Tidbits on June 22, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

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

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

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

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

Music: Standing Outside the Fire --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/fire.htm

Train of Life (Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline) ---  
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/singingman7/TOL.htm   

The Bible teaches us to love our enemies as much as our friends. Probably, because they are the same persons.
Vittorio De Sica

The point is not to humanize war but to abolish it.
Albert Einstein

Latest research on the prevention of migraines ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/books/20almo.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1119277109-CQDv0S+2I88Z5Qgo+mTT1w

Tax-friendly versus Tax-unfriendly states in 2005 --- http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/08/real_estate/tax_friendly/index.htm

Top honors go to the tax-friendly states of Alaska, New Hampshire and Delaware.

Most unfriendly? Maine, New York, D.C.

Every year, the Tax Foundation measures the total tax bill for each state, creating a list of the most – and least – tax-friendly states in the country. See the full list here. And see more state rankings based on income tax, sales tax, property tax and tax breaks for retirees. In creating its rankings, the Tax Foundation measures as a percentage of per capita income what residents pay in income, property, sales and other personal taxes levied at the state and local levels. It also factors in the portion of business taxes passed along to state residents through higher prices, lower wages or lower profits. The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy research group that advocates, among other things, tax simplification.

Sleepless in Seattle University:  The high cost of gourmet caffeine addiction
Lim’s ideas led to the creation of a Web site (completely independent of Seattle University) that allows people to determine the long-term financial impact of their coffee habits. Gourmet coffee can cost people thousands of dollars a year, an expense that goes up if you factor in interest on student loans, which already tops six figures for plenty of graduate and professional students.
Scott Jaschik, "Do You Really Need That Latte?" Inside Higher Ed, June 21, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/21/coffee
See Erika Lim's site at http://www.hughchou.org/calc/coffee.cgi

In Chess, Masters Again Fight Machines
But, rather than being the final word in the battle of man vs. machine, the Kasparov-Deep Blue match spurred the competition. More grandmasters are taking up the challenge posed by computers.
Dylan Loeb McClain, " In Chess, Masters Again Fight Machines," The New York Times, June 21, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/21/arts/21mast.html

Rumplestiltskin is running out of straw:  Tech companies are hoarding gold and not replacing the straw that is spun into gold
That cash hoard is likely to grow this year, as companies take advantage of a one-time federal tax break that will allow them to repatriate billions of dollars in overseas earnings. FIXED-INCOME MENTALITY. The trouble is, few tech companies are doing anything exciting with all that loot. Many chief executives are using their funds sparingly. Several years after the tech bust ended, they're still unnerved by weak revenue growth and a stagnant stock market. So they're playing it safe, behaving like well-off retirees who clip coupons and live off the interest of their nest eggs. With the tech downturn still fresh in their minds, relatively few business leaders have regained the sense of boldness that goes hand in hand with making advances in new technologies, products, and markets. "If tech companies were going to do something big with their cash, they would have done it already," says Pip Coburn, tech strategist at UBS.
Steve Rosenbush, "Tech's Idle Billions:  The sector's companies are minting money. Now they need to start spending some to create new technologies, products, and markets," Business Week, June 21, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/IdleCash

June 22, 2005 distance education message from [Amy.Dunbar@BUSINESS.UCONN.EDU]

I just spent four days with around 350 accounting faculty at PwC University for Faculty, which took place at the Harrison Conference Center & Hotel in Plainsboro, NJ. The learning activities really took me out of my comfort zone, and I learned a lot. I was teaching online while I was there (there were internet connections in the rooms), and I posted my takeaways each night on the discussion boards.

See http://www.business.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/PwC_University_for_Faculty-2005.pdf 

I edited my postings for this summary. The typos just had to go; at least I tried to get rid of them. ;-) I hope PwC offers this opportunity for faculty next summer. If you have the opportunity to attend, go!

