. He bought this card over the Internet, but
sorry, I don't know what it's called.
The part he's still having trouble with is the
part that should be the easiest -- using our TV as a monitor for our
computer. It is a high definition TV, so we think it should work out
eventually.
My impression of this process is that it takes
someone who loves fiddling around with cables and electronics to have
the patience to see it through. And, you have to be willing to crack
open your computer case and add a new card, which just requires a couple
of screws. For me, TIVO would be a better option if I could afford it.
TIVO is more of a "take it out of the box and plug it in" technology,
which is about my speed.
I agree with previous posters that no one
should buy an analog TV at this point.
Don't even buy "HDTV ready" -- this will require a converter box.
Look for something like "Integrated HDTV". In my opinion, both LCD and
plasma technologies should survive as long as the TV does, so either
should be OK. Mary Geddie University of Houston
College Tuition Blues: Flashback from The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal, September 2, 1959
American parents, who this month will be dispatching
their offspring to colleges in record numbers, will face
this hard fact of economic life: The cost of a college
education still is climbing. Boston University is
boosting tuition charges to $950 a year from $800.
Software Strives to Spot Plagiarism Before Publication After a series of damaging newspaper scandals
involving plagiarism in recent years, a new piece of software looks to help
editors stop wrongdoers before their articles go to print. The LexisNexis
data collection service has introduced CopyGuard, a program aimed at
exposing plagiarists or spotting copyright infringement. According to John
Barrie, chief executive of iParadigms, the company that developed the
program with LexisNexis, CopyGuard can generate a report that calculates the
percentage of material suspected of not being original, highlights that text
and pinpoints its possible original source, all within seconds.
Tania Ralli, "Software Strives to Spot Plagiarism Before Publication,"
The New York Times, September 5, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/technology/05plagiarism.html
Iraq is the most expensive war in 60 years The US war in Iraq now costs more per month than
the average monthly cost of military operations in Vietnam in the 1960s and
1970s, a report has found. The Iraq Quagmire, a report issued yesterday by
the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus, two US
anti-war groups, put the cost of operations in Iraq at $US5.6 billion ($7.5
billion) a month, or almost $US186 million a day. "By comparison, the
average cost of US operations in Vietnam over the eight-year war was $US5.1
billion per month, adjusting for inflation," it said. The US Congress has
approved four spending bills for Iraq so far, with funds totalling $US204.4
billion, and is expected soon to authorise a further $US45.3 billion.
"Broken down per person in the United States, the cost so far is $US727,
making the Iraq war the most expensive military effort in the past 60
years," wrote the report's authors, Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver. While
there are far fewer troops in Iraq than there were in Vietnam at the height
of the war, the weapons they use are more expensive and they are paid more.
Alan Elsner, "Iraq the most expensive war in 60 years, report says,"
Sydney Morning Herald, September 1, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/31/1125302633906.html
Sarbanes-Oxley after Three Years by Larry
Ribstein
SSRN-Sarbanes-Oxley after Three Years by Larry
Ribstein:
I am sure many of you have been wondering
whether Sarbanes-Oxley has been successful or not. I know that I have
been! Unfortunately, it is a very difficult thing to test. While the
costs are relatively easy to measure, the benefits are not. Moreover,
even like any regulation, the passage is anticipated and thus normal
event studies get muddied.
So with that in mind (and a good dictionary in
hand) I present to you Larry Ribstein's look at the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
after three years.
Ribstein presents a very interesting history
(why and how it came about) and summary (what it contains) of SOX. He
then reviews the literature on the Act. This literature review can be
summarized with the following quote:
"The finance studies on the effect of SOX have
been accompanied by data on the costs of SOX that have fueled mounting
doubt about the Act's cost-effectiveness." Ribstein's conclusion stems
from this literature review:
"In general, the costs have been significant
and the benefits elusive." Overall the paper makes several good points,
and concludes with his recommendations for future legislation, however,
I was left wanting more empirical evidence but I guess that will have to
wait.
However, it was a good read and the
history/summary section would be great for class use!
Cite: Ribstein, Larry E., "Sarbanes-Oxley after
Three Years" (June 20, 2005). U Illinois Law & Economics Research Paper
No. LE05-016.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=746884
BTW Jim's am not kidding about needing a good dictionary. ;)
TheFreeDictionary.com has about 2,000,000
articles and definitions from leading dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Please take a look at our site and help your visitors find out about us.
Thank you in advance for taking a look at our
website.
Sincerely,
Valerie Schaeffer
P.S.
Also, if you are interested, we recently
created a new "dictionary search" box and “Word of the Day” feature that
can be used on your web page. The instructions can be found at
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lookup.htm
130 Colleges, Universities, and Greek Organizations Mandate Online
Alcohol Prevention This fall, more than 150,000 college students will
complete an online alcohol prevention program called AlcoholEdu for College
in an effort by campus and Greek organization administrators to ensure that
students have the skills they need to make safe and healthy decisions about
alcohol. According to a March 2005 report from the National Institute of
Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA), the problem of college drinking
exceeds previous estimates. The report cites more than 1,700 alcohol-related
deaths and 2.8 million cases of driving under the influence in 2001.
Previous estimates also suggest 500,000 injuries, 70,000 sexual assaults,
and 159,000 first-year student dropouts due to alcohol and other drugs every
year.
See
http://www.outsidetheclassroom.com/newsevents/press/pr_plp2005.asp
Choosing what you pay Restaurant workers in the United States make
more than twenty-five billion dollars a year in tips, so it’s natural that
people think of the custom as quintessentially American. But it wasn’t
always. Tipping didn’t take hold here until after the Civil War, and even as
it spread it met with fervent public opposition from people who considered
it a toxic vestige of Old World patronage. Anti-tipping associations were
formed; newspapers—including the Times—regularly denounced the custom.
Tipping, the activists held, fostered a masterservant relationship that was
ill suited to a nation in which people were meant to be social equals.
William R. Scott, in his 1916 polemic “The Itching Palm,” described the tip
as the price that “one American is willing to pay to induce another American
to acknowledge inferiority”; Gunton’s Magazine labelled the custom
“offensively un-American,” arguing that workers here should seek honest
wages “instead of fawning for favors.” The anti-tipping campaigns were so
effective that six states actually banned the practice. "Check Please," The New Yorker, September 5, 2005 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050905ta_talk_surowiecki
For U.S., a Counterfeiting Problem in China Is Old and Very Real New problems come and go between China and the
United States, but when leaders of the two countries meet in Washington
shortly, protection of intellectual property will be on the agenda - as it
has been for years. Joining DVD's and cheap knockoffs of brand-name clothing
and computer software are new, upscale lines of counterfeit goods. Shoppers
can find "Callaway Big Bertha" golf clubs, and "Ikea" furniture. Shanghai
bar and nightclub operators say they are often sold fake bottles of Chivas
Regal or Johnnie Walker Scotch, which are slipped in among bottles of the
genuine item in the cases they buy from wholesalers. Pharmacies and drug
makers say copies of Western medicines - far beyond just Viagra clones - are
common. Garages say fake auto parts are widespread. There are even knockoff
cars. General Motors says the Shanghai-based Chery Automobile Company's QQ
model is a copy of a model it produces in South Korea. A newer Chery sport
utility vehicle, the Tiggo, is a dead ringer for Toyota's RAV4.
Howard W. French, "For U.S., a Counterfeiting Problem in China Is Old and
Very Real," The New York Times, September 4, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/international/asia/04shanghai.html
Sometimes, It's Not the Tuition. It's the Textbooks As the school year begins, soaring tuition isn't
the only financial matter on college students' minds. Many are also trying
relentlessly to get a break on the rapidly climbing cost of textbooks.
Prices have risen 186 percent in two decades, according to a report from the
Government Accountability Office - to the point that the average student now
spends nearly $900 a year on textbooks and supplies. The climb doesn't match
the one for tuition and fees, which have ballooned by 240 percent, but it is
far higher than the 72 percent gain in consumer prices over that time. How
do thrifty students cope? Strategies range from scouring the Internet for
used books to simply using the library copy.
Dale Buss, "Sometimes, It's Not the Tuition. It's the Textbooks," The New
York Times, September 4, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/business/yourmoney/04text.html
Especially aimed at middle schools
September 4, 2005 message from Erin Rech
On the suggestion of Eleanor Enthoven Hasse, an
NCDPI Science Consultant, I am writing to let you know about our
organization, Science Buddies. We are a non-profit organization
providing free online help for science fair students, and have recently
received a support grant from EMC Corporation to specifically target the
science population in North Carolina schools. By partnering with
scientific companies, we obtain valuable resources from their employees
in developing our materials, as well as monetary funding. We offer
Starter Kits (science fair project outlines), a Topic Selection Wizard,
an Ask an Expert forum for specific questions, and many other reference
sources. We are hoping to connect with teachers and students in North
Carolina, as we currently serve students across the country and are
looking to expand our reach beyond the 212,000 students who registered
with us during the 2004-2005 school year.
Please take a look at our website:
www.sciencebuddies.org . If you are interested
in getting your classroom or school more involved in our activities, I
would love to speak with you regarding the specific programs. We have
many teachers who download our materials for classroom use, and who
refer their students to our website every year. Please do not hesitate
to contact me if you have any questions, or want to know more about our
organization.
Thank you for your time,
Erin Rech
Science Buddies
The Kenneth Lafferty Hess Family Charitable Foundation (925) 640-8770
www.sciencebuddies.org
OTTAWA (CP) - Protesters will take to the
streets this week in cities from Amsterdam to Victoria, all because of a
bureaucratic proposal that would allow Islamic law to be used in Ontario
family arbitration cases.
The long-delayed decision on whether to
formally include - and regulate - Shariah religious arbitration in the
province has raised alarms among Canadian and European women's groups,
dissidents from hardline Islamic states such as Iran, human-rights
activists, writers and humanist advocates.
Almost 100 organizations have banded together
under the banner of the International Campaign against Shariah Court in
Canada. On Thursday, they'll march in six European cities and at least
five in Canada.
Ottawa, Toronto and Waterloo, Ont., Montreal
and Victoria all have protests planned, along with Amsterdam,
Dusseldorf, Gutenberg, Stockholm, London and Paris.
Sohaila Sharifi, an Iranian emigrant who is
organizing the protest in front of the Canadian High Commission in
London, said the Ontario situation is emblematic of a global battle
between secular societies and "political Islam."
"If they win this fight in Canada, there is
always the possibility that they would see it as a victory that could
bring them one step forward," Sharifi said in an e-mail exchange.
"They would use the same argument to establish
the same religious system here in Europe and elsewhere."
The "they" in question represent an odd,
informal coalition of hardline Islamic fundamentalists, mainstream
Muslim groups and a former NDP attorney general from Ontario who studied
the issue at length and came up with the current proposal.
Beware of those unregulated hedge funds The Connecticut hedge-fund firm under scrutiny
in what authorities believe may have been a massive fraud emptied five
Citibank accounts over the course of six days in July 2004 in withdrawals
totaling $161 million, bank records show. About $100 million of that money
is the subject of a court fight between Stamford-based Bayou Fund LLC and
Arizona authorities who seized the funds after concluding that there was
reason to believe they were being used in a fraud. The remaining $60 million
-- and possibly much more -- remains unaccounted for. The Citibank accounts
in New York held money for all four of Bayou's hedge funds, but the bulk of
the money was in the fifth account, under the name of its money-management
arm, Bayou Management LLC, the records show.
Ian McDonald, "Bayou Drained Accounts in '04 Of $161 Million," The Wall
Street Journal, September 1, 2005; Page C1---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112550792590328009,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Inside Higher Ed will restore its book review
column on Intellectual Affairs Ever fewer newspapers give any
space at all to books of any kind. And most that do, it
seems, have cut back in recent years. Even then, they tend
to run material “off the wire” — that is, from news
services. Which means (in turn) that titles and topics
reflect some vague but rigid notion of what “the public”
will find of interest.As for the general-circulation
newsmagazines, they are, if anything, even worse about it.
Last year, I complained about this bitterly at some length
in a
speechat the awards ceremony
for the National Book Critics Circle.There was a murmur of
assent from the crowd. And for one brief, adrenaline-charged
moment, it seemed possible to imagine shaming certain very
powerful media gatekeepers into a sense of responsibility.
"All Booked Up," by Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed,
September 1, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/01/mclemee
The
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography
(SEPB) presents selected English-language
articles, books, and other printed and
electronic sources that are useful in
understanding scholarly electronic publishing
efforts on the Internet. Most sources have been
published between 1990 and the present; however,
a limited number of key sources published prior
to 1990 are also included. Where possible, links
are provided to sources that are freely
available on the Internet.
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
Robert C. Benchley
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for
other people.
I love being a writer.
What I hate is the paperwork.
Thomas Mann Peter De Vries
I don't think I am any good. If I thought I was any good, I wouldn't be.
We are all failures-- at least, all the best of us are.
John Betjeman J. M. Barrie, on writers
Be obscure clearly.
E. B. White, advice to writers
A good novel is possible only after one has given up and let go.
If it sounds like writing, I re-write it.
Walker Percy Elmore Leonard
It takes less time to learn how to write nobly. than how to write lightly
and straightforwardly.
Writing came easy-- it would only get hard when I got better at it.
Friedrich Nietzsche Gary Wills
Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper
until the drops of blood form on your forehead.
Gene Fowler
"Deadly Bureaucracy In Katrina's wake, red tape too often trumped common
sense," by Bobby Jindal, The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2005
12:01 a.m. ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/cc/?id=110007224
This is not the only story of red tape
triumphing over common sense. After so many years of drills and
exercises, we were still unprepared for Hurricane Katrina. • A mayor in
my district tried to get supplies for his constituents, who were hit
directly by the hurricane. He called for help and was put on hold for 45
minutes. Eventually, a bureaucrat promised to write a memo to his
supervisor.
• Evacuees on a boat from St. Bernard Parish
could not find anyone to give them permission to dock along the
Mississippi River. Security forces, they say, were prepared to turn them
away at one port.
• A sheriff in my district office reported
being told that he would not get the resources his office needed to do
its job unless he emailed a request. The parish was flooded and without
electricity!
• Unbelievably, first responders were hindered
by a lack of interoperable communications. Do you recall how New York
police and fire departments on 9/11 could not talk with each other? Four
years later, despite billions spent on homeland security, state,
federal, and local officials in Louisiana had the same problem.
My office became so frustrated with the
bureaucracy that we often turned to private companies. They responded
more quickly and flexibly.
After our staff visited communities to assess
local needs, Budweiser delivered truckloads of water and ice. Ford
provided vehicles for search and rescue. Every company we contacted
provided goods and services without compensation.
Though things are far from perfect, we have
seen an improvement in the response effort as the military increased its
presence and created a more unified chain of command. However, the
problems that existed before still resonate.
That's why we need, in the future, a single,
strong leader with the power to override the normal process restrictions
and get things done. That individual must be identified from the very
beginning. But below that person, other individuals up and down the line
need to know they can make obvious and sensible calls in an emergency.
In this edition of Tidbits, I'm posting, without comment, a September 7,
2005 message from a former B-29 pilot and close social friend who leans
toward the conservative side of the world.
Here's some more on New Orleans:
In case you aren’t familiar with how our
government is SUPPOSED to work in a storm disaster: The chain of
responsibility for the protection of the citizens in New Orleans
is:
1. The Mayor 2. The
New Orleans director of Homeland
Security (a political appointee of the Governor who
reports to the Governor) 3. The Governor 4. The Head of Homeland
Security 5. The President
What did each do?
1. The mayor, with 5 days
advance, waited until 2 days before he announced a
mandatory evacuation (at the behest of the President).
Then he failed to provide transportation for those
without transport even though he had hundreds of buses
at his disposal.
2. The New Orleans director of
Homeland Security failed to have any plan for a
contingency that has been talked about for 50 years.
Then he blames the Feds for not doing what he should
have done. (So much for political appointees)
3. The Governor, despite
a declaration of disaster by the President 2 DAYS BEFORE
the storm hit, failed to take advantage of the offer of
Federal troops and aid. Until 2 DAYS AFTER the storm
hit.
4. The Director of
Homeland Security positioned assets in the area to be
ready when the Governor called for them
5. The President urged a
mandatory evacuation, and even declared a disasterState of Emergency, freeing up millions of
dollars of federal assistance, should the Governor
decide to use it.
Oh and by the way, the
levees that broke were the responsibility of the local
landowners and the local levee board to maintain, NOT
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
The disaster in New Orleans is what you get after decades of
corrupt (democrat) government going all the way back to
Huey Long.
Funds for disaster
protection and relief have been flowing into this city
for decades, and where has it gone, but into the pockets
of the politicos and their friends.
Decades of socialist
government in New Orleans has sapped all
self reliance from the community, and made them
dependent upon government for every little thing.
Political correctness and
a lack of will to fight crime have created the single
most corrupt police force in the country, and has
permitted gang violence to flourish.
The sad thing is that
there are many poor folks who have suffered and died
needlessly because those that they voted into office
failed them.
For those who missed item
5 (where the President’s level of accountability is
discussed), it is made more clear in a
New Orleans Times-Picayune
article dated August 28:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In the
face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory
evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray
Nagin.
Acknowledging that large
numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would
be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last
resort for people to go, including the Superdome.
The mayor called the
order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the
city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation
order because airlines had already cancelled all
flights.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco,
standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said
President Bush called and personally appealed for a
mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is
prone to flooding.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
There are now
dozens of ways and dozens of places to buy music, nearly all of which
involve clicking a mouse, not lining up at a record store. What
percentage of music buyers ages 12-21 have purchased music online so far
this year?
Compare fuel prices among the 50 states and Canada ---
http://www.gasbuddy.com/ GasBuddy.com can help you find cheap gas prices
in your city. It is comprised of 170 gas price information web sites that
help consumers find low gasoline prices. All web sites are operated by
GasBuddy. GasBuddy has the most comprehensive listings of gas prices
anywhere by far.
"They've got the whole world in their hands, the whole wide world in
their hands."
Experts keep asserting that the root causes of the upsurge in gas and oil
prices are caused by shortages of refining capacity and prosperity in
China. I think the root problems in supply are mainly due to our old cartel
nemesis OPEC that jerks us around like puppets on a string with a strategy
of pushing world economies to the brink of recession and then backing off.
OPEC wants to increase output by just under two
million barrels a day because its members are not interested in record high
prices that could trigger a recession, Acting General Secretary Shihab-Eldin
Adnan was quoted as saying in an interview published on Saturday.
"OPEC to raise output by 2 mln bpd-Spiegel," Reuters, September 10,
2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/PuppetsOnStrings
Bush Should Join Outrage Over Botched Hurricane Relief? Well maybe
and maybe not! President Bush ought to be visibly angry that storm
victims in and around New Orleans continued to die in isolation days after
the water stopped rising. The nation need not wait for Bush to have the vice
president investigate or for Congress to hold hearings. Major accusations of
mismanagement are consistent with news reports live from the scene. The
closer everyday people are to the disaster, the angrier they seem.
"Bush Should Join Outrage Over Botched Hurricane Relief," Tampa Tribune,
September 11, 2005 ---
http://www.tampatrib.com/News/MGBW2DKWADE.html
As you might expect some media analysts are using the Katrina tragedy to
vent their hate for Bush and his Iraq War policies. Louisiana is not Iraq
in spite of what Andy Rooney would like to convey to millions of people last
night as he laid the blame for delayed recovery in New Orleans on President
Bush. Andy never mentioned that the first line of defense in these
tragedies is in the hands of city mayors, police and fire departments, and
state governors who are supposed to dispatch their state's National Guard
(three fourths of the Louisiana Guard was ready to move in Louisiana at the
time while Governor Blanco was unable to make a decision before getting
promises of money from Washington).
A few minutes before Andy bashed Bush on CBS, the Police Chief of New
Orleans was at least honest on NBC's 20-20 when he said he wished he could
find a word worse than "cowardly" to describe 600 members of his police
force.
New Orleans' Mayor Barf: If not him who "else?"
Ray Nagin did not order his hundreds city-street and school busses to
evacuate thousands of poor people who did not have cars while he was
demanding that people with cars to evacuate New Orleans.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Friday that it
wasn't his fault city school buses weren't mobilized to facilitate the
Hurricane Katrina evacuation he ordered.
Appearing on NBC's "Dateline," Nagin was asked
by host Stone Phillips: "What was mobilized? I mean were national guard
troops in position? Were helicopters standing by? Were buses ready to
take people away?"
"No. None of that," the Big Easy mayor replied.
"Why is that?" an incredulous Phillips asked.
Nagin replied: "I don't know. That is
question for somebody else."
What the American people have seen is this
incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out
and those people who were impoverished died. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass ---
http://www.rep-am.com/story.php?id=27171
Senator Kennedy makes no mention of the Nagin's failure to use his busses to
help stranded victims evacuate.
FEMA rescue pilots unexpectedly found themselves in a war zone Helicopters from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency were conducting rescue operations in New Orleans less than
a day after breaks in local levees began flooding the city. But the
lightning-quick fly-out mission had to be abandoned that same night because
local marauders were shooting at the FEMA choppers. "We first got in on
Tuesday night," a FEMA pilot, who identified himself only as "Randy," told
Fox News Radio's Tony Snow this morning. The 17th Street levee had begun to
give way late in the evening Monday. Well into Tuesday, city officials were
celebrating reports that the brunt of Hurricane Kartrina had missed the Big
Easy. By the time the scope of the impending tragedy became known, however,
FEMA rescue operations were already well underway. "We were one of two
helicopters with night vision goggles," Snow's caller explained. "They
wanted to start evacuating Tulane Hospital, which is right next to Charity
[Hospital]." Shortly thereafter, however, the mission ground to a halt. "We
were being shot at by various snipers around the city," chopper pilot Randy
said. "So the military, Eagles Nest 1, basically called all helicopters out
about 10 o'clock that night."
"FEMA Pilot: Rescue Began Just Hours After Flood," NewsMax, September
6, 2005 ---
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/6/110013.shtml
Katrina victims that a fearful Governor Blanco avoided sheltering in
Louisiana As hurricane victims are being moved hundreds of
miles from home, the president of the New Orleans City Council is demanding
to know why Louisiana isn't housing more of them. Oliver Thomas says
Louisiana has many government buildings and gymnasiums that could be made
into shelters. But instead, he says people are being even more uprooted and
sent to places like Texas and Georgia and Utah.
Thomas believes exaggerated fears of violence have
kept some Louisiana cities from offering more help.
But the mayor of Baton Rouge says the problem is managing large crowds, that
too many people in...
"Some leaders wonder why Louisiana isn't housing more, KLFY, September 4,
2005
http://www.klfy/Global/story.asp?S=3804405
Bravo America: Where are the Katrina victims now?
86% are outside the State of Louisiana.
An estimated 377,700 Hurricane Katrina refugees
are in shelters, hotels, homes and other housing in 33 states and
Washington, D.C., according to the Red Cross and state officials:
TEXAS: An estimated 205,000 in shelters and
homes
LOUISIANA: About 54,000 in 240 shelters, 659 in
special needs shelters
ARKANSAS: About 50,000 in shelters, motels and
homes
TENNESSEE: 15,500
MISSISSIPPI: 13,262 in 104 Red Cross shelters
MISSOURI: Nearly 6,100 in homes, hotels and
church camps
FLORIDA: 3,472 in 48 shelters
ALABAMA: 2,183 in shelters; 660 in hotels; 116
in state parks; more in homes
KENTUCKY: 116 at Murray camp in western
Kentucky, plus estimated 3,100 statewide
OKLAHOMA: 2,352 in four shelters
INDIANA: At least 70 in two shelters; more than
2,000 statewide
ILLINOIS: More than 2,000
MARYLAND: About 2,000 seeking Red Cross or
local assistance
VIRGINIA: 1,841
NORTH CAROLINA: 450 in shelters, at least 1,381
in other housing
GEORGIA: 1,384 staying in 11 Red Cross shelters
OHIO: About 20 in two Red Cross shelters, at
least 1,357 staying in hotels and with family and friends
MINNESOTA: 1,000, plus 54 families with Red
Cross chapters
COLORADO: About 350 in one Red Cross shelter,
plus more than 700
SOUTH CAROLINA: 239 in one shelter, 800 in
hotels, 228 in Charleston hotels
CALIFORNIA: 807 families in hotels and one Red
Cross shelter
KANSAS: About 800, mostly in hotels and homes.
MICHIGAN: 216 at Fort Custer Training Center,
Red Cross assisting 300 families
NEW MEXICO: 28 at the Albuquerque Convention
Center, more than 450 statewide
NEW JERSEY: About 400 staying with relatives or
in motels.
UTAH: About 300 people at Utah Army National
Guard's Camp Williams
ARIZONA: 347 in two shelters
WEST VIRGINIA: 308 at National Guard Camp
Dawson
NEW YORK: 303 cases in Red Cross shelters
MASSACHUSETTS: 209 at Camp Edwards, plus more
than 40 families
PENNSYLVANIA: At least 200 in homes, shelters,
other locations
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: About 200 people at a Red
Cross shelter
WISCONSIN: 200 people in one shelter
RHODE ISLAND: 106 in Navy housing, 75 in hotels
and homes
Jensen Comment:
Of course there are many victims who are from outside New Orleans. But as a
figure of reference, the U.S. Census reports the 2004 population of New
Orleans at 484,674 out of which 102,122 over the age of five are listed as
having one or more "disabilities" ---
http://snipurl.com/NewOrleansCensus
(X) Not applicable.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Summary File 1 (SF 1) and Summary
File 3 (SF 3)
Bravo America: Volunteers Swarm the Gulf Coast Thousands of people -- from psychologists to
truckers and even a magician -- have volunteered to help the Gulf region
after Katrina, and charities are launching new ways to handle the surge of
support.
Elizabeth Bernstein and Rachel Emma Silverman, "Volunteers Swarm the Gulf
Coast," The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112613378318634553,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Jensen Comment: It made me feed good on the morning news to watch members
of the Mississippi National Guard eagerly sawing downed trees and hauling
away brush even though they'd just returned from Iraq and had not yet seen
their families.
Lavish tastes of victim relief, card-carrying lowlifes Profiteering ghouls have been using debit cards
distributed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - intended to buy essentials
for evacuated families - in luxury-goods stores as far away as Atlanta.
"We've seen three of the cards," said a senior employee of the Louis Vuitton
store at the Lenox Square Mall in affluent Buckhead, who asked not to be
named. "Two I'm certain have purchased; one actually asked if she could use
it in the store. This has been since Saturday." The distinctive white cards
were distributed by the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management
Agency and carry a value of up to $2,000.
"Lavish tastes of card-carrying lowlifes," New York Daily News, September
10, 2005 ---
http://nydailynews.com/front/story/345030p-294601c.html
Paul Fisher asked about distance education alternatives for Katrina
victims. I replied as follows:
Hi Paul,
For college students, there are many distance training and education
alternatives, and it might even be possible for Katrina victims to wave
out-of-state tuition. For example, business students might consider the
University of Wisconsin or other complete degree programs that are
online ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Some of the Louisiana colleges are making a considerable effort to
help. For example, see the LSU links at
http://www.lsu.edu/
There are some online alternatives for college students in Louisiana and
other Gulf states.
I suspect for K-12 it takes too much time and capital to give the
refugees the hardware, supervision, and facilities. There are some high
school distance education programs, particularly in Colorado. However,
these may not be geared to handle out-of-state students. This was a
former Tidbit regarding how the Colorado online alternative is actually
hurting some school districts in Colorado.
The number of students switching from traditional brick-and-
mortar classrooms to full-time virtual schools in Colorado has
soared over the past five years…
The number of students switching from
traditional brick-and- mortar classrooms to full-time virtual
schools in Colorado has soared over the past five years.
During the 2000-01 school year, the
state spent $1.08 million to educate 166 full-time cyberschool
students, according to the Colorado Department of Education.
This year, the state projects spending $23.9 million to educate
4,237 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, state figures
show.
And those figures - which do not
include students who are taking one or two online courses to
supplement their classroom education - are making officials in
the state's smallest districts jittery.
Students who leave physical public
schools for online schools take their share of state funding
with them.
"If I lose two kids, that's $20,000
walking out the door," said Dave Grosche, superintendent of the
Edison 54JT School District.
University of Maryland University College
(UMUC) has the following posted on our website (
www.umuc.edu ).
Since all of our courses can be taken online, it
seems to suit your question.
"For outside students from institutions
affected by the disaster: We are making the Gulf Coast Hurricane
Scholarship available to these students commencing with our mid-fall
online term commencing October 26, 2005; admission fees for these
students will be waived. Academic credit for any course taken in
this program will be determined by the students' home institution."
We are also making provisions for UMUC students
included among the refugees or among those called to active duty to
assist there, including replacing books for free, refunding payments
already made, etc.
I know we're always lookiing for good faculty.
Whether this increases our demand is still to be seen.
Hope this answers your question,
Bruce Lubich
Program Director, Accounting
Graduate School of Management and Technology
University of Maryland University College
The following is an excerpt from an
announcement by our college president:
"In this time of national emergency, I want you
to know how Delaware Tech is reaching out in an effort to support those
individuals, families and communities impacted by the devastating
effects of Hurricane Katrina. As part of these efforts, we are
implementing the following initiatives immediately:"
"1. Any Delaware resident or Gulf Coast region
students who have been displaced from their higher education institution
by Hurricane Katrina will be offered free tuition, books and fees for
any distance education courses taken this semester. Since Delaware Tech
classes began early, on August 22nd, this option provides the best
opportunity for displaced students. In order to enroll, students should
go to
http://www.dtcc.edu/allschedules/distance_learning_pdfs/fall_2005.pdf
to view a list of available courses that they may
begin any time during the fall semester. Enrollment and registration
information may be found online at the same site. Delaware Tech will
work closely with these students to support them during this difficult
transition."
I'm presently teaching both semesters of our
Principles of Accounting online and although my courses are full, I've
just advised our registrar that I will grant overrides for any Gulf
Coast students who wish to enrol. My course are designed so that a
student can move at their own speed so even though our semester started
three weeks ago, this should not be a problem for a serious student. If
they took the courses during our summer session, they would have much
less time.
Charlie Betts
Refugee faculty are looking for office space Hurricane Katrina gives new meaning to “visiting faculty,” as professors
fan across the nation in search of shelter and office space.
David Epstein, "Scholars on the Road," Inside Higher Ed,
September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/12/faculty
A cheap and simple way to save tens of thousands of heart attack
victims each year STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Giving heart-attack patients a
dose of "super aspirin" before rather than during a procedure to restore
blood flow to the heart could save tens of thousands of lives a year, new
research suggests. In a major international study presented yesterday at a
meeting here of the European Society of Cardiology, scientists found that
giving heart attack victims the drug Plavix when they arrive at the
emergency room almost halved the risk of a stroke, a repeated heart attack
or death within the first month after angioplasty.
"'SUPER ASPIRIN' HEART RX," New York Post,
September 5, 2005 ---
http://www.nypost.com/health/52310.htm
Reports counter conventional wisdom about dating Conventional wisdom has long held that "dating
around" gives kids the experience they need to make good choices of adult
partners. But two new studies buck the idea that lots of dating is best. A
growing body of research is challenging popular notions about teen romance.
As the Schiffmans saw, lots of dating isn't necessarily a good thing; new
studies show fewer, deeper relationships are better preparation for happy
adult partnerships. The research shows teen dating can play a unique
developmental role, helping to equip teens with the intimacy skills they
need to form lasting, happy marriages. It also holds valuable clues for
parents on figuring out how well their teens are shaping up as future
spouses, and how they as parents can best guide that development.
Sue Shellenbarger, "Conventional wisdom has long held that "dating around"
gives kids the experience they need to make good choices of adult partners.
But two new studies buck the idea that lots of dating is best," The Wall
Street Journal, September 8, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112613400056234568,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Battle of Palmdale
Scary Cold War history: In my battleship days, Navy gunners couldn't hit
the broad side of a barn In the midst of the Cold War, when Nike missile
sites dotted the Southland, a bright red runaway Navy drone airplane veered
off course and headed for Los Angeles, triggering a dangerous sequence of
events known as the "Battle of Palmdale." It's not a battle that the
military could say it won back on Aug. 16, 1956. The Navy summoned two
fighter jets to shoot down the pilotless drone, a Grumman F6F-5K Hellcat,
minutes after it went out of control after being launched from Point Mugu
Naval Air Station. As the wayward Hellcat headed toward Los Angeles, twin
Scorpion interceptors fired more than 200 missiles at it, missing their
target each time. Instead the missiles — each pod containing 52 Mighty Mouse
2.75-inch rockets — damaged property and set off a string of brush fires
across northern Los Angeles County. The Hellcat drone finally crash-landed
harmlessly in the Mojave Desert.
"'Battle of Palmdale': Sound, Fury and 1 Lost Plane: Fighter jets chasing
an errant drone fired 200 missiles, missing the
aircraft but causing a string of brush fires," Los Angeles Times,
September 11, 2005 ---
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-then11sep11,1,2140762.story?coll=la-headlines-california
The
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (SEPB)
presents selected English-language articles, books, and other
printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding
scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Most
sources have been published between 1990 and the present;
however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990
are also included. Where possible, links are provided to sources
that are freely available on the Internet.
Announcements for new
versions of SEPB are distributed on
PACS-P,
SEPW, and other mailing lists.
An
archive of prior versions of SEPB is available.
An
article about the development and utilization of SEPB
has been published in The Journal of Electronic Publishing.
Distant distance education Ms. Salin is part of a new wave of outsourcing to
India: the tutoring of American students. Twice a week for a month now, Ms.
Salin, who grew up speaking the Indian language Malayalam at home, has been
tutoring Daniela in English grammar, comprehension and writing. Using a
simulated whiteboard on their computers, connected by the Internet, and a
copy of Daniela's textbook in front of her, she guides the teenager through
the intricacies of nouns, adjectives and verbs.
Saritha Rai, "A Tutor Half a World Away, but as Close as a Keyboard," The
New York Times, September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/education/07tutor.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1126191549-1Ydu+7CY89CpuVeaJbJ4XA
Drunk from lack of sleep: Could this be affecting some of our
students in the same way? Working long hours is considered a hallmark of a
medical residency. But in recent years, concerns have risen about how shifts
that can last days affect a doctor's ability to function. The results of a
new study quantify the negative effects and show that the performance of
fatigued residents is comparable to how they would act after imbibing three
or four cocktails.
"Lack of Sleep Affects Doctors Like Alcohol Does," Scientific American,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000DF481-2AF9-131E-AAF983414B7F0000
Using police Internet fake children in child porn investigation ruled
invalid The increasingly common law enforcement tactic of
having adult officers pose as children in Internet chat rooms to arrest
potential sex offenders came under legal attack yesterday when Maryland's
highest court ruled that the law does not allow the prosecution of people
who merely believed they were dealing with children. The Maryland Court of
Appeals unanimously overturned the Frederick County Circuit Court conviction
of Richard J. Moore, saying he could not be found guilty of committing a
crime with a nonexistent victim.
Frederick Kuncle, "Court Overturns Child Porn Conviction Md. Ruling
Squelches Tactic Used to Find Potential Molesters," The Washington Post,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702067.html?referrer=email
Jensen Comment: Now let's get some real children online to make a case?
My mother always told me that when a person
dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong.
(with reference to the death of Supreme Court Judge Rehnquist)
Alan Dershowitz
We think Dershowitz's mother was right, and to
prove it we're going to refrain from speaking ill of her--even though she
inflicted Alan Dershowitz on the world.
Carol Miller
The controversial book that had lawyers looking at every word and
comma prior to publication Beyond Chutzpah : On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of
History, by Norman G. Finkelstein
Product Details: ISBN: 0520245989 Format: Hardcover, 253pp Pub. Date: August
2005 Publisher: University of California Press
In advance, Alan Dershowitz promised to sue the University of California
Press even though the word plagiarism was stricken from passages of the
original draft. Now we are awaiting Alan's next move. Years ago I spent a
year with Alan in a think tank. He's best described as a legal pit bull.
New Technology for the hearing impaired This (email)
is a slow, cumbersome process, known as Internet
protocol relay (IP Relay), stripped conversations of emotion, nuance and
spontaneity. But many deaf people who are comfortable with American Sign
Language (ASL) have begun using a faster, easier system called video relay
service (VRS), one of several emerging technologies designed to improve life
for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. To reach Kelly from her home in
Frederick, Vincent now uses a videophone connected to a standard television
monitor. When her call to a VRS interpreter is connected, Vincent's TV shows
a split screen of two live images: the interpreter on one side and Vincent
herself on the other. (The videophone includes a camera and transmits images
over a high-speed Internet connection.)
Samantha Sordyl, "Saying It With Feeling New Technology Lets Deaf, Hearing
People Enjoy Richer Conversations," The Washington Post, September 6,
2005; Page HE01---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501067.html?referrer=email
If you're female/male watching, this computer brakes for a chat An image-processing computer system developed
by Toyota Motor Corp. and a Toyota affiliate uses a camera near the steering
wheel to detect when the driver stops looking straight ahead. The system
flashes a light on the dashboard display and emits a beeping noise when the
eyes start to wander. If the driver still doesn't respond, brakes kick in,
Toyota said Tuesday.
"Toyota Computer Makes You Watch the Road," The Washington Post,
September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/06/AR2005090600370.html?referrer=email
When the
Democratic convention invaded Boston in
July 2004, much of the talk among media
observers centered around the new kids
on the bus: the bloggers. For the first
time, select bloggers were awarded press
credentials to a political convention,
allowing the writers behind
Talking Points Memo and
the
Daily Kos to
rub elbows with hardened political
reporters such as the New YorkTimes' R.W. Apple Jr. and ABC's
Ted Koppel.
Select bloggers
were admitted to the GOP convention in
September as well. The hoopla around
blogging's role in the 2004 presidential
election culminated in Ana Marie Cox's
famous appearance on the cover of the
New York Times Magazine with
Apple and columnist Jack Germond (Cox is
the irreverent political and cultural
blogger behind
Wonkette).
More Colleges Lend Directly to Students: Conflicts of Interest? A growing number of universities are making money a
new way -- lending it to their own students. The programs are cheaper for
borrowers, but the practice is raising questions about possible conflicts of
interest.
Anne Marie Chaker, "More Schools Lend Directly to Students," The Wall
Street Journal, September 8, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112613816482334711,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
A growing number of universities are making
money a new way. They are lending it to their own students.
While such loans are usually slightly cheaper
for students than borrowing from banks, the practice is raising
questions among some educators and lawmakers about possible conflicts of
interest. Through so-called school-as-lender arrangements, universities
originate loans to graduate and professional students, including law and
medical students. They eventually sell the debt to a partner bank or
other lender for a set "premium." These premiums typically run anywhere
from 2% to 6% of the total value of the loans. For budget-strapped
schools, that can translate to millions of dollars of funding.
About 100 schools now participate in
school-as-lender programs, including Tufts University, the University of
Arizona and Widener University in Pennsylvania. That's up from 64 in
2003-04, when schools made more than $1.5 billion in loans, the last
year for which dollar figures are available, according to a Government
Accountability Office report. In 1993-94, only 22 schools participated,
making loans totaling one-tenth of that volume.
The Government Accountability Office, an
independent arm of Congress that studies government programs and
spending, analyzed the problem by examining about 1.8 million tax
returns.
About one in four taxpayers eligible for an
education tax break failed to claim one of the available credits or the
tuition deduction, the analysis found.
On average, those taxpayers missed an
opportunity to reduce their taxes by $169. About 10 percent of that
group could have saved more than $500.
Tax programs place a bigger burden on students
and their families than other government education programs. Students
have to decipher the tax laws, apply them correctly, keep extensive
records and understand how tax programs might affect their grants and
loans, the report said.
That's unlike federal grants and loans, which
only require that students or their families fill out an application for
assistance.
The complications became evident when the GAO
looked more closely at the tax breaks claimed by taxpayers.
Rules restrict the number of tax breaks that a
student or parent can claim at a time, leaving the taxpayer to choose.
Taxpayers didn't always make the optimal choice and could have lowered
their tax bills by choosing differently, the report found. It estimated
that about half of those returns were prepared by a paid tax
professional.
The Treasury Department has urged lawmakers to
take a look at education tax breaks and simplify them. The Senate's top
tax writers said Monday they plan to look into ideas to streamline the
system.
University of Texas hacker sentenced (seems like a light sentence to
me relative to the damage done) A former University of Texas at Austin student has
been sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay more than
$170,000 in restitution for hacking into the school's computer system and
taking Social Security numbers and other personal information from tens of
thousands of people. Christopher Andrew Phillips, 22, was also prohibited
from accessing the Internet, except under approval and supervision from his
probation officer and only for school or work, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton
said in a news release Tuesday.
"Ex-Student Sentenced for Computer Hacking," The Washington Post,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090700636.html?referrer=email
The Tale of Genji The Tale of Genji was published by the female
aristocrat, Murasaki Shikibu, somewhere around the year one thousand eleven.
Consisting of 54 chapters, it is generally considered to be the world's
first true novel, and thereby occupies a critical role in the world's
literary canon. It is almost universally acknowledged that this book is the
finest flower of all Japanese literature, past or present.
Go to
http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Genji/00000001.htm
A positive attitude may not solve all your
problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Herm Albright (as quoted in a recent email from Patricia Doherty
Allan Bloom and the Conservative Mind
CONSERVATIVES in 1987 may still
have been basking in Ronald Reagan's ''morning in America,''
but nothing prepared their movement, or the academic and
publishing worlds, for the wildfire success of
Allan Bloom's ''Closing of the American Mind: How Higher
Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of
Today's Students.''Amid a
furor recalling that over William F. Buckley Jr.'s ''God and
Man at Yale'' in 1951, Bloom indicted liberal academics for
betraying liberal education. His attack sold more than a
million copies . . . Far from being a conservative
ideologue, Bloom, a University of Chicago professor of
political philosophy who died in 1992, was an eccentric
interpreter of Enlightenment thought who led an Epicurean,
quietly gay life. He had to be prodded to write his
best-selling book by his friend
Saul Bellow, whose novel
''Ravelstein''is a wry tribute
to Bloom. Far more than liberal speech codes and diversity
regimens, the bêtes noires of the intellectual right,
darkened Bloom's horizons: He also mistrusted modernity,
capitalism and even democracy so deeply that he believed the
university's culture must be adversarial (or at least subtly
subversive) before America's market society, with its vulgar
blandishments, religious enthusiasms and populist
incursions.
Jim Sleeper, "Allan Bloom and the Conservative Mind," The
New York Times, September 4, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/books/review/04SLEEPER.html
The Wall Street Journal Flashback September 7, 1999
Consumers may have to dig deeper into their pockets this fall and winter to
pay their home-heating bills. Crude-oil prices are expected to hover around
$20 a barrel through 1999 -- about $7 to $8 a barrel more than last year.
Then there is the Y2K factor.
Many of the suspected terrorists turn out to be common criminals In Saudi Arabia, the war on terror continues. A
three day siege of a house in eastern Saudi Arabia ended on September 6th,
with the death of three terrorists and two policemen. While the Islamic
terrorists have a lot of supporters in the kingdom, there are an even larger
number of Saudis opposed to terrorism in their neighborhoods (Islamic
terrorism elsewhere, like in Iraq, is more likely to be tolerated). Thus the
police have a regular supply of tips. However, many of the suspected
terrorists turn out to be common criminals.
"TERRORISM: Saudi Terrorists Become Gangsters," Strategy Page,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.strategypage.com/fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=urbang.htm
Saudi security forces stormed a major Al-Qaeda
hide-out in the eastern city of Damman yesterday, killing all terrorists
inside. Four security men were also killed in the operation. In a brief
statement, the Interior Ministry said security forces had “ended their
operations,” which began Sunday in the main city of Eastern Province, losing
four men, in addition to 10 wounded.
Arab News, September 7, 2005 ---
http://arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=69642&d=7&m=9&y=2005
Say what? Arab insurgency terror in Iran The Iranian opposition has targeted oil fields
in the Islamic republic. Several oil fields were bombed around the
southwestern Iranian city of Ahwaz last week. Iranian officials said the
bombings on Sept. 1 were the work of Arab separatists. Officials reported
three explosions in what led to the suspension of operations at five oil
wells in the Khuzestan province. They said the bombings were connected to
the outbreak of the Arab insurgency earlier this year in southwestern Iran.
Iranian parliament Nezam Mola-Hoveizeh said the attacks were supported by
foreign elements. Mola-Hoveizeh did not identify them, but officials said
the reference was to neighboring Iraq.
"The Iranian opposition has targeted oil fields in the Islamic republic.,"
Middle East Newsline, September 6, 2005 ---
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2005/september/09_06_4.html
That’s a CROC !! Was there evidence of
Dundee family
ancestors? A French-sponsored 12 member Peruvian exploration
team has discovered the fossil remains of a 46 foot crocodile – deep in the
Amazon jungle. It is believed the entire Amazon Basin was once an inland sea
– stretching from Atlantic to Pacific, and inhabited by creatures such as
this monster and a relatively demure and petite giant armadillo – whose
fossil was also found nearby. The crocodile fossil, which included skeleton,
jaws, and very large teeth , indicates the creature may have had a head
measuring four feet across.
"That’s a CROC !!," The Morning Paper, September 27, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1479134/posts
Before hanging up, check you have all their answers written down, then
say goodbye. Add the date and time to your record. (Is it between
8
a.m. and 9 p.m.?$)
Although the butt of infamous jokes as boring,
accounting is important and interesting due to its relationship to
accountability. Better accounting can make for better accountability.
In this article we suggest ways to make
accounting better by applying the principles that have informed the free
and open-source software movements to both the technology and business
of accounting. Our goal is to stimulate thought on new interfaces and
business models, that, if tried, may provide more convenient and more
trustworthy accounting. We hope individuals will receive the benefit of
cheaper, more convenient, and more reliable bookkeeping. We hope
charities, governments, and large businesses will receive the benefit or
cheaper, safer bookkeeping that will allow them to be better trusted by
doing more of their business in the light of public scrutiny and private
auditing without additional costs.
We are argue that accounts, as individual parts
of bookkeeping systems, should be treated as first-class citizens of the
modern internetworked world, on par with email addresses, domain names,
hosts, and ip addresses. There should be open standards for bookkeeping
systems that allow the work of keeping books to be shared across the
internet. Even more importantly, there should be standards and business
models that allow the responsibility of bookkeeping to be shared across
many different parties, each with independent purposes, which we argue
will produce more reliable and transparent bookkeeping. We furthermore
humbly submit to the reader that the current point in time and
technological development is a fulcrum about which a relatively small
amount of work in terms of defining open standards, writing open
software, and developing business models, may initiate a sea-change in
accounting practices.
Are the economies of
the world failing us?
It is easy to fall into gloom and lost hope in the wake of the Katrina
disaster, Iraq, terrorism, and fuel shortages. Here are a few factual
things to consider, possibly to brighten your outlook for the world (but
not necessarily the U.S. or Europe).
There is, to be sure, much poverty and
starvation in the world, but nothing could be further from the truth than
the idea that poverty is increasing.
The Industrial Revolution Past and Future ---
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm
Robert E. Lucas Jr.
John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics,
University of Chicago
1995 Nobel Prize Economist
We live in a world of staggering and
unprecedented income inequality. Production per person in the wealthiest
economy, the United States, is something like 15 times production per
person in the poorest economies of Africa and South Asia. Since the end
of the European colonial age, in the 1950s and ’60s, the economies of
South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have been transformed from
among the very poorest in the world to middle-income societies with a
living standard about one-third of America’s or higher. In other
economies, many of them no worse off in 1960 than these East Asian
“miracle” economies were, large fractions of the population still live
in feudal sectors with incomes only slightly above subsistence levels.
How are we to interpret these successes and failures?
Economists, today, are divided on many aspects
of this question, but I think that if we look at the right evidence,
organized in the right way, we can get very close to a coherent and
reliable view of the changes in the wealth of nations that have occurred
in the last two centuries and those that are likely to occur in this
one. The Asian miracles are only one chapter in the larger story of the
world economy since World War II, and that story in turn is only one
chapter in the history of the industrial revolution. I will set out what
I see as the main facts of the economic history of the recent past, with
a minimum of theoretical interpretation, and try to see what they
suggest about the future of the world economy. I do not think we can
understand the contemporary world without understanding the events that
have given rise to it.
I will begin and end with numbers, starting
with an attempt to give a quantitative picture of the world economy in
the postwar period, of the growth of population and production since
1950. Next, I will turn to the economic history of the world up to about
1750 or 1800, in other words, the economic history known to Adam Smith,
David Ricardo and the other thinkers who have helped us form our vision
of how the world works. Third, I will sketch what I see as the main
features of the initial phase of the industrial revolution, the years
from 1800 to the end of the colonial age in 1950. Following these
historical reviews, I will outline a theoretical structure roughly
consistent with the facts. If I succeed in doing this well, it may be
possible to conclude with some useful generalizations and some
assessments of the world’s future economic prospects.
Proposed solution for the political-economic problems of Africa,
Argentina, Afghanistan, and other nations
"Quadrupling the World GDP by 2010," by Dr. Richard S. Kirby and Dr. Karun
Philip, Apr 16, 2002 ---
http://www.wnrf.org/cms/finance2.shtml
Laws of Economics in the War on Drugs For as long as the laws of simple economics
continue to be excluded from the war on drugs there will be no victory on
the horizon. For as long as there are millions of dollars to be collected
from consumers, the agricultural country du jour will find a way to sustain
illegal crops, the smugglers will come up with more innovative tricks, and
the violence and suffering will continue in various countries. Initiatives
like Plan Colombia seem ineffective in the light of weak statistics on
extradition to the U.S. and the never- decreasing land extension for coca
cultivation. Isn't it time for the U.S. to match foreign aggressive efforts
with similarly aggressive domestic actions? Shouldn't those who believe in a
tough hand outside also consider one at home? A selfish condemnation of
exclusively one side of the trade is contributing not only to increasing
violence and deteriorating economies in the producing countries, but also to
spreading the cancer that grows in the streets of this country. Fernando J. Gómez, "Laws of Economics in the War on
Drugs," The Wall Street Journal, September 2, 2005; Page A15 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112562760521029960,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
I think what Fenando is saying is that Indonesia
and Malaysia have no drug problem. There's a darn good reason for that.
They execute or give life sentences to drug users. Why push drugs in
countries where there are no customers.
HotRecorder™ is a new technology that allows
users to record and add sound effects (Emotisounds™) on voice
communications held over the internet. It also includes voice mail for
Google Talk™ and Skype™!
HotRecorder™ is a unique application that works
in conjunction with Google Talk™, Skype™, AIM™, Net2Phone™, Yahoo!
Messenger™ 7 and FireFly™.
The creation of HotRecorder™ responds to the
growing demand of users throughout the world, for a tool that will allow
them to record, play, save, send and search their voice communications,
plus many other options.
Jensen Comment: This product is on the vanguard of a new generation of
software and textbooks that are either free (with pop-up advertising) or
fee-based (without any advertising). Don't you wish more things in life
were like that, including cable television shows?
Computer characters mugged in virtual crime
spree
11:31 18 August 2005
NewScientist.com news service Will Knight
A man has been arrested in Japan on suspicion
carrying out a virtual mugging spree by using software "bots" to beat up
and rob characters in the online computer game Lineage II. The stolen
virtual possessions were then exchanged for real cash.
..... the line between virtual and real cash
has already disappeared. The game EverQuest, for example, lets players
buy and sell virtual items and characters for real money through an
authorised online trading site.
.....the distinction between virtual and real
crime is rapidly disappearing.
20 Things Retailers Don't Want You to Know We reveal some of what vendors are keeping mum,
such as: You never have to pay full price, extended warranties rarely pay
for themselves, and the big sites do have customer service numbers.
Eric Dahl, "20 Things They Don't Want You to Know," PC World, August
25, 2005 ---
http://pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,122094,00.asp
Are there Al-Qaida nuclear bombs already in the U.S.? Paul Williams details 'American Hiroshima' Al-Qaida
plotting nuclear attack with weapons already in U.S. Posted: September 3,
20051:00 a.m. Eastern Paul L. Williams is a former consultant to the FBI on
organized crime and terrorism. Since then, he has become an award-winning
investigative journalist and written several books. In his new book, "The Al
Qaeda Connection," he claims Osama bin Laden has obtained nuclear weapons
and smuggled them into the U.S. through Mexico for use in a plot known as
"American Hiroshima."
Ryan Mauro, "Paul Williams details 'American Hiroshima' Al-Qaida plotting
nuclear attack with weapons already in U.S.," WorldNetDaily,
September 3, 2005 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46127
Jensen Comment: Our worry has always been that a dissident Soviet military
general might sell a nuclear device. However, even in this unlikely event,
there's a long distance between the possession of such an aged device and
the skills in detonation. It is unlikely that any of Al_Qaida's cells are
anywhere close to being able to carry this off. The were a lot of false
rumors about Iraq's WMD, and we can only hope this is another of those false
rumors that sell books.
According to a recent survey, men say the first
thing they notice about a woman is her eyes, and women say the first thing
they notice about men is they're a bunch of liars.
Mike Gasior [mike@afs-seminars.com]
on September 7, 2005
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Martin Scorsese's new feature-length documentary of Bob Dylan's Early
Days Bob Dylan fans are being treated to a multimedia
bonanza celebrating the early days of the enigmatic singer-songwriter's long
career. Two albums arrive today: "Live at the Gaslight 1962" (Starbucks),
the official release of an oft-bootlegged concert performance recorded in
Greenwich Village when Mr. Dylan was 21 years old; and "No Direction Home:
The Soundtrack -- The Bootleg Series Vol. 7" (Columbia), a collection of
rare performances, some of which appear in "No Direction Home," Martin
Scorsese's new feature-length documentary of Mr. Dylan's early career. The
Scorsese film, which includes excerpts from the most comprehensive interview
Mr. Dylan has done in some two decades, will be available on DVD on Sept.
20, prior to its broadcast on PBS's "American Masters" series on Sept. 26
and 27.
Jim Fusilli, "Do Look Back: Celebrating Bob Dylan's Early Days, Long Time
Gone," The Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2005; Page D7 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112535119468825990,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
InterCall is providing free conference calling
through Salvation Army aid stations to Katrina victims. They can also
receive assistance through InterCall’s CrisisConnect service ---
http://www.crisisconnect.net/
Message forwarded by Michael Lawrence on September
13, 2005
Please, help us get the word out about this web
site (
www.katrinareferrals.org so individuals and
agencies can access the XNET Connect Service.
The XNET CONNECT SERVICE is a great tool for
individuals and agencies alike. It is easy, just type in a word that
describes your needs and a list of agencies with detailed information
will appear. If a program is missing, you can access our 'Bulletin Board
Service' and post messages and information about new programs to be
included in the XNET CONNECT SERVICE updates. It is a Win-Win situation!
Thank you for your support.
Ben Amor
Executive Director
I think a hero is an
ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of
overwhelming obstacles. Christopher Reeve
Trinity University professors offered to make room
in 240 courses and accommodate late entry Katrina victims. To date, 18
victims have taken advantage of these offers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/BrazilKatrina.pdf
What brings tears to my eyes the thousands of
dollars and hours of time our students are devoting to helping thousands of
other victims in the San Antonio shelters. Sports teams and student
organizations are busing to these shelters to work nights. There are a lot
of unsung heroes and many of them might be the helpers of victims in your
courses. Please be tolerant if they are a bit tired and bleary eyed in
class.
Trinity faculty and administrators have taken an
active role in national efforts of relief. But
Trinity is not unique here. Colleges and universities and school
districts around the world are pitching in along with so many cities,
business firms, churches, charitable organizations, and many others. Bravo
to you all!
A small group of college
leaders, however, does have a sense of how it feels. These are academics who
have led colleges through natural disasters. Members of this group, which no
one wants to join, stress that their colleagues in New Orleans have it worse
than they did. But they also want their counterparts on the Gulf Coast to
know that a college can experience seemingly total catastrophe and come back
strong. Scott Jaschik, "Recovery From Disaster," Inside Higher Ed,
September 13, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/13/recovery
Over the five years of President Bush's
administration, Louisiana has received far more
money for corps civil works projects than any other
state . . ..
Michael Barone
(See below)
A politician needs the
ability to foretell what is going to happen
tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And
to have the ability afterwards to explain why it
didn't happen.
Winston Churchill
Jensen
Comment:
From the 2004 Census in New Orleans, there are
130,896 persons below the poverty line living in New
Orleans. That is an extremely high proportion of
this city's total residents. However, to date, only
279 deaths are reported for Louisiana, and not all
of them were poor or residents of New Orleans. And
102,202 residents are recorded by the Census Bureau
as having one or more serious disabilities ---
http://snipurl.com/NewOrleansCensus
It would seem, Senator Kennedy, that we've
witnessed a miracle that not more of New Orleans'
poor and disabled were killed given the incompetence
of city and state officials and police in taking
immediate actions to prevent Katrina deaths.
Hurricane Katrina death tolls reported by state
and local officials as of Monday
ALABAMA: 2
FLORIDA: 14
GEORGIA: 2
LOUISIANA: 279 (this was raised to 423 on the
morning of September 14)
MISSISSIPPI: 218
TOTAL: 515 (this was
raised to 659 on the morning of September 14)
The Captain abandons ship. Nagin pulled up stakes and moved his family to
Dallas. The Dallas Morning News reports that Nagin has already bought a
house in the city, and enrolled his daughter in school. Mayor says New
Orleans now bankrupt.
"Dallas Digs (Nagin moves to Dallas)" ---
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169194,00.html
Jensen Comment
After my somewhat negative comments about Mayor Nagin in my September 12
edition of Tidbits, a couple of Katrina victims contacted me in order to
express what they think are the viewpoints of many New Orleans residents.
They believe that Nagin is a popular mayor because he fights corruption. If
true, this is rare in Louisiana politics. Secondly, they think almost no
victims without cars would have boarded the yellow school buses even if it
had been convenient to do so when Nagin was broadcasting that all residents
should evacuate New Orleans. The major problem is the long history of false
alarms that the levees might break. Second, many residents were more
complacent after Katrina was downgraded below a Category 5 storm. ABC
evening news even falsely (and I'm certain innocently) broadcast a claim
that the levees held when in fact they had broken. Third residents refusing
to evacuate thought a more imminent threat was the looting of their vacant
homes and apartments. Fourth, there is the psychology of control. A family
evacuating in their own car has considerable control over destiny. If that
family ends up in poor accommodations, the family simply loads into the car
and moves on. A family boarding a bus to some unknown shelter has no
control over destiny. If a bused family ends up in bad accommodations it is
stuck and must beg to be relocated. Going to the local Super Dome makes
more sense if you assume you will be free to leave immediately after the
hurricane passes over.
One thing is certain. Nagin is a former businessman and his inexperience
with politics shows. It is a very bad public relations for the Mayor of New
Orleans to purchase a new home as far away as Dallas, Texas at the same time
he's declaring New Orleans bankrupt. His political image would be greatly
enhanced if he'd rented a suburban New Orleans home as close as possible to
the flooded city with promises of tending to business in efforts to restore
New Orleans. Secondly, it was a very bad political move to publicly support
vacations for Las Vegas holidays for over 400 police and firefighters. I
suspect this cost the city something before declaring bankruptcy. Even if
it didn't cost a dime courtesy of Las Vegas hotels, it damaged public
relations for Nagin to openly support police and firefighters going to
luxury hotels while many of the 400,000 refugees were sleeping on shelter
floors and sharing bathrooms with hundreds of strangers.
The report below is an example of how
difficult it is to judge Mayor Nagin. Before Katrina he might be praised
for fighting a conflict of interest among some Tulane University faculty.
On the other hand, it might also look like he was simply trying to steer
contracts to friends of city hall. You be the judge!
Why did N.O. officials reject a federal grant? ---
http://www.businessreport.com/newsDetail.cfm?aid=156
Why did Governor Blanco block the Red Cross early on?
The problem with this entire fiasco is that it began
and grew geometrically on the local and state level. Had Governor Blanco
allowed FEMA's representative agency, the American Red Cross, to give aid in
the first place to those who would ultimately be trapped for days in the
Superdome, many problems could have been averted.
Sher Zieve, "Blanco's Blocks Caused Bedlam," The Post Chronicle,
September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_212573.shtml
Over the five years of President Bush's
administration, Louisiana has received far more money for corps civil works
projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant
second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than
seven times as large.
And all this sexual harassment training while actual rapes are taking
place throughout the lawless city of New Orleans
A team of Indiana firefighters, volunteering to
help rescue victims of Katrina, went to Atlanta, where Federal Emergency
Management Agency staffers told them that their job was to hand out
fliers and that their first task was to
attend a multi-hour course on sexual harassment and equal employment
opportunity. This is, astonishingly,
standard operating procedure at FEMA. And in other parts of the federal
government: Former CIA agent Robert Baer writes in his recent book how
in Central Asia he asked headquarters to send someone who spoke Afghan
languages, and Langley offered to send a four-member sexual harassment
team instead. These are perhaps things to keep in mind when it comes
time to assess the response to Katrina. Government is a clumsy
instrument.
Even so, it is possible to spot some clear
mistakes. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin should have ordered an evacuation
on the Saturday, not the Sunday, before the hurricane, which, as
predicted, came on Monday. Nagin made an even greater mistake by not
following the city's emergency plan and using the 200-plus school buses
to evacuate the elderly, infirm, and infants who had no other way of
getting out of the city. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's state
department of homeland security should not have blocked the Red Cross
from bringing water, food, and sanitary facilities to the people in the
Superdome. I don't doubt that Nagin and Blanco wanted to do what was
best for their city and state, and I would not want to have to shoulder
the responsibility they had. But, alas, they made mistakes.
Bum rap.
As for President George W. Bush, he probably should have left his Texas
ranch a day earlier, and he might well have made a mistake in appointing
Michael Brown, a man with little previous experience in emergency
management, as head of FEMA. At week's end, Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff named Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, who has such
experience, to take Brown's place directing the post-Katrina relief
effort. The president, despite his well-known loyalty to longtime
friends and aides, recognized his mistake, pulled Brown back to
Washington, and put in a man who knows how to do the job.
But it's a bum rap to say that Bush left New
Orleans unprepared for the flood. New Orleans has been engineered to
withstand a Category 3 hurricane, as the result of decisions taken by
many federal, state, and local administrations over many years; Katrina
was a Category 4. But the Army Corps of Engineers hasn't been
shortchanging Louisiana. As Michael Grunwald wrote in the Washington
Post last week, "Over the five years of
President Bush's administration,
Louisiana has received far more money for corps
civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion;
California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven
times as large. Much of that Louisiana
money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds
of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by
the state's congressional delegation and approved by the corps, often
after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate." So there have
been mistakes all round, some made by single individuals in moments of
crisis, some by many people over the course of many years.
Continued in article
CBS News, Howard Dean, and some black leaders report that the "Bush
Team" conspires against blacks?
Several black civil rights leaders are accusing
the federal government of conspiring against poor African Americans in
the aftermath of the flooding in New Orleans. But one of those hurling
the charges, comedian and political activist Dick Gregory, on Friday
refused to say what, if anything, he has personally contributed to the
relief effort.
Gregory, who had just visited evacuees at the
Houston Astrodome and the city's convention center, said he was able
offer the flood victims something else besides money and food.
"I'm a hero in America, so just to go there and
touch them, means a lot to them. [That] means more than taking them to
the Red Cross and giving them food," Gregory told Cybercast News
Service. Gregory did not reply to the question about whether he had made
a personal donation. Listen to audio of
Dick Gregory ---
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200509\POL20050912a.html
Jesse Jackson fears black evacuees will be overlooked when it comes to
federal aid and future jobs ---
http://www.wlbt.com/global/story.asp?s=3835051&ClientType=Printable
Jensen Comment: Jackson may be correct about this. Given that many victims
will voluntarily disappear from the shelters before learning about
opportunities and the fact that historically over half the citizens in the
U.S. that are eligible for food stamps (virtually cash equivalents) do not
pick them up, there may be good reason for Reverend Jackson's fears.
Race was a factor in the death toll from
Hurricane Katrina, Howard Dean told members of the National Baptist
Convention of America on Wednesday at the group’s annual meeting.
Howard Dean ---
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9247380/
Jensen Comment: I think this should be fairly obvious that there is a
higher probability that the hundreds of people who died were mostly
non-white since only 28% of the residents of New Orleans were white. In the
2004 Census,
there were only 135,946 whites among 484,674 total residents of New
Orleans. Only a very small percentage of the 348,728 non-white residents
are reported as dying from Katrina winds and floods (423 total Louisiana
deaths of all races reported as of September 14). Is it surprising then
that the death toll probably has a much smaller proportion of whites than
other races? This would have happened with random selection of 423 people
out of the 484,674 even if all the dead were from New Orleans.
What I don't like is the implication by politicians and black activists
that all non-whites in New Orleans were below the poverty line. In 2004,
there were 130,896 persons of all races below the poverty line. Even if
they were all non-white, this leaves 217,832 (62%) above the poverty line.
The percentage is higher if you eliminate the whites living below the
poverty line.
Where race enters in most in any major U.S. city, is that whites comprise
a much higher proportion of residents in suburbs outside the city itself.
Reasons for this have been studied for decades by sociologists and other
scholars. Racism is undoubtedly a huge factor. But many non-whites have
been moving into those suburbs in recent years in every city. Progress has
been made in civil rights, but we still have a long way to go in the U.S.
and elsewhere in the world. Activists need to keep pressuring us, but they
should do so in a credible manner.
And then there are the blessed poor that really deserve all that we
can give and more! Canesha Blackman didn't even think to
open the zippered bag she found outside a city building one day last month.
The 24-year-old homeless woman just went back inside and turned it in, then
returned to the task of scraping up enough change to take the bus to her job
at a Checkers restaurant. It turned out the bag belonged to a Polk County
sheriff's detective and held $800 in cash. Deputy Sandy Scherer had driven
off with the bag on the hood of her car. Subsequent events have changed the
life of Blackman, a single mother with five children ranging in age from 6
years to 6 months, as a rather innocuous good deed has prompted a flood of
goodwill from all over. Scherer went to the Salvation Army homeless shelter
where Blackman and her children were living to say thanks. A reporter for
the local newspaper, the Ledger, got wind of what happened and printed a
story. From there it took off, with donations and offers of other help
pouring in. Weeks later it's still happening.
"Woman's act of honesty inspires more kindness," The St. Petersburg Times,
September 11, 2005 ---
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/11/State/Woman_s_act_of_honest.shtml
Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step
back from an event, deal with it, and then move on.
Bob Newhart
Absurd free speech from the left side of the world that may be helping
GOP win elections
Violence is so intertwined with male sexuality that military pilots watch
porn movies before they go out on sorties. The war in Afghanistan could not
possibly offer a chance to liberate women from their oppressors, since it
would simply expose women to yet another set of oppressors, in the gender
feminists’ view.
Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz, ---
http://class.csueastbay.edu/ethnicstudies/Roxanne_Dunbar-Ortiz.php
Jensen Comment: I wonder if
Professor
Dunbar-Ortiz
researched current Afgan women before asserting as a fact that their life is
no better now than under the Taliban that would not even allow women to
become educated to a point of being able to read and write. I'll just bet
Professor
Dunbar-Ortiz
never did a
simple Google search to find
http://www.rawa.org/ (a site that would have been banned by the Taliban
under threat of execution).
Professor
Dunbar-Ortiz has a regular column at
http://www.counterpunch.org/ The cavalry sent into the wild west
of New Orleans had orders to pen in the
starving black population that had been
abandoned in order to protect property. It is not a sad or shameful day for
the United States; it is a typical day in the United States for the poor,
magnified.
Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz ---
http://www.counterpunch.org/dunbar09072005.html
Jensen Comment: Thousands upon thousands of victims in New Orleans are
refusing to leave when given stern warnings and ample opportunities to be
transported to welcoming shelters. Many of the Katrina victims are poor but
they were hardly "starving" before or after Katrina flooded New Orleans.
Out of the
326,000 black residents in New Orleans, what proportion actually starved
to death each year
Professor
Dunbar-Ortiz? I have a pharmacist friend in San Antonio who
is working actively to coordinate city-wide prescriptions for a large number
of Katrina victims. She says that many of the victims' health problems stem
from being overweight and/or from having poor diets high in fat, sugared
sodas, and alcohol. And virtually all school children before Katrina could
get free meals in their schools. An abnormally high percentage the adult
victims have diabetes, and this is entirely the fault of the President of
the United States.
Tank Fills for Bush Bashers ---
http://www.bestoftheblogs.com/ and
http://www.thenation.com/ with the blogs at
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7
Jensen Comment: Thus far most of the hate fuel at the above sites is poured
on the Bush rather than on the failures of Louisiana officials, especially
the mayor who did not use his hundreds city busses to evacuate thousands of
poor people while he was demanding that people with cars to evacuate New
Orleans. Directing hate at Bush for Iraq is one thing, but I think the the
above sites would have more credibility if they weren't so obvious about
using the Katrina disaster as a Bush bashing political opportunity. It's
not much an opportunity for them, however, since they're mostly preaching to
a choir of long-time Bush haters.
How can the media and professors achieve greater credibility?
You probably observed that I quote a lot from both The Wall Street
Journal (WSJ) and The New York Times (NYT). Both have
credibility in spite of their opposing biases on the editorial pages. The
WSJ is unapologetic in its biases for financial institutions and business
enterprises. And yet the WSJ is the best place to look for damning
criticism of particular accounting firms, financial institutions, and
corporations. CEOs live in fear of WSJ reporters. For example, when Enron
was riding high, before the Watkins memo, WSJ reporters did some very clever
investigations and wrote articles that commenced the slide of Enron share
prices (particularly dogged reporters named John Emshwiller and Jonathan
Weil). The NYT sometimes has editorials that make me want to vomit. But
the Business Section of the NYT is one of the best places to go for balanced
coverage of business and finance news.
Usually, there's nothing wrong with
admitting your biases to the public or your students. What's wrong is to
let these biases unbalance your coverage and a willingness to admit when the
side you favor is wrong when it appears to you that it is wrong or when the
side you oppose is being unfairly blamed. And it is also wrong to
categorize people as either being only right or left. For example, I lean
to the right in terms of economics and business and taxes, but I'm 100%
behind birth control, abortion, stem cell research, minority/gay rights, gay
marriage, career helpers for mothers, and Darwin. I'm opposed to
affirmative action in competition for jobs and college admissions, but I
favor very liberal funding supplements and strict drug enforcement of K-12
schools in poorer school districts. I think we should provide economic
incentives not to have children in the face of worldwide exponential
population explosion and ineffective immigration controls.
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) ---
http://snipurl.com/9wu3
I think the U.S. government and its military
have made monumental strategic errors since 9/11. But it's absurd to
characterize the U.S. as a mean-intentioned Evil Empire. I think diversity
includes hiring some economic conservatives in most academic departments
where political viewpoints may matter, and I think Pat Robertson and Rush
Limbaugh are just as dangerous as one-sided liberals like
Professor Dunbar-Ortiz and the others
mentioned at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm
I generally
distrust our main television networks because those like NBC, CBS, ABC, and
CNN pretend to be objective when their biases are overwhelming after
witnessing an event like Katrina. Fox has opposing conservative biases, but
Fox admits its biases up front and does not pretend to be unbiased. Nothing
would be wrong with CNN if it simply declared its liberal biases and became
more like Fox at the other end of the spectrum. It's the pretense of
objectivity that is so hypocritical.
An example of my above point Lauer and Couric each tried repeatedly to focus on
the NEGATIVE while interviewing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and New
Orleans Police Chief, but both responded POSITIVELY.
"Katie and Matt glum-faced on (the NBC) Today Show after being
upstaged by optimistic disaster "victims", Free Republic, September
8, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1480048/posts
Admittedly some major news organizations just got it honestly wrong
after the levees broke in New Orleans But in the hours immediately following the storm,
some news organizations seemed to play down the damage in New Orleans.
Introducing "World News Tonight" on Aug. 29, anchor Charles Gibson said: "In
New Orleans, entire neighborhoods are underwater, but the levees held. The
nightmare scenario of an entire city underwater did not happen." A
spokeswoman for ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co., had no comment.
Joe Hagan and Joseph T. Hallinan, "Why Levee Breaches In New Orleans Were
Late-Breaking News," The Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2005;
Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112649152397237699,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Scammers 'Donate' to Katrina Relief Effort (Sickening) At one point in my monitoring of the chat
conversations, however, it became clear that several fraudsters fancied
themselves modern-day Robin Hoods; at least two individuals on the chat
channel began posting copies of receipts they had garnered for donating to
the American Red Cross's Hurricane Katrina relief fund - using their
victims' credit card and billing addresses. Following a posting that
contained a female victim's name, address, credit card number (referred to
merely as "cc" in the following snipped conversation), came the notice that
the scammers had donated $250 with this woman's account, and another amount
using the Visa card of a Chicago man. (The names of the scammers have been
changed for readbility and because the non-standard characters in them
messed up the HTML formatting of this page).
Brian Krebs, "Scammers 'Donate' to Katrina Relief Effort," The Washington
Post, September 13, 2005 ---
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/09/scammers_donate.html?referrer=email
Jensen Comment: Krebs reports the actual messages.
Please just drop the billions off on the edge of town and leave the
rest up to the New Orleans City Council Underscoring tensions over who will control the
agenda for the reconstruction of New Orleans, city leaders vented
frustration that the federal government already has issued large contracts
for initial cleanup and rebuilding without input from local leaders . . . In
comments yesterday, President Bush tried to assuage concerns that the
federal government will dictate how New Orleans will be rebuilt. "My
attitude is this: The people of New Orleans can design the vision; the
people of New Orleans can lay out what New Orleans ought to look like in the
future; and the federal government will help," he said as he concluded his
visit to the city. "I think the best policy is one in which the federal
government doesn't come down and say, 'Here's what your city will look
like.'" Jeff D. Opdyke and Christopher Cooper, "New Orleans Officials Criticize
Cleanup, Rebuilding Contracts," The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2005;
Page B2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112657884474138969,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Some things you just should not volunteer for Katrina victims
Portions of a September 13, 2005 message from Professor XXXXX
Bob,
I would like to volunteer to "recover" the
digital information found on hard drives in computers that have been
damaged during Katrina.
We can perhaps get 12+ people to the source and
protect that confidential information.
XXXXX
September 13, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Professor XXXXX,
If you like, I will post your message in my Tidbits Newsletter.
I suspect that your intentions are ethical and benevolent. However,
it this day of litigation, no single individuals dare take on such
responsibilities. There is great moral hazard here for unscrupulous
people to falsely allege that their privacy was jeopardized with claims
of massive monetary damages to themselves.
And there is another factor to consider. I have a very religious
friend who "somehow" ended up with some pornography (not child porn) on
his hard drive. With all good intentions, he hired a computer expert to
clean out the spyware, Trojan horses, and pornography from his hard
drive. The technician doing this copied the hard drive and violated
confidentiality by reporting my friend to his employer and to his
minister. My friend lost his job, but his minister and his wife have
gratefully stood behind him.
What if you find a great deal of child porn on somebody's hard drive?
I think you're obligated by law to report it. And in so doing you risk
your physical and economic well being.
I just don't think any individual should do this type of thing unless
contracted by the owner, and even then there is great risk to the
technician.
Bob Jensen
September 13, 2005 reply from Jack Seward (Professor XXXXX)
Bob,
Words of wisdom from you and I just wanted to
jump in and help, but your correct. I was thinking of attorneys and
accountants who need to get their life back in order and that generally
starts with the computers. I could not do it for the average individual
because of the liability and risks and that's why I sent you the email
because of your contacts. So do post it on your site if you see fit.
Again the offer is to provide some help and I have people in the
business who share my views. Your correct on finding Child Pornography
and reporting that to the authorities, but my task would be to get the
hard drive working....perhaps imaging to a new drive and I don't take
anything or have any copies of anything and they will have to sign a
hold harmless agreement. I would do no more or no less. Collectively the
team would develop "best practices" for the situation and get things up
and running.
BTW speaking of privacy, perhaps you would
enjoy my attached - see article - published by the American Bankruptcy
Institute Journal on use of ListServ and email etc.
And I'm still attempting to finish up my
article with Alan Reinstein of Wayne U.
We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the
sails.
Bertha Calloway
The Pending Collapse of the United States Actually I'm down on President Bush for reasons other than those
tiresome criticisms repeated ad nauseam in the liberal media links cited
above. My criticism is that he never uses his veto pen to bring economic
sanity to a spendthrift legislature. I think he hails from the Texas
Chicken Ranch (I mean one where real chickens were hatched).
Presidential elections have become so close in our politically divided
nation that it is necessary to promise everything to everybody at the
expense of future generations. Bush, and his father before him and Clinton
in between, allowed Congress to build mountains of national debt and, what
is even worse, entitlement burdens of future generations. For political
reasons Bush did not veto the totally disastrous Medicare Drug Plan.
Canada (yes Michael Moore) and possibly Russia might survive liberal
entitlements because these huge nations have relatively few people owning
enormous land masses of vast natural resources per capita. Overpopulated
nations like Brazil, India, and China will eventually emerge as winners
because entitlements are totally infeasible due to having too many people
relative to natural resources. It's the highly
populated developed nations like the U.S., Japan, and European Union that
are already doomed by their entitlements contracted during prosperity
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm
$62 billion request for emergency Katrina relief With almost no debate and with precious few
provisions for oversight, Congress has passed President Bush's mammoth $62
billion request for emergency Katrina relief. House Speaker Denny Hastert
says the final total will "probably [be] under the cost of the highway bill"
that Congress passed last month with a price tag of $286.4 billion.
"Hey, Big Spender FDR and Truman made cuts when crises demanded it. Why
won't Bush?" Opinion Journal, September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110007246
Flashback: The Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2001
As it struggled with the loss of
many of its own employees, the insurance industry also is
facing what is certainly the largest man-made and possibly
the largest-ever disaster it has faced, with the price tag
estimated at more than $10 billion.
After the actual 9/11 settlements we have the following as of November
2004:
Insurers paid 51
percent of the overall total, or about $19.6
billion. The government distributed $15.8
billion, or 42 percent, and charities paid $2.7
billion, or 7 percent.
"Victims" does not refer
only to family members of those killed. It also
covers businesses, emergency workers, first
responders, and
displaced residents,
workers who lost their jobs, and those who
suffered emotional problems or were exposed to
environmental dangers.
Businesses received 61%
of the total amount largely due to having
insurance coverage. In terms of U.S. insurance
coverage, there's an enormous difference between
fire versus flood disasters.
Jensen Comment:
Katrina will be more costly than 9/11. But Katrina victims will get nowhere
near the settlements that 9/11 victims got for a number of reasons. It
appears that the Katrina death toll will be far less than projected ---
hundreds rather than tens of thousands estimated early on by Louisiana
officials. The generous 9/11 settlements from the government were paid out
in lieu of suing the airlines whose planes were hijacked on 9/11. With over
3,000 such lawsuits pending just for deaths alone, the airline industry
might have collapsed and, thereby, destroyed passenger, mail, cargo, and
other essentials in commerce.
What is "fair" is not always what takes place in life as other victims
such as the Oklahoma City bombing victims can attest to after staring in
utter disbelief at the subsequent multi-million settlements to 9/11
victims. In the Oklahoma City case there was no private enterprises (like
airlines) with vast resources that could be sued for negligence. If all
victims of bombing and natural disasters receive entitlements of
multi-million settlements, the U.S. will sink much sooner in its tax burdens
and national debt.
What's the real cost of Katrina?
Katrina will be the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history in terms of
providing shelter, food, education, medical care, and living allowances to
nearly 400,000 refugees who must wait for many months (years?) for their
homes, jobs, schools, hospitals, and lives to be restored. And there is the
immense cost of rebuilding New Orleans below sea level so it can withstand
future Category 5 storms.
And there's a new Super Duper Dome to build so the Saints can come
marching home.
The lion's share of Katrina damage is being paid for by the Federal
government, corporate donations, benevolent private individuals, school
districts and host cities, insurance companies, and gifts of one sort of
another from foreign nations. Unfortunately much of this benevolence,
especially Federal tax dollars, will eventually will be wasted on the
rusted and corrupt political machines in Louisiana. Linda Kidwell sent the
link to
http://www.cq.com/public/20050912_homeland.html
The Great Depression topped Katrina, but what happened following the
Crash of 1929 can hardly be called a natural disaster, although there were
droughts and dust bowls that complicated agriculture in the 1930s. We
learned from previous economic mistakes and poor erosion controls, thereby
turning some of our worst troubles into successes. I suspect that we will
learn from the Katrina disaster about how to better deal with natural and
man-made disasters.
What we may never learn is how to save the developed countries like the
U.S. from their own economic successes and inclinations to go ever deeper
into national debt with the best of intentions of entitling the current
generation of super rich, rich, so-so rich, middle class at all levels, and
our poor who really aren't yet starving in the United States. Everybody, I
mean all of us, in one way or another is sucking on the grand tetons of
government.
I hope that Michael Moore one day conducts in-depth research rather than
provide superficial documentaries lamenting why U.S. welfare differs from
Canadian welfare. I hope he one day grasps how entitlements as well as
world policing will impoverish future generations throughout the United
States. High taxation drags the economy down, and soaring debt in lieu of
high taxes plus unfunded entitlements are a time bombs far worse than any
bombs in Osama's most vicious daydreams.
But I do thank you Senator Kennedy for my generous Medicare with drug
benefits that I will enjoy for the remainder of my life if I don't live too
long. Next year is a good year to become a senior citizen! I fear for
those who are less than forty years of age, and am really glad that I'm not
one of them. I was a child of the 1950s, and life as been good to me since
nobody pulled the red levers (that send up mushroom shaped clouds) during
the Cold War.
I believe I have found the missing link between
animals and civilized man. It is us.
Konrad Lorenz
This is an example of one of those very interesting studies in need of
replication on a wider scale with real investors making real portfolio
decisions.
"Brain Regions Blamed for Bad Investment Ideas: Risky vs. Safe
Investment Mistakes May Spring From Different Brain Regions," by Jennifer
Warner, WebMD, August 31, 2005 ---
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/110/109839.htm
A new discovery may help explain where
boneheaded investment ideas and get- rich-quick schemes come from.
Researchers say two different brain regions may
be involved in making risky vs. conservative investment mistakes, a
finding that may eventually help economists build better models of
people's investment behavior.
"Overall, these findings suggest that
risk-seeking choices (such as gambling at a casino) and risk-averse
choices (such as buying insurance) may be driven by two distinct [brain
regions]," write Camelia Kuhnen of the Stanford University School of
Business and colleagues in the Sept. 1 issue of Neuron.
They say activating either of these two areas
can lead to a shift in risk preferences, which may explain why casinos
surround their guests with reward cues, such as inexpensive food, free
liquor, surprise gifts, and potential jackpot prizes.
This anticipation of reward stimulates the
risk-seeking area of the brain and may increase the likelihood of
individuals switching from conservative, risk-aversion investment
behavior to risky investment behavior. A similar story in reverse may
also apply to marketing strategies used by insurance companies.
Where Bad Investment Ideas Come From
In the study, researchers used brain imaging to
analyze brain region activity in a group of adult volunteers who were
asked to make investment decisions between two stocks and a bond by
pressing a button.
Before each session, researchers told the
participants they would receive a percentage of the cash that they made
by investing or would lose cash from their participation fee if they
were not successful.
BRAINS, MINDS & MEDIA: JOURNAL OF NEW MEDIA IN
NEURAL AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND EDUCATION, a free, open-access,
peer-reviewed online journal, has begun publication. Included in the
first issue are reports on two projects: CELEST: The Center of
Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology and the
GENESIS Project. The papers are now online at
http://www.brains-minds-media.org/current .
Lawrence J. Ellison, chief executive of Oracle,
has reached a tentative agreement under which he would pay $100 million
to charity to resolve a lawsuit charging that he engaged in insider
trading in 2001, a lawyer involved in the case said.
The unusual settlement, which requires the
approval of Oracle's board and could still break down, would be one of
the largest payments made to resolve a shareholder suit of this kind,
known as a derivative lawsuit. Typically in derivative lawsuits, damages
are paid directly to the company. Under the terms of the settlement, Mr.
Ellison would designate the charity and the payments, to be made over
five years, would be paid in the name of Oracle. It is unclear whether
the payments would be tax-deductible by Mr. Ellison.
The lawsuit charged that Mr. Ellison, known for
his brash and combative pronouncements, sold almost $900 million of
shares ahead of news that Oracle would not meet its expected earnings
target. The same amount of stock, after the announcement, was worth
slightly more than half as much.
According to the court docket for the case,
which was filed in Superior Court in San Mateo, Calif., a hearing on the
settlement - which requires court approval - is scheduled for Sept. 26.
Under the terms of the agreement, the lawyers who brought the case for
shareholders would receive about $22.5 million, separate from the $100
million payment.
Danger: What if everybody uses the same formula? Banker David Li's computerized financial
formula has fueled explosive growth in the credit derivatives market. Now,
hundreds of billions of dollars ride on variations of the model every day.
When a credit agency downgraded General Motors Corp.'s debt in May, the auto
maker's securities sank. But it wasn't just holders of GM shares and bonds
who felt the pain. Like the proverbial flap of a butterfly's wings rippling
into a tornado, GM's woes caused hedge funds around the world to lose
hundreds of millions of dollars in other investments on behalf of wealthy
individuals, institutions like university endowments -- and, via pension
funds, regular folk.
Mark Whitehouse, "How a Formula Ignited Market That Burned Some Big
Investors: Credit Derivatives Got a Boost From Clever Pricing Model; Hedge
Funds Misused It Inspiration," The Wall Street Journal, September 12,
2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112649094075137685,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
The Case for Goliath The policy conclusion is that the U.S. should seize
every chance to make global institutions more effective. Conventional
wisdom, piece No. 2: The U.S. has no serious military or economic rival, but
this may not endure forever. As Michael Mandelbaum argues in his forthcoming
book, "The Case for Goliath," the U.S. underpins global prosperity by
providing a global currency, secure shipping lanes and a host of other
public goods; it's scary to think what might happen if the U.S. lost the
ability to perform this function. The policy conclusion is the same.
Sebastian Mallaby, "Missed Opportunity," The Washington Post,
Reprinted in The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112655605038138390,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
The UN Gang Pedro Sanjuan's "The UN Gang" (Doubleday,
202 pages, $24.95) tries to explain why. In 1984, Vice President George H.W.
Bush nominated Mr. Sanjuan to be the director of political affairs in the
U.N. Secretariat, the massive administrative core of the institution. Mr.
Sanjuan's real job was to spy on the Soviet spies working for the
secretary-general. This was not an easy task: "I was one against 274 of them
at the time of my arrival." "The UN Gang" is Mr. Sanjuan's memoir of his
U.N. experience. It does not present a pretty picture of the United Nations
-- or, by the end of the book, of the author himself.
Daniel Drezner, "The Asylum on the East River," The Wall Street Journal,
September 13, 2005; Page D8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112656041861538488,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
"Make love and not war" may be a dead end strategy Pygmy chimpanzees known as "jungle hippies" for
resolving conflict through sex rather than fighting are hurtling towards
extinction faster than any other primate, experts said yesterday. Bonobos,
gentle creatures found only in the remote war-torn forests of Congo, live in
strictly matriarchal families and neither kill nor fight over territory.
They also pair off for sex at the slightest hint of danger, stress or
friction, earning them their hippy nicknames for "making love not war". They
are among man's closest relatives and face the prospect of being the first
great ape to be wiped from the planet.
Mike Pflanz, "'Pacifist' chimps face extinction within a generation,"
NewsTelegraph, September 8, 2005 ---
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/08/wbono08.xml
Actually, the bonobos' evolutionary descendants,
Homo woodstockus, have already been wiped out except for a few specimens in
captivity, their ecosystem invaded by the predatory Homo deaniacus, commonly
known as the Angry Left.
Carol Muller, Opinion Journal, September 9, 2005
Women Now Practicing Defensive Drinking My mom always told me to be careful when you're
out," Hurt said as she sipped a Long Island iced tea and celebrated her 23rd
birthday with friends at a Chicago bar recently. Hurt is part of a
generation of young female drinkers who have absorbed the methods of
protecting themselves and their friends during a night on the town. A decade
after so-called daterape drugs first made headlines and the threat of spiked
drinks swept conversations in bars and clubs across the country, the ways of
young women drinking in America have changed. A whole generation has been
taught to drink defensively, to watch their glasses like they would watch
their purses.
Bill Glauber, "Women Now Practicing Defensive Drinking," TheLedger,
September 7, 2005 ---
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050907/NEWS/509070303/1021
Want a Hedge Fund? Here's Your Homework IF you're thinking about investing in a hedge fund,
how can you steer clear of the likes of the Bayou Group, the recently
imploded hedge fund company and brokerage firm run by Samuel Israel III?
Unfortunately, getting information about individual hedge funds isn't easy.
While hedge funds have generally had positive returns, experts point out
that some of them can be big money losers - and that this makes the decision
to invest in any single fund a very risky business. A variety of databases
provide information about hedge funds, but they are by no means infallible,
and in any case many of them are often unavailable to the average investor.
Geraldine Fabrikant, "Want a Hedge Fund? Here's Your Homework," The New
York Times, September 11, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/business/yourmoney/11hedg.html
Growing Gender Gap in College Enrollments
By 2014, American colleges are
expected to enroll 19.5 million students, up 17 percent from
2002. Increases should be particularly notable for women,
full-time students, and professional-school students. Those
predictions come from
“Projections of Education Statistics to 2014,”
the latest version of an annual report
from the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for
Education Statistics that examines trends for the decade
ahead. The report covers enrollments at all levels of
education and uses data about high school graduates,
enrollment patterns in higher education, and other figures
to project totals. The statistics experts who prepare the
report acknowledge the uncertainties of predicting the
future and so produce three versions of their projections,
suggesting the greatest confidence in the middle figures
(which are those cited in this article).
Faith and Health, Part II Facing a lawsuit charging it with intermingling
church and state, the University of Minnesota has dropped plans to offer a
set of courses on the intersection of faith and health. The Freedom From
Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin nonprofit group,
had sued the
university in March, saying that its involvement in theMinnesota Faith Health
Consortium,a partnership with Luther Seminary,
which is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and
Fairview Health Services, a health care organization, entangled the public
institution inappropriately with the promotion of religion. Among the
group’s goals, according to its Web site, were increasing understanding of
the links between religious faith and health, and “enhancing leadership
capacity to link faith and health.”
Doug Lederman, "Faith and Health, Part II," Inside Higher Ed,
September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/12/minn
New Orleans is also home to a
large number of African American Catholics, in part
because of the Code Noir that required slaves to be
baptized into the Catholic church within 30 days of
purchase in Louisiana. The dead that slip into the view
of the camera also conjure up images of religious belief
and meaning. Newscasters hoping to exploit the cultural
angle have invoked voodoo, a large part of the religious
and social lore of New Orleans, improperly. The images
of people fleeing, of family members trying to
reconnect, all bring to mind the Freedmen’s Bureau,
post-Civil War, and the endless newspaper advertisements
during the Reconstruction period to find loved ones.
More than a century later, their counterparts are on
Internet lists of missing family on the Red Cross and
various news outlets. How best to bring all of these
issues and images together for students to see the
connections?
In order to provide a touch
point for students to discuss these issues, I am using
many of the current images alongside historical images
of slave ships, with descriptions of the conditions that
slaves lived in prior to arriving in the port of New
Orleans. In the weeks following, I will revisit the
issue of the cultural losses that have occurred in New
Orleans by talking about the development of religious
life and culture of both African Americans and the free
Creole population of New Orleans. Whether its food, jazz
music, religious beliefs or Mardi Gras, African American
culture and religion permeate these iconic images of New
Orleans. Finally, the great migration of African
Americans out of New Orleans is strangely reminiscent to
the Great migration, which provided religious renewal to
cities like Chicago and Detroit. One wonders if the same
will occur with the New Orleanians taking their African
based cultural identities with them. Fundamental to all
of these is race, class, and gender. The historic
hesitancy to come to the aid of African American
populations because of the confluence of these
constructs is core to the understanding of the tragedy
unfolding in New Orleans and the gulf coast region
affected by Katrina.
Continued in article
Varying generation improvements in education The children of recent immigrants are much more likely to
earn college degrees than are their parents, and successive
generations are likely to do even better. But Mexican
American immigrants — while still showing significant
progress from generation to generation — lag behind other
groups, according to a new
reportbased on data from
California. The report is significant because California,
the nation’s most populous state, has a population in which
more than half of people aged 13 through 24 have at least
one foreign-born parent. And much data that educators have
used historically to compare the progress of differing
groups has focused on race and ethnicity, not family
immigration history. The study was conducted by the Public
Policy Institute of California.
Scott Jaschik, "Generational Improvements," Inside Higher
Ed, September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/12/immigrant
Barriers to a ‘Seamless’ K-16 System While state policy
makers and educators have ramped up their
rhetoric about creating a seamless system of
“K-16″ education,
a report to be
released today suggests that states’ nascent
efforts to actually do so are often impeded
by the state’s own structures and policies.
Doug Lederman, "Barriers to a ‘Seamless’
K-16 System," Inside Higher Ed,
September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/12/k16
Jensen Comment: One problem is that
officials along with society in general in
the U.S. place too much stress on college
education. The U.S. should follow Europe's
lead in both motivating and rewarding more
students to enter skilled trades where there
are far more shortages than in college
graduates.
What happened to the black freshmen in the University of
Kentucky? The number of black freshmen
enrolling at the University of Kentucky this fall is down 40
percent from last year, the
Associated Pressreported.
Kentucky officials attributed the drop in part to an
increase in the minimum ACT score required for admission. Inside Higher Ed, September 12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/12/qt
A business that makes nothing but money is a
poor kind of business.
Henry Ford
The worker becomes all the poorer the more
wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range.
The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he
creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct
proportion to the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only
commodities; it produces itself and the
worker as a commodity -- and does so in the proportion in which it produces
commodities generally.
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844) ---
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html
Are you moving overseas?
The 2004 Jobs Act rewrote the tax and reporting rules for U.S. citizens and
foreign residents moving overseas. Here are planning suggestions for this
new environment ---
http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2005/lifson.htm
Better Cancer Detection While much of that research has focused on protein
biomarkers, some of the first molecular tests to arrive on the market may be
ones that look instead at a phenomenon called DNA methylation. A few small
biotech companies, some partnered with major pharmaceutical companies like
Johnson and Johnson and Roche, say their first DNA methylation-based tests
for prostate cancer could be available next year. DNA methylation occurs
when methyl groups--carbon atoms surrounded by three hydrogen atoms
each--attach to a gene without changing its actual sequence. Methylation can
alter a gene's behavior by, for instance, turning it off, and aberrant
patterns of methylation are involved in almost all types of cancer. What's
more, abnormal methylation happens early on in the disease process, which
makes it "a highly promising biomarker for cancer," says Stephen Baylin, an
oncology professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Researchers have
so far identified some 40 to 50 genes whose methylation patterns play a role
in the development of cancer.
Corie Lok, "Better Cancer Detection," MIT's Technology Review,
October 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/10/issue/forward_cancer.asp?trk=nl
How Companies Can Restore a Tarnished Image Martha Stewart, accounting firm KPMG, insurance
broker Marsh & McLennan, and Merck, manufacturer of the troubled painkiller
Vioxx, are among the most recent examples of companies that face the
challenge of restoring damaged reputations. How best to do that? According
to Wharton faculty and others, companies that acknowledge they have problems
and launch communication programs to repair tarnished reputations stand the
best chance of rehabilitation. And the worst way? Hide the problem, lie or
appeal only to special interest constituencies.
"Brand Rehab: How Companies Can Restore a Tarnished Image," Wharton,
September 8, 2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1279
Ask Jeeves And Spyware The quickest way to tarnish an Internet brand is to
have it associated with spyware. So it's no wonder that Ask Jeeves is
scrambling to defend itself against the decision of two anti-spyware vendors
to flag the search engine's web browser toolbars. It's not that Ask Jeeves
is distributing spyware. No one is accusing it of that. But according to
Sunbelt Software and Facetime, partners of the company are not being upfront
in distributing the Ask Jeeves programs to consumers. InternetWeek Newsletter, September 13, 2005
Microsoft Blasts Massachusetts' New XML Policy Even as millions of dollars worth of Office
business hangs in the balance, Microsoft says it will not support the
OpenDocument format likely to be adopted by the state of Massachusetts this
month as its standard XML format. Microsoft is lashing out against a
revised IT policy planned by Massachusetts that would kill the use of Office
in state agencies unless the company adopts the OpenDocument file format.
According to a proposed plan distributed by the state's Information
Technology Division on Wednesday, only two document formats – Open Document
and Adobe's PDF – will be acceptable for state use in the future. The
OpenDocument format, which was ratified in May by Oasis, is supported by
OpenOffice, an open source Office suite, and in Sun's StarOffice, which is
owned by Sun Microsystems. "Desktop software that supports OpenDocument and
PDF in the future is acceptable; Microsoft's proprietary XML formats are
not," Eric Kriss, Secretary of Administration & Finance for the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, told CRN during an telephone interview Friday.
Paula Rooney, "Microsoft Blasts Massachusetts' New XML Policy,"
InformationWeek, September 2, 2005 ---
When asked to rate their overall
satisfaction with the 13 tax software products in the survey this
year, the 3,156 AICPA Tax Section members who responded to the
survey came up with a combined average score of 4.23 (out of a
perfect 5.00), a significant gain from last year’s 4.03. In addition
to the eight packages rated last year, three new products received
the minimum required 10 responses from our CPA respondents. (For
details about all the vendors in the survey, see exhibit 1; for a
complete scorecard on the satisfaction grades, see exhibit 2; and
for technical details about the products, see exhibit 6.)
Tied for first place in the
overall-satisfaction category, with ratings of 4.46, were Intuit’s
highly popular Lacerte and the much smaller Dunphy System’s Tax
Software for the Professional. Lacerte inched up from last year’s
4.32 rating; since Dunphy was not in last year’s survey, it has no
year-ago rating. Tied for second place with 4.44 were Drake Software
and Taxware System’s Taxware Tax Preparation; both are new to the
survey this year.
Dear Professor Jensen, I feel kinda cheated
that your post didn't look beyond the 'big boys' surveyed by the AICPA.
In my case, I jumped from Lacerte the year after Intuit bought it -- and
jacked its fees up majorly -- to ATX, which seems to serve a huge base
of "small practices" such as my own. ATX makes the grade in 'The CPA
Journal" and other mags; so I wonder why it's neglected by your own cite
-- which, in general, I prize for its independence from commercial
trends. Could you comment further upon this, please?
Sincerely yours,
Kurt Wilner
Do Yahoo and Google fund sypware?
September 7, 2005 message from Richard Campbell
Another Win for Ward Churchill A University of Colorado misconduct committee has
rejected a set of allegations that were made against Ward Churchill by the
family of his late ex-wife. Churchill is once again claiming that he has won
a victory, but the most serious charges against him remain alive. Churchill,
an ethnic studies professor at the university’s Boulder campus, has been
under investigation since a furor arose over controversial statements he
made . . .
"Another (Short-Term?) Win for Ward Churchill," Inside Higher Ed,
September 8, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/08/churchill
White Collar Hell Right now, business is the most
popular undergraduate major in America, largely because
young people believe it will lead to wealth or at least
security. I want them to rethink that decision, or at least
do some hard thinking about what uses they would like apply
their business skills to. There’s not much by way of
individual guidance in Bait and Switch, but I do want
to get people thinking more about corporate domination, not
only of the economy, but of our psyches. Generally speaking,
the corporations have us by the short hairs wherever you
look, and of course, one source of their grip is the idea
that they are the only or the major source of jobs. I’m
asking, what kind of jobs — back-breaking low-wage jobs as
in Nickel and Dimed, or transient, better-paid jobs that
seem to depend heavily on one’s ability to be a suck-up, as
in Bait and Switch? Barbara Ehrenreich in an interview with Scott McLemee,
"White-Collar Hell," Inside
Higher Ed, September 9, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/09/08/mclemee
I wonder what Ehrenreich (see
above) would have to say about Sherron?
"She
tried too hard to be one of the boys"
Time Magazine's Foul-Mouthed 2002 Person of the Year
Sherron (Smith) Watkins was the Enron executive credited with blowing the
whistle about Andy Fastow's illegal SPE dealings. She sent her now famous
letter to both CEO Ken Lay and to the Andersen auditors where she'd been
employed before coming to Enron. She was eventually named one of Time
Magazine's 2002 "Persons of the Year" ---
http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/2002/
From Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools: A True Study,
(Broadway Books, 2005, pp. 95-96).
Sherron Smith flipped through the pages of an
investment presentation, her face tightening in disgust.
A former accountant, Smith had worked at Enron
since October 1993, when she was hired to manage JEDI, Enron's joint
venture with Calpers. At first she had enjoyed Enron and her boss, Andy
Fastow, who struck her as energetic and dynamic, with occasional touches
of thoughtfulness. But over time, Fastow's shortcomings as a manager had
alienated her. That year he had even failed to show up at the semiannual
Performance Review Committee meeting, where managers pushed to get
bonuses and promotions for their staff. As a result, Smith had come away
with a disappointing fourteen-thousand-dollar bonus and a simmering
anger toward Fastow. She had even considered quitting.
Then, salvation. Fastow moved to retail. Rick
Causey, Skilling's favorite accountant, took over, and her world
brightened. Causey was a friendly, doughy man who had already promised
to get raises for Smith and her colleagues. The change rekindled her
good feelings for Enron.
Her job, put simply, was to act as JEDI's
gatekeeper. Executives around Enron were always looking for JEDI to
invest in their deals. But too many proposals were fanciful--badly
thought out, badly structured, or just plain bad.
When deal makers made a sloppy presentation to
Smith, she savaged them. She delighted in shocking people with
uncomfortable truths--about anything at all, including herself. The
knock on Smith was that she tried too hard to be one of the boys--so
long as the boys were truck drivers and longshoremen. Her foul mouth at
meetings was legendary, and this day, no one expected to be any
different.
Smith closed up the presentation, staring hard
across the table at the executives who brought it to her.
"What the fuck is this?" she snorted. "This
thing looks like a circle jerk to me."
Smirks all around. Sherron was just being
Sherron.
"Sherron, I know you've got strong opinions,
but there's a lot of value--," one of the executives began.
"Oh, come on, Smith interrupted. "Let's not sit
around blowing each other, okay?"
One side of the table, a couple of Smith's
colleagues, Shirley Hudler and Bill Brown, listened to the exchange and
winced. They respected Smith but thought her salty approach to business
discussions damaged her.
Oh, God, Sherron, Hudler thought. Shut up.
The deal team pushed hard for Smith to change
her mind. Smith countered with responses about the problems with the
transaction; her arguments were strong. The case for doing the deal
crumpled.
Smith quashed another proposal--but, as always,
at a price. Her colleagues whispered that her coarse language was
undermining her credibility, that her penchant for one-upmanship was
giving her the reputation as someone who wouldn't listen. If she didn't
stop, if she didn't learn how to play nice in a corporate setting, if
she didn't learn to be more of a team player, they had no doubt that
Sherron Smith's future at Enron would be bleak.
None of her colleagues could have imagined that
Smith would be one of Enron's few executives to emerge from the company
in high stead, known worldwide under her then-married name as Sherron
Watkins, the Enron whistle-blower.
It's Official: The EU has officially recognized the Irish language
The European Union has a single currency, but what
about a single language? Since its inception, the EU has made each
member state’s language one of its official tongues. Recently, even
Irish, spoken at home by only a tiny minority, was granted full official
status.
Abram De Swaan, "GLOBALISATION: Europe’s English-speaking peoples,"
Daily Times, September 11, 2005 ---
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_11-9-2005_pg3_6
Al Franken lies about money intended for children that was
illegally diverted? A month ago Al Franken claimed ignorance of the
transfers. "I didn't know anything about this until late last week," he
told Air America listeners on Aug. 8. The network's brass echoed this:
Air America CEO Danny Goldberg told the New York Sun this week that the
"on-air talent" has "never had any responsibility for this loan." This
seemed plausible at the time, since no one expects the talent to be
arranging finances, so in our Aug. 3 editorial on the subject we gave
Mr. Franken a pass . . . Mr. Franken's signature appears on a page
stamped by State of New York Notary Public Wallis Northworth in which
Mr. Northworth attests that Mr. Franken signed the document in his
presence. Claims that Mr. Franken was unaware of the particulars fly in
the face of a clause in the document that states each signatory "has
read this Agreement and understands its terms." Mr. Franken has made a
career playing gotcha. The scandal involves the funnelling of tax
dollars intended for children to fund a failing partisan radio venture.
His prevarications look much like what he criticizes in others.
"Al Franken, explain this one," The Washington Times, September 11, 2005
---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050910-110431-4205r.htm
The
study precedes an upcoming AACSB International report that calls for the
media to change the way it assigns rankings to business degree granting
institutions. The AACSB document, to be released in September, calls the
ranking methods used by BusinessWeek, Financial Times, U.S. News & World
Report, and other media outlets flawed because of inconsistent and
unverified data, which confuses rather than helps the consumer.
Criminal trials driven by "stories rather than theories Sadakat Kadri, a criminal defense lawyer who has
studied and practiced in both Britain and the U.S., now gives us "The
Trial" (Random House, 459 pages, $29.95), a colorful work of popular
history that ranges across the centuries from the familiar (Scopes,
Nuremberg, O.J.) to the obscure: e.g., Sir Edward Coke's 1603 prosecution of
Sir Walter Raleigh for treason and Clarence Darrow's 1926 defense of Henry
Sweet, a 22-year-old black student in Detroit charged with shooting a member
of a white mob besieging his brother's house. Mr. Kadri's aim is to assemble
a history of the criminal trial that is driven by "stories rather than
theories." Such an approach allows him to indulge a penchant for the
grotesque, the extreme and the ribald without quite losing sight of the
bigger picture -- the difficulty of reconciling the cause of truth-finding
with the imperatives of ritual and drama.