Amy Dunbar
University of Connecticut
School of Business
Accounting Department
2100 Hillside Road, Unit 1041
Storrs, CT 06269-1041

Jensen Comment:  Amy is a veteran online teacher for the University of Connecticut --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q4.htm#Dunbar

Breakthrough Isolating Embryo-quality Stem Cells From Blood
Professor Josef Käs and Dr Jochen Guck from the University of Leipzig have developed a procedure that can extract and isolate embryo-quality stem cells from adult blood for the first time. This new technique could unlock the stem cell revolution and stimulate a boom in medical research using stem cells. Stem cells are cells which have not yet differentiated into specialised tissues such as skin, brain or muscle. They promise a new class of regenerative medicine, which could repair apparently permanent damage such as heart disease or Parkinson’s. The cells are currently taken from aborted human foetuses, an issue which has led to controversy and opposition in many parts of the world. Any alternative source, such as voluntary adult donations, could spark a boom in new cures.
"Breakthrough Isolating Embryo-quality Stem Cells From Blood," Science Daily, June 19, 2005 --- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050619115816.htm

Postdoctoral Mentoring Program
Research can be unforgiving in its time consumption, but well rounded faculty members also teach, design courses, and mentor students. In order to help multidimensional faculty members, Lawrence University began a pilot program to mold postdoctoral fellows for successful careers. This month, the university announced its selection of the first eight Lawrence Fellows in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, who will begin the two-year program next fall. Not all of the details are worked out, but the program will seek to supply the fellows with plenty of mentoring to aid their teaching and course design, and will require them to be mentors to undergraduates along the way. While many research universities have postdoctoral fellows, Lawrence officials see their program as significant for its scope — from the music conservatory to the physics department — within a primarily undergraduate liberal arts institution. And Lawrence is bringing in an administrator to study the new program and make adjustments as needed so the eager young professors can have tailor-made training.
David Epstein, "Faculty Farm Team," Inside Higher Ed, June 20, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/20/lawrence

The University of Missouri at Kansas City has placed on administrative leave a dean who admitted plagiarizing portions of a commencement speach, reported the Associated Press.
Inside Higher Ed, June 20, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/20/qt

Wisconsin colleges to be blocked from prescribing or dispensing an emergency contraception pill
The Wisconsin Assembly approved a bill last week that would bar student health centers on all University of Wisconsin campuses from advertising, prescribing or dispensing an emergency contraception pill. The “morning after” pill, which is designed for women to take when condoms break or other forms of birth control somehow fail, provides a very high dose of progestin that prevents ovulation or fertilization, effectively ending any possibility of a pregnancy.
Doug Lederman, "Taking Aim at Student Sex," Inside Higher Ed, June 20, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/20/morning

Competition dwindles among international auditing firms
Intel Corp. is one of the many big companies now bumping up against the limitations. After using Ernst & Young LLP as its auditor for more than three decades, the semiconductor maker considered switching recently for a fresh look at its financials. But it stuck with Ernst after receiving proposals from the other Big Four firms: Deloitte & Touche LLP, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. That is because federal regulations bar the three other firms from serving as Intel's independent auditor unless they give up valuation, computer-software and other work they do for Intel. "Because there are only a limited number of large multinational audit firms that do the kind of work that we need, if we were to switch audit firms, all sorts of dominos would fall," said Cary Klafter, corporate secretary at Intel.
Diya Gullapalli, "Firms' Auditor Choices Dwindle," The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2005; Page C1--- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111931731386164848,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing 

From Jim Mahar's blog on June 18, 2005 --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/

A look around at a few blogs I have not done one of these look around pieces in a while, so why not?

Freakonomics has an update on the discussion from the book on real estate agents. If you have not read/ristened to the book, in the book Levitt points out a study that finds that real estate agents behave differently when selling their own homes than when they are selling homes for clients. SHOCK! It now seems that the National Association of Realtors is upset. (SHOCK!)^2

Cafe Hayek directs us to a great Thomas Sowell article on Free trade and the Smoot-Hawley tariff.

The Marginal Revolution has an interesting article on musician Shayan, who is selling shares in himself. Uh, ok. At what point will the SEC halt it?

SportsEconomist has a cool piece on public vs. private financing of stadiums. Short version public financing is generally not good. The Sports Economist

FreeMoney Finance points to an article about the difficulty that Muslim homebuyers face when it comes to mortgages. (if you want more on this, check out my Islamic Finance Page.)

PFblog reports that there are now an estimated 7.7 million millionaires. (warning, you have to look through all the ads to find the story!)

Kimsnider's Investment Intelligence touts the benefits of laddered bond portfolios.

One review of the new book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, by Bernard Goldberg (HarperCollins, ISBN: 0060761288) --- http://snipurl.com/Goldberg

No preaching. No pontificating. Just some uncommon sense about the things that have made this country great -- and the culprits who are screwing it up.