Walter Olson, "Justice Served, Sometimes," The Wall Street Journal,
September 8, 2005; Page D10 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112612976198834474,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
An Amish woman was driving her buggy to town when a highway patrol
officer stopped her. "I'm not going to cite you," said the officer. "I just
wanted to warn you that the reflector on the back of your buggy is broken
and it could be dangerous."
"I thank thee", replied the Amish lady. "I shall have my husband repair
it as soon as I return home."
"Also," said the officer, "I noticed one of your reins to your horse is
wrapped around his testicles. Some people might consider this cruelty to
animals, so you should have your husband check that too."
"Again I thank thee. I shall have my husband check both when I get home."
True to her word, when the Amish lady got home she told her husband about
the broken reflector, and he said he would put a new one on immediately.
"Also," said the Amish woman, "the policeman said there was something
wrong with the emergency brake."
Jensen Comment
I think we should consider the above type of emergency brake for President
Bush and most members of Congress.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
A man is sitting in a plane which is about to take off when another man
with a dog occupies the empty seats alongside. The dog takes the middle
seat, and his handler explains that they work for the airline.
"Don't mind Rover," the handler says, "he is a sniffer dog, the best there
is. Ill show you once we get airborne and I set him to work."
The plane takes off and levels out when the handler says to the first
man, "Watch this."
He tells the dog, "Rover, search"
The dog jumps down, walks along the aisle and sits next to a woman for a
few seconds. It then returns to its seat and puts one paw on the handlers
arm. He says, "Good boy" He turns to the first man and says, "That woman is
in possession of marijuana, so Im making a note of this, and the seat
number, for the police who will apprehend her on arrival."
"Fantastic" replies the first man.
Once again he sends the dog to search the aisles. The dog sniffs about,
sits down beside a man for a few seconds, returns to its seat and places
both paws on the handlers arm.
The handler says, "That man is carrying cocaine, so again, I'm making a
note of this, and the seat number."
"Wow" says the first man.
Once again, the handler sends the dog to search the aisles. Rover goes up
and down the plane aisle and after a while sits down next to someone, and
then comes racing back, jumps up onto the seat, and craps all over the place
The first man is surprised and disgusted by this, and asks, "What the heck
was THAT for???"
The handler replies, "Looks like he found a bomb."
I want to thank all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me
your chain letters over the past two years. Thank you for making me feel safe,
secure, blessed, and wealthy. Just want you to know that these types of messages
are deleted immediately...
However, Because of your concern...
I no longer can drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.
I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these products
are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.
I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.
I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked
with a needle infected with AIDS.
I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water
buffalo on a hot day.
I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume
sample and rob me.
I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al
Qaeda in disguise.
I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our
troops.
I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a stupid
number for which I will get the phone bill from hell with calls to Jamaica,
Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.
I no longer eat prepackaged foods because the estrogens they contain will
turn me gay.
I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant
freaks with no eyes or feathers.
I no longer go to bars because someone will drug me and take my kidneys and
leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.
Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I forward
an email to 7 of my friends and make a wish within 5 minutes.
I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl who has been
dying for the past seven years.
I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the
$15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special
e-mail program.
I will now return the favor:
If you don't send this e-mail to at least 1200 people in the next 60 seconds,
a large bird with diarrhea will fly over your head at 5:00 PM and the fleas of a
thousand camels will infest your armpits. I know this will occur because it
actually happened to a friend of a friend of a friend's neighbor's cousin, and
he's a lawyer.
Live well, laugh often, love much!
Forwarded by a more or less retired friend
Subject: 10 THOUGHTS FOR 2005
Number 10 - Life is sexually transmitted.
Number 09 - Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can
die.
Number 08 - (You don't want to read this one)
Number 07 - Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person
to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.
Number 06 - Some people are like a Slinky.....not really good for anything,
but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
Number 05 - Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals
dying of nothing.
Number 04 - All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no
attention to criticism.
Number 03 - Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a
substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?
Number 02 - In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the
world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
AND THE NUMBER 1 THOUGHT FOR 2005:
We know exactly where one cow with mad-cow-disease is located among the
millions and millions of cows in America but we haven't got a clue as to where
thousands of illegal immigrants and terrorists are located. Maybe we should put
the Department of Agriculture in charge of immigration
Celebrating Oxymoronic, Paradoxical, and Self-Contradictory Quotations
--- http://oxymoronica.com/
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
Robert C. Benchley
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for
other people.
I love being a writer.
What I hate is the paperwork.
Thomas Mann Peter De Vries
I don't think I am any good. If I thought I was any good, I wouldn't be.
We are all failures-- at least, all the best of us are.
John Betjeman J. M. Barrie, on writers
Be obscure clearly.
E. B. White, advice to writers
A good novel is possible only after one has given up and let go.
If it sounds like writing, I re-write it.
Walker Percy Elmore Leonard
It takes less time to learn how to write nobly. than how to write lightly
and straightforwardly.
Writing came easy-- it would only get hard when I got better at it.
Friedrich Nietzsche Gary Wills
Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper
until the drops of blood form on your forehead.
Gene Fowler
According to a recent survey, men say the first
thing they notice about a woman is her eyes, and women say the first thing
they notice about men is they're a bunch of liars.
Mike Gasior [mike@afs-seminars.com]
on September 7, 2005
Forwarded by Paula
Do you suffer from AAADD?
Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. - Age Activated Attention
Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests:
I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide
my car needs washing.
As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch
table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.
I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can
under the table, and notice that the can is full.
So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage
first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take
out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.
I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check
left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house
to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.
I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside
so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I realize the Coke is getting
warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.
As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the
counter catches my eye--they need to be watered.
I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses
that I've been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water
the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water
and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.
I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the
remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to
put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the
floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe
up the spill.
Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day: the driveway is flooded the car isn't washed, the
bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, there
is still only one check in my check book, I can't find the remote, I can't
find my glasses, and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.
Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really
baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.
I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for
it, but first I'll check my e-mail.
I may have sent this message to you already, and if so, I apologize...I
just don't remember!
Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!
Forwarded by Paula
An Amish woman was driving her buggy to town when a highway patrol
officer stopped her. "I'm not going to cite you," said the officer. "I just
wanted to warn you that the reflector on the back of your buggy is broken
and it could be dangerous."
"I thank thee", replied the Amish lady. "I shall have my husband repair
it as soon as I return home."
"Also," said the officer, "I noticed one of your reins to your horse is
wrapped around his testicles. Some people might consider this cruelty to
animals, so you should have your husband check that too."
"Again I thank thee. I shall have my husband check both when I get home."
True to her word, when the Amish lady got home she told her husband about
the broken reflector, and he said he would put a new one on immediately.
"Also," said the Amish woman, "the policeman said there was something
wrong with the emergency brake."
Forwarded by Dick Haar
Two Wolves
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on
inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside
us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride,
superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his
grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
Author Unknown
Forwarded by Dick Haar
When a panel of doctors was asked to vote on the new hospital issue, the
allergists voted to scratch it and the dermatologists preferred no rash
moves. The gastroenterologists had a gut feeling about it, but the
neurologists thought the administration had a lot of nerve, and the
obstetricians stated that they were labouring under a misconception. The
ophthalmologists considered the idea short-sighted; the pathologists yelled,
"Over my dead body!" while the paediatricians said, "Grow up!" the
psychiatrists thought it was madness; the surgeons decided to wash their
hands of the whole thing, and the radiologists could see right through it!
The internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow but the plastic
surgeon said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter." The podiatrists
thought it was a step forward, but the urologists felt the scheme wouldn't
hold water. The anaesthetists thought the whole idea was a gas, and the
cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no. In the end, the proctologists
left the decision up to some a__hole who didn't give a crap.
I'm beginning to know the feeling
Forwarded by Betty Carper
1. Your houseplants
are alive, and you can't smoke any of them.
2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
5. You hear your favorite song on an elevator.
6. You watch the Weather Channel.
7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of hook up and break up.
8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as "dressed up."
10. You're the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door
won't turn down the stereo.
11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
12. You don't know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.
14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald's leftovers.
15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
16. You no longer take naps from noon to 6 PM!
17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of
one.
18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset,
rather than settle, your stomach.
19. If you're a gal, you go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid,
not condoms and pregnancy tests.
20. A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer "pretty good stuff."
21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
22. "I just can't drink the way I used to," replaces, "I'm never going
to drink that much again."
23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.
25. You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that
doesn't apply to you and can't find one to save your sorry old
butt.
In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and
thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your
independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties
over all states, commonwealths, and territories (excepting Kansas, which she
does not fancy). Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a
governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and
the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to
determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following
rules are introduced with immediate effect:
You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then
look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at
just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be
reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will
learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix
ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. Generally, you will be expected to
raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up vocabulary).
Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as
"like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of
communication.
There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your
behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the
reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.?
You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen. July
4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or
therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that
you're not adult enough to be independent.
Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort
things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not
grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to
own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will
be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your
own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start
driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go
metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.
Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense
of humour.
The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been
calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.
You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are
not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are
properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and
dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer
at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,
and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as
Lager. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so
that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good
guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English
characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in Four
Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed
with a cheese grater.
You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of
proper football; you call it soccer.
Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which
has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping
for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a
bunch of nancies).
Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an
event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of
America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your
borders, your error is understandable.
You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's
Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies
due (backdated to 1776).
Thank you for your co-operation.
Forwarded by Paula
THINGS YOU'D LOVE TO SAY OUT LOUD AT WORK
01. I can see your point, but I still think you're full of s___.
02. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to
pronounce.
03. How about never? Is never good for you?
04. I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in
public.
05. I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to see
things my way.
06. I'll try being nicer if you'll try beingsmarter.
07. I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
08. I don't work here, I'm a consultant.
09. It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're saying.
10. Ahhh . . I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again.
11. I have plenty of talent without adoor.
12. Can I trade this job for what's behind door #1?
13. Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
14. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
15. Chaos, panic, and disorder --- my work here is done.
16. Who lit the fuse on your tampon?
17. Oh I get it... like humor... but different.
Are you
lonely, single, tired of the dating scene? Do you want someone to help pay
your children's medical bills because your ex husband is a lazy out-of-work
deadbeat? If you're ready to be razzle-dazzled by the most eligible bachelor
on the internet, follow the link to
Bob's unofficial fan page and find out how you can make your dreams (and
his) come true. Or just email
Bob with a photo. Sorry ladies, only one entry per family.
I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor
(an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart
finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) ---
http://www.financeprofessor.com/
Click on
www.syllabus.com/radio/index.asp for
a complete list of interviews with established leaders, creative thinkers
and education technology experts in higher education from around the
country.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Few projects in academe have
attracted the attention and praise in recent years of
OpenCourseWare, a program in
which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is
making all of its course materials available online —
free — for anyone to use.
In the four years since MIT
launched the effort,
use of the courseware has
skyrocketed, and several other universities have created
similar programs, assembling material from their own
courses.
With less fanfare than MIT,
Rice University has also been promoting a model for
free, shared information that could be used by faculty
members and students anywhere in the world. But the Rice
program —
Connexions — is different in
key respects. It is assembling material from professors
(and high school teachers) from anywhere, it is offering
free software tools in addition to course materials, and
it is trying to reshape the way academe uses both peer
review and publishing. The project also has hopes of
becoming a major curricular tool at community colleges.
“I was just frustrated with the
status quo,” says
Richard G. Baraniuk, in
explaining how he started Connexions in 1999. “Peer
review is severely broken. Publishing takes too long and
then books are too expensive,” he says. “This is about
cutting out the middlemen and truly making information
free.”
“I was just frustrated with the
status quo,” says Richard G. Baraniuk, in explaining how
he started Connexions in 1999. “Peer review is severely
broken. Publishing takes too long and then books are too
expensive,” he says. “This is about cutting out the
middlemen and truly making information free.”
Baraniuk is a professor of
electrical and computer engineering at Rice, so many of
the initial modules (which can either be materials for a
course, a lecture or any other organizational unit) were
in engineering and were submitted by Rice professors.
But as Connexions has grown (from 200 modules in its
second year to 2,300), it has attracted content in many
disciplines and from many scholars.
There are materials for courses
on art history, birds, business and graphic design.
Offerings are particularly strong in music. And
participating professors come from institutions
including Cornell, Indiana State and Ohio State
Universities, and the Universities of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and Wisconsin at Madison. Professors
from outside the United States have also started to use
the site — it offers materials from the Norwegian
University of Science and Technology and the University
of Cambridge.
Use of the materials has grown
steadily — in May, more than 350,000 individuals used
the site at some point, a mix of professors and
students, about half of them on return visits.
What is the gambler's (or investor's)
fallacy? From Jim Mahar's blog on August 16, 2005
Moneyscience.org points to the paper by Croson
and Sundali (in the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty) who use
video from a casino to document the existence of both a gambler's
fallacy (the idea is that because some event has not happened in a while
it is "due" and the hot hands fallacy (I am on a roll, so I will remain
lucky).
A few "look-ins":
"The gambler's fallacy is a belief in negative
autocorrelation of a non-autocorrelated random sequence." "In contrast,
the hot hand is a belief in positive autocorrelation of a non-autocorrelated
random sequence" "someone can believe both in the gambler's fallacy
(that after three coin flips of heads tails is due) and the hot hand
(that after three correct guesses they will be more likely to correctly
guess the next outcome of the coin toss). These biases are believed by
psychologists to stem from the same source, (the representative
heuristic) as discussed below and formalized in Rabin (2002) and
Mullainathan (2002)." So what are the implications to the finance world?
In the authors' words:
"it has been argued that the disposition
effect in finance (the tendency of investors to sell stocks that
have appreciated and hold stocks that have lost value) is caused by
gambler's fallacy beliefs....Other evidence demonstrates that
consumers' mutual fund purchases depend strongly on past performance
of particular fund managers (Sirri and Tufano, 1998), even though
the data suggest that performance of mutual fund managers is
serially uncorrelated (e.g. Cahart, 1997). Thus, individuals are
presumably making investment decisions based upon the belief that
particular funds or fund managers are "hot."
So what does this mean to the average investor?
That (s)he should be aware of the fallacies and be careful to avoid
falling into their traps. The best way to do this is to remain rational
about investing, which of course is easier said than done.
Cite for paper: Rachel Croson, James Sundali,
The Gambler's Fallacy and the Hot Hand: Empirical Data from Casinos,
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Volume 30, Issue 3, May 2005, Pages
195 - 209.
The decline in full-time B-school applicants is
now a three-year trend, as students opt for part-time, exec, and non-U.S.
programs The news for B-schools just keeps getting worse.
With interest in management education already
on the wane, the Graduate Management Admission Council today released
the results of a study that shows applications to full-time U.S. MBA
programs down for the third consecutive year.
In 2005, just 19% of full-time programs in the
U.S. reported an increase in application volume, down from 21% in 2004
and 84% in 2002, when applications reached an all-time high. The 2005
decline was the least severe of the post-2002 drop-offs -- a sign that
perhaps applications have bottomed out.
"NO DOUBT ABOUT IT." David A. Wilson, GMAC's
president and CEO, in a conference call with reporters Aug. 9 said the
number of prospective B-school applicants taking the Graduate Management
Admissions Test (GMAT) was up nearly 4% so far in 2005, an indication
that applications may rise in coming years.
B-schools are remaking their curriculums with
projects that compel students to take classroom concepts into the real
world Scott Miller, a recent alum of the University of Southern
California Marshall School of Business, has created the kind of impact
not many B-school students have. Last school year, he was one of two
students who served on the school's curriculum innovation committee. As
vice-president of student affairs for Marshall's student government,
Miller was charged with bringing student perspective into meetings with
administrators, industry executives, and professors.
The result: an almost total overhaul of the
Marshall curriculum, to go into effect when classes resume in late
August. It typifies the slew of curriculum changes B-schools are
implementing in hopes of making their programs more effective and
competitive in a tightening environment.
LOSING RELEVANCE. "At Marshall, faculty
research wasn't being brought into the classroom," says Miller.
"Students also had concerns over whether we would be able to apply what
we were learning in the classroom when we got out."
Continued in article
"Do Online MBAs Make the Grade? Their popularity is soaring, but
some are diploma mills, making recruiters wary of virtual degrees. Here are
tips for picking a good program," by Jeffry Gangemi, Business Week,
August 18, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/Gangemy
"RIPE" FOR FRAUD.
Many of the online MBA programs are well-regarded and offer a way for
busy people, such as Bolger, to get advanced education without having to
sidetrack a career for a year or two. But, as in many growing fields,
cautions abound. Concerns about "diploma mills," or substandard
institutions without proper accreditation that offer degrees with little
or no serious work, are growing.
"There are now more fake online MBA programs in the U.S. than real
ones," says Vicky Phillips, founder and CEO of
GetEducated.com,
a Web site that evaluates accredited online degree
programs and educates consumers about them. "It's an area that's ripe
for consumer fraud."
Diploma mills range from those practising outright deceit -- like St.
Regis University, which falsely asserted Liberian government approval
and was closed by court order in June, 2005 -- to organizations that
require only a modicum of work for a degree, says Alan Contreras,
administrator of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, a state
organization that approves individual degree programs. "In the case of
diploma mills, I call the schools 'suppliers' and the degree-holders
'users' because the educational component is often minimal," notes
Contreras.
CORPORATE SKEPTICS. Even with the best
programs, online students lack the means to build their professional
network or even interact in person with classmates. But the schools say
that isn't a problem.
"There's a really strong, off-the-radar network building up on its own,"
says Michael Goess, chairman of the Division of Business for Graduate
Programs at
Regis University in Denver. (Regis University
is not connected with the shuttered St. Regis school.) Goess points out
that students often arrange to meet on their own time, as well as trade
e-mails and network electronically.
Brush up your Shakespeare:
Medieval manuscripts to hit Internet Stanford University
Libraries, the University of Cambridge and
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, will make
hundreds of medieval manuscripts, dating
from the sixth through the 16th centuries,
accessible on the Internet.
"Medieval manuscripts to hit Internet,"
Stanford Report, July 13, 2005 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/july13/parker-071305.html
Thank you for the notice about the availability
of the medieval manuscripts on the Internet through the project Parker
on the Web at Stanford University. Two manuscripts are currently
available, and on page 11 of the English translation of Matthew Paris's
"English History From 1235 to 1273" I have already found references to
accounting (see below).
Accountants are still using the principle
"under whatever name it may be called" and entities are still making up
new names for inconvenient economic events in the hopes of avoiding full
disclosure.
At this Catholic liberal arts university
Shakespeare is modern, and the medieval world is revered, so I'm
interested in gaining some insight into the medieval worldview.
Barbara W. Scofield, PhD, CPA
Associate Professor of Accounting
University of Dallas
1845 E. Northgate Irving, TX 75062
Braniff 262
scofield@gsm.udallas.edu
It is the start of a new
school year, so as the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax
Reform works on its report (due by the end of September) here is
your exam on the probable economic effects of adopting a
consumption tax, one of the measures under consideration. This
is a true-false exam, but to get full credit you must explain
your answers correctly.
Q.1: A shift to a
consumption tax could increase GDP in the long run by as much as
9%.
A: True. In a pair
of studies published in 1996 and 2001 (the second with several
co-authors) I estimated the effects on the economy of an
immediate switch to a low-rate, broad-based consumption tax that
would raise the same amount of revenue as the current tax
system. We found that lower marginal tax rates would increase
employment and therefore expand production somewhat in the short
run. Over a longer period of time, production would increase
even more as the result of stronger capital accumulation induced
by the more favorable tax treatment of savings.
Q.2: Adopting a
consumption tax would raise asset values.
A: False. Adopting
a consumption tax would reduce asset values somewhat in the
short run. Such a tax eliminates the burden on saving and
investment, which is a key reason why capital accumulation would
rise. However, a consumption tax would actually increase the tax
burden on existing assets because those who have accumulated
assets in the past would face consumption taxes when selling
their assets in order to consume goods and services. The assets'
purchasing power would suffer, meaning that the real
(price-level adjusted) values of the assets would be lower than
before. This feature of the consumption tax is sometimes
referred to as a levy on "old" capital.
Q.3: Consumption
taxes are regressive.
A: False.
Consumption taxes don't have to be regressive. Yes, the share of
income consumed falls as income rises, so a tax on consumption
would tend to have a greater impact on lower-income households
than an income tax does. But there is more to the story.
First, annual income is
not an especially accurate measure of one's ability to pay. A
household's consumption tends to fluctuate less from year to
year than its income does, and in some respects offers a better
measure of a family's sustainable standard of living. Averaged
over periods longer than one year, which smoothes out
fluctuations in annual income, consumption taxes look less
regressive relative to income than they look on an annual basis.
Second, as explained
earlier, transition to a consumption tax would place an
additional burden on the owners of existing assets, which would
contribute to progressivity in the short run.
Third, a consumption tax
may have more than one rate. Some consumption taxes, like the
retail sales tax and the value added tax, are best imposed with
a single rate because taxing different commodities at different
rates is a limited and inefficient approach to achieving
progressivity. But there are other approaches to consumption
taxation that would allow much greater progressivity at both
ends of the income distribution, protecting the poor and
imposing a higher rate of tax on the well-to-do. This
progressivity comes at a cost, though, and could reduce the size
of the long-run increase in GDP by as much as half.
Q.4: Eliminating
taxes on capital income is one way to implement a consumption
tax.
A: False. Whereas
consumption taxes would place a burden on consumption financed
by the sales of existing assets (see question 2), eliminating
capital income taxes would do the opposite, providing a windfall
to owners of existing assets. Such a windfall would not only
lower progressivity (see question 3), but would also
substantially reduce potential growth effects. Providing
windfalls to existing capital costs lots of revenue. The revenue
loss could be made up only by higher taxes on future labor
income, which would reduce incentives to work. Indeed, if the
consumption tax is modified to protect old capital and to
maintain a progressive tax structure, little if any of the
potential long-run increase in output (see question 1) will
remain.
Q.5: Adopting a
consumption tax involves the elimination of interest deductions.
A: True. A
consumption tax imposes no tax burden on saving and investment.
Put another way, the tax rate on saving and investment is
effectively zero. But allowing tax-free investment returns
financed by tax-deductible interest delivers a negative tax rate
on investment, where the government subsidizes the returns to
investment rather than taxing them. Taxing returns distorts
investment decisions, but so does subsidizing them.
Q.6: Adopting a
consumption tax would hit the underground economy.
A: False. Drug
dealers and others engaged in illegal economic activity
currently evade income taxes but would have to pay taxes on
their purchases under a consumption tax. The same is true for
those engaged in legal economic activity who currently fail to
report or pay taxes on their income. But the tax evaders also
have customers, who currently pay income taxes before using
their after-tax income to make purchases. Under a consumption
tax, purchasers of illegal drugs would no longer have to pay
income tax but would evade the consumption tax. The increased
taxes on producers in the underground economy would be offset
more or less by the reduced taxes on consumers in the
underground economy.
Q.7: Adopting a
consumption tax would help reduce our trade deficit by imposing
taxes on imported goods and permitting tax-free exports.
A: False. The
trade balance would be roughly the same whether we follow the
standard approach, which implements border adjustments
(relieving the tax on exports while imposing it on imports) or
an alternative approach without border adjustments. Given the
same economic fundamentals in the U.S., border adjustments will
strengthen the dollar, putting importers and exporters in the
same competitive positions no matter which approach is adopted.
Ironically, the stronger dollar would also be good for
foreigners holding dollar-denominated assets -- the very ones
who have financed our recent trade deficits.
To sum up, not all
consumption taxes are equal. A consumption tax could increase
GDP substantially in the long run. Significant gains are
possible even if the tax system retains its current degree of
progressivity, though not if the tax reform also fully shields
existing assets. There are also other arguments for adopting a
consumption tax that have not been covered by this exam, such as
potential tax simplification. But a consumption tax would
provide no magic solutions to tax evasion or trade deficits. And
a tax system that treats assets and liabilities inconsistently
is not a consumption tax and has little to recommend it.
Mr. Auerbach is
Robert D. Burch Professor of Economics and Law, and director of
the Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance, at the
University of California, Berkeley.
I am a retired college professor
building an Accounting
Internet Library to serve the accounting community.
I recently added a free internet version of these accounting
books from the Quick Notes Learning System.
Please consider
1) using these materials in your classes
2) linking to them at your site
3) telling students and fellow teachers about them
4) adopting the paper versions for your courses
If you are looking for an old company, possibly defunct, Ed Scribner
sent an interesting set of links.
Stock and Bond Certificates, Old
An
old stock or bond certificate may still be valuable even if it no longer
trades under the name printed on the certificate. The company may have
merged with another company or simply changed its name. You can use the
resources below to find out if an old stock or bond certificate has value.
Even if you learn that a certificate has no value, you may find that the
certificate itself has value as a collectable.
These resources may be found on the Internet, at public libraries, stock
exchanges, or stockbrokers' offices. But please note that the SEC cannot
recommend or endorse any of these entities, their personnel, or their
products or services.
Scripophily.com.
The company is named after the hobby of collecting old stock and bond
certificates. For a fee,
Scripophily.com researches whether your stock or bond certificate has
any value. The company also is a large buyer and seller of collectable
certificates, with a list and images of more than 4,500 different companies.
Financial Stock Guide Service.
Published by Financial Information, Inc. since 1927, this comprehensive
guide is a good starting point for all research on old stock certificates.
This listing, updated annually, contains a directory of actively traded
stocks and obsolete securities. You can have the Custom Research department
of Financial Information research your certificate by calling (800)
367-3441.
Robert D. Fisher Manual of Valuable & Worthless Securities. Published by R.M. Smythe & Co., Inc., this is a
multi-volume resource that is particularly helpful guide if you are trying
to trace the value of very old stock certificates.
R.M. Smythe will research your certificate for a fee.
Moody's Industrial Manual and Moody's OTC Industrial Manual. Published by Mergent Company, these manuals give brief
summaries of companies' histories, backgrounds, mergers and acquisitions,
subsidiaries, principal plants, and properties. This guide is updated
annually. You can learn how to obtain a subscription to the manuals by going
online or calling (800) 342-5647.
National Stock Summary.
Published by the Pink Sheets LLC, this monthly publication summarizes all
over-the-counter and inactive listed stock offerings. It also includes the
recent prices of such securities, as they have appeared either in the
national daily quotation services or in the leading daily newspapers and
financial periodicals. The
Pink Sheets will research your certificate for a fee.
I was wondering if anyone might be able to help
me respond to the following question I received from a student:
"I had a quick question concerning Chapter 1.
The text states that consulting is the area of highest growth for public
accounting firms. Isn't that misleading considering that most firms gave
up their consulting business to conform with SOX?"
I was trying to look for some up to date stats
on what percentage of the Big 4's revenues are audit versus non-audit,
and how that percentage has changed over the past 2-3 years. Any
suggestions? Thanks,
Jim Borden
Villanova University
August 26, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Jim,
I’m not a whole lot of help on this,
and I would appreciate it if you would let me know what you find
out. You might put this one out to the AECM.
I currently do not have great free
sources of this information. It is likely to be available to
subscribers at
http://www.auditanalytics.com/
As of February 8, 2001, KPMG Consulting, Inc. is an independent
consulting company and no longer affiliated with KPMG LLP.
Hence, KPMG's subsequent non-tax advisory services exclude
consulting revenues of KCIN.
You can download KPMG’s 2004 Annual
Report
from http://www.us.kpmg.com/microsite/attachments/IAR_04.pdf
On Page 43 of that report, I'm a bit surprised that audit revenues
in 2004 slipped to only 48% of total revenue whereas non-tax
advisory services hit 29% of the $13.44 billion in revenue after
selling off its consulting division.
Similarly, KPMG
reported its 2003 non-tax advisory revenues as 27% of its $$11.16
billion in total revenues. The Accounting Today article reports
zero KPMG consulting revenues such that I find it hard to reconcile
the 27% versus 0%. Since the Accounting Today article reports
KPMG's revenue as 67% for audit and 33% from tax, it would appear
that non-tax advisory services have all been declared auditing
revenue by Accounting Today. This makes no sense to me.
It would appear
that the Accounting Today article greatly understates what the Big
Four firms today really earn from non-tax advisory services.
From at least 1994 until about May 25, 2000, when EY sold its
Management Consulting Group ("Consulting"), EY was a "Big Six"
accounting firm organized as a limited liability partnership
that referred to itself as a leading professional services firm.
(EY Findings of Fact at 2)
Ernst & Young LLP, SEC No-Action Letter, [2000
Transfer Binder] Fed. Sec. L. Rep. (CCH) ¶ 77,863 (May 25,
2000). In the period 1996 to 2000, EY had 70,000 to 80,000
employees, annual revenues of $6 to $12 billion, and offices in
700 locations in 130 countries. (March 25, 2003, Tr. 96; Div.
Exs. 169 at 032052, 413 at 036204, 514 at 040028.) EY's
organizational structure was matrix-based, not hierarchical, and
it operated on a very decentralized basis. (April 1, 2003, Tr.
123, April 2, 2003, Tr. 84.) The organization consisted of a
management committee, a chief executive officer or senior
partner, several deputy partners, separate leadership for the
practice areas of audit, tax, and consulting, and, at a lower
level, regional or area structures. (April 1, 2003, Tr. 127.)
EY's national office was spread geographically over EY's twelve
regions. (March 25, 2003, Tr. 178.)
EY's audit revenues increased at a much slower pace than
revenues from both tax and consulting as shown by figures for
two years, 1994 and 1999.
Obviously tax
consulting has been a huge recent problem for KPMG that has spilled
over into the auditing profession in general. You might read KPMG’s
recent statement about this at
http://www.us.kpmg.com/news/index.asp?cid=1872
It says KPMG no longer provides the “services in question,” but is
somewhat vague as to what tax advisory services have been
eliminated.
The primary factor driving this is disposals of consulting. By 2000 both
Andersen and E&Y had disposed of the consulting practices. Deloitte &
Touche still has its consulting practice, so its decline in consulting
may best capture the effects of SOX. The percentage of revenue from
consulting did increase dramatically during the 90s, and at one time was
the largest source of revenue for most of the Big 5. Tax is not included
in these percentages, and is about a third of revenue for the Big 4. The
change is that partners tell me that only a third of this work is for
audit clients, down from fifty percent before SOX.
The second tier national firms earn about 20% of their revenue from
consulting, and this is down only slightly. Regional firms earn around
25% of their revenue from consulting, and this is steady.
Randy
*****************************************
Randy Elder
Associate Professor and Director
Joseph I. Lubin School of Accounting
Martin J. Whitman School of Management
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY 13244-2130
Email:
rjelder@som.syr.edu
August 27, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Randy,
There may be some problem with what is defined
as "consulting." For example, in the Year 2003 your Accounting Today
table reports 5% of total revenues from non-tax consulting in PwC. The
2004 annual report from PwC, however, reports non-tax "advisory" service
revenue at around 17% for both Years 2003 and 2004. I don't know why
there is a difference of 17%-5% = 12%.
Similarly, KPMG reported its 2003 non-tax
advisory revenues as 27% of its $$11.16 billion in total revenues.
The Accounting Today article reports zero consulting revenues
such that I find it hard to reconcile the 27% versus 0%. Since the
Accounting Today article reports KPMG's revenue as 67% for audit and 33%
from tax, it would appear that non-tax advisory services have all been
declared auditing revenue by Accounting Today. This makes
no sense to me.
Let's
begin with Year 2000. Your Accounting Today table only
leaves 17% of revenue from audit services after you deduct 50% from
consulting services and 33% from tax services. Of course that was in the
Year 2000. It's small wonder why the big auditing firms love the
tremendous surge in audit revenues arising from SOX.
It's also small wonder why quality of auditing dropped in the 1990s
with much of this quality decline arising from cutbacks in costly detail
testing in audits. The firms were trying to make auditing more
profitable.
There is rising sympathy these days for the old Andersen firm when we
hear bleeding heart speeches from former partners, but it’s my opinion
that the Arthur Andersen firm led the pack in reducing audit quality and
probably got what it deserved. Enron and Worldcom were merely the
culminations of years of bad auditing. The problem was not so much with
staff auditors as it was with their managing partners who were willing
to sacrifice both integrity and quality to keep an audit client and make
a huge profit on audit-consulting-tax services for that client. It's
hard to weep for the audit partners who were cutting corners and
expounding ethics and professionalism at the same time. The
Andersen firm looks especially bad in the new book called Conspiracy
of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald (Broadway Books, 2005).
In the Year 2004 in PwC, the revenues flip flopped to a reported 17%
from consulting and 50% from "assurance" services. The lion's share,
although not all, of that 50% arises from financial audits. By 2004, PwC
had sold its consulting practice to IBM and then rebuilt its own
consulting (non-tax advisory) services back up to 17% of revenues ---
http://www.pwc.com/extweb/aboutus.nsf/docid/8f6f5cb458a82d4c85256f350064cd9d
SOX enabled the large firms to charge much more for audits. Of course
costs have also mounted and litigation exposure is probably greater. The
firms are settling lawsuits in ever-increasing amounts ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#others
For example, by the time legal costs and settlements are paid in
KPMG's admitted tax criminality, the cost will approach $1 billion.
That's an enormous amount of money to spread over 6,500 partners in
KPMG. And this is only one of the many settlements that KPMG faces in
the future ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#KPMG
A large share of lawsuit settlements are paid from insurance, but
insurance companies are not in business to lose money. Eventually, those
insurance settlements are returned to insurance companies in future
premiums.
Bob Jensen
August 27, 2005 added reply from Bob Jensen
Hi again Jim Borden,
In digging for trends in revenue from "consulting" among the big
auditing firms, I forgot to weigh in on why I think three of the four of
the firms sold their consulting practices. Your (Jim Borden's) initial
question that set us off on this was whether the sales of the consulting
practices in E&Y, PwC, and KPMG were due to new SOX regulations.
My answer on this is NO! I think the decisions to sell predated SOX.
In my own opinion sales the consulting divisions were mainly an
effort to stay in the auditing business after Enron imploded and serious
questions were raised about independence of auditors as well as poor
quality of auditing ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#Professionalism
SOX is a compromise in an immense crisis that could have resulted in
putting all audit and accounting standard setting in the hands of the
SEC, breakups of the big auditing firms, and/or even taking auditing out
of the private sector. The sales of the consulting divisions helped the
legislature to reach a compromise.
There was also some feeling within the firms that it was good timing
to sell since the bursting of the 1990s technology bubble was going to
make consulting, at least in the short run, less profitable. It was a
good time to cash in the chips. Consulting has always been more risky
than auditing in the sense that CPA firms do not have the legal monopoly
on consulting that they have on audit certification.
When you look at the rapid rise of consulting revenue and profits in
the 1990s, it is tempting to ask why the firms didn't sell the auditing
sides of the business and stay in consulting. Firstly, I doubt that
there were any buyers for audit divisions other than one of the other
large auditing firms, and further consolidation into say one, two, or
even three mega-auditing firms would have been frowned upon by the FTC
and corporate clients.
Secondly, the true decision making power in the large accounting
firms was still in the hands of the older auditors who had little where
else to go relative to their young whippersnapper information systems
consultants.
Thirdly, we have seen that the big firms managed to sell their
consulting divisions at enormous gains while at the same time managed to
start out anew building new advisory services that in some, but not all,
cases compete. There were no lifetime sales contracts not to compete. As
you can see from the 2004 PwC annual report, non-tax advisory services
have leapt back into action after selling the non-tax advisory service
division to IBM.
What SOX has done is change who your advisory service customer can be
if you also are the external auditor for that customer. Some types of
advisory services are verboten under SOX, particularly consulting on
information systems that you also audit. That practice enjoyed by
Andersen in Enron is strictly forbidden (well sort of strictly depending
upon certain definitions) under SOX. What we now have is PwC advising
E&Y audit clients, E&Y advising PwC audit clients, and every other
permutation of four firms taken two at a time.
It's all a bit too pat as far as I'm concerned, especially when
clients are encouraged to frequently change auditors. How can they find
a new auditor who has not been paid to help build their information
system and its internal controls?
But auditing firms cannot blame SOX. They should, and are, praising
SOX like the holy grail.
Bob Jensen
August 27, 2005 reply from Randy Elder
Bob,
I agree there are potential measurement issues
in the Accounting Today data, but the data I provided fairly well
captures the trend in consulting revenue.
I also agree with you on the connection between
nonaudit services and the reduction in audit testing. Academic research
in this area has largely focused on whether nonaudit services impacted
auditor independence. Not surprisingly, most of this research has found
little or no relation between the extent of nonaudit services and
earnings management measures and audit opinions. The larger problem was
that firms were reducing testing in an attempt to make auditing as
profitable as consulting.
As for the sales of consulting practices, most
of them preceded SOX and even the SEC restrictions on consulting. Many
academics are unaware that SOX largely codifies SEC restrictions on
nonaudit services adopted in 2000. The consulting practice sales largely
reflect that it was a good time to get out when the market was high.
However, it is also true that as consulting grew firms were increasingly
finding themselves with conflicts of interest.
Randy
Year 2005 American Accounting Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco
August 5-10, 2005 The AAA meetings were very good this year except for the first plenary
session. Bravo to Tracey, Dee, and their helpers for great logistics. The Hilton
did a great job. Bravo to Jane and her helpers for a great program.
I think Katherine's plenary (Tuesday) session on disclosures will be
posted by the AAA. Katherine made reference to quite a lot of academic
research. She might also make her PowerPoint file available at the FASB.
I hope the AAA will also post Denny's terrific luncheon speech. If not, I
think Denny will share it in some way with all of us on the AECM.
A highlight of the meetings for me was the XBRL workshop conducted by
Glen, Roger, and Skip. Eric Cohen also participated with a great demo of
Rivet Software's Dragon Tag software which finally makes it possible to
teach XBRL hands on to students.
Another highlight was the great debate between Katherine Schipper (for
fair value accounting) versus more negative positions taken by Ross Watts
and Zoe-Vanna Palmrose. All three did a great (actually unforgettable) job
on Monday afternoon.
This 2005 AAA meeting set a record with nearly 2,700 registrations plus
over 500 registered guests. This topped the previous record which was also
set in San Francisco some years ago. Such a registration number is very high
considering that there are only about 8,000 worldwide members of the AAA ---
http://aaahq.org/about/financials/KeyIndicators8_31_04.PDF
I returned to Trinity University from New Hampshire today. Trinity is
still seeking somebody to fill my chair (the Jesse H. Jones Distinguished
Professor of Business Chair) after I retire in May 2006. Anyone interested
in applying should contact Dan Walz at 210-999-7289 or dwalz@trinity.edu I
am very grateful to have had the privilege to fill it for 24 years.
ProQuest, Lexis-Nexis, and EBSCO Host are my
sources for collecting XBRL articles. If I missed anything or you want
me to include a specific article, please send me an e-mail.
-- Dr. Saeed Roohani
PricewaterhouseCoopers XBRL Fellow
PwC Accounting Careers Leadership Institute,
Co-director Global XBRL Academic Competition Program Chair
College of Business Bryant University
1150 Douglas Pike Smithfield, RI 02917
I agree that some of the annual meeting
sessions mentioned already were quite good this year, but for me, the
clear highlight of the convention was the policy speech given by new AAA
president Judy Rayburn at the Wednesday luncheon.
Judy made a strong case for expanding the scope
and volume of the AAA journal set by using comparisons to publication
trends and citation trends in management, marketing, and finance. She
also mentioned some specific AAA committee work that was going to assess
these matters. Judy finished by coming down to the floor and answering
all individual questions on rather difficult matters such as the
acceptability of research paradigms from other countries and
disciplines, and the effect of expansion on AAA section journals.
Many attendees did not have a ticket to the
Wednesday luncheon, but I am sure Judy's slides will be made available
to all.
Bill McCarthy
Michigan State
August 15, 2005 reply from Ali Mohammad J. Abdolmohammadi
I agree with Bill. While I found many
presentations to be excellent this year, I was particularly impressed
with Judy Rayburn's luncheon policy speech on Wednesday. I found the
speech to be honest and gutsy. My nonscientific observation of the crowd
was that the speech resonated well with the majority. It'll take a lot
of hard work to make serious changes to the current publication culture
of AAA journals, but it is well worth trying.
August 17, 2005 message from Judy Rayburn, 2005-2006 President of the
American Accounting Association
Thank you to Bill, Ali and Jim for the positive
feedback regarding my Wednesday luncheon speech.
Jim raises several good questions. Here are
some thoughts and additional questions about each topic, to which I hope
others, will add their perspective. I have shortened question 5 here.
1. Would acceptance of a couple of articles
from sectional journals reduce the status of the sectional journals?
Would this cheapen the acceptability of sectional journals for promotion
and tenure?
This is a very serious issue. Suppose in the
future TAR annually published two or three of the best articles that
currently appear in some of the section journals. I think we all agree
(??) that TAR would then be more representative of the breadth of
accounting research and thus more influential in the global accounting
research community. It would build the value of the TAR and AAA brands,
which are the valuable intellectual assets of all members of the AAA. We
sell the TAR brand in the publication marketplace for a very good price,
lowering the dues of all (even if they still seem high ? the efficiency
of the AAA publication process has been of great concern to the
Executive Committee for the last 5-6 years and is the topic of another
thread I think). So, from the perspective of our brand value, I think
the idea of expanding TAR is a good one. Right now the section journals,
although there is some variance, do not have anywhere near the value of
TAR in the publication marketplace. Notice this is the outcome of the
marketplace and not within the control of any of us individually. If the
value of the section journals were to fall with the removal of two or
three articles per year ? this implies that the sections do not have a
few more high quality articles to replace them. This raises the
possibility that the AAA overall has its intellectual capital spread too
thinly over too many journals. That is a painful conclusion and I hope
that it is incorrect, but it could be true ? what do you think? Did
section journals arise in the first place because TAR did not provide
access to the research of the section?
2. I interpret your thoughts using my own lens
but did you appeal for more relevant work with more obvious immediate
implications for practice. Should some new, but not exclusive, criteria
be 'relevance to society' and 'moving thought forward? whether it be
statistically verifiable or not?
Way to go right to the philosophical heart of
the matter, Jim. What is the purpose of the U.S. Accounting Academy? It
must be to contribute to the social welfare and advance knowledge in our
field. As an aside, isn?t this the heart of the matter with NASBA, that
we are an academic academy and must set our own curriculum? At this
time, many are questioning the path taken by business schools and their
research agendas (for example, see the Harvard Business Review article
by Bennis and O?Toole in May 2005). Maybe it is time for an assessment
of where we stand after the last 40 years of accounting research. Yet
your phrase, whether it be statistically verifiable or not, goes too
far, I think. We do need to be concerned with the credentialing ability
of our research in tenure decisions at our institutions. Is this a
trade-off or not? Do finance and economics manage to do both at once?
3. While editors set the tone and select
reviewers it is the reviewers that determine the acceptability of the
research. Do we need to add some new reviewer processes to TAR? Should
we have three reviewers for some papers? The third reviewer would a
nonacademic professional charged with examining the relevance and the
thought moving criteria but not necessarily the methodology.
I do not think we need nonacademic reviewers
for TAR. However, we may need a broader set of Associate Editors so that
sections are adequately represented. Be sure to let the AAA
VP-Publications and the Publication Committee know your thoughts. Also
we could definitely refocus Accounting Horizons on its original mission
of tying the academic to the professional accounting community.
4. Is it possible to increase the stature of
the existing 'so-called' tier two journals and leave the reviewing
process as is? Is this really something we can influence? Would this be
an alternative strategy to achieve your goals? Should this strategy be
combined with your suggestions?
See thought under number 1 above.
5. Finally, a more nebulous insight may be my
concern. The impact of the stress on empirical studies in TAR on the
doctoral programs is particularly disturbing to me. I think this is an
issue the AAA needs to address. OTHER than research methodology what is
the doctoral qualifying knowledge base for doctoral students? SHOULD the
AAA consider a task force to examine the doctoral process? WOULD an
important contribution be for the AAA be to identify and support the
creation of 2-4 doctoral level remote learning graduate courses? This
could be interactive, suggested topics, notes, include a discussion
board etc. Perhaps each AAA section could be responsible for at least
one doctoral level course each? FINALLY, these courses would be
available to ALL AAA members. They may not be able to participate but
they could at least observe and have access to the contents. The
implications for self-learners and faculty challenged by the publication
process I think are obvious. THE OPPORTUNITY FOR GLOBAL participation is
exciting!
There is a PhD Task force concerning the supply
of PhD students. I will communicate your idea for a general review of
Doctoral Studies in accounting to the Executive Committee. I think it is
a good one. Several sections of the AAA are running their own doctoral
consortiums ? maybe we could do more sharing of doctoral training
opportunities.
First, I would also like to commend and thank
you for your luncheon presentation at AAA. I originally thought what
could they possibly have on the last day of the conference? But I am
glad I went and listened to what you said.
I would like to take exeception and share my
opinions related to points 1 and 4, the section journals. I have worked
with manuscripts related to the Auditing journal, BRIA, JIS, JETA, and
API (you can tell I am not in tax). My opinion about the review process
and quality of manuscripts published is that they are generally of very
high quality. When I went to the New Scholar Consortium a few years ago
in VA, I remember a highly visible researcher from Texas indicating to
us to try and get into each of the "top tier" journals and then add some
section journal hits on the side. From what I have heard from people at
great universities such as Minnesota and Texas, that seems to be the
mantra. Recent research has indicated less than 20% of all accounting
Ph.D.'s who have graduated from I believe 1970 have published in 1 of
the 3 top tier journals. I don't know what the number is in Finance and
other disciplines, but it shows the difficulty in publishing in those
outlets. Add to the fact that individuals like myself are behaviorally
oriented and not from a "major" research school, and it is next to
impossible to fulfill publication. After all, 2 of the journals are not
blind reviewed. Many of the articles, at least in recent years, in those
2 non-blind journals have come from Associate Editor authors or
co-authors.
But I digress, since these are not AAA
journals. My other point is that there seems to be something, maybe a
bit of snobbery, against the section journals from too many schools
(reference my earlier comment about the speaker). Why? No research is
perfect. There have been weaknesses in articles in TAR, just like BRIA.
But I still believe in the quality of both journals. To me, there is not
such a wide hole between TAR and section journal quality (generally
speaking) you eluded to earlier. Does anybody else feel this way or am I
the only one?
In closing, I think that when I target AAA
section journals for a manuscript, I am shooting for a difficult journal
to gain acceptance. If you look at Cabell's, you see the same acceptance
rate than for TAR. I feel proud potentially getting my main dissertation
paper in a section journal, because I know people who are in the section
and work with the journal. These are quality researchers and academics.
That's just my opinion.
I have a suggestion that I feel could be a much
more effective way for the AAA to deal with the relative disadvantage
that accounting scholars have in publishing in top-level ['A' level]
journals. This disadvantage was documented in Judy Rayburn's luncheon
meeting where she presented slides showing that TAR publishes from about
one third to one half of the number of research articles as are
published by similar organizations in finance, marketing and management.
The main strategy being pursued by the AAA is to add a fifth issue of
TAR in 2006 and a sixth issue in 2007 or 2008. Although I agree that
adding one or two issues of TAR will help somewhat, its impact will
actually be quite small. For the next two years this would amount to
only a couple of articles per year for all faculty that publish research
in each of the areas that have been under represented in TAR [assuming
this additional space would actually be devoted to this type of
research!].
Unfortunately, I believe this will have the impact of lowering the
perceived and actual quality of the section journals. It certainly was
my experience as editor of Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory
(AJPT) that the research at the margin that was not published was
generally of lower quality compared with the articles that were at the
top and I doubt that this has changed.
If we have a more difficult time arguing that the section journals are
at least 'A- level' [or whatever the almost-top quality level is
labeled], on the whole, the current AAA strategy may make it more
difficulty for non-mainstream faculty to achieve tenure or meet other
various performance targets that relate to publication. Certainly, such
a dilution effect would be an unintended, but possible consequence of
the AAA strategy.
What seems to me to be a more effective strategy would be to incorporate
the section journals that meet quality standards within TAR and publish
them as TAR issues. This could be achieved by doing something similar to
what the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE] does,
that is, publishing an AAA research journal titled TAR but with
subheadings depicting areas of research. Most of these would be
published regularly, for example:
* The Accounting Review: Issues in Financial Accounting
* The Accounting Review: Research on Auditing & Assurance
* The Accounting Review: Research on Management Accounting &
Control
* The Accounting Review: Transactions on Regulation
* The Accounting Review: Behavioral Research in Accounting
* Etc.
*
Additionally, some special issues could be published as particular
areas, issues, and overlapping areas surfaced, for example:
* The Accounting Review: Research on Corporate Governance and
Safeguards
* The Accounting Review: Transactions on XBRL
* The Accounting Review: Research on Sustainability and the GRI
* Etc.
The IEEE currently published 15 'technical' journals and I believe they
all are highly rated and all offer opportunities for scholars to publish
high quality research. In fact, according to the IEEE website, the "IEEE
Publishes 18 of the Top 20 Journals in Electrical & Electronics
Engineering". This certainly is an aspiration the AAA should strive for.
As a start, the AAA could take TAR plus say the section journals that
are assessed to be high quality [say those currently indexed], and
integrate them into one top-rated AAA publication. This would clearly
have a major impact! To my knowledge, the section journals in audit, tax
and managerial would probably qualify. And other section journals could
be given the opportunity to raise their quality [if they are already not
there] and be added.
August 18, 2005 reply from Jagdish Gangolly
Ted,
I like your idea very much. However, I have a
few suggestions. I'll give my reasons below.
There is a need for the following journals in
accounting:
1. A journal devoted to BASIC (or rather
FUNDAMENTAL or THEORETICAL) research in accounting.
2. A Journal devoted to the application of
the results of basic research to problems that professionals must
deal with in the "real" world. Of necessity, there is a need for a
raft of journals for this, since we have built stovepipes into which
each of us self-select for intellectual and economic reasons.
3. A Journal to disseminate the results of
both 1 and 2 above to the academia as well as the profession.
4. A journal to provide a forum for
fruitful exchange of ideas between the academia and the profession.
Most associations that I belong to (ACM,
IEEE-CS, AIS, ACL,...) have this view. For example, in ACM we have
1. Journal of ACM 2. Well over a dozen
Transactions and specialised journals 3. Computing Surveys/Computing
Reviews 4. Communications of the ACM
I put the question marks for 1, since TAR has
implicitly claimed the position eventhough the membership expectations,
as I understand it, is far more. Over the past 30 years or so, TAR has
become quite narrow in its emphasis, rather theocratic in the
methodology, and less forgiving (and consequently less
innovative/creative) in deviations from the "received" dogma -- at least
that is my reading.
I agree with Bob about accounting research, so
I am not sure there is enough basic work done in accounting to justify a
category 1 journal at this point in time.
That being the case, I would suggest that
Accounting Horizons perform the function to stimulate fundamental
research in accounting so that at some point in the future a category 1
journal can be functional.
TAR by now has accumulated sufficient baggage
to be the unifying publication that AAA membership can rally around. TAR
can probably morph into AAA Transactions on Financial Reporting in the
same way there would be other Transactions for the various sections. (I
would not consider TAR even T on Financial ACCOUNTING, for accounting is
far too broad in scope relative to its present content).
Unfortunately, I missed the presentation by
Professor Rayburn, and would love to read the transcripts of the speech
or the underlying paper/presentation. I hope it would be widely
available.
I can appreciate your frustration, but I do not
agree that frustration makes a conference a "rip off." I too, find it
frustrating to when I request a paper only not to receive even a reply.
However, many times I do get the paper in a somewhat timely fashion.
This year, a fair amount of the papers were available full text on the
AAA conference Web site.
I can tell you that I have stopped bringing
more than 1 hardcopy of my papers to conferences. It gets very heavy
transporting thick stacks of papers across the country, when I have so
many other items to bring. What I did this year was put my presentation
papers on a jump drive and bring the drive to the conference. If a
requesting party did not have a laptop to transfer the files (which I
voluntarily shared), then I took their business card and timely emailed
the paper to them (ask Som at FAU or Peter at Rutgers).
In sum, I believe that those who present should
be willing to share their research; if not at the conference itself,
then in a timely manner. However, we cannot force them to do so. Calling
entire AAA conferences "rip offs" because of some individuals unwilling
to share their ideas is overstating things in my humble opinion. There
were I believe over 100 concurrent sessions (plus a significant number
of forum papers) during this past AAA meeting. My bet would be the vast
majority would share if asked. I qualify my opinion to only my
experiences/beliefs. I have only been attending AAA conferences for
about 7 years. I realize many of the AECMers have been attending for far
longer than that and respect those opinions as well.
My hope is the next time you go, your request
will be obliged. It benefits us all.
Regards,
Rob Pinsker
Old Dominion University
August 20, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Thanks Judy!
Apart from the content of Judy Rayburn's recent
communications on the AECM, I want to assert that she's the first
current or former President of the American Accounting Association to
send a message to the hundreds (possibly over 1,000 by now) accounting
educators around the world who subscribe to the AECM. I may be wrong
here, but I can't recall any messaging from a current or former
President of the AAA.
In fact she's the first President to acknowledge
that she's been a lurker on the AECM and stays tuned into our
ramblings. I'm not implying that all current and former AAA officers
are not on the AECM. I was even a VP years ago, and I'm "slightly"
active on the AECM. Former AAA Presidents have never revealed any
interest in AECM communications, even when we had a flood of active
communications on one serious matter that affected the 2003 Executive
Committee of AAA. Note the absence of AAA Executive Committee messages
countering the AECM communications in "Threads on the American
Accounting Executive Committee Ill-Fated Decision to Cease Publication
of Accounting Horizons and Issues in Accounting Education" ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AAAjournals.htm
(Our 2005-2006 President Elect, Shyam Sunder, did send a May 31, 2003
message, although he was not on the 2003 Executive Committee at the
time).
I think a whole lot of the communications gaps
in accounting research could be bridged if more of the leading empirical
and analytical researchers in accounting spoke up on the AECM. I
especially referring to those who received the AAA's highest research
awards (seminal contribution awards and notable contribution awards).
It's unfair to accuse any individual for not contributing to the AECM
messaging. But is also unfortunate that top AAA research award winners
and most scholars who publish in our top-rated empirical/analytical
journals as a group remain silent and probably ignore us altogether.
(And yes Richard Sansing, I appreciate that you are an exception.)
It's nice to see Judy building this first bridge
as an AAA President. Other leaders and top researchers that want to
build bridges can do so by contributing to what I think is the only
international accounting educator listserv ---
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/
Bob Jensen
August 24, 2005 message from Bob Jensen
At the annual
American Accounting Association meetings in San Francisco, the
2005-2006 President, Judy Rayburn from the University of Minnesota,
gave a luncheon speech about the State of the AAA. The AAA is not
in the best of shape and comparisons are made with other academic
associations in business studies such as finance and management.
See
http://aaahq.org/AM2005/menu.htm
What is especially
interesting is the current populist movement going on in the AAA.
It is built upon the argument that the AAA journals and meeting
programs became too detached from the accounting profession and
problems within the profession. There is a strong movement rising
to change the editorial biases of the AAA’s top journals that have
been tightly controlled by Popperian positivists demanding great
rigor in empirical and analytical studies. One problem is that such
demands for rigor have limited researchers to rather uninteresting
problems that derive outcomes of little surprise or interest.
Fraudulent Conferences that Rip Off Colleges: Do you
really want to participate in these frauds? I've written about this before, but I want to elaborate. Academics
either unwittingly or willingly sometimes allow themselves to get caught up in
fraudulent "conferences." Spam is on the rise for these frauds. The
degree of fraudulence varies. At worst, there is no conference and
organizers merely charge an exorbitant fee that allows the paper to be
"refereed" and published in a conference proceedings, thereby giving a
professor a "publication." See
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/Humanist/v18/0633.html
Even when the conferences meet, they may be fraudulent.
Generally these conferences are held in places where professors like to travel
in Europe, South America, Latin America, Las Vegas, Canada, the Virgin Islands,
or other nice locations for vacations that accompany a trip to a conference paid
for by a professor's employer. The professor gets credit for a
presentation and possibly a publication in the conference proceedings.
But wait a minute! Here are some warning signs for a
fraudulent conference:
Even though there is a high registration fee, there are no
conference-hosted receptions, luncheons, or plenary sessions. The
conference organizer is never called to account for the high registration
fee. The organizer may allude to the cost of meeting rooms in a hotel,
but often the meeting rooms are free as long as the organizer can guarantee
a minimum number of guests who will pay for rooms in the hotel.
All or nearly all submissions are accepted for presentation.
The only participants in most presentation audiences are
generally other presenters assigned to make a presentation in the same time
slot. There is virtually no non-participating audience. Hence
only a few people are in the room and each of them take turns making a
presentation. Most are looking at their watches and hoping to get out
of the room as soon as possible.
Presenters present their papers and then disappear for the
rest of the conference. There is virtually no interaction among all
conference presenters.
The papers presented are often journal rejects that are
cycled conference after conference if the professor can find a conference
that will accept anything submitted on paper. Check the dates on the
references listed for each paper. Chances are the papers have few if
any references from the current decade.
These conferences are almost always held in popular tourist
locations and are often scheduled between semesters for the convenience of
adding vacation time to the trip. They are especially popular in the
summer.
I was about to be fleeced by one such conference
cheat claiming himself some Dr.----. generally organizes conferences at
almost all the exotic locations of US, Cancun, Venice etc. This organizer
double blind peer reviewed my submission (almost 35-40 pages) within 52
hours! Asked for per page charges if required to be placed in "proceedings"
which happens to be a CD-ROM. This organizer has also got 4-5 journals which
can ultimately accommodate any paper written from any angle of any sphere of
business. You may get into any journal of your choice which will claim to be
"double blind peer reviewed'!
I wish there should be some agency of regulators
who can tame them. These people are bogus, there conferences are bogus and
often I feel that what will be the face of a person who will come out and
claim a paper presented and published in such bogus outlet to be considered
suitable for tenure and promotion!
Jagdish Pathak, PhD
Guest Editor- Managerial Auditing Journal (Special Issue)
Associate Professor of Accounting & Systems Accounting & Finance Area
Odette School of Business
University of Windsor 401 Sunset Windsor, N9B 3P4, ON Canada
August 17, 2005 reply from David Albrecht
My answer is at the bottom of the paper, but
please read my supporting argument.
Generally speaking I am not in favor of my
department funding conference presentations for other faculty. I just
don't think much is gained from it, and it is a very expensive CV line.
I'd say that a lot of sponsored conferences haven't distinguished
themselves from the rip-offs. However, the research-oriented faculty at
my school are funded to attend conferences and conference presentations
are the name of the game. So like it or not, I have to play the game.
But are quality conferences, such as AAA
conferences, a rip-off? Is the phrase quality conference an oxymoron for
the AAA? Here's my experience at the recent AAA in San Francisco. Tell
me what you think.
I'm really upset with people making
presentations, but then refusing by their actions to share their paper
with members of the audience. I attended research presentations at eight
of the nine time slots in SF, and tried to surf over to a simultaneous
session a couple of times. In all of the sessions I attended, only 2 of
30 presenters had copies of the paper to distribute. The responsible
presenters (both in education-related sessions) were Freddie Choo and
the co-authoring team of Elizabeth Haywood, Dorothy McMullen and Donald
Wygal. In the non-education related sessions I attended, there were no
available copies of any paper. I then had to approach each presenter
afterward and ask for a copy of the paper to be sent to me (seems
reasonable that they would be available, as the papers had to be
submitted 8-9 months in advance). Not one of the non-education
presenters has sent anything to me. This is my usual experience. A few
years ago I asked for a copy of a conference paper, and was assured that
I would be sent one. Stereotypically, I received an e-mail two years
later informing me that the paper was now available in some journal's
most recent edition, and I was free to track it down. Of course, I was
thanked for my interest in the paper.
Most of the time when someone says that I will
sent a copy of the paper, it is an empty promise apparently designed to
get rid of me. I hardly ever get one.
If one of the purposes of the AAA is to share
research, then why are most of the presenters so proprietary and
reluctant to share details? I don't think that much knowledge is shared
when a presenter makes a very brief presentation using ineffective
public speaking methods and then has no copy of the paper to share.
I've attended three conferences so far this
year, two of which I had to pay for myself. In the Ohio AAA regional (BGSU
paid for this one) there were no copies available, but Tim Fogarty was
very good in sending me a copy of each of his papers presented. I
learned so much from actually reading the papers. At a second
conference, I think I was the only presenter at the conference to bring
copies for attendees. I asked a few people for a copy his/her paper, but
I have yet to be sent one. In the third conference, the SF AAA, I
haven't received any requested papers from any concurrent session
presenter* except for Tom Buttross, and his paper is education-related.
The teaching-related forums put on by the T&C
section (the best section of the AAA, IMHO) were good, and it's my guess
that about 20% had some write-up or paper to share at the forums. I
picked up material there from Torben Thomson, the co-authoring team of
Graeme Dean, Sandra Van Der Laan and Cameron Esslemont, the co-authoring
team of Patsy Lee, Cheryl Prachyl and Carol Sullivan, the team of Gary
Siegel & Gail Kucuiba, the team of Paul Mihalek, Milo Peck and Patricia
Poli, the team of Elsie Ameen, Daryl Guffey and Cynthia Jackson, the
team of Violet Rogers and Aileen Smith, the team of Michael Garner,
Karen Papke-Shields, Ellen Pettingill and Denise Rotondo, and the sole
author Christie Johnson. Well, maybe the rate is closer to 10%.
Following the conference, I've received
materials from teaching forum participants George Schmelzle, Wendy Tietz,
Gail Kucuiba, Yan Bao and Angela Lee. If I've misclassified anyone, I'm
sorry.
My point is, the lid seems to be open for
people eager to share their teaching ideas, but when it comes to the
research-oriented presenters I'm SOL. Ironic, given that the major
reason I attended AAA was to get caught up on financial reporting and
auditing research ideas. Oh, I got my money's worth from the people
mentioned above (as well as Thomas Calderon and Denny Beresford), but I
really wish the conference would have been more research-oriented.
So, are AAA conferences rip-offs? Not entirely,
but pretty much so. And since I spend my own money to attend them, I'm
much less likely to attend one in the future.
Although I agree that a paper should be
available to you, I do not agree that the paper should be available in
paper form. Rather, the links to the papers should be provided by the
author. Requiring the author to haul papers to the conference is
unreasonable, imo, but I think the authors should provide a handout with
the title of the paper, the abstract, author information, and a link to
the paper. As Bob Jensen mentioned in an earlier posting, an author can
easily put a file on his/her web server. Personally, I would prefer to
see links to the papers on an electronic version of the AAA program, but
many argue that such availability could be construed to be a
“publication” of the paper. I find this reasoning suspect because no one
has a problem with SSRN postings.
I missed this AAA conference for the first time
in years, and I really regret not being able to go. I find the meetings
very useful, not only for the various sessions, but also from a
networking perspective. This year, I heard there were also excellent CPE
sessions. Far from being a “rip-off,” the AAA annual meeting is a
valuable resource that takes incredible time on the part of the faculty
volunteers who organize that meeting with the help of the AAA staff.
Amy Dunbar
UConn
August 18, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi David,
Although I disagree with the general negativism of your opinions
about the AAA annual meetings, I will begin with one item of support.
Years ago when these meetings were held in San Diego, a CD recording
company recorded every session (concurrent sessions to panel discussions
to luncheons to plenary sessions). The company had a booth were
participants could buy the CD after each session at a rather modest cost
The sad part was that there was almost no demand to buy the CDs,
especially the CDs from the research presentation sessions. The
reasons for this are unknown. My own conclusion is that this is no
fault of the AAA. The problem is accounting research itself.
Most of it is just not very interesting whether or not it is presented
at an AAA meeting.
The CD recording company lost a bundle on this venture and since then
no effort is made to record AAA meeting sessions other than occasional
plenary and luncheon sessions that are captured by the AAA itself on
video as part of the projection system for large audiences.
There is a general lack of interest in accounting research. Amy
mentioned the SSRN working paper series ---
http://www.ssrn.com/ . The big
sellers in SSRN are economics and finance papers. Demand for
accounting research is dismal, especially when you factor out those
papers billed as accounting papers that are economics research papers in
accounting clothing. I can't get the ranking system to work this
morning, but the last time I looked there was not a single accounting
paper in the SSRN listing of top downloads ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/topten/topTenResults.cfm?groupingtype=3&groupingId=1
I discuss problems with accounting research at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#AcademicsVersusProfession
The biggest problem is that our accounting journals themselves do not
even judge it worthy to publish research replications. If
our findings were really of interest our journals would be like science
journals that actively seek out replications of findings in science.
Your comments focus on whether the benefit of sending a professor to
the AAA meetings justifies the cost. If we had interactive
teleconferencing or Webcasting of sessions available, perhaps you would
be correct in terms of the sessions themselves. But this fails to
weigh in the many other benefits of the AAA meetings, benefits that
include the following:
Networking, especially encounters with old and new friends.
A scheduled or chance encounter during the meetings often changes
the entire career path of a professor, especially in terms of
relocation. Many of my best friends and correspondents over my
entire career came from encounters at AAA meetings. My close
relationship with Amy Dunbar began when she was in one of my CEP
technology sessions years ago at an AAA meeting. Subsequently
she became a presenter in some of my annual programs. My close
relationship with Denny goes clear back when he was still an Ernst
and Ernst Research Partner who attended every AAA annual meeting ---
I'm talking almost 100 years ago.
Interfacing of academia with the public accounting profession,
the business community, the publishers, the technology vendors, and
the professional associations like the AICPA, IMA, IIA, Certified
Fraud Examiners, and others. We also have interfacing with
members of the various section groupings such as the Teaching and
Curriculum Section.
Interfacing between U.S. accounting professors and international
accounting professors. The AAA annual meetings are probably
the main reason why the AAA has become the leading international
society for accounting educators and researchers. Partly
because the 2005 meetings were in San Francisco, the registration of
Asian accounting educators was especially high and contributed to
the record setting number of registrations.
Serendipitous discovery of a research idea or teaching tool.
An immense amount of communication takes place at these meetings.
We get many course and curriculum changes throughout the world from
these meetings.
Discovery of new textbooks and other teaching/learning aids,
especially the opportunity to fiddle around with new software that
vendors have set up on computers in the booths.
The opportunity to question authors and presenters. The
amount of time allotted to this varies from session to session, but
I certainly asked some questions and got some good and bad answers.
It also helps to listen to the answers given to questions raised by
other people in the audience.
The opportunity to present your own research or teaching ideas.
Your comments are all taken from the viewpoint of somebody in the
audience. Why did you not try to get on the program or made a
CEP presentation? Perhaps you should propose a session devoted
to how to improve the AAA meetings!
The opportunity to vent frustrations. This has taking
place especially with gender issues and public interest accounting,
and the sessions that I attended in these areas have gotten better
and better each year. A public interest presentation by Carol
Lawrence on on Monday afternoon will stick in my mind the rest of my
life and inspired me to conduct some research along these same lines
in retirement. It was entitled "Art and Semiotics:
Signs, Symbols, Smoke, and Mirrors."
I might add that Carol's presentation was a highly visual
presentation that would be very hard to present in a hard copy
paper. It could be done in video, which is one of the many
reasons why I video most sessions that I attend. There are
sometimes presentations that just cannot be captured in hard copy.
I have hundreds of video tapes of AAA meeting
sessions that I've captured over the years. I plan to
donate these to the video archives at the University of Mississippi
in the near future. An interesting research topic for some of
you might be to examine these tapes in an effort to determine what
constitutes a bad presentation versus a good presentation. I
have filmed scores of both types of presentations. (The
University of Mississippi now has the largest archive of accounting
history in the world, including the recent gift of the entire AICPA
library).
I think you're asking too much in benefits from of the AAA meetings.
Such meetings serve many audiences from Glendale Community College to
Ivy League research centers. Such meetings serve many interests
from teaching ideas to empirical/analytical research methods to issues
of great concern in accountancy and business in the real world (that
"other world"). Such meetings serve many audiences from the
U.S. to Europe, to India, to Africa, to Russia to Japan to China to
Kangaroo and Kiwi lands.
All we can expect from the AAA meetings are peep holes to
opportunities, knowledge, and happenings in our corner on the world of
teaching and research and professional practice.
Lastly David, I might add that the annual AAA meetings pass the
market test. Thousands of people would not take the time, trouble, and
cost to come to these meetings from all over the world if they were not
serving an important purpose. You have every right to protest in an
effort to make the meetings better. However, I’m afraid that you must
first demonstrate how to make accounting research itself better.
The European Accounting Association has the
papers available for download from its website before the conference and
for a week after the conference has ended. My experience was that about
90% of what I wanted was available, and a couple of other authors who I
emailed for papers were happy to oblige. Likewise, when I was emailed
for a paper about a month after the conference, I sent it by return.
The great advantage of having downloads
available before the conference was that it meant that the discussion at
sessions could be a bit better informed.
Mind you, I do wish you'd stop putting down the
'Fraudulent Conferences'. One of my minor enjoyments on a wet English
morning is looking at that conference email and working out which exotic
locations I could possibly get Cranfield to pay for me to visit :-)
I am pleased to announce that we have moved
Technology Source from the Michigan Virtual University server to UNC's
ibiblio server at
www.technologysource.org. We are
most grateful to the Health Policy and Administration Executive Master's
Programs in UNC's School of Public Health for providing the funding for
this move and to UNC's ibiblio library and digital archive for hosting
the archives. And we certainly appreciate MVU's cooperation in this move
and to their providing a pointer to the current archives in the event a
person uses the old http://ts.mivu.org address to access an article.
We are aware that there are some
abnormalities in the archives that resulted from using some non-standard
HTML characters used when publishing TS on the MVU server that do not
translate well to the current database. Please send me a note if you
spot any abnormalities so that we can correct them. Also, one of the
artifacts of Web publishing is that links go bad. If you know of a
program that detects bad links and "delinks" them, please let me know.
Best.
Jim
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on August
25, 2005
TITLE: Merck Loss Jolts Drug Giant, Industry: In Landmark Vioxx Case,
Jury Tuned Out Science, Explored Coverup Angle
REPORTER: Heather Won Tesoriero, Ilan Brat, Gary McWilliams, and Barbara
Martinez
DATE: Aug 22, 2005
PAGE: A1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112447069284018316,00.html
TOPICS: Contingent Liabilities, Disclosure, Accounting, Disclosure
Requirements
SUMMARY: Merck lost its first case defending against a claim of death
stemming from the drug Vioxx. The company faces thousands of lawsuits over
Vioxx following the drug's removal from the market, but many observers had
felt the company had an ironclad defense in this one because the patient's
cause of death was not a risk identified in the drug's clinical trials. The
primary article describes the process of the lawsuit while the related
articles post two viewpoints on investment in the company's stock. (The
first of those uses the term "Stock Dividend" in its title when the author
actually is referring to a cash dividend.) Questions also ask students to
examine Merck's most recent quarterly filing for disclosures about the
litigation.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Access Merck's most recent 10-Q filing with the SEC. You may do so
through the on-line version of this article by clicking on Merck & Co. under
Companies in the right hand side of the page, then clicking on SEC Filings
under Web Resources on the left hand side of the page, then choosing the
10-Q filed on 8/8/2005. Find all disclosures related to the recall of Vioxx
and summarize the various financial implications of this drug's withdrawal.
2.) What costs were recorded when the company issued the Vioxx recall?
Prepare summary journal entries based on the information in the financial
statement disclosures.
3.) What information is disclosed about the Ernst case on which the main
article reports? What accounting standard promulgates required accounting
for litigation cases such as these that Merck faces?
4.) Based on their disclosure as of the 8/8/2005 filing date, what do you
think was the company's assessment of the potential outcome of this case?
Support your answer with reference to the accounting standard identified in
answer to question 3 above.
5.) Based on the discussion in the end of the first related article, how
are analysts using the information in Merck's footnote disclosures? What do
they estimate from that information?
6.) Compare the arguments made in the two related articles about the
desirability of holding Merck stock at this point. Which argument do you
believe? Support your answer.
7.) What is incorrect about the use of the term "stock dividend" in the
title of the first related article?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Tax Benefits for Individuals in the New Energy Bill and More August 10, 2005 message from Scott Bonacker
[lister@BONACKERS.COM]
TAX SECTION E-ALERT
August 10 , 2005
Tax Benefits for Individuals in the Energy Bill
Beginning January 1, 2006, the Energy Policy
Act of 2005 (see
http://thomas.loc.gov/ .) includes tax provisions to encourage
individuals to conserve energy. For 2006 and 2007, taxpayers can use tax
credits of (1) up to $500 for certain energy conservation home
improvements, like storm windows or more efficient air conditioners; and
(2) a 30 percent credit for residential solar, solar electric, and fuel
cell expenditures. Also credits of up to $3,400, depending on
efficiency, are available for hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. Tax
breaks for manufacturers could reduce prices for more energy-efficient
washers, dryers, and refrigerators. (See the JCT technical explanation
for more details).
Final Highway Bill Skips Undesirable Tax
Provisions
With a name like Safe, Accountable, Flexible,
and Efficient Transportation Equity Act, (See
http://thomas.loc.gov/
.) what's not to like? Fortunately, three contemplated "revenue-raising"
provisions vigorously opposed by the AICPA were cut from the final bill:
(1) codification of the economic substance doctrine, (2) requiring a 20
percent "pre-payment" with an Offer-in-Compromise application; and (3)
requiring CEOs to make declarations about the accuracy of their
corporations' return under penalty of perjury. Unfortunately, these
proposals keep resurfacing as Congress looks for revenue.
Estate Tax Repeal Discussion Continues
The Senate recessed for August without voting
on estate tax repeal. The House has already passed the Death Tax Repeal
Permanency Act of 2005. (See
http://thomas.loc.gov/
.) In the meantime, Senators Kyl, R-Ariz., and Baucus, D-Mont., remain
committed to working on a compromise that would: (1) retain a step-up in
basis; (2) retain extended payment periods; (3) cut the estate tax rates
(possibly as low as 15 percent); and (4) include "a good-sized exemption
that would be indexed for inflation" (possibly between $3.5 and $10
million).
Domestic Manufacturing Deduction Regs Expected
in September
Proposed regulations detailing the domestic
manufacturing deduction under new section 199 are expected to be
released in September and could run over 100 pages.
Final GST Regs on Deemed Allocations and
Predeceased Parent Rules
The IRS issued final regulations (T.D. 9208) on
making a section 2632(c)(5)(A)(i) election to avoid a deemed allocation
of unused generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemptions on transfers
to a GST trust. The final regs also provide guidance for electing to
treat a trust as a GST trust. The regs allow an election under the
deemed allocation rules to be made at any time prior to and including
the year the estate tax inclusion period expires.
The final regulations (T.D. 9214) on the GST
predeceased parent rules give guidance and examples on
generation-skipping rules for persons with a deceased parent, including
a special rule for certain adopted individuals. The regs make clear that
the exception for an adoption of a minor grandchild (or lower
generation) will not apply if the adoption was purely for GSTT purposes.
It dispels the idea that a grandchild can be adopted days before turning
18 (when he or she is legally emancipated) to claim the benefit of the
predeceased parent rule for all transfers to such grandchild during his
or her life.
Exempt Organization Reform Bill
Frequently, unofficial reports of an imminent
charitable organizations reform bill abound. Twice the AICPA has
submitted comments regarding potential legislative proposals. Our second
set of comments was submitted on March 1, with the expectation that a
Senate bill would be released by late spring. However, Senate Finance
Committee Chair Grassley, R-Iowa, has now predicted that the Committee
would act on a bill when Congress re-convenes in September.
IRS Delays Closing Taxpayer Help Centers
The Service has postponed closing 68 of its 400
taxpayer assistance and phone centers, as well as cutting back center
hours of service. The Treasury Inspector General will be reviewing this
issue before a final decision is made. The closings met resistance from
taxpayer groups, elected representatives, and IRS employees.
National Taxpayer Advocate Calls for Balancing
Service and Enforcement
In the National Taxpayer Advocate's Fiscal Year
2006 Objectives Report to Congress, released last month, Advocate Nina
Olson states: "As Congress noted in RRA 98, the IRS is far more than an
enforcement agency - it must serve all taxpayers. Thus, the IRS should
specifically state that its primary organizational goal is to increase
voluntary compliance." The report identifies the areas that the Advocate
wants to emphasize during the upcoming fiscal year, including: (1) the
private debt collection initiative, (2) collection due process hearings,
(3) the Offer-in-Compromise program, and (4) taxpayer service research.
TaxFax!
For 2005, there were 126,845,000 individual tax
returns filed - up 1.1 percent from last year. Returns with refunds were
down from 98,068,000 to 96,691,000, but the average refund rose 2.3
percent to $2,111. Computer E-filing by professionals rose 10.8%.
Note: These reports represent a general
overview of tax developments and should not be relied upon without an
independent, professional analysis of how any of these provisions may
apply to a specific situation.
Disclaimer: Any tax advice contained in the
body of this e-mail was not intended or written to be used, and cannot
be used, by the recipient for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may
be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local
tax law provisions.
RateFinancials has released the results of a
two-year study that finds companies still take liberties in reporting
their financials. In these overtly regulatory times, balance sheets and
income statements still aren’t transparent even when prepared following
generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) standards that provide
management with broad discretion at times. Although these statement
inaccuracies may not violate GAAP standards, the company’s financial
health may not be accurately reflected for intelligent investors and
shareholders in clearly worded descriptions. RateFinancials is an
independent research firm based in New York. The study found several
disturbing facts among the Standard & Poor’s 500 companies it examined.
It found that:
Nearly 33 percent do not report their
companies’ financial conditions accurately.
75 percent engaged in some kind of
off-balance sheet financing.
28 percent employed aggressive revenue
techniques. An audit committee should be aware of what can be done
to further ensure the accuracy of their company’s financial
statements. GAAP standards aren’t perfect by any means and
Sarbanes-Oxley is a mighty sword for regulators.
Revenue recognition policies can convey much
risk as their impacts are amplified in the P&L process. Earnings
“smoothing” may be an attractive goal for management so audit committees
should examine these policies to catch any language changes that may
appear over time.
Any changes to reserves and accrual accounts
should be evaluated for their current and future effects on net income.
An audit committee should recognize this as a rich area for earnings
management.
Members of the audit committee should
understand the magnitude and reasoning any off-balance sheet financing
in their corporate statements. As a component of long-term debt, the
committee should recognize the need for this critical analysis.
A detailed presentation should be requested for
the accounting policies for derivatives and other hedging instruments.
These instruments are used in companies to isolate themselves from risk.
The audit committee should focus on changes in the value of derivatives
and derivatives classified as hedges.
Pension plans and other pension liabilities
should be of extreme interest to an audit committee. The assumptions for
each plan should be understood and under-funded pension plans should be
noted on the balance sheet.
The audit committee should discuss the
reasoning for any differences in the effective and statutory tax rates.
Tax rates on recurring tax items should also be discussed and
understood. Any unexplained differences should be full detailed.
Audit committees should understand any changes
to a comp0any’s accounting policies. Their impact on the balance sheet
and income statement should be detailed and clarified to shareholders
also.
Any large changes between net income and cash
flow should be explained to the audit committee and the shareholders.
Operating problems or lapses in accounting policies can be revealed in
these differences.
The investigation and possible prosecution of
KPMG has been the focus of a larger investigation by the Department of
Justice (DOJ) into abusive tax shelters sold to corporate taxpayers and
wealthy individuals by accounting firms, banks, and law firms. There are
now signs that DOJ is working toward a decision. DOJ found that KPMG
sold four types of overly aggressive tax shelters to over 350 people
between 1997 and 2001 that brought in $214 million in fees according to
the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. These shelters cost the
Government around $1.4 billion in unpaid taxes.
The firm has been cooperating with the
government and issued a statement in June implicating their “wrongful
conduct” and “full responsibility” by their former partners. They also
pledged further cooperation in the case. They have initiated corporate
reforms to ensure this situation will not occur again.
The Washington Post has reported that up to 20
ex-KPMG partners may be facing prosecution for their roles in selling
the shelters. Other firms implicated in government documents include a
law firm now called Sidley Austin Brown & Wood and Deutsche Bank
according to the New York Times.
DOJ officials have authorized David Kelley, the
U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to negotiate a deal
with KPMG that will not drive the firm out of business. The DOJ does not
want to repeat the collapse of Arthur Anderson that destablized the
industry in 2002. Arthur Anderson employed some 85,000 people worldwide.
If the firm were to negotiate a settlement
instead of receiving an indictment to resolve the case as well as
prosecution of the ex-KPMG executives, concerns over their clients
abandoning the firm might be avoided. Significant legal exposure from
civil suits by investors and shareholders might also be avoided.
“The Justice Department’s issue is do we really
want to take this down to the Big Three or is there some way short of
destroying this company that we can get some comfort that this going to
be recurring in the future?” said David Gourevitch, a former prosecutor
and now in private practice in New York.
The outcome of this case may come down to a
large fine, changes in their corporate culture, and oversight. The firm
continues to negotiate with the Government to resolve this case. If
these negotiations fail, the Government may go for an corporate
indictment. The prosecution of this case is still out except for the
referral of potential cases against several former KPMG partners and
other individuals to the DOJ. No indictments have been passed down.
Is paying out a $300-$500 million settlement "good news?" KPMG has had their fair share of bad news since
becoming the focus of federal prosecutors but there is unofficial word that
an agreement will be announced later this week. Better yet, their Big Four
competitors have each told their partners should refrain from "poaching"
KPMG's clients. The settlement calls for the smallest of the Big Four
accounting firms to pay a fine totaling between $300 and $500 million and
accept independent oversight of its operations in order to avoid
prosecution. In the deferred prosecution, there will also be a yet unstated
probationary period. If the firm stays out of trouble during that set time,
the charges will be dropped by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District
of New York. The firm has about 1,600 partners and currently audits the
financial statements of more than 1,000 companies.
"More Good News Than Bad for KPMG," AccountingWeb, August 24, 2005
---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101231
Jensen Comment: I guess this is good news in that KPMG is thereby
allowed to stay in business and will not implode in the manner that Andersen
imploded following the document shredding conviction. but there is
still the worry about individual state prosecutions.
Some added bad news for KPMG Although the U.S. Justice Department is seeking a
settlement, although harsh, with KPMG, the state of Mississippi is also
likely to file a criminal suit against the embattled accounting firm. KPMG
devised the tax strategy for WorldCom after it reorganized as MCI. Although
the state approved the tax plan and MCI has moved its corporate headquarters
to Virginia, the state maintains that the tax plan sheltered billions of
potential tax dollars in its treatment of royalties. It has been recommended
that Mississippi join about 15 other states and the District of Columbia in
prosecuting this case together but Mississippi continues on its own. In May
of this year, the state became the first state to resolve back tax claims
with the telcom giant in accepting MCI’s former headquarters building and
$100 million in cash.
"More Good News Than Bad for KPMG," AccountingWeb, August 24, 2005
---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101231
Obviously tax consulting has been a huge problem for
KPMG that has spilled over into the auditing profession in general. You
might read KPMG’s guilt admission statement about this at
http://www.us.kpmg.com/news/index.asp?cid=1872
It says KPMG no longer provides the “services in question,” but is somewhat
vague as to what tax advisory services have been eliminated.
There will soon be books out about this criminal
behavior at KPMG. For openers, go to "How an Accounting Firm Went From
Resistance to Resignation," by Lynnley Browning, The New York Times,
August 28, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/NYTAug28
"We came to the party late. We drank more, and
we stayed longer," said a former member of KPMG's board.
KPMG went full-bore into creating and selling
aggressive tax shelters only around 1997, after it held failed merger
talks with Ernst & Young, according to a member of KPMG's board at that
time.
The talks afforded KPMG the opportunity to
analyze Ernst & Young's books in detail, and it was disturbed by what it
saw: a major competitor growing at a rapid rate, and making lots of
money, by aggressively selling tax shelters, sometimes to KPMG's own
audit clients.
Continued in the article
One of the disappointments that I found
in the KPMG 2004 Annual Report (what KPMG called its "Transparency Report")
is virtually no mention of the U.S. Justice Department and IRS
investigations taking place that could have jeopardized the entire future of
KPMG.
All I could find is a vague statement on Page 27 that reads "Despite
significant challenges for our Tax practices during FY04" with no mention
what comprised those "challenges" or that those unspecified "challenges"
threatened the entire existence of the firm and could have imploded KPMG's
audit practice in much the same way as the Andersen firm's audit practice
disappeared from the world.
This transparency report is for a September 2004 fiscal closing when,
in fact, the financial news media commenced reporting these criminal
investigations of KPMG in the spring of 2004. Media coverage was
especially heavy in June of 2004. I would have expected mention of
these well-known investigations in KPMG's subsequent "2004 Transparency
Annual Report." Ironically, mention is made of the great importance of
"Social Responsibility" (Page 3) and "Helping to Restore the Public Trust in
Our Profession" (Page 12) and "Raising Our Tax Risk Architecture to a Level
Consistent with That of Audit (Page 12)."
The CPA profession needs a more credible definition of "transparency."
It would seem that Art Wyatt was correct when entitled his August 2003
Plenary Speech "Accounting Professionalism --- They
Still Don't Get It" ---
http://aaahq.org/AM2003/WyattSpeech.pdf
Canadian Audits Need Improvement Says Oversight Board The Canadian Public Accountability Board (CPAB)
recently released its second public report on its examinations of public
accounting firms, finding that audits by these firms needed significant
improvements. Problems cited in the report included lack of effective
internal control, high risk clients, auditor independence and inadequate
training on current accounting and auditing rules, according to Investment
Executive.
"Canadian Audits Need Improvement Says Oversight Board," AccountingWeb,
August 24, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101230
We have no proprietary information about Fannie
Mae, but what is publicly known is scary enough. As you may recall, last
December the SEC required Fannie to restate prior financial statements
while the Office of Federal Oversight (OFHEO) accused the company of
widespread accounting regularities that resulted in false and misleading
statements. Significantly, the questionable practices included the way
Fannie accounted for their huge amount of derivatives. On Tuesday, a
company press release gave some alarming hints on how extensive the
problem may be.
The press release stated that in order to
accomplish the restatements, “we have to obtain and validate market
values for a large volume of transactions including all of our
derivatives, commitments and securities at multiple points in time over
the restatement period. To illustrate the breadth of this undertaking,
we estimate we will need to record over one million lines of journal
entries, determine hundreds of thousands of commitment prices and
securities values, and verify some 20,000 derivative prices…”
“…This year we expect that over 30 percent of
our employees will spend over half their time on it, and many more are
involved. In addition we are bringing some 1,500 consultants on board by
year’s end to help with the restatement…Altogether, we project devoting
six to eight million labor hours to the restatement. We are also
investing over $100 million in technology projects to enhance or create
new systems related to accounting and reporting…we do not believe the
restatement will be completed until sometime during the second half of
2006…”
“The findings show that finance executives are
challenged to improve efficiency and reduce the time and cost to process
transaction, yet they are not widely embracing technology to achieve
change,” Anoop Sagoo, a partner at Accenture Finance Solutions.
Perhaps the most surprising finding is that
only 15 percent of the companies surveyed currently transact 60 percent
or more of their accounts payable and accounts receivable on a fully
automated basis According to the report, the major challenges facing
internal finance organizations include:
Improving operational efficiency (78
percent)
Integrating financial information/creating
a single financial “truth” (77 percent)
Fully integrating financial information
(50 percent)
Introducing web-enabled tools facilitating
communications with clients and suppliers (49 percent) “Technology can
address these challenges by automating manual processes and integrating
financial information,” Sagoo states. “Many of our clients have found
that outsourcing processes to a specialist provider is a good way to
capture the benefits provided by technology and contribute to high
performance in their business.”
J.P. Morgan to Settle Enron 'Megaclaims' Suit Two banks agreed on Tuesday to pay at least $420
million to settle their parts of the ''Megaclaims'' lawsuit filed by Enron
against 10 banks, alleging they ''aided and abetted fraud'' and could have
prevented the energy trader's collapse. JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay
$350 million in cash to Enron Corp. and Toronto Dominion Bank agreed to pay
$70 million. The companies also will forgo certain claims in Enron's
bankruptcy proceedings while agreeing to pay more money to Enron for the
ability to pursue others. Enron, which filed for bankruptcy in 2001, is
currently liquidating its remaining operations and restructuring its
business units for distribution to its creditors. The money from Tuesday's
settlements also will go to creditors.
"J.P. Morgan to Settle Enron 'Megaclaims' Suit," The New York Times,
August 16, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Enron-Megaclaims.html
Two More Banks Settle Enron Claims J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Toronto-Dominion Bank
will pay Enron a total of $480 million to settle allegations that they
helped the once-mighty energy giant hide debt and inflate earnings. The
settlement stems from a lawsuit filed by Enron against 10 banks. The suit
contends the banks could have prevented the company's 2001 collapse if they
hadn't “aided and abetted fraud,” the Houston Chronicle reported.
"Two More Banks Settle Enron Claims," AccountingWeb, August 18, 2005
---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101212
Recommended Book on the Enron Scandal Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald
From an award-winning New York Times reporter
comes the full, mind-boggling story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude
behind the spectacular scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a
marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever...
It was the corporate collapse that appeared to
come out of nowhere. In late 2001, the Enron Corporation—a darling of
the financial world, a company whose executives were friends of
presidents and the powerful—imploded virtually overnight, leaving vast
wreckage in its wake and sparking a criminal investigation that would
last for years. But for all that has been written about the Enron
debacle, no one has yet to re-create the full drama of what has already
become a near-mythic American tale.
Until now. With Conspiracy of Fools,
Kurt Eichenwald transforms the unbelievable story of the Enron scandal
into a rip-roaring narrative of epic proportions, one that is sure to
delight readers of thrillers and business books alike, achieving for
this new decade what books like Barbarians at the Gate and A Civil
Action accomplished in the 1990s.
Written in the roller-coaster style of a novel,
the compelling narrative takes readers behind every closed door—from the
Oval Office to the executive suites, from the highest reaches of the
Justice Department to the homes and bedrooms of the top officers. It is
a tale of global reach—from Houston to Washington, from Bombay to
London, from Munich to São Paulo—laying out the unbelievable scenes that
twisted together to create this shocking true story.
Eichenwald reveals never-disclosed details of a
story that features a cast including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul
O’Neill, Harvey Pitt, Colin Powell, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Alan Greenspan, Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, Jeff Skilling, Bill Clinton,
Rupert Murdoch, and Sumner Redstone. With its you-are-there glimpse into
the secretive worlds of corporate power, Conspiracy of Fools is an
all-true financial and political thriller of cinematic proportions
One of the interesting outcomes is why top executives Rebecca Mark (stock
sales of $8 million) and Lou Pai (stock sales of $270 million) escaped with
fortunes and no legal repercussions like other top executives. You can
read about what they hauled home at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#StockSales
Lou Pai seems to be the biggest winner of all the "fools" in the
Conspiracy of Fools. Why he escaped is largely a matter of what
seemed like bad luck that turned into good luck. Although married, Lou
became addicted to strip tease clubs. He ultimately became involved
and impregnated one of the young entertainers. His messy divorce
settlement called for him to sell his Enron stock holdings when the stock
price was very high and appeared to have a great future. That looked
like his bad luck. However, he actually cashed in at near the high
point for reasons other than clairvoyance regarding the pending collapse of
share prices. In other words he cashed in at a high. That was
his good luck, because he cashed in early for reasons other than inside
information.
Lou Pai became so wealthy at Enron that he managed to purchase a Colorado
ranch larger than the State of Rhode Island. The ranch even has a
mountain which he named Pai Mountain that was actually a bit higher than his
pile of cash from Enron stock sales and other compensation from Enron.
To make matters worse, the operation that he actually managed while at Enron
was a big money loser for the company. Who says sin doesn't pay?
"Yield Curve Implications of Interest Rate
Hedges," A Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Strategy Paper. Originally published as "Hedge
Interest Rates Now. . . Before It's Too Late,"
Journal of Derivatives, Spring 1998.
The Ohio
Society of Certified Public Accountants
(OSCPA) has partnered with Franklin
University in Columbus, Ohio, to allow
CPAs to apply CPE credit toward the
Franklin MBA.
The Applied Leadership Focus allows CPAs
to apply qualifying CPEs towards as many
as eight credit hours in the Franklin
MBA Program. CPAs applying CPEs toward
their MBA can obtain their degree in as
little as 14 months, reducing the usual
17-month duration by up to three months.
Four credit hours are the equivalent of
120 CPEs.
“CPAs are
committed to lifelong learning and
fulfill a stringent continuing education
commitment requiring 120 hours every
three years,” explains J. Clarke Price,
CAE, President and CEO of the Ohio
Society of CPAs in announcing the
partnership. “Through this unique
partnership with Franklin University,
Ohio Society members can apply their CPE
credits toward an MBA. It’s part of our
ongoing commitment to create value-added
benefits fo rour members.”
CEO Leaderboard
reports that the Franklin MBA is the
largest MBA Program in central Ohio. The
Franklin MBA is unique in the choices
and flexibility it offers. Students can
select from two academic formats: the
new Life Cycle format and the
traditional Discipline-Based format.
Further tailoring is available through
seven Focus Areas, including the
accounting-focused Financial Leadership
Focus. Students can also choose to
complete their MBA online or on-site.
Finally, Franklin’s rolling admission
and flexible start dates all students to
begin the MBA Program at multiple pints
during the year.
Continued in article
Banks and Credit Derivatives
From Jim Mahar's blog on August 17, 2005
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB
Dallas) and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (FHLB Atlanta)
announced plans Monday to restate their financial statements for the
years 2001 through 2004 and the first quarter of 2005. The Federal Home
Loan Bank of Indianapolis (FHLBI) had announced its intention to issue
restatements for the same periods on Friday. All three regional banks in
the Federal Home Loan Bank System, were found to have incorrectly
applied a provision of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 133,
Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities (SFAS 133).
Neither FHLB Dallas nor FHLBI anticipate that the corrections to their
hedge accounting will have a material effect on their financial
statements. In its statement, FHLB Atlanta said that once the review of
all hedging transactions had been completed, the Bank may be required to
make adjustments which could be material to the Bank’s financial
statements.
“In the course of preparing for SEC
registration we discovered accounting errors related to SFAS 133,” said
Martin L. Ledger, President-CEO of FHLB Indianapolis, in the Bank’s
statement. “We do not believe this correction detracts from FHLBI’s core
strengths or its progress toward achieving FHLBI’s strategic plan.”
Lee Puschaver, Executive Vice President and CFO
of FHLB Atlanta said in the Bank’s announcement, “While we took great
care in implementing SFAS 133 in 2001, including a review by our
independent auditors, SFAS 133 is a very complex accounting standard.”
The three banks had adopted a “short cut”
method of hedge accounting provided for in SFAS 133 in which an
assumption can be made that the change in fair value of a hedge item
exactly offsets the change in value of the related derivative. The banks
used this short cut method in hedge accounting for interest rate
changes. FHLB Atlanta said it had also used the method for other
transactions, including the Bank’s convertible advance products and zero
coupon bonds.
The FHLB Atlanta statement described
circumstances where hedge accounting would be used. It said that if a
hedging relationship meets certain criteria specified in SFAS 133
including appropriately documenting compliance with the criteria at the
time the hedging relationship is established, it is eligible for hedge
accounting and the offsetting changes in fair value of the hedge item
may be recorded in earnings.
What is called the ‘long haul” method of hedge
accounting requires the bank, according to FHLB Atlanta, to evaluate the
effectiveness of the hedging relationship on an ongoing basis and to
calculate the changes in fair value of the derivative and related hedged
item independently. SFAS 133 does not permit the institution to apply
the long haul method retroactively, the FHLB Dallas statement said.
SFAS 133 gained prominence in relation to
Fannie Mae’s hedge accounting, which was questioned in a report issued
by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) last fall
and was a major factor in the company’s accounting problems. The company
had incorrectly used the short cut method allowed by SFAS 133, according
to Gregory Eller, accounting manager of the Federal Home Loan Bank of
Seattle.
The Washington Post reported in November 2004
that OFHEO had accused Fannie Mae of violating FAS 133. “Fannie said
yesterday that if its hedge accounting is invalidated, it could be
required to retroactively report $13.5 billion of losses and $4.5
billion of gains, netting a $9 billion decrease in earnings since the
beginning of 2001,” the Post said.
Fannie Mae had long argued that FAS 133
produced a distorted picture of its earnings because the rule forced it
to include unrealized gains and losses on its income statement,
according to the Post.
Commenting on Fannie Mae’s problems and the
issues that banks face with complex accounting standards, Eller says,
“In the old days, for an accounting standard that said “no,” an auditor
might have passed on a “not quite” judgment call, but would have
insisted that a ”not even close” would be challenged. In today’s
environment, the “not quite” judgments earn the response, “What part of
the word don’t you understand?”
One million lines of journal entries: Just how expensive is FAS 133?
We have no proprietary information about Fannie
Mae, but what is publicly known is scary enough. As you may recall, last
December the SEC required Fannie to restate prior financial statements while
the Office of Federal Oversight (OFHEO) accused the company of widespread
accounting regularities that resulted in false and misleading statements.
Significantly, the questionable practices included the way Fannie accounted
for their huge amount of derivatives. On Tuesday, a company press release
gave some alarming hints on how extensive the problem may be.
The press release stated that in order to
accomplish the restatements, “we have to obtain and validate market values
for a large volume of transactions including all of our derivatives,
commitments and securities at multiple points in time over the restatement
period. To illustrate the breadth of this undertaking, we estimate we will
need to record over one million lines of journal entries, determine hundreds
of thousands of commitment prices and securities values, and verify some
20,000 derivative prices…”
“…This year we expect that over 30 percent of our
employees will spend over half their time on it, and many more are involved.
In addition we are bringing some 1,500 consultants on board by year’s end to
help with the restatement…Altogether, we project devoting six to eight
million labor hours to the restatement. We are also investing over $100
million in technology projects to enhance or create new systems related to
accounting and reporting…we do not believe the restatement will be completed
until sometime during the second half of 2006…”
Banks and Credit Derivatives
From Jim Mahar's blog on August 17, 2005
Minton, Stulz,
and Williamson have an important look at banks' usage of credit
derivatives. The short version? Very few banks are using them! In 2003,
only about 6% of banks with over $1B in assets report using this form of
derivatives. Consistent with what we have seen on other derivative
usage, these banks tend to be much larger than average. Best guess as
for the low usage? Transaction costs driven by moral hazard and adverse
selection costs.
Slightly longer
version of the paper
Minton, Stulz,
and Williamson begin by documenting that the credit derivative market
(measured by notional principle) has grown in recent years. Regulators
(and even Alan Greenspan himself) have claimed that this reduces the
risks that banks face. The paper investigates banks' use of credit
derivatives and find that as of 2003, few banks were using credit
derivatives. Those banks that were using the derivatives tended to be
larger and have a greater need for the risk reduction.
In the words of
the paper's authors:
"...net
buyers of protection have higher levels of risk than other banks:
they have lower capital ratios, lower balances of liquid assets, a
higher ratio of risk-based assets to total assets, and a
higherfraction of non-performing assets than the non-users of credit
derivatives."
Why the limited
use? Transaction costs undoubtedly play a role. Like in other
derivatives "know-how" can be expensive to obtain and this largely fixed
cost may explain a portion of the limited use. However, the very nature
of credit derivatives also makes them prone to moral hazard and adverse
selection costs. (Tried another way, banks typcially know more about the
borrowers (and are often in a better position to monitor), than do
derivative market participants. This results in less liquidity (higher
transaction costs) for the very loans that would make the most sense to
hedge.)
Again in the
authors' words:
"These
adverse selection and moral hazard problems make the market for
credit derivatives illiquid for single name protection precisely for
the credit risks that banks would often want to hedge with such
protection. The positive coefficient estimates on C&I loan and
foreign loan shares in a bank’s loan portfolio are consistent with
the hypothesis that banks are more likely to hedge with credit
derivatives if they have more loans to credits for which the credit
derivatives market is more liquid."
So what does
this all mean? The conclusion hints that the benefits of credit
derivatives may be overstated but apparently the cost of hedging in
papers is lower than in the credit derivative market as the paper ends
covering both sides of the debate:
"To the
extent that credit derivatives make it easier for banks to maximize
their value with less capital, they do not increase the soundness of
banks as much as their purchases of credit derivatives would imply.
However, if credit derivatives enable banks to save capital, they
ultimately reduce the cost of loans for bank customers and make
banks more competitive with the capital markets for the provision of
loans."
Not only are
few banks using the derivatives to hedge, the exact loans that the banks
would want to hedge are the most expensive to do. This really should not
be surprising. What is more surprising is that these costs are so high
as to prevent the use of the derivatives. Going forward in time, it will
be interesting to see if this remains the case or if as the market
develops, new ways evolve to lower the costs which would allow more
effective hedging with credit derivatives. Stay Tuned.
Welcome to the AECM listserv. As a new subscriber, you may wonder why
no one responds to some posts. There are three competing explanations:
(1) No one knows the answer to your question; (2) Those who do know the
answer to your question are taking a break; (3) Your question has been
asked and answered numerous times. Explanation (3) can be ruled out by
checking the AECM archives (http://listserv.loyola.edu/archives/aecm.html).
For example, a recent post asked about distance learning, and certainly
there are a lot of us who work in this area. In addition, Bob Jensen’s
website is loaded with advice. I suggest that newcomers get familiar
with the archives before posting.
A second suggestion is to address only one topic in a posting, which
enables a more coherent thread to develop. As this listserv grows,
descriptive thread “subject” headings are really important. Many
subscribers have time to read only postings that are of personal
interest. If the thread subject is not descriptive, the postings may not
be read by someone who can address your question. Once a thread has
started, be sure to simply respond to a message on that thread. Also, it
can be helpful to keep only the relevant portion of the post to which
you are responding. Perhaps that is just my personal taste.
Let me hasten to add that I have certainly violated these rules. I am
a member of the Stata listserv, and I learned the hard way to check the
archives before I post.
Again, I am delighted to see new people joining this listserv. I have
benefited so much from simply reading posts, and I thank all who take
the time to post.
Amy Dunbar (
amy.dunbar@business.uconn.edu )
University of Connecticut School of Business
Accounting Department
2100 Hillside Road, Unit 1041 Storrs, CT 06269-1041
August 16, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Amy,
Your helpful advice brings up another issue. We
would like to encourage our many “lurkers” on the AECM to become more
active in making at least occasional contributions to discussions. New
people generally bring fresh ideas.
If you do make such contributions, I suggest
that you also post your AECM contributions to your own Web server. That
way when issues arise repeatedly (which they often do), you can point to
where you’ve discussed that issue in the past so that you do not once
again have to repeat it in a long email message. With regard to the
inquiry that you (Amy) referred to, I was able to help that person with
a few links to over 1,000 pages of hard copy material about learning
assessment and distance education on my Web server. I thereby tried to
help that person without having to send a long message via email.
I think we should all keep our scrap books on
Web servers to assist others as well as ourselves when looking into the
past. As we get older, this also becomes a great memory aid. I generally
remember my stupid remarks, but I’ve long forgotten much of my best
stuff until I rediscover it buried somewhere on my Web server.
Also try to use key words that aid in
electronic searches of Web documents. For example, when I post an item
in New Bookmarks or Tidbits, I often add certain key words that will
help me and others conduct browser searches.
If you do not post to your college’s Web
server, it will only take about ten minutes to discover how easy it is
to set up a Website on a server that your college willingly provides to
faculty and students. Then you can start your “public” scrap book. Keep
in mind, however, that anything posted to a Web server can be discovered
by search engine crawlers like Google even if you keep the URLs to Web
documents very secret. Also keep in mind that in academe there really
should not be many secrets since we should be a sharing bunch.
And finally, don’t be afraid of posting
“stupid” questions or other remarks on the AECM. We all make stupid
mistakes in the learning process. Only stupid or insecure people are
afraid of making stupid mistakes, because our mistakes are the building
blocks upon which our learning progresses. The learning process is a
process of learning where we made mistakes. Our mistakes tend to focus
other minds on why those are mistakes.
Where would
I be without Richard Sansing?
StumbleUpon is an intelligent browsing tool for
sharing and discovering great websites. As you click
Stumble!,
you'll get high-quality pages matched to your
personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended
(rated I like it) by friends and other SU
members with similar interests. Rating these sites shares them with your
friends and peers – you will automatically 'stumble upon' each others
favorites sites. In effect,
StumbleUpon's members collectively share the
best sites on the web. You can share any site
by simply clicking I like it. This passes the
page on to friends and like-minded people – letting them "stumble upon"
all the great sites you discover.
Selecting Your Interests
After you join you will be asked to select topics which are of interest
to you. Nearly 500 topics are available and you can select as many as
you wish to help determine your preferences in web content. The more
interests you select, the better StumbleUpon will be able to determine
which sites you will like best. This lets StumbleUpon provide you with
sites rated highly by other members with similar interests. You can also
add, remove or modify your interests at any time.
Jensen Comment: I found this site a little confusing to use, but I
think I got the hang of it. Now I find it quite useful for finding
good sites. Many of the hits are commercial sites. It does
clutter your browser window with yet another toolbar. It really helps
to got to Menu, FAQs. Example accounting sites are shown below:
Below I list the top Accounting sites (some are fee sites) that were
listed by StumbleUpon:
Five
Capital Budgeting Analysis (xls) - Basic program for doing
capital budgeting analysis with inclusion of opportunity costs,
working capital requirements, etc. -
Adamodar
Damodaran
FCFE
Valuation 1 (xls) - Free Cash Flow to Equity (FCFE)
Valuation Model for organizations with stable growth rates -
Adamodar
Damodaran
FCFE
Valuation 2 (xls) - Free Cash Flow to Equity (FCFE)
Valuation Model for organizations with two periods of growth,
high growth initially and then stable growth -
Adamodar
Damodaran
FCFE
Valuation 3 (xls) - Free Cash Flow to Equity (FCFE)
Valuation Model for organizations with three stages of growth,
high growth initially, decline in growth, and then stable growth
- Adamodar
Damodaran
FCFF
Valuation 2 (xls) - Free Cash Flow to Firm (FCFF) Valuation
Model for organizations with two periods of growth, high growth
initially and then stable growth -
Adamodar
Damodaran
Time
Value (xls) - Introduction to time value concepts, such as
present value, internal rate of return, etc.
DCF
- Menu driven Excel program (must enable macros) for Discounted
Cash Flow Analysis from the book Analysis for Financial
Management by
Robert C. Higgins
History - Menu driven Excel program (must enable macros) for
Historical Financial Statements from the book Analysis for
Financial Management by
Robert C.
Higgins
Proforma - Menu driven Excel program (must enable macros)
for Pro-forma Financial Statements from the book Analysis for
Financial Management by
Robert C.
Higgins
Top Five
Excel Workbook 1-2 - Set of worksheets for evaluating
financial performance and forecasting - Supplemental Material
for Short Course 1 and 2 on this website.
Six Solver Workbook (zip) - Set of various spreadsheets for
solving different business problems (inventory ordering, labor
scheduling, working capital, etc.).
Capital Budgeting Workbook - Several examples of capital
budgeting analysis, including the use of Solver to select
optimal projects.
Present
Value Tables (rtf) - Set of present value tables written in
rich text format, compatible with most word processors. Includes
examples of how to use present value tables.
I just finished reading The Goal by
Goldratt and Cox. I like the way he interwove accounting concepts with a
plot. Does anyone know of some other books/authors that do this? Has
anyone used these books as readings in their classes? Any success or
comments?
I've used The Goal as required reading for my
Cost Accounting course and the students were very receptive to it (after
they had read it - they were not receptive at all to the idea of having
to read a novel in an accounting course.)
Goldratt has also written a couple of other
books that present some aspect of the Theory of Contraints in novel
form. One titled "It's Not Luck" follows Alex's career after the
promotion he gets at the end of the Goal and is heavy on the use of
decision trees, especially in a marketing context. The other, the name
of which escapes me although I think it has the word "chain" in the
title, is primarily concerned with project management. The "hero" in the
latter is not Alex, but a professor teaching a project management course
in an MBA program.
There's also a book short novel called "The
Auditor" written by James Loebbecke, which would give an auditng student
an insight into the typical work, and some of the problems, that might
be encountered in Auditing. I think that it is published by Prentice
Hall.
Norton and Daughters has published a couple of
"economics" mystery in which the mysteries are solved by the application
of economic theory. I haven't read any of this series so I don't know
how good they are. I can only remember one name - "Murder at the
Margin." I do like the title even if I haven't read the book.
I believe that Norton also published a couple
of novels that were meant to be used in conjunction with intermediate
accounting. I did read one of these some time ago and it was awful.
There was nothing wrong with the intermediate part, but the plot was
terrible. I don't remember much about it but I do vaguely remember one
part where the hero (a CPA from Philadelphia, I believe) was in a bar in
some exotic Asian city (Singapore maybe) and in the middle of a
conversation with a seductive foreigh spy, comes up with "speaking of
depreciation" which is followed by several pages of explanation. The
worst part of that was that I think the seductress was supposed to be
enthralled by the explanation.
But all the Goldratt books are excellent.
Charlie Betts
August 22, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Charlie,
You mentioned Horton & Daughters publishing of two economics novels.
Actually the authors and H&D had an acrimonious falling out in an
accounting dispute. The authors ended up buying the copyrights from H&D.
The authors made a lot of money from their three mystery novels that
weave in economics principles. These Breit-Elzinga books are written
under a pseudonym Marshall Jevons. My own opinion is that novels not a
good way to learn principles of economics, but I can't knock the fact
that these books have been profitable for Professors Breit and Elzinga,
who by the way are famous teachers of economics. I don't think the
profits are in random bookstore sales. The profits in this case arose
because so many high schools adopted these novels as a ploy to interest
students in economics.
Others have tried to follow this pattern in mystery novels based upon
accounting. I don't know how successful these have been, but I'd be
surprised if they did better than the Jevons (i.e., Breit-Elzinga)
economics novels. I note a number of such accounting/tax novels at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/muppets.htm
I am somewhat skeptical of using novels to teach technical aspects of
most any discipline, although there have been some successes in teaching
mathematics and religion. Certainly there are successes in teaching
history.
The reason I am skeptical is that readers tend to get lost in the forest
of the plot and take up an awful lot of time learning a few basic
concepts from accounting or economics. Even in the Goldrat books I find
that the basic concepts can be distilled down to a much smaller amount
of focused reading. I find the books somewhat gimmicky.
When I am reading these books to learn I get impatient for the authors
cut to the chase. When I'm reading these books just for the fun of it,
then I'm perfectly happy when one of these books turns out to be
well-written with a clever plot. Most are not good in this respect. The
urge to formula-write multiple books should be resisted by the authors
(i.e., write essentially the same book with changed characters and
quickly revised plots).
One of the authors (not Breit or Elzinga) once told me he could write a
novel a month using his pattern in most any academic discipline. I
thought to myself: "How sad."
I am intrigued by the book Denny recommended today (Christie Malry's
Own Double-Entry [Paperback] by B.S. Johnson) and will order
it. I think the most interesting "education" novels for me will be those
that delve into history of a discipline that weaves into the plot.
I once wrote a mystery novel that tried to also teach some accounting
and finance. My wife read the rough draft and advised that I pull out
all that boring accounting stuff. Sigh!
I have used The Goal as required reading
in a variety of courses, mostly grad seminars in managerial accounting.
Last year I used it in a senior-level cost management course.
The book has been revised several times and has
evolved from the original into a larger piece with an expanded focus on
thinking processes. (I see a connection here to the process of finding
the "root cause" of activities in activity-based-management). All the
versions contain the basics of the theory of constraints (TOC); the
later versions add more on the thinking processes and examples of
successful implementations.
As I used the book the second & third times, I
found that I had missed some subtle points that were woven into the
narrative, e.g., a worker was allowed to "stand around" and watch an
oven during a manufacturing process. Eureka, the worker eventually
thought of a "better way" of accomplishing the work - implying that he
probably would not have thought of the better way had he been
"efficient" and kept "busy" all the time.
Bob is probably right that a novel format may
not be the most efficient way to transfer knowledge. In that sense, it
may be somewhat analogous to the case approach, e.g., problem
identification, etc. are required. However, some of my students really
liked the change from the more traditional "rule-based" accounting
education, indicating some positive motivational effects. Generally, I
believe the book is useful to motivate students to think critically and
be open-minded about change. (Note: a few students said they did NOT
like this approach).
Examples of questions that I have asked
students to consider include:
Goldratt states (p.84): "A plant where everyone
is working all the time is very inefficient." Is that quote limited to
manufacturing? Could it generalize to a hospital's activities? To
accounting education?
Chp.4 contains an interchange between Alex &
Jonah regarding goals, measurements, etc. Elements of that discussion
continue throughout the book. What was Rogo's first response to the
questions "What is the goal?" And "What are the measurements of the
goal?" What did he finally settle on as the answer?
Those questions could be expanded to include
ethics. "Making money" as an absolute goal could lead to unethical
behavior. (Goldratt addresses this somewhat more thoroughly in the
sequel "It's Not Luck" where he moves to stakeholders, employees, etc.
rather than shareholders).
What is the "goal" for a hospital? a
university? a restaurant? What is the "goal" for a university accounting
department? What measures should be used to measure performance toward
the goal? Total student FTE? Total headcount? Total # of faculty?
tenure-track faculty? # of graduates passing the CPA exam? 1st time pass
rate on CPA exam? Would choosing a different measure result in different
behavior? different activities? (I try to draw them into connecting the
dots to the balanced scorecard, activity-based management, etc.)
Do you think the real constraints are not
physical but policies? Is it necessary to have a "luxury of pressure" to
have change? (Do some of these questions have application to higher
education)? :)
Does Jonah's approach to learning make sense;
is a questioning process effective for learning? Should it be used in
some classes but not in others? Which? Has it been used in your
secondary or university education? Would you like this approach to be
used in accounting classes?
Notes: 1. Traditional standard costing
efficiency measures and cost allocations are frequently bashed. 2. There
are frequent references to the use of intuition and common sense; it's
not all analysis & rules. 3. An outstanding MACCT student with an
undergrad music major informed the class that 'rogo' in Latin means 'to
ask a question, to inquire.' Has anyone on this listserv recognized
other subtleties in The Goal that I may have missed?
Hope this helps.
Roy W. Regel
Professor of Accounting
University of Montana - Missoula
This thread reminds me of an experience I had
as a computer science grad student in 1983. In a Computer Architecture
course, we read Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine", which was
about the crash development of a mini-computer's hardware and software.
Terrific story. Kidder is an excellent writer.
The contrast between Kidder's narrative and the
course's highly technical subject matter did seem to help most students
learn about the inner workings of the digital computer. At the least,
Kidder's book gave us another way to start talking about the technical
issues in class.
The book is probably somewhat dated now, but I
am going to look at it again, the next time I teach Systems Analysis and
Design. The nature of systems development issues has not changed all
that much in the last 20 years, IMHO.
BTW, I have read The Goal, in connection with
learning about ERP systems. It's a clever book and pretty well written.
I understand that some of our Operations profs have used it in
production planning courses, to good effect.
Joe Brady
Accounting & MIS
Lerner College of Business & Economics
University of Delaware
Sounds like America's lament in Iraq If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know:
Should I stay or should I go?
-- Song lyrics as performed by The Clash
We should think more of doing well than
feeling well, then we would end up feeling better.
Alessandro Manzoni
I wrote my name upon the sand,
And trusted it would stand for aye;
But, soon, alas! the refluent sea
Had washed my feeble lines away... ...
Horatio Alger
Our opening presentation
spotlights efforts to rededicate schools to high standards.
This year we honor an institution of higher learning [Benedict
College in Columbia,
S.C] that saw fit to dismiss two professors for violating their
university's "mandatory grade inflation
policy." The professors objected to the official formula
that required counting effort as sixty percent of a [freshman]
student's average, a proportion which resulted in C's for
students whose highest actual score on anything was "less than
forty." This year's Distinguished Priorities Cross
salutes Benedict's president for his pronouncement, "I don't
think that's a bad thing [awarding 60% for effort]."
The Horatio Alger Silver
Bootstrap celebrates effort as an essential component of
learning. Last year's nominees included Duke University for
eliminating eight o'clock classes so "sleep-deprived"
undergraduates could get more shuteye. This year's Alger
follows up on Duke's pioneering efforts by acknowledging the
Princeton Review's advertisement for their Law School Admission
Test
preparation course,
which boasted a young legal hopeful sporting a prominent bra
strap and bandanna. In the tradition of Blackstone and Justice
Holmes, their "top five reasons" to take the June LSAT
headlined, "You can sleep in. It's on a Monday afternoon."
An ingenious middle school
collects this year's Order of the Tempest in a Teacup.
Their revolutionary attendance policy "red flags" students for
"intervention" after they've missed seven and fifteen days of
school, a radical departure from the former thresholds of five
and fifteen absentee days. Understandably, this monumental
achievement required the assistance and funding of no less than
nine private, state, and federal agencies, including the office
of the state's attorney, the social welfare department, regional
police, health care providers, and the U.S. Department of
Justice. A Teacup goes to one and all.
Consistent with public
education's post-1970s focus on everything but academics, Texas
schools enacted a tough nutrition policy. Officials amended the
rules, however, to permit cupcakes for classroom birthday
parties. In affirming their view of the critical role of the
home in scholastic achievement, officials justified the
exception on the grounds that class parties provide an ideal
"opportunity for parental involvement in the education of their
children." This visionary definition of parent involvement wins
the inaugural June Cleaver Golden Bundt Pan Award.
It's never quiet on the
education research front. The Archimedes Eureka Honorarium
hails the astounding discovery that "children who don't think
they deserve their peers' attention" are "more likely to avoid
social activities" that involve their peers. Sharing the
Eureka, and equally startling, was the earthshaking Gallup
revelation that a majority of adolescents complain that they're
"bored" at school. "Tired" placed second, with students who
"consume alcohol" inexplicably more bored and tired than
students who don't consume alcohol.
In a related category, the
And the Next Thing I Knew It Was Morning Award commends the
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse for unveiling a
"correlation between teen dating habits" and "substance abuse."
Apparently, teens who date and have sex are also more likely to
drink and smoke. Researchers described their findings as
"striking," though one spokesperson acknowledged their
conclusions were "things that most people's grandmothers already
know."
The Whole Earth Medallion
recognizes districts across the country that are reportedly
"moving away from the traditional middle school and toward K-8
schools." This innovation will "cushion the leap out of the
elementary years," which coincidentally was the same rationale
offered to justify formerly innovative middle schools when they
were the innovation. Paying homage to the recycled nature of
school reform, the academy applauds the anointing of 1980s
middle schools as an education "tradition" and 1930's K-8
schools as the new cutting edge.
The Boss Tweed Ethics Trophy
wings its way to the
heartland school district
that paid summer school participants over one million dollars in
bonuses. In an apparent effort to penalize students who do what
they're supposed to between September and June, kids who failed
or were truant during the regular school year received
seventy-five dollars a head for passing or just showing up the
second time around.
Educators have tracked with
alarm the decline of high school graduates math skills. The
Scarlett O'Hara Instructional Laurel lauds an
Ivy League Excellence in Teaching professor
and his novel proposal for teaching fractions in elementary
school: "Don't." His fractions-abstinence strategy might fall
short when it comes to equipping students for the trigonometry
that pipe-dreaming experts want all kids to take before they
graduate, but it will perfectly position them for the remedial
college math they'll have to take after they graduate.
The Ed Norton Trophy
celebrates heroic efforts in the pursuit of excellence.
Following up on last year's recognition of New York City's
school regulation prohibiting "red ink," the 2005 Norton
toasts educators everywhere who have switched to correcting
papers in purple. In addition to being less "scary,"
psychologists testify that purple "mixes the authority of red
with the serenity of blue." Of course, purple is also less
visible since it looks an awful lot like blue, the color most
students write in. Presumably this will further preserve
students' self esteem by camouflaging their teachers'
corrections.
Ordinarily competition is fierce
for our final accolade, the coveted George Orwell Creative
Use of Language Award. This year, however, there was no
competition. The academy, unanimous in its judgment, presents
its Orwell to a British educator for her call to abolish
the word "fail" and replace it with "deferred
success." Employing
this tactic more broadly would yield immeasurable benefits,
instantly rendering war "deferred peace," poverty "deferred
prosperity," and winter "deferred summer."
If that makes sense to you,
award yourself an Emperor. Poor Elijah figures we've each got
at least one coming.
My friend Jagdish Gangolly is an eclectic scholar rooted in the
history of mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, ontology, economics,
accounting and especially information systems. His new blog will be
worth tracking ---
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/gangolly
I have started a blog (seems to be the
"cool" thing to do these days). I will only post stuff of my
research or whatever I am thinking about regarding my research. It
can be found at:
Investors Warned About Online Accounts The National Association of Securities Dealers
on Thursday warned investors against using public Wi-Fi connections for
accessing online accounts, saying that they pose additional risks of
confidential information being stolen by cybercriminals.
"Investors Warned About Online Accounts," InformationWeek, July
28, 2005 ---
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=166403452
Dollar Average Investing: Buy equal amounts when market is up or
down
Li, and Torous present evidence that dollar cost averaging (investing
equal amounts whether the market is up or down) works well according to
academic theory of portfolio investing ---
http://repositories.cdlib.org/anderson/fin/17-05/
Dollar Cost Averaging is a strategy for
purchasing equity securities that is widely recommended by
professional investment advisors and commentators, but which has
been virtually ignored by academic theorists and textbook writers.
In this paper we explore whether the strategy is but another
instance of irrational behavior by individual investors, or whether
it is an investment heuristic that has survival value in an
environment in which security prices exhibit mean reversion behavior
that has only belatedly been recognized by academic theorists. Our
evidence supports the view that the individual investors who follow
this strategy in purchasing individual stocks to add to an existing
portfolio are better off than if they followed the 'rational'
strategies traditionally recommended by academics.
A new book on conflict management in academe Tenure denials. Budget cuts. Research
misconduct. Sex harassment. Higher education has many potential flash
points for conflict – some that arise at any major entity that has
significant numbers of people, and others that are unique to the kind of
work that goes on at institutions built on ideas. In more than 30 years
as a college faculty member and administrator, culminating in 17 years
as provost at Kansas State University, James R. Coffman encountered
clashes and conflicts of all kinds, and saw situations handled well and
not so well. In Work & Peace in Academe: Leveraging Time, Money, and
Intellectual Energy Through Managing Conflict (Anker Publishing,
2005), he looks at the nature of conflict in higher education and offers
advice about how institutions can benefit from “productive” conflict and
minimize and manage the “unproductive” kind.
Doug Lederman, "‘Work & Peace in Academe’," Inside Higher Ed,
August 2, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/careers/2005/08/02/coffman
Early accounting was a knotty issue
South American Indian culture apparently used layers of knotted strings
as a complicated ledger. Two Harvard University researchers believe they
have uncovered the meaning of a group of Incan khipus, cryptic
assemblages of string and knots that were used by the South American
civilization for record-keeping and perhaps even as a written language.
Researchers have long known that some knot patterns represented a
specific number. Archeologist Gary Urton and mathematician Carrie
Brezine report today in the journal Science that computer analysis of 21
khipus showed how individual strings were combined into multilayered
collections that were used as a kind of ledger.
Thomas H. Maugh, "Researchers Think They've Got the Incas' Numbers,"
Los Angeles Times, August 12, 2005 ---
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-khipu12aug12,1,6589325.story?coll=la-news-science&ctrack=1&cset=true
Jensen Comment: I'm told that accounting tallies in Africa and other
parts of the world preceded written language. However, tallies alone
did not permit aggregations such as accounting for such things as three
goats plus sixty apples. Modern accounting awaited a combination of
the Arabic numbering (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numbers ) and a common valuation
scheme for valuing heterogeneous items (e.g., gold equivalents or
currency units) such that the values of goats and apples could be
aggregated. It is intriguing that Inca knot patterns were something
more than simple tallies since patterns could depict different numbers
and aggregations could possibly be achieved with "multilayered
collections."
From Biology Professor Bob Blystone at Trinity University
To those of you who have kids at home just
waiting for school to start again: (the kids that is, not you.)
The Science museum in San Jose, California
has assembled a very nice web site about genetics. The site has a
number of activities that would be perfect for middle school and
high school students. You might even want to do some of activities
yourself.
Perhaps the most ambitious involves the
extraction of DNA from strawberries. It is a project that could be
done at home with common materials found around the home. It takes a
bit of preparation but it really works.
The site has a number of other activities
that might arouse a spark of interest in science.
Just think, in two weeks we are back in
gear again.
Bob Blystone
What can you do with four buttons on a mouse? Pigs must be flying, because Apple has
finally released a mouse with more than one button. Called the Mighty
Mouse, the $49 USB device includes four buttons and a multidirectional
Scroll Ball. It works with both Macs and PCs--though you lose some
features when connected to the latter--and it's no more comfortable to
use than older, one-button Apple mice. The Mighty Mouse bears Apple's
trademark minimalist look. The touch-sensitive left and right buttons
reside unmarked under the white plastic, so it takes a few minutes to
get used to pressing down on them. All that protrudes on the top of the
mouse is the tiny white multidirectional Scroll Ball, which doubles as a
third mouse button.
Narasu Rebbapragada, "First Look: Apple's (Mostly) Mighty Mouse," The
Washington Post, August 11, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/11/AR2005081101363.html?referrer=email
College and the Disabled Student Nearly a third of young people with
disabilities have taken at least some postsecondary classes within the
first two years after they leave high school, according to a U.S.
Education Department study released Thursday. The study finds that
disabled students over all are less than half as likely as their peers
to have attended college in the two years after high school, but the
college-going rate varies greatly by type of disability: Students with
hearing or visual impairments are as likely as nondisabled students to
have done some postsecondary work. The report of the study, “After High
School: A First Look at the Postschool Experiences of Youth With
Disabilities,” was prepared by SRI International, a research group, for
the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs. Its
underlying purpose is to help gauge the success of federal laws and
programs aimed at ensuring that elementary and secondary schools prepare
young people with disabilities for later life. But along the way, the
study provides some unusually in-depth data about a relatively
little-studied group of college students. The study looked at a group of
students who were in high school in 2001 and who had finished or left
high school two years later.
Doug Lederman, "College and the Disabled Student," Inside Higher Ed,
July 29, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/29/disabled
Men and women seem to perceive pain in different ways. That may
mean they sometimes need different pain-relief drugs Males and females respond to pain
differently, even as children. In most places, boys are expected to show
a stiff upper lip when they get hurt, while in girls wailing is, well,
girlie. In part, this difference is learnt—or, at least, reinforced by
learning. But partly, it is innate. It is hard, for instance, to blame
upbringing for the finding that boy and girl babies show different
responses to pain six hours after birth, or that male rats are more
long-suffering than females. It is also life-long. Ed Keogh of the
University of Bath, in England, and his colleagues have found that women
report feeling pain in more bodily areas than men, and also feel it more
often over the course of their lives. Many researchers are therefore
concluding that genetics underpins at least some of the difference, and
that females really do feel pain more than males. Indeed, some go
further. They think that the way men and women experience pain is not
only quantitatively different, but qualitatively different, too. In
other words, men's and women's brains process pain using different
circuits. Some pain scientists therefore think it is only a matter of
time before painkillers are formulated differently for men and women in
order to account for this difference.
"Sex and drugs," The Economist, July 27, 2005 ---
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4197761
New way to peek inside Earth For the first time, researchers have detected
tiny particles called geoneutrinos coming from deep within the Earth.
The discovery is expected to shed light, almost literally, on the
contents and processes of the planet's insides.
Robert Roy Brit, "New way to peek inside Earth: Researchers discover
tiny particles from deep within planet," MSNBC, July 27, 2005 ---
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8727977/
Stoic Warriors (Military History) In "Stoic Warriors," Nancy Sherman
traces the origins of what we consider soldierlike, reaching back to
ancient philosophers like Seneca and Aristotle and finding echoes of
their moral view in later writers, like Emerson, Stephen Crane and even
Adm. James Stockdale, whose memoirs of his years in a Vietnam
prisoner-of-war camp cite Epictetus as an ethical guide. The essence of
soldierliness is a Stoic ideal, as Ms. Sherman explains: discipline,
endurance, a can-do spirit, a stiff upper lip. But she is at pains to
show, in wonderfully clear prose, that Stoicism is filled with
subtleties and nuance. It does not, for instance, deny the rightness of
just anger but warns against its self-maiming effects. The key is not
the absence of emotion but its control, especially in outward
expression. It is better, in the Stoic view, that "outer conduct matches
inner virtue," but when a matching proves impossible "the appropriate
outer expression itself is ethically important."
"Bookmarks," The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2005; Page W8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112252402112898434,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal
STOIC WARRIORS By Nancy Sherman (Oxford, 242 pages, $26)
From U.K.'s Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the
University of Bristol
Social Science Information Gateway http://sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/
Ruling Sets Off Tug of War Over Private Property In California and Texas, legislators have
proposed constitutional amendments, while at least a dozen other states
and some cities are floating similar changes designed to rein in the
power to take property. But at the same time, the ruling has emboldened
some cities to take property for development plans on private land. Here
in Santa Cruz, for example, city officials started legal action this
month to seize a parcel of family-owned land that holds a restaurant
with a high Zagat rating, two other businesses and a conspicuous hole in
the ground and force a sale to a developer who plans to build 54
condominiums. Far from clarifying government's ability to take private
property, the 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision has set up a summer of
scrutiny over a power that has been regularly used but little-discussed
for decades.
Timothy Egan, "Ruling Sets Off Tug of War Over Private Property," The
New York Times, July 30, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/NYTjuly30
The Loser's Curse: Overconfidence vs. Market Efficiency in the
National Football League Using archival data on draft-day trades, player
performance and compensation, we compare the market value of draft picks
with the historical value of drafted players. We find that top draft
picks are overvalued in a manner that is inconsistent with rational
expectations and efficient markets and consistent with psychological
research.
Cade Massey and Richard Thaler. "The Loser's Curse: Overconfidence vs.
Market Efficiency in the National Football League," Draft, Working paper
---
http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/%7Ecadem/bio/massey%20&%20thaler%20-%20loser%27s%20curse.pdf
Too much of a good thing Forwarded by Jagdish Gangolly
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Monks at a Belgian
abbey have been forced to stop selling their famous beer after it
was voted the best in the world and was promptly sold out.
The abbey of Saint Sixtus of Westvleteren
in western Belgium is home to some 30 Cistercian and Trappist monks
who lead a life of seclusion, prayer, manual labor -- and
beer-brewing.
A survey of thousands of beer enthusiasts
from 65 countries on the RateBeer Web site (www.ratebeer.com) in
June rated the Westvleteren 12 beer as the world's best.
But the abbey only has a limited brewing
capacity, and was not able to cope with the beer's sudden
popularity.
"Our shop is closed because all our beer
has been sold out," said a message on the abbey's answering machine,
which it calls the "beer phone."
And the abbey has no intention of boosting
its capacity to satisfy market demand.
"We are not brewers, we are monks. We brew
beer to be able to afford being monks," the father abbot said on the
abbey's Web site.
Monk Mark Bode told De Morgen daily:
"Outsiders don't understand why we are not raising production. But
for us life in the abbey comes first, not the brewery."
How profitable was the spice trade? VERY!
If (and this is a big if) the ships made it back safely. In 1618 it
was estimated that 3000 tons of spices were bought in what is now
India and the surrounding area. The spices cost about £91,000. By
the time they reached the eastern Mediterranean they were worth
almost £800,000! So it is easy to see why trading companies were so
important.
In 1633 speculation in tulip bulbs was
rampant in the Netherlands. It is reported that one "�collector"�
(dare I say investor?) pays 1000 pounds of cheese, 12 sheep, a bed,
and a suit for a single tulip bulb. (Online sources suggest that a
single bulb cost upwards of $40,000.) In 1636 the tulip "�bubble"�
burst.
Talk about your weird financial contracts!
In 1641 the Japanese threw out most European trading firms because
on religious grounds. However, the Dutch East India Company have no
missionaries and are allowed to stay on the conditions that
"�company officers visit Edo once a year, turn somersaults in the
street, spit on the Cross, and pay rent in peppercorns."�
In 1642 the Massachusetts Colony initiated
a usury law at 10%, in 1693 this rate was lowered to 6%.
In 1656 shares of the Dutch East India
Company "�plummet on the Amsterdam Exchange and many investors are
ruined. Among them is Rembrandt van Rijn [yes that Rembrandt!] who
is declared bankrupt." Mmm, diversification needed maybe?
Lloyds of London was started as a means of
sharing the risk of shipping. The company was started at Edward
Lloyd's Coffee House.
In 1690 commodity rice futures were selling
in Japan
In 1693 King William III of England raised
money for the operation of the government by selling £1,000,000 of
10% annuities.
The Bank of England was chartered in 1694.
It was based loosely on the Bank of Amsterdam which got its start in
1609.
The London Stock Exchange was started in
1698
I had so much fun with the 1600s, I decided
to go on to the 1700s. Enjoy!
Some more financial history/trivia. This is
from the 1700s. I think it is worthwhile to note how some things
really do not chnage that much. Indeed that is a major reason why I
love history so much.
In 1703 England and Portugal reach an
agreement to jointly lower tariffs in order to increase trade.
(Methuen Treaty)
In 1716 John Law (who was wanted for murder
and had taken refuge in France) persuades the French Government to
allow him to open the Banque Royale. His famous quote from this
time: “ Wealth depends on commerce and commerce depends on
circulation (of money).”
By 1720 the South Sea Bubble collapsed.
Shares fell nearly 70% in a course of a few months.
In 1729 Benjamin Franklin publishes “A
modern Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency.”
In 1733 Britain passed the Molasses Act. It
raised taxes on molasses from Non-British West Indies. Liike most
taxes, this tax resulted in changes in behavior. By 1763
approximately 80% of molasses was smuggled into the colonies.
In 1765, the Stamp Act is enacted. It sets
off protests centered in Boston. Most likely not coincidentally,
Boston is suffering through a serious economic downturn.
In 1773 Britain lowered taxes on tea
shipped into Britain but not on that shipped into the colonies. This
gave British tea exporters a virtual monopoly but angered
colonialists. The Act ended up sparking the most famous tax revolt
of all time: the Boston Tea Party. At the Tea Party, an estimated
£9,650 (or roughly equivalent of the annual income of 200 common
laborers) was destroyed.
By 1775, a growing spirit of independence
in the American Colonies leads to boycott of British goods. American
imports from Britain drop an estimated 90%! Cite
In 1789 Benjamin Franklin writes “Nothing
is certain but death and taxes.” Incidentally, Franklin dies in
1790.
In 1799 Britain imposed its first income
tax. The tax was remarkable similar to current income taxes. It was
for 10% for incomes over £200 but allowed deductions for “children,
insurance, repairs to property, and tithes.”
Quotes, dates and events from
The People's Chronology by James Trager. It is one of my all
time favorites. Covers history from 3 million BC to the present in
largely bullet form. It may have some mistakes, but it sure is
interesting! Definitely recommended!
If you have not been introduced yet to
podcasting (I would describe it as audio blogging), check our
RadioEconomics.
Dr. James Reese of the University of South
Carolina Upstate has started a cool site that plays interviews of
various economists (and soon financeprofessors ;) as well.
Radio Economics
You can listen on your IPOD or on any
computer.
Recent interviews include Skip Saur, James
Hamilton, John Palmer, and others.
Idiot Alert: Stolen Car Driven to
Court
Alleged felons accused of driving a stolen
carto court. Two
Bowling Green men who drove to their trial at the Butler County
Courthouse in Morgantown not only were convicted, but were arrested
again when the trial was over. Authorities say Terry Hunt, 39, and
Justin Hawkins, 24, were accused of driving to the courthouse Tuesday in
a stolen
car. Hunt and Hawkins had driven a
2005 BMWto the courthouse to attend their
jury trial on arson and fraudulent
insurance acts. After the discovery of the
stolen vehicle, police searched the residence of the two in Bowling
Green and...
"Stolen Car Driven to Court," Cincinnati Channel 19, July 29,
2005 ---
http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S=3658463
The bill is all about "jobs, jobs, jobs,"
declared Mr. Hastert, and he's right if he's referring to the
Members' re-election prospects. The House version alone contained
3,700 special earmarks, doled out liberally across state and party
lines.
Democrat Jim Clyburn retained another $25
million for his famous "Bridge to Nowhere," a project in rural South
Carolina that has already sucked up $34 million in federal funds.
The California delegation secured $1.4 billion for more than 479
projects, including $2.5 million for freeway landscaping. And
ranking Transportation Committee Democrat James Oberstar snatched
more than $14 million for Duluth, Minnesota, including $3.2 million
for an extension of the longest paved recreational path in the
nation.
Next to this highway extravagance, the
energy bill seems almost a bargain at an estimated $66 billion or
so. Minor highlights here include the repeal of a Depression-era law
(Puhca) that will open up electricity sector investment; new
reliability standards for the national power grid; more federal
authority to settle sitting disputes over much-needed natural gas
terminals; and an inventory of offshore oil and gas resources that
may someday encourage more exploration.
We can also say this for the bill: It
doesn't pick energy winners or losers. Everyone who produces so much
as a kilowatt-hour is a winner in this subsidy-fest of tax credits
and new federal mandates. There's $550 million for forest biomass,
$100 million for hydroelectric production, and $1.8 billion for
"clean coal." There are subsidies for wind, solar, nuclear and
(despite $60 oil) even for oil and gas.
Most egregious is the gigantic transfer of
wealth from car drivers to Midwest corn farmers (and
Archer-Daniels-Midland) via a new 7.5-billion-gallon-a-year ethanol
mandate, which will raise gas prices by as much as a dime a gallon
on the East and West coasts. Oh, and don't forget the $15 billion (a
155% increase) in federal home heating subsidies, $100 million for
"fuel cell" school buses, and $6 million for a government program to
encourage people to ride their bikes -- presumably along Mr.
Oberstar's newly paved trail.
All of this points up the bill's underlying
mortal failing, which is that it abandons the lesson of the 1980s
that the best way to ensure abundant energy supplies is to let the
price system work. At least the House-Senate conferees dropped a
Senate provision that would have mandated that 10% of all
electricity come from "renewable" sources by 2020, regardless of
supply and demand. Although in return for killing this, the House
had to drop its liability protection for producers of MTBE, a gas
additive that Congress itself mandated in 1990 but now wants to feed
to the trial bar.
Despite the GOP majority and its promises,
federal spending – including wasteful pork barrel projects – has
skyrocketed to record levels, especially as President Bush won the
White House in 2000, the GOP kept the House and regained the Senate
in 2002 and Bush gained re-election in 2004.
Federal outlays are going up so fast that
in 2004 for the first time since World War II Washington spent more
than $21,000 per household but collected only about $18,000 in
revenue, causing budget deficits to explode. The rate of increase in
spending was faster only during the “guns and butter” era of the
Vietnam War and LBJ’s Great Society programs, according to figures
compiled by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Simply put, the GOP majority has been
spending federal tax dollars like drunken sailors since 2001,
increasing outlays by an average of 7.25 percent annually. Inflation
increased by a mere 2.0 percent average in those same years.
Bush has basically stepped aside, not once
exercising his veto, compared to 78 vetoes by Reagan, who had to
deal with powerful Democrat majorities in the House throughout his
White House years.
Having a president who won’t veto unleashes
the big spenders. That transportation bill that Bush accepted and
Young stuffed contained more than 6,500 “earmarks’ – i.e. pork
barrel projects. Reagan vetoed a 1987 transportation bill with a
mere 152 projects.
Continued in article
Might be OK for British TV, but in the U.S. it should be called
unwanted littering The ever-increasing density of computer
chips has opened up the possibility of countless technological
breakthroughs -- from an online catalogue of all the world's great art
to monitoring global weather patterns. Oh, and why not also create a
PC-like device that will record everything on TV automatically? At least
that's the idea behind a challenge issued in the research and
development labs at the BBC, which has led to the unveiling of a
prototype personal video recorder (PVR), called Promise TV, that
successfully recorded and stored all the shows running for a week on all
12 channels in the UK.
Eric Hellweg, "What's (not) on the Telly?" MIT's Technology Review,
July 29, 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/07/wo/wo_072905hellweg.asp?trk=nl
Silicon Valley's Risky Complacency: Innovation is not a
birthright The Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs emerging
over the horizon take nothing for granted. Their sense of urgency is
shaped in part by history, but also by the future. If they rely on
wage-rate differentials as a source of competitive advantage, that will
be a shaky foundation to build on. Already, software-development work is
being sent offshore from centers like Bangalore to countries such as
Cambodia and Vietnam, where wages are even lower than in India.
Intensifying competition for skilled labor within more advanced centers
like Bangalore is also deepening a sense of urgency. Wages for skilled
programmers and project managers are rising by as much as 25% per year
in Bangalore, and employee-turnover rates are increasing as well.
John Hagel and John Seely Brown, "Silicon Valley's Risky Complacency:
Innovation is not a birthright -- it requires continuous effort to renew
and reinvigorate, something startups in China and India understand,"
Business Week, July 28, 2005 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2005/tc20050728_4517.htm?campaign_id=nws_techn_jul29&link_position=link1
Shopping for Colleges Online It will come as no shock that high school
students spend a lot of time online. But a new survey of juniors
suggests that they have mixed feelings about using colleges’ Web sites
to pick places to apply. For instance, 56 percent of those surveyed said
that they prefer looking at a college Web site to reading a brochure
that comes in the mail. But while only 44 percent of all juniors prefer
viewbooks to Web sites, that number rises 49 percent for students with A
averages.
Scott Jaschik, "Shopping for Colleges Online," Inside Higher Ed,
July 29, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/29/admissions
Shopping for Romance online As their explosive growth fades like the
bloom of new love, online personals sites turn to more sophisticated
technology or niche markets to keep the romance alive.
Randy Dotinga, "Dating Sites Rekindle the Flame," Wired News,
July 29, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,68330,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
Luring in the unskilled suckers/addicts Casinos hunger for a better understanding of
players. In particular, they want information that will help them refine
how often, and to whom, they dole out "comps"--a sort of casino currency
redeemable for treats like free hotel rooms, dinners, and drinks. This
calculation requires two primary pieces of information: how much a given
player is wagering, and--for blackjack and some other card games--how
skilled that player is.
David Talbot, "The Digital Pit Boss," MIT's Technology Review,
August 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/brief_boss.asp?trk=nl
Soon we will have more people broadcasting than their are people
willing to pay attention to it PERSONAL BROADCASTING
It wasn't so long ago that publishing a Web log (blog) required some Web
programming skills. Then along came Blogger, software that made blogging
easy enough for the masses. Blogger became so popular that Google bought it
in 2003. Substitute "podcast" for "blog" in the preceding sentences, and
you'll understand the vision behind the new Web-based podcasting tools
developed by Odeo, a San Francisco startup launched by Blogger cocreator
Evan Williams and his former neighbor, Noah Glass. Podcasting, for the
uninitiated, is the hot independent-media trend of 2005; amateur
broadcasters record their own news shows, commentary, or interviews on
whatever subjects they choose and put the audio files on the Web. Anyone
with an Apple iPod or other digital music player can subscribe to the shows
and download and listen to them. Unfortunately, being a podcaster has, until
lately, also meant being an expert in digital recording and mixing.
"Summer Stuff," MIT's Technology Review, August 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/review_summer.asp?trk=nl
University of Wisconsin professor gets jail for giving child sex
material A UW-Madison professor arrested while trying to
meet a 14-year-old Greendale boy last March will spend 30 days in jail for
sending the boy sexually explicit material. Lewis Keith Cohen, 60, pleaded
no contest and was found guilty Wednesday of a felony charge of exposing a
child to harmful material. As part of a plea deal, felony charges of using a
computer to facilitate a sex crime and child enticement, each of which
carried a sentence of up to 25 years, were dropped.
Steven Elbow, "UW prof gets jail for giving child sex material," The
Capital Times, July 28, 2005 ---
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories//index.php?ntid=48538&ntpid=2
Maine to Vote on Repealing Gay Rights Law Voters will decide in November whether to repeal
Maine's newly enacted gay rights law, the state's chief elections officer
said Thursday after qualifying the measure for the ballot. The declaration
by Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap sets into motion what will be the
latest in a series of battles at the ballot box over over gay marriage
around the country.
Glenn Adams, Yahoo News, July 28, 2005 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050729/ap_on_re_us/maine_gay_rights
Color Lovers COLOURlovers: a place to view, rate and review some
lovely colours & palettes. the idea is to create a place of color
inspiration where a designer of any sort can see new and lovely colours...
find out what colors are hot, what work well in other uses... and simply
make some love with colour. there are currently 852 lovers sharing 3,063
colours in 778 palettes. lovers have scored the lovely colours & palettes
24,453 times and left 2,063 comments. Colour Lovers ---
http://www.colourlovers.com/
The Number of Minority-Owned Businesses Expand
The Census Bureau reports that the number of minority
and women-owned businesses have increased over a five year period between
1997 and 2002. Their Survey of Business Owners reveals that the total number
of businesses increased at a rate of 10 percent or about 2 million. Minority
and women-owned businesses have grown at an increasing rate. The number of
businesses owned by Asians grew by 24 percent while African-Americans
minority businesses grew by 45 percent. Hispanic minority businesses grew by
31 percent. Businesses owned by women increased by 20 percent to 6.5 million
over the five-year period. The Census Bureau revealed the survey results at
the National Urban League’s annual meeting. “There have to be economies of
scales to provide services competitively with other companies and
minority-owned companies have to grow to compete,” said Marc H. Morial, the
president of the National Urban League.
"The Number of Minority-Owned Businesses Expands," AccountingWeb,
August 1, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101145
You won't believe this: The new large accounting firm On Monday, August 1, 2005, H&R Block, Inc.
announced it will buy the tax and business services division of American
Express in a $220 million deal. If the sale goes through, the combined
business is projected to have annual revenues of $1 billion, catapulting the
Kansas City, Missouri-based company best known for its tax preparation
services into the Number Five slot among the nation’s accounting firms. The
deal would also add 2,500 employees to H&R Block’s RSM McGlandrey Business
Services division, according to Forbes. The Associated Press reports that
the deal requires approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and should be
complete by September 30, 2005.
AccountingWeb, August 2, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101153
Whistleblowers pay a heavy price While whistleblowers are protected under the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the financial and emotional toll remains alarmingly
high. Just ask David Windhauser, the former controller for Trane, the
heating and cooling company. He was the first person to receive a U.S.
Department of Labor order requiring his former employer to rehire him under
Sarbanes-Oxley. He complained in 2003 that managers were committing fraud by
recording fake expenses on financial statements. He was fired one month
later. He and his wife, Jeanne, then filed a Sarbanes-Oxley complaint.
AccountingWeb, August 3, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101155
South Korean police say a 28-year-old South
Korean man died of exhaustion in an Internet cafe after playing computer
games non-stop for 49 hours. What game was he playing?
RateFinancials has released the results of a
two-year study that finds companies still take liberties in reporting
their financials. In these overtly regulatory times, balance sheets and
income statements still aren’t transparent even when prepared following
generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) standards that provide
management with broad discretion at times. Although these statement
inaccuracies may not violate GAAP standards, the company’s financial
health may not be accurately reflected for intelligent investors and
shareholders in clearly worded descriptions. RateFinancials is an
independent research firm based in New York. The study found several
disturbing facts among the Standard & Poor’s 500 companies it examined.
It found that:
Nearly 33 percent do not report their
companies’ financial conditions accurately.
75 percent engaged in some kind of
off-balance sheet financing.
28 percent employed aggressive revenue
techniques. An audit committee should be aware of what can be done
to further ensure the accuracy of their company’s financial
statements. GAAP standards aren’t perfect by any means and
Sarbanes-Oxley is a mighty sword f
Which country has the highest fertility rates? France, United States,
Brazil, China, or South Korea?
Answer --- Seven Articles on the State of American Society ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/StateOfSociety.pdf
Association for Student Judicial Affairs (ASJA) Law and Policy Report
Database is updated!
Articles from
2001 - 2005
July 28, message from David Tuttle
I forward this as the second part of series
that I posted last week. I think this is it. I can't remember exactly
why I posted the first one - it seems so long ago, but wanted to
follow-up for the few of you who enjoyed the first one. I think this
will be all.
David M. Tuttle
Dean of Students and Director of Residential Life
Trinity University
One Trinity Place #40 San Antonio, TX 78212-7200 dtuttle@trinity.edu
The investigation and possible prosecution of
KPMG has been the focus of a larger investigation by the Department of
Justice (DOJ) into abusive tax shelters sold to corporate taxpayers and
wealthy individuals by accounting firms, banks, and law firms. There are
now signs that DOJ is working toward a decision. DOJ found that KPMG
sold four types of overly aggressive tax shelters to over 350 people
between 1997 and 2001 that brought in $214 million in fees according to
the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. These shelters cost the
Government around $1.4 billion in unpaid taxes.
The firm has been cooperating with the
government and issued a statement in June implicating their “wrongful
conduct” and “full responsibility” by their former partners. They also
pledged further cooperation in the case. They have initiated corporate
reforms to ensure this situation will not occur again.
The Washington Post has reported that up to 20
ex-KPMG partners may be facing prosecution for their roles in selling
the shelters. Other firms implicated in government documents include a
law firm now called Sidley Austin Brown & Wood and Deutsche Bank
according to the New York Times.
A letter from my cousin Mark Jensen who ended his career in
Minnesota in order to help the people of Africa
Institute of Agriculture Tumaini University It
is becoming a reality. The Mgongo farm will have four demonstration
plots going in December of 2005. The Institute will also have
demonstration plots at Mpanga farm and Lulanzi Farm. We will be starting
a farmstead (for security of stored equipment and harvest) at the Mpanga
farm along with the beginning of a Rice Project.The Institute is an
outreach project of the University of Minnesota, Sokoine University and
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). We will be receiving
research information and technical help with our projects but no
financial aid. Our goal is to increase the food production in the Region
of Iringa so they can feed themselves plus have extra to market.
We need your help in several ways. Prayer
support which I know my family is so good at because of your prayer
support for me during my two major surgeries and three chemo sessions of
four plus months each and now a clean bill of health so we will be
leaving on September 19th.
We also need people to help in running the
Institute both here and in Iringa.
We also need financial support demonstration
plots will cost $1000 plus each ( 12 to start with), farmstead buildings
of $2000 each (need 4 by December) and initiate rice project if possible
$20,000 plus. All monies (large or small amounts are greatly
appreciated) go to the projects and none for administration or salaries.
A sincere thank you to all that have already given to the Institute.
Our Jensen roots are rural so we feel it is a
natural fit for us to help the poor in rural Iringa. For tax deductible
reasons checks can be made out to SPAS (Saint Paul Area Synod) Institute
of Agriculture ATTN: Myrna and addressed to me. Please pass on to
family, friends and anyone else you feel may have an interest in this
project.
Mark and Terry Jensen
Mark Jensen,
Director Institute of Agricultural Development
TUMAINI UNIVERSITY, Iringa (Tanzania, Africa)
13025 Dahlia Circle #208
Eden Prairie, MN 55344 USA
E-mail: mtjensens@earthlink.net
Phone: 952-829-5326 Cell: 952-270-6498
Lawyer - one who protects us from
robbers by taking away the temptation
H.L. Mencken
Never before has there been such a
wide difference between those who work and those who make money without
working.
Vandana Shiva
Education is the ability to listen
to almost anything without losing your temper. Robert
Frost (as quoted in a recent email message from Charlie
Betts)
NASA has a great Website filled with multimedia and interactive
features ---
http://www.nasa.gov
Fraud at Cornell University After digging deeper, Dr. Sarafoglou, a
43-year-old native of Greece, concluded that Cornell was defrauding American
taxpayers. Cornell, she believed, was taking grant money for studies and
using it to support standard care for patients at New York-Presbyterian
Hospital, a Cornell affiliate on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "When you see
all this research money being wasted, what do you do?" asks Dr. Sarafoglou.
Bernard Wysocki, Jr., "As Universities Get Billions in Grants, Some See
Abuses: Cornell Doctor Blows Whistle Over Use of Federal Funds, Alleging
Phantom Studies, The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2005; Page A1
---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112415991812114128,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
The Cool Spot is a good site to bookmark for young people
and other persons troubled with alcohol abuse Alcoholism is a disease on the rise, especially among teens. A good
site for information and help is the The Cool Spot from the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism ---
http://www.thecoolspot.gov/
Canada's 'Free' Health Care Has a High Price Tag But Canada's public care doesn't save money. As the
satirist P.J. O'Rourke once noted, "If you think health care is expensive
now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free." When adjusted for the
age of its population, Canada vies with Iceland and Switzerland as the
highest spender on health care among the 28 most developed nations with
universal systems. Dr. David Gratzer, a Toronto physician affiliated with
the Manhattan Institute, calculates that a Canadian earning $35,000 a year
pays a stunning $7,350 in health-care taxes. Canada's Supreme Court was
scathing in its indictment of the system. "Access to a waiting list is not
access to health care," the court ruled. "Delays in the public health care
system are widespread . . . in some serious cases, patients die as a result
of waiting lists." The court struck down a Quebec law banning private
medical insurance, which should lead to successful challenges to similar
laws in other provinces. While last week the court stayed the impact of its
ruling in Quebec for a year, a nationwide debate on why Canada is the only
country other than Cuba and North Korea to ban private insurance and private
care has finally broken out.
John H. Fund, "Canada's 'Free' Health Care Has a High Price Tag," The
Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2005; Page A9 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112381432071311723,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Silicosis Scandal Congratulations to House Republicans Joe Barton and
Ed Whitfield, who last week opened a probe into the nation's asbestos and
silicosis claims. Their decision to investigate the people responsible for
recruiting and falsely diagnosing tens of thousands of plaintiffs is a major
step toward exposing this fraud.
"Silicosis Scandal," The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2005; Page
A8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112381120616111638,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Islamic Mortgages
Kim Norris of the Detroit Free Press presents an interesting look at Islamic
Mortgages. Islamic mortgages are different than traditional mortgages since
many Muslims believe interest is wrong ---
From Jim Mahar's blog on August 10, 2005 ---
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
"The biggest barrier to developing
so-called Islamic financing in the United States is the absence of a
secondary market for these products. Typically when banks loan money
for houses, they sell those loans to investors who profit by
collecting the principle and interest.
Ranzini said University Bank must hang onto
the Islamic mortgages it writes as well as title to the homes. That
limits the volume of loans a bank can make."
Home insurance can also a be problem for
the "borrowers" since they technically do not own the home. In the
article Norris writes of a Muslim couple who experienced this
problem:
"some problems when they tried to buy
homeowners insurance -- something necessary to obtain a mortgage.
Insurers would not recognize the Islamic mortgage as a standard
mortgage. Instead, they insisted that since the trust owned the
house, Solaiman and Metzger were only eligible for renters'
insurance." This may be changing however since in Michigan at least,
the "Office of Financial and Insurance Services...OFIS issued a
clarification saying that Islamic mortgages qualified for homeowners
insurance just as a traditional mortgage does."
"Although clerics had been prohibited from
lending at interest at least since the 4th Century, the ban was not
extended to laymen until much later. In 1139, the Second Lateran Council
denied all sacraments to unrepentant usurers and, in an 1142 decree,
condemned any payment greater than the capital that was lent."
Interestingly (no pun intended) Christians decided that interest was
fine so long as it was not punitive (hence the term usury). It will be
interesting to see (and unfortunately it will probably be after any of
our lifetimes) whether Muslims decide likewise.
I have tried to understand why any religion would not allow any interest
and I can not. I realize there are scripture readings (in many
religions--see Wikipedia) against it, but I confess I do not understand the
logic behind them. The ability to borrow (i.e. access to capital) can be
amazingly beneficial and while equity might be better in some regards,
limiting supply seems an interesting way of making helping the poor. Indeed,
it could be said that religions would want to increase this access to money
to help lift the poor from poverty.
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that debt can become a
burden (too much of a good thing) and can lead to short-term thinking. But
that is more an indictment of excessive debt. So maybe we should be against
predatory lending and not all lending.
Open2 portal to learning
I think Open University in the U.K. is the largest university in the world.
It has extensive onsite and online courses. BBC News and Open University
combined forces to create the Open2 portal to learning and news ---
http://www.open2.net/
There are also various forums.
July 31, 2005 message received from
tjdl@genesis.coe.uh.edu The Texas Journal of Distance Learning (http://www.tjdl.org
), an independent, peer-reviewed online journal,
encourages, collects, and shares scholarly knowledge about all aspects of
distance learning emanating from higher education in the state of Texas. An
editorial board of recognized academics and practitioners guides and
produces the journal. The University of Houston hosts and supports the TJDL.
"Students Perceptions of Distance Learning, Online Learning and the
Traditional Classroom," by John O'Malley, Department of Management and
Business Systems Harrison McCraw, Department of Accounting and Finance
Richards College of Business State University of West Georgia Carrollton,
Georgia 30118-3030 ---
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/omalley24.html
Each baby buys an extra year at Princeton Princeton University . . . is now giving all
new parents an extra year before tenure review — automatically. Many
colleges promise to award the year to anyone eligible who asks. But at
Princeton, you don’t ask — it now just happens. And it can happen multiple
times for people who have more than one child (and those who have twins can
get two extra years at that time).
Scott Jaschik, "Stopping the Clock — Without Asking," Inside Higher Ed,
August 16, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/16/clock
Jensen Comment: Presumably this only applies to faculty
deemed to be making adequate progress toward tenure with or without the
extra years for babies. It would be absurd to be otherwise locked into a
really lousy/negligent teacher for extra years just because a new babies are
born year after year. That would unduly penalize students. Colleges who
adopt this faculty benefit must be very careful how it is worded if lawsuits
are to be avoided.
In your Sociology of Families course, you
ask students to write a paper on the arguments for and against gay
adoption. One of your students tells you that he cannot do this
assignment because offering arguments for gay adoption clashes with
his religious beliefs.
In your Race and Ethnicity course, a
students cites “evidence” that African Americans are intellectually
inferior to whites. When challenged, she points to the syllabus,
which states, “Each person’s perspective is valuable.”
A student whose opinion differs from the
majority of the class speaks her mind. She is personally attacked by
another student and before you can intervene, the attacked student
runs out of the classroom. Do you run after her?
Hot button issues may not come up regularly in
classroom discussion in every discipline. But in sociology, they come up
all the time. Abortion. Gay marriage. Poverty. Religion. Even issues
that may not capture headlines all the time — like spanking — are
regularly covered (and fought over) by sociology students.
At a session of the annual meeting of the
American Sociological Association, which is going on this week in
Philadelphia, professors tried to talk through strategies for how to
discuss these issues — without losing control of their classrooms,
hurting students’ feelings, or ending up being lampooned on David
Horowitz’s Web site. The above scenarios (which audience members said
were close to things they had experienced) were analyzed and debated.
Continued in article
Yawn! Another week and another multimillion dollar fine
paid by Merrill Lynch. So what's new? Merrill Lynch & Co. will pay a $10 million fine
for failing to deliver prospectuses to customers in mutual-fund
transactions, as well as other supervisory and operational lapses, New York
Stock Exchange regulators said. The Big Board officials said the brokerage
firm failed to deliver prospectuses from October 2002 to March 2004 with
respect to 64,000 transactions related to sales of registered, open-ended
mutual-fund securities. The firm also failed to deliver prospectuses between
January 2004 and July 2004 in 900 transactions in 275 accounts related to
auction-rate preferred stocks, they said.
Chad Bray, "Merrill Fined $10 Million by NYSE," The Wall Street Journal,
August 16, 2005; Page C13 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112414156768313701,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Jensen Comment: Sometimes it seems that there are almost no
securities frauds in which Merrill Lynch is not somehow involved. Just
search for "Merrill" at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
The Blackboard: A tribute to a long-standing but fading
teaching and learning tool
From the Museum of History and Science at Oxford University:
Bye Bye Blackboard: From Einstein and others ---
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/blackboard/
August 14, 2005 reply from Bob Blystone
Seeing Bob Jensen's post about the
disappearance of blackboards from classrooms in this digital age,
provoked a thought: when were blackboards first used in classrooms. The
Military Academy at West Point is often cited as the first place in the
United States; however, it is not clear exactly when or who introduced
the blackboard on the banks of the Hudson River. George Baron or Claude
Crozet in either 1801 or 1817 are cited.
The web site listed by Bob describes the
salvaging of a blackboard upon which an Einstein lecture was written and
never erased... that led me to a cluster of thoughts. When Trinity moved
from Waxahachie to Woodlawn, were any of the blackboards moved from
there to here? When Trinity moved from Woodlawn to Stadium Drive in
1952, were any blackboards brought along? And finally, just where on
today's campus is the oldest surviving blackboard? With the total
rebuilding of Northrup and the major renovations of Marrs McLean, are
there any pre-1952 blackboards on campus? Perhaps Pete or Norm might
know.
All this pre-academic year musing leads me to
one additional utterance: Who gave the first PowerPoint lecture at
Trinity University? When was that first lecture given?
There is a lack of romance when one says "I
have a freshly formatted hard drive" in contrast to "I have a clean
slate."
August 14, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Bob,
The demise of chalk boards commenced years before computers with the
widespread use of overhead transparencies that could both be prepared
before class and developed during a lecture. The same applies to flip
charts for which Don VanEynde is famous.
Preceding PowerPoint, there were campus
applications of Harvard Graphics and possibly Persuasion.
Some of the first faculty demonstrations of HyperCard, HyperGraphics,
and Harvard Graphics came in our infamous May 1992 Faculty Summer
Seminar. IMS videos of these presentations are available in the basement
of the Trinity Library. Participating Trinity faculty had to develop
presentation projects. Invited speakers such as Robert Winter (Music,
UCLA) and Bill Graves (Mathematics, UNC) had great ToolBook
presentations that inspired me to shift from HyperGraphics to ToolBook.
I don't recall any PowerPoint demonstrations
that early in time. Wes Regian (USAF) had a great Harvard Graphics
presentation of learning theory and technology.
As you recall, the Internet was only used by a
few faculty (Kroeger and some Computer Science faculty) in 1992.
Internet cable was literally strung between windows of a few buildings
in those days. I suspect that you were also one of the early "window
wire" users.
Bob Jensen
August 14, 2005 reply from Bob Blystone
Bob:
"PowerPoint was originally developed by Bob
Gaskins, a former Berkeley Ph.D. student who envisioned an easy-to-use
presentation program that would manipulate a string of slides. In 1984,
Gaskins joined a failing Silicon Valley software firm called Forethought
and hired a software developer, Dennis Austin. Their prototype program
was called "Presenter", but was changed to PowerPoint to avoid a
trademark problem. PowerPoint 1.0 was released in 1987 for the Apple
Macintosh. It ran in black and white, generating text-and-graphics pages
that a photocopier could turn into overhead transparencies. Later in
1987, Forethought and PowerPoint were purchased by Microsoft Corporation
for $14 million. In 1988 the first Windows and DOS versions were
produced. Since 1990, PowerPoint has been a standard part of the
Microsoft Office suite of applications."
The first (Trinity University)
computer based interactive lecture presentations (not PowerPoint) began
in the CS department in 1972 when we designed a machine (built by
student Fred Rodgers in a Physics lab) to be used in conjunction with a
2741 style printing terminal manufactured by GTE and a 3M overhead
projector (borrowed from IMS). The machine fed thin roll mylar (on which
the printer typed) to the flat bed of the overhead projector so that an
entire class could immediately see the computer output. The last time I
looked, we still have the machine which was used for several years.
I think we were rather innovative in those
days.
I also designed and implemented the
University's first e-mail system (intra university) long before the
internet was designed and implemented and the University's first word
processing system (an example use was the 1976 Self-study). President
Calgaard later banned the use of that software as an inappropriate use
for our mainframe computer!
Business Week's listing of the top 10 new technologies
Podcasts, RFID tags, and mesh networks are among the 10 new technologies
that should be on the radar of every chief exec
"The CEO's Tech Toolbox," Business Week, July 26, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/BWtop10
Beyond Excel ActiveData for Office is a major step forward for
our users and for InfromationActive,” Michael Pluscauskas, President of
InformationActive Inc. said in a press release announcing the general
availability. “This product provides our customers with a flexible and
dynamic platform that not only breaks the Microsoft Excel™ row barrier, but
also is adaptable and expandable for future planned functionality. Users
have been asking for a powerful data analysis tool that works with Microsoft
Office and we have given them that and much more. I’m also proud of the fact
that we’ve provided an exceptionally robust product at a very competitive
price.” ActiveData for Office stretches the boundaries of traditional data
analysis tools by providing exceptional integration with Microsoft Office.
Users can append documents and web pages to their analysis and archive the
entire file in addition to analyzing millions of rows of data quickly thus
providing new levels of information control while still allowing the
flexibility to view results within ActiveDatae for Office or Microsoft
Excel. ActiveData for Office also includes macro capability for recording
commonly performed tasks and full audit trail capabilities.
"The Next Level of Computer Aided Audit Tools," AccountingWeb, August
15, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101205
Beyond historical transactions cost Two Interpretations of Statements on Auditing
Standards have been issued by the AICPA. These interpretations concern the
auditing of fair values or more specifically Auditing Interests in Trusts
Held by a Third-Party Trustee and Reported at Fair Value; and Auditing
Investments in Securities Where a Readily Determinable Fair Value Does Not
Exist. The interpretations illuminate situations where simply receiving a
confirmation of fair value from a third party is not enough audit evidence
for a complete valuation. The interpretations reiterate the responsibility
for management to institute accounting and financial reporting processes for
determination of fair value measurements.
"AICPA Issues Fair Value Interpretations,"AccountingWeb,
August 15, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101184
One of the all-time largest gifts to a university A doctor who helped invent a successful
anti-inflammatory drug has donated an estimated $105 million to the New York
University School of Medicine -- one of the largest gifts ever made to a
U.S. university.
Elizabeth Bernstein, "Doctor Writes Rx For $105 Million," The Wall Street
Journal, August 12, 2005; Page W1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112380935845311581,00.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal
Starting and ending life as a blank page I contend that Clairidge’s hard-won nullity is
temperamentally different from nihilism, which is to say that believing
nothing is not the same as Belief in Nothing. Moreover, if Clairidge’s art
takes the blankness of life as its premise, its slow-building conclusions
represent a sort of après vie. Though reconstructing a writer’s faith from
his art is a dicey business (and Ethel burned her brother’s blank notebooks
after his death), one of the few remaining social effects sold at a charity
auction in 1876 is a hay-strewn, slightly warped Ouija board. In short, this
project involves the unacknowledged fourth estate of the race, gender, and
class trinity: creed. Any committee members in sympathy with the current
political administration, please take note. Nothing is familiar to me. As a
blocked but tenured faculty member for the past 14 years, I can attest to
the power of the blank page. The study I propose would be as infinitely
suggestive as Clairidge’s own work. Having already compiled over 150 blank
pages of my own, I estimate that I am about halfway through a first draft.
David Galef , "NEH Grant Proposal #1095702H," Inside Higher Ed, August
12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/12/galef
Erotic images can be blinding Researchers have finally found evidence for what
good Catholic boys have known all along – erotic images make you go blind.
The effect is temporary and lasts just a moment, but the research has added
to road-safety campaigners’ calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near
busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents. The new study by US
psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail
to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say
some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the
phenomenon, known as “emotion-induced blindness”.
Gaia Vince, "Erotic images can turn you blind," New Scientist, August 12,
2005 ---
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7845
It became a "cardinal" rule at Stanford University The National Collegiate Athletic Association
last week banned the use of Native American team names and mascots in
postseason play, upsetting the 18 colleges that use the symbols, and leaving
fans at many of those institutions saying that it would be terrible to
change. In fact, many colleges (see list at bottom of article) have
changed their mascots and symbols away from Native American imagery, and
officials at these colleges report that while a few alumni never get over
it, most people are happy with the change, and alumni pride has not
suffered. Stanford University, home to one of the most successful athletic
programs in the country,
changed from Indians to Cardinal(the color, not the bird) in
1972. The move came after a small group of Native
American students and staff members appealed to the administration.
“Stanford took pride in making a change without being forced,” said Bill
Stone, emeritus president of the Stanford Alumni Association, and an
assistant to the president during the change.
David Epstein, "Burying the Mascot Hatchet," Inside Higher Ed, August
12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/12/mascot
New Option for Student Shoppers: E-Books
As students at eight colleges shop for notebooks and
car decals this fall, they’ll have another product to consider at the campus
bookstore: electronic textbooks. But not everyone expects the e-books fly
off the shelves. The eight colleges have partnered with the wholesale
company MBS
Textbook Exchangeto offer about 30 textbooks
at 33 percent below the normal cover price. “It’s about giving students a
cheaper option,” said Jeff Cohen, advertising and promotions manager at MBS.
David Epstein, "New Option for Student Shoppers: E-Books," Inside Higher
Ed, August 12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/12/ebooks
Google's Book Scanning Hits Snag Stung by a publishing industry
backlash, Google has halted its efforts to scan
copyright books from some of the nation's largest
university libraries so the material can be indexed in
its leading internet search engine. The company
announced the suspension, effective until November, in a
noticeposted on its
website just before midnight Thursday by Adam Smith, the
manager of its
ambitious programto
convert millions of books into a digital format.
"Google's Book Scanning Hits Snag," Wired News,
August 12, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68513,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5
Turning the tables on Google That
previous story, which
News.com linked to, was headlined "Google Balances
Privacy, Reach," and showed just how much information
Google has placed at our fingertips. To illustrate,
staff writer Elinor Mills spent 30 minutes googling Eric
Schmidt, Google's chief executive officer, then
published Schmidt's net worth ($1.5 billion), his net
gain from selling Google stock this year ($140 million),
the town he calls home (Atherton, California), the fact
that he is an amateur pilot and "roamed the desert at
the Burning Man art festival in Nevada." "That such
detailed personal information is so readily available on
public websites makes most people uncomfortable," Mills
wrote. "But it's nothing compared with the information
Google collects and doesn't make public." She worried
that "hackers, zealous government investigators or even
a Google insider who falls short of the company's ethics
standards could abuse that information." The question is
how could a company like Google, which has become the
toast of Wall Street, have such tone-deaf public
relations?
Adam L. Penenberg, "Google's Boycott Misses the Mark,"
Wired News, August 11, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68486,00.html
Why should he be allowed to keep five percent? Bernard J. Ebbers, the swaggering, self-made
businessman who vowed to revolutionize the telephone industry, yesterday
agreed to give up virtually everything he has built or bought to raise an
estimated $45 million to settle the claims of investors hurt when WorldCom
Inc. collapsed into bankruptcy three years ago. Ebbers, 63, will be
allowed to keep enough money to cover legal fees and to support his wife in
what prosecutors call a "modest" fashion. But the once-brash executive must
move out of his Clinton, Miss., mansion within three months so that it can
be sold. He also must forfeit interests in 300,000 acres of timberland, a
marina and a golf course, and an anticipated federal tax refund of millions
of dollars, lawyers said.
Carrie Johnson and Yuki Noguchi, "Ebbers Agrees to
Settle Shareholder Suit Former WorldCom: Chief Executive to Give Up About
95 Percent of Assets," The Washington Post, July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/30/AR2005063000693.html?referrer=email
Ebbers Found Guilty Former WorldCom Chief Executive Bernard J.
Ebbers was convicted of participating in the largest accounting fraud in
U.S. history, handing the government a landmark victory in its prosecution
of an unprecedented spate of corporate scandals. After eight days of
deliberation, the jury found Mr. Ebbers guilty of all nine counts against
him, including conspiracy and securities fraud, related to an $11 billion
accounting fraud at the onetime highflying telecommunications giant. Mr.
Ebbers, 63 years old, now faces the prospect of spending many years in jail.
He is expected to appeal.
"Ebbers Is Convicted In Massive Fraud: WorldCom Jurors Say CEO Had to Have
Known; Unconvinced by Sullivan," The Wall Street Journal, March 16,
2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111090709921580016,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
Justice Lite: Scott Sullivan gets five years with the possibility of
earlier parole WorldCom Inc.'s former chief financial officer,
Scott Sullivan, who engineered the $11 billion fraud at the onetime telecom
titan, was sentenced to five years in prison -- a reduced term that sent a
signal to white-collar criminals that it can pay to cooperate with the
government. Mr. Sullivan's reduced sentence came after prosecutors credited
his testimony as crucial to the conviction of his former boss and mentor,
Bernard J. Ebbers, who founded the company, which is now known as MCI Inc.
Last month, Mr. Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Shawn Youg, Dionne Searcey, and Nathan Kopp, "Cooperation Pays: Sullivan
Gets Five Years," The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2005, Page C1
---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112376796515410853,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Justice Lite: Rite Aid Ex-CEO's Sentence Pared A federal judge on Thursday trimmed a year from
the eight-year sentence of former Rite Aid Corp. Chief Executive Martin L.
Grass for conspiring to obstruct justice and to defraud the nation's
third-largest drugstore chain and its shareholders. U.S. District Judge
Sylvia H. Rambo said she acted to reduce a disparity between Mr. Grass and
other defendants sentenced for similar crimes. Mr. Grass, 51 years old,
smiled and blew a kiss to family members as federal marshals led him from
the courtroom.
"Rite Aid Ex-CEO's Sentence Pared," The Wall Street Journal, August
12, 2005; Page C3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112379123643311147,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
The Trial Lawyers' Enron The Justice Department is finally starting to take
a hard look at some dubious legal practices, and it isn't a pretty sight. If
a recent federal indictment that refers to Milberg Weiss is anything to go
by, the trial bar has its Enron. That indictment, delivered up in late June,
charges two California attorneys with conspiracy, fraud, money laundering
and obstruction of justice -- among other felonies. Class-action lawsuit
giant Milberg Weiss isn't formally charged, though the firm has admitted it
is the "New York Law Firm" cited in the indictment as having made numerous
illegal payments to plaintiffs. Justice has also made clear that criminal
charges against Milberg Weiss partners, or even the entire firm, are
possible.
"The Trial Lawyers' Enron," The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2005;
Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112069222061878965,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
As students begin to return to college campuses
across the country, they may be curious to know that there are a number
of fine online resources that will help them develop their college-level
writing skills. The first site offered here comes from the Dartmouth
College Writing Program, and contains a number of helpful materials,
such as some well-written essays that answer the question "What is an
academic paper?" and also provide information on researching topics for
papers. The site also includes information on such topics as writing
about film, writing for sociology courses, and helpful suggestions on
writing from fellow students. The second site is offered by the
University of Wisconsin-Madison's Writing Center and contains material
on how best to cite references and avoiding common grammar and
punctuation mistakes. Taken together, these sites provide a host of
materials that will allow students to become better writers in their
various courses during their time in the world of higher education and
beyond.
Many public interest media organizations are
concerned about listening to the voices and opinions of those around the
world, particularly in the developing world. One such group is the
nonprofit global citizens' media project, Global Voices Online, which is
sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard
Law School. Its ultimate goal is "to foster better international
communication and understanding between ordinary citizens of different
countries, using internet, wireless and radio technologies." On the
project's well-designed homepage, visitors can access compelling blogs
from dozens of countries around the world and view profiles of persons
working in a variety of important fields related to these emerging
technologies. Another very important aspect of the site is the area
dedicated to Podcasts from around the globe, including those offered by
Ahmad Humeid in Jordan and several interviews with Chinese bloggers.
Founded in 1853 as the first scientific
institution in the American West, the California Academy of Sciences is
based in San Francisco and is the home to a number of public exhibits
and eight scientific research departments. The Academy's online presence
is quite prodigious, and contains copious information about its various
outreach activities, its lecture series, and of course, its natural
history museum. The homepage allows entry to many of these features,
including the AntWeb, which warrants at least one detailed visit. The
AntWeb serves as a clearinghouse of information on the ant faunas of
both California and Madagascar, and visitors can learn about these
different creatures here. Another nice feature is the "Science Now" area
of the site. Here visitors can learn about the various research projects
underway at the Academy, such as those projects on the dart frogs of
Suriname.
The continued growth of online radio stations
that offer streaming audio was interrupted by a number of lawsuits filed
by a number of corporations in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Fortunately, some legal options are now available, including Mercora,
which is an Internet software system that includes a universal Internet
radio tuner linked to many different channels and users. After
downloading the Mercora client application, users will be able to search
for music that interests them online. This version of Mercora is only
compatible with Windows 2000 and later.
Siberia feels the heat It's a frozen peat bog the size of France and
Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the
first time since the ice age, it is melting
Ian Sample, "Warming hits 'tipping point'," Guardian Unlimited,
August 11, 2005 ---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1546797,00.html
Kansas Teen Awarded $250K In Bullying Lawsuit A Kansas jury Thursday ruled in favor of a
Tonganoxie teenager who said the school district failed to stop the bullying
that led him to drop out of school. The family of Dylan Theno, 18, filed the
lawsuit in May 2004 against the Tonganoxie School District. The suit claimed
Theno had suffered years of brutal bullying, and that school officials
didn't attempt to stop the harassment. "That's five years of my life that I
had to live -- just depressed, angry, scared. I can never get that back,"
Theno told KMBC-TV. "I was just miserable, you know. You wake up every
morning, begging my parents not to make me go to school. It was just, I
didn't want to be there; I didn't want to walk down those halls anymore."
"Kansas Teen Awarded $250K In Bullying Lawsuit," Click On Detroit, August
12, 2005 ---
http://www.clickondetroit.com/education/4843720/detail.html
Abstract Do non-financial investment attributes
affect investor behavior? To answer this question, we study the dynamics
of investor cash flows in socially responsible mutual funds. Consistent
with anecdotal evidence, we find that the monthly volatility of investor
cash flows is lower in socially responsible funds than conventional
funds. In addition, annual flows in socially responsible funds are less
sensitive to lagged negative returns than flows in conventional funds,
but more sensitive to lagged positive returns. We argue that that these
results can be explained by a non-financial component of the utility
functions of socially responsible investors.
Civil jury trials are following the path of the
dinosaurs: They are becoming extinct.
And as they vanish, some lawyers worry that the
Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the guarantee of a trial by
jury, may also disappear.
"It's all a matter of economics," Dale Hicks,
president of the San Antonio chapter of the American Board of Trial
Advocates, says.
Last fiscal year, the 13 elected civil court
judges in Bexar County oversaw only 48 jury verdicts — less than one per
week. In comparison, records for fiscal year 1994-95 indicate almost 200
civil trials were taken to jury verdict among the 11 trial benches that
existed then.
This does not necessarily mean people are
becoming less litigious or the need for lawyers has diminished.
About 76,000 lawyers are licensed to practice
law in the state, and 34,703 lawsuits were filed in Bexar County last
year. Both those numbers are expected to grow a bit each year.
The downward trend
Civil court statistics for the past 10 years
show some striking trends in the law business in this community.
The disappearing civil law trial phenomenon is
not exclusive to state district courts or Texas. The same thing is
happening in district and federal courts across the country — a trend
that has become a hot topic in legal workshops and seminars throughout
the nation.
Factors in the declining requests for jury
trials include tort reform; arbitration clauses in contracts; changes in
the law regarding workers' compensation; the growing use of mediation;
and the rising cost of trials.
The drop in jury trials has produced a cottage
industry of mediators and arbitrators while forcing a decline in the
litigation sections of most large law firms.
Continued in article
A "Hot Hire" at the University of Texas at San Antonio The University of Texas at San Antonio has several
goals for its College of Business: increasing its prominence, especially in
the world of research; boosting its focus on international economics; and
serving as a showcase for the role a minority-serving institution can play
in a diverse business world. It’s not surprising, then, that officials are
excited about the arrival of Hamid Beladi, who is the editor or associate
editor of four journals focused on international economic issues and an
expert on international trade. Lynda de la Viña, dean of the business
school, notes that San Antonio will now be the headquarters for the
International Review of Economics and Finance, one of the journals Beladi
edits. San Antonio’s business school already had strong ties to China and to
Latin America — and wants Beladi to lead the international economics track
of a planned Ph.D. in economics. Beladi, who has taught at the University of
Dayton and North Dakota State University, says that he was attracted to San
Antonio by the opportunity to help create a new Ph.D. program.
Scott Jaschik, "Hot Hires," Inside Higher Ed, August 11, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/careers/2005/08/11/hot
Bill Clinton blows his own horn
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's favorite songs
are being compiled for release on a series of albums, it was reported
Monday. The first CD in "The Bill Clinton Collection: Selections From the
Clinton Music Room," includes jazz classics such as John Coltrane's "My One
and Only Love," Miles Davis' "My Funny Valentine" and Zoot Sims'
"Summertime," Billboard.com reported.
"Bill Clinton's favorites compiled on CD," Washington Times, August 15, 2005
---
http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20050815-100605-2616r.htm
Forwarded by Paula
AAA Fuel Cost Calculator ---
http://www.fuelcostcalculator.com/ Clearly the west coast of the U.S. suffers from restrictions on the
building of new refineries.
Fraudulent Conferences that Rip Off Colleges: Do you
really want to participate in these frauds? I've written about this before, but I want to elaborate. Academics
either unwittingly or willingly sometimes allow themselves to get caught up
in fraudulent "conferences." Spam is on the rise for these frauds. The
degree of fraudulence varies. At worst, there is no conference and
organizers merely charge an exorbitant fee that allows the paper to be
"refereed" and published in a conference proceedings, thereby giving a
professor a "publication." See
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/Humanist/v18/0633.html
Even when the conferences meet, they may be fraudulent.
Generally these conferences are held in places where professors like to
travel in Europe, South America, Latin America, Las Vegas, Canada, the
Virgin Islands, or other nice locations for vacations that accompany a trip
to a conference paid for by a professor's employer. The professor gets
credit for a presentation and possibly a publication in the conference
proceedings.
But wait a minute! Here are some warning signs for a
fraudulent conference:
Even though there is a high registration fee, there are
no conference-hosted receptions, luncheons, or plenary sessions. The
conference organizer is never called to account for the high
registration fee. The organizer may allude to the cost of meeting rooms
in a hotel, but often the meeting rooms are free as long as the
organizer can guarantee a minimum number of guests who will pay for
rooms in the hotel.
All or nearly all submissions are accepted for
presentation.
The only participants in most presentation audiences are
generally other presenters assigned to make a presentation in the same
time slot. There is virtually no non-participating audience. Hence
only a few people are in the room and each of them take turns making a
presentation. Most are looking at their watches and hoping to get out
of the room as soon as possible.
Presenters present their papers and then disappear for
the rest of the conference. There is virtually no interaction among all
conference presenters.
The papers presented are often journal rejects that are
cycled conference after conference if the professor can find a
conference that will accept anything submitted on paper. Check the
dates on the references listed for each paper. Chances are the papers
have few if any references from the current decade.
These conferences are almost always held in popular
tourist locations and are often scheduled between semesters for the
convenience of adding vacation time to the trip. They are especially
popular in the summer.
I was about to be fleeced by one such
conference cheat claiming himself some Dr.----. generally organizes
conferences at almost all the exotic locations of US, Cancun, Venice
etc. This organizer double blind peer reviewed my submission (almost
35-40 pages) within 52 hours! Asked for per page charges if required to
be placed in "proceedings" which happens to be a CD-ROM. This organizer
has also got 4-5 journals which can ultimately accommodate any paper
written from any angle of any sphere of business. You may get into any
journal of your choice which will claim to be "double blind peer
reviewed'!
I wish there should be some agency of
regulators who can tame them. These people are bogus, there conferences
are bogus and often I feel that what will be the face of a person who
will come out and claim a paper presented and published in such bogus
outlet to be considered suitable for tenure and promotion!
Jagdish Pathak, PhD
Guest Editor- Managerial Auditing Journal (Special Issue)
Associate Professor of Accounting & Systems Accounting & Finance Area
Odette School of Business
University of Windsor 401 Sunset Windsor, N9B 3P4, ON Canada
Cold and distant teaching vs. warm and close
Many instructors struggle with the role of rapport in
teaching. For some, the response is a cool and distant teaching style. This
essay argues that a style of appropriate warmth can promote student
learning. It offers definitions, examples, and implications for the
instructor.
Robert F. Bruner, "'Do you Expect Me to Pander to the Students?' The Cold
Reality of Warmth in Teaching," SSRN Working Paper, June 2005 ---
http://ssrn.com/abstract=754504
"Favorite teacher" vs. "learned the most" ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#TeachingStyle Why then do
the studies show that a faculty member's research activity and his or her
teaching performance basically are uncorrelated (neither positively
correlated nor negatively correlated)? My best guess is that these studies
have fundamental flaws. After reading some of Nils' references as well as
more recent work on the subject, I believe that most of these studies
measure both teaching effectiveness and research activity incorrectly. On
the teaching effectiveness side, student evaluations of teaching often are
the only measure used in those studies; and, on the research productivity
side generally only numbers of publications are counted. Neither of these
data points really measure quality. The student evaluations often are highly
correlated with the grade that a student expects to receive rather than how
much the student has learned. Faculty members who are engaged in research
often are demanding of themselves as well as their students, so that may
skew their student evaluations. Measuring research activity by the number of
papers published tends to skew the results towards those faculty members who
would view themselves primarily as researchers and teachers of graduate
students rather than as teacher scholars who devote as much effort to their
teaching as to their research. In fact one of the correlations observed in
the research is that those faculty members who publish the most often have
less time available to devote to their teaching.
Nils Clausson, "Is There a Link Between Teaching and Research?" The
Irascible Professor, December 30, 2004 ---
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-12-30-04.htm
Forwarded by David Albrecht
New Form 4868 Provides Six-Month Filing
Extension
Aug. 8, 2005 (SmartPros) -- The Internal
Revenue Service released a draft of the revised IRS Form 4868, which if
approved will give individual taxpayers a six-month extension without
the need to file an intervening form.
The IRS said that it is estimated that this
change may save nine million hours.
Provided the necessary regulations are
approved, taxpayers will be able to use the revised form for Tax Year
2005.
For Tax Year 2004, a taxpayer filing a Form
4868 had until August 15 to file the return. The taxpayer needed to file
Form 2688 to get an additional two months and had to supply a reason for
needing the additional time.
A draft of the revised Form 4868 is available
on IRS.gov (PDF): "Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File
U.S. Individual Income Tax Return"
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/d4868.pdf
When I accessed the Lacerte website I saw that
they are promoting
www.taxalmanac.org
as a free collaborative site for tax preparers.
At first glance it looks like it is based on Wiki technology.
How to get around the airlines' 50 pound luggage limit The problem with this convenience is social,
not technical. The airlines, as the Baltimore Sun recently reported, have
found that wheeled cases, which have grown in popularity since the early
1990s, have encouraged people to pack heavier bags. Facing higher fuel
costs, most carriers have begun to impose a charge of at least $50 for bags
weighing more than 50 pounds. Whether reasonable cost recovery or stealthy
rip-off, the charges mean that the more durable--and thus heavier--the bag,
the smaller the free payload. At 13 pounds, a 24-inch wheeled Zero
Halliburton Zeroller uses more than a quarter of the domestic allowance; a
26-inch model, closer in capacity to my old two-suiter, weighs 16 pounds,
nearly a third. And thus the convenience of wheeled luggage begins to break
down. At airports, it is common to see travelers hastily removing heavy
items from their luggage and dragging them onto planes in plastic bags.
Ed Tenner, "Megascope: There's the Rub," MIT's Technology Review,
September 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/issue/megascope.asp?trk=nl
Jensen Comment: The airlines are increasingly restrictive with a limit
of two bags that are less than 50 pounds each and only one carry-on bag plus
a purse-sized small bag. These restrictions are new to the U.S. but have a
longer tradition in luggage-unfriendly Europe. Years ago when traveling in
Europe, I discovered how to beat the checked-luggage weight limit and the
one-bag limit for carrying luggage into an airplane. I simply wore a second
"bag" that contained more than my loaded carry-on bag. I bought a travel
vest with 18 pockets into which I can stuff a laptop computer, a video
camera, a tripod, digital camera, books, an electronic book reader, and my
wife. I could probably even add a small dog if I had a dog. I look like a
300-pound Marlon Brando when boarding a flight, but once on board I heave my
vest into the overhead compartment so that I can sit in a seat. I wonder
how long it will be before the airlines weigh each fully-clothed passenger
with carry-on luggage and charge according to weight. Never fear! The ACLU
will come to our defense long before that becomes standard policy in the
airline industry.
This reminds me of a Wall Street Journal article years ago where a
passenger boarding a flight to Tokyo was having trouble lifting his very
heavy garment bag above his seat. The flight attendant came to his aid, and
in the process, discovered the man's deceased mother in the garment bag.
After discovering how much the airline would charge to ship a corpse back to
Japan, this man took the "matter" into his own hands. I don't recall this
man's name, but it would be hilarious if he'd told the police his name was
Norman Bates.
Hepatitis B is our enemy It may be foolhardy to pick or play favorites when
it comes to the devastating effects of global epidemics and infectious
diseases. Nonetheless, it's interesting to observe the amount of medical and
media attention devoted in recent times to SARS and bird flu, and to fears
they may become global epidemics. Yet at the same time, other catastrophic
global epidemics, such as hepatitis B -- that are already with us and
comparable in scope to HIV/AIDS -- receive far less attention. The Ministry
of Health in China announced recently that a total of 754 people were killed
by 27 kinds of infectious diseases in the country's 390,418 infection cases
in July. Interestingly, none of these deaths were caused by either
contagious SARS or human-contracted highly-infectious bird flu. Indeed, the
five most infectious diseases in China include hepatitis B, while the five
causing the most fatalities include HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B.
Brendan Grabau, "Hepatitis B: The Forgotten Virus," The Wall Street
Journal, August 15, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112405676593212721,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Targeting children, civilians, and hospitals Thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed and
thousands more injured in attacks by armed groups in the past two years.
Some died or were wounded in attacks aimed primarily at United States (US)
or other troops comprising the US-led military alliance that toppled Saddam
Hussain’s regime but others were victims of direct attacks intended to cause
the greatest possible civilian loss of life. Many of the killings of
civilians were carried out in a perfidious way, with suicide bombers or
others disguising themselves as civilians, or were marked by appalling
brutality – as in the cases of hostages whose deaths, by being beheaded or
other means, were filmed by the perpetrators and then disseminated to a wide
public audience. Many of these killings by armed groups, in Amnesty
international’s view, constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. As
such, there is an obligation on both the Iraqi government and the
international community at large to ensure that the perpetrators of these
crimes are identified and brought to justice. There can be no excuse for
such abuses; international humanitarian law clearly distinguishes certain
acts as crimes irrespective of the causes of a conflict or the grounds on
which the contending parties justify their involvement.
"Iraq: In cold blood: abuses by armed groups," Amnesty International, July
25, 2005 ---
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140092005
The uncertain future of the next generation of bioengineered
(genetically-modified) food To be sure, farmers are producing more
bioengineered crops every year. Farmers have found many of these genetically
modified crops quite useful. GM soybeans are cheaper to grow; GM papaya has
saved Hawaiian growers from a virus that had made their traditional crop
unmarketable. But these remain first-generation GM varieties with only
indirect consumer benefits. The next generation - offering consumers
better-tasting, more nutritious, or longer-lasting food - is taking longer
than the industry's optimists expected, Mr. Rodemeyer adds. The reasons are
legion, analysts say.
Peter N. Spotts, "A food revolution beckons, but few show up," Christian
Science Monitor, August 15, 2005 ---
http://csmonitor.com/2005/0815/p01s03-ussc.html
What The Ancients Did For Us The Ancients are more than just dust and legends -
every day, we're making use of the legacy of their inspirations and
innovations, from the wheel to chocolate, numbers to football. Find out more
about the series which unwraps the gifts of our ancestors.
BBC and Open University ---
http://www.open2.net/whattheancients/
Word4Word How do we talk to each other these days? How did a
small country produce so many different forms of one language? Join Dermot
Murnaghan and a team of linguistic experts on BBC Radio 4 to explore the
rich variety of the English language.
BBC and Open University ---
http://www.open2.net/word4word/index.html
How the brain processes language For years, cognitive scientists have described the
human brain as operating like a computer when it comes to language, meaning
it interprets letters and sounds in a binary, one-step-at-a-time fashion.
It's either a Labrador or a laptop. But a recent study, led by Cornell
psycholinguist and associate professor Michael Spivey, suggests that the
mind may be comprehending language in a more fluid way. “Our results have
shown that the various parts of the brain that participate in language
processing are passing their continuous, partially activated results onto
each next stage, not waiting till it's done to share information,” says
Spivey. “It’s a lot more like a distributed neural network." Distributed
networks are a familiar concept to computer users as well. But distributed
neural networks found in biological systems process information (in this
case, language) in decidedly different ways than artificial distributed
networks. Whereas computers still perform calculations in a linear order,
the human brain can make a continuous series of computations at the same
time, passing information back and forth in a non-linear, self-organizing
manner.
Anita Chabria, "Musings from a Mouse," MIT's Technology Review,
August 15, 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/wo/wo_081505chabria.asp?trk=nl
Forwarded by Cindy Lara Cost of Living Calculator (comparing U.S. cities and states) ---
http://www.homefair.com/homefair/calc/salcalc.html
There are also helpful reports for persons contemplating moves to selected
cities or states.
Also see Vitual
Relocation helpers from James Angelini, CPA. Among other things you can
find cost of living comparisons at
http://www.virtualrelocation.com/
Jensen Comment: Professors often sigh when apples are compared with
oranges in these surveys, especially due to differences in ranking criteria
and persons doing the rankings. For example, US News rankings are
from business school deans whereas the WSJ rankings are from
corporate recruiters who are often looking for diamonds in the rough. Never
underestimate the importance of these rankings, because potential students
use these things when seeking schools and alumni look at these things when
evaluating the old alma mater.
New Study Targets Problems with Business Schools A research paper entitled “What’s Really Wrong with
U.S. Business Schools” shines a light on what has become a growing dilemma
for business school deans—the yearly scorecard that assigns numerical
rankings to selected business programs. The paper describes a “dysfunctional
competition for media rankings that leads schools to divert resources from
investment in knowledge creation and other important areas to short-term
strategy aimed at improving ranking position.”
AACSB ---
http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/enewsline/Vol-4/Issue-8/lead-story.asp
Jensen Comment: Accounting programs face a similar problem with rankings
of universities (usually within a state) according to passage rates on the
CPA examination. This leads to intense competition having adverse effects
on the ability of a college to experiment with innovative accounting
curricula and design of curricula aimed at education rather than training.
A notable exception is Baylor University. Baylor leads the state of Texas
in terms of the CPA exam passage rates while at the same time having a
curriculum that integrates accountancy with business, finance, and economics
modules in courses. Bravo Baylor!
A Better Way to Evaluate Colleges While rankings such as those published by U.S. News
and World Report offer some useful data, I have developed a different set of
five simple criteria or considerations for evaluating the value and for
choosing one of the best educational experiences offered by our country’s
600 liberal arts colleges. Were I to provide counsel to parents of students
interested in attending one of these colleges — or to educators wondering
how their institutions are doing — here are five lines of questioning I’d
suggest they pursue:
Jake B. Schrum, "A Better Way to Evaluate Colleges," Inside Higher Ed,
August 19, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/19/schrum
Jensen Comment: Since virtually all of the the top ranked liberal arts
colleges meet Schrum's criteria, these admittedly would not yield
differentiate between top schools. It also is not clear that all aspects of
diversity should be a good thing. For example, should women's colleges lose
out simply because they do not admit men?
The decline in full-time B-school applicants is
now a three-year trend, as students opt for part-time, exec, and
non-U.S. programs The news for B-schools just keeps getting worse.
With interest in management education already
on the wane, the Graduate Management Admission Council today released
the results of a study that shows applications to full-time U.S. MBA
programs down for the third consecutive year.
In 2005, just 19% of full-time programs in the
U.S. reported an increase in application volume, down from 21% in 2004
and 84% in 2002, when applications reached an all-time high. The 2005
decline was the least severe of the post-2002 drop-offs -- a sign that
perhaps applications have bottomed out.
"NO DOUBT ABOUT IT." David A. Wilson, GMAC's
president and CEO, in a conference call with reporters Aug. 9 said the
number of prospective B-school applicants taking the Graduate Management
Admissions Test (GMAT) was up nearly 4% so far in 2005, an indication
that applications may rise in coming years.
Continued in article
Recalling the Kamikazes of 60 Years Ago There are some lessons for our present age in what
followed. The Japanese Imperial Army had been noted for its cruelty and
fanaticism, much as Muslim jihadists are today. Shinto, an ancient Japanese
religion somewhat akin to animism, was employed by Japanese militarists to
arouse nationalism, much as today's jihadists dredge up primitive doctrines
from Islam to inflame their shadowy armies against the West. Islam and
Shintoism have very little in common, the one coming out of the Old
Testament tradition and other with roots in far-eastern Buddhist and
Confucian philosophies. But in the hands of power- hungry politicians, any
belief capable of stirring human emotions will serve the purpose. Yet
another weapon familiar to us today is the inducement of youngsters to
commit suicide to further the political goals of crazed power seekers. It
was in Japan where the "kamikaze" was born. The word means "divine wind" and
was derived from a typhoon that saved Japan from an invasion fleet in 1281,
according to legend. In the late stages of the Pacific war, it described the
young men who volunteered to crash airplanes into American warships to
bestow honor and glory on themselves and their families.
George Melloan, "Recalling the Kamikazes of 60 Years Ago," The Wall
Street Journal, August 16, 2005; Page A17 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112415899684014097,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Jensen Comment: This reminded me of Tim Conway's great skit where he's a
kamikaze recruit. The recruiter shows him how he will get a fine uniform, a
red scarf, and a special sword. Tim Conway, in the meantime, repeatedly
exclaims "no boom!"
E Pluribus Unum? Not in Hawaii The Apology (1993 Apology Resolution passed by
Congress and signed by President Clinton) falsely declared that Native
Hawaiians enjoyed inherent sovereignty over Hawaii to the exclusion of
non-Native Hawaiians. To the extent sovereignty existed outside the monarch,
it reposed equally with all Hawaiians irrespective of ancestry. The Apology
falsely maintained that Native Hawaiians never by plebiscite relinquished
sovereignty to the U.S. In 1959, Native Hawaiians voted by at least a 2-1
margin for statehood in a plebiscite. Finally, the Apology Resolution and
its misbegotten offspring, the Akaka Bill, betray this nation's sacred
motto: E Pluribus Unum. They would begin a process of splintering
sovereignties in the U.S. for every racial, ethnic, or religious group
traumatized by an identity crisis. Movement is already afoot among a few
Hispanic Americans to carve out race-based sovereignty from eight western
states because the U.S. "wrongfully" defeated Mexico in the Mexican-American
war. The U.S. Constitution scrupulously protects the liberties and freedom
of Native Hawaiians. It always has. It always will. Native Hawaiians have
never been treated as less than equal by the U.S. Their economic success
matches that of non-Native Hawaiians. Intermarriage is the norm. Sen. Inouye
himself boasted in 1994 that Hawaii was "one of the greatest examples of a
multiethnic society living in relative peace." In other words, E Pluribus
Unum is a formula that works. We should not destroy it.
Slade Gorton and Hank Brown, "E Pluribus Unum? Not in Hawaii," The Wall
Street Journal, August 16, 2005; Page A16 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112415838738514082,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
How do we come
up with our 50 best? Short answer: we take your suggestions,
probe friends and colleagues about their favorite online
haunts and then surf like mad. This year's finalists are a
mix of newcomers, new discoveries and veterans that have
learned some new tricks
There's still no consensus regarding the validity of
Linux as a desktop operating system The head of IBM's software business used LinuxWorld
as an opportunity to promote the promise of desktop Linux. Then again, IBM
isn't the biggest fan of Microsoft. Meanwhile, a Gartner study spelled out
that desktop Linux adoption is way behind where it should be at this point,
or at least behind where Gartner thought it would be at this point . . .
IT research firm Gartner had some
interesting things to say this week about desktop Linux.
Based on a survey of corporate buyers in the fourth
quarter of 2004, just over 1% were running Linux desktops and open-source
office products in their companies. In a separate study, Gartner estimates
that only 3.2% of nonconsumer computer users will run Linux and open-source
office products by 2008
Editor of InformationWeek Daily on August 15, 2005
30 months or less for killing
202 people and injuring many more: Who would now want to go to Bali? Australia will raise with Indonesia its
concerns over a possible reduction in the sentence of one of the Bali
bombing ringleaders as part of independence celebrations. Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer said Australia did not want to see the 30-month sentence of
Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir further reduced. Bashir is in jail for his
role in instigating the October 2002 bombings in which 202 people died,
including 88 Australians. "We wouldn't want to see his already rather short
sentence reduced and our ambassador is taking this matter up with the
Indonesians," Mr Downer told reporters.
"Bali bombing ringleader may have sentence cut," Sydney Morning Herald,
August 15, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bali-bombing-ringleader-may-have-sentence-cut/2005/08/15/1123957986742.html
Daily News: Yahoo,
Google, and MSN versus leading newspapers The major news organizations have a big
problem on the web. A recent University of Michigan study shows that
many people are bypassing them and heading to the major portals
first for news and information. This is occurring even though Yahoo,
Google and MSN are often delivering news from major media, such as
The New York Times, ABC News and CNN. Part of the
problemis that major news
organizations have been unable to imitate their offline personality,
or brand, on the web, according to Larry Freed, chief executive of
ForeSee Results, the web consulting firm that sponsored the study.
The New York Times and USA Today, for example, are very different
newspapers. Yet, on the web, they and other news and information
sites all seem the same to many consumers. InternetWeek Newsletter,
www.InternetWeek.com , Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Students, And Security
Threats, Head To Stanford Stanford University's School of Education deploys
new security modules from Juniper Networks to tighten security and boost
network performance. As students prepare to return to school, IT departments
at colleges and universities across the country are preparing for a new wave
of worms, viruses, and other security problems that will hit their networks
the minute students plug in their computers. Stanford University is
deploying new security technology and tactics to protect its systems from
internal threats and external ones, such as hackers trying to steal student
or faculty identities.
Martin J. Garvey, Information Week, August 12, 2005 ---
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=168601050
From The Washington Post on August 16, 2005
TiVo says it will soon
allow customers to directly download what type of content to their set-top
boxes via the Internet?
Amazon.com Unveils Street-Level Photo-Mapping Service Hoping to become a more popular Internet
destination, a small search engine owned by Web retailer Amazon.com Inc. is
testing a mapping service that will display street-level photos of the city
blocks surrounding a requested address. The A9.com service, which became
available Monday (August 22), joins the
increasingly crowded field of online mapping. Other major players include
America Online's Mapquest.com, Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s
MSN.com.
"Amazon.com Unveils Photo-Mapping Service," The Washington Post,
August 16, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/16/AR2005081600029.html?referrer=email
Debating the Causes of Autism There follows a group of letters on mercury,
thimerosal and vaccines. Those of you who have been following my column know
that this has been a recurring topic. I will respond to the letters
individually, but I also wanted to start the column with a general
statement: Drug companies manufacture vaccines, several of which are
mandated for use by our infants. Despite the vulnerability the public has to
chemicals introduced into our bodies, the drug companies tend to be
defensive and laissez faire about the need for changing they way they do
things. Thimerosal is such an example. This additive, which contains trace
amount of mercury, has been shown to cause irritability in mice, and could
well have been removed from routine vaccines long ago. But this is not the
same thing as concluding that thimerosal causes autism, as many people
argue.
Dr. Mark Siegel, "Debating the Causes of Autism," The Nation, August
3, 2005 ---
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050815&s=drmarc
Congress resists data mining for security purposes Did US military spies finger Mohammed Atta as an Al
Qaeda terrorist a year before the Sept. 11 attacks? A US congressman says
yes; leaders of the bipartisan 9/11 investigating commission say no. But the
controversy should remind us of one indisputable fact: A technology that may
have helped spot Atta and other terrorists is being suppressed by Congress,
for no particularly good reason. That technology is ''data mining," the use
of sophisticated software and powerful computers to spot patterns of
activity hidden in vast amounts of apparently random data. It's used
routinely by businesses seeking new ways to empty our wallets.
Hiawatha Bray, "A wasted opportunity in war on terror," Boston Globe,
August 15, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/terrormining
The real world of a new Dilbert When Nathan Richey started work as an analyst
at a financial boutique in Chicago several years ago, he felt self-conscious
while talking on the phone. Most colleagues surrounding his open-air cubicle
were about 10 years older and could overhear his conversations. If you make
an embarrassing mistake, he notes, "you have a crowd." It's something most
college graduates discover when they start work: Cubicles are a very public
place to learn your job. No matter how discreet you try to be, chances are
your cubicle mates can overhear your phone conversations. Make a rookie
mistake, as you are bound to do, and everyone hears it. Even if your
conversations are entirely business-focused, you can still embarrass
yourself by misstating industry lingo, leaving rambling messages or sounding
generally inarticulate. The problem isn't just that you feel stupid when you
make a phone snafu, but also that you're more likely to make a mistake
because you're nervous when you know your office mates are listening.
Erin White, "Phone Tips for New College Hires," The Wall Street Journal,
August 16, 2005; Page B4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112415147845813906,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
I love the five that live in the woods near my home in
New Hampshire New Jerseyites take pride in being the "Garden
State," but even nature lovers have their limits. How far those limits will
be tested now rests with a state government that is once again deciding how
to deal (or not) with its out-of-control bear problem. So far, it doesn't
look good. New Jersey's black bear population has rocketed to some 3,400,
and bears have been spotted in every one of the state's 21 counties. In the
first half of this year alone, the state logged 677 damage and nuisance
complaints, up from 424 in the same period last year. Bears have attacked
dogs, swatted toddlers, and broken into houses.
"Where the Wild Things Are," The Wall Street Journal, August 15,
2005; Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112405760582412762,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber hurt American home buyers Homeowners and home buyers scored a rare and sweet
victory last week when a three-person arbitration panel ruled unanimously
that U.S. tariffs against imported Canadian softwood lumber violate the
North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). The American Homeowners
Alliance estimates that rescinding the tariffs will reduce the average
construction cost of a new home by about $1,000 and make about 300,000 more
moderate-income Americans eligible for mortgages.
"Trade War," The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2005; Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112405775845612768,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
A major domestic battle looms this fall, when
tax reform -- a centerpiece of the president's bold domestic agenda --
will finally be on the table. The President's Advisory Panel on Federal
Tax Reform is expected to release its findings by the end of September.
After the political shellacking the White House took on Social Security,
the administration will be strongly tempted to take a conciliatory path
that supports only superficial reforms, essentially preserving the
status quo of our hideous income tax code.
Such a course would have perilous consequences,
economically and politically. In fact, the administration has an
opportunity here to boldly retake the initiative, to recover lost
political support and thrust an already decent economy into high gear
and, at the same time, make America better able to meet intensifying
competition from China, India and others. How? By junking the entire
federal income tax code and starting over with a flat tax. A growing
number of countries are doing this -- and so should we.
The current system is beyond redemption, a
beast whose complexity, confusion and outright unfairness have corrupted
our economy and society. Americans waste more than $200 billion and over
six billion hours each year filling out tax forms. They engage in all
kinds of useless economic activity intended to take advantage of the
code's complicated maze of deductions and to reduce taxes -- from
deducting donations of old socks to making unwanted investments. The
waste of brainpower -- at a time of increasing global competition -- is
incalculable.
Continued in article
Some long-run advantages of enrolling in community
colleges For instance, state policy in California favors
students who transfer from a community college to either the California
State University or the University of California system. Each University of
California campus has agreements with community colleges to facilitate
transfer if certain academic requirements are met. In some cases, it might
be easier to get into a top-flight university as a community-college
transfer than as a high-school senior. Some 33% of applicants to UC Berkeley
from California community colleges were accepted for this fall, compared
with 28% of in-state high-school applicant. Other community colleges
maintain informal but still close ties to a flagship state university. Every
year, about 150 graduates of Piedmont Virginia Community College, in
Charlottesville, Va., apply to the University of Virginia, and about
two-thirds of them are accepted, says Frank Friedman, Piedmont's president.
By comparison, just under half of in-state high-school applicants were
accepted for this fall.
Anne Marie Chaker, "How to Cut College Costs: A big scholarship is one way
to save money. But it isn't the only way," The Wall Street Journal,
August 15, 2005; Page R4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112370003740609979,00.html?mod=todays_us_the_journal_report
Taking Both Sides on Textbook Prices Consumer groups and textbook publishers have been
tussling for some time now over whether textbook prices are rising too high
and too fast. If either side thought that a federal study being released
Tuesday would prove its case unequivocally, it was wrong. The studyreleased today by the Government Accountability
Office, which was requested last year by U.S. Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.), offers
some evidence, as
student groups have asserted,that textbook
prices have risen sharply — at twice the rate of inflation over the past two
decades. But the study by the GAO, which is Congress’s investigative arm,
also supports arguments by publishers that the increases have been driven in
large part by “the increased investment publishers have made in new products
to enhance instruction and learning.”
Doug Lederman, "Taking Both Sides on Textbook Prices," Inside Higher Ed,
August 16, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/16/textbooks
Canada’s Open University
Athabasca University, in Edmonton, Alberta,
said Monday (August 15, 2005) that it had become
the first Canadian university to become accredited by a regional agency in
the United States. The distance education institution, which bills itself as
“Canada’s Open University,” said it had been granted accreditation by the
Middle States Commission on Higher Education Inside Higher Ed, August 16, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/16/qt
Another angry mother Over the objections of a defiant mother, a Cook
County judge on Monday forced the wrongful-death case of Northwestern
University football player Rashidi Wheeler to settle out of court for $16
million, saying the mother's insistence on a jury trial would be "legal
suicide." Circuit Court Judge Kathy Flanagan ordered the settlement after
Wheeler's mother, Linda Will, blocked repeated attempts to resolve the
four-year-old case and after she had fired her lawyers for a third time.
Todd Lighty, "Judge orders $16 million Wheeler settlement," Chicago
Tribune, August 15, 2005 ---
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050815suitsettled,1,1806411.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Can the public be educated about changed technologies for nuclear
electric power? But today, natural-gas prices are three times what
they were 10 years ago, making all alternatives, from wind turbines to
nuclear reactors, more attractive. Abroad, 24 nuclear plants--including
eight in India, four in Russia, and three in Japan--are now under
construction. And in the United States, several utilities are reconsidering
the nuclear option. Why not simply build new plants, which would benefit
from three decades' worth of technology advances in materials, sensors, and
control software? Today's 104 operating U.S. nuclear power plants, after
all, reflect the designs of the 1960s and the technologies of the 1970s. But
the job of actually building plants requires much more than better
technology; it requires partnerships, public relations, and lobbying to
overcome the ghosts of the recent past.
David Talbot, "Nuclear Powers Up," MIT's Technology
Review, Sepatember 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/issue/brief_nuclear.asp?trk=nl
A $1 million screw A jury ordered a local hospital to pay damages
after a screw was left inside a woman's body during surgery. A verdict in
the civil trial last week awarded more than $1 million in damages for
Katherine Flanagan, 49, against Mount Clemens General Hospital and staff
neurosurgeon Mark Goldberger, according to The Macomb Daily.
"Hospital To Pay Up For Screw Left In Body," ClickOnDetroit, August
15, 2005 ---
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/4852772/detail.html
Lego Mania Brickfest is the official convention for the
Adult
Fans of Lego. Gathered from all over the world,
Brickfest attendees milled around sizing each other up and using Lego lingo
like SNOT (studs not on top) and BURP (big ugly rock piece). Ask people how
long it took them to construct their masterpieces, and they'll respond with
pauses, sighs and ponderous looks before admitting that they spent hundreds
of hours in some cases. Many sculptures are so large that they arrived in
sections . . . David Winkler, a Microsoft software engineer, was hunched
over a stack of computer printouts that mapped out the construction plans
for a complex model of an angel. The algorithms, which are similar to those
used in Microsoft's handwriting-recognition software, can create a Lego
version of an object from a 3-D-triangle mesh model. Unfortunately, all that
math didn't help get one of his sculptures through the Transportation
Security Administration's gauntlet at the airport. "I had one piece that the
TSA took apart and then put back together randomly," he said.
Michael Grebb, "Lego Lovers Unite in Arlington," Wired News, August
16, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68525,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
Sherry Mills from New Mexico State University won the 1996
Innovation in Accounting Education Award from the American Accounting
Association with an innovative way of using Legos to teach managerial
accounting ---
http://aaahq.org/awards/awrd6win.htm
Stealing God's (or at least the church's) Discretion Just as (Canada's)
Senate approaches the final vote on the gay 'marriage' bill, C-38, Canada's
national public radio CBC Radio has aired a commentary by a retired
professor from the Royal Military College calling for state control over
religion, specifically Catholicism. While parliamentarians dismissed
warnings by numerous religious leaders and experts that such laws would lead
to religious persecution, former professor Bob Ferguson has called for
"legislation to regulate the practice of religion." Canadian National Public Radio Broadcasts Call for State Control of
Religion, Especially Catholicism ---
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05071906.html
Stealing God's Thunder In Stealing God's Thunder (Random House, 279
pages, $25.95), Philip Dray offers a survey of Franklin's scientific career,
describing both the ridicule and glory that his experiments inspired. But he
gives special attention to the lightning rod, the most notable of Franklin's
inventions and the one that, despite its simplicity, created the most
controversy. In Franklin's day, lightning destroyed homes, barns and
livestock, not to mention human beings. To 18th-century Americans, though,
it was not merely an occurrence in nature but a form of judgment sent down
by a disapproving God. The only way to appease divine wrath -- and avoid
lightning's destructive effects -- was to pray during thunderstorms or to
ring specially "baptized" church bells whose sound might keep the lightning
away. After his kite experiment, Franklin realized that lightning was a form
of electricity. He also discovered that electric current would surge through
metal and follow its path downward to the ground. In the summer of 1752, he
installed the world's first lightning rods at the Pennsylvania State House
and the Pennsylvania Academy. In 1753, he used the pages of "Poor Richard's
Almanack" to make the case for his invention, describing how a pointed iron
rod situated atop a tall structure could draw lightning to it, making storms
less dangerous. "Poor Richard's" sold 10,000 copies, earning Franklin
instantaneous fame.
Rachel Dicarlo, "Block That Bolt," The Wall Street Journal, August
16, 2005; Page D8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112414424753313744,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Stealing God's Butter I'm sorry to report that the Yosts are not the
Frakes, the fictitious family in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1945 musical,
"State Fair." They go to the Iowa State Fair and win first place for their
mincemeat and champion pig, while the two kids fall in love. The best the
Yosts could muster were a couple of stuffed animals and the quarterfinals of
the backgammon tournament . . . The ag building is also home to one of the
(Iowa State) fair's truly unique attractions, the
life-size butter cow sculpture. Kept in a refrigerated case and freshly
created each year, it's the work of Norma "Duffy" Lyon, better known as "The
Butter Cow Lady" (
www.buttercowlady.com
). This year she did another sculpture of Tiger
Woods sitting on a bench, a putter in one hand and a leash holding a tiger
in another -- all life size. It was so detailed and accurate that my
seven-year-old son, George, recognized him immediately
Mark Yost, "From Butter Cows To Temporary Tattoos: Sampling the Iowa State
Fair," The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2005; Page D8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112414453179013748,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
I guess this is why they put wide receivers as far away as possible
from the rest of the team
You might think that Terrell Owen.'s conduct
puts him beyond the pale -- and it does -- but he has some company in
the All-Star Clowns Hall of Fame. I have in mind Randy Moss and Keyshawn
Johnson, two other supremely talented and perfectly unbearable
pass-catchers.
Mr. Moss, like Mr. Owens, wore out his welcome
at his original team with his self-aggrandizing antics. (At the end of
last season, he pretended to pull down his britches for the benefit of
Green Bay fans.) He became known for giving all-out effort only some of
the time; "I play when I want to play," he infamously admitted. And then
in 2002 he went and practically ran over a traffic cop in his Lexus
sedan. This year the Minnesota Vikings traded him to the Oakland
Raiders, who are known for embracing malcontents.
Keyshawn Johnson has followed a drearily
similar path. After his rookie season with the New York Jets, he wrote
(or, more accurately, cooperated in the writing of) a memoir titled
"Just Give Me the Damn Ball," which aptly summarizes his solipsistic
philosophy. He won a Super Bowl in 2003 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,
but the following season was marked by declining production and sideline
clashes with his coach, Jon Gruden. The Bucs suspended him midway
through the year and then dealt him to the Dallas Cowboys, coached by
Bill Parcells, Mr. Johnson's original NFL mentor and the only man who
seems able to cope with him.
I do not mean to suggest that these wide
receivers are uniquely deserving of obloquy. In a league so full of
egomaniacs, cheap-shot artists and out-and-out criminals, the escapades
of a Terrell Owens, Randy Moss or Keyshawn Johnson might not seem so
bad. Hey, at least they haven't smashed a teammate's face (as linebacker
Bill Romanowski did) or been convicted of drug dealing (as running back
Jamal Lewis was).
These wide-outs nevertheless stand out because
in a team sport they are supreme and unapologetic egotists. Other
players may traduce society's norms, but few are willing to so brazenly
violate the Law of the League: "There is no 'I' in team." These divas
make no attempt to conceal their self-absorption; they flaunt it.
Amy Smith ---
http://www.amy-smith.com/ (This is a good site. Just let the music
sample clips run automatically like commercial-free radio. You won't hear
entire songs, but you will hear very generous portions of those songs.)
Work distances us from three great
evils: tedium, vice and need.
Voltaire
Sharing academic of the week --- Alfredo Perez. Bookmark
Perez seems a bit like Bookmark Jensen, but Bob Jensen links to blogs,
reports quite a lot of input from friends or less-than-friends around the
world, and probably does more editorializing than Perez.
Once upon a time — back in
the days of dial-up and of press conferences devoted to
the presidential libido — there was a phenomenon known
as the “web log.” It was like a blog, only different. A
web log consisted almost entirely of links to pages that
the ‘logger had recently visited online. There might
also be a brief description of the site, or an
evaluative remark. But the commentary was quick, not
discursive; and it was secondary to the link. The
product resembled an itinerary or a scrapbook more than
it did a diary or an op-ed page.
So when
Political
Theory Daily Review started in January 2003,
it already looked a little bit old-fashioned, blogospherically speaking.
It was a log, plain and simple. There were three new links each day. The
first was to a newspaper or magazine article about some current event.
The second tended to go to a debate or polemical article. And the third
(always the wild card, the one it was most interesting to see) would be
academic: a link to a scholarly article in an online journal, or a
conference site, or perhaps the uploaded draft of a paper in PDF.
. . .
How does Perez keep up with
all this stuff? What are his criteria for linking? Do
readers send him tips?
To take the last question
first: No, for the most part, they don’t. Evidently he
just has one wicked set of bookmarks.
“I try to link to things that
are interesting to me or to anyone trying to keep up
with current events,” says Perez, “not just political
theory.... I don’t link to technical papers on, say,
economics, but if I see an interview with Gary Becker or
an article on Amartya Sen, I don’t think twice about
linking to that. Sometimes I link to articles on Theory,
essays by literary critics, or events in the world of
literature.” He also has an interest in the natural
sciences — biology, in particular — so he links to
things he’s following in Scientific American and
other publications.
Perez doesn’t link to blogs.
That way, madness lies. “It would be too much work to
consider linking to the blogosphere,” he says.”
He places a special emphasis on
pointing readers to “articles that are sure — or have
the potential — to become part of what’s debated in the
public sphere.” That includes things like op-eds in
The New York Times, articles on public policy in
The American Prospect, and essays from the socialist
journal Dissent — “material that I think should
be a part of the ‘required reading’ for anyone who wants
to stay on top of the news and public debates.”
His default list of required
readings shows a certain tilt to the left. But he also
links to material far removed from his own politics —
publications such as
Reason,
First Things,
Policy Review, and
“The Occidental Quarterly.”
Actually, it was Perez’s site that first introduced me
to the latter periodical, which describes itself as a
“journal of Western thought and opinion.” Its editors
are keen on eugenics, stricter immigration laws, and the
European cultural tradition (in particular the German
contribution thereto).
“I think it obvious,” says
Perez, “that anyone interested in public debates about
more philosophical matters has to be familiar with those
on ‘the other side.’ I think it’s just plain smart to do
so. Reading counterarguments to your position can often
be more helpful than readings that just confirm your own
point of view.” He says he makes no claim to be “fair
and balanced,” but also “doesn’t want to alienate
visitors who are on the right. I want them coming back!”
Any editorializing at
Political Theory Daily Review tends to be implicit,
rather than full-throated. It may be that lack of a
sharp ideological edge, as much as the sheer number of
links in the course of a week, that creates the
impression that the site is the work of a committee.
Perez admits that he’s “not
very comfortable about publishing opinions willy-nilly
like many people are when writing on their blogs. In
fact, I am part of a group blog,
Political Arguments, but I
hardly ever post there.” It’s not that he lacks a
viewpoint, or is shy about arguing politics and
philosophy with his friends and family.
“I’m pretty sure I could defend
those views well enough,” he told me. “I guess it’s my
way of being a bit careful about the whole process.
People in academia cannot be timid about their own
views, of course, especially political theorists with
regards to politics. But it’s different when discussing
day-to-day events as soon as they happen.”
The line between public
intellectual and pompous gasbag is, to be sure, a
slender one; and it runs down a slippery slope. Perez’s
caution is understandable. “I don’t think I have to
mention any specific names in academia as examples,” he
says, “in order to make my point here.”
Allowing individuals to play with their Web site
data has resulted in programs that the companies
might never have thought of. For example,
Adrian Holovaty, a
24-year-old programmer, built a Web site called
Chicagocrime.org
that taps into Google Maps to display where crimes
occur in Chicago.
Holovaty, whose day job was
lead developer at the Lawrence Journal-World
newspaper, said he wanted to provide a service to
citizens of Chicago, and tackle a fun technical
challenge. He spent about 40 hours on the job,
spread out over a month of nights and weekends.
Another slick application,
which taps into Amazon's book search service, is
BookBurro which lets
people compare book prices. This sort of Web service
can be constructed pretty quickly: Instead of having
to build a book search and e-commerce engine from
scratch, one person can create something entirely
new by combining Amazon's tool with other data
sources.
Inviting third-party
developers to build on top of a company Web
site--much the way Microsoft woos outside
programmers to its Windows operating system--creates
a healthier business, advocates have argued.
Continued in article
No! You may not hand out a copy of your syllabus, at
least not at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh That’s because the dean of the College of Letters
and Science told professors that — for financial and educational reasons —
they should put their syllabuses online, and stop distributing them on the
first day of classes. If students want to print out copies, they can do so
themselves, says Michael Zimmerman, the dean.
Scott Jaschik, "The End of the Paper Syllabus," Inside Higher Ed,
August 22, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/22/syllabi
The Web is made up of hundreds of billions of
Web documents -- far more than the 8 billion to 20 billion claimed by
Google or Yahoo. But most of these Web pages are largely unreachable by
most search engines because they are stored in databases that cannot be
accessed by Web crawlers.
Now a San Mateo start-up called Glenbrook
Networks -- says it has devised a way to tunnel far into the ``deep
web'' and extract this previously inaccessible information.
Glenbrook, run by a father-daughter team,
demonstrated its technology by building a search engine that scoops up
job listings from the databases of various Web sites, something the
company claims most search engines cannot do. But there are myriad other
applications as well, the founders say.
``Most of the information out there, people
want you to see,'' said Julia Komissarchik, Glenbrook Networks' vice
president of products. ``But it's not designed to be accessed by a
machine like a search engine. It requires human intervention.''
This is particularly true of Web pages that are
stored in databases. Many ordinary Web pages are static files that exist
permanently on a server somewhere. But an untold number of pages do not
exist until the very moment an individual fills out a form on a Web site
and asks for the information. Online dictionaries, travel sites, library
catalogs and medical databases are few such examples.
Higher education is not cheap College students are expected to spend $34 billion
as they return to campuses this fall, up 33 percent from a year ago,
according to the annual survey of consumers by the National Retail
Federation. Among the top spending items: textbooks ($11.9 billion),
electronics ($8.2 billion), clothing ($5.7 billion), dormitory and apartment
furnishings ($3.6 billion), class supplies ($3 billion), and shoes $2
billion). Inside Higher Ed, August 22, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/22/qt
par-a-site n.
1. An often harmful organism that lives on or in a different organism.
2. A person who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others
without making any useful return.
— Webster’s Dictionary.
Some students are parasites that weaken good students It’s an odd partnership, I think. But is it? On
every campus I have worked, I have seen it over and over. The academically
weaker ones attaching themselves to the stronger; hoping for a lift, a
chance, a ride on someone else’s success. Blatantly exchanging sex (or sex
appeal), bravado, status, money or simply a ride to campus for another’s
brain-on-loan. Sometimes it develops into a romance — but more often than
not a partnership develops that seems mismatched. I want to be shocked; but
I have seen so many things. Students buying term papers from one another.
Students lying about work not produced. Excuses, excuses, excuses. In my
office, deluged with yet another onslaught of excuses, the phone rang. After
four minutes of all the sympathy I could offer, along with the assertion
that I would tape an assignment to my door, I turned to my colleague. “Guess
she can only use that excuse one more time,” I said to him. “Dead
grandmother,” I answered him before he could even ask. “Oh, yeah,” he
replies, his voice tired, “I’ve already had two and it’s only four weeks
into the semester.”
Shari Wilson, "Indestructible Student Relationships," Inside Higher Ed,
August 22, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/22/wilson
Different Kinds of Diversity Specifically, speakers talked about how counseling
centers can do more for Arab-American students, gay minority students, and
biracial students. And speakers also said that those groups were reflective
of other groups of students who don’t fit neatly into some well understood
category. Majeda A. Humeidan, assistant director of counseling and
psychological services at the University of Michigan, cited the example of
Arab-Americans, who face numerous issues for which they could use support
and guidance on campus. Many struggle with their identities and how much to
be identified with their ethic background, and depending on how they resolve
these questions, they face “legitimacy testing” in which other Arabs ask
them if they “are Arab enough.” Other students on campus may treat them with
open hostility, as exotic, or as if they are not Americans. (Humeidan
stressed that she was talking about Arab-Americans, not the large population
of foreign students from Arab nations.)
Scott Jaschik, "Different Kinds of Diversity," Inside Higher Ed,
August 22, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/22/counseling
Stock options tempt CEO's to make bad choices and bad
long-run decisions that favor the company Two studies have found connections between
lucrative stock options and grants paid to chief executives as compensation
and companies that report accounting irregularities, flawed accounting
practices, or engage in risky business strategies. These studies were
undertaken by Brigham Young University and the University of Minnesota. The
Brigham Young study found that companies who compensate their executives
with large stock packages tend to engage in potentially dangerous business
strategies leading toward larger capital spending or growth by acquisition.
"Stock Option Studies and Options Expensing," AccountingWeb, August
15, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101196
Tax break for K-12 teachers but not college faculty Amidst the flurry of back-to-school shopping
and sales, it’s easy to lose track of spending. For teachers and other
educators, it is especially important to put those receipts somewhere safe,
because they may lower their 2005 taxes. According to the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS), up to $250 of qualified expenses may be deducted when
figuring the adjusted gross income (AGI) for 2005 of any individual working
at least 900 hours during the school year as a teacher, instructor,
counselor, principal or aide in a public or private elementary or secondary
school. The deduction is available whether or not the taxpayer itemizes
deductions on Schedule A. Spouses filing jointly can also take the
deduction, even if one spouse is not an educator. If both spouses are
educators, they can both take the deduction allowing them to deduct up to
$500.
"Teacher Spending Earns a Tax Break," AccountingWeb, August 17, 2005
---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101209
If your state has a sales tax and does not have these
holidays, please contact your legislators “The good news is that more states understand the
significant benefits sales tax holidays for computers bring to shoppers,
retailers and families with school-aged children. It is clear that if there
is a computer in the household, children will use it for schoolwork. We hope
to see more states create such a program each year,” said Douglas Johnson,
senior director of technology policy for CEA.
"Computers Top Sales Tax Holiday Back-to-School Buys," AccountingWeb,
August 8, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101174
In Texas, your legislators can be contacted by entering your
zip code using
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/fyi/fyi.htm
Other states have similar helper sites using Google or some other search
engine.
Uncle Sam Wants Accountants for Something Other Than
Federal Prisons The U.S. Government is in search for as many as
13,000 business related professionals, many of whom will be trained in
accounting. Especially heavy is the demand in the IRS and FBI.
"Uncle Sam Wants Accountants," CFO Magazine, July 2005, Page 16
Extreme Accounting (they're not as dull as you may think)
Accounting Gets Hip—Companies
Scramble for Talent It's got it all: great pay, generous benefits, a
fast career track and the respect of the highest executives in corporate
America. It's accounting, which is fast becoming one of the most prestigious
and in-demand careers around. Thanks to a spate of corporate scandals and
the flood of jobs created by the Sarbanes-Oxley reform legislation, talented
accountants are being wooed with raises, bonuses and a long list of perks.
Even those just starting out are being recruited heavily. Accounting majors
top the list of most desired job candidates in the United States, according
to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Graduates can expect
to make $43,370 to start, up from $40,538 in 2002. Some recruits get a month
of paid vacation, before their first day on the job, the Trenton Star-Ledger
reported. An accounting MBA can start at around $55,000, not counting health
insurance and retirement benefits.
"Accounting Gets Hip—Companies Scramble for Talent," AccountingWeb,
July 19, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101107
PC and Mac, Joined at the Switch It's technically possible to run two (or more)
computers -- even mixed combos of Windows and Macintosh machines -- using a
single, shared monitor, mouse, keyboard and speaker set. But until recently,
only techie geeks and office information-technology departments were
familiar with the gadget that allows such sharing: a KVM switch. KVM is an
acronym for Keyboard, Video and Mouse -- the three basic things that can be
shared when a KVM switch is used to connect computers. In recent years, KVMs
have become less expensive and easier to set up, making them more popular
among everyday people. A simple KVM is a small, often boxy-shaped device
with cables running to it directly from the keyboard, mouse and monitor, and
then out from the KVM to each computer.
Walter Mossberg, "PC and Mac, Joined at the Switch: Testing a Device That
Lets Multiple Computers Share Keyboard, Monitor, Mouse," The Wall Street
Journal, August 17, 2005; Page D4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112422757158014806,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
EverNote
Organizes Your Endless Stuff Onto an Endless Tape
There
is another way to tackle the information overload. For years, some
folks have turned to an obscure type of software called information
organizers. These are programs designed to collect and organize your
notes, as well as snippets of information copied from elsewhere.
Users of these are addicted to them. Among these products are Info
Select for Windows, $250 from Micro Logic; and StickyBrain for the
Mac, $40 from Chronos. Microsoft entered the field a couple of years
ago with a Windows organizer called OneNote, which is $50 after
rebate. A new contender has now entered this field, and it boasts an
unusual design. It's called EverNote, and is for Windows computers
only. EverNote is being offered as a free download from its maker,
EverNote Corp., at
www.evernote.com. A paid version, the
$35 EverNote Plus, adds handwriting and shape recognition for people
who use tablet computers. I have been testing EverNote and it works
well. It is fast and logical and a good way to round up random
thoughts and resources.
Walter Mossberg, "EverNote Organizes Your Endless Stuff Onto an
Endless Tape," The Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2005; Page
B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,personal_technology,00.html
While the scores of men and women
are not far apart, the statistics released by the ACT
point to other demographic and educational differences
that correlate to test scores. On family income, for
example, students from families of incomes of less than
$18,000 have an average composite score of 17.9, while
those from families with incomes over $100,000 have a
composite average of 23.5.
The data also show significant
differentials by racial and ethnic group, and a boost
for members of all racial and ethnic groups who took the
recommended core courses in high school to prepare for
college:
Average ACT Score by
Racial/Ethnic Group, 2005
Racial/ethnic group
All Students
Students Who
Completed Core Courses
Students Who Did
Not Complete Core Courses
White
21.9
22.8
20.4
Black
17.0
17.7
16.1
Mexican-American/Chicano
18.4
19.2
17.3
Puerto Rican/Hispanic
18.9
19.9
17.5
Asian
22.1
22.7
20.8
Native American
18.7
20.1
17.4
Gaps among racial groups grew
slightly in the last year. The two groups with the
highest averages, Asians and whites, saw their scores
increase by 0.2 and 0.1, respectively. Scores for
Hispanic, black and Native American students all fell by
0.1.
Continued in article
Online Tutoring Part of Growing Trend Market for Web Education Matures More than 500 institutions, including Anne Arundel
Community College, Gallaudet University and the Art Institute of Washington,
subscribe to Smarthinking. And the company says it has signed up 19
institutions for this fall, including District-based Southeastern
University. Schools pay Smarthinking for a block of time and offer students
free access to the service from a personal computer or a college lab.
Colleges signing up for the first time can buy a plan that permits up to 15
hours of tutoring for each student and then adjust its next contract
according to usage, Smith said. The company did not disclose the cost per
hour. Terry H. Coye, director of tutorial and instructional programs at
Gallaudet University, said his school turned to Smarthinking to supplement
its limited tutoring services for graduate students. With many of
Gallaudet's deaf and hard-of-hearing students accustomed to learning online,
the service was a good fit, Coye said.
Mark Chediak, "Online Tutoring Part of Growing Trend Market for Web
Education Matures," The Washington Post, August 16, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/15/AR2005081501265.html?referrer=email
Is she from Mars? I don't think my liberal arts college would
sanction a men's caucus?
"The Quotidian Miasma of Discrimination," by "Phyllis Barone," " Inside
Higher Ed, August 17, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/17/barone
Lay off men, Doris Lessing tells feminists The novelist Doris Lessing yesterday claimed that
men were the new silent victims in the sex war, "continually demeaned and
insulted" by women without a whimper of protest. Lessing, who became a
feminist icon with the books The Grass is Singing and The Golden
Notebook, said a "lazy and insidious" culture had taken hold within
feminism that revelled in flailing men. Young boys were being weighed down
with guilt about the crimes of their sex, she told the Edinburgh book
festival, while energy which could be used to get proper child care was
being dissipated in the pointless humiliation of men. "I find myself
increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which
is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed," the
81-year-old Persian-born writer said yesterday.
"Lay off men, Lessing tells feminists," The Guardian, August 14, 2005
---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1465057/posts
Faculty Conference at Lincoln University
Forwarded by David Coy
I'm starting tomorrow with the Faculty
Conference at Lincoln University
www.lincoln.edu
I'm teaching Cost/Managerial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting I,
Cases in Financial Management and Managerial Economics in a PC Lab using
Excel/Powerpoint and student teams presenting their homework each day.
Lincoln is a HBU (Historically Black
University) with a proud, 150 year tradition. It has a significant
foreign student population. The school of Economics and Business is
focused on providing a current, business and technology oriented
education. They graduate about 50 Business Majors a year, so the six
professors get to know them pretty well.
Last year, while teaching as an adjunct, I knew
several graduating Accounting, Finance and Business Administration
majors who were top notch and did not have job offers. One of my goals
is to change that.
I plan to make calls to my network of business
associates and invite them to campus for interviews. I would be remiss
if I did not give this group of friends and professional colleagues a
similar opportunity. I and my fellow professors would be happy to
provide references to any students that you are interested in. We are
located between Philadelphia and Lancaster, Pa.
Please respond either on or off list if you
would like to discuss this opportunity by phone or to schedule an
on-campus recruitment visit. Thank you.
Best Regards,
Professor Jeff Hillard, MSM, CMA, CPA
Lincoln University
UT at San Antonio Selects Gateway for University-Wide Technology
Initiative
Officials at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) have announced a
strategic alliance with Gateway Inc., the nation's third-largest PC vendor,
to be the university-wide provider of notebook and tablet computing products
for students, faculty, and staff. UTSA has more than 26,000 students and
3,500 faculty and staff, making the university's alliance with Gateway one
of the largest initiatives of its kind in the country. T.H.E. Journal Newsletter, August 17, 2005
Power in Pee: The beer industry will love this one Physicists in Singapore have succeeded in creating
the first paper battery that generates electricity from urine. This new
battery will be the perfect power source for cheap, disposable healthcare
test-kits for diseases such as diabetes, and could even be used in emergency
situations to power a cell phone.
"Urine-Powered Batteries Developed for Cell Phones," Mobiledia,
August 16, 2005 ---
http://www.mobiledia.com/news/34588.html
Overcoming the Power of Skunk Scent
August 17, 2005 message from Blair Wolf
My son's large dog met an unfriendly skunk last
night. He went by the vet and got this recipe and it took the odor away
instantly. Thought it might be a good thing to pass along.
1 Quart 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
1/4 cup Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Liquid Soap.
Double for large Dogs.
Blair Wolf, Sr.
Secretary Dept. of Mathematics
Jensen Comment: Somebody wrote in that if you don't have the above
ingredients, try plain old vinegar.
Fighting alcoholism one half day (more or less) at a time Now, a new wave of drugs is poised to radically
change the way doctors approach the disease (alcoholism). Over the past
decade, neurobiologists have been decoding the brain's addiction pathways,
paving the way for a crop of targeted medications that act on brain
receptors to blunt cravings, ease withdrawal symptoms and dull the euphoric
effects of alcohol. In one of the most controversial developments, the new
drugs may help alcoholics simply cut back their drinking, rather than give
up alcohol completely, which some doctors say may be a more realistic goal
for many patients.
Jane Spencer, "Fighting Alcoholism With a Pill: Crop of Targeted Drugs
Marks Major Shift In Treatment; NIH Issues Updated Guidelines," The Wall
Street Journal, August 23, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112476081950920245,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Stress and the Female Faculty Member Women in the professoriate are more stressed out
than men. That’s probably not shocking to female professors (or many of
their male colleagues). But a new study — based on both surveys and in-depth
interviews and focus groups — attempts to provide new insights into that
stress. And the study says that women are justified in their stress —
answering strongly in the negative the question the study poses: “Are women
faculty just worrywarts? The education professors who conducted the study —
Jennifer L. Hart of the University of Missouri at Columbia and Christine M.
Cress of Portland State University — write that answering that question is
important because many in academe may believe otherwise. The study — which
has been accepted for publication in the journal Stress, Trauma, and
Crisis — is based at a university whose identity was kept confidential.
The researchers started by looking at faculty stress levels by going to the
university’s data, as reported to a University of California at Los Angeles
study on faculty attitudes.
Scott Jaschik, "Stress and the Female Faculty Member," Inside Higher Ed,
August 23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/23/stress
Sharing academic of the week --- "A Sociological Tour
Through Cyberspace" by Michael Kearl at Trinity University
I have thanked Mike for sharing on a number of occasions in
issues of New Bookmarks. Mike has one of the leading Web sites in
sociology. He constantly updates and adds to this site at
http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/
His site begins as follows:
Over a
quarter century ago columnist Lewis Lapham made the following
observation:
There no
longer exists a theater of ideas in which artists or philosophers
can perform the acts of the intellectual or moral imagination. In
nineteenth-century England Charles Darwin could expect On The
Origin of Species to be read by Charles Dickens as well as by
Disraeli and the vicar in the shires who collected flies and water
beetles. Dickens and Disraeli and the vicar could assume that Mr.
Darwin might chance to read their own observations. But in the
United States in 1979 what novelist can expect his work to be read
by a biochemist, a Presidential candidate, or a director of
corporations; what physicist can expect his work to be noticed, much
less understood, in the New York literary salons? ("A Juggernaut of
Words," Harper's Magazine, June 1979: pp. 12-13).
Conditions
have hardly improved in 2005. Now in the supposed "Information Age" six
out of ten American households do not purchase a single book and
one-half of American adults do not read one. Forty years ago in 1965
when the Gallup Organization
asked young people if they read a daily newspaper,
67 percent said yes; thirty-five years later, roughly 20 percent answer
affirmatively. And yet "they" say we are saturated with informational
overload!
I am
most interested in the potential of this cyberspace medium to inform and
to generate discourse, to enhance
information
literacy, and to truly be a "theater of
ideas." This site features commentary, data analyses (hey, we've become
a "factoid" culture), occasional essays, as well as the requisite links,
put together for courses taught by myself and my colleagues.
If you do give feedback on one of the message pads
scattered across these pages and wish a reply, please include your
e-mail address.
Jensen Comment:
The philosophy of science is a dying discipline in part because it added
philosophical terminology and discourse that did not have enough value added
to scientists themselves as they got on with the work at hand, particularly
social scientists.
Social scientists have moved on from debates over the scientific
paradigm. I highly recommend examining how sociologists now proceed without
getting all hung up on positivist or anti-positivist dogma ---
http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/methods.html#ms
I particularly like the following quotation from the above document:
Methodology
entails the procedures by which social research, whether quantitative
and qualitative, are conducted and ultimately evaluated--in other words,
how one's hypotheses are tested. Getting more specific, researchers'
methodologies guide them in defining, collecting, organizing, and
interpreting their data. Often the major breakthroughs in our
understanding of social processes occur because of the novelty of the
data used, the techniques by which it is gathered, or by the model or
question directing its acquisition and/or interpretation. And let's
hear it for the findings that don't support the hypotheses at the
Journal of Articles
in Support of the Null Hypothesisand in
the Index of Null
Effects and Replication Failures.
Defining
one's data: Precisely how does one go about and measure such
theoretical concepts as altruistic behavior, esprit de corps, or
anomie? Even such apparent "no brainers" as religiosity, happiness, or
social class reveal how methodological adequacy and validity are a
function of the clarity of one's theory and its part. Further, theory
tends to be built into our measurement tools. When, for instance, one
measures temperature with a thermometer it is not the temperature per
se that one sees but rather a phenomenon (mercury rising within a
column) theoretically related to it.
For
strategies for data collection see Bill Trochim's Research
Methods Tutorials, including material on:
The following
link seems particularly relevant to the topic of accounting/economic
research and publication: Five Fundamental Errors in Economics Research ---
http://www.dieoff.org/page241.htm
Mike also suggested some interesting new Web sites in an August 18
message:
Hi Bob—
As promised, you
have been sent an invitation to join the Google mail gang. Other
goodies to download:
Stumbleupon—it’s right up there with
Google as a personal favorite:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
. Once you’ve downloaded and installed,
it appears as another toolbar (available for Firefox people
too). Select the Menu option on the right and then Update
Topics. Broad category tabs on top open host of specific
options to check off.
Favorite site of summer is, of course,
Google Earth at
http://earth.google.com/ . Be sure to
use the rotation option. When zooming in. Not knowing your New
Hampshire address, I have not yet dropped by.
Jensen Comment: Sociologists examine these databases from some
interesting perspectives. For example, one thing that interested Mike in
the NameVoyager is the trend in the use of biblical names.
Dr. Kearl also clued me into Gmail from Google which at present you can
only get if you are recommended to do so in a scheme that I do not quite
understand. You can read more about it at
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/benefits.html
Email is supposed to be a productivity tool. So
why spend time filing messages, then later trying to remember where you
put them? And why delete important mail just to stay within some
arbitrary storage limit?
Gmail makes email easy. With more than 2,000
megabytes of free storage, you never need to throw messages away. And
with a powerful built-in Google search engine, you no longer need to set
up folders, file your mail, or remember where you stored your messages.
Just search for what you want. You'll not only find the message you have
in mind, but all the other messages that are part of the same
conversation – arranged in chronological order so you can easily put
everything in context.
1) The secret is search Google
search is at the heart of Gmail. Fast, efficient, effective. Just
type a few keywords into the search box and your message appears.
You don't have to remember where you put your mail. That's our job.
2) It's all in how you look at it With
Gmail, you'll see your messages in context. If there was a reply to
a message you sent or received, Gmail will automatically display it
in chronological order with the original. This conversation view
continues to grow as you respond and new replies arrive, making it
possible for you to follow the whole back and forth discussion in
one place.
I signed up for it and will tell you more about it at a future time.
August 19, 2005 message from David Fordham
Bob, some of us have been using Gmail for a
long time. I for one have been on it for a couple of months.
The upside is that I can always find a message
as long as I can remember a word or two in the message, header, title,
etc.
Two downsides: I haven't yet found a wildcard
for the search term, and sometimes a message I'm seeking doesn't have
enough unique words to narrow the search down sufficiently.
Under the first drawback, I have to remember
that I want "School of Accountancy" and not "School of Accounting",
because there is no way to search on "School of Account*" or something
similar.
The second drawback is a familiar one to anyone
who's used search engines. Trying to find a message from a student whose
name I can't remember but who asked a question about possibly meeting
with me, can be a pain unless I can remember some specific wording that
makes the message unique from the dozens of similar messages I get over
the months.
However, in general, I'm very happy with it. I
forward all my JMU mail to my gmail account. Gmail has a stupendous spam
filter... every day my spam folder gets anywhere from 50 to 200 spam
messages, and I can go several days without a spam message showing up in
my in-box, and at the same time, I've never, ever, had a real message
show up in the spam folder. That kind of percentage rates a gold star,
in my book.
There are some minor annoyances to not having
folders, but then, the ability to ADD your own labels (tags) to messages
can help overcome some of the limitations. Think of "filing a message in
multiple folders" when you add multiple labels to a message.
I don't believe the "never have to delete"
claim, however. I've been using Gmail about four or five months, and I
delete copiously -- especially the spam and old messages I send to
trash... and I'm still using about 20% of my 2 gig quota. At this rate,
I'll run out of room in about two years -- about the same as my JMU mail
quota.
Enjoy Gmail.
David Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University
Gmail is "great." It stores every message you
send and receive. Even if you delete a message (according to sources I
have read) it remains in their database. Google uses the information to
understand who you are and what you are likely to buy. They say that no
Google employee will read your mail. That's because their IA mail
readers are more efficient at doing it. Since it's a "free" service they
have to make their money somehow. So that would be by selling or sharing
your profile to interested parties such as vendors or the government
(the government can demand access to this information under the Patriot
Act). Then they "place a few highly relevant, text ads adjacent to the
body of your email. and links to related web pages you might find of
interest." Hence, while the benefits are many, the main cost of Gmail
appears to be your privacy.
Another nice thing about gmail is that you can
send invitations to yourself, and open as many email accounts as you
want. Use separate email accounts for each newsletter or listserv
subscription, and access the messages from anywhere, and forget about
capacity limits.
One does not have to use gmail to do such
search. You can do it with any mailer that is saved on your hard disk,
if you use Google desktop search. In fact I use it even with outlook
(which I have been condemned to use by all my Microsoftie colleagues).
Search is extremely easy with any mail system.
In fact one of my colleague (also a luddite like me) never files mail in
folders -- he has just two folders: inbox and sent. He uses pine mailer
in unix. He has been happy using a combination of unix utilities such as
grep, sort, awk,... to do all searches. A Luddite overkill in my
opinion, but then we all march to different drummers, don't we? Unless
we are lemmings :-))
Dear Bob,
I have been using Gmail for a while now. It is really good and I could
recommend it to you. ;-)))
Cheers,
Helen
Updated home tests for colon cancer A simple home-screening test for colon cancer, long
derided as ineffective, is making a comeback. However, convincing consumers
to use the tests may be tough. A slew of new fecal occult blood tests, or
FOBTs, have hit the market in recent months, incorporating improved
technology that does a far better job of finding cancer and potentially
cancerous polyps than the older version of the test. An editorial in the
influential medical journal Gastroenterology this month calls for increased
use of the new FOBTs, which, like the older version, test stool samples for
blood or its components, an early sign of colon cancer.
Tara Parker-Pope, "A Low-Tech Way to Find Colon Cancer: Home Screening Tests
Get More Reliable," The Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2005; Page D1
Free party school finder: How does your college rate? But there is one ranking each year that
colleges truly despise — Princeton Review’s list of the top party
schools (okay, they probably also dislike the company’s list called “Reefer
Madness” ). And this year’s “winner” of the party school designation, the
University of Wisconsin at Madison, has continued the grand tradition of
objecting vehemently to the honor.
Doug Lederman, "The Ranking Colleges Hate the Most," Inside Higher Ed,
August 23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/23/rank
Students party more and read less
A new survey of literary reading in America by the National Endowment for
the Arts, ”Reading
At Risk “has once again raised the alarm about
the cultural decline of America. This one provides the news that we read
much less literature, defined as fiction and poetry, than we did some 20
years ago. Indeed, the decline is substantial (10 percent), accelerating and
especially worrisome because the malady of literature non-reading
particularly afflicts the younger members of society, that critical 18-24
year old group (which shows a 28 percent decline in this survey).
John V. Lombardi, "Students Read Less. Should We Care?" Inside Higher Ed,
August 23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/23/lombardi
Medical students are critical of their curriculum
Only 17 percent of medical students are very satisfied with
their curriculum, according to
a survey released Monday by the
American Medical Student Association. Among the areas in
which many students said that their curriculum was
inadequate: ethics, bioterrorism, health disparities, and
the business of medicine.
Inside Higher Ed, August 23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/23/qt
Free Credit Reports Are Set to Go Nationwide
Beware of identity thief imposter sites for free credit reports Identity thieves continue to proliferate, but soon
all consumers will have access to at least one free method of surveillance.
Beginning next month, a federal law expands nationwide to allow individuals
to get free copies of their credit reports, once a year, from each of the
three major credit-reporting agencies. As part of the Fair and Accurate
Credit Transactions Act, passed in late 2003 and aimed at combating identity
thieves, the rule was rolled out across the U.S. over the past year, and
culminates with the addition of the Eastern states, Puerto Rico and all U.S.
territories next month. At that point, all consumers will have access to the
reports from Experian, Equifax Inc. and TransUnion LLC. The official Web
site where you can request the free reports is annualcreditreport.com, or
you can call toll free 1-877-322-8228. (Don't contact the three credit
companies individually.)
Tara Siegel Bernard, "Free Credit Reports Are Set to Go Nationwide: But
Consumers May See Pitches for Other Services And Imposter Web Sites," The
Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2005; Page D2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112475744986720188,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Pay to Get Your FICO Score Your FICO credit score is crucial to your credit to your good name. It
can be altered without your knowing it due to fraud and errors. Getting a
free credit report may not give you a FICO scores as well.
The main advantage of thefrom
http://www.myfico.com/ is that it will give you your FICO score from
each of the three major credit reporting agencies. Consumer Reports
(August, Page 18) notes that credit scores nearly always differ between the
three major credit reporting agencies. You may miss something if you only
get one agency’s score.
To monitor your FICO score, Consumer Reports (August 2005, Page 17)
recommends that you get the $44.85 package from
http://www.myfico.com/
Florida fun: Collect your government disaster relief before the
hurricane hits Waste and fraud dog the Federal Emergency
Management Agency. After Hurricane Frances last summer, FEMA doled out $31
million to more than 10,000 residents in Miami-Dade County, Fla., for home
repairs and new furniture, clothes, televisions, microwaves and
refrigerators, even though the storm barely brushed the county. Many claims
were attributed to phantom tornadoes, and six families alleged damage from
ice and snow. Now comes word that FEMA paid $1.3 million for funerals for
319 Floridians who died last summer. But coroners have concluded as many as
236 of these "victims" died from natural causes, suicide or accidents
unrelated to the storms. Claimants included the family of a millionaire who
died two days before Hurricane Frances, two cancer victims, a man who
succumbed to cirrhosis and heart failure five months after Hurricane
Charley, 10 people who were not in Florida when they died, and two people
who still may be alive. People didn't even have to prove they were next of
kin to get paid off.
"Fraud in Florida," Waterbury Republican-American, August 23, 2005
---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1468893/posts
Trip Advisor (travel helpers, including reviews) --- From the Traveler’s Mouth ---
www.tripadvisor.com
Tired of Renting? ---
http://calculators4mortgages.com Mortgage and loan calculators are one of the first
steps in the mortgage process. First, find out what kind of mortgage works
best for you. There are many choices out there! Do you want a fixed rate
mortgage, or an adjustable rate mortgage? Then use these mortgage
calculators to determine the amount of mortgage you can afford with the Pre
Qualify Calculator. Also determine your new monthly mortgage payments.
Mortgage calculators can also be used to calculate payments on debt
consolidation mortgage loan and see your monthly savings! Use the Refinance
Mortgage Calculator for this. Make it simple to work out how
Not enough wealth to spread around The rapid growth in developing countries, combined
with declining birth rates in some industrialized nations could affect the
ability of the wealthy to aid the poor, said a demographer who prepared the
group's report. "The countries of today's developing world are growing
almost three times faster than the developed countries," said Carl Haub, a
demographer for the Population Reference Bureau, a private research group.
"The global population growth today has concentrated in the poorest
countries and the poorest areas of those countries.
Henry Dunphy, "Group Ensures Global Population Growth," Yahoo News,
August 23, 2005 --- http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050823/ap_on_re_us/world_population_1
I think it would look good on the San Antonio Riverwalk, but towing
fees would be much higher Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San
Francisco mayor, helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island
to the Bay Area in 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its
new home. But city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the
ship, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on
gays, among other things. "If I was going to commit any kind of money in
recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in
Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.
Brian Skolof, "San Francisco Shuns Retired USS Iowa," Breitbart.com,
August 20, 2005 ---
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/20/D8C3PH0G0.html
Jensen Comment: With it's various military bases and thousands of military
retirees, San Antonio is a military-friendly place.
French countryside hit by a massive invasion of frogs Destroying the frogs is not easy, however. The
Gironde fisheries protection association attacked a pond full of bullfrogs
with electricity a few years ago. The frogs fought back. The hunters battled
with them for two hours. They killed just one frog before they gave up.
Assaults on the frogs have also been made with nets
and by draining ponds, to little effect. Game-keepers and volunteers working
for the Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage (National
Hunting and Wild-life Agency) have now developed night-fighting techniques.
The frogs are easier to locate at night because their eyes reflect
torchlight.
John Lichfield, "French countryside hit by a massive invasion of frogs," The
Independent, August 20, 2005 ---
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article307312.ece
At last there will be a way to efficiently store digital
video But this is no ordinary recording process. The disc
has more than 60 times the storage capacity of a standard DVD, while the
drive writes about 10 times faster than a conventional DVD burner. That
means the disc can store up to 128 hours of video content--almost twice
enough for the full nine seasons of Seinfeld--and records it all in less
than three hours. Holographic Memory By Gregory T. Huang , "Holographic Memory,"
MIT's Technology Review, September 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/issue/feature_memory.asp?trk=nl
Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C)
The purpose of the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is to help learning
organizations continually improve the quality, scale, and breadth of their
online programs according to their own distinctive missions, so that
education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for
anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines ---
http://www.sloan-c.org/
Ariz. High School Swaps Books for Laptops Students at Empire High School here started class
this year with no textbooks _ but it wasn't because of a funding crisis.
Instead, the school issued iBooks _ laptop computers by Apple Computer Inc.
_ to each of its 340 students, becoming one of the first U.S. public schools
to shun printed textbooks.
Arthur H. Rotstein, "Ariz. High School Swaps Books for Laptops," The
Washington Post, August 19, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081900273.html?referrer=email
Kozlowski Hall Dennis Kozlowski’s lavish spending
while he was chief executive of Tyco Inc. led to a series of
criminal charges — and a conviction in a New York court this
year for which he could face 30 years in prison. He also
spent on colleges, which were thrilled with his attention
when he was a powerful executive, but are now a little shy
about the connection to a felon. Seton Hall University,
Kozlowski’s alma mater, announced Thursday that it had
removed his name from an academic building that houses its
colleges of business and of education and human services.
From now on, the building will not be Kozlowski Hall, but
Jubilee Hall, to honor the university’s sesquicentennial.
The Kozlowski name is also being removed from the rotunda of
the university’s library.
Scott Jaschik, "Seton Hall Drops Name of Donor/Felon,"
Inside Higher Ed, August 19, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/19/name
Education Reform in the Parts of the Former Soviet Union It is fair to say that since the Rose Revolution,
our government has had its ups and downs. Yet we are still quite popular.
Popularity has never been my goal, but public support has been useful
because it helps bolster us as we try to bring about change. For example,
Georgians -- like all other post-Soviet citizens -- used to hate their
police force. Before our revolution, police in Georgia were trusted by less
than 5% of the population. Today, following our reforms, our police enjoy
approval ratings of more than 90% -- unheard of in this part of the world.
Another poignant example is the state admission exams for higher educational
institutions. For many decades, few areas of Georgian society harbored more
corruption than the rotten educational system, where bribery had virtually
become a way of life. This year, some 40,000 students took new statewide
exams that were administered under the watch of TV cameras. For me the
greatest surprise and indeed inspiration from this reform was not simply
that we had no major complaints, but rather that for the first time cheating
has been dramatically reduced. We expect that trend to continue. Students
are taking part in the system and earning their way, not trying to game
their way into school.
Micheil Saakashvili, "It Takes a Cultural Revolution," The Wall Street
Journal, August 19, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112440126169017045,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
With 70,595 Wi-Fi hotspot
locations in 103 countries
JiWire's global hotspot directory makes it easy to find places to connect
wherever you go.
WiFi Hotspot Finder Widget 2.0 ---
http://www.jiwire.com/
Einstein Manuscript Surfaces The original manuscript of a paper Albert Einstein
published in 1925 has been found in the archives of Leiden University's
Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, scholars said Saturday. The
handwritten manuscript titled "Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas"
was dated December 1924. Considered one of Einstein's last great
breakthroughs, it was published in the proceedings of the Prussian Academy
of Sciences in Berlin in January 1925.
"Einstein Manuscript Surfaces," Wired News, August 21, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68599,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6
A science lab in your kitchen? Get hands-on with DIY science ---
http://www.open2.net/
Note upper left corner for the link.)
Slanted Tax Cut Media Coverage Media coverage of President Bush's tax cuts has
been particularly slanted. During the 2003 tax-cut debate, three of every
four major TV network news stories were negative. The favorite criticisms
were liberal echoes that it would bust the budget and favor the rich.
Earlier this year, a news story on National Public Radio announced that "as
everyone knows, the primary cause of the budget deficit was the Bush tax
cuts." No word yet on whom NPR is crediting with this year's revenue surge
of $262 billion. Robert Rubin? Given all of this doom-and-gloom reporting,
maybe the surprise is that Americans are nonetheless behaving with their
typical optimism, buying goods and services, bidding up the stock market,
and creating new businesses. They may repeat to pollsters what they hear on
TV, but they are acting on what they see with their own eyes.
"Media Bears," The Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2005; Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112441420216817412,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
The French aren't doing so bad as the French think
The French love to complain (about
globalization), but the contradictory discourse that
we hear today hides the fact that French corporations -- the Renaults,
Totals, AXAs, BNP Paribas -- are successfully integrated in the world
economy, generate record profits and are well represented in the Fortune
Global 500 Index (where France has 39 companies listed, and Germany and
Britain only 37 each). In fact, Danone is a fairly typical example of how
large French firms have adapted to global competition, carved out quite a
bit of the international market and focused on shareholder value -- all
while keeping a French identity. But what about the rest of the country? It
is often said that the very high French productivity, which makes such
results at all possible, is simply a mechanical result of France's low
work-participation rate. And what's the use of high-performing companies if
the rest of the country can't keep up? The fact is that average French GDP
growth per capita over the past 10 years (2%), has been very similar to that
in the U.K. (2.3%) and the U.S. (2.1%). More interestingly, as pointed out
in a March article by Denis Clerc in "Alternatives Economiques," France has
actually enjoyed stronger job growth than the U.K. over that period (14% vs.
11%), and fewer of those jobs were created in the public sector -- 300,000,
or 15%, of the new jobs in France are government jobs, versus 860,000, or
45%, in Britain.
Jerome Guillet, "Can-Do France," The Wall Street Journal, August 19,
2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112441113694617328,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
In February 1998, two managers at UBS AG in
London received an anonymous letter warning that the Swiss bank's
derivatives unit was "offering an illegal capital-gains tax evasion
scheme to U.S. taxpayers." The cost to the Internal Revenue Service:
"hundreds of millions of dollars a year," according to the missive.
"I am concerned that once IRS comes to know
about this scheme they will levy huge financial/criminal penalties on
UBS," said the letter, which named three UBS employees the author
believed were involved. "My sole objective is to let you know about this
scheme, so that you can take some concrete steps to minimise the
financial and reputational damage to UBS."
UBS responded by halting all trades related to
two KPMG LLP tax shelters, known as Foreign Leveraged Investment Program
and Offshore Portfolio Investment Strategy, or Flip and Opis. Several
months later, though, the bank "resumed selling the products, stopping
only after KPMG discontinued the sales," according to an April report by
the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Citing UBS
documents, the report said the bank appeared to have reasoned that its
participation "did not signify its endorsement of the transactions and
did not constitute aiding or abetting tax evasion." The identity of the
1998 letter's author, a self-described UBS "insider," hasn't surfaced
publicly. A UBS spokesman declined to comment.
More than you ever wanted to know about gardening
Ohio State University's WebGarden ---
http://webgarden.osu.edu/
News editors debate the limits of confidentiality Confidential sources are overused, but it has
become impossible for journalists to cover the government without sources
who routinely conduct "briefing and spinning sessions" under the cloak of
anonymity, said Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek, at a forum here July 17.
When--if ever--a news organization's obligation to protect the identity of a
confidential source should be trumped was a topic of intense, if collegial,
debate between Whitaker and Jim Kelly, managing editor of Time, during a
discussion about the beleaguered status of journalism.
Rod Searcy, "News editors debate the limits of
confidentiality," Stanford Report, July 27, 2005 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/july27/newsforum-072705.html
Mummy's secrets revealed Frame by frame, layer by layer, the images of a
mummified Egyptian child who died two millennia ago spring to life on a
25-foot screen, revealing every remarkable detail of the skeletal remains,
down to the last vertebrae. The three-dimensional images, the result of
high-resolution scans done at Stanford, reveal a girl of 4 to 5 years old
with short, resin-coated black curls, a receding chin and an angular face
reminiscent of her famous counterpart, King Tut. "The scans are
spectacular," marveled Rebecca Fahrig, PhD, associate professor of
radiology. "The fact that we were able to get such high-resolution images is
pretty cool. Some of the detail in the teeth is absolutely phenomenal. You
wouldn't get that with a normal scanner." The girl, who has been dubbed
Sherit, ancient Egyptian for "little one," has been a resident of the
Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose for the last 75 years—her story a
complete mystery until now, said museum curator Lisa Schwappach-Shirriff.
Ruthann Richter, "Mummy's secrets revealed," Stanford Report, August
10, 2005 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/august10/mummy-081005.html
How is your salary/pay level relative to other persons in
your job classification such as an Associate Professor of Accounting or an
Assistant Professor of Psychology or a Senior Secretary or an Assistant
Registrar in a university in Los Angeles? ---
http://www.payscale.com/ This service has both free and premium services for many types of
employers and employees. It will give you email updates about how you and
others like you are doing in terms of pay in your part of the world. It
does ask some rather private information about you in terms of education
background, work experience, current employer, and current income. I tried
it out and was rather impressed with the service. Keep in mind that
impacted by outliers. For example, it is somewhat common in major
universities for faculty who have been at the associate professor level in
accounting for twenty years to make much less than new assistant and new
associate professors of accounting. This would distort the mean average pay
for a new associate professor of accounting. The data could also be
impacted by small sample problems such as when there are few if any other
employers like your employer in your region.
This is a serious site that was recommended in the August
2005 issue of the Journal of Accountancy ---
http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/aug2005/news_web.htm
It might be interesting to compare this database with the AAUP or AACSB
database of faculty salaries which of course are not drilled down to
particular cities and towns. The average salary for full professors of
accounting in the San Antonio area was surprisingly low to the point of
being suspect.
I would like to put forth the website
http://www.chooselaw.com
as a suggestion for inclusion on your webpage
located at the address:
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm
and possibly any other pages you have which are relevant to the law and
it's study. We are a new resource and just getting our legs under us and
can use all the help you can give in regards to awareness of our free
services.
Please feel free to look over our website and
create a suitable description based on your honest evaluation, or drop
us a note and we will supply any descriptive copy needed.
Thank you for consideration.
William
Jensen Comment: I added this link to the following two sites:
At
the 2005 American Accounting Association meetings in San Francisco, the
2005-2006 President, Judy Rayburn from the University of Minnesota, gave a
luncheon speech about the State of the AAA. The AAA is not in the best of
shape and comparisons are made with other academic associations in business
studies such as finance and management.
What
is especially interesting is the current populist movement going on in the
AAA. It is built upon the argument that the AAA journals and meeting
programs became too detached from the accounting profession and problems
within the profession. There is a strong movement rising to change the
editorial biases of the AAA’s top journals that have been tightly controlled
by positivists demanding great rigor in empirical and analytical studies.
One problem is that such demands for rigor have limited researchers to
rather uninteresting problems that derive outcomes of little surprise or
interest.
Given the lively discussion about Judy
Rayburn's luncheon talk in San Francisco, I thought some would be
interested in her PowerPoint slides which are posted on the AAA website
-- you'll find them at
http://aaahq.org/AM2005/menu.htm . It was
great to see many of you at the Annual Meeting -- special thanks to
folks for discussing ideas for some of the teaching/learning related
sessions developed by the VP for Education -- a session on using games
in teaching accounting was an outcome of conversations on AECM.
Best regards, Tracey
Jensen Comment: Katherine Schipper's Presidential Lecture slides are
also available"
I suspect the AAA is holding off on Denny’s speech until it is determined
if Accounting Horizons is going to publish his paper.
Cynthia Cooper’s plenary speech on Wednesday is proprietary and will not
be published by the AAA. You can, however, find some of her remarks in
various places if you run a search on Google. There is a basketball star by
that same name, so I suggest you run the search on “Cooper” AND “Worldcom”.
StumbleUpon is an intelligent browsing tool for
sharing and discovering great websites. As you click
Stumble!,
you'll get high-quality pages matched to your
personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended
(rated I like it) by friends and other SU
members with similar interests. Rating these sites shares them with your
friends and peers – you will automatically 'stumble upon' each others
favorites sites. In effect, StumbleUpon's members collectively share
the best sites on the web. You can share any site
by simply clicking I like it. This passes the
page on to friends and like-minded people – letting them "stumble upon"
all the great sites you discover.
Selecting Your Interests
After you join you will be asked to select topics which are of interest
to you. Nearly 500 topics are available and you can select as many as
you wish to help determine your preferences in web content. The more
interests you select, the better StumbleUpon will be able to determine
which sites you will like best. This lets StumbleUpon provide you with
sites rated highly by other members with similar interests. You can also
add, remove or modify your interests at any time.
Jensen Comment: I found this site a little confusing to use, but I think
I got the hang of it. Now I find it quite useful for finding good sites.
Many of the hits are commercial sites. It does clutter your browser window
with yet another toolbar, although if you click on the View option in your
browser you can choose to hide this and other browser toolbars.
Although many of the links are to commercial (fee) sites,
many StumbleUpon hits under accounting were quite good, especially in
financial statement analysis and valuation.
Five
Capital Budgeting Analysis (xls) - Basic program for doing
capital budgeting analysis with inclusion of opportunity costs,
working capital requirements, etc. -
Adamodar
Damodaran
FCFE
Valuation 1 (xls) - Free Cash Flow to Equity (FCFE)
Valuation Model for organizations with stable growth rates -
Adamodar
Damodaran
FCFE
Valuation 2 (xls) - Free Cash Flow to Equity (FCFE)
Valuation Model for organizations with two periods of growth,
high growth initially and then stable growth -
Adamodar
Damodaran
FCFE
Valuation 3 (xls) - Free Cash Flow to Equity (FCFE)
Valuation Model for organizations with three stages of growth,
high growth initially, decline in growth, and then stable growth
- Adamodar
Damodaran
FCFF
Valuation 2 (xls) - Free Cash Flow to Firm (FCFF) Valuation
Model for organizations with two periods of growth, high growth
initially and then stable growth -
Adamodar
Damodaran
Time
Value (xls) - Introduction to time value concepts, such as
present value, internal rate of return, etc.
DCF
- Menu driven Excel program (must enable macros) for Discounted
Cash Flow Analysis from the book Analysis for Financial
Management by
Robert C. Higgins
History - Menu driven Excel program (must enable macros) for
Historical Financial Statements from the book Analysis for
Financial Management by
Robert C.
Higgins
Proforma - Menu driven Excel program (must enable macros)
for Pro-forma Financial Statements from the book Analysis for
Financial Management by
Robert C.
Higgins
Top Five
Excel Workbook 1-2 - Set of worksheets for evaluating
financial performance and forecasting - Supplemental Material
for Short Course 1 and 2 on this website.
Six Solver Workbook (zip) - Set of various spreadsheets for
solving different business problems (inventory ordering, labor
scheduling, working capital, etc.).
Capital Budgeting Workbook - Several examples of capital
budgeting analysis, including the use of Solver to select
optimal projects.
Present
Value Tables (rtf) - Set of present value tables written in
rich text format, compatible with most word processors. Includes
examples of how to use present value tables.
KartOO is a metasearch
engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches
the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and
represents them in a series of interactive maps through a proprietary
algorithm KartOO Searching ---
http://www.kartoo.com/ Jensen Comment: As the name StumbleUpon suggests in the module above,
StumbleUpon more or less randomly brings up "good" sites under a give topic
area. Another search engine called KartOO brings up "good" sites a little
less randomly due to the ability to fine tune with subtopics.
For example, enter "Accounting" and note the many subtopics. This is a
very good search site when you want to drill down to details on a topic.
Try it again with "Accounting Education." However, I find StumbleUpon a bit
more imaginative in terms of interesting and varying sites.
Although written many years ago, Lady
Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this
pictorial account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of
considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many
passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control
vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.
Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous
material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the management
of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot
take the place of J. R. Miller's Practical Gamekeeping."
Ed Zern, Field and Stream, 1959 ---
http://bourke.ilanet.net.au/quotes.html
Substitute 'damn' every time you're
inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be
just as it should be.
Mark Twain ---
http://bourke.ilanet.net.au/quotes.html
I was going to buy a copy of
The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I
thought: What the hell good would that do? Ronnie Shakes ---
http://bourke.ilanet.net.au/quotes.html
Depending on your musical tastes,
the Coen brothers have a lot to answer for. The soundtrack to their movie O
Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) has racked up multi-platinum sales around
the world and in the process popularised bluegrass music.
Ben Wyld, "Lost Highway - The Story of Country Music," Sydney Morning
Herald, ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/19/1123958224826.html
Does demonstrating before the families of wounded soldiers really help
peace protests?
I think this weekly demonstration organized by the Code Pink Women for Peace
demeans the protest movement and is counter productive to their cause. The
resentments toward these protesters, like the resentments of Jane Fonda,
will linger for years to come. Antics like this end up helping the GOP win
elections even though many liberals are opposed to further hurting our
wounded. Crawford, Texas is a better place for such demonstrations. The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington,
D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq,
has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The
protesters hold signs that read "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die
for Halliburton." . . . "You know that 95 percent of the guys in the
hospital bed lost guys whenever they got hurt and survivors' guilt is the
worst thing you can deal with," Pannell (recovering from wounds) said,
adding that other veterans recovering from wounds at Walter Reed share his
resentment for the anti-war protesters . . . Albion Wilde concurred, arguing
that "it's very easy to pick on the families of the wounded. They are very
vulnerable ... I feel disgusted. "[The anti-war protesters] are really
showing an enormous lack of respect for just everything that America has
always stood for. They lost the election and now they are really, really
angry and so they are picking on the wrong people," Wilde added. Marc Morano, "Anti-War Protests Target Wounded at Army Hospital,"
CBS News, August 25, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/CodePink
Excerpts (i.e., facts left out of American history books) Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got
Wrong by James W. Loewen. (Simon & Schuster, 1995) ---
http://www.accd.edu/pac/philosop/phil1301/lieshist.htm
As we explain in detail, information societies
promise to dramatically reduce the returns to violence, in part because they
transcend locality. In the new millennium, the advantage of controlling
violence on a large scale will be far lower than it has been at any time
since before the French Revolution. This will have profound consequences.
One of these will be rising crime. When the payoff for organizing violence
at a large scale tumbles, the payoff from violence at a smaller scale is
likely to jump. Violence will become more random and localized. Organized
crime will grow in scope. The Sovereign Individual: How to
Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State, by James
Dale Davidson and Lord William (Rees-Mogg. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1997) ---
http://www.accd.edu/pac/philosop/phil1301/mustmogg.htm
Jensen Comment: Davidson's observations
were on target long before the 9/11 tragedy. The rapidly expanding "cells"
of loosely connected terrorists and criminals will increasingly make us
sacrifice our liberties, open life styles, and joys in life. We will
withdraw into medieval-like fortresses surrounded by electronic motes.
We're becoming incredibly Orwellian.
Ernesto Cortes, Jr., a highly regarded community
organizer from San Antonio, Texas, has observed that Lord Acton's oft-quoted
aphorism--"power tends to corrupt..."--works both ways... "Powerlessness
also corrupts," Cortes said. "We've got a lot of people who've never
developed an understanding of power. They've been institutionally trained to
be passive. Power is nothing more than the ability to act in your own
behalf. In Spanish, we call the word poder, to have capacity, to be able." Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy?, by
William Greider (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1992) ---
http://www.accd.edu/pac/philosop/phil1301/mustgreider.htm
Check out a library person in Sweden: This is not a Swedish joke If you find yourself in Malmo, Sweden, and
happen to see a homosexual, an imam and a gypsy walk into a bar, it's not a
joke. These are just some of the people who can be borrowed -- yes, borrowed
-- from the local library for a 45-minute chat in a nearby pub as part of an
effort to fight discrimination. "Not a Swedish Joke," The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2005;
Page A8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112493599800422716,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep Jensen Comment: In Japan there was, and maybe still is, a service that
rents a functional family.Grandparents or possibly parents of adult
children who cannot, for whatever reason, have a happy outing with their own
family may rent a family complete with grandchildren.
Vagina Candy
The women’s center at Boise State University is
distributing vagina-shaped candy to students, setting off a range of
reactions, according to
KBCI News Inside Higher Ed, August 24, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/24/qt
Much of the latest debt can be attributed to President
Bush, because he does not veto irresponsible spending bills
National Debt ---
http://www.uwsa.com/uwsa-usdebt.html
There's no such thing as a budget surplus in spite of the very positive
impact of the Bush tax cuts on the economy. The problem is that Congress
spends the tax cut's benefits.
Deceived into thinking you can bear this Sometimes, just thinking you are receiving
treatment is enough to make you feel better, a phenomenon known as the
placebo effect. Scientists have long wondered what causes this outcome, the
magnitude of which is not the same for all people. A new brain imaging study
suggests that the body's natural painkillers, endorphins, play a significant
role.
"Brain's Own Pain Relievers At Work in Placebo Effect, Study Suggests."
Scientific American, August 24, 2005 ---
http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00064692-8F20-130B-8F2083414B7F0000
Jensen Comment: Do you suppose this is a little like being deceived that
you got an education?
A free way to send up to a 1 Gb huge file by email
This is a good way to send video and audio files! ---
http://www.yousendit.com/
I love the YouSendIt service that does not require zip or any form of
file compression. You can learn how to use YouSendIt in less than a minute.
I currently use filesanywhere.com for something
similar, but that is a paid service. A few more bells and whistles to be
sure though.
Scott Bonacker, CPA
Springfield, Missouri
Jensen Comment:
I experimented with this by sending a 200 Mb video file to myself. It is a
fantastic free service that can be used when the file you want to send is
too large to attach to an email message. It supposedly will take a file up
to 1 Gb without even having to zip or otherwise compress the file. My
Internet Explorer browser wanted to block the download, but when I clicked
to accept the file it downloaded beautifully.
My students will find this useful for sending large database files to
each other in course projects.
You do not have to send the file by email to YouSendIt. All you have to
do is provide the recipient's email address and the file on your computer
that you want to send. You do not even have to supply your own name or your
own email address. The recipient then receives a message that he/she has
seven days in to download the file. YouSendIt will not store the file
beyond seven days.
I cannot vouch for the security of data stored by YouSendIt. If you are
sending sensitive data such as credit card numbers or a book draft that
you've not yet secured a copyright number, then I suggest that you encrypt
the file before sending it. There are various options for encryption. For
example, most database programs like MS Access have encryption utilities in
the software itself. Another encryption alternative (free) is described
below.
August 25 reply from a Computer Science Professor
And how does YouSendIt access the file on your
system?
This is the problem to which I refer by the
phrase "today's digital environment". The idea of giving someone else
your data and a destination and "trusting" them to do the right thing
with the data is a scary thought.
Why not deposit your data in your web space
yourself and notify the recipient of its availability. If it needs to be
secure, encrypt it with Open encryption software (public key), such as
gpg, before putting in in your web space. And certify your public key.
August 26, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi XXXXX,
Perhaps there is a security problem that I do not know about. If this
is a gimmick to crack a firewall, then I would like to know more about
it. It does not seem more dangerous than the many times I download
files from Web sites, e.g., PDF files, PPT files, etc.
This is incredibly easy to use. I can imagine people who do not have
enormous amounts of Web server space available using the YouSendIt
alternative for sending home videos, audio files, and large picture
files. In many cases, people are sending files that they would willingly
place on a server if they had enormous server space available at zero
cost.
Thanks to you and Gerald, I make some very large files available now
on a Computer Science Department Web server ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ Of course these can be
easily downloaded by anybody in the world.
However, there are some database files that I cannot place on a Web
server. Most are hypothetical databases acquired free from various
vendors, databases that I'm allowed to modify for my teaching purposes
and students can modify for assignments. These would not be of much use
for anybody to steal, and I do not have the legal right to make them
available to anybody other than my students.
Even if I did put some of my larger databases on your Web server, I
would hog a tremendous amount of your capacity for very limited use by a
few of my students for a very short period of time.
YouSendIt simply asks the email address of where you want to send a
huge file and then gives you a browse button to find that file on your
system. Large files do take some time to send out.
It would probably be best to send that recipient an advanced warning
to expect such a file.
The recipient is then notified when the file is available for
downloading and that it will be held for seven days.
When the recipient downloads the file, he/she receives an option to
either run the file or to save it.
Neither the sender nor the recipient need install any software and
the service, for whatever reason, is free.
My students are especially going to like this for exchanging
databases in my courses. Obviously the files would have to be encrypted
or sent by some other means if the files were truly sensitive.
Bob Jensen
Free
encryption software
From the T.H.E. Journal Newsletter on August 25, 2005
Cypherix's
(www.cypherix.com)
Cryptainer LE
is a free 128-bit encryption program that allows users
to modify and hide files with a single password by
creating multiple 25MB encrypted containers on their
hard disk that can be loaded and unloaded whenever
necessary. The easy-to-use, drag-and-drop system works
on all 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows, and can
protect and secure any file or folder on any media,
including flash drives, CD-ROMs, and USB keys.
Cryptainer LE also allows users to send encrypted
e-mails without requiring the recipient to install the
program to decrypt the files. To download, visit
www.cypherix.com/cryptainerle/index.htm.
Google's 'Intelligent' Desktop 2: Data Delivered Based on Users'
Internet Searches Google Inc. yesterday released new software that
collects information based on a computer user's behavior and displays
updates of news, weather, Web sites and unopened e-mail messages on a
toolbar on the side of the screen. The test product, called Google Desktop
2, is the second incarnation of a program launched last fall. By using
Google's trademark search software, it aims to be a more personalized
version of products such as Apple Computer Inc.'s Dashboard and Yahoo Inc.'s
Konfabulator, programs that deliver icons to the screen and keep photo,
alarm clock, scheduling, music, currency converters and news applications
running while the computer is in use.
Yuki Noguchi, "Google's 'Intelligent' Desktop 2: Data Delivered Based on
Users' Internet Searches," The Washington Post, August 23, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082201463.html?referrer=email
Google Introduces Instant Messaging Google Inc. is joining yet another Internet turf
battle, the one over instant communication. Google introduced today an
instant-messaging service that lets users exchange text messages and make
voice calls over personal computers. Google's move pits it against Internet
giants such as Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit, Yahoo Inc. and
Microsoft Corp. that dominate the market.
Mylene Mangalindan and Christopher Rhoads, "Google Introduces Instant
Messaging," The Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2005; Page B3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112482337312020777,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
It's really the lack of features that
telegraphs Google Talk's prototype status. If you're familiar with
feature-laden competitors like MSN Messenger or AIM, it would almost be
easier to describe Google Talk in terms of what it doesn't have: no
cheery emoticons, no fancy fonts and no file transfers, for example. And
there's also no advertising at all, a curious departure from Google's
standard operating procedure and sole source of revenue.
There's also no way to call to or from
traditional telephone networks. That's a significant difference from
Skype, the internet telephony wunderkind, which holds between 30 and 46
percent of that market, depending on which statistics you look at.
So, if you're already using Skype or a similar
program, why should you switch to Google Talk? The program is closely
integrated with Gmail (you must have an invite-only Gmail account to use
it), which might be nice if that's your main e-mail provider. The clean,
simple interface could appeal to some, and the attempt to adhere to open
standards seems worthy of support.
In the future, Google says it intends to add a
raft of new features, including support for other operating systems
(presumably Mac and Linux), encryption, compatibility with other
internet telephony standards, and versions with a user interface in
languages other than English (text chat already works in any language
supported by Windows).
Continued in article
Peeking before a "blind" date ONE in three women prepare for blind dates by
spying on their prospective partners via the internet to obtain information
about their careers, their hobbies and what they look like, a new study has
found. Increasing numbers of men are also using internet search engines to
carry out so-called "suitability checks" before meeting their date.
Fiona MacGregor, "Women turn to internet for truth about their date,"
Scotsman.com, August 23, 2005 ---
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1826392005
Jensen Advice: Putting up a really stupid or offensive Web site may harm
your love life; Dull/Geekish may be tolerated on a Web site even if it's
not helpful to onsite relationships.
Fundamental accounting equation: Profit is equal to revenue minus
expense
Selling cars at employee discounts does little to curb union-negotiated
benefits on the expense side of things General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. took
another hit as Moody's Investors Service downgraded the corporate debt of
both auto companies to junk status, following similar moves by Standard &
Poor's Corp. The moves come as the top two U.S. auto makers by market share
struggle with intense competition, high costs and the decline in sales of
their biggest and most profitable sport-utility vehicles. Moody's
downgrades, affecting about $150 billion of debt, will ratchet up pressure
on GM and Ford to confront their cost problems in the U.S. before contract
talks with the United Auto Workers union are to begin in 2007.
John Stoll and Joseph B. White, "Moody's Cuts GM, Ford Debt to Junk," The
Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2005; Page A3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112491490698122187,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment: Just as junk cars are not likely to run down the road in
the future, junk debt is not likely to be repaid. Junk debt ratings are
often, but not always, precursors to bankruptcy filings.
"Obese football players face trouble, experts say," by Maggie Fox,
Reuters, August 25, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/NFLfat
"A sudden death like that in a 23-year-old with
no evidence of a stroke would suggest that he had an arrhythmia,"
Pi-Sunyer said in a telephone interview.
"We do know that he weighed 330 pounds."
That would give Herrion a body mass index of
more than 41 -- well into the area considered morbidly obese and thus
putting him at high risk of health problems.
Certain athletes with high muscle mass can
safely veer into BMIs of between 25 and 30, which would be considered
overweight for the average person, but a BMI of 40 or higher cannot be
considered anything but risky, experts say.
In March, Joyce Harp of the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill found that more than a quarter of NFL players
had a body mass index that qualified as morbidly obese.
The NFL claims Harp's study was flawed.
"The study uses BMI, which does not distinguish
between fat and muscle," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said on Tuesday. "Any
study that is done without taking into account body fat percentage is
misleading."
When banking online, look for that padlock For years, banks, e-commerce companies and other
operators of Web sites that deal in personal financial information have
trained customers to look for the little "padlock icon" in the corner of
their Web browser window. That padlock indicates that users are connected
via a secure server, and it has become a trusted seal for Internet
transactions. Increasingly, however, many of the nation's largest financial
institutions are doing away with the padlock on their home pages, a
development that some experts say could lead more consumers to fall prey to
phishing scams.
Brian Krebs, "Bank Sites Still Driven by Marketers," The Washington Post,
August 24, 2005 ---
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/08/bank_sites_stil.html?referrer=email
"The Mindset of Freshmen: Beloit College tries to help academics
each fall with a “mindset list” to explain the perspectives of the new class
of freshmen.," Inside Higher Ed, August 24, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/24/mindset
This year’s
list noting that most freshmen
were born in 1987, explains that, for them:
Liberace, Jackie Gleason,
and Lee Marvin have always been dead.
Heart-lung transplants
have always been possible.
Wayne Gretzky never played
for Edmonton.
Iran and Iraq have never
been at war with each other.
Voice mail has always been
available.
Bill Gates has always been
worth at least a billion dollars.
They do not remember “a
kinder and gentler nation.”
They never saw the shuttle
Challenger fly.
They never saw a Howard
Johnson’s with 28 ice cream flavors.
Update on the Ward Churchill Saga University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill has
two weeks to respond to a committee's recommendation that he undergo a full
investigation for seven counts of alleged plagiarism and fabrication. The
professor Tuesday called the status of the investigation against him "very
encouraging," partly because two other claims — including an allegation that
he falsified an American Indian identity — have been recommended for
dismissal. But an expert on academic fraud said the case against Churchill
sounds serious. "Any claims moving forward are serious because my sense of
these proceedings is that you really make every effort to see the claim...
"CU's Churchill to respond to committee," Daily Camera, August 24,
2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1469690/posts
The first edition of ACADEMIC COMMONS
Academic Commons <
http://academiccommons.org/ > offers a forum
for investigating and defining the role that technology can play in liberal
arts education. Sponsored by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at
Wabash College <
http://liberalarts.wabash.edu/ >, Academic
Commons publishes essays, reviews, interviews, showcases of innovative uses
of technology, and vignettes that critically examine technology uses in the
classroom. Academic Commons aims to share knowledge, develop collaborations,
and evaluate and disseminate digital tools and innovative practices for
teaching and learning with technology. We want this site to advance
opportunities for collaborative design, open development, and rigorous peer
critique of such resources. We strongly believe that classroom
teachers--established instructors and tomorrow's professors--need a
genuinely open forum for this discussion and hope that Academic Commons will
provide it.
Painkiller Update: What You Need to Know A Texas jury has awarded $253.4 million dollars to
the widow of a 59-year-old man who took the popular painkiller Vioxx,
finding the drug's manufacturer Merck & Co. negligent in his death. The news
puts the safety of Vioxx and other similar painkillers back in the
spotlight.
Michael Smith, "Painkiller Update: What You Need to Know: FDA Warnings
Affect All Anti-Inflammatory Drugs," WebMD, August 19, 2005 ---
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/110/109634.htm?z=1727_00000_5024_hv_03
What you need to know before buying a digital camera
(probably more than you want to know) When can we stop using the term "digital
cameras" and just call these things "cameras"? They began outselling
film-based cameras in 2003, and by the end of this year over half of U.S.
households will own a digital model, according to the Photo Marketing
Association International. But their mass-market status doesn't change the
fact that digital cameras remain computers with lenses, and they require
some of the same careful shopping -- from contemplating puzzling
measurements to choosing among incompatible formats.
Rob Pegoraro, "Be Camera-Ready When You Shop," The Washington Post,
August 21, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082000187.html?referrer=email
Need for an academic theory of bullshit If “bullshit,” as opposed to “bull,” is a
distinctively modern linguistic innovation, that could have something to do
with other distinctively modern things, like advertising, public relations,
political propaganda, and schools of education. “One of the most salient
features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit,” Harry G.
Frankfurt, a distinguished moral philosopher who is professor emeritus at
Princeton, says. The ubiquity of bullshit, he notes, is something that we
have come to take for granted. Most of us are pretty confident of our
ability to detect it, so we may not regard it as being all that harmful. We
tend to take a more benign view of someone caught bullshitting than of
someone caught lying. (“Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way
through,” a father counsels his son in an Eric Ambler novel.) All of this
worries Frankfurt. We cannot really know the effect that bullshit has on us,
he thinks, until we have a clearer understanding of what it is. That is why
we need a theory of bullshit.
Jim Holt, "SAY ANYTHING: Three books find truth under cultural and
conceptual assault," The New Yorker, August 22, 2005 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/050822crat_atlarge
Enteron became Enron but the name Enteron probably was a
better fit in retrospect The name (Enteron)
had been proposed by Lipppincot & Margulies, a pricey New York consulting
firm that had spent three months and millions of dollars on the project. It
derived from and analysis of the company's business --- "En" for "energy,"
"ter" for international and "InterNorth," and "on" because it sounded cool .
. . The problem was, no one bothered to check Webster's
(Dictionary). "Enteron is also a word for the
digestive tube running from the mouth to the anus --- particularly
unfortunate, given that Lay's company produced natural gas. Within days of
the announcement, the soon-to-be Enteron ws a laughingstock.
Kurt Eichenwald, Conspiracy of Fools: A True Study, (Broadway Books,
2005, pp. 33-34).
What causes pregnancy? There are 490 female students at Timken High
School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton
Repository. The article reported that some would say that movies, TV,
videogames, lazy parents and lax discipline may all be to blame. School
officials are not sure what has contributed to so many pregnancies . . .
"65 Girls At Area School Pregnant," Cleveland's WEWS-TV, August 24, 2005 ---
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/4885861/detail.html
Jensen Comment: I'm skeptical of school officials who don't know what
causes pregnancy. Back in my youth in Iowa, there was a small town in our
football conference where 14 of the 28 graduating females were pregnant.
But that was before the days of the pill, and most of those girls were
engaged to be married shortly after graduation. Now they're grandmothers.
Sigh!
Art: They could've fit in six more parking spaces
instead AMERICA the beautiful? Not if some Americans
have anything to say about it. Probably not even America the Vaguely
Interesting. And no chance of America the Wow-Get-a-Load-of-That. Does art
really have to be a four-letter word in this country? We don't put much
government money into it — California has the worst per capita investment of
any state, at 9 cents a head, and the nation is the biggest art skinflint in
the Western world at a buck-17. We're especially cranky about art in public
view, no matter who pays for it: "Now what the heck is that? They could've
fit in six more parking spaces instead. My kid could do better." "The controversy about art," NPR, August 21, 2005 ---
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/oped/ci_2960753
Art: A kind of
Möbius strip What had seemed like a linear progression was
really a kind of Möbius strip: The progression of art began at Lascaux only
to end, some 15,000 years later, with artists aspiring to paint like
cavemen. Now, after the end of art, anything goes.
Natash Degan, "The Philosophy of Art: A Conversation With Arthur C. Danto,"
The Nation, August 18, 2005 ---
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050829&s=danto
Big-time lobbying has corrupted the legislative mission The lobbying industry is growing at a startling
rate and current laws have proven inadequate to regulate its vast influence.
Relationships between lobbyists and members of Congress are increasingly
cozy – and, in many cases, corrupt. "Curtail Corrupt Lobbying," The Nation ---
http://www.capwiz.com/thenation/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=7898926
More competition for readers than writers: How to write
your dream novel in the modern age "Steal This Book. Or at Least Download It Free," by Claudia H. Deutsch,
The New York Times, August 21, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/business/yourmoney/21lunch.html
The way Mr. Adler, 77 (there goes "you can't
teach an old dog new tricks"), sees it, portable electronic readers will
soon do to paper books what the Walkman and iPod did to boomboxes.
"Print publishing has had a great 500-year run,
but the print book is morphing into the screen book," he said during a
recent lunch at Pigalle, a French restaurant in Manhattan's theater
district.
But what does that mean for those many, many
people who believe there is a novel inside them, clamoring to be let
out? Making a living as a writer has never been easy - even Mr. Adler
was a self-described "failed writer" until, at 45, he finally caught a
publisher's attention. So will all this technological upheaval make it
easier or harder to get read?
Both, Mr. Adler insists. The Internet, with its
limitless capacity for blogs and whole books that can be electronically
whisked from place to place, means people can pretty well publish what
they want. On the downside, the competition for readers, already
intense, will become maddeningly so. But writers need not make it past
the gatekeepers at publishing houses to be published. Vanity publishing
- a term Mr. Adler hates - has come into the electronic age.
Lobstering on the commons The ensuing ill will underlines a big paradox
in Maine: An era of unprecedented lobstering prosperity has brought strife
to those who make their living from the sea. After hovering for decades at
around 20 million pounds a year, Maine's lobster catch began to surge in the
late 1980s. A record 70 million pounds was tallied in 2004. Scientists say
the bounty may stem from the decline of fish that prey on lobster
hatchlings. They warn the boom could crater without warning, noting a
little-understood shell disease has ravaged lobster fishing in other parts
of New England. Even so, that hasn't stopped Mainers from rushing to get in
on the bonanza. Some of the most lucrative lobster fishing has been around
Cutler, a foggy hamlet of 650 with a harbor marked by a white, cast-iron
lighthouse on a small island at its mouth. Steep rock bluffs and tall
evergreens protect the waterfront here where, on clear days, dozens of
moored lobster boats shift in unison to the changing tides. On shore, new
pickups are parked outside many primly painted homes, and younger lobstermen
talk relentlessly about buying bigger boats.
Robert Tomsho, "In a Maine Town, A Lobster Tale Ensnarls a Fisherman:
Despite a Crustacean Boom, Hamlet Finds No Peace," The Wall Street Journal,
August 24, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112483738099321201,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
London: Four months ago, a 20 year old man –
dressed neatly in an expensive suit , but soaking wet – was found
wandering on a beach by police. He refused to speak, so police took him
to a mental health unit for evaluation.
During his evaluation , he was given a piece of
paper and a pen – and promptly drew a sketch of a concert – style piano.
Someone decided to let him sit at a piano in the hospital chapel,
and-according to one of the psychiatrists , he gave a brilliant concert
recital.
Dubbed “ The Piano Man “ , the stranger
immediately became the rage among Britain’s culturally – sensitive , and
the hospital was inundated by well-meant suggestions and advice. Many
hoped he would someday be cured of his strange infirmity , and take his
rightful place on the concert stage.
Unfortunately , the lid of the piano crashed
down – so to speak – when German authorities identified the mystery man
as a German national of rather plebian origins – whose last known
employment was in a psychiatric institute in Bavaria ; where , it is
believed , he became quite adept at mimicking the symptoms of genuinely
disturbed patients.
On learning this , British health officials
decided The Piano Man had made “marked improvement” , and was fit for
repatriation : the sooner the better.
Tax-based system will be unable to cope with future health-care
demands:
Paying for European national health care with deductions from paychecks So this might seem an odd moment for a senior
doctor to call for a switch in the way that the NHS is financed. Yet that is
what Bernard Ribeiro, the new president of the Royal College of Surgeons,
has done. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph published on August 13th,
he argued that a tax-based system will be unable to cope with future
health-care demands. Instead, Britain ought to emulate the social-insurance
model of Germany and France, in which the main source of finance is
contributions levied on workers' pay.
"Searching for a miracle solution," Economist, August 18, 2005 ---
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4293317
Review of Parenting For Character But an excellent new book, Parenting For
Character, from which the Socrates quotation was taken, points to an
essential difference in modern times. It is not that children are different
but that parents have lost confidence in their ability to mould character
and instil the perennial virtues that will ensure a happy adulthood. Author
Andrew Mullins, headmaster of Catholic Redfield College in Sydney's
north-west, says the age-old "understanding of the link between good habits,
character and happiness has been discarded in the last 50 years". He
describes his book as a "manual for building good habits in children" and
has drawn on "universal principles" in the writings of the East, great books
of religions and classical literature. Over 27 years of teaching in Sydney
schools he has also gleaned the wisdom of parents. As he says, it is easy to
make children happy for now: "Just take them to McDonald's or put on a
PlayStation." But that won't help them achieve happiness in adult life. For
true self-determination, says Mullins, they need the four cardinal virtues:
wisdom, self-control, justice and courage. Mullins calls these the
"foundation habits for happiness".
"Kids have always behaved badly, it's the parents who've changed," Sydney
Morning Herald, August 21, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/20/1124435177665.html
I've been talking to young people
lately about my book,
The Sexual
Revolution 2.0. It's a guide to the
profound impact technology is having on our relationships and our sex
lives, and I figured that today's teens and college students would know
exactly what I'm talking about.
. . .
Talk about sex tech to a 35-year-old, and it
takes about three minutes for the light to switch on. "Yeah!" she or he
will cry. "My sister met her husband online!" (Or maybe, "My sister left
her husband for a woman she met online!" You never know.)
It puzzled me why 20-year-olds weren't reacting
the same way. I was totally unprepared for the blank looks and the
resounding chorus of "huh?" when I described the book.
How could a generation so saturated with both
tech and sex not see how the two come together?
Then it dawned on me. These kids may be
tech-savvy and sex-obsessed, but they don't have the same need for sex
tech as the older folks.
Why bother with online dating when you spend
the majority of your day with your peer group?
Why look for love outside your city when you're
only allowed to use the car for school and errands?
Why would a college student need the internet
to get laid when she's already surrounded by hordes of intelligent young
single men -- most of whom she didn't grow up with?
She'll have plenty of time after graduation to
bring out the sex toys, when she and her boyfriend find jobs or attend
grad school in different cities, or when she's burned out on the dating
scene.
And considering their comfort level with remote
interaction and online gaming, teledildonics will not seem odd at all.
It will just be another option on a Wednesday night.
The future of search engines may be at stake:
Click fraud entails repeated clicking on an online advertisement for no
purpose or for fraudulent purpose Although there's no way to know what percentage of
clicks on keyword ads on search engines are fraudulent, estimates range from
single digits -- that's what the search engines say -- to 20 percent to as
much as 35 percent. Click fraud could even threaten the paid search
industry's entire business model. At least that's what George Reyes,
Google's chief financial officer, said last year in widely publicized
remarks. Those that stand to gain the most are search networks' content
partners, which receive commissions on these fake clicks, and the search
engines themselves, because they profit whether ads are legitimate or not.
It could be a single user, or a team of users, repeatedly manually clicking
on an ad. More likely, the fraud is the product of automated "hitbot"
Adam L. Penenberg, "Click Fraud Claims Drive Lawsuits," Wired News,
August 18, 2005
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68559,00.html
Loose definition of mental illness a tragedy waiting to happen Drawing the line between normal reactions to
intense experience on the one hand and a pathological response on the other
can be difficult for psychiatrists. The conundrum was starkly illustrated
last June when the long-awaited National Comorbidity Study was published in
the Archives of General Psychiatry. The study, funded by the National
Institutes of Health at a cost of $20 million, found that a quarter of all
adults in the United States – 26 percent – qualified as having a mental
illness within a given year. Can a rate so high be true? A closer look at
the study reveals a less startling picture. First, the survey used in the
study was based on the standard psychiatric handbook – the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual, 4th Edition – which has a low threshold for calling a
collection of symptoms a “mental disorder.” For example, a balky, stubborn,
aggressive child might well be diagnosed as having “Oppositional Defiant
Disorder,” according to the DSM, and sent to a therapist. Yet a layman might
simply regard him as spoiled.
Sally Satel and Christina Sommers, "Loose definition of mental illness a
tragedy waiting to happen," Nashua Telegraph, August 21, 2005 ---
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050821/OPINION04/108210037/-1/OPINION02
The Daily Show has grown almost threefold to 1.4 million
viewers a night. Wake up, television executives of America: Jon
Stewart - the wiseacre host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show - knows more
about your business than you do. Sure, The Daily Show may just seem like a
smart comedy program on basic cable; nothing more than good political satire
and a spot-on parody of TV news pieties. But it's also a demonstration of
television done right. In the six years since Stewart took over, the
audience for The Daily Show has grown almost threefold to 1.4 million
viewers a night. It boasts a legion of young, smart fans who are among the
most demographically desirable audiences in the industry - further
collapsing the caste distinctions between networks and cable. It has raised
the bar for tie-ins, with a best-seller (America [The Book] has sold a
stunning 2.5 million copies), a hit DVD (Indecision 2004), and - starting in
October - a full-fledged spinoff (The Colbert Report). And The Daily Show
may be the most popular TV program on the Internet:
Michael Goetz, "Reinventing Television," Wired News, September 2005
---
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/stewart.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
Even if the Feds let KPMG off the hook, there are 50 states waiting in
the wings
Mississippi probably will file criminal charges
against accounting giant KPMG because it created a tax strategy that the
state says illegally let WorldCom, now called MCI Inc., shield billions of
dollars from taxes, sources close to the case said Friday. Although a few
other states have also weighed this strategy, Mississippi Atty. Gen. Jim
Hood is the most determined, and his state would be the first to take this
step, said the sources, who requested anonymity.
"Mississippi May File KPMG Charges," Los Angeles Times, August 20,
2005 ---
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-kpmg20aug20,1,7703307.story?coll=la-headlines-business
Jensen Comment:
My guess is that KMPG will survive the criminal charges but will emerge
badly crippled with the burden of over a billion in settlement payments with
former clients and many of the states like Mississippi and California. The
IRS alleges over $1.4 billion in damages in uncollected taxes. Add to this
the damages of many of the states with income taxes and the added costs of
punitive damages and serious litigation costs on the back of KPMG. Why in
the world didn't KPMG stop selling these shelters when the IRS warned KPMG
that it was selling illegal tax shelters?
One of my students sent me this email at the
end of Spring semester:
I need to bring you my last essay, but I
don't remember your office number, and I can't find my copy of the
syllabus with the number on it.
Yeah.
That syllabus she lost, as about half of our
students inevitably do, is also posted online on Blackboard, as well as
on a Geocities site where I also post all my class materials for those
times when for one reason or another students are unable to access
Blackboard.
She forgot.
Continued in article
Republican Democrat
Scandal! It seems there is no limit to Paul Krugman’s hatred
of the Republican party. And apparently there’s no limit to the New York
Times’s willingness to embarrass itself by printing yet another hilarious
error-filled column by America’s most dangerous liberal pundit. In his
Friday column, Krugman attempts to spit out the salacious details of
scandals involving Republican politicians in Ohio. But what Krugman doesn’t
seem to know is that many of the politicians he’s talking about are
Democrats! And because the Times does no fact-checking of its op-ed columns,
his absurd blunders now live forever in the “newspaper of record.”
Donald Luskin, "Republican
Democrat Scandal!," National Review ---
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/nrof_luskin/luskin200506211013.asp
Asians see better, really If Asians and North Americans sometimes seem to
have a different world view, maybe it's because they literally see the world
differently. Research suggests that Asians have a sharper eye for detail and
subtlety than people in the West.
"In Asia, the Eyes Have It," Wired News, August 23, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68626,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6
Left-wing teachers in Australian schools Growing anti-American attitudes have been generated
in part by left-wing teachers in Australian schools, according to Treasurer
Peter Costello. Mr Costello last night delivered a speech to the
Australian-American Leadership Dialogue dinner, warning of the dangers of
anti-Americanism taking hold in Australia.
"Costello slams anti-Americanism," News.com.au, August 21, 2005 ---
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16334852-2,00.html
In what must be an unusual welcome for new law
students, Timothy P. Glynn led a crash course on Thursday on how not to
practice law.
About 360 incoming students at the Seton Hall
University School of Law in Newark watched "The Smartest Guys in the
Room," a documentary about the collapse of Enron, as part of their
orientation program. Mr. Glynn, a law professor, used it to get the
students to focus on legal ethics.
"The whole idea was to get them thinking about
professional responsibility and professional ethics immediately," before
those matters become lost in a forest of exciting new legal concepts and
lawyerly lingo, he said after the session.
The challenge, he added, was to avoid sending a
message that unethical behavior is the norm in corporate America.
"We had to structure the discussion to make
sure that they walked away thinking about legal ethics in a positive,
not a cynical, way," he said. Jonathan D. Glater.
Continued in article
Oh what a mess we're in in Iraq The paramilitary wings of Kurdish and Shiite
political parties in northern and southern Iraq have spun webs of corruption
and violence that may undermine any attempts to bring those regions under a
federal Iraqi state, the Washington Post reports. Kidnappings,
assassinations, and other violent crimes run rampant around primarily Shiite
Basra in the south and Kurdish-controlled Mosul in the north, with each
group trying to stamp out their opposition. The crimes are often committed
by coalition-trained security forces, whose true allegiance lies with ethnic
or religious political parties, not any sort of central Iraqi authority. The
WP writes that the local groups seem more intent on dominating their
respective territories than participating in a unified Iraqi government,
enforcing their authority with the kind of swift brutality that seems only
too familiar.
Jesse Stanchek, "Kurds and Way-Out Factions," Slate, August 21, 2005
---
http://www.slate.com/id/2124854/
Margsiri, Mello, and Ruckles provide a
thoughtful article that models the "grow vs buy" decision.
SSRN-To Build or to Buy: Internal vs. External
Growth by Worawat Margsiri, Antonio Mello, Martin Ruckes: "This paper
relates growth via acquisitions to the characteristics of the
possibility to grow organically" ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=687415
As in most modeling papers, this should come
with the standard warning that "while the conclusions laid forth in this
paper are fairly straight forwards, some of the math may be more than
the typcial undergraduate student (current or past) is ready to handle."
But do not dispair, I will leave the gritty
details to the paper itself.
The main points:
There is a direct connection between the
ability to grow and the price the firm would be willing to pay for an
acquisition. This "important connection between the two growth
strategies [has] organic growth..[as] the firm’s fall-back strategy and
therefore has a significant impact on both the acquisition strategy as
well as the acquisition price." Which is pretty intuitive: if you have
have no good growth prospects, you are more willing to do an
acquisition." "when the growth asset is associated with a high level of
volatility, firms favor growth via acquisition in order to avoid the
costly time delay between the investment and the generation of
revenues."
"a higher profitability of the opportunity to
grow organically speeds up the acquisition. Since a higher value of the
organic growth option leadsto a lower acquisition price, early
acquisitions are profitable compared to the status quo." "When a
relatively high integration expense leads to a high acquisition
threshold, the declining value of the outside option draws this
threshold down to a lower asset value."
See that wasn't that bad. There really is a
great deal more to the paper and I recommend it if you have some time
(it took me a while to get through it) and you are of that temperment.
Cite: Margsiri, Worawat, Mello, Antonio S. and
Ruckes, Martin E., "To Build or to Buy: Internal vs. External Growth"
(March 15, 2005). http://ssrn.com/abstract=687413
BTW If you are still confused, let's talk
baseball.
For the first point, you are the GM of a major
league team. You have a great catching prospect in the minors. Therefore
you are less likely to acquire a free-agent catcher.
For the second point, let's take this example a
bit further. Suppose you not only have a great catcher in the minors,
but also a great pitching propect. Since the the volatility of pitching
careers is higher than that of catching careers (stated without proof),
ceteris paribus you would be more willing to sign a free agent pitcher
than a free agent catcher.
One more, ok. Consider the last point. A
trouble-maker has higher "integration costs". Thus even if you admire
the ability of the player, you are not willing to pay as much for him.
Better?
Contrary to popular opinion, sex isn't necessarily profitable in 21st
Century movies In the early days of Hollywood, nudity—or the
illusion of it—was considered such an asset that director Cecil B. DeMille
famously made bathing scenes an obligatory ingredient of his biblical epics.
Nowadays, nudity is a decided liability when it comes to the commercial
success of the movie.
Jay Epstein, "Sex and the Cinema In the New Hollywood, it's a liability,"
Slate, August 15, 2005 ---
http://www.slate.com/id/2124498/?nav=fo
But then again, Epstein could be wrong It's a wicked exchange, courtesy of the
screenwriters Patrick Marber and Chrysanthy Balis, and the wickedness
thickens once you learn that Edgar, unmanned by jealousy, decapitated his
wife. Now he wanders the gardens of the asylum, doing odd jobs and patching
up the greenhouse. I wish I could tell you that what happens next came as a
blistering surprise, but if there's one thing that years of moviegoing teach
you it is basic algebra, and the rule runs as follows: (Frustrated Wife ÷
Late-Fifties Lingerie) - √(Dull Husband) x (Demonic Yet Strangely Tender
Hunk + Glowing Eyes) = Greenhouse Rock.
Anthony Lane, "MAD ABOUT THE BOY “Asylum” and “2046.” The New Yorker,
August 22, 2005 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/articles/050822crci_cinema
Feefee the virtual worldwide accountant Virtual Feefee has a sense of fun, according to her
creator, University of Wollongong senior lecturer George Mickhail. But as an
early prototype virtual accountant, she also has a serious side that stands
as a warning to the accounting profession that basic functions can be
automated. Professor Mickhail says Feefee gives users information in the way
they prefer. And she won't be deskbound, either. "My research project is to
provide it through a mobile device," he says. That research uses a protocol
called ebXML (electronic business extensible markup language), a standard
way to exchange business messages and data.
Rob O'Neill, "Feefee's fee-free accounts advice," Sydney Morning Herald,
August 23, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/08/22/1124562798756.html
StumbleUpon is an intelligent browsing tool for
sharing and discovering great websites. As you click
Stumble!,
you'll get high-quality pages matched to your
personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended
(rated I like it) by friends and other SU
members with similar interests. Rating these sites shares them with your
friends and peers – you will automatically 'stumble upon' each others
favorites sites. In effect, StumbleUpon's members collectively share
the best sites on the web. You can share any site
by simply clicking I like it. This passes the
page on to friends and like-minded people – letting them "stumble upon"
all the great sites you discover.
Selecting Your Interests
After you join you will be asked to select topics which are of interest
to you. Nearly 500 topics are available and you can select as many as
you wish to help determine your preferences in web content. The more
interests you select, the better StumbleUpon will be able to determine
which sites you will like best. This lets StumbleUpon provide you with
sites rated highly by other members with similar interests. You can also
add, remove or modify your interests at any time.
Jensen Comment: With each passing day I am adding more categories and am
finding this to be a valuable tool.
"Manmohan Singh: 'If I have any message, it
is that it is our ambition to integrate our country into the evolving
global economy. We accept the logic of globalization. We recognize that
globalization offers us enormous opportunities in the race to leapfrog
in development processes. It also obliges us to set in motion processes
which would minimize its risks.
I think, overall, India is today on the
move. The economic reforms that our salvation lies in operating an open
society, political system, an open economy, economic system--this has
widespread support.' "
Isn't it interesting that the same people who
laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?
Kelvin Throop III ---
http://bourke.ilanet.net.au/quotes.html
I must say that I find television very
educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a
book.
Groucho Marx, US Comic ---
http://bourke.ilanet.net.au/quotes.html
Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to
read about in history books - but it is terrible when one has to live it.
Jean Anouilh, French Playwright ---
http://bourke.ilanet.net.au/quotes.html
Guitarists Who Play On the Edge Between Jazz and the Blues Nowhere is the line between jazz and blues so
easily blurred as when guitar players go to work. Following the example of
T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, Kenny Burrell, Grant Green and others, these
guitarists dash off jazz riffs amid 12-bar blues or toss a rubbery blues run
into a jazz standard, proving both genres spring from the same well. Here
are a few current examples of guitarists playing jazz blues. Or is it blues
jazz? Calvin Newborn's album "New Born" (Yellow Dog) is grounded in Beale
Street blues, Charlie Christian-style chording and a lifetime of working
with greats including his brother, the late Phineas Newborn Jr. Six of the
eight tracks are Calvin Newborn originals, and they display his love of the
kind of small-combo jazz where unison playing gives way to compact
improvisations steeped in the blues. Solos by the 70-something Mr. Newborn,
such as on the leisurely "After Hours Blues" and his brother's slinky
composition "Newborn Blues," are tasty and understated, with a dab of
showmanship on the side. His delicate work on "Lush Life" is gorgeous, as
his fluid playing on the Billy Strayhorn melody gives way to delicate
chording under pianist Donald Brown's solo. Sonny Thompson on trumpet and
Herman Green on flute and sax add a pleasing texture to the album.
Jim Fusilli, "Guitarists Who Play On the Edge Between Jazz and the Blues,"
The Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2005; Page D8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112474760069819949,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Robert Moog, the inventor of the Moog
electronic music synthesizer, died on Sunday from an inoperable brain
tumor at age 71.
Though Bob Moog was a cult hero to many
musicians, his company, until a few years ago, when it experienced a
major upswing, had been run down. In 1996, I visited him in the ratty
warehouse on the outskirts of Asheville, N.C., from which he then ran
the remnants of his musical instrument company. I was there to interview
the great man. He wanted to go somewhere quiet, real quiet. He led me
down the street to a leafy park. We sat down on a bench. "Welcome to the
Executive Lounge -- ask me anything you like."
Bob clearly was a very funny man. He needed to
be. Known and respected throughout the music world as the inventor of
the first commercially successful electronic music synthesizer, "the
Moog," he had run a company that for a short time in the late 1960s and
early 1970s dominated the world of electronic instrument manufacturing.
But by 1996, it had fallen on hard times and he'd lost the right to use
his trade name "Moog Music" and Internet surfers would find bogus
companies trading under his name.
The idea of a more compact and portable
synthesizer than the room-size vacuum-tube equipment at the time was
given to him by musician Herb Deutch. His original 1964 synthesizer was
the size of a kitchen dresser. Different modules produced varying
voltages and wave forms and these could be fed back on each other via
patch wires that the operator plugged in, as with an old analog
telephone switchboard. The key technical breakthrough was a device known
as the filter -- the only thing on the Moog synthesizer on which he held
a patent. It produced the resonant bass sound that in later years became
the trademark of numerous funk, hip-hop and techno recordings.
Continued in article
From The Washington Post on August 25, 2005
Synthesizer innovator Robert A. Moog
recently died at the age of 71. A childhood interest in an early
electronic musical instrument used to create sci-fi sound effects lead
to Moog's career. What was that instrument called?
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read
books of quotations.
Sir Winston Churchill
Night and morning are making promises to each
other which neither will be able to keep.
Richard Shelton
Learning to dislike children at an early age
saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life.
Robert Byrne
All that we know is nothing, we are merely
crammed waste-paper baskets, unless we are in touch with that which laughs
at all our knowing.
D.H. Lawrence, "Peace and War," Pansies, 1929
The only interesting answers are those which
destroy the questions.
Susan Sontag
No matter how fast light travels it finds the
darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
Terry Pratchett
We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the
Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Robert Frost, In the Clearing, 1962
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra
I think that in a popular Broadway play (later a movie staring Burt
and Dolly), these were called "side steps"
(in this case while failing to admit to blatant faculty
prejudice in an academy that restrains
unpopular diversity) "Proving the Critics’ Case," K.C. Johnson, Inside Higher Ed,
August 26, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/26/johnson
PROFESSORS at the best law schools
are generally assumed to be overwhelmingly liberal, and now a new study
lends proof. But whether the ideological imbalance matters - to the
academic environment students encounter, to the kinds of lawyers the
schools produce and to the stock of ideas the professors generate -
depends on whom you ask.
The study, to be published this fall in The
Georgetown Law Journal, analyzes 11 years of records reflecting federal
campaign contributions by professors at the top 21 law schools as ranked
by U.S. News & World Report. Almost a third of these law professors
contribute to campaigns, but of them, the study finds, 81 percent who
contributed $200 or more gave wholly or mostly to Democrats; 15 percent
gave wholly or mostly to Republicans.
The percentages of professors contributing to
Democrats were even more lopsided at some of the most prestigious
schools: 91 percent at Harvard, 92 at Yale, 94 at Stanford. At the
University of Virginia, on the other hand, contributions were about
evenly divided between the parties. The sample sizes at some schools may
be too small to allow for comparisons, though it bears noting that by
this measure the University of Chicago is slightly more liberal than
Berkeley.
If the liberal law professors mean to
indoctrinate students, though, they have failed spectacularly in some
notable cases. The United States Supreme Court's two most conservative
members, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, are products of
Harvard and Yale, respectively. And if John G. Roberts Jr., another
conservative, is confirmed this fall, another conservative graduate of
Harvard Law will be added to the court.
Whatever may be said about particular schools
and students, professors and deans of all political persuasions agreed
that the study's general findings are undeniable.
"Academics tend to be more to the left side of
the continuum," said David E. Van Zandt, dean of Northwestern's law
school, where the contribution rate to Democrats was 71 percent. "It's a
little worse in law school. In other disciplines, there are more
objective standards for quality of work. Law schools are sort of
organized in a club structure, where current members of the club pick
future members of the club."
That can do a disservice to academic values,
said Peter H. Schuck, a Yale law professor and the author of "Diversity
in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance." "We have a higher
responsibility to our students, ourselves and our disciplines," he said,
"that our preference for ideological homogeneity and faculty-lounge echo
chambers betrays."
Can this
do a disservice to perceptions of scientific research?
"Global Warming Blows—Or Does It? There's no shame in good
hurricane science," by Patrick J. Michaels, Reason Magazine, August
17, 2005 ---
http://www.reason.com/hod/pm081705.shtml
Merely
venturing into the discussion of hurricanes and global warming is more
dangerous than most tropical cyclones. About Emanuel's article, William
Gray of Colorado State University—the guy who issues the annual
hurricane forecast that grabs headlines every summer—told
the Boston Globe, "It's a terrible
paper, one of the worst I've ever looked at."
There's
also nastiness if you say hurricanes aren't getting worse. A month ago,
University of Colorado’s
Roger Pielke, Jr., posted a paper that was
accepted in the Bulletin of The
American Meteorological Society
concluding there is little if any sign of global warming in hurricane
patterns. In a pre-emptive strike, Kevin Trenberth from the federally
funded National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado,
told the local newspaper, "I think he [Pielke] should withdraw his
article. This is a shameful article."
Wonder pill aspirin may prevent cancer It is a painkiller, it helps prevent heart attacks
- and now it appears prolonged use of aspirin can even stop people from
getting cancer. If it was developed today, the century-old drug might
struggle to get through clinical trials because it can cause major damage to
the lining of the stomach along with severe internal bleeding. But a major
study published yesterday gave yet another reason to keep making aspirin,
which is also used to treat strokes and cataracts and boost the chances of
having a baby while undergoing IVF treatment. Researchers at Massachusetts
General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston studied more
than 80,000 female nurses who took part in a major health study for more
than 20 years.
Ian Johnston, "Wonder pill aspirin may prevent cancer," Scotsman.com,
August 25, 2005 ---
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1831722005
What do students do with their time? A new Cornell
University Press book tries to answer this. College freshmen typically spend about 12 hours a week in class and,
according to the 2004 National Survey of Student Engagement, an additional
13 hours a week studying. Assuming naively that these numbers are accurate
(students have been known to cut classes and exaggerate their studiousness),
such demands on student time still leave 143 hours unaccounted for -- 87 if
we figure in eight hours of sleep a night.
That learning makes up a small part of college life
today is widely acknowledged. The question remains: What is going on the
rest of the time? "My
Freshman Year" (Cornell University Press, 186 pages, $24) tries to
answer that question but succeeds only fitfully. The book is the account of
Rebekah Nathan (not her real name), an anthropology professor at AnyU (a
large state university), who takes a leave from her teaching position to go
back to school as an undergraduate for a year. (Using hints from the book,
an enterprising reporter at the New York Sun recently identified Ms. Nathan
as a professor at Northern Arizona University.)
Naomi Schaeffer Riley, "Tales Out of School," The Wall Street
Journal, August 25, 2005; Page D8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112492106014922338,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Jensen Comment: I discussed this book previously in Tidbits. College
counselors claimed the study did not reveal anything that they did not
already know. Social scientists questioned Dr. Nathan's ethics and wondered
if she got permission from her university to conduct secretive studies of
human subjects. In any case, her findings reconfirm our suspicions that
students in college do not spend the time we hope they would spend in
substantive learning. But students in some other nations probably spend
less time in learning, notably in Japan where the tradition is to learn an
immense amount before college and then party a lot in college.
How can the quality, apart from
quantity, of learning time be improved in college?
Too often today the assumption is the busier
the student, the more he is learning, and the busier the professor, the
more she is contributing.
The tragedy and irony in this perspective is
that when we stop to think for a moment (and, of course, we don’t have
time to) we acknowledge — especially those of us in liberal arts
colleges — that the wisdom we claim to value above all can only come
when we have time to reflect. Activity and busyness, the gods of our
culture, are demons in the life of those seeking the mind and the
spirit. No matter how good the individual academic or co-curricular
experience may be, the cumulative affect of so many experiences is
destructive.
So what can be done?
The growing awareness among accrediting
agencies that learning is not based on “seat time” — time spent in a
classroom seat — has opened the door to new, creative ways to maximize
time in higher educational institutions. In a recent meeting with the
North Central Association, an association official expressed interest in
working with my college, a Christian liberal arts institution in Iowa,
to explore alternative ways of doing college: the goal being to
encourage more reflection and make room for the kind of learning that
will one day blossom into wisdom.
What might “a new way of doing college” look
like?
One of the questions we will be exploring at
Northwestern is this: Is it possible to organize a student’s four years
in a more developmental manner, gradually cultivating a way of life that
uses time effectively for lifelong learning — rather than just lifelong
busyness?
Here is one possibility: The freshman year
would be much like it is today with a structured academic schedule and
opportunities to participate in co-curricular activities. But as
students move through their sophomore, junior and senior years, they
would be weaned from a structured but busy schedule of many curricular
and co-curricular experiences to a less structured schedule with more
time for critical reflection and synthesis. The focus would be more on
overall learning than on particular activities — more on growing
internal student discipline than on relying on external direction.
As sophomores they might replace typical
200-level general education courses with interdisciplinary seminars that
integrate service learning and independent study with traditional
classroom content. Significant time would be allocated for individual
reflection and small group interaction — the desire being to nurture a
dialogue within the students themselves, and with each other and their
professors, on what truly matters in life. Faculty and student life
personnel might work together in guiding student learning. Knowledge,
experience and personal development would merge to help shape the
student’s view of the world as she embarks on courses in her major. The
other segment of the sophomore year would introduce the foundational
content of various academic majors.
Continued in article
Female college students spend more time studying and are
more likely to earn A’s Female college students spend more
time studying and are more likely to earn A’s in their
courses than their male counterparts are, according to a
studyreleased Wednesday by
Student Monitor and the Association of American Publishers.
The study also found that students at two-year institutions
are 23 percent likelier than four-year-college students to
say that they study efficiently. Inside Higher Ed, August 25, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/25/qt
Jensen Comment: I guess this is good news in that KPMG is thereby
allowed to stay in business and will not implode in the manner that Andersen
imploded following the document shredding conviction. but there is still
the worry about individual state prosecutions.
Some added bad news for KPMG Although the U.S. Justice Department is seeking a
settlement, although harsh, with KPMG, the state of Mississippi is also
likely to file a criminal suit against the embattled accounting firm. KPMG
devised the tax strategy for WorldCom after it reorganized as MCI. Although
the state approved the tax plan and MCI has moved its corporate headquarters
to Virginia, the state maintains that the tax plan sheltered billions of
potential tax dollars in its treatment of royalties. It has been recommended
that Mississippi join about 15 other states and the District of Columbia in
prosecuting this case together but Mississippi continues on its own. In May
of this year, the state became the first state to resolve back tax claims
with the telcom giant in accepting MCI’s former headquarters building and
$100 million in cash.
"More Good News Than Bad for KPMG," AccountingWeb, August 24, 2005
---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101231
Obviously tax consulting has been a huge problem for
KPMG that has spilled over into the auditing profession in general. You
might read KPMG’s guilt admission statement about this at
http://www.us.kpmg.com/news/index.asp?cid=1872
It says KPMG no longer provides the “services in question,” but is somewhat
vague as to what tax advisory services have been eliminated.
There will soon be books out about this criminal
behavior at KPMG. For openers, go to "How an Accounting Firm Went From
Resistance to Resignation," by Lynnley Browning, The New York Times,
August 28, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/NYTAug28
"We came to the party late. We drank more, and
we stayed longer," said a former member of KPMG's board.
KPMG went full-bore into creating and selling
aggressive tax shelters only around 1997, after it held failed merger
talks with Ernst & Young, according to a member of KPMG's board at that
time.
The talks afforded KPMG the opportunity to
analyze Ernst & Young's books in detail, and it was disturbed by what it
saw: a major competitor growing at a rapid rate, and making lots of
money, by aggressively selling tax shelters, sometimes to KPMG's own
audit clients.
But where would you put all those books? Amazon.com is offering nearly 1,100 titles of
classic literature (that's Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment at left)
for just under $8,000. The Penguin Classics Collection weighs 700 pounds,
but delivery is free.
Melissa Block, "Loading Up on Penguin Classics," NPR, August 24, 2005
---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4814140
Jensen Comment: Many or most of them are probably available free as
electronic books that do not need a new barn for storage. Of course it
would cost a whole lot more than $8,000 to print those as hard copy.
Selective printing when you need it is probably the best answer since you
probably won't read most of them in the rest of your lifetime. And you can
do word searches in most electronic books except for those that actually
were scanned as pictures instead of converted to text ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#ElectronicBooks
Dell in the bloghouse: According to bloggers, Dell's
customer service sucks A PC-owner's Web diary of complaints about
customer service has yielded heavy traffic and some near-contrition from the
maker. PC industry circles have been buzzing in recent months that Dell's
(DELL ) customer support is slipping -- a claim bolstered on Aug. 16 by a
University of Michigan study that showed a hefty decline in customer
satisfaction from a year ago. So the last thing Dell needed was for someone
to turn the customer-service issue into a cause célebrè.
Louise Lee, "Dell: In the Bloghouse," Business Week, August 25, 2005
---
http://snipurl.com/Bloghouse
Jensen Comment: I think the title of this article is especially clever.
There are thousands of distance education courses in the
U.K.
The Guardian has a really interesting education
search page for U.K. students. It first lets you choose from hundreds of
distance education course topics. Then you choose what type of
credential/degree your are seeking and what college you want to pick ---
http://www.ecctisclearing.co.uk/
When I searched for "accounting" and "degree" courses on
August 27, 2005, I found links to 820 courses in many colleges and
universities.
"Why Does College Cost So Much?," by Richard Vedder,
The Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2005; Page A10
There are six factors in the cost explosion:
• Rising Demand:
The "natural" consequences of a rising demand -- higher prices and a
larger quantity consumed -- are exacerbated by soaring third-party
payments. Since 1994, financial-aid payments (mostly federal loans
and grants) have risen by an extraordinary 11% per year. When
someone else pays the bills, we become less sensitive to price.
• Lack of Market Discipline:
Most universities are nonprofit. There is no bottom line. Did Yale
have a good year in 2004? Who knows? Its stock is not traded.
Administrators and faculty are not rewarded for increasing profits
by reducing costs or improving product quality. When prices rise in
the for-profit sector, entrepreneurs rush to supply the good,
leading to higher supply and lower prices. How many universities
advertise that they are cheaper than their peers, or offer better
value?
• De-emphasizing Undergraduate
Instruction:
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that
most colleges (but not community or liberal-arts colleges) have
reduced the share of resources devoted to undergraduate teaching,
spending more on other things -- research, administration, student
services (luxurious recreational and student centers), athletics,
etc. Only about 21 cents of each new inflation-adjusted dollar per
student since 1976 actually went for "instruction." Government
subsidies and private gifts given to support affordable
undergraduate instruction are often spent elsewhere.
• Price Discrimination:
Universities have discovered what airlines realized a generation ago
-- and they increasingly charge the maximum the customer will bear.
They have raised sticker prices, giving discounts (scholarships) to
those who are sensitive to price. Increasingly, these discounts go
not mainly to low-income students but to talented students prized by
universities seeking to improve ratings on the athletic field or in
the U.S. News & World Report rankings.
• Stagnant (Falling?) Productivity:
While measuring productivity in post-secondary education is
difficult, the ratio of staff to students has risen over time. There
are now six non-teaching professionals for every 100 students, up
from three a generation ago. Unless teaching and research have
soared in quantity and quality, which seems unlikely, productivity
has fallen.
• "Rent Seeking" Behavior: Better Lives
for the Staff:
Faculties have shared in the increased income of universities.
Salaries of full professors at research universities are up well
over 50% in real terms since 1980. Mid-six-digit salaries are
becoming commonplace for superstar faculty, coaches, and university
presidents. Teaching loads have fallen (a typical full professor at
a major public university is in class no more than five hours per
week).
What is the solution? New forms of competition
(e.g., for-profit institutions, online schooling, more use of community
colleges, new approaches to certifying skills) are emerging. State
legislatures have sharply reduced their share of funding for public
universities, forcing some schools to slash costs, reduce bureaucracies,
increase teaching loads, get rid of costly underutilized graduate
programs and more. Some schools are talking of using buildings more than
eight or nine months a year, or are cutting down on the use of expensive
tenured faculty. Colorado is shifting funds away from institutions and
into student hands in the form of vouchers, reasoning that the
student-customer, not the producer, should be sovereign as in nearly
every other transaction.
Continued in the article
Native Americans wanting progress and land development
face off against the early settlers There's a battle brewing in the Santa Barbara
wine country of Southern California -- and it has nothing to do with grapes.
The Chumash band of Santa Ynez Mission Indians want to use profits from its
casino to expand its land holdings and business ventures. But tribal
officials are battling some of the rich and famous residents of the bucolic
Santa Ynez Valley, who say the tribe's plan could destroy the region's rural
character forever. Until very recently, the Chumash lived in deep poverty.
Now the popular tribe-owned casino, the only business in the valley open
24-7, clears a reported $200 million a year. Each of the tribe's 154 members
take a share in the profits.
Ina Jaffe, "Battle Brewing over California Tribal Expansion," NPR,
August 24, 2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4814273
Wireless wiretapping: Isn't this an oxymoron? A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced
earlier this month that it intends to expand a mid-1990s ruling that allows
law enforcement officers to wiretap conventional phone lines. Now it wants
to apply the ruling to certain broadband and voice-over-Internet (VOIP)
providers as well. The FCC announcement has outraged not only civil
libertarians, but also a coalition of broadband providers and Internet
associations, who are worried that the government's move could actually
threaten national security, as well as dampen industry innovation.
Trey Pop, "Wireless Wiretapping," MIT's Technology Review, August 22,
2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/wo/wo_082205popp.asp?trk=nl
Short Interest
The level of short selling rose to a record on the New
York Stock Exchange, ending a two-month period that saw bearish investors
paring their financial bets. For the month period ended Aug. 15, the number
of short-selling positions not yet closed out at the Big Board, including
all issues, rose 2.7% to 8,585,419,209 from 8,356,999,243 in mid-July.
Marketwide, the short ratio, or number of days' average volume represented
by the outstanding short positions at the exchange, rose to 6.0 from 5.8.
Investors who sell securities "short" borrow stock and sell it, betting the
stock's price will fall and they will be able to buy the shares back later
at a lower price for return to the lender. The outstanding bets, known as
short interest, often is considered an indication of the level of skepticism
in the market. Short interest reflects the number of shares that have yet to
be repurchased to give back to lenders. In general, the higher the short
interest, the more people are expecting a downturn. Short positions rise in
value as stocks fall, and vice versa.
Peter A. McKay, "Short Interest Hits Record Level On the Big Board," The
Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112465996861719016,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Capitalism requires people to be quiet souls in
the workplace and wild pagans at the cash register.
Ron Chernow, 1949, US Journalist as quoted in "The Financial Endgame Slowly
Plays Out - and then," ---
http://www.safehaven.com/article-3134.htm
Nowadays, nobody seriously criticizes the rich.
Criticizing the rich doesn’t make much sense if you think you’re going to be
one. But it wasn’t always that way.
Julian Edney ---
http://www.g-r-e-e-d.com/GREED II.htm
Currently the European Union (previously known
as the European Community), considered as a unit, has the largest economy in
the world. The European Union is the most powerful regional organisation in
existence ---
http://www.economicexpert.com/
Their report, "Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to
2050," predicted that within 40 years, the economies of Brazil, Russia,
India and China - the BRICs - would be larger than the US, Germany, Japan,
Britain, France and Italy combined. China would overtake the US as the
world's largest economy and India would be third, outpacing all other
industrialised nations ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm
Crude stocks are up, but so are prices --- why?
Judging by the rise of U.S. inventories of crude oil, all's well at the
moment in the land of energy. Commercial stocks of crude (excluding the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve) are far above where they were 12 months
previous. So why is the price of crude dispatching a decidedly different, if
not ominous message ---
http://www.capitalspectator.com/
AOL keeps billing and billing and billing America Online will pay $1.25 million in penalties
and reform some of its customer service practices to settle an investigation
by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Around 300 consumers had filed
complaints with Spitzer's office accusing AOL, a subsidiary of Time Warner
Inc., of ignoring demands to cancel service and stop billing.
"AOL Settles With Spitzer: Internet Provider Agrees to Reform Handling of
Cancellation Requests," The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2005; Page B5
---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112488909670521789,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Saks settles Saks Inc., facing investigations by the Securities
and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors, said it will repay vendors
about $48 million after an internal audit found that the luxury retailer
improperly collected markdown allowances from 1996 to 2003. Saks also faced
corporate litigation over these issues. Aug. 8, the company, based in
Birmingham, Ala., settled a suit on improper vendor allowances filed by
Onward Kashiyama USA, a unit of Japanese apparel company Onward Kashiyama
Co. that held the Michael Kors license from 1999 to 2003. "We're pleased the
matter has been resolved," said Christopher Owen, a lawyer for Onward
Kashiyama, who declined to discuss the settlement amount, citing a
confidentiality agreement.
Ellen Byron, "Saks to Pay Vendors $48 Million Over Improper Markdown Sums,"
The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2005; Page B8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112493269357222632,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Call the police a taxi before you dial 911 Area police have had their fleet of vehicles
trimmed from two to one due to budget cuts, and have repeatedly had to ring
a taxi when needing another car to respond to a call, NRK (Norwegian
Broadcasting) reports. The mayor is so exasperated that he is considering
donating a kick-sled to the force for the winter.
"Police forced to take taxis," Aftenposten, August 22, 2005 ---
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1100542.ece
Novels as a learning pedagogy
August 22, 2005 message from Paul Fisher
[PFisher@ROGUECC.EDU]
Hi all,
I just finished reading The Goal by Goldratt
and Cox. I like the way he interwove accounting concepts with a plot.
Does anyone know of some other books/authors that do this?
Has anyone used these books as readings in
their classes? Any success or comments?
Regards,
Paul
Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry
August 22, 2005 message from Dennis Beresford
[dberesfo@TERRY.UGA.EDU]
I recently purchased Christie Malry's Own
Double-Entry [Paperback] By: B.S. Johnson through Amazon. While I
haven't had a chance to start reading it yet, the following is the
book's description in Amazon:
BS Johnson is one of those experimental
writers, controversial during their lives that subsequently vanishes
from print. Johnson was a journalist, a socialist, and a fine
novelist. Best known for The Unfortunates (his book in a box where
every chapter is separately bound and the reader is invited to read
them in any order he or she wishes), Christie Malry's Own Double
Entry is perhaps his most accessible novel. However, this
"accessibility" is in the midst of a studiedly experimental text.
This is a corruscating satire in which Johnson targets one of the
symbols of capitalism, the double entry system. The very basis of
accountancy, and the manipulation of finance, Johnson turns this
building block on its head as his central character, Christie Malry,
a young man with a future, decides that he will live his life
according to the principles of double entry.
Johnson's novel has acute observations on a
variety of issues in British life that still merit comment. How
working class people come to vote conservative, the manner in which
people's worth is measured financially; and all of this is in the
midst of an angry satire where Malry wreaks vengeance on the system.
It is a bitter cycnical novel, with a dark wit.
There is love, sex, and death; and an
unusual use for shaving foam. And all of this is presented in a
slightly distant way, where Johnson continually turns to the reader
and winks, letting you know this is a novel. Characters are aware of
their place in fiction, and Johnson deconstructs the novel to let
you see how it works. (end of review)
By the way, while it is not on point with your
request, I just finished reading "The World is Flat" and found it to be
one of the most interesting and provocative books I've read in a long
time.
Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you
can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a
conservative. Kurt Vonnegut, "Cold Turkey"
New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on
earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.
Kurt Vonnegut, "Breakfast of Champions"
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no
remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything. Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"
Like so many Americans, she was trying to
construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. Kurt Vonnegut, "Slaughterhouse Five"
It was a book to kill time for those who like it
better dead. Dame Rose Macaulay
The good news --- his new leg worked; The bad news --- he ran off
without paying for it Police said a man who was fitted for a $17,000
prosthetic leg has run off without footing the bill. Sgt. David Murillo said
the man went in last week to be fitted for the leg. He was allowed to take
it out to make sure it was a good fit. Police said the man kept walking.
"Man Walks Off Without Paying For Prosthetic Leg," TheIowaChannel.com,
August 25, 2005 ---
http://www.theiowachannel.com/news/4901714/detail.html
Question
What are "blue sky" R&D projects and name three exciting projects underway?
Answer
But in the 1980s and '90s, corporate
research became less curious, as managers
pursued a "return on investment." Almost all
of what now passes for corporate research
consists of tweaking existing products
rather than pursuing entirely new
technologies. Fortunately, some companies
are still thinking grandly--exploring areas
of science and technology not immediately
related to their existing sources of
revenue.
We profile three such
"blue sky" projects in the
R&D 2005
article: IBM's use of supercomputers to
model the workings of the human brain;
Intel's development of a way to detect
individual biological molecules using lasers
and Raman spectroscopy; and Bell Labs'
methodical efforts to assemble a quantum
computer that could one day solve certain
types of computational problems millions of
times faster than today's machines.
"Blue Skies Ahead," MIT's Technology
Review, September 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/issue/readme_rd.asp?trk=nl
Bravo Emily: Massive disabilities overcome by sheer determination Emily Crockett's mind is her dwelling place. It has
been her blessing, a repository of rare brilliance. And it has been her
betrayer. When she was just a small child, malignancies formed near her
brain stem, leaving her legally blind and paralyzed on her left side. But it
had no power to obscure the essence of Emily: Her singular determination
that her life would not be defined by the malignant star-shaped cells that
linger in her brain or by the long, thin cane with which she now navigates
the well-groomed quadrangles of Harvard.
Thomas Farragher, "Emily's Story: Finding a Way at Harvard," A three-part
series in the The Boston Globe, August 2005 ---
http://www.boston.com/news/specials/emily/index/
Advice for folks 65 or older
Q: Are there reasons for rejecting Medicare Part B?
A: About 6%
of eligible elderly turn down Medicare Part B, which covers outpatient care
in exchange for a $78.20 monthly premium. Some turn it down because they get
better benefits on the job, says Marilyn Moon, vice president of the
American Institutes for Research in Washington. Other retirees reject the
taxpayer-subsidized coverage to rely on "boutique" doctors who charge a set
annual fee for health care. Others may seek to keep control of medical data
or decisions, says Michael Cannon, health-policy director of the libertarian
Cato Institute in Washington. There's no penalty for delaying Medicare
coverage when you're eligible at age 65 -- if you're still insured at work.
But if you're not, your premium could rise 10% for each 12 months you were
eligible and didn't sign up. "When to Reject Medicare," The Wall Street Journal, August 25,
2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112492720735922504,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Jensen Comment: Consider this very, very carefully before you reject Part
B. In general, I recommend Part B.
Converting Home Videos to DVDs
Q: Are there services that will take home video and burn it to a
DVD that can be played anywhere? I know I can do this on my PC, but it takes
too much time and I keep running into problems when I try it.
A: There are such services. One that I
have tested and found to be good is called YesVideo (yesvideo.com). You
bring your videos into a store that works with YesVideo -- including CVS,
Walgreen, Best Buy and Target -- and they send the tapes to YesVideo, which
converts them to a very nice DVD. You also can get the same service online,
at Sony's ImageStation site (
www.imagestation.com
). Sony calls its service Video2DVD, but it really is just the YesVideo
service. My full review of the service is at:
ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20040128.html. Because YesVideo works through
retailers, prices vary, but are usually around $25-$35 for a two-hour video.
Each DVD is divided into chapters based on a YesVideo process that tries to
detect scene changes in your videos. At the end, there are three 60-second
music videos made from scenes on your videos. The company also will put your
prints, slides and even old film onto DVD, but this costs more and is
handled by fewer retailers. Details are at the YesVideo Web site. Walter Mossberg, "Converting Home Videos to
DVDs," The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2005; Page B3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112492084317722331,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
It's too bad Heidi Fleiss didn't steal this cell phone After a New York man's cell phone goes missing,
he logs onto his Sprint phone's website and sees pictures and videos taken
by the thief. Kevin Poulsen, "Camera Phone Has Life After Theft," Wired News,
August 29, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68668,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
Evidence that the media is biased against reporting good news from
Iraq
AFTER CRISSCROSSING Fallujah by foot and Humvee
in May, I reported on tremendous progress being made to restore "the
city we had to destroy to save." Actually, fighting left most of the
town unscathed; most damage was from three decades of neglect under
Saddam Hussein. And rebuilding began almost immediately.
Good news from Iraq rarely gets a single story
compared to the Texas stake-out that generates many thousands on a war
protesters. Yet it occurs nonetheless. The following is from an e-mail
by Navy Lt. Cameron Chen, head of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit
of the 8th Engineer Support Battalion at Camp Fallujah, with which I had
a short embed. You'll see Chen doesn't wear a miniskirt and shake
pompoms, but he's certainly optimistic.
Chen writes in his e-mail:
"The city is slowly rebuilding and
returning to life. Some report that it's now the safest city in the
Sunni Triangle because of the heavy presence of Iraqi police and
army. Every major intersection now has unarmed Iraqi police
directing traffic in crisp short-sleeve button down shirts, white
gloves, black flack vests, and dark blue pants. More frequently
we're responding to IEDs (improvised explosive devices) reported by
local children, police and informants.
"The 10 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew is still in
effect. But people can be seen on the streets up until the last
minutes before 10. The streets remain unlit at night, although there
are green neon lights around the minarets of the major mosques.
Lines at the gas stations can be over a hundred cars long. Ironic
since we are in the heart of oil country.
"A reason for this, which the media rarely
report, is that the Iraqi government subsidizes gasoline so that
it's virtually free. Sell tickets to a pro football games for five
cents apiece and see what kind of line you get. The subsidies also
encourage smugglers, who can buy dirt cheap and sell exorbitantly
high.
"On the main strip, restaurants and
electronics shops are open for business. I have seen some sit-down
diner-type restaurants and others where people line up for food at
teller-like windows. There is still a great deal of trash on the
streets by Western standards but noticeably less than when we first
arrived. Many people are moving back into the city and buildings are
in various stages of repair. There are more vehicles on the streets;
many are BMW's and Mercedes."
MEXICO CITY Women in scanty dress are used to
sell everything from cars to cigars in Mexico, but the efforts of
environmentalists to harness one model's sex appeal to stop men from
eating turtle eggs as an aphrodisiac has created a stir here.
The advertising campaign features an Argentine
model in a swimsuit, giving the camera her loveliest come-hither look.
Next to her are the words "My man doesn't need turtle eggs." The caption
below reads, "Because he knows they don't make him more potent."
The environmentalists behind the campaign say
they are trying to reach men who buy turtle eggs from street vendors and
eat them raw with lime and a pinch of salt in the belief they are a
natural form of Viagra.
"We said, 'Let's have a sexy girl saying that
the man I choose doesn't need sea turtle eggs,"' said Fay Crevoshay,
communications director for Wildcoast, a San Diego-based environmental
group. "This is what I call target marketing. We are talking to a
certain type of man that will look at this and will get the message."
But one woman's marketing is another's
exploitation of the female body. Patricia Espinosa, president of the
National Institute for Women, a government agency, has denounced the
advertisements as promoting a sexist stereotype. Her broadside has
prompted the governor of Guerrero, the southern state where many of the
turtle eggs are gathered and sold, to retract a promise to let the ads
be posted in markets next month.
"We are not against the campaign itself,"
Espinosa said in an interview. "What we are against is the stereotype of
a woman as a sex object."
Continued in article
From the land of drive-by ambushes: You can carry a handgun in Texas
without a license A longtime law that allows Texans to carry handguns
while traveling, even without a concealed handgun license, is clarified. The
new law says a person is "presumed to be traveling" if he or she is in a
private vehicle, is not engaged in criminal activity, is not prohibited by
any other law from possessing a firearm and is not a member of a criminal
street gang.
Clay Robison, "700 new laws — which one's yours?" Houston Chronicle,
Aug. 28, 2005 ---
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3328919
From the land of cell phone drivers: Why not mom and dad as well? Most of the 700-plus new state laws going into
effect Thursday, products of last spring's legislative session, will create
hardly a ripple in most Texans' lives, but others will be noticed. Teenagers
proud of their new driver's licenses and new cell phones better not use both
at the same time, because it will now be against the law for teens to talk
on the phone while they are driving, at least during the first six months
after they get their licenses.
Clay Robison, "700 new laws — which one's yours?" Houston Chronicle,
Aug. 28, 2005 ---
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3328919
Mop up in a Texas jail: Now we're waiting for 11 little Krists to pop
out Wilson County authorities are investigating how a
male inmate managed to spend much of Monday locked up with eight female
prisoners, none of whom complained. "We're assuming the motive was sexually
related, but nobody is saying anything happened," Chief Deputy Johnie Deagen
said Thursday. The women conspired with Joseph Krist to sneak him in when
their cell door was opened remotely by a jail employee to allow entry of a
mop and bucket, Deagen said. Krist was supposed to move the mop from his
cell into a vestibule located between his and the women's cell. Unknown to
the person controlling the locks, he apparently didn't return to his cell,
but stayed in the vestibule, gaining entry into the women's cell when the
door was opened. "We figure he was in there close to 11 hours," Deagen said
of Krist, 34, of San Antonio, who is jailed on a bank robbery charge.
Zeke McCormack, "Wilson jail goes coed for 11 hours," San Antonio Express
News, August 26, 2005 ---
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/crime/stories/MYSA082605.1B.jail_visit.1ccbd497.html
Cutting: Parents should watch for symptoms and encourage kids to get
help It's a practice that is foreign, frightening, to
parents. It is not a suicide attempt, though it may look and seem that way.
Cutting is a form of self-injury -- the person is literally making small
cuts on his or her body, usually the arms and legs. It's difficult for many
people to understand. But for kids, cutting helps them control their
emotional pain, psychologists say. This practice has long existed in
secrecy. Cuts can be easily hidden under long sleeves. But in recent years,
movies and TV shows have drawn attention to it -- prompting greater numbers
of teens and tweens (ages 9 to 14) to try it.
"Cutting & Self-Harm: Warning Signs and Treatment," WebMD, August 27,
2005 ---
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/110/109531.htm?z=1727_81000_4029_hv_05
MEDICAL- AND BUSINESS-SCHOOL ADMISSION TESTS WILL BE GIVEN BY COMPUTER Applicants to medical and business schools will
soon be able to leave their No. 2 pencils at home. Both the Medical College
Admission Test and the Graduate Management Admission Test are ditching their
paper versions in favor of computer formats. The Association of American
Medical Colleges has signed a contract with Thomson Prometric, part of the
Thomson Corporation, to offer the computer-based version of the MCAT
beginning in 2007. The computerized version is being offered on a trial
basis in a few locations until then.The GMAT, which has been offered both on
paper and by computer since 1997, will be offered only by computer starting
in January, officials of the Graduate Management Admission Council said.
The test will be developed by ACT Inc. and delivered by Pearson VUE, a part
of Pearson Education Inc.The Law School Admission Council has no immediate
plans to change its test, which will continue to be given on paper.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 5, 2005, Page A13
Jensen Comment: Candidates for the CPA are now allowed to only take this
examination via computer testing centers. The GMAT has been an optional
computer test since 1997. For years the GMAT has used computerized grading
of essay questions and was a pioneer in this regard.
I wonder what kind of bird droppings they will discharge in flight Aviation researchers at the University of
Florida have copied the wing action of seagulls to develop spy drones that
can morph shape mid-flight. The toy-sized drones are being developed for
tricky urban missions so that they can zip around tight places. They could
fly into urban environments to detect biological agents. Funded by Nasa and
the US Air Force, the unmanned, sensor-packed craft in development could be
on missions in two to three years, say researchers. By watching how seagulls
alter their wing shape, and using morphing techniques, the agile craft can
squeeze through confined spaces, such as alleyways, and change direction
rapidly.
"Spy craft take gull flight lesson," BBC News, August 27, 2005 ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4185648.stm
At age six mind you An Indian whizkid has become the youngest
student to clear Britain’s school leaving exams at age 6. Armaan Genomal
cleared his GCSE with a ‘B’ in information and communication technology,
completing the course in just nine months — less than half the time it takes
16-year-olds. “It was quite easy. Actually I came out of the exam with a
smile. I really liked spreadsheets and things like that. I checked my
answers 19 times in the second exam,” said the young pupil of Ryde Teaching
Services college in Bushey, Hertfordshire, which is fam-ous for churning out
child prodigies. Armaan has clear ideas about his future: “I want to be an
inventor so I can invent things like clocks that never stop or rain that
doesn’t make raindrops. Maybe I could touch clouds, I have always wanted to
do that.” He has already achieved one of his other ambitions when he was
invited to open his results live on British television with his classmates.
“I always wanted to be on telly,” he said with a smile. And his next big
aim? “To be knighted by the Queen,” declares Armaan. His proud mother Kavita
added from the family home in St. John’s Wood in north London: “Learning
comes easy to him. He could read when he was two.”
"6-yr-old Indian prodigy aces UK exams," Deccan Chronicle, August 27,
2005 ---
http://www.deccan.com/home/homedetails.asp#6-yr-old%20Indian%20prodigy%20%20aces%20UK%20exams
Jensen Comment: It's probably a good thing that the examinations do not
contain more about sex education.
No thanks: Imagine the long lines in baggage claim and customs
clearance The superjumbo Airbus A380 made its first
appearance in Germany, drawing 150,000 spectators to watch it take to the
air in the northern city of Hamburg. Part of the fuselage of the plane,
capable of carrying up to 840 passengers and due to enter service late next
year, is made in the city.It was the first time the A380, which made its
inaugural flight in Toulouse in southwest France on April 27, had been seen
outside France. It was also on show at the Paris air show in June. The
Hamburg factory is one of the three... "Airbus superjumbo maiden flight in Germany draws 150,000," Yahoo
News, August 27, 2005 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050827/bs_afp/germanytransportairbus_050827201359
Jensen Comment: Suppose most of the passengers have cell phones and are
allowed to use them in flight. In theory there could be 839 conversations
taking place around you while you're trying to sleep, read a book, or watch
a movie. Also in theory there could be 840 passengers wanting to use a few
bathrooms at the same time.
Skype and VoIP vs. IM
Skype™ is a programme allowing telephone
conversations via the Internet. Calls to other Skype™ users are free as well
as calls to regular telephone and mobile telephone numbers all over the
world are at a low rate. Software Software is the general term for IT
programs that make PCs and other electronic devices function
http://wireless-dictionary.rtx.dk/
"VoIP is not a threat that's going to put
telecommunications companies out of business," says Jeff Kagan, a
telecommunications analyst and president of The Kagan Group. "VoIP is a
change wave, part of a 20-year transformation that the telecommunications
industry is in right now." That "change wave," as Kagan puts it, got a
little closer to cresting this week -- but not from the Google announcement
(of instant voice messaging
http://www.google.com/talk/ ). Skype, the most
popular VoIP application anywhere in the world right now -- with over 50
million registered users in just two years -- will celebrate its two-year
anniversary next week. To mark the occasion, it will open up its technology
platform, allowing any user to incorporate Skype into their Web pages and
applications. Opening these application programming interfaces (APIs) is a
"major step," said Jeff Pulver, chairman and founder of Pulver.com and
creator of the international VON (Voices on the Net) conferences, in a
statement. Earlier this summer, Skype released the API code for its "buddy"
list (where Skype users keep their friends' and associates' contact
information). The move has already spurred a small but growing development
community of programmers looking to tie in buddy lists with
telecommunications services. (One such service connects Skype's buddy list
to cell phones, so users can call a Skype buddy on their mobile phone.)
Skype's efforts in opening its code have "raised the bar for everyone," says
Mark Levitt, a vice president of collaborative computing at IDC.
Eric Hellwig, "Google's Move into IM," MIT's Emerging Technologies,
August 25, 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/wo/wo_082605hellweg.asp?trk=nl
The Hype over Skype: Can It Go the Distance?
Although Skype, which provides Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony
services and PC-to-PC calling, turns two years old on August 29, it remains
unclear what kind of business this relative newcomer will turn out to be.
Skype could remain a mere fad for techies, become a next-generation
communications platform or evolve into the next eBay or Google, say Wharton
experts. What's certain, however, is that Skype, which has offices in
Estonia, London, San Francisco, Korea and Japan, is worth watching. As of
August 4, its software had been downloaded nearly 145 million times and the
company claims to have 47 million people using its services. Skype is an
"underappreciated phenomenon in telecom," says one Wharton professor.
Knowledge@ wharton blog, August 10-Sept 6 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/
Samsung's New Satellite DMB Phone With the B250, users can make phone calls or send
and receive text messages even while watching TV. The DMB broadcast received
by the phone can also be relayed to a regular TV. The B250 has external
buttons that allow users to play MP3 files without opening the phone. The
128-polyphonic sound chip has been built in to provide exquisite ring tones.
The B250 is also equipped with a 2megapixel camera and the photo editing
function has been upgraded. This allows the user to change facial
expressions on photos such as turning a smiling face into one showing anger.
Various other effects are also possible such as changing the picture frame
design. The File Viewer function provides access to Microsoft Office or PDF
files, and a 330,000-word dictionary is included in the software.
"Samsung's New Satellite DMB Phone," Physorg.com, August 27, 2005 ---
http://physorg.com/news6032.html
Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda
for a Stronger Nation America today faces a newly globalized economy,
rapidly changing demographics, and a dangerous achievement gap. A renewed
investment in and commitment to universal high quality education are
critical to sustaining America's overall economic health and a strong and
vibrant citizenry in the 21st century. For more than a year, Renewing Our
Schools, Securing Our Future: A National Task Force on Public Education has
investigated and considered new and innovative strategies to revitalize
public education. Please join the Task Force along with the Center for
American Progress and the Institute for America's Future at the release of
Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda for a
Stronger Nation.
NPR, August 23, 2005 ---
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=593305&ct=1286901
Former women executives have a difficult time re-entering the business
world Women executives who leave the corporate world when
they hit a glass ceiling, want to raise a family fulltime or decide to focus
on other interests, encounter frustrating roadblocks in their attempts to
re-enter the workforce, according to new Wharton research. To overcome the
obstacles, women should confront the difficulties they face and prepare for
their return to the labor force the moment they leave, says Monica McGrath,
adjunct professor of management at Wharton, executive coach and co-author of
the study entitled, "Back in the Game. Returning to Business after a Hiatus:
Experiences and Recommendations for Women, Employers, and Universities."
Knowledge Wharton blog ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1257
"In Defense of Hovering: Why Parents Say They Meddle in College Students'
Lives," by Sue Shellenbarger, The Wall Street Journal, August 25,
2005; Page D1
Sue Kirkpatrick had every intention of letting
her daughter manage her own life at college -- until bureaucratic
bungling threatened to cost the family $12,000.
When the university miscounted the daughter's
credits and mistakenly revoked her scholarship, the Cincinnati homemaker
and her husband stood back and let their daughter try to handle the
problem on her own.
But when the university sent a bill for full
tuition with the scholarship missing, Ms. Kirkpatrick's husband felt he
had to intervene. He called a university vice president who hadn't
returned his daughter's calls, and finally got the mistake fixed.
"Colleges," Ms. Kirkpatrick says, "don't always listen to their
students."
After I wrote a column about parents meddling
in college students' lives, I received a sizzling response from readers.
Dozens confessed to being hovering, helicopter parents: "My wife and I
laughed," writes Michael Bingham, New Haven, Conn., seeing themselves,
he says, "in nearly every paragraph."
But other parents, like Ms. Kirkpatrick, said
the problems families face with universities are worse than I suggested.
Beyond the soaring tuition costs and campus-safety fears I mentioned,
parents cited other reasons they approach the college years differently
than their own parents did. A proliferation of scholarships and loans
have created Byzantine eligibility requirements. Soaring tuition costs
make it essential for many families to make sure kids don't extend their
stay beyond four years. Also, many parents are simply more perfectionist
and demanding than their parents were.
Continued in article
Tell your students that in life they will have to work more and retire
later than us The Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Fogel
recently told students at Cornell that "half of you (may) live to celebrate
your hundredth birthday." This prediction goes well beyond standard
projections that today's college students will live into their late 70s. But
Mr. Fogel, who has studied centuries of change in human wellbeing, said
conventional forecasts are usually too cautious. "In the late 1920s," he
recalled, "the chief actuary of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company put
a cap of 65 on life expectancy." Mr. Fogel's forecast reminds us that,
sooner or later, we will have to work longer and retire later. It will
become economically, politically and morally intolerable for government (aka
taxpayers) to support people for a third or even half their adult lives.
America's present Social Security "debate" ought to start this inevitable
transformation. But we are in deep denial about the obvious.
Robert J. Samuelson, "Mr. Fogel's Forecast, The Wall Street Journal,
August 24, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112483155184021019,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Artists And The Web
Among the
latest disputes involving artists and the
Internet is between songwriters and publishers, and music
subscription services offered by companies like RealNetworks,
Napster and Yahoo. Surprisingly, artists don't get a dime from the
hundreds of thousands of songs streaming to computers from these
services. The reason is because the companies and the organizations
representing artists and other copyright holders can't come to terms
on how much to pay. Negotiations recently broke down, with the two
sides being far apart on what each group would consider a fair
price. In the meantime, artists don't see a penny.
"Artists And The Web," InternetWeek Newsletter on August 29,
2005
We lost the war on drugs and just won't admit it But don't be confused by the facts. There's a
whole army of Washington bureaucrats paid to fight America's drug habit by
cutting off supply. A cynic might even suggest that career drug warriors
have an incentive to see the "war" go on forever. One glance around this
town and you can see that, barring a change in policy, it probably will. The
drug war is driving up violence and corruption and putting frail democracies
at risk. But by making an otherwise common weed valuable it is also creating
perverse incentives for even more people to get into the business. From coca
growing in the Andes to hiring out as a mule in towns like this one, the
opportunity is compelling. Around here all you have to do is carry the
package a short distance and drop it off at the assigned destination.
Chances are you're going that way anyway.
Mary Anastasia O'Grady, "Smuggling Drugs? Let Us Count the Ways," The
Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2005; Page A13 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112501715376723738,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Jensen Comment: I'm convinced that the only way to win this war is to
legalize and prescribe drugs as an incentive to not commit crimes.
Next month's report of the White House tax
reform commission will likely stop short of advocating a complete
scrapping of the tax code. But look for it to have warm words for how
well the flat tax is promoting economic growth in the more than dozen
places--ranging from Ukraine to Hong Kong--that have adopted variations
of it.
It's about time the concept of taxing all
income at a single rate, which presidential candidate Steve Forbes and
then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey broached a decade ago, once again
takes center stage. It's increasingly popular overseas, with Romania and
the republic of Georgia adopting it last January. Greece is likely to
introduce a 25% single rate for both corporate and personal income next
month. If Poland's opposition parties win next month's elections they
are likely to introduce a flat tax. In Italy, the Bruno Leoni Institute
has just published an interview with former finance minister and current
defense minister Antonio Martino detailing his support of the flat tax.
Even Germany, normally a center of intellectual
stagnation when it comes to tax policy, has gotten the bug. Angela
Merkel, the candidate of the conservative Christian Democrats in the
Sept. 18 election, has appointed radical reformer Paul Kirchhof as her
spokesman on taxes. While her party's manifesto falls far short of
advocating Mr. Kirchhof's idea of a single rate of 25% for companies and
individuals, she has stoutly defended his approach: "It's important that
there is a man who wants to go further in principle and, when there is
room for maneuver, says, now we can go the next step."
Continued in article
A sad day for animal rights, especially for those in the bottom cage
of each stack Factory farming is healthier: for animals and
people. That's the take-home message as Dutch health authorities this week
ordered free-range poultry farmers to bring inside their five million
outdoor birds. There the birds will be less vulnerable to catching or
spreading the deadly avian flu virus that's made its way from Southeast Asia
to the doorstep of European Russia in recent weeks. German health
authorities are considering their own ban on outdoor birds, over the
objections of their country's organic, free-range poultry farmers. Thomas
Dosch, head of Bioland, Germany's largest organic organization, said that
"exceptions are needed from the order," such as allowing birds to use
open-air pens covered by netting. Unfortunately, such netting will not
protect the flocks from the wild-bird droppings that spread the disease.
Organic farmers are obviously more concerned with their market premiums than
public and poultry health.
Alex Avery and Dennis Avery, "No More Chicken Run," The Wall Street
Journal, August 26, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112501933684323790,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Fusion Research: What About the U.S.? If that money were taken from the existing federal
fusion research budget, it would decimate U.S. fusion research. That is why
the U.S. fusion community's overwhelming enthusiasm for ITER is predicated
on strong domestic support for fusion and plasma physics research, plus
additional funds for ITER construction. Even if the U.S. increased its
funding for fusion research to $500 million per year, that would still be
substantially less than it spends separately on high-energy physics, fossil
energy research, and basic energy sciences, not to mention the recent
budgets of the Missile Defense Agency ($9 billion) and NASA ($16 billion).
Ultimately, fusion could prove to be one of the most environmentally
attractive energy options. The United States should seize the opportunity to
play a strong role in ITER's success and demonstrate its commitment and
long-term vision as a scientific collaborator by revitalizing its overall
fusion program.
"Fusion Research: What About the U.S.?" by Ian H. Hutchinson, MIT's
Technology Review, September 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/issue/invite.asp?trk=nl
From The Washington Post on August 26, 2005
Hitachi just
unveiled the world's first hard disk drive/DVD recorder that can store
one terabyte of data. How many hours of high-definition digital
broadcasting can it record?
Warning: 403(b) is not the same as 401(k) That's because, like 1.9 million other
public-school employees across the U.S., these teachers have 403(b)
retirement plans, which provide investors far fewer protections than 401(k)
plans, their better-known cousins offered by corporations. Weakly regulated
and frequently saddled with high fees, the 403(b) market is now the scene of
numerous fights over alleged wrongdoing by the plans' private vendors.
Tom Lauricella, "As Teachers Sock Money Into 403(b)s, Few Defenses Exist:
Oversight for Retirement Plans Falls on Patchwork of States," The Wall
Street Journal, August 25, 2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112493469126422677,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
THE MAN BEHIND THE MICROCHIP: Robert Noyce and the Invention of
Silicon Valley.
By Leslie Berlin.
402 pp. Oxford University Press. An inspiring tale! Except for one thing: Noyce
didn't singlehandedly invent the integrated circuit. Texas Instruments
produced a working model years before Intel did; and even when Noyce's
company finally released its rather superior chip, it was a team of Noyce's
employees who did the hands-on and theoretical work, with Noyce serving
mostly as inspiration and administration. ''Noyce had almost nothing to do
with building the device,'' Berlin herself concludes. This is not to say
that Noyce is an unworthy subject of a book; he's quite intriguing. But
trying to write a biography of a guy who didn't do what he's most famous for
gently bedevils Berlin, and her book morphs inadvertently into a sort of
detective story: precisely what did Robert Noyce actually do?
Clive Thompson, "'The Man Behind the Microchip': The Next Small Thing,"
The New York Times, August 28, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/books/review/28THOMPSO.html
Where carhops still deliver frappes and onion rings on trays Not much has changed in 50 years at Fat Boy
Drive-In, where the carhops still deliver frappes and onion rings on trays.
The lunch crowd at this Maine landmark has always included enlisted men from
the Naval Air Station across the street, and the airfield's fenced-off
runways have long spanned the view from the restaurant's green awning.
Jenna Russell, "In Maine, wistful look at the past, and future," The
Boston Globe, August 28, 2005 ---
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/08/28/in_maine_wistful_look_at_the_past_and_future/
The Sudoku Craze Japanese puzzle
magazines are filled with novel and ingenious logic puzzles. They are as
popular in Japan as crosswords are in the United States. But Judge Gould saw
two things in sudoku that set it apart: the rules, which can be stated in
one sentence, and the size, which does not vary with degree of difficulty.
Every puzzle craze in history has come along at an opportune time, and the
same is true of sudoku. The world's first puzzle craze, tangrams, the
seven-block puzzle introduced from China around 1817, could not have been
possible before significant international trade and printing. The 15 Puzzle,
in 1880, and Rubik's Cube, in the early 1980's, involved new manufacturing
processes. And crosswords required a high educational level in the general
public and the ability of newspapers to produce and print crossword grids
easily, which did not occur until the 1920's.
Will Shortz, "A Few Words About Sudoku, Which Has None," The New York
Times, August 28, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/weekinreview/28shor.html
The Importance of Being Lazy It's an engaging, eclectic, idiosyncratic account
of the history of vacations and play--and a reasoned justification of why we
need leisure in our lives. In fact, Gini goes even farther, drawing on
studies of Americans' vacation habits to show why "doing nothing" is a
fundamental human necessity. (Gini relies on the latest academic research as
well as interviews, personal anecdotes, the writings of various ancient and
contemporary theologians and the well-chosen observations of people like
Aristotle, Mark Twain, Thorstein Veblen, Juliet Schor and Arlie Hochschild.)
The book's thesis is both simple and liberating.
"Katrina vanden Heuvel, "The Importance of Being Lazy," The Nation,
August 27, 2005 ---
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=17022
My secretary, Debbie Bowling, added the following tidbits:
Copperheads Gather Early in Ark. This Year Copperheads Move to Hibernation
Sites Earlier Than Usual in Ark.; One Man's Yard Overrun It happens every year:
large numbers of copperheads gather and move in unison to dens for
hibernation. But it happens in October, not July or August. Now the common
event has become an uncommon and inexplicable one.
"I know for a fact that all these snakes didn't
just wake up one day and do this," said Chuck Miller, whose Marion County
yard has been overrun with the pitvipers. "Something's making them do it.
They know something we don't know. There's got to be something more to
this."
Nearly 100 of the snakes are using a cedar tree
as a sort of meeting place, and neither Miller, an outdoorsman and former
snake owner, nor scientists who have traveled to the rural north central
Arkansas site to study the phenomenon, know why.
Stanley Trauth, a zoology professor at Arkansas
State University, said the snakes normally gather to move to hibernation
sites in the fall. Trauth has traveled to Miller's property to conduct
research on the snakes' behavior. "With this hot weather we didn't
anticipate such a grand movement of so many snakes. In the fall they
aggregate in fairly large numbers, so it's quite an unusual event," Trauth
said in a telephone interview Monday.
Miller agrees. "If it were October, no one would
know about it. It wouldn't be that strange," he said. When the snakes first
started showing up three weeks ago, Miller said he was a little concerned
that no one would believe how many were visiting the cedar tree, so he began
collecting the reptiles. He saw 20 the first night, he said. One of his
friends contacted Trauth and the research began.
Trauth and one of his graduate students traveled
to Miller's property and embedded a radio transmitter in one of the snakes
for tracking purposes. Other snakes also had tags clipped to their scales.
Miller said seven of nine tagged snakes were taken a quarter-mile away from
the tree and released, but have since returned to the tree and been
recaptured. Trauth said the copperheads gather at the tree to leave their
scent. By rubbing the tree, other copperheads know that it is a marker on
the way to a den site, he said. But Trauth is only guessing that the snakes
are preparing to move to a den for hibernation.
"All we can do is speculate as to what this is
right now. This might be a precursor to an actual event. But having the
numbers there that he's had, it just makes you wonder what's going on,"
Trauth said. A gathering of copperheads like the one in Miller's yard has
not been documented before, Trauth said. Though he can't yet explain why
it's happening, he can say for sure it's not for mating or feeding. All the
snakes that have been gathering at the base of the tree are adult males.
Copperheads also like to feed on cicadas, but the insects haven't appeared
in the area in large numbers this year. The best guess, Trauth said, is the
snakes are moving to hibernate as usual they're just doing it earlier than
normal. All Miller knows is, it's weird.
"It's like seeing a bigfoot or something walk
across the yard; if you don't keep them, no one will believe you," he said. ANNIE BERGMAN, "Copperheads Gather Early in Ark. This
Year," ABC News, August 16, 2005,
http://snipurl.com/snakes0816
Crocodile blood may yield powerful new antibiotics Scientists in Australia's tropical north are
collecting blood from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful
antibiotic for humans, after tests showed that the reptile's immune system
kills the HIV virus. The crocodile's immune system is much more powerful
than that of humans, preventing life-threatening infections after savage
territorial fights which often leave the animals with gaping wounds and
missing limbs.
"They tear limbs off each other and despite the
fact that they live in this environment with all these microbes, they heal
up very rapidly and normally almost always without infection," said U.S.
scientist Mark Merchant, who has been taking crocodile blood samples in the
Northern Territory. Initial studies of the crocodile immune system in 1998
found that several proteins (antibodies) in the reptile's blood killed
bacteria that were resistant to penicillin, such as Staphylococcus aureus or
golden staph, Australian scientist Adam Britton told Reuters on Tuesday. It
was also a more powerful killer of the HIV virus than the human immune
system.
"If you take a test tube of HIV and add
crocodile serum it will have a greater effect than human serum. It can kill
a much greater number of HIV viral organisms," Britton said from Darwin's
Crocodylus Park, a tourism park and research center. Britton said the
crocodile immune system worked differently from the human system by directly
attacking bacteria immediately an infection occurred in the body.
"The crocodile has an immune system which
attaches to bacteria and tears it apart and it explodes. It's like putting a
gun to the head of the bacteria and pulling the trigger," he said. For the
past 10 days Britton and Merchant have been carefully collecting blood from
wild and captive crocodiles, both saltwater and freshwater species. After
capturing a crocodile and strapping its powerful jaws closed the scientists
extract blood from a large vein behind the head.
"It's called a sinus, right behind the head, and
it's very easy just to put a needle in the back of the neck and hit this
sinus and then you can take a large volume of blood very simply," said
Britton. The scientists hope to collect enough crocodile blood to isolate
the powerful antibodies and eventually develop an antibiotic for use by
humans. "We may be able to have antibiotics that you take orally,
potentially also antibiotics that you could run topically on wounds, say
diabetic ulcer wounds; burn patients often have their skin infected and
things like that," said Merchant. However, the crocodile's immune system may
be too powerful for humans and may need to be synthesized for human
consumption.
"There is a lot of work to be done. It may take
years before we can get to the stage where we have something to market,"
said Britton. Reuters, "Crocodile blood may yield powerful new antibiotics," ABC
News, August 16, 2005,
http://snipurl.com/croc0816
Medicare to look closely at adult day care The Medicare insurance
program for the elderly and disabled soon will try out a possibly cheaper
way to help people recover from health problems outside of the hospital --
adult day care.
Some experts say extra services at most day-care
centers -- activities, socializing and on-site nurses -- could also help
patients recover faster and prevent costly complications that Medicare would
have to pay for later. "We're able to pick up on the subtle changes" in
patients, said Patty McCabe, a registered nurse who has worked at Holy Cross
Hospital's adult day-care center near Washington for nearly 23 years.
There are already about 3,400 adult day-care
facilities across the United States, and more than 60 percent provide some
health services, according to a Wake Forest University study. Medicare
currently does not cover day care for adults, though it does cover visiting
nurses and medically necessary care in nursing homes.
Those who need help arranging meals, taking
medicine or need other supervision can pay for day care out of their own
pocket or will sometimes be covered under Medicaid, the insurance program
for the poor. Under the three-year Medicare test program, scheduled to start
early next year, centers could see more demand as the population ages --
especially if Congress makes it permanent.
Medicare, which serves 43 million Americans,
wants to see if treating more patients at fewer locations is more efficient
-- saving the government and home health-care companies money...continued
in article. Reuters, "Medicare to look closely at adult day care,"
CNN.com, Monday, August 15, 2005,
http://snipurl.com/adltcre0816
Alaska college offers noncredit fishing class Curt
Muse stood on the cobbled shore of a creek, casting a 3-weight fly rod
upstream as a dozen students -- all middle-aged or older -- watched.
Muse was the day's guest lecturer for the Kenai
Fishing Academy, a weeklong class offered four times a summer by Kenai
Peninsula College, a branch of the University of Alaska Anchorage. As the
students looked on, the longtime guide spotted a sockeye salmon, red as a
fire hydrant but easy to miss swimming above colored rocks and below the
rippled surface.
"You can barely see that fish and he's red,"
Muse observed. Now in its third year, the noncredit course is aimed at
fishing novices or anglers new to Alaska who want to avoid learning by
reading how-to books or trolling for tips from salesmen at sporting goods
stores.
The academy was the brainchild of Gary Turner,
the college's director and an avid fisherman who helps teach classes. "I
thought, we need to educate people and teach them how to fish," Turner said.
"It just seemed natural." The college in Kenai, a town of about 7,000 about
155 miles southwest of Anchorage, takes up 900 feet of riverbank on the
Kenai River, known for its world-class rainbow trout and king, sockeye and
silver salmon.
"We're trying to push our education mission to
meet the avocations of people, or their external interests," Turner said...continued
in article.
Copyright 2005 The
Associated Press., "Alaska college offers noncredit fishing class,"
CNN.com, Monday, August 15, 2005,
http://snipurl.com/fshed0816
Brac Pack When then-House Republican backbencher Dick
Armey came up with the concept of an independent base-closing commission in
the mid-1980s, the idea was to make it easier for the political system to do
the right thing. Individual Congressmen would still howl at this or that
base-closure decision, but they wouldn't be able to undermine closures in
the national interest.
As we're seeing in the current
round of base closings, even the Armey method is having a hard time
surviving the ability of Members to sabotage the process. This is the fifth
round of the process known as "Brac" -- for base realignment and closure --
and the first since the start of the war on terror. The Pentagon has
proposed closing a record 62 major bases and 775 small installations to save
$48.8 billion over 20 years and reposition the armed forces to face current
threats.
Given these priorities -- not to
mention the American lives at stake -- you'd think Members of Congress would
welcome some efficiencies. Instead, they've gotten even more creative, and
sometimes vindictive, in their use of whatever political leverage they have
available to overturn the Pentagon's choices.
Given their majority status,
Republicans have behaved especially badly here. Before the Brac Commission
was even in existence, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott put a hold on the
nomination of the chairman over fear that the panel would shut down the
Pascagoula naval base. President Bush had to use recess appointments to name
all nine members in April.
Once the Commission was up and
running, other GOP Senators started acting up. Maine's Olympia Snowe took
her revenge over Portsmouth's appearance on the Pentagon's list by blocking
the nomination of Gordon England as Deputy Secretary of Defense. The
commission gave Portsmouth a reprieve yesterday, as part of its review of
the Pentagon's list. Whether or not that reprieve is a good military
decision -- and we have our doubts -- it will only encourage more Senators
to hold hostages, a la Ms. Snowe.
South Dakota's John Thune, who
owes his job to Mr. Bush's support in 2004, showed his anger over Ellsworth
Air Force Base's appearance on the list by announcing he would oppose John
Bolton's nomination to the United Nations. The Brac Commission will make its
Ellsworth call later this week. Senator John Warner of Virginia, chairman of
the Armed Services Committee, is quoted in yesterday's Washington Post as
saying the process was "rigged" to move 20,000 defense jobs from the
Washington area. He accused Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a senior
aide of improperly manipulating the process. All of which shows that without
Mr. Armey's invention, we'd never, ever close a base. REVIEW & OUTLOOK, "Brac Pack," The Wall Street Journal,August 25, 2005; Page A8,
http://snipurl.com/bracpk0825
Humor on August 31, 2005
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
IDLE THOUGHTS of One Who Grows Older
I planted some birdseed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed
it.
I had amnesia once -- or twice.
I went to San Francisco. I found someone's heart. Now what?
Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
If the world were a logical place, men would ride horses sidesaddle.
What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?
They told me I was gullible . and I believed them.
Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows
up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto a freeway.
Two can live as cheaply as one, for half as long.
Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
One nice thing about egotists: They don't talk about other people.
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to look like
a nail.
A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
What was the greatest thing before sliced bread? Hmmmm?
My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies.
I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.
The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
How can there be self-help "groups"?
Is there another word for synonym?
Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all"?
The speed of time is one-second per second.
Is it possible to be totally partial?
What's another word for thesaurus?
Is Marx's tomb a communist plot?
If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a
man who can't get his pants off.
It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one.
Is it my imagination, or do Buffalo wings taste like chicken?
Forwarded by Paula
My New Physician
I recently picked a new primary care physician.
After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing "fairly
well" for my age.
A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking him, "Do
you think I'll live to be 80?"
He asked, "Do you smoke tobacco or drink beer/wine?" "Oh no," I replied.
"I'm not doing either." Then he asked, "Do you eat rib-eye steaks and
barbecued ribs?" I said, "No, my other Doctor said that all red meat is very
unhealthy!" "Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf,
sailing, hiking, or bicycling?" "No, I don't," I said. He asked, "Do you
gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?" "No," I said. "I don't do
any of those things."
He looked at me and said, "Then why do you give a damn if you live to be
80?
Advertising above urinals can be effective It started with small posters positioned at eye
level. The copy ran just long enough to be read in the time it took to
relieve a bladder. It was cunning, it was effective, but it just wasn't
enough. Take a tinkle at some Sydney pubs and you will now be treated to a
full multimedia experience. Advertising flashes up on the latest LCD
screens. A sexy voice-over urges you to buy a different brand of deodorant -
one that the ladies just can't resist. It's all extremely impressive but
unfortunately after experiencing this new age advertising my confidence is
shattered. While the alcohol has almost delivered me the courage to talk to
the girl in the red dress, would she even consider a bloke wearing some
vastly inferior deodorant? Maybe there's a 24-hour supermarket nearby. I
walk back out to the bar dejected. I order another beer. I choose the brand
recommended by the screen in the bathroom. After all, the guy in the ad
seemed really popular. My friend is attempting to chat up a girl by the bar.
He's failing miserably. Obviously he's not wearing the right brand of
deodorant either. Perhaps he should cut his losses, visit the gents and get
an update on the latest metrosexual must haves. I'm sure when he has the
right hair gel and a cool mobile phone he'll do a whole lot better.
"Creatives could do better," Sydney Morning Herald, August 17, 2005
---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/16/1123958062594.html
Forwarded by Paula
The National Transportation Safety Board recently divulged they had
covertly funded a project with the US auto makers for the past five years,
whereby the auto makers were installing black boxes in four-wheel drive
pickup trucks in an effort to determine, in fatal accidents, the
circumstances in the last 15 seconds before the crash..
They were surprised to find in 44 of the 50 states the last words of
drivers in 61.2 percent of fatal crashes were, "OH SHIT!"
Only the state of TEXAS was different, where 89.3 percent of the final
words were: "Hold my beer and watch this!!"
Excerpts from Dog and Cat Diaries (forwarded by Paula)
"Excerpts From The Dog's Daily Diary"
8:00 am - Oh Boy! Dog
food! My favorite!
9:30 am - Oh Boy! A car
ride! My favorite!
9:40 am - Oh Boy! A walk!
My favorite!
10:30 am - Oh Boy! A car
ride! My favorite!
11:30 am - Oh Boy! Dog
food! My favorite!
12:00 noon - Oh Boy! The
kids! My favorite!
1:00 pm - Oh Boy! The
yard! My favorite!
4:00 pm - Oh Boy! The
kids! My favorite!
5:00 pm - Oh Boy! Dog
food! My favorite!
5:30 pm - Oh Boy! Mom! My
favorite!
6:00 pm - Oh Boy! Playing
ball! My favorite!
6:30 pm - Oh Boy! Sleeping
in master's bed! My favorite!
"Excerpts From The Cat's Daily Diary"
Day 283 Of My Captivity:
My captors continue to
taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh
meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me
going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining
the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another house plant.
Today my attempt to kill
my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost
succeeded; must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust
and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on
their favorite chair; must try this on their bed.
Decapitated a mouse and
brought them the headless body, in attempt to make them aware of what I am
capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and
condescended about what a good little cat I was. Hmmm, not working according
to plan.
There was some sort of
gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the
event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More importantly
I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must
learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.
I am convinced the other
captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and
seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the
other hand has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am
certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal
room, his safety is assured. But I can wait, it is only a matter of time. .
. .
Faster than the speed of light
An office manager at Wal-Mart was given the task of hiring an individual
to fill a job opening. After sorting through a stack of resumes he found
four people who were equally qualified He decided to call the four in and
ask them only one question. Their answer would determine which of them would
get the job.
The day came and as the four sat around the conference room table the
interviewer asked, "What is the fastest thing you know of?" Acknowledging
the first man on his right, the man replied, "A THOUGHT". It just pops into
your head. There's no warning that it's on the way; it's just there. A
thought is the fastest thing I know of."
"That's very good!"replied the interviewer.
"And now you sir?"he asked the second man.
"Hmm.... let me see. A blink! It comes and goes and you don't know that
it ever happened. A BLINK is the fastest thing I know of."
"Excellent!" said the interviewer. "The blink of an eye, that's a very
popular cliche' for speed."
He then turned to the third man who was contemplating his reply. "Well,
out at my dad's ranch, you step out of the house and on the wall there's a
light switch. When you flip that switch, way out across the pasture the
light in the barn comes on in less than an instant. Yep, TURNING ON A LIGHT
is the fastest thing I can think of."
The interviewer was very impressed with the third answer and thought he
had found his man. "It's hard to beat the speed of light" he said.
Turning to Bubba, the fourth and final man, the interviewer posed the
same question. Old Bubba replied, "After hearing the three previous answers,
it's obvious to me that the fastest thing known is DIARRHEA."
"WHAT!?" said the interviewer, stunned by the response.
"Oh I can explain." said Old Bubba "You see the other day I wasn't
feeling so good and I ran for the bathroom, but before I could THINK, BLINK,
or TURN ON THE LIGHT, I had already crapped in my pants.
Old Bubba iz the new "Greeter" at the Ozark Wal-Mart
Forwarded by Paula
An Old Farmer's Advice:
* Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.
* Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance.
* Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.
* Words that soak into your ears are whispered... not yelled.
* Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.
* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.
* Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.
* It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.
* You cannot unsay a cruel word.
* Every path has a few puddles.
* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
* The best sermons are lived, not preached.
* Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.
* Don't judge folks by their relatives.
* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back,
you'll enjoy it a second time.
* Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none.
* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
* If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.
* Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.
* The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with,
watches you from the mirror every mornin'.
* Always drink upstream from the herd.
* Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad
judgment.
* Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it
back in.
* If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin'
somebody else's dog around.
* Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
…and in Texas…
Don't squat with yer spurs on
These have been around the horn a few times, but they are still humorous.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Harry Edsel Smith of Sandersville,
Mississippi:
Born 1903-Died 1942
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down.
It was.
******************************
In a Soso, Mississippi
cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up And no place to go.
******************************
In a Laurel,
Miss.
cemetery:
Here lies Ann Mann,
Who lived an old maid But died an old Mann.
Dec. 8, 1867
****************************
In a Cracker's Neck, Mississippi
cemetery:
Anna Wallace:
The children of Israel
wanted bread,
And the Lord sent them manna.
Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil sent him Anna.
******************************
In a
Errata, Mississippi
cemetery:
Here lies Johnny Yeast.
Pardon me For not rising.
******************************
In an Ellisville, Mississippi
cemetery:
Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake.
Stepped on the gas
Instead of the brake
******************************
In a Sharon,
Mississippi
cemetery:
Here lays Conn Welborn.
We planted him raw.
Quick on the trigger
But slow on the draw.
***************************** A
lawyer's epitaph in Laurel,
Mississippi: John Strange.
Here lies an honest lawyer,
And that is Strange.
****************************
John Penny's epitaph in
Jones County,
Mississippi,
cemetery:
Reader, if cash you are
In need of any,
Dig 6 feet deep;
You'll find a Penny.
***************************** In a cemetery in Hawkes,
Mississippi:
On the 22nd of June,
Jonathan Fiddle Went out of tune.
**************************
Anna Hopewell's grave in
6-deep Cemetery, North Jones County,
Mississippi
Here lies the body of our Anna - Done to death by a banana.
It wasn't the fruit that laid her low,
But the skin of the thing that made her go.
******************************
On a grave from the 1880s in
Moselle,
Mississippi
Under
the sod and under the trees, Lies the body of Jon Earl Pease.
He is not here, there's only the pod.
Pease shelled out and went to God
***************************** In
a cemetery in Tucker's Crossing, Mississippi:
Remember now, as you pass by, Like you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, you soon will be.
Prepare yourself to follow me.
(To which someone replied by scribbling on the
tombstone:)
To follow you I won't consent
Till I know which way you went
****************************** In the Moore
Family cemetery, Shady GroveMississippi;
Here lies Lester Moore
One slug from a 44
No Les
No More
1944
Forwarded by Dick Haar
New medications under development
D A M N I T O L Take 2 and the rest of the world can go to hell for up to
8 full hours.
E M P T Y N E S T R O G E N Suppository that eliminates melancholy and
loneliness by reminding you of how awful they were as teenagers and how you
couldn't wait till they moved out.
ST. M O M M A'S W O R T Plant extract that treats mom's depression by
rendering preschoolers unconscious for up to two days.
P E P T O B I M B O Liquid silicone drink for single women. Two full cups
swallowed before an evening out increases breast size, decreases
intelligence, and prevents conception.
D U M B E R O L When taken with Peptobimbo, can cause dangerously low IQ,
resulting in enjoyment of country music and pickup trucks.
F L I P I T O R Increases life expectancy of commuters by controlling
road rage and the urge to flip off other drivers.
M E N I C I L L I N Potent anti-boy-otic for older women. Increases
resistance to such lethal lines as, "You make me want to be a better person?
Can we get naked now?"
BUYAGRA Injectable stimulant taken prior to shopping Increases potency,
duration, and credit limit of spending spree.
J A C K A S S P I R I N Relieves headache caused by a man who can't
remember your birthday, anniversary, phone number, or to lift the toilet
seat.
A N T I-T A L K S I D E N T A spray carried in a purse or wallet to be
used on anyone too eager to share their life stories with total strangers in
elevators.
N A G A M E N T When administered to a boyfriend or husband, provides the
same irritation level as nagging him.
New words forwarded by Dick Haar
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you
realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stop bright
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign
of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of
getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person
who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
12 Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really
bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a
serious bummer.
13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day
consuming only things that are good for you.
14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when
they come at you rapidly.
16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've
accidentally walked through a spider web.
17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your
bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
18. Caterpallor (n): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the
fruit you are eating.
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
A man is crawling through the Sahara desert when he is approached by
another man riding on a camel. When the rider gets close enough, the
crawling man whispers through his sun-parched lips, "Water... please... can
you give...
water..."
"I'm sorry," replies the man on the camel, "I don't have any water with me.
But I'd be delighted to sell you a necktie."
"Tie?" whispers the man. "I need *water*."
"They're only four dollars apiece."
"I need *water*."
"Okay, okay, say two for seven dollars."
"Please! I need *water*!", says the man.
"I don't have any water, all I have are ties," replies the salesman, and
he heads off into the distance.
The man, losing track of time, crawls for what seems like days. Finally,
nearly dead, sun-blind and with his skin peeling and blistering, he sees a
restaurant in the distance. Summoning the last of his strength he staggers
up to the door and confronts the head waiter.
"Water... can I get... water," the dying man manages to stammer.
"I'm sorry, sir, ties required."
Modified English is official for all of Europe
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English
will be the official language of the European Union rather than German,
which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English
spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in
plan that would become known as "Euro-English."
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c." Sertainly, this will
make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k." This should klear up
konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the
troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f." This will make words like
fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to
reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have
always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is
disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th"
with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou"
and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu
understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united Urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze
forst plas.
If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl
Forwarded by Doug Jenson
CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY BIBLE SCHOOL TESTS
PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE WORDING AND SPELLING. IF YOU KNOW THE BIBLE
EVEN A LITTLE, YOU'LL FIND THIS HILARIOUS!
IT COMES FROM A CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEST. KIDS WERE ASKED QUESTIONS
ABOUT THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BIBLE
WERE WRITTEN BY CHILDREN. THEY HAVE NOT BEEN CHANGED OR CORRECTED.
INCORRECT SPELLING HAS BEEN LEFT IN.
1. IN THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE, GUINESSIS. GOD GOT TIRED OF CREATING THE
WORLD SO HE TOOK THE SABBATH OFF.
2. ADAM AND EVE WERE CREATED FROM AN APPLE TREE. NOAH'S WIFE WAS JOAN OF
ARK. NOAH BUILT AND ARK AND THE ANIMALS CAME ON IN PEARS.
3. LOTS WIFE WAS A PILLAR OF SALT DURING THE DAY, BUT A BALL OF FIRE DURING
THE NIGHT.
4. THE JEWS WERE A PROUD PEOPLE AND THROUGHOUT HISTORY THEY HAD TROUBLE WITH
UNSYMPATHETIC GENITALS.
5. SAMPSON WAS A STRONGMAN WHO LET HIMSELF BE LED ASTRAY BY A JEZEBEL LIKE
DELILAH.
6. SAMSON SLAYED THE PHILISTINES WITH THE AXE OF THE APOSTLES.
7. MOSES LED THE JEWS TO THE RED SEA WHERE THEY MADE UNLEAVENED BREAD WHICH
IS BREAD WITHOUT ANY INGREDIENTS.
8, THE EGYPTIANS WERE ALL DROWNED IN THE DESSERT. AFTERWARDS, MOSES WENT UP
TO MOUNT CYANIDE TO GET THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
9. THE FIRST COMMANDMENTS WAS WHEN EVE TOLD ADAM TO EAT THE APPLE.
10. THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT IS THOU SHALT NOT ADMIT ADULTERY.
11. MOSES DIED BEFORE HE EVER REACHED CANADA . THEN JOSHUA LED THE HEBREWS
IN THE BATTLE OF GERITOL.
12. THE GREATEST MIRACLE IN THE BIBLE IS WHEN JOSHUA TOLD HIS SON TO STAND
STILL AND HE OBEYED HIM.
13. DAVID WAS A HEBREW KING WHO WAS SKILLED AT PLAYING THE LIAR. HE FOUGHT
THE FINKELSTEINS, A RACE OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN BIBLICAL TIMES.
14. SOLOMON, ONE OF DAVID'S SONS, HAD 300 WIVES AND 700 PORCUPINES.
15. WHEN MARY HEARD SHE WAS THE MOTHER OF JESUS, SHE SANG THE MAGNA CARTA.
16. WHEN THE THREE WISE GUYS FROM THE EAST SIDE ARRIVED THEY FOUND JESUS IN
THE MANAGER.
17. JESUS WAS BORN BECAUSE MARY HAD AN IMMACULATE CONTRAPTION.
18. ST. JOHN THE BLACKSMITH DUMPED WATER ON HIS HEAD.
19. JESUS ENUNCIATED THE GOLDEN RULE, WHICH SAYS TO DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE
THEY DO ONE TO YOU. HE ALSO EXPLAINED A MAN DOTH NOT LIVE BY SWEAT ALONE.
20. IT WAS A MIRACLE WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND MANAGED TO GET THE
TOMBSTONE OFF THE ENTRANCE.
21. THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED THE LORD WERE CALLED THE 12 DECIBELS.
22. THE EPISTELS WERE THE WIVES OF THE APOSTLES.
23. ONE OF THE OPPOSSUMS WAS ST. MATTHEW WHO WAS ALSO A TAXIMAN.
24. ST. PAUL CAVORTED TO CHRISTIANITY, HE PREACHED HOLY ACRIMONY WHICH IS
ANOTHER NAME FOR MARRAIGE.
25. CHRISTIANS HAVE ONLY ONE SPOUSE. THIS IS CALLED MONOTONY.
I want to thank all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me
your chain letters over the past two years. Thank you for making me feel
safe, secure, blessed, and wealthy. Just want you to know that these types
of messages are deleted immediately...
However, Because of your concern...
I no longer can drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.
I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these
products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.
I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.
I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be
pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.
I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a
water buffalo on a hot day.
I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a
perfume sample and rob me.
I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually
Al Qaeda in disguise.
I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our
troops.
I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a stupid
number for which I will get the phone bill from hell with calls to Jamaica,
Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.
I no longer eat prepackaged foods because the estrogens they contain will
turn me gay.
I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant
freaks with no eyes or feathers.
I no longer go to bars because someone will drug me and take my kidneys
and leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.
Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I
forward an email to 7 of my friends and make a wish within 5 minutes.
I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl who has
been dying for the past seven years.
I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive
the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their
special e-mail program.
I will now return the favor:
If you don't send this e-mail to at least 1200 people in the next 60
seconds, a large bird with diarrhea will fly over your head at 5:00 PM and
the fleas of a thousand camels will infest your armpits. I know this will
occur because it actually happened to a friend of a friend of a friend's
neighbor's cousin, and he's a lawyer.
Live well, laugh often, love much!
Forwarded by a more or less retired friend
Subject: 10 THOUGHTS FOR 2005
Number 10 - Life is sexually transmitted.
Number 09 - Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one
can die.
Number 08 - Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him
without an erection, make him a sandwich!
Number 07 - Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a
person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.
Number 06 - Some people are like a Slinky.....not really good for
anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down
the stairs.
Number 05 - Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in
hospitals dying of nothing.
Number 04 - All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no
attention to criticism.
Number 03 - Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars
and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?
Number 02 - In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now
the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
AND THE NUMBER 1 THOUGHT FOR 2005:
We know exactly where one cow with mad-cow-disease is located among the
millions and millions of cows in America but we haven't got a clue as to
where thousands of illegal immigrants and terrorists are located. Maybe we
should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of immigration
And that's the way it was on August 31,
2005 with a little help from my friends.
I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor
(an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart
finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) ---
http://www.financeprofessor.com/
Click on
www.syllabus.com/radio/index.asp for
a complete list of interviews with established leaders, creative thinkers
and education technology experts in higher education from around the
country.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
I hope you're enjoying the summer in beautiful
New Hampshire (or equally beautiful, but warmer, south Texas). I am
still in Hong Kong, though commuting to London for IASB each month.
I read the following in your Tidbits a few days
ago:
Coyotes killed my neighbor’s new colt. Until that happened I
didn’t know we had a coyote problem. We do have five bears in our
nearby woods (a huge male and four females with cubs). But the bears
are relatively friendly and really aren’t a problem if you don’t put
out bird feeders in the summer. Erika unwisely had me fill three
feeders on our deck in May and a bear downed all three feeders. My
main problem is with small deer that turned eleven of my beautiful
and full young cedar trees into lollipops during the hard winter.
Lo and behold today my niece from Florida
emailed me the attached two photos. She said they were taken in Alaska.
They certainly "bear out" the point you made about bears and bird
feeders.
I continue to enjoy travelling in Asia,
especially China -- it's one of the advantages of living in this part of
the world. With digital pix and hard-drive storage space essentially
cost-free, I find myself saving far too many. I've put a lot of them on
my website:
www.whencanyou.com -- though nothing as
dramatic as the attached two.
I went to the EAA meeting this year in May in
Goteborg and decided not to go to the AAA. Perhaps next year. If you're
coming back to Hong Kong please let me know.
I enjoy reading your tidbits and posts. Thanks
for all the great information.
Differences between black bear and grizzly bear dung
Forwarded by Petrea Sandlin
In light of the rising frequency of human and
grizzly bear conflicts, the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game is
advising hikers, hunters, and fisherman to take extra precautions and
keep alert for bears while in the field.
They advise that outdoorsmen wear noisy little
bells on their clothing so as not to startle bears who aren't expecting
them. They also advise outdoorsmen to carry pepper spray with them
in case of an encounter with a bear.
It is a good idea to watch out for fresh signs
of bear activity. Outdoorsmen should recognize the difference
between black bear and grizzly bear dung. Black bear dung is
smaller and contains lots of berries and squirrel fir.
Grizzly bear dung has little bells and smells like
pepper spray.
From T.H.E. Newsletter on July 20, 2005
UNC Chapel Hill Chooses Covelight Systems to
Protect Confidential Student Information Covelight Systems, an innovator of solutions for privacy protection
and fraud management, has announced that the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill) has selected its Percept
Privacy Protection and Fraud Management System to protect Web-accessed
student information. UNC Chapel Hill is the nation's first state
university with 26,800 undergraduate, graduate, and professional
students enrolled.
Covelight Percept is being used to secure UNC
Chapel Hill's Student Central online application. Student Central is a
portal on the UNC Chapel Hill Web site that allows students to register
for classes, check grades and billing information, update addresses,
review personal academic information, and perform general student
administrative tasks online. Along with the convenience of Web-enabled
access, comes a security risk that Covelight is helping the university
address.
Earlier this year, executives at Dell Inc.
tried to shut down DellComputersSuck.com, a Web site promoting an
obscure brand of computers. Dell's lawyers dispatched a stern letter,
and within a few days, the site's owner revamped it into an online
discussion group about computers. The old version disappeared from view.
The PC giant still wanted to seize the address,
a move permitted under rules governing the use of domain names. But Dell
had to prove to an arbitration panel it had been used in "bad faith." So
Dell's legal team turned to the Wayback Machine, a massive archive of
Web pages dating back nine years. There, Dell found copies of the
deleted site and was able to prove that its owner, Innervision Web
Solutions, had used it to redirect consumers to another Web address
selling PCs with names such as ZMachinez and Jetbook. In May, an
arbitration panel ordered the domain name be transferred to Dell.
The Web, seemingly one of the most ephemeral of
media, is instead starting to leave permanent records. Through the
Wayback Machine, and similar services offered by companies such as
Google Inc., it's now easy to retrieve all kinds of online material,
from defunct Web pages to old versions of sites. While these databases
have caught on among historians and scholars, they are proving
particularly enticing for lawyers.
At some law firms, litigators now ask
researchers, "can you do a Wayback on that?" The archives are most
attractive to specialists in intellectual-property law -- in particular,
areas such as domain-name battles -- and have been used by companies as
diverse as EchoStar Communications Corp. and Playboy Enterprises Inc. In
February, recovered pages prompted a mistrial in a prominent murder case
in Canada.
The archive tools provide lawyers with a quick
and inexpensive way to unearth evidence that otherwise might not be
available. Lawyers have always been able to seek copies of old Web pages
in a pretrial phase known as discovery. But some parties might not save
every version of their Web sites and others might routinely get rid of
stored pages. Meanwhile, in domain-name disputes handled by arbitrators,
there's no discovery process.
The Internet offers many opportunities to find
quality answers to a host of important questions, ranging from the
fields of the humanities to those in the hard sciences. One important
resource that offers answers to a number of thorny questions is the Ask
a Scientist! website created and maintained by the Centers for Materials
Research at Cornell University. The site had its debut on September 17,
1998, when Professor Neil Ashcroft answered the timely question, "What
is Jupiter made of?". Visitors to the site can browse or search for
previously answered questions, and of course, they are also welcome to
submit their own questions for consideration. Visitors will definitely
want to view the "Frequently Viewed Questions", which feature responses
to such favorites queries as "How can you tell if a diamond is real or
fake?" or "How is glass made?"
While many of those who read the Scout Report have
probably heard of romance novels, probably a much smaller number have
heard of romance comics. The genre came of age in the late 1940s, and,
interestingly enough, was started by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, who had
created Captain America several years before that. The genre hit its
stride in 1949, when close to 120 romance comics were on the market,
most of which were drawn and written by men. This site, created by Jenny
Miller, offers up some of these rather intriguing titles from this
period in digitized form. On the site, visitors can read issues of such
series as "Rangeland Love", "Lovelorn", and "Glamorous Romances". Also,
visitors should be sure to check out the May 1960 edition of "Teen-Age
Love", whose cover offers the dramatic opening line: "I hate him…I hate
him because I know that when he calls again for a date, I'll say yes and
accept his bad manners." Overall, this is a fun site, and an interesting
way to examine one way in which "romance" was portrayed through a
popular and mass-marketed medium during the post-World War II period.
Many sites provide book reviews, but Complete
Review may be one of the better ones available to the Web-browsing
public. Currently, the site includes 1,443 book reviews, and visitors
can browse through them at their leisure. Visitors can also view the
reviews by genre, such as drama, film, philosophy, or poetry. Each
review contains a bit of brief information (such as the date of
publication and general availability), then continues on to include the
complete review, along with a letter grade for the work, and additional
links to reviews provided by other notable sources, such as the Guardian
newspaper. Repeat visitors can also click on the "What's New" area to
look at the latest materials added to the site. Finally, visitors can
also peruse their compelling weblog, titled "The Literary Saloon". Here,
users can get the latest news on such topics as Toni Morrison's honorary
degree from Oxford and various translation prizes.
For those people who are concerned about erasing evidence of their
Internet activity stored in their browser, Powerful Cookies 1.0.7 may be
worth taking a look at. Visitors can use this program to delete cookies,
clean index.dat files, clean the cache, remove temporary files, and
erase typed URLs. This application is compatible with Windows 95 or
newer.
Mr. Donaldson's predecessor, Harvey L. Pitt,
who came to the office promising a "kinder, gentler" agency, has managed
to make matters oh-so-much worse with his lethal combination of
arrogance and ineptitude. The country's faith in the integrity of the
markets - and of the S.E.C. itself - is shaken.
"It seemed to me a period not dissimilar to
1929," Mr. Donaldson said. "Except that back then, relatively few people
were investors. By the time I became S.E.C. chairman, over half the
population was in the market one way or the other." And really, all the
Bush administration wanted him to do - this 71-year-old pillar of the
Wall Street establishment, who, among other things, had spent five years
not rocking the boat in the 1990's as the head of the New York Stock
Exchange - was calm everybody down, rebuild morale at the S.E.C. and
restore some measure of confidence in both the markets and in the
companies whose stocks and bonds we all buy and sell.
"I remember saying that he was going to be a
consensus builder, because that's what he'd been for most of his
career," said James D. Cox, a professor of securities and corporate law
at Duke University. "I didn't think there would be much controversy on
his watch. Boy, did I miss the mark on that prediction."
As it turns out, Mr. Donaldson did help restore
faith in the markets. He did so in part by making peace with, and
working alongside, Mr. Spitzer. He helped get Sarbanes-Oxley, the
corporate reform act, up and running. He expanded the agency's
enforcement staff, and backed its efforts to become genuinely tough with
companies that had violated the rules; the commission imposed a
staggering $5.3 billion in fines on his watch. "He revived an
institution that had been failing to address its mandate," Mr. Spitzer
said.
BUT as Mr. Donaldson, now 74, returns to
private life, his efforts to do what President Bush - and all of us -
needed him to do seem like so much ancient history. It's his other
ideas, the ones no one knew he had, that people are talking about. About
four months into his watch, he proposed a rule that would force largely
unregulated hedge funds to register with the S.E.C. for the first time.
(The new rule will take effect early next year.) He was behind a new
national market system that will cause the New York Stock Exchange and
Nasdaq to operate under the same set of rules (though, alas, it still
gives advantages to the outmoded floor brokers and specialists at the
stock exchange).
"Historically, norms of accounting played
an important role in corporate financial reporting. Starting with
the federal regulation of securities, accounting norms have been
progressively replaced by written standards....[and]enforcement
mechanisms, often supported by implicit or explicit power of the
state to impose punishment. The spate of accounting and auditing
failures of the recent years raise questions about the wisdom of
this transition from norms to standards....It is possible that the
pendulum of standardization in accounting may have swung too far,
and it may be time to allow for a greater role for social norms in
the practice of corporate financial reporting."
"The monopoly rights given to the FASB in
the U.S. (and the International Accounting Standards Board or IASB
in the EU) deprived the economies, and their rule makers, from the
benefits of experimentation with alternative rules and structures so
their consequences could be observed in the field before deciding on
which rules, if any, might be more efficient. Rule makers have
little idea, ex ante, of the important consequences (e.g., the
corporate cost of capital) of the alternatives they consider."
"Given the deliberate and premeditated
nature of financial fraud and misrepresentation (and other white
color crimes), "clarifications of the rules invite and facilitate
evasion"
And my favorite!
"Indeed the U.S. constitution, a document
that covers the entire governance system for the republic, has less
than 5,000 words. The United Kingdom has no written constitution. A
great part of the governance of both countries depends on norms. Do
accountants deal with greater stakes?"
BTW: I like the prescriptions called for as
well, but will allow you to read those (pages 20 to 22 of paper)
Cite: Sunder, Shyam, "Social Norms versus
Standards of Accounting" (May 2005). Yale ICF Working Paper No. 05-14.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=725821
SUMMARY: The FASB has issued an exposure draft for an interpretation of
Statement 109 to clarify criteria for recognizing a tax benefit in cases in
which there is some probability of denial by taxing authorities. Summary and
information about the interpretation is available at:
http://www.fasb.org/project/uncertain_tax_positions.shtml
A pdf file of the exposure draft is available through a link at the above
web site location at
QUESTIONS:
1.) In one paragraph, summarize accounting for income tax deductions
expected to be taken in the future. What accounting standard promulgates
this accounting treatment?
2.) What type of document has the FASB issued on which this article
reports? What type of document will be issued when the FASB completes its
due process related to this issue? To answer these questions, you may refer
directly to the document the FASB has issued on the web at
http://www.fasb.org/draft/ed_prop_interp_utp.pdf or you may access
the FASB's summary of this issue on its web site at
http://www.fasb.org/project/uncertain_tax_positions.shtml
3.) According to the article, how might a company handle expected tax
deductions for items that might be denied by the IRS? How is that behavior
possible under current accounting standards?
4.) How is it that companies might record "an income boost" from such tax
deductions that might later be denied?
5.) What is the change proposed by the newly issued FASB document? How
will that change resolve the issue discussed in response to questions 3 and
4 above?
6.) How might the accounting change proposed by the FASB result in
greater liabilities on corporate balance sheets?
7.) The article comments that "some companies already have spoken out
against the changes." How are these opinions, and those in support of the
changes, heard through the FASB's due process? Does it surprise you that
some companies' representatives already have voiced opinions on this matter?
Explain.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on July 22,
2005
TITLE: Ebbers Is Sentenced to 25 Years for $11 Billion WorldCom Fraud
REPORTERS: Dionne Searcey, Shawn Young, and Kara Scannell
DATE: Jul 14, 2005
PAGE: A1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112126001526184427,00.html
TOPICS: Accounting Fraud, Capital Spending, Accounting, Financial Accounting
SUMMARY: "Bernard J. Ebbers...was sentenced to 25 years in prison for
orchestrating the biggest corporate accounting fraud in U.S. history."
QUESTIONS: 1.) What is the one accounting practice cited in the article
as the basis for committing fraud at WorldCom? In your answer, differentiate
between accounting for capital investments and operating expenditures.
2.) The article describes defense attorneys' and other lawyers' surprise
at the severity of Ebbers's sentence, comparing it to the length of sentence
for criminals who have taken another's life. Who was harmed by this fraud
and how devastating could the harm have been to those victims?
3.) Why is a chief executive officer held responsible for financial
reporting of the entity under his or her command? Why did jurors believe
that Ebbers could not have unaware of the fraud at WorldCom?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Sage Software produces two of the top
accounting solutions for small businesses, not just according to
accountants but also according to the technology crowd. Simply
Accounting and Peachtree, two of Sage Software’s accounting solutions
have won honors and awards from the media recently. Peachtree Premium
Accounting 2005 was awarded five of five stars and Simply Accounting
received four-and-a-half of five stars in CPA Technology Advisor’s
listing of Small Business Accounting Software for 2005. The evaluation
looked at six categories:
Basic Functionality/Ease-of-Use
Available Modules/Customization for Vertical
Industries
Expandability
Reporting and Management Functions
Audit Trail, Integrity and Accountant Control
Tools and
Help and Support Options. Peachtree Premium
received five stars in five categories to earn its five star overall
rating. The only category it did not earn five stars in was Help and
Support, where its well-built help utility, online Peachtree Knowledge
Center, additional support features and several optional support plans
merited only four-and-a-half stars.
Simply Accounting received four-and-a-half
stars in five categories. More than 100 customizable predefined reports
which can be integrated with both MS Word and Excel as well as a version
of Crystal Reports allowing for custom report creation and combine it
with the Daily Business Manager, payroll support functions and inventory
management earned Simply Accounting it’s only five star rating in
Reporting and Management Functions.
Simply Accounting has also been honored with a
2005 World Class Award for small business accounting from PC World. It
is the third consecutive year Simply Accounting has earned this honor.
The World Class Awards honor products combining practical features with
innovation and that reflect the rapidly changing technology marketplace.
PC World’s editors pick winners for their exemplary design, usability,
features, performance, innovation and price.
“The ultimate buyers guide, World Class Awards
set the standard for excellence in the high-tech and consumer
electronics industries,” states PC World editor-in-chief Harry
McCracken. “From desktop publishers to travel routers to satellite radio
and video instant messenger services, the editors reward the finest
products and most outstanding performers in this annual award program.
Congratulations to Simply Accounting.”
Peachtree is Sage Software’s primary brand for
small business accounting in the U.S. Simply Accounting is the
bestselling small business accounting product in Canada.
China's certified public accountant business grows fast
www.chinaview.cn
2005-07-20 16:51:23
Four indigenous certified public accountant
(CPA) companies have seen their 2004 earnings break the record of 100
million yuan (about 12.09 million US dollars), Wednesday's Economic
Daily reports.
Citing a recent report from the Chinese
Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Beijing-based newspaper
said that domestic CPA companies have picked up their pace amidst the
competition with foreign peers.
The Shu Lun Pan Certified Public Accounts Co.
Ltd, based in Shanghai, ranked first among all domestic players with
earnings of 153.3 million yuan (about 18.54 million US dollars).
The other three are the Beijing-based Shinewing,
Accountant Final and Yuehua, whose 2004 earnings stood at 120.95 million
yuan(14.63 million US dollars), 116.59 million yuan (14.1 million US
dollars) and 100.96 million yuan (12.21 million US dollars),
respectively.
Still,foreign heavyweights like
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Kpmg Peat Marwick, Deloitte touche Tohmatsu and
Ernst & Young, still have taken an absolute lead in the Chinese market.
Accounting firms will face new restrictions on
selling aggressive tax shelters to their publicly traded audit clients,
under new rules passed yesterday by the profession's chief regulator.
It is far from clear how effective the rules --
a compromise between the wishes of accounting firms and their critics --
will be in practice.
The new restrictions are part of a crackdown by
U.S. tax and accounting regulators on the proliferation of abusive tax
shelters that began during the 1990s economic boom, costing the U.S.
Treasury tens of billions of dollars. The government has said hundreds
of big companies used abusive shelters sold to them by accounting firms,
law firms and investment banks. Such schemes typically involve
transactions that lack economic substance and are engineered to create
phony losses or deductions for companies or wealthy individuals.
Yesterday's decision by the Public Company
Accounting Oversight Board addresses one of the major sales pushes by
the accounting firms: shelters they peddled to their audit clients.
Investors and regulators have worried that such sales can impair audit
firms' objectivity. Partly that is because audit firms must opine on
whether the tax strategies they sold are accounted for properly on
clients' financial statements.
The new rules, set to take effect next year,
remain subject to Securities and Exchange Commission approval but
largely are considered a done deal.
The rules' impact may be muted at first.
Already, in response to the mounting criticism, many publicly held
companies have slashed the amount of tax services they buy from their
auditors.
Speaking at yesterday's board meeting, PCAOB
Chairman William McDonough said the new rules "draw clear lines to
distinguish inappropriate services that impair auditor independence from
permissible services that are not detrimental."
However, the rules aren't that clear in
critical areas. The main provision says firms would be disqualified from
auditing clients to which they sell aggressive tax-avoidance strategies,
except in cases where the accounting firms "reasonably" believe the
strategies have a better-than-50% chance of being upheld if challenged
by the Internal Revenue Service.
The 50%-plus provision means the PCAOB would
have to place itself in the shoes of federal courts and predict how they
would rule on a given company's tax strategy, in order to make decisions
about whether the board's auditor-independence rules had been violated.
That element of the rules had drawn criticism
from some investors and accounting firms alike, which cautioned it could
make enforcement problematic. Tax disputes with the IRS commonly take
years to work their way through the appellate courts, particularly with
complex corporate-tax shelters.
In a Feb. 24 comment letter, two months after
the proposed rules' announcement, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), a staunch
supporter of recent tax-shelter crackdowns, wrote: "To enforce the
proposed standard, the PCAOB would have to take on the duty of reviewing
specific tax products being promoted by accounting firms and, in
consultation with the IRS, determine whether these specific products
meet the more-likely-than-not standard." He said the PCAOB's
determinations might "invite substantial litigation that could sap the
resources of the board."
There’s been a lot of talk about
cost-cutting over the past few years as companies of all sizes
strive to increase profits. When it comes to increasing profits,
however, reducing costs is only part of the story.
“Companies
will do everything in their power to
cut costs, from outsourcing IT
departments to limiting employee
travel. But there’s another side to
the profitability equation that
often goes unexplored – pricing,”
says Greg Peters, CEO of Zilliant.
“Pricing is the last bastion of
guesswork in American business, but
research shows companies that make
pricing a priority, and implement
solutions from a specialized pricing
vendor like Zilliant, can see a
profit improvement, sometimes as
high as 20 percent.”
A survey
conducted at the Pricing Institute’s
18th Annual PriceX Conference held
in Chicago, Illinois in June, found
that:
61
percent of companies use a
spreadsheet to determine price
not a specialized pricing
application or vendor
56
percent of companies have some
sort of pricing strategy in
place
44
percent of companies have a
dedicated pricing person or
department responsible for
pricing
35
percent of companies consider
pricing a top priority.
Reuters
reports another survey, this one of
members of the National Association
for Business Economics (NABE), found
that 38 percent of respondents
reported higher prices during the
second quarter. Additionally, 43
percent of respondents anticipated
raising prices during the next three
months.
Of course,
pricing accounting services, as well
as other professional services, is a
little more challenging than pricing
a product like a car, computer or
even a shirt. Deciding whether to
raise prices, and by how much, is
even more challenging. Most services
are priced using one of six common
methods:
Strategic pricing uses a
pricing level low enough to lure
clients or win bids away from
competitors. It is intended for
temporary or short-term use and
assumes that once a client has
experienced the service they
will stay with it even if the
price changes.
Parity pricing reflects what
other firms charge or are likely
to charge. Often, they are tied
to fee benchmark lists published
by professional associations,
business publications or
industry groups.
Negotiated pricing occurs
when a client tries to negotiate
the price of a service or the
types of services covered by the
price. Often this method is used
in bidding situations or when
the client maintains a list of
preferred vendors who regularly
compete to provide services.
Sociopolitical pricing
occurs when pricing is affected
by the type of client, by client
characteristics or by the type
of work needed. This pricing is
frequently considered “pro-bono”
work or used to break in to a
new area of practice.
Cost pricing uses both the
direct and indirect costs of
providing the service then adds
an amount for profit to
determine pricing. This is the
most popular pricing method
among professional service
providers and is commonly
expressed as the billable charge
per hour.
Value pricing attempts to
balance what clients think a
service is worth with the costs
of providing the service and the
amount of profit desired. This
method works best for firms with
established and superior
reputations.
Whichever
pricing method is used, to be sure
it is fair and reasonable
professionals need to record all the
tasks, equipment, staff and external
charges (such as printing fees,
long-distance phone calls or mileage
for travel to client sites)
associated with the service and the
precise amount of time spent
performing each needs to be recorded
and audited on a regular basis.
Indirect costs, especially overhead,
should also be monitored regularly
to ensure they do not increase
unexpectedly. The level of profit or
where the firm is in relation to its
profit goal also need frequently
progress checks. Understanding how
prices are determined and using
up-to-date data in the calculations
allows individuals to respond with
confidence to pricing inquiries
beyond just quoting a figure. It is
also an advantage over less
self-aware competitors.
“Pricing is
generally accepted as a core
business practice, but the process
some companies go through in
determining a price is often archaic
and arbitrary,” says Pete Epple,
senior director of Product
Management for Zilliant. “Some
businesses take the cost of a
product and add margin on top of
that price, while others simply
match or better their competitor’s
offering. Another practice is what
we call ‘Out of Thin Air’ or
guessing.”
MG Vernon Chong, USAF ret forwarded: This WAR is for REAL
Many will say September 11th, 2001. The answer
as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to
September 2001, with the following attacks on us:
MG Vernon Chong, USAF ret forwarded:
This WAR is for REAL
Many will say September 11th, 2001. The answer
as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to
September 2001, with the following attacks on us:
. Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979; . Beirut,
Lebanon Embassy 1983; . Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983; .
Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988; . First New York
World Trade Center attack 1993; . Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers
Military complex 1996; . Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998; . Dares Salaam,
Tanzania US Embassy 1998; . Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000; . New York World
Trade Center 2001; . Pentagon 2001.
(Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001
there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide).
2. Why were we attacked?
Envy of our position, our success, and our
freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents
Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2. We cannot fault either the
Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the
presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.
3. Who were the attackers?
In each case, the attacks on the US were
carried out by Muslims.
4. What is the Muslim population of the World?
25%.
5. Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful?
Hopefully, but that is really not material.
There is no doubt that the predominately Christian population of Germany
was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was
also Christian), that made no difference. You either went along with the
administration or you were eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million
Christians killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000
Polish priests). (see
http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm) .
Thus, almost the same number of Christians were
killed by the Nazis, as the six million holocaust Jews who were killed
by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish
atrocities. Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had
no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating
the Jews or of taking over the world - German, Christian or any others.
Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the
world on the US, but kill all in the way -- their own people or the
Spanish, French or anyone else. The point here is that just like the
peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no
matter how many peaceful Muslims there may be, they are no protection
for us from the terrorist Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically
bent on doing -- by their own pronouncements -- killing all of us
"infidels." I don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the
choice was shut up or die?
6. So who are we at war with?
There is no way we can honestly respond that it
is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically
correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There
is no way to win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate who you
are fighting.
So with that background, now to the two major
questions:
1. Can we lose this war?
2. What does losing really mean?
If we are to win, we must clearly answer these
two pivotal questions.
We can definitely lose this war, and as
anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is that so many
of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question - What does
losing mean?
It would appear that a great many of us think
that losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing the troops home
and going on about our business, like post Vietnam. This is as far from
the truth as one can get. What losing really means is:
We would no longer be the premier country in
the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily
increase. Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they had just
wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of
attacks against us, over the past 18 years. The plan was clearly, for
terrorist to attack us, until we were neutered and submissive to them.
We would of course have no future support from
other nations, for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would
see, we are impotent and cannot help them.
They will pick off the other non-Muslim
nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They
already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was right or
wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because
the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the
troops. Anything else they want Spain to do will be done. Spain is
finished.
The next will probably be France. Our one hope
on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't
win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim
terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France.
France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast!
If we lose the war, our production, income,
exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who
would trade or deal with us, if they were threatened by the Muslims.
If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone
else?
The Muslims fully know what is riding on this
war, and therefore are completely committed to winning, at any cost. We
better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost.
Why do I go on at such lengths about the
results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we
cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into
winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win.
So, how can we lose the war?
Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the
war by "imploding." That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to
recognize the enemy and their purpose, and really digging in and lending
full support to the war effort. If we are united, there is no way that
we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we can
win!
Let me give you a few examples of how we simply
don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation.
President Bush selects Norman Mineta as
Secretary of Transportation.
Although all of the terrorist attacks were
committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta
refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this
thing seriously? This is war! For the duration, we are going to have to
give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had
better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we
will most certainly lose all of them permanently.
And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We
gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII, and immediately restored
them after the victory and in fact added many more since then.
Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton
before him?
No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can
maintain all of our Political Correctness, and all of our civil rights
during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of
those words apply to war. Get them out of your head.
Some have gone so far in their criticism of the
war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally
like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn't because they are
disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing means.
Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are
divided and weakening. It concerns our friends, and it does great damage
to our cause.
Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by
the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of
war, perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying.
We have recently had an issue, involving the
treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war, by a small group of our
military police.
These are the type prisoners who just a few
months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off
their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own
people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein.
And just a few years ago these same type
prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same
reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters, who recently were
burning Americans, and dragging their charred corpses through the
streets of Iraq.
And still more recently, the same type enemy
that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of
the beheading of American prisoners they held.
Compare this with some of our press and
politicians, who for several days have thought and talked about nothing
else but the "humiliating" of some Muslim prisoners -- not burning them,
not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading
them, but "humiliating" them.
Can this be for real?
The politicians and pundits have even talked of
impeachment of the Secretary of Defense.
If this doesn't show the complete lack of
comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are
fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and the disastrous
results of losing this war, nothing can.
To bring our country to a virtual political
standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like Nero playing his
fiddle as Rome burned -- totally oblivious to what is going on in the
real world.
Neither we, nor any other country, can survive
this internal strife.
Again I say, this does not mean that some of
our politicians or media people are disloyal. It simply means that they
are absolutely oblivious to the magnitude, of the situation we are in
and into which the Muslim terrorists have been pushing us, for many
years.
Remember, the Muslim terrorists stated goal is
to kill all infidels! That translates into all non-Muslims -- not just
in the United States, but throughout the world.
We are the last bastion of defense.
We have been criticized for many years as being
'arrogant.' That charge is valid in at least one respect. We are
arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart,
that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and
that with both hands tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in
the world!
We can't!
If we don't recognize this, our nation as we
know it will not survive, and no other free country in the World will
survive if we are defeated.
And finally, name any Muslim countries
throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought,
freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equal rights for anyone --
let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have
been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the
world.
This has been a long way of saying that we must
be united on this war or we will be equated in the history books to the
self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders
will allow history books to be written or read.
If we don't win this war right now, keep a
close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or
less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France and
continue to encroach little by little, on the established French
traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves, over what
should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and
keep them from any united resolve. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?
Democracies don't have their freedoms taken
away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their
freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece.
And they are giving those freedoms away to
those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not
apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power.
They have universally shown that when they have
taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be
the few who control the masses. Will we ever stop hearing from the
politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"?
I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I
said above. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. I hope
now after the election, the factions in our country will begin to focus
on the critical situation we are in, and will unite to save our country.
It is your future we are talking about! Do whatever you can to preserve
it.
After reading the above, we all must do this
not only for ourselves, but our children, our grandchildren, our country
and the world.
Whether Democrat or Republican, conservative or
liberal and that includes the Politicians and media of our country and
the free world!
Please forward this to any you feel may want,
or NEED to read it. Our "leaders" in Congress ought to read it, too.
There are those that find fault with our
country, but it is obvious to anyone who truly thinks through this, that
we must UNITE!
A group of finance veterans released its report
on financial-markets risk yesterday, highlighting the mixed blessing of
credit derivatives, financial instruments that barely existed the last
time the markets seized up almost seven years ago.
"The design of these products allows risk to be
divided and dispersed among counterparties in new ways, often with
embedded leverage," the report of the Counterparty Risk Management
Policy Group II states, adding that "transparency as to where and in
what form risks are being distributed may be lost as risks are
fragmented and dispersed more widely."
Credit-default swaps are at the heart of the
credit-derivatives market. They allow players to buy insurance that
compensates them in the case of debt defaults. The market enables
parties to hedge against company or even country debt, but the market's
opacity makes it difficult for regulators and market participants to
sort out who is involved in various trades.
The report also notes that credit derivatives
can potentially complicate restructurings of the debt of ailing
companies and countries. "To the extent primary creditors use the
credit-default swap market to dispose of their credit exposure,
restructuring in the future may be much more difficult," the report
says.
Already, there have been cases where some banks
have been accused of triggering defaults after they had already hedged
their risk through the credit-derivatives markets. In other cases, when
the cost of credit-default protection on a company has risen, market
participants have taken that as a harbinger of more troubles to come,
making it harder for a company to get financing, and thereby forcing it
into a sale or a restructuring.
Deliberately targeting children on a street corner in Iraq is not
popular among people of any religious faith Squandered Sympathy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050714/ts_nm/muslims_binladen_dc "Support for Osama bin Laden and suicide bombings
have fallen sharply in much of the Muslim world, according to a multicountry
poll released on Thursday," Reuters reports. The Pew Research Center
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=248survey covered Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey,
Indonesia, Jordan and Lebanon, and only in Jordan had sympathy for bin Laden
increased since 2003.
From Opinion Journal on July 15, 2005
In Morocco, 26 percent of the public now say
they have a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, down from 49 percent in
a similar poll two years ago.
In Lebanon, where both Muslims and Christians took part in the survey,
only 2 percent expressed some confidence in the Saudi-born al Qaeda
leader, down from 14 percent in 2003.
In Turkey, bin Laden's support has fallen to 7 percent from 15 percent
in the past two years. In Indonesia, it has dropped to 35 percent from
58 percent.
This free site explains which seats to book and
which to avoid on 23 airlines. The site shows seat
maps according to plane, detailing seat pitch and
legroom, location of bulkheads, and exit rows.
Forwarded by Paula
SeatGuru.com ---
http://www.seatguru.com/ Jensen Comment: I guess I'd sit on the floor if
the plane's going to arrive on time where I want to
land.
Deliberately targeting children on a street
corner in Iraq is not popular among people of any
religious faith Squandered Sympathy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050714/ts_nm/muslims_binladen_dc "Support for Osama bin
Laden and suicide bombings have fallen sharply in
much of the Muslim world, according to a
multicountry poll released on Thursday," Reuters
reports. The Pew Research Center
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=248survey covered Morocco,
Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan and Lebanon, and
only in Jordan had sympathy for bin Laden increased
since 2003.
From Opinion Journal on July 15, 2005
In Morocco, 26 percent
of the public now say they have a lot or some
confidence in bin Laden, down from 49 percent in
a similar poll two years ago.
In Lebanon, where both Muslims and Christians
took part in the survey, only 2 percent
expressed some confidence in the Saudi-born al
Qaeda leader, down from 14 percent in 2003.
In Turkey, bin Laden's support has fallen to 7
percent from 15 percent in the past two years.
In Indonesia, it has dropped to 35 percent from
58 percent.
Jihad Made In Europe When we consider the
[Islamic] movements that embrace violence, we can
see that they are not expressions of an outburst in
the West of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict in
the Middle East. Most of the young Muslims
radicalize in the West: They are "born-again
Muslims." It's here that they are Islamicized.
Almost all separate from their families and many
have marriages with non-Muslims. Their dispute with
the world isn't imported from the Middle East: It is
truly modern, aimed against American imperialism,
capitalism, etc. In other words, they occupy the
same space that the proletarian left had thirty
years ago, that Action Directe had twenty years ago.
. . . They exist in a militant reality abandoned by
the extreme left, where the young live only to
destroy the system. . . . [This radicalization]
isn't at all the consequence of a "clash of
civilizations," that is to say, the importation of
intellectual frameworks coming from the Middle East.
This militant evolution is happening, in situ, on
our territory. It partakes henceforth of the
internal history of the West.
French scholar Olivier Roy as quoted by Reuel Marc
Gerecht, "Jihad Made In Europe," Weekly Standard,
July 25, 2005 ---
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/836esgwz.asp?pg=1
Schools Not Hard Enough: Why doesn't this
come as a surprise? A large majority of
high school students say their class work is not
very difficult, and almost two-thirds say they would
work harder if courses were more demanding or
interesting, according to an online nationwide
survey of teenagers conducted by the National
Governors Association.
Michael Janofsky, "Students Say High Schools Let
Them Down," The New York Times, July 17, 2005
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/education/16STUDENTS.html
Good Idea: ICE your mobile phone address book
Forwarded on July 15, 2005 by Scott Bonacker, CPA
[lister@BONACKERS.COM]
East Anglian Ambulance
Service has launched a national 'In case of
Emergency (ICE)' campaign.
The idea is that you
store the word 'ICE' in your mobile phone
address book, and against it enter the number of
the person you would want to be contacted In
Case of Emergency.
In an emergency
situation ambulance and hospital staff will then
be able to quickly find out who your next of kin
are and be able to contact them. It's so simple
that everyone can do it. Please do.
Please also forward
this to everybody in your address book, it won't
take too many 'forwards' before everybody will
know about this. For more than one contact name
ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc.
Jensen Stupid Comment: Nothing is said about no
ice "straight up."
Two-inch satellite receiver you can carry with
you on the go RaySat has developed a
two-inch receiver: a flat antenna that receives
satellite television broadcasts and provides
Internet access from a vehicle -- a car, RV, train,
or airplane. For the hardware, consumers can expect
to pay $2,000 for TV reception and an additional
$1,500 for Internet connectivity. Users who already
have satellite TV service in the home will pay only
a modest amount to add mobile service. Audiovox, a
publicly traded mobile media manufacturer and owner
of the Jensen brand, has signed on to resell
RaySat's line of on-the-go antennas.
"Info on the Go," Jon Burke, MIT's Technology
Review, July 13, 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/07/wo/wo_071305burke.asp?trk=nl
Q: Last week, you reviewed and
recommended a product called Slingbox that
allows you to view the TV signals coming into
your home on a Windows PC anywhere in the world.
Does the Slingbox record these TV shows for you?
A: No. The Slingbox, which costs $250
at Best Buy and CompUSA, doesn't have a hard
disk or any recording capability. It merely
takes all the programming you would normally get
if you were sitting in front of your home TV and
pumps it out over the Internet to any
Internet-connected Windows PC anywhere that is
running the company's software. All you have to
do is log into your home Slingbox remotely using
the unique ID number of the box and a password
you establish when you install the box at home.
Want both a friend and security in Washington
DC? Get a dog Sniffing the air for
hints of bombs, though, remains an elusive holy
grail. "Detecting explosives is not an easy thing,"
said David Danley, a retired Army colonel and head
of defense programs at Combimatrix Corp., a small
biotechnology company near Seattle.
Paul Elias and Brian Bergstein, "Dogs,
People Still Best 'Gadgets' in Securing Mass
Transit," MIT's Technology Review, July 13, 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/07/ap/ap_071305.asp?trk=nl
Dell's laser printer for under $100 But earlier this month when
one of H-P's competitors, Dell Computer, introduced
a laser printer for just $99 -- the least expensive
on the market -- my assistant Katie Boehret and I
started to recall the pluses of laser printing, and
we wanted to test it. Instead of watching yet
another document inching bit by bit out of an inkjet
printer, we were eager to see a laser-printed page
with crisp, well-defined text, spill out into the
output tray in one sudden moment.
Walter Mossberg, "The $99 Laser Printer: Home
Options Get Closer to Office Quality," The Wall
Street Journal, July 13, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,the_mossberg_solution,00.html
W.C. Fields once
recommended, "Always carry a flagon of whiskey
in case of snakebite and furthermore always
carry a small snake." Traditionally, practical
rationales for drinking were unconvincing, at
best. More recently, however, alcohol's
reputation has improved as new benefits from
drinking have come to light. Best known are the
studies showing the health benefits of moderate
alcohol use. It is now so well established that
it is almost a cliché that red wine lowers the
risk of heart disease. A new study by
researchers at the National Cancer Institute
also claims that drinkers may have a lower risk
of lymphoma than nondrinkers.
Economists assert that
benefits from alcohol are also financial,
showing that moderate drinking is associated
with higher earnings. If two workers are
identical in education, age, and other
characteristics except that the first has a
couple of beers each night after work while the
second is a teetotaler, the first will tend to
enjoy a "drinker's bonus" in the range of 10% to
25% higher wages. (Don't get carried away with
this information, though. Research also shows
that beyond about two drinks per day, wages
start to fall.)
Continued in the article
Bye bye Folkhemme
Mr. Rojas contends that Folkhemmet is a model
for a bygone era, brought low by the Swedish
economic crisis of the early '90s. Only the
privatization of public services and a ceiling on
public spending since those days has kept the
Swedish economy afloat. That is, what success Sweden
has enjoyed in the past decade has come from the
progressive abandonment of the old model.
"The Outdated 'Swedish Model'." The Wall Street
Journal, July 15, 2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112137695324786074,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
A more extreme bifurcation in the U.S.
In 1979-2000, the real income of the poorest fifth
of American households rose by 6.4%, while that of
the top fifth rose by 70% (and of the top 1% by
184%). As of 2001, that top 1% nabbed a fifth of
America's personal income and controlled a third of
its net worth. Again, this would not necessarily be
a cause for worry, as long as it was possible for
people to work their way up and down the ladder. Yet
various studies also indicate that social mobility
has weakened; indeed by some measures it may be
worse than it is in crusty old Europe. America fixed
its class problem in the Gilded Age by becoming more
meritocratic: money was poured into education, and
ladders were created for young bright children to
ease past the robber barons' doltish offspring.
America's “problem” nowadays—and it is really a
triumph—is that this meritocracy is working almost
too well. Put crudely, educated people are marrying
each other and pouring money into their children's
education to make sure they go to the same
universities. That helps explain why American
universities are so much better than their peers;
but only one in 30 students at the most selective
ones come from the poorest quarter of households.
"The missing rungs in the ladder: America has a
small problem with class—and a bigger one in its
schools," The Economist, July 14, 2005 ---
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4174181
Retirement Guide In BusinessWeek's Annual
Retirement Guide, we help you think through these
issues. We've tested new money-management services
that will help you invest and spend wisely. We've
looked at immediate annuities, which can be a good
way to make sure you don't run out of money. We've
also identified several great mutual funds, any of
which can make a worthwhile addition to your
portfolio.
"Taking The Longer View: Here's BusinessWeek's
annual guide to help you get the most out of your
retirement," Business Week, July 25, 2005 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_30/b3944401.htm?campaign_id=nws_insdr_jul15&link_position=link1
Jensen Comment: Bob Jensen recommends Vanguard
advice and Vanguard funds ---
http://www.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/content/Home/Portal.jsp
Vanguard is very ethical and very low cost when it
comes to mutual funds.
A thorn by any other name is still a thorn "The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of
the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid
labeling the perpetrators as 'terrorists,' "
London's Daily Telegraph reports:
Early reporting of the
attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but
the same coverage was changed to describe the
attackers simply as "bombers."
The BBC's guidelines state
that its credibility is undermined by the "careless
use of words which carry emotional or value
judgments."
Consequently, "the word
'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an
aid to understanding" and its use should be
"avoided," the guidelines say.
-------- Original
Message -------- Subject: [IP] identity Thieves
Employ High-Tech Tactics Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005
10:42:29 -0400 From: David Farber
<dave@farber.net> Reply-To: dave@farber.net To:
<ip@v2.listbox.com>
-----Original
Message----- From:
"EEkid@aol.com"<EEkid@aol.com> Sent: 13/07/05
7:56:00 AM To:
"dave@farber.net"<dave@farber.net> Subject:
Identity Thieves Employ High-Tech Tactics
Identity Thieves Employ
High-Tech Tactics Aleksandra Todorova
SmartMoney.com THANKS TO TECHNOLOGY advances,
identity thieves no longer need to dumpster-dive
in search of your private information. Now,
sensitive data can easily land in their hands
while you're shopping, browsing the Internet or
simply visiting your dentist. Here are five of
the latest high-tech forms of identity theft,
according to Truecredit, a unit of
credit-reporting bureau TransUnion, along with
ways consumers can protect themselves. 1.
Pharming. You've probably heard of "phishing," a
form of identity theft where fake emails are
sent out, asking you to urgently update your
bank account or credit-card information, which
is then sent to identity thieves. Now phishing
has evolved into "pharming," where thieves
create fake Web sites similar to the Web sites
of banks or credit-card companies. When
consumers who don't know the difference try to
log in, their account information is sent along
to the thieves.
These Web sites get
traffic through phishing, explains Nicole Lowe,
credit education specialist at Truecredit.com,
or with the help of computer viruses that
automatically redirect traffic from specific Web
addresses, such as those for banks, credit-card
companies or shopping Web sites.
1. To avoid
pharming, look out for anything strange
or new in the site's Web address, or URL,
Lowe recommends. You can also browse the Web
site in depth. The crooks likely haven't
recreated all its layers.
2. Gas stations.
Every time you swipe your credit or debit
card at the gas pump, your information is
sent via satellite to your bank for
verification. According to Truecredit,
identity thieves have now invented a way to
hijack that information by modifying the
program that carries out the data transfer
so that your credit-card number is sent to
them at the same time it's sent to your
bank. While there isn't a way to detect when
your data are being stolen, Lowe recommends
using only credit cards at the pump as a
precaution. With debit or check cards, it
takes a while for fraudulent purchases to be
credited back into your checking account,
while credit-card companies will remove any
disputed charges from your account
immediately.
3. International
skimming. According to Truecredit,
skimming occurs when your credit card is run
through a small reader, similar to those
used in grocery stores, which captures your
card information for future use by identity
thieves. This form of fraud is common in the
service industry here in the U.S., and
anywhere abroad. Be on the lookout when
paying with a credit card in a restaurant
that you're not familiar with, Lowe
recommends. If you don't feel comfortable
letting your card out of sight, use cash or
walk over to the cash register to pay your
bill.
When traveling abroad,
use only one credit card so it's easier to
detect any fraudulent charges. 4. Keystroke
catchers. These small devices are attached to
the cable that connects your keyboard to your
computer and can be bought online for a little
over $100. The "catcher" resembles a standard
connector, but contains a memory chip that
records everything you type. It's typically used
in public places where computers are available,
such as libraries, Internet cafes and college
computer labs. To protect yourself when using a
public computer, never shop online, check your
bank account, pay bills or enter your
credit-card information. 5. Database theft.
Chances are, your personal information is part
of numerous databases, including those at your
dentist and doctor's offices, your college or
university admissions office, your mortgage and
insurance companies, even your local
Blockbuster. While there's little you can do
about the way those companies safeguard your
information, you can try limiting their access
to sensitive data, such as your Social Security
number, says Lowe. Your cable company and DVD
rental store, for example, have no need to know
your Social Security number and should agree to
an alternative, such as the last few digits of
your driver's license number. _http://biz.yahoo.com/special/survive05_article1.html_
(
http://biz.yahoo.com/special/survive05_article1.html
)
Students and other faculty might be able to
read your email
Forwarded by Amy Dunbar on July 14, 1005
Just a reminder that
personal email written on university-owned
property may be publicly available. The
following Chronicle of Higher Education article
caught my attention this morning.
"Upset after the
department voted narrowly against hiring his
wife, Alexei Kojevnikov, a historian of science,
got hold of records and e-mail messages of his
dean, his department chairman, and four of his
colleagues. The hundreds of pages of
correspondence and notes include salary offers
to outside professors, opinions about job
candidates' qualifications, and records of
tenure decisions and spousal hires. The
documents even refer to one administrator's
cancer diagnosis.
How did he manage to
find such sensitive information? He simply asked
for it.
Like most states,
Georgia has an open-records law, or "sunshine
law," which allows anyone to receive copies of
records created by public employees, including
faculty members at public universities. Though
many states prevent the disclosure of personnel
records, Georgia is not among them."
July 15, 2005 reply from David Fordham, James
Madison University
[fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
A big thank you to Amy
for providing the seed for this discussion, and
thanks to Bob, Jagdish, Pat, Paul, Len, Charlie,
Denise, and anyone else I've overlooked for all
your contributions. While others may patiently
"put up with" these lengthy exchanges, I find
them a very refreshing mental sabbatical. I need
to thank Barry for facilitating these
communications.
And lest I be
misunderstood, I must note that I still live in
the good ol' U.S.A.
I agree that democracy,
albeit the most inefficient form of government
there is, still beats the alternatives in most
other respects.
I only wish the court
system had some additional checks and balances,
and that our population had the courage to
tackle the problems with it to make it even
better in serving the public. Several of the
founding fathers, including Madison and Adams
(Sam) expressed the fear that the judiciary was
the Achilles Heel of the new government, because
of the lack of checks and balances. They
expressed the fear that a judiciary could run
amuck because of its lack of accountability to
the people.
While having
indepedence from the public has some advantages,
it also prevents the system from being
answerable to that public. As has been said
about many things, "its strength is its biggest
weakness".
And I repeat that I am
basing my opinions on personal experience, not
media hype. I fully recognize the bias of the
media reports, for the media is in the business
of selling their product, not providing a public
service as some naive citizens might be misled
into believing.
While I openly
criticize the activities of big banks, credit
card companies, insurance conglomerates,
telecommunications giants, the media, lawyers,
(and willingly let Bob criticize corporate
governors) for acting counter to the best
interest of the public, we must remember that
they are all in it for the money. Misguided and
counterproductive as some of their efforts may
be, the bottom line is they are all trying to
make money.
The government,
however, I believe should be serving the people
rather than their own pecuniary interests. This
is why I find the judiciary's control by the
legal profession so disappointing, and more
disappointing is the lack of outrage by the
public over this, especially when the public is
so quick to express outrage at malfeasance by
corporate governors, accountants, and the others
when THEY get caught acting counter to the
public good.
But as Will Rogers is
reported to have said, "Individuals are smart,
it is the public that's crazy."
Again, I've enjoyed the
posts.
And for Jagdish, I
agree with most of your most recent post, but I
will again admit that I have been soured by the
abuses engendered by "human rights" to the point
where I don't support them as passionately as
you do. Human rights has become another name for
selfishness in those parts of the world where
"satisfactory" human rights have been operative
for more than a few years. By 'satisfactory', I
mean where sufficient human rights have been in
place to facilitate an operative and enjoyable
society (such as can be found in much of western
Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and
other "stereotypical civilized" areas, no insult
intended to other locales). Sure, some human
rights improvement can always take place, but by
and large, George B. Shaw's comment applies,
"how ironic that a statue representing liberty
should be given ... to the Americans, who are
suffering from too much of it."
Those places which do
not enjoy a working, progressing, and most
important, *enjoyable* society are the ones who
need reminding of human rights (and sometimes
some military reminding is required, as recent
world events demonstrate).
But in the
already-societized areas, once a threshhold is
reached, continued emphasis on human rights
tends to escalate into an entitlement mentality
which then evolves into socialism (witness some
European countries plight as described by Bob)
... or else the tendency is to abuse the rights
to the point of rewarding individual selfishness
above the good of the society at large.
I currently live in a
society which has enjoyed passable human rights
for a while (I agree more with Bill Cosby's
assessment than Al Sharpton's) and see the
abuses making my (and lots of others') life
miserable, rewarding a small number of
individuals to the detriment of a large number
of individuals. And now I am speaking out about
the abuses. In my vocalizations, it sounds as if
I'm anti-human rights, when in reality, I'm
against carrying the rights to the point where
they begin affecting society detrimentally
(adding more cost than they add benefit at the
macro level -- examples are HIPPA, ADA,
political correctness, etc.)
Being an accountant by
experience, I tend to weigh benefits against
cost, and have little use for low-benefit
high-cost efforts. Over the last decade or two,
I've watched as more and more high-cost,
low-benefit changes are mandated in the name of
"human rights", and the cost to society far
outweighs the benefits to society -- the benefit
accruing to the tiny minority who enjoyed the
"rights" being far outweighed by the high cost
to all the others.
It is this high-cost
low-benefit at the macro level which leads me to
have no desire to see the Universal Declaration
applied any further to the society in which I
currently reside.
David Fordham
Forwarded by Ed Scribner
Financially Sophisticated Board Members Aren't
Necessarily Good for the Company After boards of
directors were blamed by many for not nipping
the Enron, WorldCom and other corporate scandals
in the bud, new rules were set up requiring that
at least one member of a board's audit committee
be financially sophisticated. "The idea was that
somehow this would make the board better able to
monitor and detect potential fraud," says
Wharton finance professor Geoffrey Tate. Yet in
a new research paper titled, "The Impact of
Boards with Financial Expertise on Corporate
Policies," Tate and two co-authors study the
role of company directors who are commercial or
investment bankers and conclude that "financial
experts on corporate boards do not necessarily
improve shareholder value."
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1243.cfm
Message from Bea Caraway on July 13, 2005
Journey of Mankind: The Peopling of the World
Another possible "journey" for
mankind If stem
cells ever show promise in treating
diseases of the human brain, any
potential therapy would need to be
tested in animals. But putting human
brain stem cells into monkeys or
apes could raise awkward ethical
dilemmas, like the possibility of
generating a humanlike mind in a
chimpanzee's body.
Nicholas Wade, "Ethicists Offer
Advice for Testing Human Brain Cells
in Primates," The New York Times,
July 17, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/science/15stem.html
An end to wishful thinking Those
who believe that taking
cholesterol-lowering drugs will
reduce their risk for Alzheimer's
disease may want to reconsider. A
large study published yesterday in
Archives of Neurology found no proof
that the drugs affected the risk of
developing dementia from any cause -
Alzheimer's, vascular dementia or
the two combined.
Nicholas Bakalar, "Cholesterol Drugs
Show No Effect on Dementia Risk,"
The New York Times, July 12,
2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/health/12stat.html
Undercover Freshman So Nathan,
an anthropologist who has previously
devoted her scholarship to research
on a village in a developing
country, decided to apply her
discipline on her own campus, a
public university. Nathan applied as
a freshman (submitting only her high
school transcript to show her
academic credentials), moved into a
dorm, enrolled in courses, shared
beers and gossip with her fellow
students, and took careful notes
throughout. The result is
My Freshman Year: What a Professor
Learned by Becoming a Student,which is
about to be released by Cornell
University Press. Nathan is a
pseudonym and she does not identify
her university or any students by
name because she doesn’t want to
violate the privacy of those who
confided in her. In the book, and in
an interview, Nathan discussed the
unusual ethical issues she faced,
the joys and hazards of dorm life
and what she learned about higher
education by spending a year on the
other side of the power divide.
Scott Jaschik, "Undercover
Freshman," Inside Higher Ed,
July 13, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/13/frosh
Jensen Comment: Any professor
contemplating similar methodology
should first clear the research with
the university's Committee on
Research of Human Subjects or its
equivalent. College councilors
replied by stating the are no new
findings in this study.
Historians Beware: Keeper of Expired Web
Pages Is Sued Because Archive Was Used in Another
Suit In preparing the case,
representatives of Earley Follmer used the Wayback
Machine to turn up old Web pages - some dating to
1999 - originally posted by the plaintiff,
Healthcare Advocates of Philadelphia. Last week
Healthcare Advocates sued both the Harding Earley
firm and the Internet Archive, saying the access to
its old Web pages, stored in the Internet Archive's
database, was unauthorized and illegal.
Tom Zeller, "Keeper of Expired Web Pages Is Sued
Because Archive Was Used in Another Suit," The
New York Times, July 13, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/technology/13suit.html?
Now it looks like the
WayBack Machine could be facing some problems.
Best regards,
Jim
Recollections of AT&T as a monopoly: Proposal
to break the Big Four Bads into a set of Baby Bads Yet the potential
consequences of not prosecuting the firm
(KPMG) are also
unpalatable. Even if individual former partners are
indicted, a decision not to pursue the firm might be
interpreted as a declaration of immunity. It could
send a signal to the big four that it is worth
taking the sort of risks that KPMG seems to have
taken in the late 1990s when it decided to market
the tax avoidance schemes now at issue. One solution
would be to break the big four into the slightly
smaller six, seven or eight. Yet such a course would
reverse a decade of consolidation that was generally
beneficial for global clients. It would also be
almost impossible to achieve, given the big four's
network structure. Denny Beresford forwarded this link at
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/917a6332-f33a-11d9-843f-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=2.html
Healthcare seems to
want to eat the cake and have it too.
Law of property seems
to be a fairly well understood area when the
property is physical. When it is not, specially
in the cyberworld case, it seems to be
floundering. For many years I have wrestled with
simple questions that defy answers. Who owns the
financial statements? who "owns" the assertions
therein? If the companies producing them own
both or either, what rights do they have?...
Probably good topics for research in my
retirement. Such research would probably be
considered navel-gazing by most
standards-consumptive accounting departments.
While one can think of
metaphors for information as property, the law
has not been very responsive to the needs of
society (as is to be expected, legislatures have
been too special-interest ridden in passing
draconian laws relating to copyrights, patents,
and such other "intellectual" property). I do
not expect the situation to improve untill the
present generally pencil-and-legal-size-paper
wielding bars and benches are slowly replaced by
IT savvy folks (remember the judge in the
Microsoft anti-trust case who considered, on
demonstration that IE icon can be dropped from
the screen, that IE can be easily dropped from
the MS Windows?).
Legal concepts such as
prescriptive easements (aka squatters' rights
minus title) long entrenched in law of property
and not seen in case of cyber property, as far
as I know.
Home Owners Increasingly Betting on
Interest-Only Loans
Scott Horsley, NPR, July 12, 2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4749061
Hopefully many potential borrowers will heed Scott
Horsley's warnings and think twice about such loans.
Why did the Commission carve
out the full fair value
option in the original IAS
39 standard?
Do
prudential supervisors
support IAS 39 FVO as
published by the IASB?
When will the Commission to
adopt the amended standard
for the IAS 39 FVO?
Will companies be able to
apply the amended standard
for their 2005 financial
statements?
Does the amended standard
for IAS 39 FVO meet the EU
endorsement criteria?
What about the relationship
between the fair valuation
of own liabilities under the
amended IAS 39 FVO standard
and under Article 42(a) of
the Fourth Company Law
Directive?
Will the Commission now
propose amending Article
42(a) of the Fourth Company
Directive?
What about the remaining IAS
39 carve-out relating to
certain hedge accounting
provisions?
Progress and Problems for Female
Historians By many
measures, history is a discipline in
which women have made notable
progress in the last generation.In
1979, women made up only 16 percent
of new history Ph.D.’s, and in the
20 years that followed, that
percentage rose to 40. But a new
American Historical Association
report
notes the many ways in which
progress has been limited. The
report was prepared by Elizabeth
Lunbeck, a Princeton historian, and
mixes a review of data with surveys
of women in the field.Both the data
and the survey point to lingering
problems. For instance, statistics
show that by 1988, 39 percent of
assistant professors of history were
women. But by 1999, only 18 percent
of full professors of history were
women.
Scott Jaschik, "Progress and
Problems for Female Historians,"
Inside Higher Ed, July 14, 2005
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/14/women
Blackbaud developed The Financial Edge(tm)
Financial accounting software does not generally
work well for nonprofit fund-accounting
organizations. That's why Blackbaud developed The
Financial Edge(tm) - the most flexible and adaptive
financial management solution available, made to fit
the unique needs of nonprofit CFOs.
http://www.as411.com/DomBanAd.nsf/WebAdClick_2?OpenAgent&ad=BLACKBAUD-LNK1&adloc=WNLNK
Update on Nanotechnology Skeptics call nanotech a
great collection of small markets with no killer
app. That's probably true in the short term, but
even three years out, some of the things we'll see
will be monumentally world changing. Is the federal
National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) helping
things along? One of the industry's ongoing problems
is the gap between basic and applied research.
People call it "the valley of death"--too big or
long-range for the VCs to handle, too applied for
academics. NNI should be a helpful bridge.
Spencer Reice, "Can Small Be Big Again?" MIT's
Technology Review, August 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/forward_small.asp?trk=nl
New models upon the developing nations Now comes the real test:
can Bhutan and the king's enlightened framework
withstand the messy business of democracy and
development, and the problems that tend to follow?
"With China, India, and Nepal sitting on its
borders," says Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the
Washington, DC, policy think tank the Brookings
Institution who specializes in south-Asia security
matters, "and donor nations in the West constantly
pushing new models upon the developing nations they
fund, anything can happen." But if Bhutan can prove
that democracy, social equality, sustainable
development, environmental protection, and limited
technology are compatible with Buddhism and
21st-century modernization, it will be an
interesting example for other poor nations who want
modern technology and economies--but who want them
on their own terms.
Stephan Herrera, "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise?" MIT's
Technology Review, August 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/feature_wise.asp?trk=nl
Online Recreation Versus Addiction The Web largely remains
a place to have fun and enjoy personal pursuits. The
Pew Internet and American Life Project estimates
that 70 million U.S. adults are online on a given
day. Activities formerly done offline, such as
checking the news and weather, are now done online
by nearly twice as many people as in 2000. The
market for paid content continues to expand, with
sites collecting $1.8 billion in revenue in 2004.
Dating sites account for more revenue than any other
type of site. Entertainment sites, such as music-
and movie-downloading destinations, rank second
despite 90 percent revenue growth in 2004. But these
market figures exclude two significant sources of
online revenue: pornography and gambling sites.
While the nature of the sites' content makes
accurate estimates of their traffic and revenues
difficult, Nielsen/NetRatings monitored site visits
among a panel of surfers and found that during April
alone, 24 percent visited porn sites and 18 percent
visited gambling sites. It's no wonder, then, that
there are an estimated two million pornographic
sites on the Web today and that the online gambling
market is expected to hit $24 billion by 2010.
Maryann Jones Thompson, "Online Recreation," MIT's
Technology Review, August 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/datamine.asp?trk=nl
Landmark Exposure Draft containing joint
proposals to improve and align accounting for
business combinations
The International
Accounting Standards Board (IASB), based in
London, and the US Financial Accounting
Standards Board (FASB) have announced
publication of an Exposure Draft containing
joint proposals to improve and align accounting
for business combinations. The proposed standard
would replace IASB’s International Financial
Reporting Standard (IFRS) 3, Business
Combinations and the FASB’s Statement 141,
Business Combinations.
Sir David Tweedie, IASB
Chairman and Bob Herz, FASB Chairman, emphasized
the value of a single standard to users and
preparers of financial statements of companies
around the world as it improves comparability of
financial information. "Development of a single
standard demonstrates the ability of the IASB
and the FASB to work together,” Tweedie
continued.
Enron Former Executive Pleads Guilty to
Conspiracy The guilty plea in Houston
federal court yesterday by Christopher Calger, a
39-year-old former vice president in Enron's North
American unit, involved a 2000 transaction known as
Coyote Springs II in which the company sold some
energy assets, including a turbine, to another
company. In his guilty plea, Mr. Calger said that he
and "others engaged in a scheme to recognize
earnings prematurely and improperly" with the help
of a private partnership, known as LJM2 that was run
and partly owned by Enron's then-chief financial
officer, Andrew Fastow. To avoid problems with
Enron's outside auditors, company officials were
"improperly hiding LJM2's participation in this
transaction," according to Mr. Calger's plea.
John Emshjwiller, "Enron Former Executive Pleads
Guilty to Conspiracy," The Wall Street Journal,
July 15, 2005; Page B2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112139210586786521,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
The U.S. Injustice System: Now for years of
appeals Former WorldCom Chief
Executive Bernard Ebbers was handed a 25-year prison
term Wednesday for directing the biggest accounting
fraud in corporate history, leaving thousands of
investors empty-handed. CNBC and other news
organizations originally reported the sentence as
between 30 years and life in prison. However, Ebbers’
attorneys were allowed to speak before the final
sentence was handed down and the judge ultimately
decided to render a final, 25-year verdict.
"Ebbers sentenced to 25 years in prison Ex-WorldCom
CEO guilty of directing biggest accounting fraud,"
MSNBC, July 13, 2005 ---
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8474930/
Mysterious Connections that Link Us Together Iranian-born writer Azar
Nafisi was fired from the University of Tehran for
refusing to wear a veil. Her book, Reading Lolita in
Tehran, is based on the years she secretly taught
literature to female students in her home. Nafisi
now works at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced
International Studies.
Azar Nafisi, "Mysterious Connections that Link Us
Together," NPR, July 18, 2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4753976
"When Your CD Is
Skipping," by Ian Mount, The Wall Street Journal,
July 19, 2005; Page D1
The Problem: Your favorite CD
keeps skipping.
The Solution: The cause is almost
always a smudge or scratch on the CD
itself, rather than a faulty CD player.
That's especially common with CDs that
are left out of their cases in cars --
or regularly handled by kids who don't
pick them up by the edges. In the case
of dust or smudges caused by the oil in
fingerprints, the CD can be cleaned with
a dry cloth or with a solution of
vinegar and water. If the CD is
scratched, however, you either have to
fill the scratch or buff it out, says
Marshall Brain, founder of
HowStuffWorks.com, a site that explains
how things function.
Companies like Memorex and CD 2000 offer
special repair kits for under $15, but
household products also work. Furniture
waxes like Pledge can help fill
scratches, while mild abrasives like
white (not gel) toothpaste can be used
to buff out a scratch. When cleaning or
fixing a CD's surface, always wipe
outwards from the center of the disc,
never in a circle.
Jensen Comment: But
if it skips on multiple CDs, it's probably a faulty
player like I have in my office.
Is there any doubt why these are the fastest
growing colleges? Enrollment surges at
women’s colleges that recently decided to admit men.
Scott Jaschik, "Male Impact," Inside Higher Ed,
July 19, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/19/men
This is the best medical news I've heard in
years
"Dark Chocolate May Cut High Blood Pressure:
Researchers Say Flavonoids in Dark Chocolate May Be
the Reason for Blood Pressure Improvement," by
Miranda Hitti, WebMD, July 18, 2005 ---
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/108/109061.htm?z=1727_00000_5024_hv_03
When the Bills Come Due, Then What? "When all these
[adjustable-rate] mortgages reset soon, some of
these people are going to see their monthly payments
rise by a few hundred dollars a month," Mr. Abate
says. "That's a real significant bump for all those
people complaining now that gas prices have risen
over $2 a gallon." And recent data suggest the debt
burden on households is growing heavier, despite low
interest rates. The "debt service ratio," the
Federal Reserve's estimate of the ratio of debt
payments to after-tax income, hit 13.4% in the first
quarter of this year, an all-time high since the Fed
began tracking it in 1980. The financial obligations
ratio, which adds automobile lease and rent
payments, homeowners insurance and property-tax
payments to the debt service ratio, was 18.45% last
quarter, near the record high of 18.84% in late
2002.
Kelly Spors, "When the Bills Come Due, Then What?"
The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2005; Page
D2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112154542153387582,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Q: My wife, a
nonsmoker, was diagnosed with non-small-cell
lung cancer. One doctor said it could be
radon-related. I tested my house and got a
reading of 7.3. Should I be concerned? --D.K.
A: The link
between lung cancer and radon exposure in homes
has long been controversial, but recent research
shows homeowners should be concerned. Radon is a
radioactive, invisible, odorless gas that comes
from the decay of naturally occurring uranium in
the earth's soil. Radon can accumulate in
enclosed areas, such as homes and underground
mines. Radon is the second-leading cause of lung
cancer in the U.S., after smoking, with an
estimated 21,000 lung-cancer deaths each year
related to radon exposure, according to the
Environmental Protection Agency.
. . .
Home-inspection
companies can perform radon test or
do-it-yourself test kits are available at
hardware stores. The EPA recommends that houses
with radon levels of 4.0 picocuries per liter or
higher of radon should be fixed to prevent
accumulation of radon gas indoors, although the
recent studies suggest homeowners should take
action if the reading is above 3.0. To learn
more go to the
www.epa.gov/radon or
call 800-SOS-RADON.
Q: I stopped
taking Premarin (estrogen-replacement therapy)
over four years ago, the summer before I was 70.
I did not discuss this decision with a doctor.
Does taking Premarin for many years as I did
make the symptoms of menopause continue longer?
I am so tired of hot flashes.
A: Women who
suddenly stop taking hormone therapy typically
will experience menopause symptoms as a result.
Taking hormones for many years won't make your
symptoms worse or last longer. However, the
symptoms occur because the body is suddenly
dealing with a depletion of estrogen, just as it
would have if you'd never been taking estrogen
therapy in the first place. In most women,
menopause symptoms such as hot flashes continue
from one to five years, however in a small group
of women, symptoms, particularly hot flashes and
night sweats, can last indefinitely.
. . .
There are other reasons
you should discuss hot flashes with a doctor.
Last fall, an Annals of Family Medicine study
found that 10% to 30% of elderly patients had
hot flashes and night sweats. The researchers
said night sweats should prompt doctors to
evaluate patients for health issues, including
diabetes, depression, and restless leg syndrome,
as well as conditions like tuberculosis,
autoimmune disease and cancer.
Rumsfeld's War of the Words Every conflict in history
has seen its share of rumor, propaganda and
misinformation. The "yellow journalism" that helped
launch the Spanish-American War and the infamous
radio broadcasts of "Tokyo Rose" during World War II
come to mind. But the information technology of the
21st century has made waging an ideological global
struggle against extremism particularly complex.
Decision makers, the media and the public at large
will need to come to terms with the effect of these
new realities. The old adage that "A lie can be
half-way around the world before truth has its boots
on" becomes doubly true with today's technology.
But, it must be noted, the availability of new
communications media can inform and illuminate as
well as lead to new challenges. I think of how much
has changed just in my lifetime. In earlier wars,
Americans, for the most part, were limited to a few
definitive news sources -- Edward R. Murrow during
World War II, for example, or Walter Cronkite during
Vietnam -- to get information that had been packaged
and approved for presentation to the public.
Donald H. Rumsfeld, "War of the Words," The Wall
Street Journal, July 18, 2005; Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112164930948087989,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Recommended Reading: Getting Smart About
Information Security Bruce Schneier, founder and
chief technical officer of Counterpane Internet
Security Inc., has spent much of his career
educating people about digital security. His book,
Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked
World, serves as a non-technical introduction to
the full, messy complexity of digital security.
"Recommended Reading: Getting Smart About
Information Security," The Wall Street Journal,
July 18, 2005; Page R2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112060620712177906,00.html?mod=todays_us_the_journal_report
That pain patch may get you an earth patch The Food and Drug
Administration said Friday that it was investigating
120 reports of deaths possibly linked to overdoses
from fentanyl narcotic pain patches. "The agency has
been examining the circumstances of product use to
determine if the reported adverse events may be
related to inappropriate use of the patch or factors
related to the quality of the product," the FDA said
in a statement. The patches are attached to
patients' skin to deliver the medication fentanyl, a
powerful narcotic designed to treat chronic pain.
They are sold under the brand name Duragesic by a
unit of Johnson & Johnson and have been available as
a generic since earlier this year. Fentanyl is in a
class of drugs known as opioids, which are used to
treat pain.
Jennifer Corbett Dooren, "FDA Investigates 120
Deaths Possibly Tied to Use of Pain Patch," The
Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2005; Page B4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112145246879987040,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
We can excuse your belly, but there are no
excuses for your butt There's growing
evidence that chronic stress can make you thick
around the middle. Studies in rats and monkeys
clearly show that a high-stress environment
increases risk for accumulating abdominal fat, the
type of fat linked with heart disease. And in human
studies, stress appears to put normal-weight women
at higher risk for excess belly fat.
"Gaining Belly Fat May Be Body's Way of Coping,"
The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2005; Page
D1---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112172706650488801,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
New Treatment for Hardcore Depression The Food and Drug
Administration approved an implantable medical
device to treat depression in people who haven't
responded to other therapies, a decision likely to
reignite debate over its use. The vagus-nerve
stimulator, made by Cyberonics Inc. of Houston, was
approved for depressed patients who have failed to
show a response to at least four other treatments.
The device, which works by delivering electric
pulses to a nerve in the neck, was already on the
market for patients with epilepsy.
Anna Wilde Mathews, "Cyberonics' Device to Treat
Depression Gets FDA OK," The Wall Street Journal,
July 18, 2005; Page B4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112164564929387918,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Anti-Jew and Anti-White Theories at City
College of New York Leonard Jeffries is a
longtime faculty member at the City College of New
York (CCNY) and a onetime head of its Black Studies
Department. He is also one of the leading proponents
of Afrocentrism—a school of dubious intellectual
merit that judges Western civilization to be
irredeemably racist and demands a corrective
curriculum glorifying African peoples and culture.
But Jeffries subscribes to more than just cultural
chauvinism. He is also a black supremacist, claiming
whites to be genetically inferior to blacks, and an
inveterate anti-Semite, apportioning to "rich Jews"
the blame for everything from the allegedly
anti-black content of Hollywood movies to the
transatlantic slave trade. Jeffries' black
supremacist views first came to public notice in the
spring of 1988, when a white student, writing in the
CCNY campus newspaper, catalogued the host of
anti-white theories that Jeffries routinely advanced
in one of his classes, Black Studies 101. Jeffries
had been teaching at CCNY since 1972, when he was
tapped to head the Black Studies department and was
almost instantly granted tenure, thanks in no small
part to a CCNY administration determined to appease
a surging militancy among blacks on campus. Still,
this was the first time that his bigotry had been
aired in public.
DiscoverTheNetworks.Org ---
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1964
Not politically correct at
Princeton? Princeton
University is losing an assistant
professor of Near Eastern studies —
and a likely tenure battle. Michael
Doran is taking a position at the
U.S. National Security Council.
Although he had yet to come up for
tenure, his supporters and critics
had already been
skirmishing.Doran, who
declined to comment on his move, is
considered more sympthatic to Israel
and to U.S. foreign policy than are
most scholars of the Middle East. Inside Higher Ed, July 18,
2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/18/qt
Answer
"Analysis: Adults with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder," From Talk of the Nation for
July 12, 2005
THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF UNIVERSITY BUSINESS
EDUCATION The Australian Business
Deans Council, which represents the heads of
Australian business schools, commissioned an
independent research study in 2004 to examine the
economic value of a university business education.
Access Economics, the country’s leading economic
consultancy, conducted the research and the firm’s
report, Economic Value of University Business
Education, shows some interesting – but not
unexpected – results. It confirms what we have
always suspected in Australia – that university
business education results in a considerable net
economic benefit to the Australian economy and
society in the form of higher taxation revenue,
personal income, and greater productivity.
THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF UNIVERSITY BUSINESS EDUCATION,
by Professor Peter Wolnizer, Dean, Faculty of
Economics and Business at The University of Sydney
and President, Australian Business Deans Council ---
http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/enewsline/Vol-4/Issue-7/dc-PeterWolnizer.asp
A recent survey
published in Research in Higher Education
reveals that university faculty members feel
more supported in their work lives and have a
more favorable attitude toward technical support
in the workplace. The study, conducted by Vicki
Rosser, assistant professor of educational
leadership and policy analysis at the University
of Missouri-Columbia, examined three dimensions
of work life ― professional development,
administrative support, and technical support―to
measure faculty members’ levels of satisfaction.
For a copy of the study
and/or contact information for the researcher,
contact:
Jeff Neu Sr.
Information Specialist University of
Missouri-Columbia News Bureau 573-882-3346
NeuJ@missouri.edu
Student Assessment Controversy
July 18, 2005 message from MacEwan Wright, Victoria
University
[Mac.Wright@VU.EDU.AU]
Nepotism in Georgia technical colleges Georgia’s Department of
Technical and Adult education has issued draft
anti-nepotism rules in the wake of revelations that
a number of presidents of technical colleges have
had close relatives on their institutions’ payrolls,
according to an article in The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution (free registration required).
The newspaper reported that the draft policy would
ban the hiring of people who have superiors at the
colleges they are related to, effectively barring
the hiring of presidents’ relatives. Inside Higher Ed, July 18, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/18/qt
In old age ignorance/stupidity is bliss Intelligence may lead
to a better paid job and quality of life but, in old
age, cleverness has no effect on happiness, new
research suggests. A happy old age is what many
people spend their lives preparing for, aiming for
financial security and good health in their dotage.
But one thing people need not worry about, it seems,
is how clever they are. A study of more than 400
pensioners reveals that cognitive ability is
unrelated to happiness in old age. The Scottish
research looked at a group of 416 people born in
1921, who underwent intelligence tests at the ages
of 11 and 79. At the age of 80, the group was also
sent a “satisfaction with life” questionnaire, which
had them assess their current level of happiness.
"Intelligence is irrelevant to a happy old age,"
New Scientist, July 15, 2005 ---
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7678
Marrying Maps to Data for a New Web Service Since the Google and Yahoo
tools were released, their uses have been
demonstrated in dozens of ways by hobbyists and
companies, including an annotated map guide to the
California wineries and restaurants that appeared in
the movie "Sideways" and instant maps showing the
locations of the recent bombing attacks in London.
Later this summer, Microsoft plans to introduce a
competing service, Virtual Earth, with software that
programmers will be able to use in similarly
creative ways.
Jeff Markoff, "Marrying Maps to Data for a New Web
Service," The New York Times, July 18, 2005
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/technology/18maps.html?
Gay student fined because of lewd
e-mail messages A Texas
judge has ordered a former seminary
student at Baylor University to pay
the institution $77,000 over lewd
e-mail messages he sent to officials
there, the Associated Press
reported.The messages, many of them meant
to appear as if they were coming
from other Baylor officials, were
sent after the student lost a
scholarship because he is gay. Inside Higher Ed, July 19,
2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/19/qt
Huge Medicaid fraud in NY: Why doesn't this
come as a great surprise? It was created 40 years
ago to provide health care for the poorest New
Yorkers, offering a lifeline to those who could not
afford to have a baby or a heart attack. But in the
decades since, New York State's Medicaid program has
also become a $44.5 billion target for the
unscrupulous and the opportunistic.
Clifford J. Levy and Michael Luo, "New York Medicaid
Fraud May Reach Into Billions," The New York
Times, July 18, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/NYTJuly18
Sharing Professor of the Week --- Jim Mahar St. Bonaventure University: SBU prof's site
named one of top 10 finance blogs in the country ---
http://snipurl.com/CongratulationsJim
How Does Investor Short-termism Affect Mutual
Fund Manager Short-termism? Excessive fund manager
focus on short horizon investments will likely
affect asset prices, by inflating the price of the
most liquid assets, which can be quickly resold
without large price impact. On the other hand, long
term investments could be the “neglected asset
class” and thus might be less efficiently priced.
Li Jin as quoted on July 14, 2005 by Jim Mahar at
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
Reference for Jin's research Paper:
"How Does Investor Short-termism Affect Mutual Fund
Manager Short-termism?," by Li Jin ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=675262
Do investment markets get a boot out of
soccer? This paper investigates
the stock market reaction to the outcome of
international football competitions, such as the
FIFA World Cup, a variable shown in psychological
literature to have a dramatic effect on mood. We
document an economically and statistically
significant market decline after football losses.
Daily stock returns are 39 basis points lower than
average following a loss in a World Cup elimination
match.
Li Jin as quoted on July 14, 2005 by Jim Mahar at
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
"Football and Stock Returns," by Alex Edmans, Diego
Garcia, Oyvind Norli ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=677103
In Latin America, Rich-Poor Chasm Stifles
Growth The lack of economic and
social mobility continues to hinder development in
Latin America, where the gap between rich and poor
is among the steepest in the world . . . While
researchers have in recent years described limits to
class mobility in the U.S. and decried the growing
wage gap among Americans, things are much worse just
south of the border. The son of a blue-collar worker
in Mexico has only a 10% chance of making the jump
to a white-collar job, compared with a 30% chance in
the U.S., according to a 2001 study by the
Inter-American Development Bank. Because of an
abundance of natural resources and a large
indigenous population, Latin American nations grew
up relying on raw materials, cheap manual labor to
exploit them and low government taxation. The system
concentrated land ownership and wealth in a few
hands, deprived governments of money to spend on
education and offered little incentive for the elite
to invest in human capital or technology. Latin
America has also historically relied on monopolies
and franchises, leaving few opportunities for
entrepreneurs to advance through hard work and
innovation. The American dream never became the
Latin American dream.
David Luhnow and John Lyons, "In Latin America,
Rich-Poor Chasm Stifles Growth: Many Struggle to
Move Up Amid Educational Divide; Tehuacán's Powerful
Clan Ambitious Baker Looks to U.S." The Wall
Street Journal, July 18, 2005; Page A1---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112164363441787882,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
New Appeal by KPMG A California superior-court
judge sanctioned KPMG LLP last week for withholding
documents in an accounting-malpractice lawsuit
brought by a small private computer-case maker, the
third time the big accounting firm has been
criticized by a judge for its legal tactics in
recent months. In an order issued Wednesday, Orange
County Superior Court Judge Geoffrey Glass
instructed KPMG to pay $30,000 for "its abuse of the
discovery process" and directed the jury to consider
such behavior as it weighs the case brought by
Targus Group International Inc. Judge Glass wrote
that KPMG "deliberately or recklessly withheld or
delayed in producing many responsive documents,"
adding that "the Court warned KPMG-US at least twice
about gamesmanship in discovery." "We're
disappointed by the Court's ruling," a KPMG
spokesman said in a statement. "We fully complied
with all discovery orders in the Targus case. We
plan to seek appellate review of this order."
Diya Gullapalli, "Judge Fines KPMG Over Tactics In
Accounting-Malpractice Suit," The Wall Street
Journal, July 18, 2005; Page C4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112164712739487960,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Tuition Increases Start to Slow: Endowment
Returns, Parent Outrage Help Curb Cost of State
Colleges There is a dose of good
news for parents about to write college tuition
checks: Though costs continue to climb at a pace
well above inflation, the rate of increase at many
schools is slowing. In Virginia, for instance,
in-state undergraduates this year will pay 8% more
in tuition and fees on average at the state's public
colleges and universities, which include the
University of Virginia and the College of William
and Mary. Last year, Virginia students faced a 9%
increase, while the two years before that they paid
15% more each year on average.
Anne Marie Chaker, "Tuition Increases Start to
Slow: Endowment Returns, Parent Outrage Help Curb
Cost of State Colleges; A 4.5% Rise at Harvard,"
The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2005; Page D1
---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112172973201988846,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Labor Flashback The Wall Street Journal, July 18, 1949
The nation's workers are
sticking to their jobs and working a lot harder
these days. The extra push is due, in part, to
industry's drive to cut costs. Bosses say the recent
rash of layoffs has workers worried -- they're more
anxious to hang onto their jobs now.
Trivia from The Washington Post on July 19,
2005
The University of
Maryland in College Park was recently ranked the top
academic center in an area of technology research.
What was that area?
Robots replace jockeys Remote-controlled robot
jockeys made their debut as camel riders in the
United Arab Emirates Monday, competing in a trial
race after the Gulf Arab state tightened a ban on
child jockeys. Robots weighing up to 15 kg (33 lb)
were dressed in the clothes of human jockeys during
the race held in the capital Abu Dhabi, which
officials described as "successful," the WAM news
agency reported.
"Robots replace child jockeys in UAE camel race,"
The Washington Post, July 19, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071800836.html?referrer=email
Oh goodie: An algorithm for "great" phone sex But it's not just talent.
Goldman, 23, says there's a formula for good dirty
talk, an algorithm of desire that she's documented
in her electronic guide, Phonesexatron. For now,
she's using it to boost the revenue of the company
she co-owns. But she imagines selling Web access to
the rest of the billion-dollar industry. "Most
people could be phone sex operators," she says
during a long phone conversation (no charge!) from
her office in Cleveland. "You just have to tap into
what's human about you."
"Best. Phone. Sex. Ever," Wired News, July 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/posts.html?pg=2?tw=wn_tophead_2
Looking over our list
of the top ten richest people in the world, a
few similarities jump out. Perhaps by looking at
these similarities, we can create some kind of
formula for how to get rich in the modern world.
The main criterion seems to be that one has to
be male - sadly, there is not a woman in the
bunch. The other two secret ingredients for
wealth are, in no particular order, working for
Microsoft and/or being an oil baron. Oh, so
that's all! Go out, become a high-ranking
executive at Microsoft, buy a bunch of oil
wells, and you'll be in the money. Please keep
in mind that these numbers, while insanely high,
can rise and fall with incredible ease, so these
figures are accurate as of February 9, 2000.
10. Michael Dell
Age: 34 Nationality:
American Marital Status: Married Children: 4
Education: U. Texas Worth: $16.5 Billion
Just barely squeaking
in at number ten is the youngest of all of our
billionaires, the young pup who founded Dell
Computers. Mike dropped out of U. Texas at 19,
put up his BMW to get a business loan, and
started selling people PCs by mail order. The
day his former classmates were graduating, his
sales had already hit $70 million a year. Today,
of course, he sells $2 million a day, and the
company revenues are about $7.8 billion a year.
He has passed IBM in annual sales, and is
closing in on industry leader Compaq. The
bastard.
9. Phillip F.
Anschutz
Age: 59 Nationality:
American Marital Status: Married Children: 3
Education: Kansas Worth: $16.5 Billion
Phil is the kind of guy
whose father was a rich oil billionaire, but
decided he didn't like the family business. Phil
preferred real estate and railroads, and he
still made a bundle. Rather than just being born
lucky (although we're sure that didn't hurt),
Anschutz is a savvy businessman. He has
interests in fiber optics companies such as
Qwest Communications International, LA sporting
interests, huge cattle ranches in Wyoming, and
lots of downtown Denver real estate interests.
But let's face it: the biggest chunk was
inherited.
8. Amir Jaber
Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Alsabah
Age: 77 Nationality:
Kuwaiti Worth: $17 Billion
The man's money is in
oil, investments, property, and the sweat of his
people. And this is just what's left over since
we kicked Saddam Hussein out of the
neighborhood. Imagine the filthy stinkin' riches
that he had prior to the burning of thousands of
his oil wells. This is why we recommend
Microsoft or oil baron as the best way to
becoming a billionaire. You're born, you inherit
oil fields, you live the easy life in the Middle
East… you just can't beat it.
7. Steven Anthony
Ballmer
Age: 43 Nationality:
American Marital Status: Married Children: 2
Education: Stanford and Harvard Worth: $19.5
Billion
The first of the
Microsoft Billionaires on our list, Steve
actually lived down the hall from Bill Gates at
Harvard, and is now the President and Chief
Executive Officer of Mr. Bill's little venture.
Many revere/blame him for the supposed monopoly
Microsoft Corp. now holds, because of his
tenacity and amazing business know-how.
He joined the company
in 1980 and has held a number of positions,
starting as Bill's personal towel boy, and
leading up to VP of Sales and Support before
becoming the Prez in '98. Ballmer was appointed
CEO of Microsoft on January 13, 2000. Not a bad
little gig.
6. Sheikh Zayed Bin
Sultan Al Nahyan
Age: 66 Nationality:
Abu Dhabian Worth: $20 Billion
Sheikh Zayed's home
country of Abu Dhabi has grown over the last
half century into one of the richest in the
United Arab Emirates. Educated by local clerics
and later by wandering Bedouin tribesmen in the
desert, the Sheikh's defining achievement has
been the management of supply and distribution
of water. This is an important thing in the
desert, so you can imagine he is quite popular
there.
All of his money is in
oil, investments, vast property, and the sweat
of his people. And water. For the love of God,
don't forget the water.
5. King Fahd Bin
Abdulaziz Alsaud
Age: 77 Nationality:
Saudi Arabian Marital Status: Married Children:
1 Worth: $28 Billion Born in Riyadh in 1923, the
King has spent his life on one diplomatic
mission after another. He has also held such
posts as Minister of Education, Minister of the
Interior, and, of course, the King. He was
present at the signing of the United Nations
Charter in 1945, the coronation of Queen Liz the
second in 1953, and a meeting with Richard Nixon
in the U.S. in 1974 (taped recordings of this
meeting still exist to this day, but no one
knows where).
He came to power in
1982, and all of his money is in oil,
investments, property, and the sweat of his
people (sound familiar?). All because of the
great defining factor of birth. Yes, birth and
dumb luck. Ya gotta love it.
4. Sultan Hassanal
Bolkiah
Age: 53 Nationality:
Bruneian Marital Status: Married Children: 10
Education: Sandhurst Royal Military Academy
Worth: $30 Billion
The 29th Sultan of
Brunei was educated in his early years by tutors
and private institutions before winging his way
north to Britain. There, he entered Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy as an officer cadet. The
training seems to have paid off, as he is now
Sultan and Ruler of Brunei, as well as Prime
Minister, Defense Minister, Finance Minister,
Religious Figurehead, and Grand High Poobah. All
elected offices. Kidding! This guy can go to the
bathroom and still have a cabinet meeting.
All of his money is in,
say it with me now, oil, gas, investments, and
yes, the ever-popular sweat of his people.
Especially that oil thing, which has made so
many billionaires in the Middle East. The
illustrious Sultan also has two wives and ten
kids. So lets see… 6 jobs, 2 wives, 10 kids, 2
turtledoves, 1 dictatorship, and he's an avid
polo player. So much accomplished, and a mere 53
years old.
3. Paul Gardner
Allen
Age: 46 Nationality:
American Marital Status: Single Children: 0
Education: WSU dropout Worth: $30 Billion
Another Microsoft
billionaire, Paul Allen is the buddy who dropped
out with Bill Gates to build the software
company that now holds a monopolistic
stranglehold on the world. Paul dropped out of
Microsoft some time ago to spend his time
privately investing his money and sipping piña
coladas, but he still holds a stake in the
company. His current baby is Vulcan Ventures,
with which he pursues his dream of a "wired
world" by buying up cable operators and other
technology-related companies.
It's not all boring
tech stuff, though. Paul was also smart enough
to invest in sports teams like the Portland
Trailblazers and Seattle Seahawks. Single guy,
30 billion, owns a couple sports teams, knows
Bill Gates personally… poor baby.
2. Warren Edward
Buffet
Age: 68 Nationality:
American Marital Status: Married Children: 3
Education: Columbia Worth: $36 Billion
A distant second,
Warren Buffet also has a quarter century on Mr.
Gates, so he's had lots of time to build up his
not-too-shabby cache of $36 billion. Frankly, we
don't know what he's been doing with his time…
apart from heading up investment conglomerate
Berkshire Hathaway, that is. Warren took over 30
years ago, and the company has averaged a 25%
annual rate of return since.
Strangely enough,
Buffet's investment style is conservative,
leaning more to the long-term buy. Warren owns
about 40 percent of the company, and at over
$47,000 a share, it will be a while before
anyone buys him out. Much better to try to get
in at Microsoft, or strike oil, where you don't
need money up front.
1. William H. Gates
III
Age: 43 Nationality:
American Martial Status: Married Children: 2
Education: Harvard dropout Worth: $90 Billion
We should all just face
the fact that Bill Gates will one day rule the
world. By the time Windows 2015 comes out, all
will fear Bill's wrath. But you gotta admit that
it doesn't look like it went to his head; the
richest human on Earth, and he has the dorkiest
haircut money could buy.
The son of a lawyer
father and teacher mother, Gates dropped out of
preschool to devote all of his time to inventing
Microsoft with chum Paul Allen, then just 3
years old. After drooling all over the HVAC
tubes, Bill decided to go back to school for a
few more years, eventually dropping out of
Harvard University to work on Microsoft.
The rest, as they all
too frequently say, is history. Microsoft became
this huge international corporate behemoth, and
is currently fighting off anti-trust
investigations and accusations that it holds a
monopoly. When Bill rules the world, he's going
to come down and fire those federal court judges
with extreme prejudice. They'll never work on
his planet again!
Gates relinquished his
role as President of Microsoft in 1998, and as
CEO on January 13, 2000; both posts are now held
by Steve Ballmer. However, Bill remains Chairman
and "chief software architect" of the company,
as well as its largest shareholder. So they
still let him come to board meetings.
Mr. Bill once gave $17
Billion to charity, which makes Ted Turner's
paltry offering of $1 billion to the UN look
like chump change. He's also written a couple of
books and is heavily invested in biotechnology
and cellular and satellite technology.
Investors, call your brokers.
So to get onto our list
of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective
Billionaires, you must: join Microsoft
(preferably early on), be an oil baron, drop out
of college, get married, have 3.1 kids, inherit
lots of money, and bleed your people dry. Tell
your friends!
Erika has had a
hard summer and is scheduled to go to the
Spine Clinic at Dartmouth;s Hitchcock
Medical Center.
In spite of her
pain she plans to go with me to San
Francisco for the AAA Annual Meetings and
for a four-day visit with two sons and eight
grandchildren in Yuba City.
I will fly from SF
to Iowa for a Golden Wedding Anniversary and
Jensen family reunion at a farm. Afterwards,
Erika returns to NH and I will fly to San
Antonio. I should be there on August 18 and
look forward to seeing you.
I hope you have a
great trip to Alaska.
It’s sad to
anticipate the end of my career at Trinity.
But wrinkles grow deeper and and time moves
on. I am loving my new New Holland tractor
with a mower and a front end loader. I don’t
know how I got through life thus far without
a loader.
Coyotes killed my
neighbor’s new colt. Until that happened I
didn’t know we had a coyote problem. We do
have five bears in our nearby woods (a huge
male and four females with cubs). But the
bears are relatively friendly and really
aren’t a problem if you don’t put out bird
feeders in the summer. Erika unwisely had me
fill three feeders on our deck in May and a
bear downed all three feeders. My main
problem is with small deer that turned
eleven of my beautiful and full young cedar
trees into lollipops during the hard winter.
See you soon.
Bob Jensen
Wisdom is getting
rid of the unnecessary.
Lin Yutang
Colleges and
universities spent $40.1 billion on research
and development in the 2003 fiscal year, up
10.2 percent from the previous year and 100
percent from 1993.
The data were
released by the National Science Foundation,
which regularly studies research spending in
higher education.
A majority of the
research funds came from Washington. Federal
research and development spending in 2003
was $24.7 billion, up 13 percent from the
previous year. Other significant sources of
research support include state and local
governments, businesses and institutional
funds. Industry support for R&D in higher
education fell by 1 percent in 2003, to
$2.16 billion. Other categories all reported
increases.
Nearly
three-fourths of total research spending is
for basic research, but applied research
outpaced basic research slightly in the rate
of increase, 11 percent to 10 percent.
Within the sciences
and engineering, the top area of support, by
far, is the medical sciences. The following
table shows a breakdown, by disciplines.
Summary tables provided in the article
How to corrupt strong
anecdotal evidence with faulty
comparisons In the
past year or so, the latest in
the perennial waves of attacks
by conservatives against liberal
bias in college faculties has
included several research
reports like one by National
Association of Scholars allies
Stanley Rothman, S. Robert
Lichter, and Neil Nevitte,
“Politics and Professional
Development Among College
Faculty,” decrying a
preponderance of Democrats in
academe. These reports have
worked in tandem with the
crusade led by David Horowitz
for an “Academic Bill of
Rights,” versions of which were
introduced into several state
legislatures. Aside from the
disputable accuracy of
conservatives’ charges, it’s
time to call attention to their
frequent origin in organizations
funded by Republican-aligned
foundations. Conservatives claim
that “their” foundations and
think tanks simply serve to
counterbalance more highly
funded liberal foundations,
professional organizations like
the American Association of
University Professors and the
Modern Language Association, and
the totality of university
scholarship. These are false
comparisons:
Donald Lazere, "Money and
Motives," Inside Higher Ed,
July 20, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/07/20/lazere
Scientists question
validity of woodpecker sightings Three
biologists are questioning the
validity of evidence cited by
scientists who said they had
sighted an ivory-billed
woodpecker, a species that had
been thought to have vanished 60
years ago, The New York Times
reports.
The paper and a rebuttal by the
team that announced the
high-profile discovery in April
will be published in the next
few weeks, members of both
groups of scientists confirmed
to the newspaper.
Doug Lederman, Inside Higher
Ed, July 21, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/21/qt
If they can't agree on woodpeckers, can we
trust scientists to regulate the evolution of
the planet Earth?
"How Earth-Scale Engineering Can Save the
Planet" Maybe we can have our fossil fuels and
burn ’em too. These scientists have come up with
a plan to end global warming. One idea: A
600,000-square-mile space mirror" Michael Behar,
August 2005 ---
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,20967,1075786,00.html
Four years ago, a
small New York company called MyPublisher
introduced a new way to display digital
photos in a tangible, professional-looking
manner -- factory-bound, but relatively
inexpensive, hardcover photo books. To make
these handsome books, you use free software
to select a layout and fill it with your
pictures and comments, then upload the whole
thing to MyPublisher. The book is then
assembled on the company's printing presses
and mailed to you.
Soon after
MyPublisher's introduction, Apple Computer
began offering these same books using its
own software and interface. Apple built the
book-design process right into its widely
praised iPhoto picture-organizing software,
which is included on all new Macs. Apple's
book-creation interface is different from
MyPublisher's, but MyPublisher produces the
books under contract for Apple.
Now, two of the big
online photo-printing services, Shutterfly
and Eastman Kodak's EasyShare Gallery
(formerly known as Ofoto) also have begun
offering bound photo books, along with their
usual assortment of cheesy photo gifts such
as mugs and mouse pads. The two new entrants
don't use MyPublisher to produce their
books, and because they are Web-based they
don't use software that resides on your
personal computer to design the books as
MyPublisher and Apple do. Everything is done
on their Web sites.
. . .
Using about 40 of
the same digital photographs each time, we
created photo books using MyPublisher
BookMaker, Apple's iPhoto, Shutterfly and
Kodak EasyShare Gallery. Each book had the
same photo on the cover, and we chose
classic black leather for each cover, except
for the Apple book, where we used black
linen because leather isn't offered.
Each company's book
costs about the same -- $30 for a hardcover
with up to 10 double-sided pages, and $40
with a leather cover. Additional pages cost
a dollar in iPhoto and Shutterfly, $1.49 for
MyPublisher BookMaker and $1.99 with Kodak
Gallery.
, , ,
Overall, if you are
looking for the most attractive book,
MyPublisher BookMaker won't disappoint, and
you might even get used to its slightly more
complicated software. But if iPhoto ever
offers peek-through covers and leather
covers like those from BookMaker, we would
have to change our vote and make Apple the
overall winner.
Continued in Article
Pay is not rising at these rates in
academe U.S. workers saw
surprisingly large increases in pay at the end
of 2004, according to a new report from the
government that takes a comprehensive look at
employment and wage trends across 317 of the
country's largest counties. The Labor Department
report said weekly salaries rose an average of
5.7% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier.
The gain seemed to be bolstered by commissions
and end-of-year bonuses, which are included in
the counts.
Rafael Gerene-Morales, "Weekly Salaries Rise an
Average Of 5.7% in U.S.," The Wall Street
Journal, July 20, 2005; Page A2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112177493386889374,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment: The "net" increases in pay
after factoring in the larger share of benefit
costs (especially medical insurance and
pensions) being transferred to to employees.
College employees have a more difficult time
because they must pay a rising share of benefit
costs at less than average pay increases.
Saving 10% of Your Salary Is No Longer
Enough Just when folks ought
to be saving more, they are saving less. Trouble
ahead? You'd better believe it. Yes, I have
heard all the arguments about how the true
savings rate is higher than the 1.3% calculated
for 2004 by the Commerce Department's Bureau of
Economic Analysis, or BEA. But don't let that
distract you from the bigger issue. In a world
of disappearing company pensions, skimpy bond
yields, rich stock valuations and rising life
expectancies, anybody interested in a
comfortable retirement should be saving a
truckload of money every year -- and yet most
folks aren't.
"Forget the Rule of Thumb: Saving 10% of Your
Salary Is No Longer Enough," The Wall Street
Journal, July 20, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112181723383790185,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Jensen Advice to
Professors: For many years I have
been lucky enough to save the maximum
Supplemental SRA tax deferral in my TIAA/CREF
plan. Now that I am retiring in May 2006, I
find that these savings are making a huge
difference in my monthly retirement income. I
strongly urge you to contact your Personnel
Department and ask them to make the maximum
Supplemental SRA deduction allowed under the
current tax regulations.
The word "fail"
should be banned from use in British
classrooms and replaced with the phrase
"deferred success" to avoid demoralizing
pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.
Members of the
Professional Association of Teachers (PAT)
argue that telling pupils they have failed
can put them off learning for life.
A spokesman for the
group said it wanted to avoid labeling
children. "We recognize that children do not
necessarily achieve success first time," he
said.
"But I recognize
that we can't just strike a word from the
dictionary," he said.
The PAT said it
would debate the proposal at a conference
next week.
Will the U.S. return to 49 (or even 48)
states? We exaggerate, but
not by much. On Tuesday, the Senate debated Mr.
Akaka's Native Hawaiian Government
Reorganization Act, which would grant de facto
sovereignty to the 400,000 or so people who
identify themselves as native Hawaiians, aka
"Kanaka Maoli." To listen to the Akaka bill's
supporters, that means nothing more than
extending a polite gesture to Native Hawaiians
by giving them a kind of parity with other
Native Americans such as the Navajo or Cherokee.
Yet according to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs,
a state agency, under the terms of the bill this
new tribe could declare "complete legal and
territorial independence from the United States
and the re-establishment of a Hawaiian
nation-state." Jefferson Davis rides again.
"Goodbye, Hawaii," The Wall Street
Journal, July 21, 2005; Page A10 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112191569507491833,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
The
committee’s Republican
majority had its way on all
the key votes. The panel:
Adopted a plan that will
allow borrowers who
consolidate several
loans into one to choose
between a fixed and a
variable rate, which
advocates for students
and college officials
have advocated. But the
committee rebuffed a
Democratic proposal to
lower the maximum
interest rate for both
fixed and variable loans
to 6.8 percent, instead
of the 8.25 percent set
by the Republican
majority’s bill.
Approved an amendment
that would reduce funds
for lenders and
guarantee agencies by
reducing the amount the
government reimburses
them when students
default on their loans,
but turned away a
Democratic attempt to
cut those funds even
more.
Rejected a Democratic
proposal that would have
shifted money saved in
the loan programs to
increase the maximum
Pell Grant by $500 over
five years.
Voted down a proposal
that would have rewarded
colleges that
participate in the “less
expensive” of the
government’s two loan
program (which, though
the accounting methods
are fiercely debated, is
generally seen as the
direct loan program) by
letting them use half of
any savings they
generate to give their
students additional Pell
Grants. Republican
supporters of the
guaranteed loan program
said the plan amounted
to an effort to bribe
colleges into the direct
lending program, which
has lost hundreds of
colleges in recent
years.
Underpinning Thursday’s
debate was the fact that in
crafting its bill to renew
the Higher Education Act,
the law that governs federal
student aid and other higher
education programs in the
U.S. Education Department,
the House committee is under
intense pressure to come up
with billions in dollars in
savings to help Republican
leaders in Congress meet
their goal of reconciling a
huge budget deficit. Exactly
how much money the committee
is trying to wring out of
the various programs is
disputed, but Democrats peg
it at $11 billion, and
Republicans say it is too
early to tell, but don’t
dispute that figure
vigorously.
Continued in article
Banks Sweeten Student-Loan Terms In the latest attempt
to stand out in the burgeoning market for
student loans -- and as shopping season for
college financing heats up for families -- banks
are tweaking their student-loan lineups. They
are offering a range of "improved terms" and
tantalizing rebates and discounts for borrowers
with good payment records. But while the latest
crop of deals may sound better than past
offerings, the difference in potential savings
is often scant, say student-financing experts.
And most banks themselves say that even with
improved terms, they still expect only a
fraction of borrowers to qualify for the
savings. At issue are so-called borrower
benefits, which have become a staple of student
debt during the past decade. Typically, these
benefits promise a reduction in the interest
rate on the loan after a certain number of
payments are made on time -- typically 48
monthly payments on a 10-year student loan.
These benefits can potentially save borrowers
hundreds or even thousands of dollars over the
life of a loan.
Anne Marie Chaker, "Banks Sweeten Student-Loan
Terms," The Wall Street Journal, July 20,
2005; Page D3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112182238744590310,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Tapping IRAs to Pay for Education Can Lead
to Headaches on Taxes If you raid your
individual retirement account to pay for
higher-education bills, be careful. As a recent
U.S. Tax Court case demonstrates, you need to
master some fine print first -- or you could get
hit by additional taxes. When you are under age
59½, you generally have to pay a 10% additional
tax if you tap your traditional IRA -- unless
you do it for certain reasons. For example, you
may not get hit by that penalty if the early
distributions aren't more than your
higher-education expenses. That may sound fairly
simple, but the decision by the Tax Court, dated
July 5, underscores an important point: The
court said distributions are free from the
additional tax only to the extent they don't
exceed the education costs for the taxable year
of the distribution. Thus, "time your IRA
distributions carefully," warns Bob D. Scharin,
editor of Warren, Gorham & Lamont/RIA's
"Practical Tax Strategies," a monthly journal
for tax professionals.
"Tapping IRAs to Pay for Education Can Lead to
Headaches on Taxes," The Wall Street Journal,
July 20, 2005; Page D3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112182190668990303,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century In Greek, an anthology
meant a bouquet. The existence of such bouquets
in classical literature tells us two things --
that the ancients liked cut flowers and that
they found themselves without enough time to
read every scroll on the shelf. Mark Strand's
"100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century" (W.W.
Norton & Co., 320 pages, $24.95) has trouble
figuring out what it really wants to be, and his
introduction is hedged with excuses for what it
is.
William Logan, The Wall Street Journal,
July 21, 2005; Page D8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112189585438391366,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
You can be dead and work for the City of
Chicago One was a drunk. Some
were laughed at as "goofballs." One was declared
the best-qualified candidate for a job on the
city payroll -- even though he was dead. All of
them were recommended for city jobs or hired
because they were politically connected and
helped to get out the vote on Election Day,
according to U.S. Attorney Patrick J.
Fitzgerald. "That's the world we want to end,"
Fitzgerald said Monday in announcing charges
against two members of Mayor Richard M. Daley's
administration accused of illegally doling out
patronage jobs.
"Feds claim fraud put a drunk and 'goofballs' on
Chicago's city payroll," Sioux City Journal,
July 20, 2005 ---
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2005/07/20/news/latest_news/d2504353f218d7ef8625704400115c5c.txt
The hits keep on coming for
Career Education Corporation The
California agency that regulates
for-profit institutions found
last week that a campus owned by
Career Education “willfully”
provided misleading and
falsified information and
omitted other information that
“persuaded prospective students
to enroll” in its educational
programs. The state
Bureau for Private Postsecondary
and Vocational Education
stopped short of revoking the
Brooks Institute of
Photography'slicense
to operate, citing the severe
impact such a move would have on
current students. But the agency
imposed a significant set of
restrictions on Brooks’s
operations, including barring it
from enrolling new students
until it submits a slew of
information and requiring it to
get written statements from
employers of all of its current
and future graduates.
Doug Lederman,"Calif. Reins In a
For-Profit College," Inside
Higher Ed, July 20, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/20/brooks
Chess960: Unorthodox
Chess From an Odd Mind Two
dozen programmers from around
the world have signed up to
compete in Germany next month in
the first computer chess
tournament devoted to Chess960,
a game variant invented by
fugitive chess genius Bobby
Fischer that's slowly gaining
rank among grandmasters . The
rules of Chess960 are mostly the
same as orthodox chess -- but
the setup incorporates something
once considered anathema to the
game: chance. Pawns begin where
they always do. However, the
pieces behind them on the white
side are arranged at random,
with the proviso that bishops
must end up on opposite colors,
and the king dwell somewhere
between the two rooks. The black
pieces are lined up to mirror
the white . . . The opening
phase of a chess game as
currently played has been
subject to a hundred years of
scholarship and play, and today
players are hard pressed to find
so much as a viable pawn push
within the first 20 moves that
hasn't been thoroughly analyzed.
As a result, serious players
spend considerable time
memorizing published openings as
played by masters and
grandmasters, so they know the
correct, time-tested response to
every move an opponent makes.
One standard text on the
subject, Modern Chess Openings,
is 750 pages long, and will tell
you, for example, that the
proper answer to white's pawn
advance on the 12th move of the
Soltis Variation of the Yugoslav
Attack, a variant of the
Sicilian Defense, is to move
your king's rook pawn.
Kevin Poulsen, "Unorthodox Chess
From an Odd Mind," Wired News,
July 19, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68227,00.html
Jensen Comment: This is a
little like the time when
casinos stopped playing Black
Jack with only one deck of
cards.
When robots win the pot Walking
away from the poker table with
100 large in your pocket is
nothing special in Sin City. But
until Thursday, the gambling
capital had never seen a robot
do it. Last week, six
programmers converged on
Binion's, the downtown casino
that is the birthplace of the
World Series of Poker, spurred
by a winner-take-all prize of
$100,000 offered by publicity
sponge GoldenPalace.com. While
the bot competitors were
grinding through the final of
the World Poker Robot
Championship, the big-time human
players were upstairs in Benny's
Bullpen fighting for a $7.5
million first.
Marty Corinas, 'Who Says Robots
Can't Bluff?" Wired News,
July 18, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68223,00.html
Disaster when greens
partner with agri-business: The
ethanol subsidy is worse than
you can imagine For the
last generation, ethanol has
been America's fuel of the
future. But there has never been
more hype about it than there is
today. Green-energy analysts
like Amory Lovins, environmental
groups like the Natural
Resources Defense Council,
neoconservatives like James
Woolsey, and farm groups like
the American Coalition for
Ethanol are all touting the
biofuel. Making ethanol, they
claim, will help America achieve
the elusive goal of "energy
security" while helping farmers,
reducing oil imports, and
stimulating the American
economy. But the ethanol
boosters are ignoring some
unpleasant facts: Ethanol won't
significantly reduce our oil
imports; adding more ethanol to
our gas tanks adds further
complexity to our motor-fuel
supply chain, which will lead to
further price hikes at the pump;
and, most important (and most
astonishing),
it may take more energy to
produce a gallon of ethanol than
it actually contains.
Robert Bryce, "Corn Dog The
ethanol subsidy is worse than
you can imagine," Slate,
July 19, 2005 ---
http://slate.com/id/2122961/
Business School Update:
It's Getting Easier Being Green Justin
DeKoszmovszky, a rising
second-year student at the S.C.
Johnson School of Management at
Cornell University in Ithaca,
N.Y., is spending his summer
living and working with
small-scale farmers in Kenya. As
part of a six-person team, he's
exploring new opportunities for
communities, entrepreneurs,
government organizations, local
universities, and S.C. Johnson,
the school's benefactor. The
team has many goals, including
finding ways to diversify crops
Francesca Di Meglio," It's
Getting Easier Being Green"
Interest in integrating business
with the needs of the
environment is prompting a
harder look at achieving a
sustainable economy,"
Business Week, July 15, 2005
---
http://snipurl.com/BusinessWeekJuly15
Even though I did not
amass a fortune, I would like to
follow in his footsteps The
financial freedom (as former
President of J.P. Morgan) that
followed allowed him to enjoy
the writer's life at long last
and spend his time turning out
crime novels, short stories and
poems from his home in
Ridgefield. It is a luxury he
savors now that his writing is
enjoying some commercial
success. "I always thought I'd
like to give this a try," said
Mr. Spiegelman, a wiry
47-year-old who does most of his
writing in his ground-floor
study. His first book, a
detective novel called "Black
Maps," was published in 2003 and
earned a Shamus Award for best
first novel from the Private Eye
Writers of America. A sequel,
"Death's Little Helpers," had
just been released. Knopf
published both books and has Mr.
Spiegelman under contract for
two more novels as well.
Alison Leigh, "The Case of the
Writer Who Left Wall Street,"
The New York Times, July 20,
2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/20/books/20spie.html?
Podcasting: Can This New
Medium Make Money?
Conservative commentator Rush
Limbaugh and his nemesis, Al
Franken, are podcasting. As are
ESPN, former MTV video jockey
Adam Curry and thousands of
others. Podcasting, a way to
broadcast audio over the
Internet, has become the latest
web movement to get everyone's
attention. Indeed, a recent
survey found that more than six
million people out of the 22
million who own iPods or MP3
players have listened to a
podcast. Such activity begs the
question: Is podcasting here to
stay? Experts at Wharton and
elsewhere answer with a
resounding yes. Is there a
viable business model for these
broadcasts? That's not as clear,
although some observers suggest
that advertising and paid
subscriptions are possible
sources of revenue.
"Podcasting: Can This New Medium
Make Money?"
Knowledge@wharton, July
2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1239
Women: Smoking may be
hazardous to your careers as
well as your health Many
parents love to brag about their
children. Some even note their
children's existence on their
resumes. Perhaps they shouldn't.
According to research presented
by two Cornell University
sociologists at a recent Wharton
conference, mothers suffer when
competing for jobs against
similarly qualified fathers and
childless men and women.
Additional research discussed at
the conference -- organized by
Wharton's Center for Human
Resources -- offered interesting
observations on another
workplace group: smokers.
Scholars from Columbia
University and Barnard College
conclude that smokers are paid
less on average than other
workers because they may be less
willing to invest time and
effort in career advancement
than nonsmoking colleagues.
"Two New Studies Look at Mothers
-- and Smokers -- in the
Workplace,"
Knowledge@wharton, July
2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1242
Results: A team from the
University of California,
Berkeley, has devised a
silver "superlens" that
could increase the
resolution of light
microscopy by about a factor
of six. The lens doesn't
diffract light like
conventional glass lenses.
Instead, it uses evanescent
waves, which are produced
when light hits a lens at
such an angle that it
bounces off instead of
passing through. Evanescent
waves emerge on the other
side of the lens and add
optical information to
normal "propagating" light
waves, but they decay very
quickly over short
distances. By capturing and
amplifying these weak waves,
the researchers obtained
images with 60-nanometer
resolution.
Why it Matters:
High-resolution imaging
methods such as electron
microscopy can't image
living tissue. Light
microscopy can. Its
resolution, however, is
limited by the wavelength of
the light used. And 400
nanometers is the shortest
wavelength that doesn't
damage tissue. Evanescent
waves allow researchers to
get around this limitation.
The technique could
eventually allow researchers
to watch, in real time,
biological processes such as
protein interactions in
samples of living
tissue--events that can now
be studied only indirectly.
Previous research has used
evanescent waves to
construct images in
piecemeal fashion. The
Berkeley team, led by Xiang
Zhang, has shown that it's
possible to take a clear and
complete picture in one
shot.
Education is not to
reform students or amuse them or to make them expert
technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen
their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them
to think straight, if possible Robert M. Hutchins as quoted by Mark
Shapiro at
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-07-20-05.htm
The denial of cultural
rights to minorities is as disruptive of the moral
fabric of mainstream society as is the denial of
civil rights.
Joshua A. Fishman
Continued assertions that the sneaky Zionists
are behind all terrorist atrocities
From the Middle East Media Research Institute
(headquartered in Washington DC)
July 19, 2005: Palestinian
National Council Member Mamoun Tamimi on the London
Bombings: "Since This [Iraq] War is Ongoing, Those
You Strike Have the Right to Strike Back At You – In
Your Home, Your Country, Or Anywhere"
(includes video) ---
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD93605
"I have some doubts
about the September [2001] events – and some
articles and books share my opinion. I believe
the events of 9/11 were not planned, prepared,
or perpetrated by Al-Qaeda alone. Absolutely
not. A force greater than Al-Qaeda was behind
these events. Whenever an ordinary crime takes
place, the question is 'who benefits?' – let
alone when the crime is of such huge
proportions. What happened in Britain, and why
Britain, of all places?
"The perpetrator [of
these acts] believes that he carried out an
operation in retaliation for the oppression
afflicted upon the world's wretched people by
Western policies, and especially by the U.S. and
Britain. This is what he believes. In addition,
I say that the actual perpetrator – the person
who actually commits a suicide operation – is
not a mercenary, but may have been tricked into
it.
"So who is the planner?
The planner who is behind him is the one who
benefits from what happens. We all know that
after 9/11 the persecution of Muslims began in
the U.S. and Europe, but later subsided, to a
certain extent. For three or four years, we have
been concerned – in the wake of these painful
events – about the possibility of some sort of
annihilation, or perhaps an unbalanced civil war
in Europe and the U.S. between Muslims and
non-Muslims, or let's say, the Westerners.
"Zionism Has Forged
The New Testament; 60 Million In The U.S. Alone
Have Left Christianity To Become Believers In
The Torah"
Jensen Comment: It's not clear where these
"facts" are pulled out of the air, which is a shame
for an organization claiming to be a "research
institute." Since there are only an estimated 18
million estimated followers of
the Torah/Talmud, it
would appear that the 60 million is a figment of
wild imagination. See
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q2.htm#ReligionStatistics
British Muslims hate bombers too More than nine out of ten
British Muslims say suicide murders are NOT
justified by holy book the Koran, an exclusive Sun
survey shows today. The 91 per cent finding confirms
that the vast majority of those living here do not
treat the London bombers as martyrs. Pollsters MORI
asked an exclusively Muslim audience about their
attitudes. Our survey was conducted on Thursday
around the time the latest bombing attacks happened.
A majority, 52 per cent, say Islam is compatible
with the values of British democracy.
George Pascoe-Watson, "Muslims hate bombers too,"
Online Sun, July 29, 2005 ---
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2004600000-2005330920,00.html
Accounting Gets Hip—Companies Scramble for
Talent It's got it all: great pay,
generous benefits, a fast career track and the
respect of the highest executives in corporate
America. It's accounting, which is fast becoming one
of the most prestigious and in-demand careers
around. Thanks to a spate of corporate scandals and
the flood of jobs created by the Sarbanes-Oxley
reform legislation, talented accountants are being
wooed with raises, bonuses and a long list of perks.
Even those just starting out are being recruited
heavily. Accounting majors top the list of most
desired job candidates in the United States,
according to the National Association of Colleges
and Employers. Graduates can expect to make $43,370
to start, up from $40,538 in 2002. Some recruits get
a month of paid vacation, before their first day on
the job, the Trenton Star-Ledger reported. An
accounting MBA can start at around $55,000, not
counting health insurance and retirement benefits.
"Accounting Gets Hip—Companies Scramble for Talent,"
AccountingWeb, July 19, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101107
Mayo Clinic is not so hip Court documents pertaining
to a suit brought against the Mayo Foundation by a
former accounting employee under the False Claims
Act and settled in May for $6.5 million, were
released Monday to the Rochester, Minnesota,
Post-Bulletin, according to the Associated Press.
The documents had been under seal until the
Post-Bulletin challenged the settlement order,
according to the Associated Press. These documents
show that federal investigators alleged that the
Mayo Clinic had serious problems accounting for
research grants, according to the Associated Press.
“The audit team from the Department of Health and
Human Services and the National Institutes of
Health, whose job it is to routinely audit grants,
has never seen an accounting system with such basic
failures. Nor have they ever previously confronted
an institution incapable of being audited in this
way,” the Associated Press quotes from one document,
signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robyn Millenacker.
"Harsh Criticism for the Mayo Foundation's
Accounting Practices," AccountingWeb, July
21, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101117
Google Map Service Covers Lunar Surface Google Moon won't give
you driving directions or the nearest
restaurants, the types of information available
with Google Maps and Google Earth. But the lunar
tool lets you zoom and move around _ to the
extent NASA has provided images for those
areas. The feature debuting Wednesday at
http://moon.google.comalso shows the
locations of all six Apollo moon landings. Click
on one to get the date and astronauts involved.
Anick Jesdanun, "Google Map Service Covers Lunar
Surface," The Washington Post, July 22,
2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072200506.html?referrer=email
Jensen Comment: This may be a great place to
send the kids for summer camp.
Cheesy Humor in the Map Server
Messages from Amy Dunbar, Chuck Pier, Gary
Tanner, and Eric Press
Il
ne faut pas grand chose pour amuser les
fous!!! My friend,
Suzanne, made that remark. Sure glad I don't
understand French. _______________
That is
hilarious!!!!!!!
Thanks for the laugh, Chuck! How on earth
did you figure that out?
Amy Dunbar
**************************************
Bob-
Click on the link
http://moon.google.com
in your message and
then zoom in on the pictures. I was curious
about how much detail you could get and
choose the Apollo 11 site labeled "A". The
closet zoom will prove what we have been
told about the moon since we were children
and also prove that the people at Google
have a great sense of humor.
Chuck
Charles A. Pier,
Ph.D.
Assistant Professor Department of Accounting
Walker College of Business
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608 email:
pierca@appstate.edu
***************************************
Bob,
I have already seen this one and noted
that if you maximize the moon surface all
the way and double click it again you get to
see what the moon is really made of.
Gary
***************************************
"It don't take much
to make fools laugh."
If you zoom in all
the way, you observe the fun.
Eric Press, Ph.D.,
C.P.A.
Associate Professor of Accounting
Fox School of Business
335 Speakman Hall
Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122
eric.press@temple.edu
<mailto:eric.press@temple.edu>
http://isc.temple.edu/epress <http://isc.temple.edu/epress>
A new take on porn flashing Federal regulators
accused seven companies Wednesday of hiring
others to send illegal e-mails with pornographic
messages to tempt consumers to visit adult
Internet sites. The government said four of the
firms already agreed to pay nearly $1.2 million
to settle the charges, making it among the most
aggressive government crackdowns on pornographic
e-mail operations. The Federal Trade Commission
described the practice as "electronic flashing"
and said at least some of the unwanted e-mails
were sent to children. The threat of children
unwittingly receiving smut in their inboxes
helped drive the U.S. government to impose
restrictions on sending commercial e-mails last
year.
Ted Bridis, "Feds Accuse Firms in Porn E-Mail
Scheme," The Washington Post, July 20,
2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072001098.html?referrer=email
Beating the market is more of a function
of luck and willingness to take on risk than
it's a function skill and analysis (Unless you
have inside information that is illegal to use
for profit) This conclusion
dovetails with the results of past research into
what makes the equity markets go up or down. One
widely cited study was conducted in the late
1980's by three economists - David M. Cutler and
Lawrence H. Summers of Harvard (Mr. Summers is
now Harvard's president) and James M. Poterba of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The
professors found that news events accounted for
a surprisingly small amount of the stock
market's movements. None of this relieves
investors of the need to view companies'
financial data skeptically. At the same time,
it's important to remain skeptical about our own
analysis whenever we interpret the data
differently than the market as a whole. More
often than not, we're wrong.
Mark Hulbert, "So You Think You Can Outsmart the
Market. Good Luck," The New York Times,
July 24, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/business/yourmoney/24stra.html
Jensen Comment: The major focus of this article
is the lack of market reaction to the FASB's
amended rule requiring firms to expense stock
options at the time of vesting rather than
execution.
FEELING WANTED
Crooked chief executives and increased
terrorist threats are proving to be a boon
to newly minted finance professionals, CFO
magazine reports this month.
"The U.S.
government will hire as many as 13,000
professionals for business-related functions
in the next two years," according to the
article by Kate O'Sullivan.
Many will be hired
by the Internal Revenue Service, but "other
agencies, like the F.B.I. and the Securities
and Exchange Commission are actively
recruiting finance types, throwing
themselves head-on into competition with
private-sector employers, such as consulting
firms," Ms. O'Sullivan writes.
Even the Central
Intelligence Agency has shown interest. "The
discipline in terms of being able to
problem-solve and make quick, sound
decisions based on little information takes
a kind of mental agility that many M.B.A.
holders have," says Harold Tate, chief of
the C.I.A.'s recruitment center.
But it's the
agency's mission and not the paycheck that
is the lure. Despite the increased demand,
there are no plans to raise the pay and
benefits to match those offered by the
private sector. "They're not coming here to
earn a bunch of money," Mr. Tate said. "They
know that."
Continued in article
Listing of Selected Accounting Blogs Among the millions of
Web logs permeating the Internet, there are some
by and for accountants worth checking out. This
article includes an Accounting Blog List that
you can download, bookmark or print.
Eva M. Lang, "Accountants Who Blog,"
SmartPros, July 2005 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x49035.xml
The Knowledge
for Development
(K4D) Program
helps build the
capacity of
client countries
to access and
use knowledge to
strengthen their
competitiveness
in the global
economy and
increase their
social
well-being. It
works with
client countries
to design and
develop
realistic and
achievable
strategies to
further their
transition to
the knowledge
economy.
This website
provides
information on
K4D learning
events; country
assessments,
reports and
presentations on
the knowledge
economy; as well
as access to an
internet-based
benchmarking
tool - the Knowledge
Assessment
Methodology
(KAM).
The bombings in London on
July 7, which killed 53
people and injured many
more, were a powerful
reminder that terrorism
remains a clear and present
threat in our cities. But
they were also, to me, a
reminder of something else.
As annoying as I frequently
find the right these days,
with its cynical
partisanship, its arrogance
of power, and its politics
of religious zealotry, my
discontent with
conservatives will never
send me into the liberal
camp—because the response to
terrorism even on the
moderate left remains an
egregious moral muddle.
. . .
The
Times letter-writer is
hardly alone in his views.
Juan Cole,
professor of history at the
University of Michigan and a
leading left-of-center
commentator on the Middle
East, argues on his
website
and in an
article at Salon.com
that the London bombings are
"blowback" from the US and
its allies' misguided
policies. Cole pooh-poohs
the idea that Islamic
fundamentalist terrorism is
a product of hatred for the
West's democratic values. In
his view, it is a response
to specific Western policies
that are perceived as a war
against Muslims, from
Israeli oppression of the
Palestinians to the military
occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Pardon
me for pointing out the
obvious, but the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
took place before the
occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan. Cole tries to
make the case, citing the
9/11
Commission report,
that Sept. 11 was
"punishment on the United
States for supporting Ariel
Sharon's iron fist policies
toward the Palestinians."
Yet the report makes it
clear that planning for the
attacks had been underway
for about two years before
Sharon became prime minister
of Israel in March 2001,
though Osama bin Laden
evidently wanted to move up
the operation in response to
Sharon's actions. And the
radical Islamic terror
network first struck New
York City in 1993.
Other myopic responses
abound. A few commentators
insist on a moral
equivalence between the
deaths of Iraqi civilians in
US military operations with
the deaths of civilians in
the London bombings. Yet the
US military and its allies
have made every effort to
minimize civilian
casualties; the deliberate
killing of Iraqi civilians
is overwhelmingly the work
of so-called insurgents who
drive explosive-packed cars
into crowds of children
while American soldiers hand
out candy.
Meanwhile, on Fox News's
Hannity & Colmes, the
Rev. Jesse Jackson is asked
whether the evil of
terrorism can be fought by
other than military means,
and gives this reply: "Well,
you know, we found an end to
slavery, which is evil,
without killing the slave
masters." We did? Maybe
Jackson has forgotten about
the Civil War, in which the
US military targeted
civilians to a degree
unimaginable in Iraq and
Afghanistan today.
Music: I'd Give it All ---
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/%7Epcxee/pig_flash.htm
The link to this
funny song about farm life can be found at the home page of The River Bottom
Farm
and B&B located
about 250 miles north of San Francisco ---
http://www.riverbarfarm.com/index.htm
Accounting
professor Peter Kenyon retired from academe to become a pig farmer and inn
keeper. He
and his wife, Sharmon, recently took on this earthy hard-work operation. Peter was one of
the early
adopters of
technology in education. Now he'll have to look for other kinds of
technology.
Audio: Eerie recording
captures sound of tsunami Underwater microphones pick up dull, deadly roar in
Indian Ocean ---
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8670264
Broad and Fair Minded England The children of immigrants from
the Indian subcontinent make up a quarter of all British
medical students, 12 times their proportion in the general
population. They are likewise overrepresented in the law,
science, and economics faculties of our universities. Among
the Indian immigrants who arrived in the country with next
to nothing, moreover, there are now reportedly some
thousands of millionaires. Despite its reputation for being
ossified and class-ridden, then, Britain is still a country
in which social mobility is possible—provided, of course,
that a belief that Britain is an ossified and class-ridden
society doesn't completely stifle personal effort.
Theodore Dalrymple, "Choosing To Fail," City Journal,
Winter 2000 ---
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_oh_to_be.html
Narrow minded neuroscientists The Dalai Lama, who once said
he would have been an engineer if he hadn’t become a monk,
has been invited to speak at the annual meeting of the
Society for Neuroscience, in November – to the distress of
some society members who are boycotting the meeting. David Epstein, "Dissing the Dalai Lama," Inside
Higher Ed, July 28, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/28/dalai
Apart from the 9/11 massacre, Islamic terrorists in the
past decade have killed many more Muslims than anybody else.
Especially in Iraq, Muslims can hardly be called victims of
"friendly fire" since Muslims were the intended targets.
The same can be said about the recent bombings in Egypt. And
yet some Islamic states encourage terrorism recruitment and
fund raising to kill Muslims ---
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1122259871452&p=1006953079897
Woebegone About Grade Inflation Grade inflation continues to occupy
the attention of the media, the academy and the public at
large. As a few Ivy League universities have adjusted
grading policies, and a few of their professors have
captured headlines with their statements on the issue,
people have taken note. Absent from this discussion,
however, are the voices of the silent majority: those who
teach at non-elite institutions, as well as those at elite
institutions who are not publicly participating in the
debate.
Janice McCabe and Brain Powell, "Woebegone About Grade
Inflation," Inside Higher Ed, July 27, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/07/27/mccabe
Here are a few questions about
computers I've received recently from people
like you, and my answers. I have edited and
restated the questions a bit, for readability.
This week my mailbox contained questions about
antispyware programs for Apple Macintoshes, blog
search engines and the definition of "HD ready."
If you have a question, send it
to me at
mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be
answered here in Mossberg's Mailbox.
Q:You recently
recommended antispyware programs for Windows
users. Do Apple Macintosh users need such
software, and, if so, what products clean up
spyware on the Mac?
A: There's little or no
reported spyware for Apple's Mac OS X operating
system. So the spyware problem isn't much of a
headache for Mac users, and consequently, there
isn't much of a market for Mac antispyware
software.
Most spyware and adware
consists of malicious programs, and, like
regular programs, these harmful applications
have to be written to run on a particular
operating system. All the spyware programs I
have seen, or heard about, are written to run on
Windows, which is on the vast majority of the
world's PCs, and is also easier for spyware
programs to penetrate than the Mac operating
system is. Because they are Windows programs,
they simply won't run on the Mac, even if Mac
users accidentally download them.
One type of spyware, called
tracking cookies, doesn't take the form of an
actual program, and can be used on Macs. There
are a few antispyware and cookie-control
utilities for the Mac that may be effective
against these tracking cookies, such as Internet
Cleanup from Allume Software (www.allume.com).
But, unlike their Windows counterparts, I
haven't tested any of them, and can't say how
well they work.
Mac users who run Apple's
built-in Safari Web browser can stop most
tracking cookies by going to the Security
portion of the Preferences panel and selecting
the option to accept only cookies placed by the
site they are using, which eliminates cookies
placed by third-party advertising companies. A
similar option is available in the Firefox Web
browser, on both Mac and Windows. On the Mac,
it's in Firefox's Preferences panel, under
Privacy.
Q:I'm at a loss as
to where to find blogs on the Web. Are there
blog search engines that help compile and
categorize blogs for public perusal?
A: Yes. You can search
or browse Web logs, or blogs, at several sites
such as Feedster (feedster.com),
Bloglines (bloglines.com)
and Technorati (technorati.com).
You can also install special
programs that let you find, and subscribe free
of charge, to numerous blogs and other
frequently updated Web sites. These include
FeedDemon for Windows (feeddemon.com)
and NetNewsWire on the Mac (ranchero.com/net
newswire/).
With these programs, called
news readers, you don't usually see the blog in
its original form, you receive "feeds" from them
-- constantly updated headlines and summaries of
new entries. You can then read the entire item
by just clicking on the headline.
Q:I've been shopping
for a TV that can receive broadcast
high-definition signals, and notice many
described as "HD-ready." What does that mean?
A: To receive and
display high-definition programming, a TV set
needs two basic features. One is a display
capable of rendering the high-definition
picture. The other is a tuner, or receiver,
capable of receiving the high-definition signal,
either over the air, or from a cable or
satellite service.
When a TV set is described as
"HD-ready," it usually means the set can display
high-definition pictures, but lacks the special
tuner needed to receive them. It may have no
tuner at all built in, or it may have just a
standard tuner. With this type of TV, you must
buy a separate high-definition over-the-air
tuner, or obtain a high-definition cable or
satellite receiver, to get high-definition
programming.
This may become a miracle for paralysis victims Genetically engineered stem cells
can help rats’ severed spinal cords grow back together,
according to a study published Tuesday. Rats given the
treatment, using stem cells taken from rat embryos, could
move their legs again after their spines were severed in the
lab, said the researchers’ report in the Journal of
Neuroscience.
"Stem Cells Mend Spinal Cords," Wired News, July 27,
2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68331,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_11
The Problem: Your PC is filling up with
cookies, which let Web sites track your
Internet-browsing habits.
The Solution: Cookies are short text
files that attach to your PC when you visit Web
sites. Some disappear from your computer when
you exit Internet Explorer, while others remain.
You'll likely want to keep some cookies on your
PC -- you can't visit sites like Yahoo and Gmail
without them. In other cases, they let you avoid
retyping your ZIP Code or address every time you
visit.
Here's how to avoid unwanted cookies: When using
Internet Explorer, go to the "Tools" menu and
click on "Internet Options." Select the
"Privacy" tab, and click on "Advanced Settings."
Check the box that lets you override automatic
cookie handling. Then you can ask to be prompted
whenever cookies appear -- you'll get a pop up
asking whether you want to accept it. If you
later wish to change your settings, click the
"Edit" button under the "Privacy" tab. You can
delete it from the list of managed sites.
Rozerem, the first of a new kind of sleeping pill,
today gained FDA approval Before today, many sleeping
pills had potential narcotic-like effects. True, new
nonbenzodiazepine sleeping pills -- such as Ambien, Lunesta,
and Sonata -- have greatly reduced abuse potential. But they
still have a sedating effect throughout the brain. And like
earlier sleep drugs, they are controlled substances under
federal law.
Daniel DeNoon, "FDA Approves New Kind of Sleeping Pill:
Rozerem First Drug to Target Brain's Sleep Center, WebMD,
July 22, 2005 ---
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/109/109150.htm?z=1727_00000_5024_hv_03
Your Genomic Diet Imagine a diet plan that saw
through to the core of your being and beyond, that took into
account not just the foibles and little secrets no one else
knows about (it's awfully easy to dispose of incriminating
Wendy's bags and 3 Musketeers wrappers) but even the secrets
that you don't know--secrets that can help keep you alive
longer and in better health. This is the promise--and
the threat--of the latest scheme for dramatic health
improvement to fall out from the big bang of the Human
Genome Project. Nutritional genomics--or nutritional
genetics, or nutrigenomics--examines your diet and your
genes to determine how they interact. Proponents argue that
nutrients in food alter gene expression or structure, acting
differently on different people according to their genetic
makeup. Once these interactions are understood, the story
goes, people can make up for inherited weaknesses or genetic
flaws by eating differently and, when necessary, taking
dietary supplements. Understanding the links between genes,
specific nutrients, and a range of diseases--from diabetes
and heart disease to less obvious diseases like some cancers
and neurodegenerative syndromes--will result in a diet plan
tailored to your very own gene profile.
Corby Kummer, "Your Genomic Diet," MIT's Technology
Review, August 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/feature_diet.asp?trk=nl
Jensen Comment: Don't anticipate a prescription for
prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, and malt scotch unless you're
already at death's doorstep.
How to make a female more like a male in
courtship behavior Activating a
single male-specific gene produces a female
fruit fly that displays male courtship
behaviors: chasing other females, tapping
their abdomens and performing wing-beating
love serenades. A Stanford study, published
in the June 15 online edition of the journal
Nature, shows that a single gene can
determine how females and males detect and
respond differently to sexual cues.
Hanna Hickey, "When gene 'switched' on,
female flies exhibit male behavior,"
Stanford Report, July 16, 2005 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/july13/flygene-071305.html
The idiot box is, well, an idiot box In a study by
researchers at Stanford's School of Medicine
and Johns Hopkins University, third graders
with televisions in their bedrooms performed
significantly worse on standardized tests
than their peers without TVs. Those with
access to a home computer earned higher test
scores.
Krista Conger, "TV in bedrooms linked to
lower test scores," Stanford Report,
July 13, 2005 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/july13/med-tv-071305.html
Brush up your Shakespeare:
Medieval manuscripts to hit Internet Stanford University
Libraries, the University of Cambridge and
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, will make
hundreds of medieval manuscripts, dating
from the sixth through the 16th centuries,
accessible on the Internet.
"Medieval manuscripts to hit Internet,"
Stanford Report, July 13, 2005 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/july13/parker-071305.html
Brush up your Shakespeare:
Medieval manuscripts to hit Internet Stanford University
Libraries, the University of Cambridge and
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, will make
hundreds of medieval manuscripts, dating
from the sixth through the 16th centuries,
accessible on the Internet.
"Medieval manuscripts to hit Internet,"
Stanford Report, July 13, 2005 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/july13/parker-071305.html
Thank you for
the notice about the availability of the
medieval manuscripts on the Internet
through the project Parker on the Web at
Stanford University. Two manuscripts are
currently available, and on page 11 of
the English translation of Matthew
Paris's "English History From 1235 to
1273" I have already found references to
accounting (see below).
Accountants are
still using the principle "under
whatever name it may be called" and
entities are still making up new names
for inconvenient economic events in the
hopes of avoiding full disclosure.
At this
Catholic liberal arts university
Shakespeare is modern, and the medieval
world is revered, so I'm interested in
gaining some insight into the medieval
worldview.
Barbara W.
Scofield, PhD, CPA
Associate Professor of Accounting
University of Dallas
1845 E. Northgate Irving, TX 75062
Braniff 262
scofield@gsm.udallas.edu
A case for political/social
conservatism He was, as the
saying goes, a “movement conservative,” in
touch with the ideas and arguments being
cooked up in the right-wing think tanks. But
he was as intellectually honest as anyone
could be. Around the time we first met, he
had just published
an article on
the famous “broken window syndrome” — that
basic doctrine of conservative social policy
— showing there was scarcely any solid
research to back it up. And when he did
argue for any given element of the right’s
agenda, it was hard to escape the sense that
he did so from the firm conviction that it
would bring the greatest good to the
greatest number of people.In short, talking
with David meant facing a repeated
obligation to think the unthinkable: that
someone could be a conservative without
suffering from either cognitive deficit or
profound moral stupidity.
Scott McLemee, "Inner Checks and Political
Balances," Inside Higher Ed, July 26,
2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/07/26/mclemee
A Drive Against Irresponsible Student Drinking The exact steps taken vary from
campus to campus, but all involve increased enforcement by
police and campus security, and “social norms” marketing,
which teaches students that not everyone drinks to fit in.
“All of the campuses are unique, and we want them all taking
a comprehensive look at what fits their particular
situation,” said Colleen Bentley-Adler, a California State
spokeswoman.
David Epstein, "A Drive Against Drinking," Inside Higher
Ed, July 26, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/26/drinking
What are these prescription
drugs being used for? Some of them mimic the effects of
street drugs. For instance, the pain reliever Oxycontin,
when stripped of its coating, can produce a heroinlike
high. The consequences of this kind of abuse are
familiar. Antidrug advocates have warned for decades
that drugs impair not only users' health but also their
work. Drug-induced torpor even earned its own name:
amotivational syndrome. Timothy Leary's flameout on the
Harvard fast track probably frightened more middle-class
parents than the warnings of J. Edgar Hoover.
But there is an aspect of
prescription drug abuse mentioned only briefly in the
report: ingesting to excel, not rebel. There's now a
hypermotivational syndrome, use of prescription drugs
not to escape the commanding heights of education and
the economy but to attain them.
The powers that be have long
blessed chemical performance enhancement. Employers once
encouraged stimulants: a hundred years ago,
African-American dock workers in the South were given
cocaine to fuel their back-breaking labors. In the
Southern textile industry, traveling "dope wagons"
brought milder stimulants like caffeinated, sugary soft
drinks and snuff to mill hands. The U.S. armed forces
distributed cigarettes to help servicemen cope with the
combat stress of World War II. Amphetamine use by
military flyers began at the same time and persisted
even during later antidrug campaigns, though at lower
dosages, with stricter controls.
The results of the largest
studies ever conducted of depression and schizophrenia
will be released in coming months, potentially
transforming the way patients are treated and shaking up
some of the drug industry's most lucrative markets.
The federally funded studies
are part of a six-year push by the mental-health
division of the National Institutes of Health to come up
with reliable scientific data on the differences between
drugs and treatment strategies for the major psychiatric
illnesses. The project comprises four trials, in serious
depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and
adolescent depression.
The aim is to fill the
information gap that plagues psychiatry, and hurts the
quality of care given to patients. Clinical trials that
companies do to get drugs approved aren't designed to
provide the answers that doctors say they really need.
For one, these trials don't compare one drug with
another, because they are designed to show only whether
a particular drug is effective against an illness. Thus,
psychiatrists have little guidance on whether one drug
works better than another or has fewer side effects than
another.
Also, at eight to 12 weeks
long, drug-company trials are too short to reveal how
patients fare or what side effects crop up long-term.
And, in order to stay focused on a drug's efficacy on
one illness, they exclude the sickest patients and
people with co-existing diseases.
Continued in article
How to compare shopping in physical stores using
online services
"Comparison Shopping: We Test Sites That Find
Bargains in Local Stores; Apples for $1.49 a Pound," by
Walter Mossberg, The Wall street Journal, July
27, 2005; Page D4
This week, my assistant
Katie Boehret and I tested two Web sites that
enable consumers to search for items that are on
sale in physical stores, making it much easier
for price-driven shoppers to find the best
deals. The sites that we tested,
Cairo.com and
ShopLocal.com, helped
us find plenty of things on sale at our
neighborhood stores, without so much as leafing
through a Sunday circular.
Cairo.com, which is owned by Cairo Inc., San
Francisco, offers a variety of items from stores
in your local area, including multiple grocery
stores.
ShopLocal.com is a slightly larger Chicago
company that is owned by newspaper companies --
specifically Tribune Co., Gannett Co. and Knight
Ridder Inc. -- and it, too, offers details on
sales in your area. However, because of its ties
to newspapers, it focuses its comparisons on
stores that advertise in the newspapers.
ShopLocal says it doesn't promote items only
from companies that have ads in the papers, and
that it had relationships with various companies
prior to its newspaper relations.
Our tests yielded a clear winner: Cairo. In
almost every case, its search results were
better and more accurate than ShopLocal's, and
it offered personalization and special features
that ShopLocal couldn't match.
Continued
in article
Premium long-term care insurance: If you can
afford it, you probably don't need it Consumers who want to protect
themselves in the event of the worst-case outcome - many
years in a nursing home - can spend at least $10,000 a year
on premiums for full coverage. According to a survey by the
MetLife Mature Market Institute, the average cost of a year
in a private room of a nursing home was $70,080 in 2003,
though prices vary greatly by region: $36,135 in Shreveport,
La., for example, but $113,880 in New York City. But a new
study shows that only a small percentage of policyholders
need care for long periods - four years or more. So a
growing number of specialists recommend more modest policies
for which the policyholder pays a bigger share of the costs.
Susan B. Garland, "Long-Term-Care Insurance: How Much Is Too
Much?" The New York Times, July 25, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/business/yourmoney/24care.html
Toxic Diversity in Law Schools Dan Subotnik once went to his dean
and asked to teach a course on race and the law, a subject
to which he had devoted a great deal of his own scholarly
effort. Teaching a course about something you know is a
time-honored method of refining your ideas and, not least,
of educating the young. But the dean turned him down. Why?
He claimed that Mr. Subotnik's message would be unduly
dismissive of racism, amounting to, as the dean put it, "get
over it." While the dean's decision may have been
unfortunate for Touro Law School, where Mr. Subotnik is a
professor, it was an excellent one for the rest of us
because it prompted "Toxic Diversity" (New York
University Press, 335 pages, $45), a thoughtful critique of
identity politics in the nation's law schools. These days
"critical race studies" and feminist jurisprudence are a
routine part of law-school scholarship, and much of it is
devoted to discovering in the law those white, male power
structures that have become an obsession throughout our
universities.
John O. McGinis, "At Law School, Unstrict Scrutiny," The
Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2005; Page D10 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112241706641596672,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
The phenomenon of salary inversions in academe The problem of salary inversion
is not new, but it has become worse at public institutions
that have faced limited state funds, according to Mark Prus,
dean of the School of Arts at Sciences at the State
University of New York at Cortland. Prus faced the problem
when he was chair of the economics department, and co-wrote
a paper about it in the Eastern Economic Journal. Prus said
salary inversion has been around for decades, but generally
in a few fields, like economics and technical disciplines.
It’s more unusual, Prus said, to see salary inversions in
the departments that have it at Marshall. “In English
there’s a surplus of Ph.D.’s, so you don’t see significant
changes in starting salaries, like you might in a technical
field,” Prus said. He also said that salary profiles over
time tend to be “U-shaped,” meaning that new faculty members
might make more than professors who have been around for 5
or 10 years, but generally not more than recent hires.
Faculty members at Marshall, however, said some junior
faculty members are getting topped after just a few years.
David Epstein, "Watch Out for the New Guy," Inside Higher
Ed, July 27, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/27/marshall
Let's see if this one hurdles over the health
insurance lobby Republicans haven't been
getting much credit on the health policy front, despite
their misguided 2003 drug entitlement masquerading as
Medicare "reform." That could change soon. Last week the
House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill that
could dramatically reduce the ranks of the uninsured and
spur general economic growth -- all without costing a dime
to the Treasury. The idea behind the legislation, sponsored
by GOP Representative John Shadegg of Arizona, is
disarmingly simple: Allow Americans to buy health insurance
from vendors in any one of the 50 states.
"Cheaper Health Insurance," The Wall Street Journal,
July 25, 2005; Page A14 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112224426215594373,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Jensen Comment: Although this makes good sense on
paper, it is a subtle victory for tort lawyers who are
frustrated by the rising numbers of states that are putting
a cap on punitive damages. Reduced premiums might
reduce the political pressures for such caps in states that
have not yet come to their senses.
When Gambling Becomes Obsessive: Scientists are
beginning to figure out why Two hundred forty-seven Native
American casinos dot tribal lands in 22 states; 84 riverboat
or dockside casinos ply the waters or sit at berth in six
states. And with local governments struggling to close
budget gaps, slots and lotteries are booming. All told, 48
states have some form of legalized gambling--and none of
that includes the wild frontier of the Internet. By 1996 the
annual take for the U.S. gambling industry was over $47
billion, more than that from movies, music, cruise ships,
spectator sports and live entertainment combined. In 2003
the figure jumped to over $72 billion. All that money is
coming from someone's pockets, and it's not the winners'.
According to Keith Whyte, executive director of the National
Council on Problem Gambling, as many as 10 million U.S.
adults meet the "problem gambling" criteria. Kids are hit
even harder. Exact figures aren't easy to come by, but
various studies place the rate of problem gambling among
underage players somewhere between two and three times the
rate for adults.
Jeffrey Kluger, "When Gambling Becomes Obsessive: For
millions, the thrill of the bet is as addictive as any drug.
Scientists are beginning to figure out why--and what can be
done to help," Time Magazine, July 24, 2005 ---
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1086175,00.html
Recording what you hear: More MP3 and audio-file
tools than you can shake a memory stick at!
With all
that as lead in, here, then, are the
suggestions from your fellow readers for
the best tools for converting, ripping,
and burning audio, extracted from over a
megabyte of original text mail files:
Windows Media Player
Fred, I have several ideas about
freeware to burn MP3s and a possible
solution to Ken's problems in burning
CDs. I use Nero for most of my CD and
DVD burning so I do not have a lot of
experience with other freeware, but here
are two I have used. First, Windows
Media Player Version 10 can burn CDs
from MP3 files. It can also rip music in
MP3 format if you change the rip setting
from its usual WMA setting. Look under
Tools, Options, and then go to the Rip
Music tab. Here is a
link to the download. Also,
Musicmatch Jukebox has a free version in
addition to its paid version. It can
also burn and rip MP3 files. Here is
the link to the free download. In
the past, I have had somewhat the same
problem Ken appears to be having when
burning a CD. At the very end of a burn
(usually 99% complete) I would receive
an error saying the burn could not
complete. After some research, I found
that having autoplay on might cause the
PC to read the almost complete CD and
try to run it JUST BEFORE it was
complete. Turning off autoplay solved
that problem. Most CD recording software
now does this automatically during the
burn process so you can leave autoplay
turned on. I am not sure if this would
solve Ken's problem, but it appears that
he is having the same problem with every
CD-burning software he tries so it might
just be worth checking. -- Clay Teague
New Internet connection
alternative when you are on the road When you're
on the road, the hunt for an
Internet café can be wearing, and
occasionally fruitless. So the next
time you pack up and go, consider
taking your own
hotspotwith you. Travelers can now set
up their own portable Internet cafes
with an
802.11gtravel router offered by Linksys.
Announced Monday, Linksys, a
division of Cisco Systems, said the
compact-sized WTR54GS router will
have an estimated street price of
$99.99. Using the travel
router,
multiple Wi-Fi
equipped computers can share a
single Internet access account. For
instance, the WTR54GS could be
wirelessly connected to a wireless
Internet service provider and then
be opened up for linking by
additional users. The device has a
built-in power supply, wireless
signal antenna, and a
WAN
port to connect a cable or
DSL connection.
"Users simply plug the router
directly into the wall with the
built-in retractable two-prong power
adapter, and establish either a
wired or wireless connection to the
Internet access offered by (a) hotel
or other venue," Linksys'
announcement stated.
"Linksys Brews Up Hotspot To Go,"
InternetWeek, July 25, 2005 ---
http://www.internetweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=166402171
Why more students these days don't go into computer
science Gates wonders (
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=166400859
) why more kids these days don't go
into computer science. He said last week that even if young
people don't know that salaries and job openings in computer
science are on the rise, they're hooked on so much
technology--cell phones, digital music players, instant
messaging, Internet browsing--that it's puzzling why more
don't want to grow up to be programmers. This is spoken like
a man who was born well off, attended Harvard, and became
the wealthiest man in the world. By contrast, kids these
days are worried about survival and money in a way that we
haven't seen since before the baby boom. The kids who will
enter college in a few weeks are kids who turned 14 when the
planes hit the World Trade Center. They spent most of their
adolescence, the time when kids get ready to enter the world
of adulthood, learning about terrorism, war, the economic
downturn, outsourcing, layoffs, increasing deficits, the
health-care crisis--am I leaving anything out here? They
resemble, in outlook, the generation that grew up in the
Depression and fought in World War II. They have grown up
knowing the world is a scary place. Information Week Newsletter Editorial, July 24, 2005
Universities in the US are
increasingly combining business degrees with technology
degrees. It's based on the idea that modern managers
need deeper IT skills to properly do their job. It's an
idea that has been around for several years, but not one
that has fully hit the mainstream. However, with the
growth of e-business and the use of technology in
business generally, it seems an obvious course to take.
It is particularly needed in MBA programs, and one could
argue, necessary to their continuing relevance. 2 for 1:
Colleges eye combining tech, business degrees -
Computerworld ---
http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/story/0,10801,103195,00.html
A Trinity University professor sent the following
message regarding switching from a traditional telephone
service to a VoIP sytem.
I disconnected SBC copper and
have TW ip phone service (as well as cell phones (Cingualar)).
I am happy with the ip phone, however, an alarm system
requires battery backup to power the phone modem to
provide phone service during power outage and even that
may not be enough if the cable system loses power in the
vicinity of your neighborhood.
SBC now gives me all sorts of
special offers and reduced rates in an attempt to get me
back as a customer.
Very Old Labor: Unions need a vision for the new
global economy What's missing on both sides,
however, is a vision of economic opportunity that might
actually make workers want to join a union in the first
place. Tactics aside, both factions continue to believe in
the idea of unions that arose in the Industrial Age: Greedy
management versus the exploited working man, seniority over
flexibility, fixed benefits and strike threats over working
with management to keep a U.S.-based company profitable and
innovative in a world of growing competition. On the
political front, both factions favor trade protection,
higher taxes and government help to enforce restrictive work
rules. This is the agenda of Old Europe, where jobless rates
are above 10%, and it merely offers more economic insecurity
in the U.S. as well. What the labor movement really needs is
a new generation of leaders who understand the emerging
competition to U.S. workers from the likes of India and
China. Rather than oppose imports to protect textile jobs
that can't be saved, such leaders would work to reform
education so future Americans can compete in the knowledge
industries that will grow the fastest. They'd also work to
make pensions and health insurance transportable from
company to company, so a worker wouldn't be trapped by
benefits in a job or industry he didn't like. They'd be
partners with management, not antagonists.
"Very Old Labor," The Wall Street Journal, July 26,
2005; Page A24 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112233367204295480,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
'Aha' this makes good sense
"Penn State researcher (Ted Wills) says 'aha' moments aid
information recall," Penn State Live, July 23, 2005
---
http://live.psu.edu/story/12766
Twenty-five years ago, it was
commonly thought that providing people with
straightforward information that they could easily
process was a key to learning facts effectively. Today,
Penn State Abington researcher Ted Wills will tell you
that this doesn't necessarily hold true. In fact,
creating an "aha" moment for the person processing the
information could well be the key to better retention.
Wills, assistant professor of
psychology, has been studying the "aha" effect for a
decade. He has been involved with many research projects
that have pitted run-of-the-mill information and
information dissemination against that which is
unanticipated -- whether it is the written word,
pictures or spoken dialogue -- with consistent results.
In one study, for example,
subjects were given the sentence: "The man jumped onto
the horse." Those who were presented with the obvious
association word, "cowboy," later recalled they had
heard the sentence 23 percent of the time, while those
presented with the less obvious association word,
"gymnast," recalled the sentence 33 percent of the time
-- a nearly 50-percent increase.
In another study, people who
were asked to connect the dots to find a picture were
much more likely to recall what they had seen than
people who were asked to simply trace the same picture.
The latter research was published in the journal Memory
and Cognition in 2000.
"If you have the 'aha'
experience, something that was initially confusing has
become clearer," said Wills, who noted that the "aha"
effect has similarities to the "generation" effect,
which states that any time a person generates a solution
to a scenario -- no matter how trivial -- they are more
likely to remember it then if they are simply given the
information.
"If I'm right, one way to
enhance the odds that you're going to remember something
is for you to form an initial interpretation of the
information you're provided with, and then have to
revise that interpretation."
So how can the "aha" effect be
applied beneficially in society? For starters, Wills
says teachers could devise lesson plans to shock and
amaze students, thereby helping the majority to retain
factual information better.
"If I'm teaching social studies
and I've explained how most early explorers reached the
Americas and eventually reversed their course to return
to their homelands, I can then ask, 'What do you think
Magellan did when he approached South America?' Instead
of simply telling them that Magellan was the first to
sail around the world after he discovered the Straits of
Magellan, I've created a great opportunity for dialogue,
and an unanticipated ending they're more likely to
recall."
Wills did his dissertation on
the 'aha' effect, titled "Cognitive Operations and the
'Aha' Effect: Revision not Confusion," while attending
graduate school at Tufts University in the mid-1990s. He
is currently interviewing the last of the more than 225
Penn State Abington students for his latest research
project, and much of his research on this issue is
currently under review for publication by psychology
journals.
Public-policy lectures from several universities
July 28, 2005 message from Amy Dunbar [Amy.Dunbar@BUSINESS.UCONN.EDU]
The Chronicle of Higher
Education had the following blurb:
A NEW WEB SERVICE run by
Princeton University is offering free online recordings
of prominent scholars giving public-policy lectures at
several universities, via streaming video or as audio
podcasts.
I went to the following link,
scrolled down the list of lectures, found Studs Terkel,
and spent an hour listening to him. What an enjoyable
hour! What a gift from Princeton!
Amy Dunbar
University of Connecticut
School of Business
Accounting Department
2100 Hillside Road, Unit 1041
Storrs, CT 06269-1041
Bush Taps Two Democrats for SEC President Bush nominated two
Democrats to serve as members on the Securities and Exchange
Commission, clearing the way for the Senate to consider Rep.
Christopher Cox, a California Republican, to be chairman.
Mr. Cox was nominated as SEC chairman last month, but his
confirmation was delayed as members of the Senate Banking
Committee urged the White House also to nominate two
Democrats to fill open slots on the five-member commission.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers wanted the committee to
consider all three SEC nominees together.
Deborah, Solomon, "Bush Taps Two Democrats for SEC:
Nominations Clear the Way For Senators to Consider Cox as
Agency's Chairman," The Wall Street Journal, July 25,
2005; Page A6 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112224479138694392,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Sadly, this also makes good sense Investigators are not under the
illusion that financial support for such attacks comes in
neat packages, or from pre-determined directions. The small
amounts of money involved, and the rapid learning curve of
those behind the assaults, mean that off-the-shelf templates
for spotting suspicious patterns simply do not exist. But
experts and investigators do, however, have firm ideas about
where to start.
"Warning signs for the funding of terror," BBC News,
July 20, 2005 ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4692941.stm
Secrets of drawings that look like engravings Those neat illustrations of people
in the pages of The Wall Street Journal may look like
engravings, but they're really hand-drawn, pointilist
portraits. Noli Novak has been producing them since 1987.
Find out how it's done.
Petra Mayer, "Noli Novak: Portrait of a Stipple Artist,"
NPR, July 24, 2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4768811
Those familiar illustrations on
the pages of The Wall Street Journal look just like
engravings. But the intricate portraits, called headcuts,
are actually a sort of pointilist sketch -- drawn by
hand using a technique known as "stippling."
Noli Novak, a New Jersey-based
artist, has produced Journal art for nearly 20 years. At
her New Jersey studio, she typically receives an
e-mailed photo of her subject. Then, deftly employing a
number-one pen, she copies a three-by-five inch image
onto special vellum paper. She creates a realistic image
with a constellation of dots, lines and crosshatches, a
process that generally takes about three hours.
Novak grew up on the Croatian
island of Korchula, and reached the United States in
1984, after college. In addition to doing her own work
for the Journal, she now trains new artists. She makes
sure everyone draws in a uniform style, making it nearly
impossible to tell whose hand lies behind which
portrait.
General Motors reported its
third consecutive losing quarter on Wednesday as surging
sales in June did not translate into profits.
Many of G.M.'s domestic
problems were laid bare in the second quarter, from its
reliance on large sport utility vehicles to its enormous
health care costs, leading two of the three major credit
ratings agencies to downgrade G.M.'s debt below
investment grade in May to junk bond status.
G.M.'s sales and market share
in the United States were actually up in the quarter,
buoyed by the company's promotion that began June 1,
offering customers the same discounts that G.M. workers
receive. But the heavy incentive spending has cut into
profit margins. Weak demand for large S.U.V.'s like the
Chevrolet Suburban has also hurt profitability, as have
health care costs and high prices of commodities like
steel.
The company reported a $286
million overall loss in the quarter, in contrast to a
$1.4 billion profit a year earlier. The results mainly
reflect troubles in the North American automotive
operations, which reported a $1.2 billion loss in the
quarter, in contrast to a $355 million profit a year
ago.
Continued in article
How a supposed "Republican" governor becomes a winner
in a highly liberal state Democrats get call Governor Mitt
Romney, who touts his conservative credentials to
out-of-state Republicans, has passed over GOP lawyers for
three-quarters of the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced,
instead tapping registered Democrats or independents.
Raphael Lewis, "Romney jurist picks not tilted to GOP:
Independents, Democrats get call," Boston.com, July
25, 2005 ---
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/07/25/romney_jurist_picks_not_tilted_to_gop/
Price elasticity in booze among cash-strapped teens In just about every state that
increased beer taxes in recent years, teenage drinking soon
dropped. The same happened in the early 1990's when Arizona,
Maryland, New Jersey and a handful of other states passed
zero-tolerance laws, which suspend the licenses of under-21
drivers who have any trace of alcohol in their blood. In
states that waited until the late 90's to adopt zero
tolerance, like Colorado, Indiana and South Carolina, the
decline generally did not happen until after the law was in
place. Teenagers, it turns out, are highly rational
creatures in some ways. Budweisers and Marlboros are
discretionary items, and their customers treat them as such.
Gasoline consumption, by contrast, changes only marginally
when the price of a gallon does.
David Leonhardt, "To Reduce the Cost of Teenage Temptation,
Why Not Just Raise the Price of Sin?" The New York Times,
July 25, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/business/25consuming.html
No more heroic cops The cops are watching us more than
they used to -- but we're also keeping a closer eye on the
cops. The Los Angeles Police Department, plagued by
corruption and police-brutality scandals, is using
business-intelligence technology to monitor police activity
for unusual activity for signs of cops going bad. While a
data-mining system isn't the same thing as surveillance
cameras, it comes down to the same thing: every cop's every
move is going to be watched, all the time. An LA policeman
raises a valid concern: exceptional activity doesn't mean a
cop is bad, it could also mean a cop is very good. He's
worried that the system will encourage cops to conform, to
stay in the middle of the pack, to avoid drawing attention
to themselves by, say, being heroic. InformationWeek Daily Newsletter, July 26, 2005
Accounting manipulations at Sallie Mae SLM Corp., the largest U.S.
provider of student loans, said it fired its chief financial
officer and demoted another manager in a debt-collection
agency unit for inflating revenue in a bid to achieve
performance goals and collect higher bonuses. The company,
better known as Sallie Mae, also said the Securities and
Exchange Commission had decided not to take enforcement
action against it or the managers over the accounting
errors, which took place in 2003. The SEC had opened an
informal probe in January 2004. Sallie Mae said it took
action following an internal review. Spokesman Thomas Joyce
declined to identify the unit or the managers, or when the
firing and demotion took place. "We're pleased to put the
matter behind us," he said. SEC spokesman John Heine
declined to comment. The former chief financial officer
couldn't be reached. Sallie Mae said it had learned that on
three occasions in 2003, senior managers in the unit
intentionally recorded revenue from loan payments made or
scheduled to be made in the first few days of a month in the
prior month.
"Sallie Mae Dismisses Top Financial Officer In Accounting
Review," The Wall Street Journal, July 26,
2005; Page A6 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112234608295395803,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Scammers Operating on Periphery Of CFTC's Domain Lure
Little Guy With Fantastic Promises of Profits Mr. Croy and others like him are
the unhappy denizens of a little-known corner of the
foreign-exchange market where scammers seek to separate
investors from their money. Small investors, drawn to
foreign exchange as an alternative to the stock market and
the petty yields offered by bonds, have proved to be readily
available, if not willing, targets: About 23,000 investors
have lost about $350 million in foreign-exchange fraud cases
the CFTC has pursued since Congress in late 2000 gave the
regulator authority over a small slice of the global
currency market.
Peter A. McKay, "Scammers Operating on Periphery Of CFTC's
Domain Lure Little Guy With Fantastic Promises of Profits,"
The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2005; Page C1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112233850336095645,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi Criticizes
Iran's Regime Prior to the second round of
presidential elections in Iran, which was won by Mahmoud
Ahmadi-Nejad, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin
Ebadi gave an interview to the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly, in
which she discussed the recent Iranian elections, the status
of women in Islamic society, and democracy. The following
are excerpts from the interview: [1] "As Long as a Council
[the Guardian Council] or an Individual [Khamenei] Screens
the Candidates, I Cannot Vote [in the Iranian Elections]"
Interviewer: "You must have a view [on who will win the
run-off presidential elections]." Shirin Ebadi: "As long as
a council [Iran's...
The Middle East Research Institute, July 26, 2005 ---
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP94205
Did you know that Longhorn became Vista? The following is from What's New Now from Ziff Davis
[wnn@eletters.whatsnewnow.com]
Vista's New
Look
Much has been made of the spiffy new 3-D
features inside Windows Longhorn client.
But there's a lot more there. We've
taken an
in-depth look at Vista,
to uncover
neat secrets and cool features. Don't
miss David Coursey's
analysis
and
our
slideshow
of the hot
new Vista interface. And PCMag.com's
experts check in with their own
detailed
analysis,
which you also need to read, to get the
full picture of where Vista is going
Smart Buyouts: Not a game for amateurs Measure what matters: Buyout firms
zero in on a few key metrics, focusing on cash and tailoring
measurements to the business. Thus, when Texas Pacific Group
bought Beringer Wine Estates from Nestlé in 1996, it
revamped the winery's performance metrics to focus on its
cash flows, not return on assets and economic value added.
The latter penalized Beringer for hanging on to assets like
vineyards and aging wine, which were actually increasing in
value over time. Once banks realized Beringer's strong cash
position, TPG was able to finance Beringer's assets with
bank debt and reduce the amount of equity it put into the
company. This maximized TPG's return on capital -- and led
to a ninefold return on TPG's initial investment in five
years. Make equity sweat: The average firm finances about
60% of its assets with debt, versus 40% at a typical public
company. Scarce cash forces managers to redeploy
underperforming capital. DLJ Merchant Banking, Credit Suisse
First Boston's private equity arm, squeezed costs when it
purchased Mueller Water Products, an old-line maker of
high-pressure valves, in 1999 from Tyco International Ltd.
for $938 million. Closing uncompetitive foundries and
innovating leaner manufacturing methods freed up cash for
acquisitions that helped boost revenue from $865 million in
2001 to $1.05 billion in 2004. Last month, Walter Industries
agreed to buy Mueller for $1.91 billion.
Hugh MacArther and Dan Haas, "The New Masters of the
Universe," The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2005;
Page A18 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112234666817095815,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Thinking green versus thinking cost savings Asked what motivated colleges to
adopt environmentally sound practices, the top answer was
cost savings. But asked what was holding colleges back from
adopting more such practices, the top answers were fear of
added costs and inertia. Vicki Sirianni, a consultant with
the Boston Consortium, said it was “almost terrifying” to
realize how much financial considerations were dominating
environmental issues on campus. “We are so concerned about
costs that we will purchase something even if it kills us,”
she said, joking only in part.
Scott Jaschik, "Thinking Green," Inside Higher Ed,
July 26, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/26/green
No roaming fees: Where the reindeer, moose,
bears, and professors roam Alaska’s governor signed
legislation Monday that will transfer 250,000 acres of land
to the University of Alaska. University officials have long
pushed for such a transfer, which will more than double the
amount of land controlled by the land grant institution.
Inside Higher Ed, July 26, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/26/qt
Although I don't agree with her economic theories,
Senator Clinton has a dream for America American Dream" for 2020 includes
affordable health care for all, cures derived from stem-cell
research, terrorists without followers, and a Democrat in
Ohio's governor's mansion. The New York senator spoke
yesterday to more than 300 moderate Democrats from 40 states
at the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist group
that helped to set her husband on the path to the White
House in 1991.
Jim Provance, "Hillary Clinton: America needs to dream big
Senator outlines vision of country at Democrat session in
Columbus," ToledoBlade.com, July 26, 2005 ---
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050726/NEWS09/507260387
Do women make better college presidents? While not everyone
agrees, strong empirical evidence has
accumulated that the most successful college
presidents tend to be transformational
leaders who find the ways and means to
inspire and move their institutions and
colleagues to higher levels of achievement.
The most successful college presidents tend
to be “doers” who transform and improve
their institutions rather than simply
recording votes and exercising ceremonial
duties.We can compare male and female
presidents by using research reported in
The Entrepreneurial President (written
by two of us — Fisher and Koch) and a
doctoral dissertation completed in 2004 at
the College of William and Mary by McAdory.
This evidence takes us several important
steps further down the road to defining the
essence of great leadership.
James L. Fisher and James V. Koch and Alice
R. McAdory, "Entrepreneurial Women," Inside
Higher Ed, July 15, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/careers/2005/07/15/koch
Shelby's bill to rein in on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac The Senate expectation is that most
or all Banking Committee Democrats will oppose the Shelby
bill, since they view Fan and Fred as Congressional business
subsidiaries -- guaranteed sources of political cash and
high-paid patronage jobs. This means Mr. Shelby will need
the votes of all Republicans, and his Committee does include
such reform stalwarts as Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) and John
Sununu (N.H.).
"Shelby to the Rescue," The Wall Street Journal, July
27, 2005; Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112243313007297092,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Idiot Alert: Spiked cocaine's bad for business
and kills the wrong (mostly non-Christian) people Osama bin Laden tried to buy a
massive amount of cocaine, spike it with poison and sell it
in the United States, hoping to kill thousands of Americans
one year after the 9/11 attacks, The Post has learned. The
evil plot failed when the Colombian drug lords bin Laden
approached decided it would be bad for their business - and,
possibly, for their own health, according to law-enforcement
sources familiar with the Drug Enforcement Administration's
probe of the aborted transaction. The feds were told of the
scheme earlier this year, but its existence had never been
made public.
Can Mangan, "COKE FIEND BIN LADEN," The New York Post,
July 25. 2005 ---
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/50787.htm
Jensen Comment: For a very long time I've often day
dreamed that this would be an effective, albeit immoral,
strategy to end the war on drugs. However, it doesn't
seem to work for naturally-poisoned tobacco products.
Airport Congestion: Tragedy of
the commons Mead cited
rising demand as a cause of delays and
also faulted the growth of low-cost
carriers. But blaming low-cost airlines
like Southwest and JetBlue for
air-travel delay is exactly backward.
The most important source of late
flights at big airports is completely
within the major
airlines' control. In fact, the evidence
shows the major carriers are creating
the delays on purpose. At first glance,
this seems crazy. The common explanation
given for flight delays is that too many
people are flying: The more air traffic,
the more delays. That's what most
economists say, too. This view of
airport congestion makes it seem just
like highway congestion. Each time an
airline schedules a flight, it doesn't
take into account the backups it causes
by crowding the airspace. The dynamic
generates a
tragedy of the
commons,
in which each of the companies vying for
runway slots has an incentive to
overschedule.
Austan Goolsbee, "Tragedy of the Airport
Why you get stuck for hours at O'Hare,"
Slate, July 25, 2005 ---
http://slate.com/id/2123240/
It's hard to shed tears over this Russian's death news
One billion email users under suspicion as police launch
enquiry One of Russia's best-known spammers
has been found beaten to death in his apartment in central
Moscow, according to police reports.
"Russian spammer found beaten to death One billion email
users under suspicion as police launch enquiry,"
vunet.com , July 26, 2005 ---
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2140340/russian-spammer-murdered
Welcome to virtual classrooms in India
(forwarded by Jagdish Gangolli) Education in
colleges and schools across India's villages
and urban areas will not be the same from
July 28 onwards after the launch of a
revolutionary education service by President
A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday. Install a
one-and-a-half feet long, small dish
antennae in your home, school, neighbourhood
community hall, college or university and
you can attend world-class classroom
lectures, whether you are a primary student
or a college graduate. Such lectures
delivered at any remote learning centre or
the Indian Institutes of Technology are
disseminated to your home. Nearly a year
after the Indian Space Research Organisation
launched the world's first dedicated
education satellite, Edusat, virtual
classrooms have become a reality in the
country. President Kalam opened the
country's first phase of Edusat's operations
on Thursday by connecting 15 teacher
training centres and 50 government schools
through satellite in Kerala.
"A revolution in India education,"
redoff.com, July 28, 2005 ---
http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/jul/28gi.htm
Something to consider before you embark on a
career in academe Don’t get me wrong;
I’m not trying to talk you out of it – just
making sure you know what you want. You
wouldn’t just forge ahead after graduate
school by naively entering the job market,
applying for any and all posted positions,
and requesting a multitude of recommendation
letters, without performing some type of
self-assessment – right? Unfortunately,
academics answer Yes more often than might
be expected. In many cases, they leap toward
academic careers, ignoring somewhat
painfully obvious advice and warning signs —
that they are not suited for this path, or
the goal of teaching or research is wrong
for them. Why does this happen? There is an
unspoken pressure or obligation to seek
employment in academia after graduate
training. That is what you are supposed to
do, and if you don’t, it’s an embarrassment
and you’re a disappointment.
David B. Rivers, "Who Are You?" Inside
Higher Ed, July 27, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/careers/2005/07/27/rivers
Questions about college administrators
being guaranteed "back up" professorships The University of
Wisconsin System
announced
Tuesday that it was suspending the awarding
of “back up” appointments to administrators,
pending a review of policies. The
appointments have allowed administrators to
move into other slots. The university has
faced a
huge backlash
in recent months over a paid leave granted
to a Madison administrator who had an affair
with a graduate student. Inside Higher Ed, July 27, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/27/qt
Dennis Beresford forwarded the following,
which it turns out, is an illustration of a
"back up" professorship
The former
University of Georgia journalism dean
will appeal to the University System
Board of Regents since UGA President
Michael Adams denied his request for an
independent review of sexual harassment
charges. Former Grady College of
Journalism and Mass Communication dean
John Soloski, who resigned his deanship
June 28, was reprimanded after a
university investigation found that he
had made inappropriate comments about a
woman employee.
The
investigation found that Soloski had
violated UGA policy with his comments -
one about the employee's eyes, another
about a dress that he said showed her
"assets" - and he is required to
complete a university sexual harassment
training program before Jan. 1.
But Soloski
said he didn't intend his comments as
sexual and that the way the university
investigated the matter was unfair.
"UGA is the
judge, jury and executioner," Soloski
said, and he asked for an independent
review of the case.
Adams denied
the request in a letter dated Thursday,
saying the penalties Soloski faces "are
the least stringent that could have been
applied under the circumstances."
As a condition
of Soloski's contract, he will be paid
his dean salary for a year while he
returns to research and works on
teaching materials. He will return to
Grady College as a professor in fall
2006 with a salary no less than the
highest paid full professor in the
college.
Continued in article
Race outburst - university tries to
oust professor Macquarie
University today will attempt to buy out the
contract of an academic who opposes
non-white immigration, warns that Australia
is creating an Asian ruling class and that
it risks becoming a third world colony.
Associate professor Andrew Fraser, from the
university's Department of Public Law, wrote
to a newspaper earlier this month warning
that Australia's increasing black population
would lead to more crime and other problems.
He has repeated these and other comments
opposing non-white immigration to several
media outlets. "The director of human
resources at Macquarie University called me
today [Monday] and said, 'Would you please
come in tomorrow [Tuesday], we'd like to
discuss buying you out of your fixed-term
contract'," he said. He had already planned
to retire when his contract ran out on July
30 next year. The university was trying to
buy his silence, he said. "You're not really
allowed any more to have more than one view
on race and immigration. You must be in
favour of the colonisation of Australia by
the third world and the replacement of
Australian students in the universities by
foreigners."
Edmund Tadros, "Race outburst - university
tries to oust professor," Sydney Morning
Herald, July 26, 2005 ---
http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/07/25/1122143787355.html
Question: Who
does President Bush purportedly refer to as
a
"turd blossom?"
About a
dozen newspapers have objected to use of
toilet humor in Tuesday's and Wednesday's
"Doonesbury" comic strip, and some either
pulled or edited the strip. Kansas
City-based Universal Press Syndicate, which
distributes the Garry Trudeau strip to about
1,400 newspapers, said it had received some
complaints from editors about a reference to
presidential aide Karl Rove. In the strip, a
caricature of President Bush refers to Rove
as "turd blossom." It has been widely
reported that "Turd Blossom" is the
president's actual nickname for Rove.
"Some Papers Pull, Edit 'Doonesbury' Strip,"
Fox News, July 27, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1451424/posts
Humor between July 15 and July 31, 2005
Forwarded by Paula
A man entered the bus with both of his front pants
pockets full of golf balls, and sat down next to a beautiful (you guessed
it) blonde.
The puzzled blonde kept looking at him and his bulging pockets.
Finally, after many such glances from her, he said, "It's golf balls".
Nevertheless, the blonde continued to look at him thoughtfully and
finally, not being able to contain her curiosity any longer, asked. "Does it
hurt as much as tennis elbow?"
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
A man and his dog were walking along a road.
The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he
was dead.
He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead
for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.
After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of
the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was
broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that
looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like
pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he
saw a man at a desk to one side.
When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?"
"This is Heaven, sir," the man answered.
"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.
"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought
right up."
The man gestured, and the gate began to open.
"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler
asked.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."
The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and
continued the way he had been going with his dog.
After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to
a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been
closed. There was no fence.
As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree
and reading a book.
"Excuse me!" he called to the man. "Do you have any water?"
"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.
"There should be a bowl by the pump."
They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned
hand pump with a bowl beside it.
The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he
gave some to the dog.
When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was
standing by the tree.
"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.
"This is Heaven," he answered.
"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said
that was Heaven, too."
"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope.
That's hell."
"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?"
"No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave
their best friends behind."
Soooo...
Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding jokes to us without
writing a word.
Maybe this will explain.
When you are very busy, but still want to keep in touch, guess what you
do? You forward jokes.
When you have nothing to say, but still want to keep contact, you forward
jokes.
Also to let you know that you are still remembered, you are still
important, you are still loved, you are still cared for, guess what you get?
A forwarded joke.
So, next time if you get a joke, don't think that you've been sent just
another forwarded joke, but that you've been thought of today and your
friend on the other end of your computer wanted to send you a smile.
You are all welcome @ my water bowl anytime.
Forwarded by Paula
ENGLISH - ASYLUM FOR THE VERBALLY INSANE - AUTHOR
UNKNOWN
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes, but the plural of ox
became oxen not oxes. One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, yet the
plural of moose should never be meese. You may find a lone mouse or a nest
full of mice, yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men, why shouldn't the plural of
pan be called pen? If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet, and I give
you a boot, would a pair be called beet? If one is a tooth and a whole set
are teeth, why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those, yet hat in the plural
would never be hose, and the plural of cat is! cats, not cose. We speak of a
brother and also of! brethren, but though we say mother, we never say
methren. Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, but imagine the
feminine, she, shis and shim.
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant
nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins
weren't invented in England. We take English for granted. But if we explore
its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are
square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't
groce and hammers don't ham? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends
but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all
but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats
vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the folks
who grew up speaking English should be committed to an asylum for the
verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship. We have noses that run and feet
that smell. And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a
wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house
can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
I found "Forwarded by Paula ENGLISH - ASYLUM
FOR THE VERBALLY INSANE - AUTHOR UNKNOWN" fascinating. I wonder if the
piece is by the wellknown verbivore and lexicographer Richard Lederer.
He has a radio show called "The way with words"
that is also Podcast. The page is:
He has written a bunch of entertaining,
illuminating books on the English language.
Jagdish
Forwarded by Barb Hessel
I
thought this one was fun. I knew them all. Barb
Subject: ah, the memories...
Only a few Senior Citizens can make a perfect score on this one!
Youngsters can try their luck. The answers are below, but don't cheat.
01. After the Lone Ranger saved the day and rode off into the sunset,
the grateful citizens would ask, "Who was that masked man?" Invariably,
someone would answer, "I don't know, but he left this behind." "What did
he leave behind?_______________________.
02. When the Beatles first came to the U.S.in early 1964, we all!
watched them on the, ______________________show.
03. Get your kicks, _______________.
04. The story you are about to see is true. The names have been
changed ____________________.
05. In the jungle, the mighty jungle,_________________________.
06. After the twist, the mashed potatoes, and the watusi, we "danced"
under a stick! that was lowered as low as we could go in a dance called
the_________________________.
07. N_E_S_T_L_E_S, Nestle's makes the very best, _______________.
08. Satchmo was America's "ambassador of goodwill." Our parents
shared this great jazz trumpet player with us. His name was,
____________________.
09. What takes a licking and keeps on ticking?__________________.
10. Red Skeltons hobo character was _______________________. and he
always ended his television show by saying,"Good
night,and_____________________________."
11. Some Americans who protested the Vietnam war did so by burning
their_________________.
12. The cute! little car with the engine in the back and the ! trunk
in the front, was called the VW. What other names did it go
by?_____________________&_________________
13. In 1971, singer Don MacLean sang a song about, "the day the music
died." This was a tribute to__________________________.
14. We can remember the first satellite placed into orbit The
Russians did it; it was called _____________________.
15. One of ! the big fads of the late 50's and 60's was a large
plastic ring that we twirled around our waist; it was called the
___________.
Answers: 01. The Lone Ranger left behind a silver bullet. 02. The Ed
Sullivan show. 03. Route 66. 04. To protect the innocent. 05. The Lion
sleeps tonight. 06. The limbo 07. Chocolate. 08. Louis Armstrong. 09.
The Timex watch. 10. Freddy the freeloader, and "Good night, and may God
Bless." 11. Draft cards ( bras were also burned). 12. Beetle or Bug. 13.
Buddy Holly. 14. sputnik. 15. hoola-hoop.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Four retired guys, two from California and two
from Arizona, are walking down a street in Chicago.
Then they turn a corner and see a sign that says, "Old Timer's Bar"
"ALL DRINKS 10 CENTS!"
They look at each other, and then go in.
The old bartender says in a voice that carries across the room, "Come
on in and let me pour one for you. What'll it be, Gentlemen?"
There seems to be a fully stocked bar, so the 4 men each asked for a
martini.
In short order, the bartender serves up 4 iced martinis and says,
"That'll be 10 cents each, please."
They can't believe their good luck.
They pay the 40 cents, finish their martinis, and order another
round.
Again, four excellent martinis are produced with the bartender again
saying, "That's 40 cents, please."
They pay the 40 cents, but their curiosity is more than they can
stand.
They've each had two martinis and so far they've spent less than a
dollar.
Finally one of the men couldn't stand it any longer and asks the
bartender, "How can you afford to serve martinis as good as these for a
dime a piece?"
"Here's my story. I'm a retired tailor from Brooklyn, and I always
wanted to own a bar. Last year I hit the lottery for $25 million and
decided to open this place. Every drink costs a dime -- wine, liquor,
beer, all the same."
"Wow!! That's quite a story," says one of the men.
The four of them sipped at their martinis and couldn't help but
notice three other guys at the end of the bar who didn't have a drink in
front of them, and hadn't ordered anything the whole time they were
there.
One man gestures at the three at the end of the bar without drinks
and asks the bartender, "What's with them?"
The bartender says, "They're seniors from Florida. They're waiting
for happy hour."
Forwarded by Paula
The Brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get
up in the morning and does not stop until you get to the office.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Were you a kid in the Forties, Fifties or so? Everybody makes fun of our
childhood! Comedians joke. Grandkids snicker. Twenty-something's shudder and
say "Eeeew!" But was our childhood really all that bad? Judge for yourself:
In 1953 the American population was much less than now. Yet you knew more
people then, and knew them better ... And that was good.
The average annual salary was under $3,000. Yet our parents could put
some of it away for a rainy day and still live a decent life. And that was
good.
A loaf of bread cost about 15 cents ... But it was safe for a
five-year-old to skate to the store and buy one ... And that was good.
Prime-Time meant I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Gunsmoke and Lassie. So
nobody ever heard of ratings or filters ... And that was good.
We didn't have air-conditioning, So the windows stayed up and half a
dozen mothers ran outside when you fell off your bike. And that was good.
The only hazardous material you knew about. Was a patch of grassburrs
around the light pole at the corner. And that was good.
You loved to climb into a fresh bed, because sheets were dried on the
clothesline. And that was good.
People generally lived in the same hometown with their relatives. So
"child care" meant grandparents or aunts and uncles. And that was good.
Parents were respected and their rules were law. Children did not talk
back. and that was good.
TV was in black-and-white, but all outdoors was in glorious color . And
that was certainly good.
Your Dad knew how to adjust everybody's carburetor. And the Dad next door
knew how to adjust all the TV knobs. And that was very good.
Your grandma grew snap beans in the back yard. And chickens behind the
garage. And that was definitely good.
And just when you were about to do something really bad. Chances were
you'd run into your Dad's high school coach. Or the nosy old lady from up
the street. Or your little sister's piano teacher ... Or somebody from
Church. ALL of whom knew your parents' phone number. And YOUR first name.
And even THAT was good!
~~~~~ REMEMBER.
Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy
Boys, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Sky King, Little Lulu comics,
Brenda Starr, Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The
Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk as well as
the sound of a reel mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike
rides, playing in cowboy land, playing hide and seek and kick- the-can and
Simon Says, baseball games, amateur shows at the local theater before the
Saturday matinee, bowling and visits to the pool . and eating Kool-Aid
powder with sugar, and wax lips and bubblegum cigars.
Didn't it feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that!"
And was it really that long ago??
Send this on to other good Kids who experienced childhood in the Forties,
Fifties or so.
Forwarded by Paula
Miracle Gasolene
A young Nun who worked for a local home health care agency was out making
her rounds when she ran out of gas. As luck would have it there was a gas
station just one block away. She walked to the station to borrow a can with
enough gas to start the car and drive to the station for a fill up. The
attendant regretfully told her that the only gas can he owned had just been
loaned out, but if she would care to wait he was sure it would be back
shortly.
Since the nun was on the way to see a patient, she decided not to wait
and walked back to her car After looking through her car for something to
carry to the station to fill with gas, she spotted a bedpan she was taking
to the patient
Always resourceful, she carried it to the station, filled it with
gasoline, and carried it back to her car. As she was pouring the gas into
the tank of her car, two men watched her from across the street. One of them
turned to the other and said: " I know that Jesus turned water into wine,
but if that car starts, I'll become a Catholic for the rest of my life!"
Forwarded by Don VanEynde
Subject: Church
One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the foyer
of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names with
small American flags mounted on either side of it.
The seven year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the
pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, "Good
morning Alex."
"Good morning Pastor," Alex replied, still focused on the plaque.
"Pastor, what is this?"
The pastor said, "Well, son, it's a memorial to all the young men and
women who died in the service."
Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large plaque. Finally,
little Alex, barely audible and trembling with fear, asked--
"Which service, the 9:00 or the 11:00?"
Forwarded by Dick Haar
This story is for Senior Citizens. If you don't qualify, save a copy till
you do (no matter how long)
A lady goes to the bar on a cruise ship and orders a Scotch with two
drops of water. As the bartender gives her the drink she says, "I'm on this
cruise to celebrate my 80th birthday and it's today." The bartender says
"Well, since it's your birthday, I'll buy you a drink. In fact, this one is
on me." As the woman finishes her drink, the woman to her right says, "I
would like to buy you a drink, too." The old woman says, "Thank you.
Bartender, I want a Scotch with two drops of water." "Coming up," says the
bartender. As she finishes that drink, the man to her left says, "I would
like to buy you one, too." The old woman says, "Thank you. Bartender, I want
another Scotch with two drops of water." "Coming! right up," the bartender
says. As he gives her the drink, he says, "Ma'am, I'm dying of curiosity.
Why the Scotch with only two drops of water?"
You're gonna like this one -------------------------
The old woman replies, "Sonny, when you're my age, you've learned how to
hold your liquor. Holding your water, however, is a whole other issue."
Forwarded by Betty Carper (her message also had cartoon pictures)
THE 5 STAGES OF A FEMALE'S LIFE
1. To Grow Up
2. To Fill Out
3. To Slim Down
4. To Hold It In
AND
5.To Hell with it
And that's the way it was on July 31,
2005 with a little help from my friends.
I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor
(an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart
finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) ---
http://www.financeprofessor.com/
Click on
www.syllabus.com/radio/index.asp for
a complete list of interviews with established leaders, creative thinkers
and education technology experts in higher education from around the
country.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Q: In WordPerfect, it's possible to sort
paragraphs alphabetically. For example, in a bibliography you could
rearrange the entries, which are short paragraphs, in alphabetical
order, even if you didn't enter them in that way. Is there a way to do
this in Microsoft Word?
A: Yes, though Word makes the command a
little hard to find. Just go to the Table menu and choose "Sort..." From
its location, you would think this command sorts only entries in tables,
but it also sorts paragraphs that aren't in tables.
When you click on "Sort..." a little window
will appear. Make sure the "Sort By" box in this window is set to
"Paragraphs," and the "Type" box is set to "Text." You can choose to
sort your paragraphs in ascending order (A to Z) or descending order (Z
to A.)
By default, the command selects and sorts all
your paragraphs. If you want to sort only some of them, select the ones
you are targeting before you click on the command.
Resembling television remote control devices,
clickers transmit and record responses to questions. Unlike earlier
keypad student response systems, clickers can be registered to a student
and used in any classroom equipped with a receiving station (which can
also be portable). Using clickers, instructors can quickly poll students
to ascertain their understanding and mastery of course materials.
Clicker polls, unlike a show-of-hands poll, can be anonymous; the
results can be quickly tabulated, recorded, and saved in a variety of
formats; and students report enjoying the immediate feedback they get.
For more information about using clickers in classroom settings, see "7
Things You Should Know About . . . Clickers" at
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7002.pdf .
EDUCAUSE publishes the "7 Things You Should
Know About . . ." series on emerging learning practices and
technologies. EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to
advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information
technology. For more information, contact: EDUCAUSE, 4772 Walnut Street,
Suite 206, Boulder, CO 80301-2538 USA; tel: 303-449-4430; fax:
303-440-0461; email: info@educause.edu; Web:
http://www.educause.edu .
Jensen Comment
Back is the early 1990s, Barry Rice and I were both inspired heavily by a
company called HyperGraphics that authored a complete course management and
delivery system in DOS (before the days of Windows and Macs). My
classes were small at Trinity University, but Barry had some large basic
accounting lecture classes at Loyola College of Maryland. He made
active use of hardware from HyperGraphics that allowed each student in a
large lecture to respond to questions in class. At first all these
response pads were hard wired to student desks. Later they became
wireless. HyperGraphics changed names over the decades but is still in
the business of selling wireless response pads. Now the classroom
"Clickers" are replacing the older style wireless response pads. You
can read more about the history of this type of thing at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm
Alan Webb and I have done a study of the
effects of clickers on student satisfaction, engagement and learning in
an accounting context. We looked at incremental effect of the clickers
beyond what is acheived through the use of an interactive pedagogy
alone. Our results suggest that while students enjoyed the use of the
technology, there were only modest positive effects on learning (as
measured by exam scores) relative to students not using the clickers.
There were some interesting effects on oral participation that suggest
that using the response pads to ask questions that are too easy actually
reduces students asking questions. (We suspect that when the results are
displayed showing that most students got a particular question right,
those that didn't are even more reluctant to ask questions to improve
their understanding, since they are clearly in the minority).
Similar to what Amy said, both Alan and I found
it a useful means of determining what the students did and did not
understand so we could tailor our material coverage accordingly.
So Carla, in your conclusion you suggest that
students are more uncomfortable after the GRS System has been removed.
Given my teaching experience in an atmosphere where verbal interaction
is required and participation is graded the reluctance of students to
talk in front of peers and instructors is quite obvious even though
students get better over the semester they are still prone to silence.
It seems to me that while the GRS is beneficial to the instructor (which
I do not deny) is propagates the incentives to remain silent, to not
express an opinion, and never allow the possibility of being seen given
a wrong (or right answer for that matter) answer in class. In a sense it
heightens the continuing problem of a mute society of students that must
suddenly find their voice when the first pay check arrives.
Interesting paper, good luck on your
presentation.
May 5, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
A clicker and a response pad are both devices
that can be used as technology aids for "cold calls" in the class. Many
of us use a cold call pedagogy to keep students more alert and tuned
into the class lecture/discussion. There is a great deal of anecdotal
evidence that cold calls improve attentiveness in class.
Salespeople trade tales about cold-calling
customers, but at the Business School, students and alums reminisce
about the moments when their hearts stopped because of “cold calls” from
Professor James Van Horne.
The A. P. Giannini Professor of Banking and
Finance is legendary for his classroom-quizzing techniques, which
somehow strike both fear and respect into the students who volunteer for
his elective courses. Now in his 40th year at the Business School, Van
Horne crafts tough questions about interest rates and finance for
corporations, nonprofits, and governments. He also demands tough answers
of himself. During a lecture to alumni last fall, for example, he
challenged the conventional wisdom that says it’s good for the Federal
Reserve Board to signal its intentions on interest rates. Van Horne
argues that the policy gives us a false sense of certainty.
Recently, the School’s most fabled inquisitor
consented to have the tables turned. At the suggestion of an alumnus,
this magazine invited four alums to cold-call Van Horne on anything they
desired. Here is an edited transcript of that laughter-filled discussion
last October, which Van Horne, in his usual disciplined style, promptly
ended at the appointed time.
"The Duke Law & Technology Review (DLTR) is an
online legal publication that focuses on the evolving intersection of
law and technology. This area of study draws on a number of legal
specialties: intellectual property, business law, free speech and
privacy, telecommunications, and criminal law -- each of which is
undergoing doctrinal and practical changes as a result of new and
emerging technologies. DLTR strives to be a 'review' in the classic
sense of the word. We examine new developments, synthesize them around
larger theoretical issues, and critically examine the implications. We
also review and consolidate recent cases, proposed bills, and
administrative policies."
"However, DLTR is unique among its sister
journals at Duke, and indeed among all law journals. Unlike traditional
journals, which focus primarily on lengthy scholarly articles, DLTR
focuses on short, direct, and accessible pieces, called issue briefs or
'iBriefs.' In fact, the goal of an iBrief is to provide cutting edge
legal insight both to lawyers and to non-legal professionals. In
addition, DLTR strives to be the first legal publication to address
breaking issues. To that end, we publish on the first and fifteenth of
every month during the school year (September until April) and less
frequently during the summer."
Duke Law & Technology Review is available free
of charge as an Open Access journal on the Internet.
Historians Beware: Keeper of Expired Web
Pages Is Sued Because Archive Was Used in Another Suit In preparing the case,
representatives of Earley Follmer used the Wayback
Machine to turn up old Web pages - some dating to 1999 -
originally posted by the plaintiff, Healthcare Advocates
of Philadelphia. Last week Healthcare Advocates sued
both the Harding Earley firm and the Internet Archive,
saying the access to its old Web pages, stored in the
Internet Archive's database, was unauthorized and
illegal.
Tom Zeller, "Keeper of Expired Web Pages Is Sued Because
Archive Was Used in Another Suit," The New York Times,
July 13, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/technology/13suit.html?
Healthcare seems to want to eat the cake and
have it too.
Law of property seems to be a fairly well
understood area when the property is physical. When it is not, specially
in the cyberworld case, it seems to be floundering. For many years I
have wrestled with simple questions that defy answers. Who owns the
financial statements? who "owns" the assertions therein? If the
companies producing them own both or either, what rights do they
have?... Probably good topics for research in my retirement. Such
research would probably be considered navel-gazing by most
standards-consumptive accounting departments.
While one can think of metaphors for
information as property, the law has not been very responsive to the
needs of society (as is to be expected, legislatures have been too
special-interest ridden in passing draconian laws relating to
copyrights, patents, and such other "intellectual" property). I do not
expect the situation to improve untill the present generally
pencil-and-legal-size-paper wielding bars and benches are slowly
replaced by IT savvy folks (remember the judge in the Microsoft
anti-trust case who considered, on demonstration that IE icon can be
dropped from the screen, that IE can be easily dropped from the MS
Windows?).
Legal concepts such as prescriptive easements (aka
squatters' rights minus title) long entrenched in law of property and
not seen in case of cyber property, as far as I know.
Jagdish
July 14, 2005 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University
[fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
Jagdish, Bob, and anyone else who might still
be around...
I would offer that we have the cart before the
horse.
Before the courts started making judgment about
applying property rights, it seems like they should have asked the
legislative branch to define what is and what is not "property" with a
greater degree of finesse and intelligence.
What characteristics must something possess
before it can be "owned". For that matter, what is "ownership"? Is it
not simply the *denying* of someone else the privilege (or right) to use
something? Put this way, is ownership of some things good for us while
ownership of other things bad? What makes the difference?
One of my favorite films of all time didn't
come from Hollywood, it came from South Africa -- "The Gods Must Be
Crazy". It illustrates that the western European concepts of "property"
that can be "owned" is quite an incomprehensible concept to many
cultures. The American Indians themselves did not believe that land
could be owned, for example. Today we claim that individuals can own
land, but not air or wind. The courts have avoided ruling definitively
on who owns sunshine (for example where one building shades another),
but have not hesitated to rule on who owns rainfall (the Colorado river
water rights, for example). What hypocrisy. ... Or is it simple
ignorance?
As for me and my house, to coin a phrase, I
cannot for the life of me understand the legal system's position that
"facts" can be "owned". The idea that information -- observable,
verifiable, physically manifested facts -- can be owned by one person
and deliberately denied to another -- is something that I have a
difficult time conceiving. The idea that my birthdate can be "owned" and
kept from the knowledge of someone else, the idea that knowledge of my
bout last winter with pneumonia can be denied to someone, the idea that
factual observation of a public place can be denied someone using a
video camera but not someone seeing it with their eyes, goes against
everything that I understand about the benefits of knowledge, education,
and the progress of society.
Usually, the desire the "keep secrets" is
synonymous with the desire to defraud. One might want to keep their
medical history secret so they can defraud the insurance company, for
example. I know of a personal case where a suiter wanted to keep his
criminal background secret from his fiance so she would marry him,
allowing him to later collect alimony from her (no fooling, that really
happened, and the court awarded him the alimony!).
"What caused the Dark Ages?" -- The restriction
of knowledge from the people, the dampening of inquiry, the limitations
on acquisition of knowledge, and supression of sharing of that
knowledge.
Okay, so knowledge of pure, observable (not
necessarily observed, but observable) fact is something that should not
be denied. But what about the reproduction of knowledge? Where does
knowledge end, and a reproduction of knowledge begin? Look at textbooks,
look at journals, look at news broadcasts, look at library collections.
The precedent was unfortunately set by the
lackadaisical attitude towards the "ownership" of original
"technological facsimiles" -- the 16th century paintings, the 17th
century Gutenburg books, the 18th century newspapers, and the 19th
century early photographs. No one "owned" the images or knowledge, they
only owned the physical tangible manifestation: the canvas, the paper,
the tinplate. Copying a painting, for example "Nightwatch" by Rembrandt,
or "Winter Scene" by Hans Brugel the Elder, was the epitome of
compliment, not the subject of a lawsuit. As long as the image was on a
second canvas, no one cared.
Once technology facilitated the creation of
LOTS of "copies", the idea of "ownership" of the medium evolved into the
misguided and misapplied notion of ownership of the actual base: the
image or knowledge itself, rather than the physical matter. By
extrapolating the idea of ownership way beyond the physical, to the
virtual, we enabled the profiteering and selfishness (some would
disagree and say 'just compensation') of the creators to start taking
over.
The problems with this misapplication became
apparent with the advent in the 20th century of commercial sound
recordings. As entertainers began their accumulation of wealth ("I've
been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better", to quote a movie
starlet), the industry saw the advantages of expanding their claim of
title to a point way beyond the physical, to the virtual. The very
ownership of ideas now reared its ugly head.
The lavish (and according to some, sinfully
wealthy and extravagently bacchal) lifestyle associated with Hollywood
came about because of the extrapolation of this profiteering activity
from the notion of "ownership" of creations in the medium evolving out
of photography. Entertainers would probably be earning salaries more in
line with teachers and policemen if we had not put the silver spoon in
their mouth with the idea of "copyrights" for virtual property, and
instead left the notion of "copyrights" to the physical manifestations
only.
If we had had the foresight to determine
exactly what characteristics make "property" into "property", then we
would have a more reasonable (and most would have to agree, equitable)
society. Perhaps we need a new word -- perhaps "property" should be
applied to tangible physical manifestations, "knowledge" should be
applied to factual observable phenomenon, and a new word can be made up
for the facsimiles and the reproductions enabled by technology. Along
with this new word, we will need to create (formally declare) new
notions of ownership, rights, denial policies, etc. Now that technology
can produce copies hardly distinguishable from the original, and more
importantly, now that technology has enabled the creation of "originals"
which exist primarily only in virtual form, a new word and set of
principles might very well be in order.
Jagdish, I share your fascination in such
mental exercises, and agree with you that most normal people find our
pasttimes to be as exciting as watching the proverbial paint as it
dries. If only we could figure out some way of denying our ideas from
the rest of society, and creating an artificial shortage the way the
entertainment industry does, perhaps you and I and Bob and others of us
could be living in mansions, owning kiddie theme parks, and raising cane
about not being let into Paris boutiques after their closing hours, too.
David Fordham Mellowed somewhat by the heat and
humidity of a week in Florida
James Madison University
1. Tyranny is tyranny no matter who is
responsible, majority or minority. It is important to note that it is
the minorities who need the protection to maintain fairness. It is the
tyrants who crave for fairness when caught (Saddam now, for instance).
I think it is patently unfair to cast
aspersions on the judiciary, or members of it, or members of the
profession, which unfortunately is becoming popular these days. One may
disagree with many decisions (rather their arguments) of individual
justices, but to cast aspersions on their motives is not fair. There are
many instances where I would disagree with the arguments of Justice
Scalia (specially his decision in the Ohio case dealing with the issue
of anonymity under the first amendment, but I have always admired his
sharp intellect. On the other hand, while I have always admired the
intellect of Justice Souter (I must say, my favourite justice), I would
disagree his recent arguments in the recent Connecticut case dealing
with the right of eminent domain. We can not act like a kid whose
favourite toy has been stolen whenever the court does not vote our way
by imputing motives.
2. The right to privacy is far too deeply
entrenched in the ethos of most civilized societies, and in fact is
enshrined in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
_______________________________________ No one shall be subjected to
arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence,
nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to
the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
_______________________________________
Of course, one can conjecture a nefarious
left-wing plot in that declaration.
The right to privacy is entrenched in the law
of torts (the four torts that refer to privacy include intrusion, public
disclosure, publicity and appropriation). Common law tradition of right
to privacy by way of tort of assault and battery were extended to
protection of personality by Warren and Brandeis in their seminal 1890
Harvard Law Review article.
There are a slew of cases in many states
enshrining the right to privacy in common law in the United States.
It is true that the US Constitution does not
mention privacy. But neither does it, as far as I know, mention
marriage; a fact quietly hidden by most ardent distractors of the right
to privacy. Are we to conclude that there is no such thing as marriage?
Strict constructionists and "original intent"
theorists notwithstanding, the Supreme Court has found the right to
privacy in a slew of decisions under quite a few of the amendments in
the Bill of Rights.
The have done so, by examining the constitution
in the context of THE LAW. The arguments are extensive, persuasive, in
fact too profound to be ignored. To say the right to privacy does not
exist in the United States, at least to me, does not make sense.
3. The courts have an obligation to uphold laws
enacted by Congress unless they have been shown to be ultra vires the
Constitution. In the cases you are talking about (tyranny of the
unrepresentative justices), they were laws that withstood the test. They
were not legislating from the bench.
4. There are rotten apples in any profession.
However, that gives no one license to brand the entire cart rotten. Are
we to brand every living breathing CPA a scoundrel because a few have
been found to be ones?
One can always dislike a ruling, disagree with
the arguments for the ruling. In a democratic society, one will always
have his/her favourite toy stolen. If the democracy is to last, there
are many ways to protest the decision disliked.
I read Supreme Court opinions very often and
many times go deep into the arguments (Constitutional law and
Jurisprudence are one of my favourite subjects, even above that of
Accounting). I have found them to be profoundly intellectual and
ultimately a fair application of THE LAW.
It isn't the gods that are crazy, but ideas
carried to the absurd that are crazy. The issue of what is "property"
may be one of the greatest significance and certainly one of more than
passing interest to accounting. "Intellectual property" is a scary idea.
When Jefferson and Franklin conceived the patent office, they
emphatically believed that the advantage from an idea for a thing (and
only a thing) should be of limited duration. Knowledge, for them, best
belongs in the public realm. Indeed, science has been throughout its
history a gift economy. Einstein laid the theoretical foundation for the
laser; Alan Turing provided the blueprint for the computer; they gave
that knowledge away. It's free.
Now the scientific enterprise is being fueled
increasingly by "corporate" money with the intent of creating a property
right. The patent office has recently set precedents by awarding patents
not to things, but for techniques and processes. For example, a couple
of years ago it awarded a patent to an ophthalmologist for a particular
type of incision for a particular type of eye operation. Henceforth,
every surgeon using the technique would have to pay a royalty. Imagine
the paralysis that would result if everything a physician learned in
medical school belonged to someone who would be entitled to payment for
its use! An overlooked reality missing from the American myth popular
among the free-market crazies is that knowledge production in the U.S.
was largely socialized in the 19th century. My institution, like so many
in the U.S., is a state institution, which until recently was funded
through taxes. The laboratories, the equipment, the lab staffs, the
scientists, etc. were all paid for by the state.
This scientific enterprise created basic and
applied scientific knowledge that is the envy of the world. The system
of federal funding through the NIH and NSF (and the DOD) has produced
notable advances in basic scientific understanding, not to mention some
fairly significant practical inventions like the computer, the jet
engine, the water projects that made the entire western U.S.
inhabitable, and, of course, the internet. From the pyramids to the
internet, no notable achievements have occurred without an institution
free to "waste" money (i.e., take risks no one else could take). The
illusion that all wealth is created only by private institutions is
abetted by the failure of any accounting to be made for the transfer of
public wealth into private hands.
As Tony Tinker has emphasized in his recent
work, Marx didn't begin Kapital with a discursion on the commodity form
by accident. In nature there are no property rights; everything is free
for that which can take it. "Locke-ing up the food" is a human
invention. Because Locke-ing up somethings produced great material
progress doesn't necessarily imply that Locke-ing up everything is a
good idea.
July 14, 2005 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University
[fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
Jagdish, a long set of responses, for the sake
of possibly prompting others to join in the discussion...
>Your message would suggest legislation is a
panacea...
Far from it, I abhor legislation, especially
relating to minutiae. But legislation from elected representatives is at
least superior to the tyranny of non-elected (and thus for the most part
non-representative) judiciary whose rulings go beyond interpretation of
law to the point of establishment of new law. It is the judiciary's
activities, guided (or rather, misguided!) by the selfish and
non-common- sensical and unethical law professionals, who have extended
the traditional property rights far beyond where they reasonably should
be, ** in the absence of better guidance from the people's
representatives**. It is that last sentence, the emphasized phrase,
which sums up the point I was making.
>... a democracy can be a tyranny of the
majority..."
Yes, which is much much better than the tyranny
of the minority, which is becoming more and more the case. Or the
tyranny of one, as in a monarchy or dictatorship. Or perhaps the tyranny
of nine?
Tyranny is a subjective term. Is tyranny of a
majority any worse than tyranny of a "supermajority"? Our constitution
provides for both, as well as a tyranny of the minority, and even the
tyranny of nine. Tyranny simply means that someone is making you conform
to their rules. I personally like the idea of being subject to the rules
of the majority rather than a select minority, unless I'm in that
minority, of course -- which returns us to the ethics of selfishness...
Some would even go so far as to say we have
tyranny of a minority who lived more than 200 years ago. How many people
were in on the drafting the constitution? The Europeans are being a
little more careful in paying attention to the minority who word their
constitution.
My own Fordham ancestors actually remained
loyal to King George until well after the adoption of the Constitution,
(although they kept a low profile because neither the old regime nor the
new regime directly affected their lives very much). They saw the
"rebellion" as just a bunch of malcontents (and a decided minority) who
wanted to run things their own way, forsaking the society and culture
which had enabled their lives and lifestyles, mainly to evade paying
taxes levied to help offset the cost of the French/Indian war which was
fought by the Crown partly for their benefit. And given their
correspondence I have from the late 1700's, their loyalty had a lot of
company in and around Maryland, North Carolina, and Georgia. Of course,
it's the winners who get to write the history books...
>You seem to confuse property rights with the
right to privacy which you seem to abhor...
Sorry for the mistaken impression. I don't
really confuse the two, nor do I necessarily abhor the IDEA of privacy,
which has been articulated as the right to be left alone. I just abhor
the mistaken impression that the RIGHT to privacy exists. It doesn't.
Let me repeat, it does not. Neither the right to be left alone, nor the
right to keep knowledge of facts secret (with a few tiny
national-security-type exceptions) exists at all. What I abhor is the
loud, noisy, and patently false claim that they DO exist, misleading the
public, and further exacerbating the very real problems we already face
because of this mistaken notion. I intensely dislike the spreading of
false information, especially when it leads to erroneous public
perceptions. The very phrase, "RIGHT to privacy under the Constitution",
as applied to today's issues, is a patently false notion.
>The right to privacy is derived directly from
the Bill of Rights...
I respectfully disagree. I've read, and
re-read, and re-re- read, the entire U.S. Constitution and Bill of
Rights, and I cannot, anywhere, find anything that even comes remotely
close to addressing the "rights" which privacy advocates are claiming.
If you drop the "directly" and substitute "indirectly", and then trace
these so- called "rights" back to their true origin, you find they
originated in rulings by the judiciary, which over time, has evolved to
deviate greatly from the printed word of the Constitution and its
amendments, little by little, bit by bit, expanding the rights of that
document into "rights" which really don't resemble the wording one whit.
Take the "right to freedom FROM religion", such as the banning of
religious symbols in schools... this is a far cry from "congress passing
a law establishing a religion".... schools technically are not
"government", they are simply a government-sponsored institution, nor
are they Congress, nor are they passing a law, nor is the posting of a
religious symbol the establishment of a religion. Via judiciary
expansion over time, the third branch of government has changed the
public's perception of what the Constitution says -- no matter how far
removed from the actual statement of the Constitution. The "right to
privacy" is not a constitutional right if you carefully read what the
document has to say.
The fathers of the constitution foresaw the
need to have the Constitution evolve over time to keep up with the
changing needs of a progressive society. But to avoid abuses, they
deliberately tried to make it HARD (difficult) the change the document.
Unfortunately, over time, the judiciary has side-stepped the checks and
balances and done just that -- they have caused the document to evolve,
far too easily, and without the checks/balances which the founders
intended. Thus, this ease of "change" (via interpretation by an
individual or tiny group rather than the way the founders intended) has
caused the "constitution" (lower case, including amended by court
precedent) to change in ways detrimental to society. As a result, we
today have a pickle of problems, one of which we are discussing here.
>As Paul points out, knowledge was considered
societal or communal until recently...
Yep. And in my opinion it still is. This is
where the tyranny of the minority has come into play to our detriment. I
believe most Americans would agree that free knowledge is a good thing,
but in general, the courts don't seem to think so. My point is, the
courts' viewpoint has been heavily influenced, perhaps even controlled,
by the selfish interests of the legal profession more than the
Constitution, the will of the people, or any other guidance more
reasonable than the selfishness of the legal professionals. This lack of
check/balances coupled with the unethical practice of law has resulted
in an evolved constitution quite different than the one we need. I once
listened to a defense attorney tell me that it was his job, no matter
how guilty the defendent actually is, to make the court declare him
innocent. I've heard that view repeated over and over by lawyers. I find
that highly unethical, and this whole mentality of such selfishness at
the expense of society's good dominates the judiciary today, diminishing
my respect for it as an institution. I believe that the judiciary, as
should all branches of government, act in the best interest of the
public. An institution whose practitioners see their mission as the
granting of unreasonable selfishness to one individual is not acting in
the best interest of the public. Using charisma, influence, argument,
logic, evidence, or *whatever*, to get a court to declare a guilty man
innocent is not in the best interest of the public. Yet, that is exactly
what the legal profession sees as its mission.
And because of this unethical "mission", I
don't like the idea of the judiciary having the ability to bypass the
checks and balances the founders placed on the changing of the
constitution. If the people feel the constitution should be changed to
provide for a right to privacy, for a right to withhold facts, then
there is a definite, well- defined procedure to go through to make the
change. If the public wants to change the constitution to provide a
right to privacy, let's change the constitution to provide a right to
privacy. But letting a court judge, or a panel of judges, make that
change is not the way the founders established. It is one thing to
interpret existing constitutional wording. I agree with letting the
courts do that. It is quite another to cascade, to layer, precedent upon
precedent, basing judgment on precendent rather than constitutional
wording, over time changing greatly the meaning of the constitution. The
claim of a "right" to privacy is based solely on cascaded, layered,
judicial decisions, not upon the constitution which so many people
erroneously attribute their "right" to.
There are innumerable problems facing our
culture and society, hindering our progress, hindering our quality of
life, hindering our enjoyment of life and liberties, indeed hindering
life itself in some cases, for which good solutions exist, but those
solutions cannot be implemented because of the public's misperceptions.
It is frustrating to see well-meaning but clueless people spreading
misinformation, while factual information is being more and more
withheld. That is why I'm such a vocal opponent of today's Privacy
Activists. I see them the same way I see PETA, the environmental
nutcases who spike trees and burn new subdivisions, and other such
groups who would ignore fact and have the public do their selfish
bidding.
>You have an excellent example of the follies
of legislatures...
Yes, I have lots of them. But their follies
pale in comparison with the follies of the judiciary. I have a moderate,
if quiet, contempt for many elected officials, but that contempt pales
beside my opinion of the court system, based entirely on my own,
first-hand, personal dealings with (the civil side of) it, not the
skewed view of the media.
I invite others to join the discussion with
views. Lists like these are one of the last bastions of free expression
-- at least until a lawyer joins us... ;-)
And again, I have to remind list readers, my
poignancy and adamance is intended to stimulate discussion, not
necessarily reveal my position as an opinionated curmudgeon.
David Fordham
July 14, 2005 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University
[fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
Jagdish, in response to your post replying to
my "More on Intellectual property rights":
I appreciate your opinions, and defend your right to them, but still
respectfully disagree, more than usual, even.
You said,
>It is important to note it is the minorities who need the
protection to maintain fairness...
I strongly disagree. Giving minorities protection while saying the
majority doesn't need it is not my idea of fairness. South Africa
learned this lesson the hard way. If my memory serves, Iraq had the same
problem, too, along with several sub-Saharan countries in the last
decade or two.
And ask someone from the Balkan area about this.
You said,
>I think it is patently unfair to cast aspersions on the
judiciary...
Let me explain why I feel the way I do.
I qualified my opinions (aspersions?) by stating it was based entirely
on my own, personal, first-hand experience with the court systems. I
have now had at least 18 contacts with the system, and each one has only
reinforced my realization that the courts do not operate in the way that
most of us were taught in kindergarten as to what constitutes fairness
and decency. The court system is a domain unto itself, completely
divorced from the real world in which most of us live, work, and play,
in its concepts of fairness, decency, morality, civility, social
interactions, efficiency, effectiveness, and most of the other
characteristics which define our culture and society. And it is my
experience that it actually instigates much of the conflict between
individuals, conflict which does not serve any constructive purpose,
rather than serving its original or stated purpose of mitigating and
solving conflict between people. My experience has been that the court
system perpetuates, exacerbates, and expands conflict rather than
mitigating, mediating, or resolving conflict. This is my experience. By
not operating within the normality of our culture, it ensures that its
attempts to diminish conflict do little more than transfer, relocate,
redirect, and transform conflict, often expanding, elevating, and
compounding it in the process. If the system operated more in tune with
the culture, as the common law tried to do in prior centuries, it might
be able to achieve its objectives a little better.
I have never been sued, nor have I ever been plaintiff for a suit
(although I have been approached on numerous occasions by lawyers and
encouraged to file suits, a practice which I find repugnant). I have
never been charged with a crime, or breaking any law, notwithstanding a
single speeding violation which was dropped before I could even pay the
fine. However, I have been a juror numerous times, been subpoenaed as a
"friend of the court" (which I didn't even know they could do until it
happened to me!), served as a witness in multiple cases, both civil and
criminal, and participated in unbelievable farces called "depositions"
multiple times, wherein I was asked questions under restrictions which
determined the answers and ensured they would be misleading, and denied
the ability to clarify so as to communicate with honesty.
Each time in court, the proceeding was conducted under such restrictive
and ludicrous constraints that the truth, even if one assumed its
existence, could not possibly have come out, and in the three cases
where I finally thought the case had come to a really good conclusion,
the jury's hard work to arrive at a really, truly, good and justifiable
verdict was thrown out (all three times!) on appeal, by a single
individual who judged that in his opinion, the jury's verdict didn't
match his judgment as to what the evidence was saying. Why bother
troubling citizens to serve on a jury when you can go to that appeals
judge to start with and ask him to make the ruling which he's going to
make anyway six months later?
I've listened to a judge tell a witness "the courtroom is no place for
common sense". I've watched in amazement as a fellow juror was jailed
for five days for, after being instructed to "examine the evidence" in
the jury room, innocently picked up the primary piece of evidence,
allowing some of the contents to leak out, which the judge ruled was
"tampering with the evidence"... she got five days in jail while the
defendent, who turned out to be a convicted felon jailed for fraud,
theft, perjury and a host of other crininal activities, won the case
because the jury was not allowed to know that he had a history of false
claims against companies, faking evidence, and lying. The fact that the
container leaked was evidence of fakery, but the judge told us
definitively that we could not consider that in our deliberations! And
after the case was over, the defendant, as he put on his handcuffs to be
returned to prison for his other sentences, admitted, openly, to the
jury that he had been talked into the suit by his lawyer who thought it
was the only chance he had of getting paid for his work on the other
cases! The judge even heard the admission, but said that there was
nothing he could do about it, the case was closed, and then the judge
invited the lawyer to the bar for drinks!
The biggest incident was last month, when after working for two years
accumulating rock-solid, hard evidence of a $234,000 embezzlement across
three years at a dental practice, my wife (who had been hired as a
consultant to straighten out the mess) was astonished that the judge
dismissed the charges and indictment because, in the judge's words, "the
defense has shown that the defendent doesn't have enough assets to pay
restitution should the jury decide that restitution is warranted."
That's all. No more. The case never made it to court... the judge
dismissed the charges from the bench based on a defense motion about
ability to repay the theft. Forget the boxes of hard evidence my wife
had, forget that no one could reach any other conclusion than that the
person had stolen the money.
Based on a defense motion, the judge just summarily dismissed the
charges based on the perpetrator's claimed poverty! Unbelievable. The
victims weren't interested in restitution, they wanted the perpetrator
-- who had already served time on a prior embezzlement conviction in
another state -- from a dental practice! ... and had lied about it on
the employment application -- prosecuted. The judge ignores the
indictment and dismisses the charges.
It is the 100% failure rate, over a sample size which is fast
approaching the statistical threshold for mathematical validity, on
which I base my categorical condemnation of the implementation of our
court system. That I have no first- hand knowledge of Supreme Court
decisions does not diminish my lack of faith in the system to arrive at
reasonable decisions.
Not 20 days ago, I watched, first hand experience, as a passerby lawyer
walked up to one party at an accident scene (in the last 30 days!)
offering to file suit on his behalf, and when rebuffed, went to the
other party across the street, and encouraged him to file suit against
the first
party! I watched in utter amazement, along with three of
mmy friends, from the sidewalk as the lawyer advised the party to lie
down in the middle of the street and act as though he had a neck injury
before the ambulance attendants got there. I and my friends offered our
names and addresses to the officers, as witnesses of these acts
initiating fraud, but the officer said there was no need to put our
names down on the report because the court would not admit our evidence
into any lawsuit proceeding anyway! My friends were astounded, but I am
becoming accustomed to such shenanigans. Talk about open fraud! When a
lawyer can talk a person into committing fraud, and the court will not
admit evidence of the origin of that fraud into the proceeding, I
personally lose faith in the system's ability to implement what I
consider "fairness". Sorry, Jagdish, but you and everyone else are going
to have a hard time explaining to me why I should trust an institution
which engages in behavior over and over, which goes against everything,
literally everything, that I've been taught about fairness.
While I have some very good friends who are lawyers (I'm having dinner
with one next week in my home), who are honest, sincere, and have a good
idea of fairness, listening to them relate their experiences reinforces
my opinion far more than reading a court opinion will diminish it.
Related to the recent spate of conversation
about intellectual property and protections some may be interested in
the approach being taken at Creative Commons --
http://creativecommons.org/ . And if you
ever have the chance to see Creative Commons CEO Larry Lessig speak
don't miss it -- Yale Law Prof and once named one of the year's top 50
innovators by Scientific American -- insightful perspectives on the
ideas we hold dear. Their process says, "Offering your work under a
Creative Commons license does not mean giving up your copyright. It
means offering some of your rights to any taker, and only on certain
conditions. What conditions? Our site will let you mix and match such
conditions from the list of options below. There are a total of eleven
Creative Commons licenses to choose from."
For a historical perspective about intellectual
property and abuses by American Citizens the American Gov’t and many
others, read Pat Choate’s book Hot Property.
"What gets measured gets managed", and often
"managed" in the worst rather than the best sense of the word! I think
there's very important information in the fact that a student took a
course twice. But, if, as the article says, some schools already drop
the first grade, other schools are pressured to do so to "keep up".
Interesting social/ managerial accounting implications in educational
number-crunching...
washingtonpost.com Schools Consider Grading
Change Poor Marks Could Be Erased
By Daniel de Vise Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 14, 2005; AA03
The Anne Arundel school board is mulling a
change to the grading system that could benefit students polishing their
transcripts for college applications. And, as board members are
learning, no such change passes without debate among students vying for
a top class rank.
The proposed change, part of an overhaul of the
school system's grading policy, was discussed at last week's school
board meeting. The plan would allow high school students to drop a low
grade from their transcript if they repeat the class and earn a better
mark the second time. From the perspective of college admissions
officers, it would be as if the lower grade never existed.
SUMMARY: This article describes general market conditions--including the
existence of Sarbanes-Oxley requirements--that are making it favorable for
companies to go private or to repurchase outstanding stock in favor of debt
financing. Questions ask students to describe their understanding of debt
versus equity financing and the general impact of Sarbanes-Oxley.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is a leveraged buyout? How does it differ from stock buybacks or
repurchases? In your answer, define each of the latter two terms as well as
the first.
2.) What economic factors are making it attractive for companies to favor
debt financing over equity financing? How do those conditions then result in
companies undertaking leveraged buyouts or stock repurchases?
3.) What impact does Sarbanes-Oxley have on companies undertaking a
leveraged buyout? Why would SOX be unlikely to have this impact under other
economic conditions?
4.) What has happened recently to General Motors and its financing arm,
GMAC? Why should this event make it unlikely that a GMAC unit, Residential
Capital, could issue debt? What economic circumstances made it possible for
this unit to issue debt financing? In your answer, comment on the financing
market served by the GM unit that issued debt.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Progress and Problems for Female Historians By many measures, history is a
discipline in which women have made notable progress in the
last generation.In 1979, women made up only 16 percent of
new history Ph.D.’s, and in the 20 years that followed, that
percentage rose to 40. But a new American Historical
Association
reportnotes the many ways in
which progress has been limited. The report was prepared by
Elizabeth Lunbeck, a Princeton historian, and mixes a review
of data with surveys of women in the field.Both the data and
the survey point to lingering problems. For instance,
statistics show that by 1988, 39 percent of assistant
professors of history were women. But by 1999, only 18
percent of full professors of history were women.
Scott Jaschik, "Progress and Problems for Female
Historians," Inside Higher Ed, July 14, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/14/women
Blackbaud developed The Financial Edge(tm)
Financial accounting software does not generally work well for nonprofit
fund-accounting organizations. That's why Blackbaud developed The Financial
Edge(tm) - the most flexible and adaptive financial management solution
available, made to fit the unique needs of nonprofit CFOs.
http://www.as411.com/DomBanAd.nsf/WebAdClick_2?OpenAgent&ad=BLACKBAUD-LNK1&adloc=WNLNK
Last year I reviewed "Constructing Ideas in
Physical Science" (also known as CIPS), a temporary title for a work in
progress that is now known as "Interactions in Physical Sciences" or
"Interactions" for short. After looking over the plan, I signed a
contract to review all their material. The material for a Middle School
program is excellent. I will be placing more detailed information on the
Web site later, but I wanted to let you know should you have a chance to
select this material for the upcoming school year.
John
John L. Hubisz,
Physics Department,
Box 8202, North Carolina State University,
Raleigh NC 27695-8202; hubisz@unity.ncsu.edu ,
(919)362-5782, (919)515-7331 FAX
a. Demand for shorting stocks seems to be a
good predictor of future returns.
b. As a predictor, demand is more important
than supply.
"...an increase in shorting demand leads to
a significant negative average abnormal return of 2.54% in the
following month. Decreases in shorting supply play a more minor
role."
c. Private information drives shorting. This is
important because, as pointed out in the paper,
"Ideally one would like to know if shorting
indicators have explanatory power abstracting from public
information (signaling the potential importance of market
frictions), or if they are simply correlated with underlying
movements in public information flow."
And they find that private information seems to
be more important.
d. The authors find that by following their
strategy (that is when demand for shorts is high, sell), one would be
presumed to beat the market on a "net of shorting costs [basis], the
investor still makes over 8% per year. Also, the Sharpe Ratio of the
strategy is about 3 times that of the market and HML. Thus, indirect
shorting costs (e.g., recall risk) and other indirect costs would have
to be substantial to subsume this return."
Interesting to say the least!
Cite:
Cohen, Lauren H., Diether, Karl and Malloy, Christopher J., "Supply and
Demand Shifts in the Shorting Market" (June 4, 2005). EFA 2005 Moscow
Meetings Paper.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=672381
The Dog Poop Girl: This is a Scary Double-Edged Sword
If you no longer marvel at the Internet's power
to connect and transform the world, you need to hear the story of a
woman known to many around the globe as, loosely translated, Dog Poop
Girl.
Recently, the woman was on the subway in her
native South Korea when her dog decided that this was a good place to do
its business.
What's Your Opinion? Post reporter Jonathan
Krim details the use of the Internet to stir action against individuals
-- a sort of digital vigilantism that raises questions about personal
privacy and the power of the Internet to enforce social norms. Is it
fair to use the Internet to record and chastise individuals' behavior?
Sound Off in Our Message Boards The woman made no move to clean up the
mess, and several fellow travelers got agitated. The woman allegedly
grew belligerent in response.
What happened next was a remarkable show of
Internet force, and a peek into an unsettling corner of the future.
One of the train riders took pictures of the
incident with a camera phone and posted them on a popular Web site. Net
dwellers soon began to call her by the unflattering nickname, and issued
a call to arms for more information about her.
According to one blog that has covered the
story, "within days, her identity and her past were revealed. Requests
for information about her parents and relatives started popping up and
people started to recognize her by the dog and the bag she was
carrying," because her face was partially obscured by her hair.
Online discussion groups crackled with chatter
about every shred of the woman's life that could be found, and with
debate over whether the Internet mob had gone too far. The incident
became national news in South Korea and even was discussed in Sunday
sermons in Korean churches in the Washington area.
Humiliated in public and indelibly marked, the
woman reportedly quit her university.
Using the Internet as a tool to settle scores
is hardly new. Search for any major retailer and you'll probably also
find some kind of
www.that-store-stinks.com Web site, with complaints about
products or service.
Increasingly, the Internet also is a venue of
so-called citizen journalism, in which swarms of surfers mobilize to
gather information on what the traditional media isn't covering, or is
covering in a way that dissatisfies some people.
But what happens when the two converge, and the
Internet populace is stirred to action against individuals?
The Dog Poop Girl case "involves a norm that
most people would seemingly agree to -- clean up after your dog," wrote
Daniel J. Solove, a George Washington University law professor who
specializes in privacy issues, on one blog. "But having a permanent
record of one's norm violations is upping the sanction to a whole new
level . . . allowing bloggers to act as a cyber-posse, tracking down
norm violators and branding them with digital scarlet letters."
July 6, 2005 message from Global Perspectives on Accounting Education
[gpae@bryant.edu]
The purpose of this email is to announce the
posting of two articles for Volume 2 of Global Perspectives on
Accounting Education.
Measurement of Earnings, Taxes and E-Commerce:
The Case of Calypso Communication Tracy S. Manly (University of Tulsa),
Robert J. Walsh (Marist College), and Constance A McKnight (Arkansas
Tech University)
Earnings Management in the Context of Pension
Accounting: A Case Stephen R. Moehrle and Jennifer A. Reynolds-Moehrle
both at the University of Missouri - St. Louis
These papers have been posted to the journal’s
web site (
http://gpae.bryant.edu/~gpae/content.htm )
along with the papers accepted for volume 1. As stated in the journal’s
editorial philosophy, all manuscripts pertaining to a topic of
importance to accounting education are welcome. While the journal’s
title focuses on accounting education, the journal’s scope specifically
includes manuscripts prepared by authors from disciplines outside of
accounting and business. The journal’s editorial philosophy and
submission guidelines are also available on the web site. Please share
information about the journal with your colleagues, both in accounting
and in other disciplines (business and non-business).
Future email messages will be sent to announce
the publication of additional papers on the web site. If you desire not
to receive future emails regarding the journal, please send a reply to
this email indicating that you wish to be removed from the email list.
Thank you for your interest in the journal.
Sincerely,
Dennis M. Bline, editor Global Perspectives on
Accounting Education
Much of the world of business has been
transformed by the processes of globalization, with many transnational
corporations having multiple headquarters located in far-flung corners
of the world. Recognizing this important transformation, Jerome A.
Chazen (an alumnus of Columbia University's Business School) offered a
donation to begin the Institute of International Business that bears his
name. First-time visitors to the site will want to peruse the "News &
Events" section on the homepage straight away, as it offers insights
into the recent activities of the Institute. The real highlight of the
site is the _Chazen Web Journal of International Business_, which
contains papers and research reports on a wide range of topics,
including management, finance, and entrepreneurship. The site is rounded
out by the information it provides on grants and prizes awarded by the
Chazen Institute.
Landmark Exposure Draft containing joint proposals to improve and
align accounting for business combinations
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB),
based in London, and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
have announced publication of an Exposure Draft containing joint
proposals to improve and align accounting for business combinations. The
proposed standard would replace IASB’s International Financial Reporting
Standard (IFRS) 3, Business Combinations and the FASB’s Statement 141,
Business Combinations.
Sir David Tweedie, IASB Chairman and Bob Herz,
FASB Chairman, emphasized the value of a single standard to users and
preparers of financial statements of companies around the world as it
improves comparability of financial information. "Development of a
single standard demonstrates the ability of the IASB and the FASB to
work together,” Tweedie continued.
Why did the Commission
carve out the full fair value option in the original
IAS 39 standard?
Do prudential supervisors
support IAS 39 FVO as published by the IASB?
When will the Commission
to adopt the amended standard for the IAS 39 FVO?
Will companies be able to
apply the amended standard for their 2005 financial
statements?
Does the amended standard
for IAS 39 FVO meet the EU endorsement criteria?
What about the
relationship between the fair valuation of own
liabilities under the amended IAS 39 FVO standard
and under Article 42(a) of the Fourth Company Law
Directive?
Will the Commission now
propose amending Article 42(a) of the Fourth Company
Directive?
What about the remaining
IAS 39 carve-out relating to certain hedge
accounting provisions?
SOX Regulation G, which went into effect in
March 2003, defines non-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles)
financial measures and creates disclosure standards for them. According
to Strategic Finance magazine, the guidelines for non-GAAP financial
measures stipulate that they may not:
Be given prominence over GAAP numbers
Exclude any charges or liabilities
requiring cash settlement from non-GAAP liquidity measures
Be inserted into GAAP financial statements
or accompanying notes. It should be noted that the June 29
announcement of fiscal 2005 Q4 GAAP and non-GAAP earnings, revenues
and net income appears to adhere to all the SOX guidelines. Also,
Oracle’s statements provide more detail than most company reports
according to MarketWatch.
“The rapid integration of PeopleSoft into our
business contributed to the strong growth in both applications sales and
profits that we saw in the quarter,” Oracle President Safra Catz said in
a written statement. “The combination of increased organic growth plus a
carefully targeted acquisition strategy have pushed Oracle’s revenue and
profits to record levels.”
What is SpoofStick? SpoofStick is a simple browser extension that
helps users detect spoofed (fake) websites. A spoofed website is typically
made to look like a well known, branded site (like ebay.com or citibank.com)
with a slightly different or confusing URL. The attacker then tries to trick
people into going to the spoofed site by sending out fake email messages or
posting links in public places - hoping that some percentage of users won't
notice the incorrect URL and give away important information. This practice
is sometimes known as “phishing".
From CoreStreet ---
http://www.corestreet.com/spoofstick/
This link to Spoof Stick was forwarded by Richard Campbell.
I guess this is education's 50% solution
Students who do absolutely nothing on a test or assignment still get 50% in
order to avoid failing course grades Some teachers, aware of the devastating effects
that one zero can have on a student's final grade and recognizing the string
of perfect scores necessary to negate it, have simply stopped logging zeros.
Instead, at some schools, the lowest score students can receive is as high
as 50 or 60--even if they don't turn in assignments.
"Term paper about 'God' earns student failing grade 'He told me you might as
well write about the Easter Bunny. He wanted to censor the word God.',"
Victorville Daily Press, June 28, 2005 ---
http://www.vvdailypress.com/2005/111996392756993.html
During the past few weeks, the web site of Dr.
Jane Christensen, who teaches Political Science at NC Wesleyan, has
attracted a great deal of attention. In response, the College makes the
following statement:
North Carolina Wesleyan College seeks to foster
freedom of expression and freedom of inquiry. The College believes that
the students’ educational experience should include a balanced and open
approach to learning. As a United Methodist institution, we value
diversity of opinion. The College fosters just and fair treatment for
all groups in our society and does not condone hatred or violence of any
kind. We seek to foster Judeo-Christian values. We value First Amendment
rights, and academic freedom for our faculty and students.
Wesleyan is among the many colleges that permit
faculty and students to create personal web pages that can be accessed
through the College’s homepage. These personal pages represent the views
of the individuals who create them, not the views of the College.
Professor Christensen’s views are not those
held by the overwhelming majority of Americans. She presents
alternative views that many find repugnant. There is no question but
that students in her classes hear views and opinions different from the
mainstream. It should be noted that our students are intelligent and
thoughtful. They can, and often do, disagree with Professor Christensen,
without academic penalty. Many students find themselves upset at the
opinion and commentary that they are uncritical, or can be brainwashed.
ITAA Diversity Study: Numbers of Women, Minorities in Tech Too Low Women and most racial minorities remain
significantly underrepresented in the U.S. information technology (IT)
workforce, according to a new study released today by the Information
Technology Association of America (ITAA). According to the report , Untapped
Talent: Diversity, Competition and America's High Tech Future , the
percentage of women in IT has actually declined by 18.5 percent since 1996,
thanks largely to dropping employment in largely administrative IT job
categories. Meanwhile some minorities are underrepresented in the industry's
workforce by more than 50 percent. "America is competing in the global
economy with one hand tied behind her back. With competitors like China,
India and Western Europe on our heels, we can ill afford to miss out on
anyone with the right aptitude, skills and motivation to succeed in
technical fields. Leaders in industry, education and government must
redouble their efforts to ensure that all Americans, particularly women and
minorities, recognize the opportunities available in science, technology,
engineering and math," ITAA President Harris N. Miller said.
"ITAA Diversity Study: Numbers of Women, Minorities in Tech Too Low ," ITAA,
June 22, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/ITAAsurvey
Trivia Question
Who is the first "baby boomer" to be born in the U.S.?
Answer ---
http://snipurl.com/BabyBoomer
On June 30, 2005, Scott Bonacker wrote as follows: And there actually is a first Baby Boomer-Kathleen
Casey, born seconds after midnight on January 1, 1946. She was hunted down
some years ago by an enterprising reporter at Money magazine. You can argue
whether she was a "typical" Boomer or not: The daughter of a World War II
veteran, she danced as a teenager on American Bandstand. By 20 she was
married to a physician who was on his way to Vietnam. Unlike others of her
generation, she says she never openly protested the war and she never took
illegal drugs.
A different way to think about ... educational change For many years, Lloyd Bond has been a national
leader in educational measurement and evaluation. As such, he has witnessed
a number of school reform efforts, some of which promise something "new,"
while others offer a return to an older, more "basic" state of affairs.
Indeed, Lloyd has served as an advisor to many school improvement efforts,
from the school district level to the world of national educational policy.
Confronting both the proposals and the realities of educational reform, my
colleague reminds us that the polemics of reform frequently portray the
realm of teaching and learning in far more extreme terms than is really
necessary. Underlying the needed improvements in education is an
increasingly clear consensus about the basic principles of learning and the
conditions needed to foster skill and understanding. If we who educate and
are educated were a good deal less susceptible to the radical rhetoric of
reform on all sides of most educational questions, we might have a far
better chance to achieve reasoned, cumulative educational progress. In this
month’s Carnegie Perspectives, I invite you to join Lloyd Bond in his
examination of the babies and bath water of educational change. In our
Carnegie Conversations, you can engage publicly with Lloyd and read and
respond to what others have to say. Carnegie Conversations is on the Web at:
perspectives.carnegiefoundation.org.
June 29, 2005 message from Lee S. Shulman, Carnegie President
[carnegiepresident@carnegiefoundation.org]
What states previously allowed versus disallowed seizing
of private property for private developers? Last week's Supreme Court ruling that local
governments have more or less unlimited authority to seize private property
has had us thinking of an old Joni Mitchell lyric: "They paved paradise and
put up a parking lot/With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swingin' hot spot."
. . . At least 10 states -- Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine,
Michigan, Montana, South Carolina, Utah and Washington -- already forbid the
use of eminent domain for economic development (while permitting it for
legitimate "public use," such as building a highway). Six states --
Connecticut, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and North Dakota --
expressly allow private property to be taken for private economic purposes.
The rest haven't spoken on the issue.
"They Paved Paradise," The Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2005; Page
A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112008935423373523,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Another Cheating Scandal at the University of Virginia An “alarmingly large fraction” of the first-year
class of economics graduate students at the University of Virginia were
involved in a cheating incident that came to light this month, according to
the department chair. Department officials said that some problem sets from
textbooks used in introductory graduate economics courses have answer keys
online. At least one student found answers for a course taken by all
first-year students, and apparently shared the information with classmates.
Though the solutions were apparently available, David Mills, chair of the
economics department, said students should have “known it was off-limits,”
but that they instead “used it without the professor being aware.” The
extent of the involvement of individual students is not clear yet, but Mills
said that it appears that “a good number of students, large enough that it
was alarming” used the online cheat-sheets. He did not know the exact
figure, but said it was a “large fraction of the [first-year] class,” which
consists of just over 30 students. Some of the students may now face
investigations by the institution’s honor committee.
David Epstein, "Cheating Scandal at Virginia," Inside Higher Ed, June
30, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/30/uva
Jensen Comment: Since solutions manuals for most popular textbooks are
being sold on eBay, it is naive for instructors in this era to assume that
some of their students will not have access to solutions manuals.
Recall that the University of Virginia is where
148 students were accused of copying
term papers in Professor Lou Bloomfield's introductory physics course in
2001 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm#UVA
When Disabled Children Get Too Old for Public Education Across America this month, about 90,000 families
have faced this same bittersweet moment, as their disabled children "age
out" of state education systems. Most states provide education and care
until age 21 -- Michigan is an exception. After that, families are on their
own to find services and meaningful activities for their children. That's
why these commencement ceremonies feel different from most others. Parents
wonder: What kind of life are their children commencing? Often, they go to
programs far inferior to what they had in school, or they sit in their
parents' homes (or group homes) and stare at TV.
Jeff Zazlow, "'Aging Out': When Disabled Children Get Too Old for Public
Education," The Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2005; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112008448968273385,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Native Americans Want Either
the Hamptons or a new casino Just in time for summer in the Hamptons,
a small, poor Indian tribe of uncertain legal status has this fabled beach
resort in a tizzy. The 500-member Shinnecock tribe recently claimed 3,600
acres of Southampton, including the local college and the exclusive
Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, site of last year's U.S. Open. And if the
Shinnecock don't get what they want, they've threatened to sue for every
single hedge row, pool and tennis court in this rich man's town! What, you
may ask, is the ultimate goal of the land claim besides pissing off the
neighbors? The Shinnecock hope the lawsuit will persuade the State of New
York to permit them to build a giant casino on the narrow South Fork of Long
Island and thereby become Hamptons-wealthy.
Brett Duval, "Hamptonites on the Warpath," The Wall Street Journal,
June 30, 2005; Page A13 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112009518570673726,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Insights into MBA recruiting Jan Woodcock is a principal in Strategy &
Operations in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications department at
Deloitte Consulting in New York, one of the top consulting firms in the U.S.
Woodcock arrived at Deloitte 13 years ago and is part of a team that
recruits at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell
University in Ithaca, N.Y.
"A Broader Perspective at Deloitte: The consulting outfit makes
it a point to look at candidates' "entire portfolio" of skills, aptitudes,
and interests, says recruiter Jan Woodcock," Business Week, June 27,
2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/DeloitteMBA
Reducing and
eliminating errors when using Excel As a subscriber to
AccountingWEB.com, we would like to offer you a no cost
white paper
on the topic of reducing - even eliminating - common planning, budgeting and
reporting mistakes from your Excel spreadsheets. Errors in financial data
can cause many problems for corporate officers and directors, creating
delays in action when it's desperately needed, force action when none is
needed, or cause managers to make wrong decisions at any time. Plus, the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act ("Sarbox") places an additional burden on senior managers
of public companies, specifically around material errors in financial
statements that can cause legal issues. This
white paper
describes effective but little-known methods that accountants and analysts
like you can use to uncover hidden errors automatically. The process allows
companies to reduce - even eliminate - hidden errors in financial and
operational data. The white paper describes the tools that can help you
ratchet down errors as well as bring additional benefits to your company,
such as reducing the net cost of compliance, for starters.
June 29, 2005 message from AccountingWEB.com
[resource-guide@accountingweb.com]
E-Commerce Growing Pains
Walker talked to more than 30 high-volume eBay merchants
about why they increasingly are testing other Web retail
locations besides eBay. Many of these "power sellers"
shared details about how their online sales operations
are doing . . . Read her
Thursday column about the
lifestyle and career ambitions of eBay sellers, and her
weekend pieceabout the
heated competition eBay is facing from other Web
retailers.
"E-Commerce Growing Pains," The Washington Post,
June 30, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/06/27/DI2005062700825.html?referrer=email
Ward Churchill Condones Attacks on Military Officers University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill's
latest toxic remarks, this time condoning - if not encouraging - attacks on
military officers, are beyond outrageous. "Conscientious objection removes a
given piece of cannon fodder from the fray," Churchill said at an
anti-military forum last week in Portland, Ore. "Fragging an officer has a
much more impactful effect." Fragging is the killing or injuring of a
military officer by a subordinate.
Editorial, "Escort Churchill to the door," The Denver Post, July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_2833936
"So Sue Me" Web Site The Norwegian who became a hacker hero for
developing software to unlock copy-protection codes on DVD movies said he
needed only one day to crack Google Inc.'s new video viewer. Jon Lech
Johansen, also known as DVD Jon, posted software on his "So Sue Me" Web site
that he says modifies the viewer so that it plays videos hosted on any
server. The company's Google Video Viewer, in turn, was modified from the
free VLC media player to restrict it to playing video hosted on Google's own
servers.
Doug Mellgren, "Hacker Posts Crack for Google Software," The Washington
Post, June 29, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/29/AR2005062900763.html?referrer=email
Gay marriage legalised in Spain SPAIN yesterday became the world's fourth country
to allow gay couples the right to marry, despite strong opposition from the
Catholic church. The bill, which passed through congress after being
rejected by the upper house last week, will come into law in 30 days, giving
gay and lesbian couples the same rights to marry, adopt and divorce as
heterosexuals. The legislation is among a host of social reforms being
pushed through parliament by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's socialist PSOE
government. On Wednesday night, Spain's 25-year-old divorce law was
overhauled to allow for "quickie" divorces. Mr Zapatero also plans changes
to the law on abortion, as well as vowing to tackle domestic violence.
Speaking before the vote yesterday, the prime minister said the new law was
another step "on the road to liberty and tolerance" which began with the
transition to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in
1975. Under General Franco, homosexuality, divorce and abortion were illegal
in Spain. However, subsequent legislation has turned the country into one of
the most liberal in Europe.
Elizabeth Carr-Ellis, "Gay marriage legalised in Spain, The Scotsman,
July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1434470/posts
Ever since the early days of the Internet,
various educational organizations and foundations have sought to use the
Web to disseminate important pedagogical tools to fellow educators and
interested parties. This very fine site sponsored by the Baylor College
of Medicine and Texas A&M University does exactly that for the field of
biology with great aplomb. First-time visitors will want to start by
perusing the homepage, which includes links to "Hot Topics" in biology
(such as flu prevention), a "Biology News" section (which digests
important news from the field), and a selection of recent additions to
the site. Educators will also want to take a look through the slide sets
offered here, in the PowerPoint format, which include topics such as
human body systems, ecosystems, and Mendelian genetics. Additionally,
the site also features a number of streaming video presentations for
classroom use on a wide range of biological topics.
It's about time Florida A&M stopped paying its ghosts Florida A&M University fired 41 people — many of
them “ghost employees” who collected paychecks but never showed up for work
— on Thursday, according to
The St. Petersburg Times.The newspaper said
that the financially troubled university would save $1.1 million annually by
eliminating the positions.
Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/01/qt
Parkinson's drug prompts brain cell growth
A drug that relieves the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease
– but was controversially withdrawn over toxicity fears
– has now been shown to stimulate growth of the nerve
fibres damaged by the disease. When delivered directly
to the brain, glial cell-line derived neurotrophic
factor (GDNF) had been shown to stimulate regrowth of
cells in animal models of Parkinson’s. But this is the
first time regrowth has been seen in the human brain,
says Steven Gill, a neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital,
Bristol, UK.
Rowan Hooper, "Parkinson's drug prompts brain cell
growth," New Scientist, July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7619
The Written Word Still Thrives It's not easy for writers today
to compete for a share of a public attention span so
easily distracted by such temptations as video games,
satellite TV and always-on internet. But according to
contributors to Bookmark Now: Writing in
Unreaderly Times, a collection of essays
written by a generation of authors raised in a
media-saturated culture, the literary world is holding
its own. Prompted by a 2004 report from the National
Endowment for the Arts, "Reading
at Risk," which concluded
"literary reading" was plummeting dramatically, editor
Kevin Smokler set out to show that contemporary writing
and its authors are thriving, online and off.
Sushanna Breslin, "The Written Word Still Thrives,"
Wired News, July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67979,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_13
Academics have always amassed large collections
of personal research materials: journals, letters, clippings,
photographs, slides, and books. Digital capturing, computer storage, and
retrieval tools have made even vaster collections both possible and
practical. In "Plenty of Room at the Bottom? Personal Digital Libraries
and Collections" (D-LIB MAGAZINE, vol. 11, no. 6, June 2005), Neil
Beagrie looks at the impact that growth of personal libraries will have
on individuals and the libraries in their institutions. He envisions the
need for more services to help control, protect, organize, and present
these materials. And he suggests that more formal networking can make
personal collections a part of the larger body of materials available to
researchers. The article is available online at
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june05/beagrie/06beagrie.html .
D-Lib Magazine [ISSN: 1082-9873] covers
innovation and research in digital libraries. D-Lib is published, online
and free of charge, eleven times a year by the Corporation for National
Research Initiatives (CNRI) and is sponsored by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA). For more information, contact: D-Lib
Magazine, c/o Corporation for National Research Initiatives, 1895
Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 20191 USA; tel: 703-620-8990; fax:
703-620-0913; email:
dlib@cnri.reston.va.us ; Web:
http://www.dlib.org/
.
ELEARNING AND THE STRUCTURE OF HIGHER
EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS
"[A]re traditional universities able to compete
with other independent education providers in relation to social demands
for 'life long learning' and globalised education services?" Gurmak
Singh, John O'Donoghue, and Harvey Worton think that eLearning has a
"fundamental impact on the structure of higher education." Online-only
corporate and virtual universities compete with traditional colleges and
universities for some of the same students. Even though traditional
higher education institutions have the advantage of established
reputations, to maintain this competitive edge, they need to incorporate
more flexibility into their existing structure. In "A Study into the
Effects of eLearning on Higher Education" (JOURNAL OF UNIVERSITY
TEACHING AND LEARNING PRACTICE, vol. 2, issue 1, 2005), the authors
outline suggestions for making these structural changes. The paper is
available online at
http://jutlp.uow.edu.au/2005_v02_i01/odonoghue003.html .
The Journal of University Teaching and
Learning Practice [ISSN: 1449-9789] is published bi-annually by the
Centre for Educational Development and Interactive Resources (CEDIR),
University of Wollongong. For more information, contact: Journal of
University Teaching and Learning Practice, University of Wollongong, c/o
CEDIR, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia; email:
jutlp@uow.edu.au ;
Web:
http://jutlp.uow.edu.au/ .
PRINCIPLES FOR SUPPORTING CYBER-FACULTY
"As colleges and universities work steadily to
get full-time faculty onboard with distance learning, virtual adjuncts
have eagerly stepped up to fill the void, thereby enabling institutions
to respond promptly to market demand." In "Managing Virtual Adjunct
Faculty: Applying the Seven Principles of Good Practice" (ONLINE
JOURNAL OF DISTANCE LEARNING ADMINISTRATION, vol. VIII, no. II,
Summer 2005), Maria Puzziferro-Schnitzer uses Chickering and Gamson's
principles as a suggested framework for supporting and managing
"cyber-faculty." Although Puzziferro-Schnitzer uses examples from a
community college viewpoint, the principles can be applied to any
institution that wants to attract and retain high quality faculty. The
paper is available online at
http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/summer82/schnitzer82.htm .
The Online Journal of Distance Learning
Administration is a free, peer-reviewed quarterly published by the
Distance and Distributed Education Center, The State University of West
Georgia, 1600 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118 USA; Web:
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/jmain11.html .
See also:
Chickering, Arthur W., and Gamson, Zelda F.
APPLYING THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR GOOD PRACTICE IN UNDERGRADUATE
EDUCATION. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Number 47, Fall
1991. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.
Another buzz word for business elite Sustainability-Driven Innovation is starting to
offer real business value, but benefits are still intangible for many and
there are still significant barriers to overcome · in stark contrast to five
years ago, the leaders are now focusing on winning tomorrow's customers,
rather than just managing risks · a small minority of companies have
integrated sustainability into both their business strategy and
product/process design · a few leading companies are already exploring
exciting breakthrough opportunities in Sustainability-Driven Innovation.
To download the Arthur D. Little report in full please visithttp://www.adl.com
July 1, 2005 message from Ethical Performance
[list_admin@ethicalperformance.com]
Study Says More Large Companies End Pensions About 11 percent of large companies that offer
traditional pension plans either terminated them or froze benefits last
year, a new study says. And as workers around the country are watching their
retirement funds shrink, CEOs at companies with massive unfunded pension
obligations continue to collect huge salaries and retirement benefits. In
addition, rule changes are being considered that could force even more
companies to ditch their promises to workers. "The companies are operating
in a world of uncertainty," said Sylvester Schieber, director of U.S.
benefits consulting at Watson Wyatt Worldwide, which conducted the study.
"Big companies that continue to be viable, for the most part, have not cut
and run, although if we go on indefinitely with this uncertainty they
undoubtedly will," he told the Associated Press.
"Study Says More Large Companies End Pensions," AccountingWeb, June
24, 2005 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101039
World Myths and Legends in Art Myths are stories that explain why the world is
the way it is. All cultures have them. Throughout history, artists have been
inspired by myths and legends and have given them visual form. Sometimes
these works of art are the only surviving record of what particular cultures
believed and valued. But even where written records or oral traditions
exist, art adds to our understanding of myths and legends.
World Myths and Legends in Art ---
http://www.artsmia.org/world-myths/
This SEC history site is not as dull as you might
think at first blush This virtual museum and archive
preserves and shares the history of the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission and of the securities industry
from 1929 to the present. It includes a wide range of
primary materials, including a timeline, papers, photos,
oral histories and original programs broadcast from this
site, which contribute to the understanding of how the
SEC has shaped and continues to shape U.S. and
international capital markets. The Securities and
Exchange Commission Historical Society and its virtual
museum and archive are independent of and separate from
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and receive
no federal funding. To help build the virtual museum and
archive,
click here.
Virtual Museum and Archive of the SEC and Securities
History ---
http://www.sechistorical.org/
Some of the multimedia programs are at
http://www.sechistorical.org/museum/programs/index.php
Why should he be allowed to keep five percent? Bernard J. Ebbers, the swaggering, self-made
businessman who vowed to revolutionize the telephone industry, yesterday
agreed to give up virtually everything he has built or bought to raise an
estimated $45 million to settle the claims of investors hurt when WorldCom
Inc. collapsed into bankruptcy three years ago.
Ebbers, 63, will be allowed to keep enough money to cover legal fees
and to support his wife in what prosecutors call a "modest" fashion. But the
once-brash executive must move out of his Clinton, Miss., mansion within
three months so that it can be sold. He also must forfeit interests in
300,000 acres of timberland, a marina and a golf course, and an anticipated
federal tax refund of millions of dollars, lawyers said.
Carrie Johnson and Yuki Noguchi, "Ebbers Agrees to
Settle Shareholder Suit Former WorldCom: Chief Executive to Give Up
About 95 Percent of Assets," The Washington Post, July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/30/AR2005063000693.html?referrer=email
Come on gang, muff a few to stay in the league No one misbehaved. No one broke any rules. But
after only a few games, the Columbus Stars have been kicked out of a
recreational youth baseball league in Canal Winchester. The players, ages 11
and 12, were deemed too good.
Kirk D. Richards, "Hit the showers, boys Youth baseball team ousted from
league for being ‘too good’," The Columbus Dispatch, June 17,
2005 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1435277/posts
Fusion: A large volume of gas must be heated to a temperature
above that found at the centre of the sun THIS week, an international project to build a
nuclear-fusion reactor came a step closer to reality when politicians agreed
it should be constructed in France rather than in Japan, the other country
lobbying to host it. The estimated cost is $12 billion, making it one of the
most expensive scientific projects around—comparable financially with the
International Space Station. It is scheduled to run for 30 years, which is
handy since, for the past half century, fusion advocates have claimed that
achieving commercial nuclear fusion is 30 years away . . . Advocates of
fusion point to its alleged advantages over other forms of power generation.
It is efficient, so only small quantities of fuel are needed. Unlike
existing nuclear reactors, which produce nasty long-lived radioactive waste,
the radioactive processes involved with fusion are relatively short-lived
and the waste products benign. Unlike fossil-fuel plants, there are no
carbon-dioxide emissions. And the principal fuel, a heavy isotope of
hydrogen called deuterium, is present in ordinary water, of which there is
no shortage . . . The challenges of achieving fusion should not be
underestimated. A large volume of gas must be heated to a temperature above
that found at the centre of the sun. At the same time, that gas must be
prevented from touching the walls of the reactor by confining it in a
powerful magnetic field known as a magnetic bottle. The energy released in
fusion is carried mostly by neutrons, a type of subatomic particle that has
no electric charge and hence cannot be confined by the magnetic bottle.
Ensuring that the reactor wall can cope with being bombarded by these
neutrons presents a further challenge.
"Nuclear ambitions," The Economist, June 30, 2005 ---
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4127211
Keep a remote eye on what is happening in your house or office
From the Scout Report on June 30, 2005
One potential use for the home computer is
as a monitoring device, whether it be to check in on a child in another
room or to keep an eye out for potential intruders into the home.
ZoneMinder 1.21.2 allows visitors to do just that, and also to capture
various images recorded with the use of one or more cameras attached to
their computer. Users can also choose to be notified by email when the
camera records any new images, if they so desire. The website for
ZoneMinder also includes a FAQ section, along with various screenshots.
Zoneminder is compatible with the Linux operating system.
Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You That said, Mr.
Mierzwinski endorsed the preventive
measures offered by Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse (www.privacyrights.org),
a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, and
by the Identity Theft Resource Center (www.idtheftcenter.org),
also a nonprofit. Besides the standard
advice to shred personal documents,
following are some tips I found useful .
. .
M.P. Dunleavey, "Don't Let Data Theft
Happen to You," The New York Times,
July 2, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/technology/02instincts.html
Women in joint Nobel nomination Eight Palestinian and two
Iraqis are just some of the dozens of Arab women among
counterparts from 153 countries nominated for this
year's prize. The list includes women from war-ravaged
countries, including 11 from Afghanistan and 16 from
Sudan.
"Women in joint Nobel nomination," Aljazeera,
July 1, 2005 ---
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8F349E7C-CA7A-441E-A147-CBBF3CD91D8E.htm
How do
we come up with our 50 best? Short
answer: we take your suggestions,
probe friends and colleagues about
their favorite online haunts and
then surf like mad. This year's
finalists are a mix of newcomers,
new discoveries and veterans that
have learned some new tricks
Top
investor blogs The blogosphere provides a
feast of investment Web sites, some of which are tasty
treats and others half-baked. Here, we've identified
some of the most worthwhile investing blogs. These 10
are worth visiting, whether you're a casual stockpicker
or a seasoned pro in search of fresh ideas. Another way
to sample the smorgasbord: Visit
seekingalpha.com or
pfblog.com,
both of which aggregate other
financial blogs.
"Blogging For Dollars," Business Week, July 11,
2005 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_28/b3942113_mz070.htm?chan=tc
How Quantum Physics Can Teach Biologists About
Evolution Physicists reeled. But physics
survived. And once they got over their shock, scientists
began testing Planck's ideas with observation and
experiment, work that eventually produced computer
chips, lasers, CAT scans and a host of other useful
technologies - all made possible through our new
understanding of the way the world works. Biologists
might do well to keep Planck in mind as they confront
creationism and "intelligent design" and battle to
preserve the teaching of evolution in public schools.
Cornelia Dean, "How Quantum Physics Can Teach Biologists
About Evolution," The New York Times, July 5,
2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/science/05essa.html?
Economists See Modest Growth and Many Worries The economy is nearing its
fifth year of expansion on a firm footing, yet a long
list of worries still nags at economists. Top among the
concerns: When will the Federal Reserve stop raising
short-term interest rates? Yesterday, the Fed raised its
closely watched federal-funds rate -- which is charged
by banks on overnight loans -- a quarter percentage
point to 3.25%, the ninth straight increase in a
yearlong campaign to head off further increases in
inflation. The 56 economists who participate in The Wall
Street Journal's semiannual economic survey and
submitted their forecasts between June 10 and June 17
say the Fed isn't done yet, though the pace of rate
increases could slow. They expect the Fed to raise the
rate three more times in the next 12 months, bringing it
to 4%.
John E. Hilsenrath and Rafael Grena-Morales, "Economists
See Modest Growth and Many Worries: Issues Include
Inflation, Oil, China and When Fed Will Stop Rising
Rates," The Wall Street Journal, July 1,
2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112014118051374092,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Poor Writing Costs Americans Millions States spend nearly a quarter
of a billion dollars a year on remedial writing
instruction for their employees, according to a new
report that says the indirect costs of sloppy writing
probably hurt taxpayers even more. The National
Commission on Writing, in a report to be released
Tuesday, says that good writing skills are at least as
important in the public sector as in private industry.
Poor writing not only befuddles citizens but also slows
down the government as bureaucrats struggle with unclear
instructions or have to redo poorly written work. "It's
impossible to calculate the ultimate cost of lost
productivity because people have to read things two and
three times," said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, vice
chairman of the National Governors Association, which
conducted the survey for the commission. The commission,
established by the College Board, drew attention with
its first report in 2003. That outlined problems with
how writing is taught in American schools and proposed
remedies. The group's second report, last year, tried to
drum up support for writing education by highlighting
the value that business and industry leaders place on
writing skills.
Justin Pope, "Poor Writing Costs Americans Millions,"
Associated Press, July 4, 2004 ---
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GOVERNMENT_BAD_WRITING?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME
Qatar to host inter-faith centre "The real success story of the
conference is that I as a Jew am speaking in Qatar to
Muslims and Christians," Rabbi Bernard Kanovitch of the
Jewish Institution Council in France said. "This is just
the beginning of much more things to come," he said.
"Qatar to host inter-faith centre," Aljazeera,
July 1, 2005 ---
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/30B16606-A72B-4F3C-BD48-6B14D6EA7B5F.htm
The Facebook: Meeting on campus ain't what
it used to be Constantly updated by its
2.8 million registered users at more than 800 colleges
and universities, the Facebook takes the local malt shop
social nexus of the 1950s and makes it universal.
Started by three Harvard sophomores in February 2004 as
an online directory to connect the higher education
world through social networks, the Facebook now
registers more than 5,800 new users a day. ''It becomes
part of your daily routine. It's e-mail, the news, the
weather, Facebook,'' said Lucas Garza, a senior from San
Antonio studying aerospace engineering at the Georgia
Institute of Technology. Users of Facebook,
http://www.thefacebook.com ,
can post a photo and a profile of themselves for
free. The profiles include as little or as much
information as the user desires, including basic
biographies, lists of hobbies and interests, even home
address and cell phone number.
"Facebook an Internet Sensation on Campus," The New
York Times, July 2, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Facebook-Frenzy.html
New insight into horse evolution As the Great Ice Age came to an
end, some 11,000 years ago, North America was thought to
be home to as many as 50 species and subspecies of
horse. But studies of ancient DNA tell a rather
different story, suggesting the horses belonged to just
two species. These are the stilt-legged horses, now
extinct, and the caballines. The caballines are thought
to be the ancestors of today's domestic horse.
Helen Briggs, "New insight into horse evolution," BBC
News, July 2, 2005 ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4618571.stm
Boobs are not the same as Tupperware A dangerous underground of
"pump parties" has sprung up around the country catering
to transgender individuals seeking more feminine
features through cheap – sometimes deadly – black-market
silicone injections, experts say. Two San Diego
transgender women were near death Friday after
unlicensed practitioners injected them with liquid
silicone at a "pump party" five days earlier, officials
said.
Marty Graham, "U.S. experts warn of risky silicone 'pump
parties'," Sign on San Diego, July 2, 2005 ---
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20050702-0706-life-transgender.html
Green tea unlikely to reduce cancer risk The evidence that green tea may
reduce risk of some cancers is weak and its unlikely to
cut cancer risk, U.S. Federal Drug Administration
officials said.
"Green tea unlikely to reduce cancer risk," Science
Daily, July 1, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/GreenTeaJuly3
Interest in majoring in economics is exploding According to the National
Association of Colleges and Employers, economics majors
in their first job earn an average of nearly $43,000 a
year -- not as much as for computer-science majors and
engineering majors, who can earn in excess of $50,000 a
year. But those computer and engineering jobs look
increasingly threatened by competition from inexpensive,
highly skilled workers in places like India and China.
"Historically, the trends [in college degrees] are
largely connected to perceived job prospects," says
Marvin Lazerson, historian of education and a professor
at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of
Education in Philadelphia. He cites the recent example
of computer science majors, whose ranks swelled in the
1990s and quickly subsided in the early 2000s, soon
after the dot-com bubble burst and many companies
started outsourcing computer-programming jobs abroad. In
contrast, economics and business majors ranked among the
five most-desirable majors in a 2004 survey of employers
by the National Association of Colleges and Employers,
along with accounting, electrical engineering and
mechanical engineering. It wasn't just banks and
insurance companies that expressed interest in economics
majors -- companies in industries such as utilities and
retailing did so, too. Like many people whose eyes glaze
over at a supply-and-demand curve, Nicholas Rendler, a
19-year-old student at Brown University, in Providence,
R.I., says he finds economics boring. But he has
gravitated to the topic anyway: He chose a major
combining economics, sociology, and anthropology because
he thinks economics is crucial to understanding the
world.
Jessica E. Vascellaro, "The Hot Major For Undergrads Is
Economics," The Wall Street Journal, July 5,
2005; Page A11 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112052978616277054,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Jensen Comment: Interest in undergraduate
economics is correlated with hiring of MBAs since many
economics majors go on to earn MBA degrees. MBA
hiring has increased along with starting salaries.
This greatly affects the number of economics
undergraduates.
Hardwiring' Brain Is No Longer Stuff of Fiction Meshing people with computers
has been fodder for science fiction for years, such as
downloading memories onto computer chips and replacement
robotic limbs controlled by brain waves. The fantasy is
coming closer to reality as advances in technology mean
computers are learning to interact with human
characteristics such as voices, touch, even smell. Mr.
Gates, whose Redmond, Wash.-based company is spending
more than $6 billion on research and development this
year to remain a world leader in software development,
was asked whether he thought computers would ever be
implanted in the human brain.
Associated Press, "Gates Says 'Hardwiring' Brain Is No
Longer Stuff of Fiction," The Wall Street Journal,
July 5, 2005; Page D4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112051514447076746,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Those in Long Beach,
Calif., pay the lowest prices -- the lowest
available monthly premium for a 30-year-old
nonsmoker is $54 -- and the costliest
insurance is in New York City, where similar
coverage costs $334.
Sorting results by gender
alters the rankings. Columbus, Ohio, is the
most affordable city for men, who pay as
little as $52 a month. Long Beach, Calif.,
with its $54 premium, still ranks first for
women. (Long Beach ranks fourth for men and
Columbus ninth for women.) Some states,
including California and Hawaii, legally
mandate equal rates for men and women.
Prices vary between them in states that
don't; in New Orleans, women paid 35% more
than men did.
So familiar are the
numbers, and so often have we heard them analyzed,
that the release of a new poll on international
anti-Americanism last week caused barely a ripple.
Once again the Pew Global Attitudes Project showed
that the majority of Frenchmen have a highly
unfavorable view of the United States; that the
Spanish prefer China to America; that Canadian
opinion of the United States has sunk dramatically.
And once again the polls told only half of the
story.
After all, even the most
damning polls always show that some percentage of
even the most anti-American countries remains
pro-American. According to the new poll, some 43% of
the French, 41% of Germans, 42% of Chinese and 42%
of Lebanese say they like Americans. Maybe it's time
to ask: Who are they?
In fact, when pro-and
anti-American sentiments are broken down by age,
income, and education -- I did so recently using
polling data from the Program on International
Policy Attitudes, supplied by Foreign Policy
magazine -- patterns do emerge. It turns out, for
example, that in Poland, which is generally
pro-American, people between the ages of 30 and 44
are even more likely to support America than their
compatriots. This is the group whose lives would
have been most directly affected by the experience
of the Solidarity movement and martial law -- events
that occurred when they were in their teens and
twenties -- and who have the clearest memories of
American support for the Polish underground.
If male martyrs reputedly get 72 virgins in
paradise, what do women suicide bombers get? Wafa al-Biri, a 21-year-old
Palestinian woman with a lovely face and a quiet voice,
seems an unlikely candidate for a suicide mission. Yet
her greatest wish, she told reporters, was to kill 30 to
50 Jews, including children. The motives of suicide
bombers are many, mysterious and murky. And rarely are
they as stated by the bombers on camera. Wafa's case
sheds some light on what is to many an incomprehensible
phenomenon. Why do people become suicide bombers? More
specifically, if male martyrs reputedly get 72 virgins
in paradise, what do women suicide bombers get?
Martin Fletcher . "From Patient to Suicide Bomber."
FrontPage Magazine, July 5, 2005 ---
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18619
A single optimistic adviser can make
the difference for hundreds of students When it comes
to convincing kids at low-income high
schools that they can find a way to pay
for college, a single optimistic adviser
can make the difference for hundreds of
students, according to
Scott L. Thomas,associate
professor at the University of Georgia’s
Institute of Higher Education. Thomas
described his research Monday at the
annual meeting of the National
Association of Student Financial Aid
Administrators, in New York City. Thomas
is studying the efficacy of policies
that seek to make college available in
various cultural and socioeconomic
settings.
David Epstein, "It Takes a Counselor,
Not a Village," Inside Higher Ed,
July 5, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/05/aid
Were the Good Old Days That Good? TOM RATH, the protagonist in
Sloan Wilson's 1955 novel, "The Man in the Gray Flannel
Suit," certainly had his share of troubles: the
stressful conformity, the constant striving for success,
the superficial suburban friendships, the war
experiences he kept hidden from his wife. It all ate
away at him. But Tom, like most Americans in the first
three decades after World War II, took a rising standard
of living for granted. When he needed more income to
make ends meet, he simply landed a better-paying job.
Indeed, at parties throughout suburbia, Mr. Wilson
wrote, "the public celebration of increases in salary
was common." And Tom didn't fret about medical bills,
job security or the quality of public schools for his
three children.
Louis Uchitelle, "Were the Good Old Days That
Good?" The New York Times, July 3, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/business/yourmoney/03standard.html?
Online gambling: At what price? Online poker is
on a winning streak. According to
research firm River City Group, Internet
poker alone is a $2 billion-a-year
industry with a million players monthly.
ComScore Media Metrix -- which measures
all U.S. Internet users at home, work
and college locations -- reports more
than 29.1 million unique visitors to
online gambling sites in April, out of a
total audience of 165 million. Observers
agree that the numbers are impressive,
but experts at Wharton and elsewhere
contend that the mainstreaming of online
gambling -- particularly among
school-aged males -- raises a host of
public policy, legal and e-commerce
issues.
"The Odds Are Good That Online Gambling
Will Continue to Thrive -- But at What
Price?" Knowledge@Wharton, July
2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1236
A Changing of the Guard at the SEC During his 28
months as chairman of the Securities and
Exchange Commission, William Donaldson
turned out to be something of a
surprise. A Republican and longtime
securities industry insider, Donaldson
repeatedly sided with the two Democratic
commissioners to push through a series
of post-Enron market reforms that
irritated Wall Street and corporate
America, but were applauded by
investors' groups. With Donaldson
stepping down June 30, will the
regulatory pendulum swing the other way
under Christopher Cox, the conservative
California Congressman Bush has
nominated as the next SEC chairman? And
just what kind of legacy is Donaldson
leaving?
"A Changing of the Guard at the SEC:
Will Corporate America Get a More
Sympathetic Ear?" Knowledge@Wharton,
July 2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1233
A rum and Wahaha? Wahaha, whose
main products are milk drinks, bottled
water and mixed congee, is the number
one beverage company in China, with
revenues of 11.4 billion yuan ($1.37
billion) and profits of 1.35 billion
yuan ($162.7 million) in 2004. The
company was started in 1987 by Zong
Qinghou, its 60-year-old chairman and
CEO. In an interview with Wharton
marketing professor John Zhang, Zong
talks about his first entrepreneurial
ventures selling beverages and ice
cream, the success of his first major
product, "Wahaha nutritional liquid,"
his joint venture with the French giant
Danone Group, and his rapid growth over
the past eight years through the
establishment of 40 subsidiaries in 16
Chinese provinces. In 1998, Wahaha
launched its own brand, "Future Cola,"
to compete against Coke and Pepsi.
"Watch Out, Coke and Pepsi -- Here Comes
Wahaha," Knowledge@Wharton, July
2005 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1235
Notwithstanding such pronouncements,
higher education recently has
provided the public with a series of
ethical solecisms, most
spectacularly the University of
Colorado professor Ward Churchill’s
recidivistic plagiarism and
duplicitous claim of Native American
ancestry along with his
denunciations of 9/11 victims. While
plagiarism and fraud presumably
remain exceptional, accusations and
complaints of such wrong doing
increasingly come to light.
Some
examples include
Demas v.
Levitsky
at Cornell,
where a doctoral student filed a
legal complaint against her
adviser’s failure to acknowledge her
contribution to a grant proposal;
Professor C. William Kauffman’s
complaint
against the University of Michigan
for submitting a grant proposal
without acknowledging his
authorship; and
charges of
plagiarism
against by Louis W. Roberts, the
now-retired classics chair at the
State University of New York at
Albany. Additional plagiarism
complaints have been made against
Eugene M. Tobin, former president of
Hamilton College, and Richard L.
Judd,
former
president
of Central
Connecticut State University.
In his book
Academic Ethics, Neil
Hamilton observes that most doctoral
programs fail to educate students
about academic ethics so that
knowledge of it is eroding. Lack of
emphasis on ethics in graduate
programs leads to skepticism about
the necessity of learning about
ethics and about how to teach it.
Moreover, nihilist philosophies that
have gained currency within the
academy itself such as Stanley
Fish’s “antifoundationalism”
contribute to the neglect of ethics
education.
.
For these reasons academics
generally do not seriously consider
how ethics education might be
creatively revived. In reaction to
the Enron corporate scandal, for
instance, some business schools have
tacked an ethics course onto an
otherwise ethically vacuous M.B.A.
program. While a step in the right
direction, a single course in a
program otherwise uninformed by
ethics will do little to change the
program’s culture, and may even
engender cynicism among students.
How can we make sure that we don’t waste the
summer? “Summertime, and the livin’ is
easy, Fish are jumpin’, and the cotton is high….”
This song captures a mood that rises within most of us
in June. By the end of the semester, we feel like the
indentured servants of our students, if not their
slaves. Now that the weather’s warm and the days long,
our not-so-inner child is screeching: “Summer Break!” We
want to go out and play rather than focus on all the
tasks we’ve put on hold until the end of the school
year. How can we make sure that we don’t waste the
summer?
Mary McKinney, "Summertime, and the Livin’ Is...,"
Inside Higher Ed, July 5, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/careers/2005/07/05/mckinney
Big Brother will be watching these guys Illinois will go high tech to
track sex offenders. Today, the state will begin the
process of hiring 31 parole officers who will
participate in a pilot program using satellites and
computers to monitor dangerous sex offenders. In doing
so, Illinois joins a handful of states employing global
positioning system technology as a way to assure sex
offenders on parole don't stray into areas where they
may strike again. "We think it's going to be a nice tool
to help supervise our offenders," said Robert Ley, an
Illinois Department of Corrections parole supervisor.
The state will identify 200 high-risk sex offenders to
be outfitted with an ankle bracelet and a transmitter.
The device sends a continuous signal to a parole agent's
computer, allowing the officer to track an offender's
whereabouts.
Kurt Erickson, "GPS will track sex offenders:
State hiring officers to monitor parolees considered
dangerous," Pantagraph.com, July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/070105/new_20050701024.shtml
As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that
wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You
will have your heart broken probably more than once and
it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so
remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight
with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for
things an old one did. You'll cry because time is
passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you
love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and
love like you've never been hurt because every sixty
seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll
never get back.
The cult of perfection
always leads to preferring myth to authenticity.
Paul Ariès
Not good for the
image of the accounting profession: "Taxes are for
Douche Bags" July 6, 2005 message from Mike Gasior
[Mike_Gasior@mail.vresp.com]
Also, I told you last month
about a hysterical video that was done on The Daily
Show with Jon Stewart by correspondent, Ed Helms
about the Cayman Islands titled "Gimmie Shelter".
Unfortunately Comedy Central had taken the clip off
of their website, but a terrific reader sent me a
link where you can view the video. Simply cut and
paste this address into your browser and the video
will play for you. Enjoy.
Dell, Microsoft Launch
Search for America's Education Visionaries
Dell and Microsoft® Corp. have partnered to launch a
search to find the top K-12 education visionaries in
the United States. Selected by a panel of
distinguished judges, the winners each will receive
$250,000 in technology and services for their
schools to help them achieve their educational
vision.
The companies are calling
for educators to submit essays detailing how
technology could transform education and help their
students prepare for the future. Winners will be
announced at Dell's Global Education Day in early
2006, where they will be given the opportunity to
share their vision of education and technology to
education stakeholders from around the world.
Pay to get Your FICO
Scores, but don't trust offers from vendors promising
help to get you a free credit report or FICO score Your FICO credit score is crucial to your credit to
your good name. It can be altered without your
knowing it due to fraud and errors. Getting a free
credit report may not give you a FICO scores as well.
The
main advantage of thefrom
http://www.myfico.com/ is that it will give you your
FICO score from each of the three major credit reporting
agencies. Consumer Reports (August, Page 18) notes that
credit scores nearly always differ between the three
major credit reporting agencies. You may miss something
if you only get one agency’s score.
To monitor your FICO
score, Consumer Reports (August 2005, Page 17)
recommends that you get the $44.85 package from
http://www.myfico.com/
IBook and PowerBook G4 Fire Risk The Consumer Product Safety
Commission announced Friday that Apple Computer is
recalling a rechargeable battery used in its iBook G4
and PowerBook G4 computers, due a risk of overheating
and fires. The commission's statement said Apple is
recalling about 128,000 of the batteries sold in the
United States. It said the computer maker has received
six reports worldwide of batteries overheating due to an
internal short, including two U.S. reports. The
batteries are made by LG Chem Ltd., of South Korea. The
batteries are used in the 12-inch iBook G4, the 12-inch
PowerBook G4 and the 15-inch PowerBook G4. The recalled
batteries include those with model numbers A1061, A1078
and A1079 and serial numbers that begin with HQ441
through HQ507 or 3X446 through 3X510. The model and
serial numbers labeled on the bottom of the battery,
which can be read when the battery is removed from
computers.
"Apple recalls laptop batteries: Computer maker
recalls rechargeables in iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 due
to overheating, fire risk," CNN Money, May 20,
2005 ---
http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/20/technology/personaltech/apple_recall/
I thought you might be
interested in my recent postings on accounting
ethics at my new blog site:
1. Can We Really Have
Independent Auditors?
2. The Innocence of Arthur
Andersen? Nothing Could be Further from the Truth.
Hot Tips from Consumer Reports
Haagen-Dazs low-fat ice cream is a good as the
fat-filled kind according to Consumer Reports,
August 2005, Page 7.
Inexpensive luggage won't stand up to airline abuse
according to Consumer Reports, August 2005, Page
8
Cell phone TV is not ready for prime time according
to Consumer Reports, August 2005, Page 8.
The OneTouch (from UltraSmart) is the best
blood-glucose monitor according to Consumer Reports,
August 2005, Page 8.
For that power flush, go for the Eljer Titan 091-0777
toilet, Consumer Reports, August 2005, Page 33.
Sealy Bet Fit is the way to go for cotton bed sheets
according to Consumer Reports, August 2005, Page
37.
Don't expect your (possibly new) analog TV to work
after the digital-only signal commences (Congress is now
considering a date of December 31, 2008). You may
not be able to watch the January 1, 2009 bowl games
unless you replace your analog TV before then. The
millions of TV sets that will be trashed in the next
three years will become a huge environmental risk.
See Consumer Reports, August 2005, Page 61
.
Thanks but no thanks: Income taxes may make
you turn down the big prize you won The contest's fine print
explains that winners must pay federal and state income
taxes, where applicable, on American's "approximate
retail value" of the 12 round-trip tickets for two,
which the airline valued at $52,800, or $2,200 per
ticket. Jack McCall, a New York resident who won
American's grand prize in the video category by
submitting a video montage of snapshots he and his wife
collected during their travels around the world,
estimates that federal, state and local taxes on the
prize could amount to roughly $19,000, given the
couple's probable federal tax bracket and because they
live in New York City, where income taxes are high.
That's equivalent to about $800 for each of the 24
tickets.
Melanie Trottman and Ron Lieber, "Contest Winner
Declines 'Free' Airline Tickets, The Wall Street
Journal, July 6, 2005; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112061365613778106,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
The Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) defines “pretexting” as the
practice of getting personal information under false
pretenses. Pretexters will use a variety of excuses
in an attempt to gain personal information. Once
they obtain the personal information they are
seeking, they may sell it to people who will use it
for identity theft or use it themselves to
investigate or stalk an individual. Some personal
information is a matter of public record, including
home- or property-ownership, real estate taxes and
whether a person or firm has ever filed for
bankruptcy. It is not pretexting to collect this
type of information.
It is, however, illegal for
anyone to obtain customer information from a
financial institution or a customer of a financial
institution by:
using false,
fictitious or fraudulent statements
using forged,
counterfeit, lost or stolen documents
asking a third person
to get someone else’s information using false,
fictitious or fraudulent statements or forged,
counterfeit, lost or stolen documents.
Human resources experts
advise that a business must disclose certain
information in order to verify employment history.
Because laws governing what an employer can and
cannot say about employees are often complex, it is
recommended all calls requesting personal
information be transferred to a representative of
the human resources or personnel departments when
they cannot be transferred directly to the person
that is being inquired about. Firms receiving calls
from suspect “AICPA employees” are also asked to
contact Jay Rothberg, AICPA Vice President at
jrothberg@aicpa.org .
At last there's a serious alternative to Windows
other than a Mac operating system Novell Inc.'s
SuSE Linux Professional 9.3desktop gives not only other leading Linux desktop
distributions like Xandros a run for their money, but
also enterprise desktops such as Windows XP Pro. Nat
Friedman, vice president of Linux desktop engineering at
Novell, said, "We are getting ahead of Windows for the
first time." After kicking SLP 9.3's tires, I agree.
This is one impressive desktop distribution. It has
every Linux application that anyone is ever likely to
want and it's all tied together with either a slick and
up-to-date KDE or GNOME interface.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, "Bleeding-Edge Linux Desktop:
SuSE Linux Professional 9.3," eWeek, July 5, 2005
---
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1833908,00.asp
Staggering trends in hedge fund investing (Hedge funds are not investment hedges. They
are risky investment clubs.)
July 6, 2005 message from Mike Gasior
[Mike_Gasior@mail.vresp.com]
To be truthful, some of the
statistics I have observed in the past few months
have been staggering. Let me share a few of them
with you:
--On an average day, between 18% and 22% of ALL
trading on the New York Stock Exchange is hedge fund
related.
--On an average day, between 30% and 35% of ALL
trading on the London Stock Exchange is hedge fund
related.
--It is estimated that in excess of 75% of quoted,
convertible bonds are now held by hedge funds.
What has also been remarkable are the types of
investors who I have personally observed putting
their money into hedge funds. Sometimes with less
than stellar results too. I was just in Bermuda last
week and read an article in The Royal Gazette about
the Ohio Bureau of Worker's Compensation managing to
lose $215 million in a hedge fund that only invested
in U.S. Treasury securities. If you cannot help but
wonder how one manages to lose $215 million in U.S.
Treasuries, you might find it even MORE interesting
that the Bureau of Worker's Compensation had only
invested a total of $225 million in the fund in the
first place, so the loss is actually an unfathomable
95% of their total investment. Welcome to the world
of extreme leverage and to the world of hedge funds
where performance numbers tend to be eye popping
whether the numbers are positive or negative ones.
Asia: Soothing Education's Culture Shock Mengjia "Victoria" Zhuang, a
29-year-old MBA student from Shanghai, China, will never
forget her first day in strategy class at the University
of Southern California Marshall School of Business. In
the middle of her first case discussion, Zhuang was
struggling to keep up. Suddenly, the teacher looked
directly at her and posed the question, "What would you
do if you were CEO of this company?"
Jeffrey Gangemi, "Soothing Culture Shock: For
international students coming to the U.S., starting
B-school can be a real jolt. Here are some tips for
getting acclimated, Business Week, July 1,
2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/AsiaJuly1
See your long-distance friends in 3-D Google Earth, a new, free
download from the Mountain View, Calif., firm, takes the
Google Maps service into multiple dimensions. Instead of
presenting top-down views of maps or satellite photos,
this software (based on a program called Keyhole that
Google bought last October) wraps those high-resolution
satellite photos on a three-dimensional model of our
planet's land surface that recreates every molehill and
mountain, then lets you eyeball the scenery from any
angle you wish.
Rob Pegoraro, "Google Earth: Officially All Over the
Map," The Washington Post, July 3, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/02/AR2005070200115.html?referrer=email
July 7, 2005 message in Information Week Daily
The question we asked was
this: "As Microsoft and Google increasingly compete,
which company do you think will develop the most
innovative software in the next couple of years?" As
a self-selecting survey of Web-site visitors, the
results aren't scientific, but they're interesting
nonetheless. The surprising thing isn't so much that
Google scored higher--we might have anticipated that
given Google's momentum--but that Microsoft was
favored by four of 10 people. Maybe there's hope for
Bill Gates' crew, after all.
For evidence of how it's
playing out, look no further than Google's decision
last week to publicly release the API to Google Maps
and other code it developed using the Ajax
programming tools. The best Microsoft could do was
pledge support for Ajax in the form of a future
development tool code-named Atlas.
Google has been getting
attention of late for its Google Maps street-mapping
application and Google Earth database of satellite
images. It's worth remembering, though, that
Microsoft was years ahead of Google in both areas,
with its MapPoint software and Terra Server
database. So software innovation is part perception,
part reality, and advantages generally aren't long
lasting.
Telling Computers How to Keep Secrets The home version of Windows XP
(unlike Apple's two most recent Mac OS X releases) can't
lock up your important data, but other developers have
come up with tools for this task. You just have to
decide which of these three qualities is most important
to you: simplicity, price or capabilities. The
easiest data-protection software we tested was Steganos
Safe 8 (Win 2000 or newer, $30 at
http://www.steganos.com/). It creates a "secure drive," an encrypted,
password-protected file that houses whatever files you
choose to put in it. When the secure drive is unlocked,
it works just like a regular drive, but when locked, it
turns into a single file filled with encrypted
gibberish.
Kevin Savetz, "Telling Computers How to Keep Secrets,"
The Washington Post, July 3, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/02/AR2005070200116.html?referrer=email
AOL to offer users more services, control In Wednesday's deal, America
Online, a unit of Time Warner Inc., plans to include
Plaxo's personal information management tools in free
upgrades of AOL's core Web services and its AIM instant
messaging system. The goal is to keep 40 to 50 million
active AOL and AIM members current on the ever-changing
personal details of friends and associates by giving AOL
users and their contacts greater control over how their
personal data is shared.
Eric Auchard, "AOL to offer users more services,
control," The Washington Post, July 6, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070600437.html?referrer=email
Forwarded by Scott Bonacker on July 5, 2005
F-Secure has examples of both real and bogus
"Click here" for crucial updates -- with link body
and link content that don't match.
http://f-secure.com/weblog/
Microsoft
MS05-039 actually points to
worm generated link
Scott Bonacker, CPA
Springfield, Missouri
July 5, 2005 message from Brigham Young
University's Cameron Earl
[cameronearl@byu.edu]
Bob,
Its been a while since we
have spoken/ emailed. I hope you are doing well. I
noticed on your thread that you do not have our
updated information- namely our website. Norm Nemrow
and I have developed a new website that explains
more about our CDs and the teaching model we use at
BYU. You may find interesting. In fact, we would
love some feedback if you have the time to look at
it. The site is brand new and still has one more
round of editing (i.e., correcting typos and such)
Norm values your opinion greatly. Just thought I
would let you know about it. Feel free to share it
with others.
Jensen Comment
I added Cameron's update to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm
One important feature of the BYU approach to video
learning is the ability to speed up the video when
students want to change the pace in learning reviews.
Bill C-198 in Ontario and Sarbanes-Oxley in the
U.S.: Are these laws really changing the culture? As much as senior executives
hate to deal with new legislation such as Bill C-198 in
Ontario and Sarbanes-Oxley in the U.S. -- or with the
compliance issue as a whole -- they also really need to
focus on what benefits can come from putting their
business under scrutiny, says Lynn Brewer, the
high-profile whistle-blower who helped expose Enron five
years ago.
"Enron Whistle-blower Says Business Landscape Hasn't
Improved," SmartPros, July 1, 2005 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x48760.xml
Creative accounting is alive and well Unlike mercy, the quality of earnings can be
strained. As they await companies' second-quarter
results, investors may want to remind themselves that
there is often a gulf between the profit figures that
get trotted out in analysts' reports and the financial
news media and the profits recorded under generally
accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. During the last
recession, companies took big charges for layoffs, plant
closings and the like -- all of which cut into their
earnings under GAAP. But many companies preferred that
investors focus on what earnings might have looked like
if the bad things hadn't happened, contending that these
"operating" profits figures better represented their
underlying business. Wall Street acquiesced. In 2001 and
2002, GAAP earnings for companies in the Standard &
Poor's 500-stock index came to less than 60% of
operating earnings.
Justin Lahart, "As They Like It," The Wall Street
Journal, July 6, 2005; Page C1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112060828373077969,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
German Labor Union Scandal A bribery scandal at Volkswagen
AG is shining a light on corporate Germany's traditional
power-sharing arrangement with organized labor.
Prosecutors in the German state of Lower Saxony are
looking into whether Volkswagen officials paid bribes to
some of the company's top labor leaders as a way of
securing their cooperation during recent contract
negotiations, an official with the prosecutor's office
confirmed yesterday. The disclosure, coming less than a
week after the unexpected resignation of a top labor
leader at VW, has triggered a media storm in Germany,
where Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his ruling Social
Democratic Party are in danger of being thrown from
office by voters angry about the country's unemployment
rate, which stood at 11.6% in May, a near-record in the
post-World War II era.
Stephen Power and David Crawford, "VW's Scandal Carries
Fallout: Labor Ills Shed Light On Germany's Rigid
Power-Sharing Law," The Wall Street Journal, July
6, 2005, Page A2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112060335081577794,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Wanted: More minorities in the CPA
profession For an industry focused on the
veracity of numbers, one in particular has prompted a
bit of soul-searching: Only 1 percent of CPAs in the
United States are black, and the numbers for Hispanics
and other minorities are similarly low . . . The Big
Four, as well as a few of the major black-owned
accounting firms, are helping pay for the event at the
Westfields Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in
Chantilly. They also are providing speakers and mentors
who offer tips on how to network, how to deal with
bosses and career pitfalls, and, crucially, how to pass
the CPA exam. Similar to the bar exam for lawyers, the
CPA test qualifies people to, for example, perform
certified audits. "Studying for the exam is crucial,"
said Allen Boston, Ernst & Young's director of campus
and diversity recruiting, imploring his firm's "Staff 1"
employees, those who have started their accounting
careers but have yet to take the test.
"Accounting Firms Seek to Diversify Image," SmartPros,
June 30, 2005 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x48752.xml
Jensen Comment
For a more detailed analysis, go to
"African American
Students and the CPA Exam," by Quinton Booker,
Journal of Accountancy, May 2005 ---
http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/may2005/booker.htm
Wanted: Less dysfunctional Rap First, the panelists
expressed dismay at the way commercially successful
rappers like 50 Cent, the Game, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and
Nelly depict young black men. In countless song lyrics
and videos, young men are either embittered losers
despairing on the street corner (or cell block), or
extravagant winners disporting themselves in surreal
mansions or tropical paradises, amid harems of sexy,
available, and highly disposable young women. Some songs
and videos are more offensive than others, but all
reduce manhood to the pursuit of cash, followed by sex,
in a world that requires no responsibility of any kind,
least of all that of fatherhood. Martha Bayles, "Some of Rap's Fathers Start Taking
Responsibility," The Wall Street Journal, July 6,
2005; Page D10 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112060019580877742,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
I found this article in
yesterday’s WSJ very interesting…
Need Help With Calculus?
Tutors Coach U.S. Students Online -- From India
By CRIS PRYSTAY Staff
Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL July 5, 2005;
Page A11
NEW DELHI -- Tanu Basu
lives in Boston, but when she wants extra coaching
in math, the 16-year-old American gets online and
spends an hour reviewing calculus with an Indian
teacher who is based in a suburb of this teeming
metropolis.
"It's great. I can log in
on my free time, whenever I want," says Ms. Basu.
"Sometimes my tutor has to explain something four
times, and I just feel I'm this dumb person on the
other side of the world, and he's all 'No, that's
OK.' "
Enter the next phase of
outsourcing: online math education. Not only does
the U.S. increasingly lag behind other countries on
international math scores, it's also short of
qualified math teachers. This could make it tough
for America to improve its grade and retain the
competitive edge that keeps good jobs at home.
Part of the fundamental
problem lies in the dearth of role models who
promote learning even if they themselves failed
along the way. Many of the 19th Century immigrants
and freed slaves insisted on their children's
education that they themselves were denied. They
would not much care where the tutors came from as
long as good tutors and teachers were available.
They viewed their parenting role as one of love
mixed with discipline and motivation and
responsibility.
Wanted by the Educational Testing Service:
More IT learning among youth The Information and
Communication Technology Assessment, as the test is
known, can be scored individually and colleges can
receive aggregate scores. The test was first announced
last year, but a number of changes have been made based
on early administrations of the exam. Terry Egan,
project manager for the test for ETS, said that the exam
grew out of a sense among educators that there is more
than a “digital divide,” but a “proficiency divide” in
which students “have access to technology, but don’t
know how to use it.”
Scott Jaschik, "More Than IM and MP3," Inside Higher
Ed, July 6, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/06/ets
U.S. Lawmaker Stupidity Some
researchers dream of capturing the
attention of Congress.
Sandra Murrayand
Edward Wassermanwish a certain
Texas Congressman had never heard of
them.Murray, an associate professor of
psychology at the State University of
New York at Buffalo, and Wasserman, the
Stuit Professor of Experimental
Psychology at the University of Iowa,
had their studies singled out when the
House of Representatives voted last
month to approve an appropriations bill
for the National Institutes of Health.
Scott Jaschik, "Blacklisted Professors,"
Inside Higher Ed, July 6, 2005
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/06/nih
A for effort, C for attendance According to the students,
the less they were taught, the better. But I knew
better. And I had been on the receiving end of some of
these half-taught students. One of my colleagues at a
large community college in California had confessed that
he passed any student who would sit through his course.
With no work to grade them, he simply gave them all C’s.
He was not the only one, I realized.
Shari Wilson, "Rip-Off," Inside Higher Ed, July 6, 2005
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/07/06/wilson
A hang nail can get you disability pay in Holland If there were a poster
child for the need for economic reform in Europe, the
Netherlands' disability benefit system would surely be a
finalist for the job. Some one million people -- out of
a work force of 7.6 million -- collect disability
benefits in Holland. This is not because the Dutch
are injury-prone or because the Netherlands is a
dangerous place to live and work. It is an open secret
in Holland that the standards for disability are loose
and often abused. Employers have been known to "retire"
people to the disability system to get them off their
payrolls. The extensive use of the disability system has
also helped keep unemployment statistics relatively low
by European standards, although the official figure has
topped 7% during the current protracted recession.
"The Disabled Dutch," The Wall Street Journal, July 6,
2005 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112059718274977678,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Some of your students may be motivational drug
addicts But there is an aspect of
prescription drug abuse mentioned only briefly in the
report: ingesting to excel, not rebel. There's now a
hypermotivational syndrome, use of prescription drugs
not to escape the commanding heights of education and
the economy but to attain them.
Ed Tenner, "Hypermotivational Syndrome," MIT's
Technology Review, August 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/megascope.asp?trk=nl
A cell phone that does it all This next generation of hybrid
phones will have cameras with up to 2 megapixels of
resolution and music players offering up to 4 GB of
storage -- and it's all on one phone no bigger than an
Apple iPod. Throw in a digital assistant, wireless
Internet capabilities and a game or two and all you're
missing is the tiny scissors.
Ryan Kim, "A cell phone that does it all: New
models to combine music player, Web access, higher-res
camera, PDA," San Francisco Chronicle, July 4,
2005 ---
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/04/BUGP2DI5NM1.DTL&type=tech
A Brand New Internet?
I am discouraged,
though, when I see, with Clark's
proposal and with
Internet2,
a focus on
new high-end applications and
performance.Maybe I'm the
one who's being parochial now, but I
don't think the Internet is suffering
for lack of performance. It's suffering
for lack of security, and I'd happily
consider a new network that addressed
security at a core level.
Larry Selzer, "A Brand New Internet?"
eWeek, July 1, 2005 ---
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1833932,00.asp
Strayer University
Offers Pioneering Virtual Commencement Ceremony
Strayer University announced its 2005 virtual
commencement ceremony is available on
http://online.strayer.edu/Grad_05/home.asp .
The virtual commencement
ceremony provides Strayer University's online
graduates with an online ceremony that complements
their experience in Internet classes.
In the 2005 virtual
commencement ceremony, Strayer University graduates
are greeted with a traditional rendering of "Pomp
and Circumstance" while viewing their names and
degrees, which appear in a diploma format on the
computer screen. Graduates navigate through opening
remarks, student biographies, pictures of
classmates, and hear keynote speaker Michael
Daniels.
In seeking wisdom, the first
step is silence; the second, listening; the third,
remembering; the fourth, practicing; the fifth, teaching
others.
Solomon Ibn Gabirol
The terrorists cannot possibly stand up in light
to claim their prize The statement of the Group of
Eight leaders on the London explosions, read by the
British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on Thursday before
leaving for London: "This is a statement on behalf of
the G-8 leaders, but also on behalf of the leaders of
the five countries that have joined us at this summit …
We condemn utterly these barbaric attacks. We send our
profound condolences to the victims and their families.
"All of our countries have suffered from the impact of
terrorism. Those responsible have no respect for human
life. "We are united in our resolve to confront and
defeat this terrorism that is not an attack on one
nation but on all nations and on civilised people
everywhere. "We will not allow violence to change our
societies or our values, nor will we allow it to stop
the work of this summit. "We will continue our
deliberations in the interests of a better world.
"The terrorists will not succeed," Sydney Morning
Herald, July 8, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/07/08/1120704504657.html
Jensen Comment: In general diseases in a system
strengthen the system in the long run even if damage to
innocent parts of the system are a tragedy. The
British people are tough, resolved, and resilient.
The Free World, aside from a few cowardly nations,
is tough, resolved, and resilient.
Terrorists can never win because they are afraid of
coming out of hiding behind children to claim their
prize.
Bypass
surgery "should have been relegated to the
archives 15 years ago" There's just one problem with
this happy tale of modern medicine: More and more
doctors are questioning whether such heart procedures
are actually extending patients' lives. One of them, Dr.
Nortin M. Hadler, professor of medicine at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author
of The Last Well Person, is urging the U.S. medical
establishment to rethink its most basic precepts of
cardiovascular care. Bypass surgery in particular, he
says, "should have been relegated to the archives 15
years ago."
John Carey and Amy Barrett, "Is Heart Surgery Worth It?
Physicians are looking at troubling studies and
questioning whether bypasses and angioplasties
necessarily prolong patients' lives," Business Week,
July 7, 2005 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2005/tc2005077_3265_tc024.htm?campaign_id=nws_insdr_jul8&link_position=link13
Shortened to
http://snipurl.com/HeartJuly7
Setting the record straight about the true history
of computers In his wonderful new book,
What the Dormouse Said..., John Markoff tells
these stories. Markoff was born in Oakland, CA, and has
been covering Silicon Valley for the New York Times for
more than a decade. From a distinctly West Coast
perspective, Dormouse chronicles the origins of the
personal computer and its place in the Bay Area culture
of the 1960s. Having lived, intensely, the later part of
this story, I am fascinated by the great back stories of
people I came to know and, often, work with. Many of
these stories were only vaguely familiar; many more, I'd
never heard.
Bill Joy, "The Dream of a Lifetime," MIT's Technology
Review, August 2005 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/review_dream.asp?trk=nl
Fat in Bloodstream Is Linked to Heart Problems New research gives the first
solid evidence that a type of fat in the bloodstream can
trigger the earliest steps that lead to clogged blood
vessels, the top cause of heart attacks. If further
research bears this out, people might someday be tested
for this fat, just as they are for cholesterol now, to
see if they are in danger of having a heart attack. The
study found that levels of the fat strongly correlated
with the risk of heart disease, especially in people
under age 60.
"Fat in Bloodstream Is Linked to Heart Problems," The
Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2005, Page D3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112067317288878585,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Sing whenever possible: Secret for reducing
snoring Music teacher Alise Ojay
has developed exercises that she claims will help many
people stop snoring. The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital
is studying her course, which teaches people how to
strengthen the throat muscles she says can help reduce
snoring.
"Singing Your Way to a Snore Free Night," National
Public Radio, July 6, 2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4731175
Warnings to Soda Addicts:
Dangers in sugar-free as well as sugar-based sodas Still, soda lovers will testify
that it can be awfully hard to give up the fizzy stuff.
One reason is that when we consume something sweet, the
taste triggers our brains to release chemicals called
opioids -- which make us crave more pleasurable tastes,
says Politi. So why would anyone want to swear off soft
drinks? Experts say that, while soda has few useful
nutrients, it is among the many sources of excess
calories contributing to the U.S. obesity epidemic.
Several recent studies bear out the idea that drinking
too many sodas can affect your health . . .
Carol Sorgen, "Help for Soda Lovers: What to do
when you're a softie for soft drinks," WebMD,
July 1, 2005 ---
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/90/100658.htm?z=1727_00000_5024_hv_06
Hiring Pace Picked Up Last Month The nation's employers stepped
up their hiring in June, the government reported
yesterday, adding 146,000 jobs to meet the gradually
rising demands of a sturdy economy.
Louis Uchitelle, "Hiring Pace Picked Up Last Month,"
The New York Times, July 9, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/business/09jobs.html
Your cell phone records are for sale (Warning:
mine are boring)
Cell phone records are far more personal than typical
Internet Identity theft Think your mate is cheating?
For $110, Locatecell.com will provide you with the
outgoing calls from his or her cell phone for the last
billing cycle, up to 100 calls. All you need to supply
is the name, address and the number for the phone you
want to trace. Order online, and get results within
hours. Carlos F. Anderson, a licensed private
investigator in Florida, offers a similar service for
$165, for all major telephone carriers. "This report
provides all the calls with dates, times, and duration
on the billing statement," according to Anderson's Web
site, which adds, "Incoming Calls and Call Location are
provided if available." Learning who someone talked to
on the phone cannot enable the kind of financial fraud
made easier when a Social Security or credit card number
is purloined. Instead, privacy advocates say, the
intrusion is more personal.
Jonathan Kim, "Online Data Gets Personal: Cell Phone
Records for Sale," The Washington Post, July 8,
2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070701862.html?referrer=email
Big Brother might be watching your car's accidents
Washington Post Trivia on July 8, 2005
Automobile crash
investigators are increasingly using data from "black
box" devices similar to those used in commercial
airliners. What percentage of vehicles on U.S. roads are
currently equipped with the devices?
U.S. losing share of science and engineering grads More than half a century of
U.S. dominance in science and engineering may be
slipping as America's share of graduates in these fields
falls relative to Europe and developing nations such as
China and India, a study released on Friday says. The
study, written by Richard Freeman at the National Bureau
of Economic Research in Washington, warned that changes
in the global science and engineering job market may
require a long period of adjustment for U.S. workers.
Moves by international companies to move jobs in
information technology, high-tech manufacturing and
research and development to low-income developing
countries were just "harbingers" of that longer-term
adjustment, Freeman said.
"U.S. losing share of science and engineering grads,"
C|Net, July 9, 2005 ---
http://news.com.com/U.S.+losing+share+of+science+and+engineering+grads/2100-7342_3-5780921.html?tag=nefd.top
Deloitte & Touche under investigation Deloitte & Touche LLP is under
investigation by the nation's accounting regulator over
a 2003 audit of Navistar International Corp.'s financial
statements, according to a published report. Earlier
this year, Warrenville, Ill.-based Navistar restated its
financial results for the fiscal years 2002 and 2003,
and the first three quarters of fiscal 2004 because of
an error in how it accounted for customer truck loans
that were packaged into securities for sale to
investors. The regulator, the Public Company Accounting
Oversight Board, is looking into whether Deloitte's work
at Navistar may have failed to comply with at least five
auditing standards, according to Bloomberg News. Those
standards cover checking for fraud, performing work in a
professional manner and preparing reports on financial
statements. The two-page order does not explain what
Deloitte may have done wrong, Bloomberg said.
Ameet Sachdev, "Deloitte & Touche under investigation,"
Herald Today," July 9, 2005 ---
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/12092705.htm
It's good to have a healthy
skepticism about the claims of the hype-driven
technology industry. But there are times when even a
hardened skeptic has to admit to amazement and
delight at the sheer coolness of some of the things
you can do on a personal computer today. And one of
those "wow" moments happens the first time you run a
new program called Google Earth.
The program lets you view
satellite and aerial photos of pretty much any spot
on the planet. In big metropolitan areas in the
U.S., Canada and Western Europe, you can locate, and
zoom in on, individual buildings and houses, and see
cars and trees. You can overlay streets onto these
urban images, as well as markers indicating
restaurants, hotels and more. In other places, you
can make out only towns and large geographical
features, like lakes.
The program rapidly fetches
the images from the Internet and visually "flies"
you from place to place around the globe. The
process is so fluid it feels like a Hollywood stunt.
For instance, if you're staring at a bird's-eye view
of St. Mark's Square in Venice and you type in your
address in Boston, Google Earth will zoom out till
you seem high in the sky, then rapidly "fly" you
west across the Atlantic into the U.S., and then
stop right over your house.
Google first released the
program last week at
www.earth.google.com .
But demand was so high that
the company's servers were overwhelmed, so Google is
intermittently turning off downloads. You may have
to visit the site several times to download the
software.
When you first try Google
Earth, you'll want to type in all the places you
frequent and see how they look from the air. You're
also likely to call in family and friends to see how
cool the program is, which is exactly what I did. I
located my house, my office, my old college dorm and
the house where I was raised. I wowed visitors by
typing their addresses into the program and "flying"
them to aerial views of their houses.
The motivating vision
behind the Rethinking Schools organization is
the notion of "the common school." This vision
includes the belief that schools are integral
"not only to preparing all children to be full
participants in society, but also to be full
participants in this country's ever-tenuous
experiment in democracy." The organization was
founded in Milwaukee in 1986, and has been
intimately involved with addressing such
educational issues as standardized testing and
textbook-dominated curricula. Visitors to the
site can learn about the organization's various
programs, and more importantly, read a number of
articles from its in-house journal, _Rethinking
Schools_. One particularly nice feature of the
site is the collection of thematic articles
organized into such topics as "Bilingual
Education" and "Teacher Unions." Finally, the
site also has collected a list of selected
online resources, such as links to the Global
School Network and the American Federation of
Teachers.
As its website
proclaims, the "Woman's Hour" on BBC Radio is
designed for the purpose of "celebrating,
informing and entertaining women." As part of a
larger set of sites dedicated to like-minded
resources for women from the BBC's Radio 4, this
particular program tackles a number of germane
subjects, including relationships, health,
politics, and cooking. One of the definitive
highlights is the drama section, where visitors
can listen to radio versions of plays such as
"The Reef" by Edith Wharton. Visitors can listen
to the current edition of Woman's Hour, or elect
to listen to previous programs from the same
week. Guests are also invited to send in their
own comments on timely topics and also offer
their input on a series of moderated message
boards.
An impressive feat of
literary collation, the Library of Congress
presents this exhibition on Walt Whitman,
probably America's first superstar author, and
Whitman's book of poetry, _Leaves of Grass_.
Initially published in 1855, _Leaves of Grass_
contained 12 poems. Whitman continuously revised
it until his death in 1892, when it contained
400 poems. The poet added new poems, renamed
older ones, reworded lines, changed punctuation,
and regrouped poems (through the 1881 edition),
as well as inventing typography, and posing for
frontispiece portraits wearing various styles of
clothing and props. (front and back views of a
cardboard butterfly that Whitman posed with in
1877 are included in the show). The exhibition
traces this evolution of _Leaves of Grass_ and
Whitman's life, as a poet and a person, from the
first appearance of the lines "I am the poet of
the body, And I am the poet of the soul" in a
notebook dating 1847-1950s, to the final
"Deathbed edition" of 1891-1892. A wealth of
interesting biographical material on Whitman,
his friends and associates, his work as a
teacher, tending the wounded during the Civil
War, and for the federal government, also
appears in the exhibit.
Unwarranted attacks
from unscrupulous hackers are increasingly
common, and users concerned with such activities
would do well to take a look at the Jetico
Personal Firewall. With this application, users
will have three levels of protection. The
application will effectively filter network
packets, application-level network events, and
of course, various Trojans that might try to
sneak into Internet Explorer or some such
browsing application. Jetico Personal Firewall
1.0.1.6 is compatible with Windows 98 or newer.
Bottom feeding: Equal pay in education
versus supply and demand by discipline Some experts think colleges
should resist these trends (salary
differentials based upon supply and demand).
“Even within a single college, differences are
growing, and that creates some difficulties for
faculty to see themselves as part of a common
profession,” said John Curtis, director of research
for the American Association of University
Professors. “Higher education really is something
for the common good that provides a benefit for
society as whole. When you see some of these large
differences, it’s easy to slip into a system that
emphasizes individual payback instead of payback for
society.”
David Epstein, "Pay and Prestige," Inside Higher
Ed, July 8, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/careers/2005/07/08/pay
Jensen Comment: Some liberal arts colleges
succeed with smaller pay differentials that
virtually ignore salary differentials outside
academe. I can't imagine major universities
with highly successful professional schools
(medicine, law, engineering, business, etc.)
attempting to ignore the marketplace for top talent
in faculty. How many highly skilled surgeons,
patent attorneys, robotics engineers, and financial
experts will ignore market alternatives? For
top universities to ignore market differentials
would condemn leading professional programs to
bottom feed for teachers and researchers. The
same may apply to some science disciplines where
certain specialties are in great demand and short
supply.
Leniency in the Modern Age
Millions of dollars in malicious damage and the
German court gives him probation Sasser exploited a flaw
in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 2000 and Windows XP
operating systems. It caused infected computers to
crash and reboot, making it impossible to work on
them. The worm snarled hundreds of thousands of
computers and caused Internet traffic to slow.
German prosecutors estimate that damages ran into
the millions of dollars. Imke Zimmermann, "German Court Convicts Sasser
Worm Creator," The Washington Post, July 8, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/08/AR2005070800337.html?referrer=email
Leniency in the Modern Age
Cheating then versus now What this means in
evaluative practice is not only that the
opportunities to cheat (just to continue to use this
word) are enormously expanded. The nature of
cheating itself changes accordingly — to the despair
of every teacher, beginning with those who teach
freshman composition. The very fact that
“plagiarism” must be carefully defined there defers
to the absence of what the dean in (the
movie) School Ties refers
to as a vacuum. (Could cheating even be punished —
in his terms — if one has to begin by defining it?)
It also testifies to the near-impossibility of
judging a paper on SUV’s or gay marriage or
God-knows-what that has been cobbled together out of
Internet sources whose fugitive presence, sentence
by sentence, is almost undetectable. Furthermore, to
the student these sources may well be almost
unremarkable, with respect to his or her own words.
What is this business of one’s “own words” anyway?
What if the very notion has been formed by CNN? How
not to visit its site (say) when time comes to
write? Most students will be unfamiliar with a
theoretical orientation that questions the whole
idea of originality. But they will not be unaffected
with some consequences, no less than they are
unaffected by, say, the phenomenon of sampling and
remixing as it takes place in popular culture,
especially fashion or music. “Plagiarism” has
to contend with all sorts of notions of imitation,
none of which possess any moral valence. Therefore,
plagiarism becomes — first, if not foremost — a
matter of interpretive judgment. Cheating, on the
other hand, is not interpretive in the same way
(and, in the world of (the movie)
School Ties, not
“interpretive” at all). No wonder, in a sense, that
test gradually has had to yield to text. It is
almost as if the vacuum could not hold. By the
present time, the importance of determining grades
(in part if not whole) by means of papers acquires
the character of a sort of revenge of popular
culture — ranging from cable television to rap music
— upon academic culture.
Terry Caesar, "Cheating in a Time of Extenuating
Circumstances," Inside Higher Ed, July 8,
2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/07/08/caesar
Jensen Comment: The 1992 movie School Ties
focuses on cheating brought to light by an honor
code that requires students to report seeing other
students cheat. It also focuses on education
at a time when cheating was more severely punished,
usually by expulsion from school. In most
colleges today, first-time offenders who get caught
are generally placed on some type of probation.
At the same time most schools have modified their
honor codes in this litigious society such that
students are no longer required to report observed
cheating of other students. Many instructors
view reporting of cheating as becoming too much of a
hassle in terms of time and trouble when the student
will not be severely punished in any case.
This leads to greater risk taking on the part of
some students when it comes to cheating. They
are less likely to be detected and, if detected for
the first time, the punishments are negligible
relative to the rewards. Such risk taking
continues on when they are tempted to cheat as
executives in business/government and the
temptations to siphon off millions of dollars are
great.
You can practice being an investigator of a
vicious sex offender, kidnapper, and alleged
murderer Duncan stopped blogging on
May 13, two days before the brutal slaying of
40-year-old Brenda Groene, her son Slade and her
boyfriend Mark McKenzie, at Groene's home near Coeur
d'Alene, Idaho. The fugitive turned up last Saturday
at a 24-hour diner just a few miles from the murder
site. He was in the company of Groene's 8-year-old
daughter Shasta, who'd been missing since the
attack. Now charged with two counts of kidnapping,
police said this week that Duncan is the only
suspect in the slayings. Shasta's missing 9-year-old
brother Dylan is also believed to be a murder
victim.
Kevin Pousen, "Cops Watched Sex Offender's Blog,"
Wired News, July 8, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68136,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
Jensen Comment: Duncan's blog is still active
at
http://fifthnail.blogspot.com/
You can put yourself in an investigator's pair of
shoes in detecting whether Duncan's self-described
torment is real or faked. The classic problem
with serial rapists, murderers, and pedophiles is
they are very skilled and convincing liars about
their insanity in an attempt to convince the public
and the courts that they would be such bad persons
if they weren't mentally ill. The classic
example is Kenneth Bianchi who was one of the two
infamous Hillside Stranglers (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillside_Strangler
). After being arrested, Bianchi concocted an
elaborate ploy of faked multiple personalities that
pitted experts against experts until some clever
ploys by investigators unraveled his entire charade.
His skill at deceptions dragged out his murder trial
for over two years.
We've seen some interesting trends in using the
Internet, and one of these ways may be to fake
insanity and/or otherwise justify crime.
Terrorists are increasingly using the Internet to
justify their acts of terror on totally innocent
victims. Do you think Duncan's pre-crime
revelations of torment before his crime were
intentional as "insurance" in case he got caught
after the fact?
Overcharging for overdrafts? Banks earn a substantial
part of their income from fees charged to customers.
Personal finance contributor, Michelle Singletary,
talks with host Alex Chadwick about whether
overdraft fees are reasonable, or just a way banks
are taking advantage of their customers.
Michele Singletary, "The Color of Money,"
National Public Radio, July 5, 2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4730118
Oregon law now requires notification when
academic degrees are phony In Oregon, degrees from
unaccredited institutions that are not licensed in
the state are about to carry the higher ed version
of a scarlet letter. A bill, which would require
disclaimers on any résumé bearing suspect degrees,
passed through the Oregon legislature last week, and
is expected to become law soon. The bill stems from
a lawsuit against Oregon that was settled earlier
this year. Prior to the lawsuit, the state fined or
prosecuted anyone doing business in Oregon who
claimed a degree from an unaccredited institution
not licensed in Oregon.
David Epstein, "Scarlet Letter," Inside Higher Ed,
July 7, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/07/oregon
Jensen Comment: The problem is that diploma
mills have already formed phony accreditation
agencies such that many diploma mills are dubiously
"accredited."
Pennsylvania state trooper issues
both tickets and Berkley college
diplomas (even to dogs) Last year,
the Pennsylvania attorney general’s
office decided to sue an institution
its officials called a “diploma
mill,” after Colby Nolan, their
undercover student, got his master’s
degree in business administration.
The fact that Colby is a pet cat
bolstered their case.In a lawsuit
filed Wednesday against another
institution the
attorney general saidis a
diploma mill, the office is going
for the
University of Berkley’s
jugular,
and it isn’t bothering with pet
tricks.The lawsuit, filed in local
court in Erie County, where the
business is based, charged a former
New Mexico state trooper, Dennis
Globosky, 50, with selling thousands
of fake degrees in the United States
and abroad, since the late 1990s,
and operating under a bogus
accreditation institution. Along
with the complaint, the attorney
general asked the court to
immediately shut down Berkley’s
operations. After several hours of
review Wednesday morning, the judge
granted the request.
David Epstein, "Class Dismissed,"
Inside Higher Ed, July 8, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/08/mill
A Win for ‘Academic Bill of
Rights’ For all the
uproar over legislation inspired by
the
Academic Bill of Rights,very little
of it has gone anywhere. There have
been hearings — some of them noisy —
in many states, but not much more
this year.But on Tuesday, the
Pennsylvania House of
Representatives passed a
resolutioncreating a special committee that
is charged with investigating — at
public colleges in the state — how
faculty members are hired and
promoted, whether students are
fairly evaluated, and whether
students have the right to express
their views without fear of being
punished for them.The language in
the resolution closely follows that
of the Academic Bill of Rights,
which has been pushed nationwide by
David Horowitz, a former 60s radical
who is now a conservative
activist.Horowitz, writing in
Front Page,one of his
publications, called the
Pennsylvania vote “a tremendous
victory for academic freedom.” He
said that opposition from faculty
groups “was fierce, and their defeat
is that much more bitter as a
result.”
Scott Jaschik, "A Win for ‘Academic
Bill of Rights’," Inside Higher
Ed, July 7, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/07/tabor
The Trial Lawyers' Enron The Justice Department is
finally starting to take a hard look at some dubious
legal practices, and it isn't a pretty sight. If a
recent federal indictment that refers to Milberg
Weiss is anything to go by, the trial bar has its
Enron. That indictment, delivered up in late June,
charges two California attorneys with conspiracy,
fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice
-- among other felonies. Class-action lawsuit giant
Milberg Weiss isn't formally charged, though the
firm has admitted it is the "New York Law Firm"
cited in the indictment as having made numerous
illegal payments to plaintiffs. Justice has also
made clear that criminal charges against Milberg
Weiss partners, or even the entire firm, are
possible.
"The Trial Lawyers' Enron," The Wall Street
Journal, July 7, 2005; Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112069222061878965,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
WSJ Flashback Many Americanisms now in
use sprang from political campaigns, says Mitford M.
Mathews, lexicographer at the University of Chicago.
Among these are: O.K., 1840; pork barrel, 1801;
platform, 1803; campaign, 1809; civil rights, 1874;
fence straddler, 1948. The Wall Street Journal, July 8, 1952
In Praise of Vulgarity At the time
of this reading, I was engaged in
conversations about
counterculture
and
consumerism. In fact, I found myself
in a state of rebellion against what
seemed to me a kind of neo-puritanical
obsession that many countercultural
types have with this particular
"ism" as a locus of all evil. As a
lover of personal choice (kill my
fuckin' TV and I'll kill you) and
ambiguity, I found this not merely
alienating — I found it lame. Here
we'd presented a range of
philosophies and thinkers from the
Socratics to the Sufis to the
Surrealists and all anybody wanted
to talk about is how Iggy Pop songs
were being used to sell cars. So I
was particularly receptive to the
piece
In Praise of Vulgarity: How
Commercial Culture Liberates Islam —
and the West.
I sent the
piece around to friends (and I'm
sure Iggy would agree) and I started
reading Reason magazine more
carefully and more enthusiastically.
"Right On! RU Sirius in Conversation
with Reason Editor Nick
Gillespie" ---
http://www.life-enhancement.com/neofiles/default.asp?ID=67
The pursuit of
happiness Let's just agree it's all
Thomas Jefferson's fault. The writer of the
Declaration of Independence inscribed "the pursuit
of happiness" into the very DNA of America by
asserting that such a right was every bit as
inalienable as those of life and liberty. It's been
downhill ever since, as we desperately strive to get
too rich and too thin - all while blaming toxic
parents, codependent spouses, abusive bosses, and
total strangers for every problem, big and small, in
our endlessly tortured and continually disappointing
lives.
Nick Gillespie, "The Happiness Scam (Book Reviews),"
Reason Magazine, July 6, 2005 ---
http://www.nysun.com/article/16523
Nigerian political porn scam Kano: A Nigerian man
successfully blackmailed Muslim state governors by
threatening to release mocked-up computer images
depicting them cavorting with prostitutes, police
say. Musa Baffa Bashir, 35, had warned leaders he
had been paid by their opponents to create fake nude
pictures of them, police in Kano said. He was
arrested on Wednesday. He had targeted seven
governors from the country's conservative north who
had backed the reintroduction of Islamic law, which
prescribes the death penalty for adultery, and would
have been highly embarrassed if the pictures became
public. Four of the seven had already paid Bashir
500,000 naira ($5000) each before the governor of of
Kebbi state tipped off security agents, who set up a
sting to capture him. "The governor played along by
asking the suspect to name a place where someone
would meet him with 500,000 naira," said Sadiq
Dalhatu, head of the State Security Service in Kano,
at a news conference where the suspect was paraded.
"He named a hotel in Kano where our men went under
the guise of giving him the money." Bashir is said
to have told police he had resorted to blackmail
after his business failed, but would not say what
the business had been.
"Nigerian political porn scam," Sydney Morning
Herald, July 8, 2005 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/07/08/1120704504739.html
Over $568,000 per square inch The Metropolitan Museum of
Art’s recent purchase of an early Renaissance
“Madonna and Child” by Duccio di Buoninsegna, for a
price said to have been between forty-five and fifty
million dollars, has been greeted by most New
Yorkers with unruffled calm. Although the
acquisition was covered extensively last November,
with emphasis on the price and the extreme rarity of
works by this Sienese master, the little picture (it
measures eleven inches high by just over eight
inches wide, and is painted in tempera and gold on a
wooden panel) has not attracted the multitudes that
would make it difficult to see.
Calvin Tomkins, "The Missing Madonna, " The New
Yorker, July 11, 2005 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050711fa_fact
Vatican Sacks Six Pervy Priests for Having Sex
With Drunken Teen Boy The Vatican has defrocked
six priests from the Archdiocese of New York —
including one who paid for sex with an underage boy
and another who was convicted of sodomizing a
drunken teen, officials said yesterday. All the men
lost their pensions and will not be allowed to
perform priestly duties and were stripped of their
collars by the Roman Catholic Church following
allegations of sexual abuse. A seventh priest, who
was also accused of sexual abuse, Rev. Alfred
Gallant, of Orange County, was allowed to retain his
title of priest and keep his pension, but not
allowed to perform sacraments.
Jennifer Fermino, "VATICAN SACKS SIX PERVY N.Y.
PRIESTS ," Yahoo News, July 9, 2005 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nypost/20050709/lo_nypost/vaticansackssixpervynypriests
Google Wins 'Typosquatting'
Dispute Internet
arbitrator has awarded
Google Inc.the rights
to several Web site addresses that
relied on typographical errors to
exploit the online search engine's
popularity so computer viruses and
other malicious software could be
unleashed on unsuspecting
visitors.The National Arbitration
Forum, a legal alternate to
litigating in court, sided with a
Google complaint alleging that
Sergey Gridasov of St. Petersburg,
Russia, had engaged in ''typosquatting''
by operating Web sites named
googkle.com,
ghoogle.comand
gooigle.com.
"Google Wins 'Typosquatting'
Dispute," The New York Times,
July 10, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Google-Typosquatting.html
Bisexual men allegedly lie about sexual
orientation The study, by a team of
psychologists in Chicago and Toronto, lends support
to those who have long been skeptical that
bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual
orientation. People who claim bisexuality, according
to these critics, are usually homosexual, but are
ambivalent about their homosexuality or simply
closeted. "You're either gay, straight or lying," as
some gay men have put it. In the new study, a team
of psychologists directly measured genital arousal
patterns in response to images of men and women. The
psychologists found that men who identified
themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively
aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by
other men.
Benedict Carey, "Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality
Revisited," The New York Times, July 5, 2005
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/health/05sex.html
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Spam Prevention Discussion List
> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 9:37 AM
> Subject: MEDIA: [infowarrior] -
> Phishing for the missing piece of the CardSystems
puzzle]
>
> [ Yet another illustration that the relationships
between various
> forms of 'net abuse can be complex. In this case,
spam, phishing,
> data theft and identity theft all converge.
> I think this illustrates that even if we could
wave our magic wand and
> make SMTP spam vanish forever...we'd be far, far
from out of the
> woods. ---Rsk ]
>
> ----- Forwarded message from infowarrior.org -----
>
> > Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 22:07:56 -0400
> > Subject: [infowarrior] - Phishing for the
missing piece of the
> > CardSystems puzzle
> > Phishing for the missing piece of the
CardSystems puzzle
> >
> > By Donald Smith
> > 07 Jul 2005 | SearchSecurity.com
> >
> > A banking insider examines the ties between
customized phishing
> > attacks this spring and the CardSystems breach
announced
> soon after.
> > Don't miss his revelations on how they're linked
and what
> the phishers
> > really needed.
> >
> > Perhaps you heard about customized phishing
scams when they began
> > circulating back in May, in which actual credit
card data
> was used to
> > lure consumers into divulging even more secrets.
But did you know
> > these scams could very well be the first
externally visible
> result of
> > the CardSystems breach, before it was made
public in June?
> >
> > -/SNIP/-
> >
> > About the author
> > Donald Smith is the IT audit manager for The
Mechanics Bank of
> > Richmond, Calif. Smith's opinions are his own,
and not those of The
> > Mechanics Bank.
> >
> > You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior
list. Visit
> >
www.infowarrior.org for list information
or to unsubscribe. This
> > message may be redistributed freely in its
entirety. Any and all
> > copyrights appearing in list messages are
maintained by
> their respective owners.
> >
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
In the war against
diabetes, researchers and doctors are focusing on a
new line of defense: identifying cases of so-called
prediabetes, and preventing those people from ever
developing the actual disease.
Fueled by data that show
weight loss and drug treatment can halt the
progression toward diabetes, health experts are
working on ways to make early screening and
intervention a routine practice. Researchers at
Emory University School of Medicine and the
University of Michigan are developing tests to
quickly identify those most at risk. And the
Department of Health and Human Services, along with
a nonprofit health-care group, is funding a pilot
program in five states to identify and treat
prediabetics. The aim is to create a protocol for
prevention that could become a national standard.
More than 18 million
Americans currently have diabetes, a leading cause
of heart disease, kidney failure, amputations and
blindness, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Some 95% of those cases are
Type 2 adult-onset diabetes, largely brought on by
lifestyle issues such as obesity.
But as many as 41 million
additional adults suffer from prediabetes, a
condition in which their blood-sugar levels are
elevated enough to greatly increase their risk of
developing diabetes, federal health officials say.
Those who are overweight or have high cholesterol
are likely candidates for prediabetes, as are people
with a family history of diabetes, among other risk
factors. African-Americans, Latinos, Native
Americans and some Asians are also at increased
risk. Most never have any idea they may be headed
toward a serious illness because there are no
symptoms, but at least half go on to develop the
full-blown disease.
Continued in article
Lyme Disease Benches FSU Football Quarterback Florida State University (FSU)
quarterback Wyatt Sexton will miss the upcoming college
football season due to Lyme disease. Sexton was
reportedly found disheveled and disoriented on a city
street last month . . . "Wyatt has active Lyme
disease that has resulted in neuropsychiatric and
cardiovascular deficits," states S. Chandra Swami, MD,
in the release . . .Lyme disease is carried by a
bacterium that lives on ticks.
Miranda Hitti, "Lyme Disease Benches FSU Football
Quarterback: Experts Discuss Lyme Disease
Symptoms," WebMD, July 11, 2005 ---
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/108/108923.htm?z=1727_00000_5024_hv_03
As I was typing this tidbit this morning, a deer ran in
front of my window. The ticks that carry lime
disease are carried by deer (I think). Up here my
life may be "ticking" away. On a sad note today,
my neighbor's Arab mare had a cute colt that was just
killed by coyotes. Until this happened I didn't
even know we had coyotes up in the White Mountains.
Why is it that the dreaded
federal budget deficit only commands screaming
headlines when it's rising, not falling? And why is
it that the deficit is portrayed as a
fire-breathing, hydra-headed monster only when the
press can portray the villain as "irresponsible tax
cuts," not runaway federal spending?
We ask these questions in
the wake of the great unreported fiscal story of
2005: the shrinking federal deficit. It's down by at
least $100 billion because federal tax receipts have
skyrocketed this year by 14.6% (or $204 billion)
through June. Private economic forecasters now
believe the budget deficit may come in at about 2.5%
of GDP, which is in line with the historical average
for the past 40 years. Given that we're fighting an
expensive, must-win war on terror, these deficit
numbers aren't too shabby.
Not even the most unbridled
supply-sider predicted that President Bush's
investment tax cuts would unleash such a spurt of
tax receipts this year. But thanks to sustained
economic growth, more Americans working and improved
business profits, individual income tax receipts
have shot up by 17.6%. Even more astonishing is the
nearly 41% spike in corporate revenues. There's a
fiscal lesson here that bears repeating: The best
way to grow tax revenues is to grow the tax base,
and that is what has happened this year.
Alas, what hasn't happened
in Washington this year is federal spending
restraint. Despite pious pledges from Mr. Bush and
Republicans in Congress to trim spending growth to
4% this year, so far total nonmilitary spending is
up 7.3%. Thanks to a 10% boost in Medicare (even
before the prescription drug program hits next
year), we now devote a larger share of the budget to
health care than national defense -- notwithstanding
that Congress has a clear Constitutional mandate to
spend money on national security, but not so when it
comes to funding gall bladder operations or Viagra.
During last year's
Presidential campaign, Democrats ripped Mr. Bush for
underfunding education -- which is incredible given
that the Department of Education budget has jumped
by a gravity-defying 20% this year and has more than
doubled over Mr. Bush's tenure. One gets the sense
that Republicans have thrown up their hands in
despair and are pleading: Stop us before we spend
again. All of this is to say that Washington doesn't
have a budget deficit problem, it has a spending
problem. Thank goodness for Mr. Bush's tax cuts or
things would be much worse.
A Little-Used Tax Credit
The Problem: You're new
to the work force and are looking for ways to
reduce the tax bite as a low income worker.
The Solution: An IRS
provision known as the Retirement Savings
Contribution Credit has helped many low-income
families by giving them tax credits if they sock
money away for the future. What is less well
known is that many new income earners are also
eligible. The credit is between 10% and 50% of
the amount they set aside in a 401(k) or IRA
account -- up to a maximum of $4,000 for a
married couple filing jointly and $2,000 for
everyone else.
His academic past, or lack thereof, comes back to
haunt him Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Friday
struck back against a former vice president, who alleged
the company violated federal whistle-blower laws when it
fired him, by releasing documents that the company says
call his credibility into question. Wal-Mart released
copies of transcripts showing Jared Bowen, the former
executive, had forged his college transcripts when he
applied to work at the company's Bentonville, Ark.,
headquarters in 1996. According to the two sets of
documents, Mr. Bowen inflated his grade point average
and claimed to have received about 30 more hours of
credits than he had.
Ann Zimmerman, "Wal-Mart Takes Shot at Credibility Of
Fired Executive," The Wall Street Journal, July
11, 2005; Page B5 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112086015835180999,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Down with Christians, Jews, and Atheist's:
Live Muslim or Die In France and across Europe,
messages like this are finding a broad audience.
Compared to the deadly subway and bus bombings that
rocked London last week, they may sound mild. There is
no call for jihad or violence and the message is
delivered by local citizens, not outside agitators. Yet
the message is radical: People who are different are
held in contempt. Mingling with mainstream society is
frowned upon. Society should be founded on one religion:
Islam. Magnified by the power of demographics, messages
like Mr. Amriou's are presenting a profound challenge to
Europe's secular democracies.
Ian Johnson and John Carreyrou, "As Muslims Call Europe
Home, Dangerous Isolation Takes Root: In France,
'Political Islam' Preaches Intolerance; Challenge to
Secularism Push for Virginity Certificates," The Wall
Street Journal, July 11, 2005; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112103551842081687,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment: One of the more repulsive
fundamentalist Islamic "laws" dictates that killing a
Muslim woman is legal and morally right if she tries to
change her religious beliefs. This has led to
severe public debate, especially in Holland. Of
course the majority of Muslims denounce violence and
should not be blamed for the insanity of a relatively
small number of fanatics.
Driveway Moment from NPR This [story], in particular
Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God," stopped my entire
family. I was catching a show I'd missed on the computer
while preparing dinner, and as the rest of the family
came in, each one became involved with the show. We
couldn't turn it off while we ate. Even when dinner was
finished, all of us just sat around the table without
moving, listening to Julia Sweeney's compelling tale.
Even my 16-year-old son was captivated!
This Driveway Moment was suggested by Joyce, who listens
to KQED
in Northern California.
Flashback: Leading Democrats Favor a Tax Cut The Kennedy Administration
has about decided that a quick income tax cut --
effective this year, not next -- is economically
necessary. It's now wrestling with what could be a far
more difficult decision: Whether a tax cut is also
politically possible. The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 1962 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106149222093777800,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Color Europe Green and Less Productive (at least
in the short run) Government payments account for
about 15 percent of all farm income in Europe. But soon,
most of those payments won't be based on production, but
on managing the environment -- a fundamental change in
policy.
"Europe's Shift in Land Subsidies," NPR, July 12,
2005 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4748066
Want to seize Judge Souter's house? Logan Darrow Clements, the man
behind the movement to seize U.S. Supreme Court Justice
David Souter's New Hampshire home through eminent domain
will be the guest today on "Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily
RadioActive," the nationally syndicated talk program.
Clements will announce the latest developments to turn
the tables on one of the justices behind the court's
Kelo decision that permits local municipalities to use
eminent domain to take homes and businesses away from
owners and give them to private developers in an effort
to increase the tax base.
"Want to seize Souter's house? Join man behind movement
on Farah show today," World Net Daily, July 11,
2005 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45205
In accounting we call it cost-profit-volume
analysis But a number of small, private
colleges in recent years have experimented with dramatic
cuts in tuition rates. Much of the discussion about
those colleges’ strategy has focused on whether it
succeeded in attracting more applications. In Baltimore
on Sunday, at the annual meeting of the National
Association of College and University Business Officers,
officials from three of those colleges reported on what
went into their decisions to cut tuition (each by about
30 percent) and how the reductions have fared in terms
of college finances.
Scott Jaschik, "Cutting Tuition, Increasing Revenue,"
Inside Higher Ed, July 11, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/11/tuition
Admissions: Worse Than Ever Unfortunately, it has gotten
worse since then. More than ever, higher education seems
like a commodity, as selective colleges market
themselves shamelessly, increase applicant demand, and
manage enrollments as if they were commercial
enterprises. And, in response, an industry of expensive
services and consultants to teach applicants how to game
the admissions system is booming. Uncalculated is the
toll on students, integrity and fundamental fairness.
Deirdre Henderson , "Admissions: Worse Than Ever,"
Inside Higher Ed, July 11, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/07/11/henderson
Faked Research Results on Rise? Allegations of misconduct by
U.S. researchers reached record highs last year as the
Department of Health and Human Services received 274
complaints -- 50 percent higher than 2003 and the most
since 1989 when the federal government established a
program to deal with scientific misconduct. Chris
Pascal, director of the federal Office of Research
Integrity, said its 28 staffers and $7 million annual
budget haven't kept pace with the allegations. The
result: Only 23 cases were closed last year. Of those,
eight individuals were found guilty of research
misconduct. In the past 15 years, the office has
confirmed about 185 cases of scientific misconduct.
"Faked Research Results on Rise?" Wired News,
July 10, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68153,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_8
The Myth of Open-Source Despite his success, Fleury is
skeptical of the new generation of open-source startups
now being funded by VCs. BusinessWeek Online Silicon
Valley reporter Sarah Lacy caught up with Fleury on a
recent trip to San Francisco to talk about making money
in the world of open-source software -- and why it may
not be as easy as JBoss and others have made it seem.
Following are edited excerpts of their conversation . .
.
"The Myth of Open-Source: JBoss founder Marc
Fleury explains how his hot startup makes profits from
its free application-server software," Business Week,
July 8, 2005 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2005/tc2005078_5465_tc121.htm
PwC Settles for a hefty $41.9 million for "overbilling" PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
agreed to pay $41.9 million to settle charges it
overbilled government agencies for travel expenses, the
Justice Department said. The department alleged the
company failed to disclose rebates it received from
credit-card companies, airlines, hotels and rental-car
agencies and didn't reduce reimbursement claims
accordingly. PricewaterhouseCoopers didn't admit to any
wrongdoing and said the policy that gave rise to the
matter was changed in 2001. In late 2003,
PricewaterhouseCoopers settled its share of a
class-action lawsuit filed in state court in Arkansas
that accused the company of overbilling corporate
clients for travel-related expenses.
"Pricewaterhouse Settles Charges," The Wall Street
Journal, July 12, 2005; Page C12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112111341898682519,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
Jensen Comment: PwC is not the only large firm of
keeping travel rebates secret from clients. You
can read more about this question of ethics at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#BigFirms
Not just a cork stopper Napo Pharmaceuticals is poised
to launch the first Third World blockbuster drug. It
sounds counterintuitive -- drugs marketed to poor people
don't typically lead to big profits. But Lisa Conte,
Napo's founder and CEO, hopes not only to bring an
affordable diarrhea medication to millions of people in
developing nations, but also to reshape the
pharmaceutical industry.
Kristen Phillipkoski, "New Drug Aims to Banish
Diarrhea," Wired News, July 11, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68145,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
They still die Maybe money can't buy
everything, but a new study finds the wealthy manage to
fund reduced misery in their last year on this planet.
People 70 or older whose net worth was at least $70,000
were 30 percent less likely than poorer people to have
felt pain often during the year before they died. The
University of Michigan study will be detailed in the
August issue of the Journal of Palliative Care.
Robert Roy Britt, "Death Less Painful for the Rich,"
Live Science, July 8, 2005 ---
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050708_rich_death.html
Leave them alone at a mall where they belong The University of Memphis
campus is no longer going to serve as a playground. Amid
concerns about safety and class disruption, the
university has issued a policy that prohibits employees
and students from regularly bringing their children on
campus. The need for the policy became apparent, faculty
members said, as people began to notice groups of
unsupervised kids around the university. Groups of
children would regularly frolic in a fountain near the
administration building. “It became a playground,” said
Sheryl Maxwell, associate professor of education and
president of the Faculty Senate. “It was an accident
waiting to happen.”
David Epstein, "Kids Ordered Home," Inside Higher Ed,
July 12, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/12/kids
An electronic library that teaches children how to
read better The $40 annual subscription
provides families with unlimited access to the site and
to several dozen books for children ages 2 to 9. The
company plans to unveil the complete 108-book library
next year. "They're beautifully illustrated with
interesting stories that hold a child's attention,"
Teitelbaum says. "The original illustrations with text
and 3-D figures reinforce that this is a book, not a
video game or TV. We want kids to feel inspired to go
from reading the screen to reading the hard copy." While
not designed as a reading instruction program, One More
Story does have features for emerging readers, such as
the "I can read it" function, in which the words will be
read aloud only when the child clicks the mouse there.
By highlighting narrated words, the site can help
children make the link between written and spoken
language, Roth says.
Chelsea Waugaman, "Read the story again? Sure. Computers
don't get tired," The Christian Science Monitor,
July 11, 2005 ---
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0711/p12s01-stin.html
One More Story is an interactive online
library for children that was founded in 2000 ---
http://www.onemorestory.com/
Ole goes into the bar after Lena had been out of town for a
long while. He was in a bad mood and getting meaner by the drink. He finally
ran out of money. The bartender says to Ole, "Ya ain't gettin nothin free
around here unless you can do three things. First, throw that big burly guy
at the end of the bar out of here. He is the toughest son-of-a-gun that I
know. Then, after you get rid of him, go out back and pull that bad tooth
out from my snarly old dog. You’ll hear him out there growling. Last, there
is my 80 year old grandma upstairs who hasn’t had any 'loving' in twenty
years- go make her happy."
Ole, knowing that he is over a barrel, says, "Oh cripes!"
and keeps drinkin his last drink. He finishes it, stands up, and says,
"Okay, I’m ready for dat big mean son-of-a-bitch". He rushes over to the
giant and all of a sudden chairs are crashing, bottles are breaking and
there are lots of fists, teeth, and boots flying.
Ole finally heaves him through the front window, staggers
back to the bar, and says, "As soon as I catch my breath I'll take care of
dat old dog of yours".
After a minute or two, Ole heads out back and all you can
hear is growling and hollering and it sounds like the dog is winning. This
goes on for 10-15 minutes and finally the old dog starts whimpering. Ole
comes staggerin' back in and says to the bartender, "Vell, dat vasn't as bad
as I thought it vould be. Now, vhere is your old granny vith da bad tooth?".
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
The Perks of Being Over 60
01. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size.
02. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember
them either.
03. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national
weather service.
04. People call at 9 PM and ask, "Did I wake you?"
05. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
06. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.
07. Things you buy now won't wear out.
08. You can eat dinner at 4 P.M.
09. You can live without sex but not without glasses.
10. You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.
11. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
12. You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.
13. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
14. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the
room.
15. You sing along with elevator music.
16. Your eyes won't get much worse.
17. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
18. You can't remember who sent you this list.
Forwarded by Paula (who lives
in San Antonio)
Dear Diary:
May 30th: Just moved to San Antonio Texas, OK...Now this is a city that
knows how to live!! Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. What a
place! Watched the sunset from a park lying on a blanket. It was beautiful.
I've finally found my home. I love it here.
June 14th: Really heating up. Got to 100F (38C) today. Not a problem.
Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a
pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I'm turning into a sun
worshiper.
June 30th: Had the backyard landscaped with western plants today. Lots of
cactus and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing for me. Another
scorcher today, but I love it here.
July 10th: The temperature hasn't been below 100 (38C) all week. How do
people get used to this kind of heat? At least it's kind of windy though.
But getting used to the heat and humidity is taking longer that I expected.
July 15th: Fell asleep by the pool. (Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my
body.) Missed 2 days of work, what a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson
though. Got to respect the ol' sun in a climate like this.
July 20th: I missed Morgan (our cat) sneaking into the car when I left
this morning. By the time I got to the hot car for lunch, Morgan had swollen
up to the size of a shopping bag and exploded all over the $2,000 leather
upholstery. I told the kids that she ran away. The car now smells like
Kibbles and SHITS. No more pets in this heat.
July 25th: The wind sucks. It feels like a giant freaking blow dryer!!
And it's hot as hell. The home air-conditioner is on the fritz and the AC
repairman charged $200 just to drive by and tell me he needed to order
parts.
July 30th: Been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. $1,500 in
damn house payments and we can't even go inside. Why did I ever come here?
Aug. 4th: It's 115F (46C) degrees. Finally got the air-conditioner fixed
today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down a little, but this
freaking humidity makes the house feel like it's about 90. Stupid repairman
pissed in my pool. I hate this stupid city.
Aug. 8th: If another wise ass cracks, "Hot enough for you today ?", I'm
going to tear his throat out. Damn heat. By the time I get to work the
radiator is boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like a
dead cat!!
Aug. 9th: Tried to run some errands after work. Wore shorts, and sat on
the black leather seats in the ol' car. I thought my ass was on fire. I lost
2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs and ass. Now my
car smells like burnt ass and fried cat.
Aug. 10th: The weather report might as well be a damn recording. Hot and
sunny. Hot and sunny. It's been too hot to do shit for 2 damn months and the
weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn't it ever rain in
this barren damn desert?? Water rationing will be next, so $1700 worth of
cactus just might dry up and blow into the damn pool. Even the cactus can't
live in this heat.
Aug. 14th: Welcome to HELL!!! Temperature got to 113F (45C) today. Forgot
to crack the window and blew the damn windshield out of the car. The
installer came to fix it and said, "Hot enough for you today?" My wife had
to spend the $1500 house payment to bail me out of jail. @!$%@^@^ TEXAS!!!!!
"If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd live in Hell and rent Texas." --
attributed to Mark Twain
Forwarded by Paula
Wisdom for Women
The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then, your
body and your fat are really good friends.
Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.
Sometimes I think I understand everything, then I regain consciousness.
I gave up jogging for my health when my thighs kept rubbing together and
setting my pantyhose on fire.
Amazing! You hang something in your closet for awhile and it shrinks two
sizes. Skinny people irritate me! Especially when they say things like, "You
know, sometimes I just forget to eat." Now I've forgotten my address, my
mother's maiden name, and my keys. But I've never forgotten to eat. You have
to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat.
A friend of mine confused her valium with her birth control pills. She
had 14 kids, but she doesn't really care.
The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing
and then they marry him. I read this article that said the typical symptoms
of stress are: eating too much, impulse buying, and driving too fast. Are
they kidding? That is my idea of a perfect day.
I know what Victoria's Secret is. The secret is that nobody older than 30
can fit into their stuff.
Forwarded by Dick Haar
After living in the remote wilderness of
Tennessee all his life, an old codger decided it was time to visit the big
city.
In one of the stores he picked up a mirror
for the very first time and looked into it. Not knowing what the mirror was,
he remarked, "How about that! Here's a picture of my daddy."
He bought the 'picture', but on the way home
he remembered his wife, Lizzy, didn't like his father, so he hung the mirror
in the barn.
Every morning before leaving for the fields,
he would go there and look at it.
Lizzy began to get suspicious of these many
trips to the barn. One day after her husband left, she searched the barn and
found the mirror.
As she looked into the glass, she fumed, "So
that's the ugly bitch he's runnin' around with.
Forwarded by Paula
This is a test to see if you are a "Know it
All"
This is a quiz for people who know
everything! I found out in a hurry that I didn't. These are not trick
questions. They are straight questions with straight answers.
1. Name the one sport in which neither the
spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the
contest ends.
2. What famous North American landmark is
constantly moving backward?
3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to
produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must
be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?
4. Name the only sport in which the ball is
always in possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can
score without touching the ball?
5. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?
6. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear
brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and
the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get
inside the bottle?
7. Only three words in standard English
begin with the letters "dw" and they are all common words. Name two of them.
8. There are 14 punctuation marks in English
grammar. Can you name at least half of them?
9. Where are the lakes that are referred to
in the Los Angeles Lakers?
10. There are 7 ways a baseball player can
legally reach first base without getting a hit. Taking a base on balls (a
walk) is one way. Name the other 6.
11. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is
never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except
fresh.
12. Name 6 or more things that you can wear
on your feet beginning with the letter "S."
Answers To Quiz:
1. The one sport in which neither the
spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the
contest ends . . . boxing
2. North American landmark constantly moving
backward . . . Niagara Falls (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet
each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it
every minute.)
3. Only two vegetables that can live to
produce on their own for several growing seasons . . . asparagus and
rhubarb.
4. The only sport in which the ball is
always in possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can
score without touching the ball . . . baseball.
5. The fruit with its seeds on the outside .
. strawberry.
6. How did the pear get inside the brandy
bottle? It grew inside the bottle. (The bottles are placed over pear buds
when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left
in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are
snipped off at the stems.)
7. Three English words beginning with dw .
dwarf, dwell and dwindle.
8. Fourteen punctuation marks in English
grammar . . . period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe,
question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis,
braces, and ellipses.
9. The original lakes referred to in Lakers
. . . in Minnesota. (The team was originally known as the Minneapolis
Lakers, and kept the name when they moved west.)
10. Seven ways a baseball player can legally
reach first base without getting a hit . . . taking a base on balls (a walk)
. . . batter hit by a pitch, passed ball, catcher interference, catcher
drops third strike, fielder's choice, and being designated as a
pinch-runner.
11. The only vegetable or fruit never sold
frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh . lettuce.
12. Six or more things you can wear on your
feet beginning with "s" . . . shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers,
skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
An Old Cowboy's Advice:
* Your fences need to be horse-high,
pig-tight and bull-strong.
* Keep skunks, bankers, and lawyers at a
distance.
* Life is simpler when you plow around the
stump.
* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a
John Deere tractor.
* Words that soak into your ears are
whispered...not yelled.
* Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.
* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their
heads.
* Do not corner something you know is meaner
than you.
* It don't take a very big person to carry a
grudge.
* You cannot unsay a cruel word.
* Every path has a few puddles.
* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get
dirty.
* The best sermons are lived, not preached.
* Most of the stuff people worry about ain't
never gonna happen anyway.
* Don't judge folks by their relatives.
* Remember that silence is sometimes the
best answer.
* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you
get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.
* Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't
botherin' you none.
* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of
a rain dance.
* If you find yourself in a hole, the first
thing to do is stop diggin'.
* Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get
got.
* The biggest troublemaker you'll probably
ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.
* Always drink upstream from the herd.
* Good judgment comes from experience, and a
lotta that comes from bad judgment.
* Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole
lot easier than puttin' it back in.
* If you get to thinkin' you're a person of
some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.
* Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply.
Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God...
Forwarded by Bob Overn
COSTELLO
CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm
thinking
about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write
proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT:Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say
I'm
sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I
need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with
some
straight answers. OK, forget that. Can I watch movies on the
Internet?
ABBOTT: Yes, you want Real One.
COSTELLO: Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none
of
your business. Just tell me what I need!
ABBOTT:Real One.
COSTELLO: If it's a long movie, I also want to watch reels 2, 3 and
4. Can
I watch them?
ABBOTT: Of course.
COSTELLO: Great! With what?
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: OK, I'm at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What
do I
do?
ABBOTT: You click the blue "1".
COSTELLO: I click the blue one what?
ABBOTT: The blue "1".
COSTELLO: Is that different from the blue w?
ABBOTT:The blue "1" is Real One and the blue "W" is Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: But there are three words in "office for windows"!
ABBOTT: No, just one But it's the most popular Word in the world.
COSTELLO: It is?
ABBOTT:Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many other Words left. It
pretty
much wiped out all the other Words out there.
COSTELLO: And that word is real one?
ABBOTT: Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn't even
part of
Office.
COSTELLO: STOP! Don't start that again. What about financial
bookkeeping?
You have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT: Money
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT:One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
(A few days later)
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on "START".......
Forwarded by Dick Haar
LETTERS DEAR ABBY ADMITTED SHE WAS AT A LOSS TO ANSWER:
Dear Abby, A couple of women moved in across the hall from
me. One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a
social worker in her mid twenties. These two women go
everywhere together and I've never seen a man go into or
leave their apartment. Do you think they could be Lebanese?
Dear Abby, What can I do about all the Sex, Nudity, Fowl
Language and Violence On My VCR?
Dear Abby, I have a man I can't trust. He cheats so much,
I'm not even sure the baby I'm carrying is his.
Dear Abby, I am a twenty-three year old liberated woman who
has been on the pill for two years. It's getting expensive
and I think my boy friend should share half the cost, but I
don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.
Dear Abby, I've suspected that my husband has been fooling
around, and when confronted with the evidence, he denied
everything and said it would never happen again.
Dear Abby, Our son writes that he is taking Judo. Why would
a boy who was raised in a good Christian home turn against
his own?
Dear Abby, I joined the Navy to see the world. I seen it.
Now how do I get out?
Dear Abby, My forty year old son has been paying a
psychiatrist $50.00 an hour every week for two and a half
years. He must be crazy.
Dear Abby, I was married to Bill for three months and I
didn't know he drank until one night he came home sober.
Dear Abby, My mother is mean and short tempered. I think
she is going through mental pause.
Dear Abby, You told some woman whose husband had lost all
interest in sex to send him to a doctor. Well, my husband
lost all interest in sex and he is a doctor. Now what do I
do?
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
01. Birds of a feather flock together, and then they poop on your car.
02. There's always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for
it. For example I am sitting here thinking how nice it is thatwrinkles don't
hurt.
03. When I'm feeling down, I like to whistle. It makes the neighbor's dog
run to the end of his chain and gag himself.
04. If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
05. Don't assume malice for what stupidity can explain.
06. A penny saved...is a government oversight.
07. The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in
the right place, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at a tempting
moment.
08. The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then
your body and your fat are really good friends.
09. The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a
replacement.
10. He who hesitates is probably right.
11. If you think there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody.
12. If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to
blame.
13. The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's
really in trouble.
14. The mind is like a parachute; it works much better when it's open.
15. The only difference between a rut and a grave...is the depth!
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Drinking from my saucer
I've never made a fortune, and it's probably too late now.
But I don't worry about that much, I'm happy anyhow
And as I go along life's way,
I'm reaping better than I sowed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
'Cause my cup has overflowed.
Haven't got a lot of riches,
and sometimes the going's tough
But I've got loving ones all around me,
and that makes me rich enough.
I thank God for his blessings,
and the mercies He's bestowed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
'Cause my cup has overflowed.
I remember times when things went wrong,
My faith wore somewhat thin.
But all at once the dark clouds broke,
and the sun peeped through again.
So Lord, help me not to gripe,
about the tough rows I have hoed.
I'm drinking from my saucer,
'Cause my cup has overflowed.
If God gives me strength and courage,
When the way grows steep and rough.
I'll not ask for other blessings,
I'm already blessed enough.
And may I never be too busy,
to help others bear their loads.
Then I'll keep drinking from my saucer,
'Cause my cup has overflowed.
And that's the way it was on July 15,
2005 with a little help from my friends.
I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor
(an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart
finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) ---
http://www.financeprofessor.com/
Click on
www.syllabus.com/radio/index.asp for
a complete list of interviews with established leaders, creative thinkers
and education technology experts in higher education from around the
country.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
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