Bernard Goldberg takes dead aim at the America Bashers (the cultural elites who look down their snobby noses at "ordinary" Americans) ... the Hollywood Blowhards (incredibly ditzy celebrities who think they're smart just because they're famous) ... the TV Schlockmeisters (including the one whose show has been compared to a churning mass of maggots devouring rotten meat) ... the Intellectual Thugs (bigwigs at some of our best colleges, whose views run the gamut from left wing to far left wing) ... and many more.

Goldberg names names, counting down the villains in his rogues' gallery from 100 all the way to 1 -- and, yes, you-know-who is number 37. Some supposedly "serious" journalists also made the list, including the journalist-diva who sold out her integrity and hosted one of the dumbest hours in the history of network television news. And there are those famous miscreants who have made America a nastier place than it ought to be -- a far more selfish, vulgar, and cynical place.

But Goldberg doesn't just round up the usual suspects we have come to know and detest. He also exposes some of the people who operate away from the limelight but still manage to pull a lot of strings and do all sorts of harm to our culture. Most of all, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America is about a country where as long as anything goes, as one of the good guys in the book puts it, sooner or later everything will go.

Exposing doctors who peddle snake oil
Klatz and Goldman first sued Olshansky and Perls last fall, but the case was dismissed in the spring, according to Olshansky. The new case is a modified version of the original. Olshansky said he has received strong personal support from many colleagues, and that he will not stop speaking out. “We will not be intimidated,” he said. “This is the pursuit of a scientific issue by scientists. I am a professor of public health and that’s part of what I do. I will continue to speak freely for the rest of my life.”
"Anti-Aging Doctors Sue Professors," Inside Higher Ed, June 21, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/21/suit

Civil War Era Grips Tintype Rebel
During the Civil War, tintype photography was a cheap, popular method of portraiture for common Americans and soldiers. In fact, Abraham Lincoln produced gem-sized tintype pins for his 1860 presidential campaign. For years, Coffer made his living taking wet-plate photographs of Civil War re-enactors and people on the street, whom he'd dress in 19th-century clothing. Coffer would sell a 5- by 7-inch portrait for "a mere $15." "The market would stand for no higher price," wrote Coffer in response to several questions sent by postal mail.
Alison Strayhan, "Civil War Era Grips Tintype Rebel," Wired News, June 14, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67838,00.html

China's lingering muffled silence of state censorship
It is the sort of horrific case that in many countries would be a national scandal but in China has disappeared into the muffled silence of state censorship. That silence matches the silence at the heart of the case: the fact that students considered a teacher so powerful that they did not dare speak out.
Jim Yardley, "Rape in China: A 3-Month-Long Nightmare for 26 Schoolgirls," The New York Times, June 21, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/ChinaRape

The gap between poor and rich in the U.S. has widened over the past 30 years
The gap between poor and rich in the U.S. has widened over the past 30 years. But people born to modest circumstances are no more likely to rise above their parents' station. The divergent fates of Mr. Hall and his stepson -- and others in this blue-collar city -- illustrate why it can be hard to move up. Industrial jobs that offered steady escalators of advancement for workers, even if they were only high-school graduates, are vanishing in America. In their place are service-economy jobs with fewer ways up. Unions are scarcer and temporary work more common. In newer service jobs that have come to dominate the U.S. economy, a college diploma is increasingly the prerequisite to a good wage. While increased access to college has been a powerful force for mobility, the share of workers with college degrees remains a minority. Moreover, getting a degree is closely correlated with having parents who themselves went to college.
Greg Ip, "As Economy Shifts, A New Generation Fights to Keep Up:  In Milwaukee, Factories Close And Skills, Not Seniority, Are Key to Advancement," The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111939582597865857,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Major TV Networks (except for Fox) Boycotted 'Hospital Bomber' Story
That only one network would air incredible footage of the seizure of a ticking human-bomb, just moments before she tried to murder hospital patients, means this story was not simply ignored by the mainstream media - it was boycotted by the mainstream media. Since nearly every aspect of this remarkable story contradicts everything the mainstream media has been trying to tell us about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they just opted for the easiest way to handle it - denying it ever happened.
"Bauer: Major TV Networks Boycotted 'Hospital Bomber' Story," Arutz Sheva, June 22, 2005 --- http://www.arutzsheva.com/news.php3?id=84394

Also see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1428321/posts

Stranger than fiction
Forwarded by Barb Hessel (from Fox News)

Lions Save African Girl From Abductors --- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160265,00.html

Also stranger than fiction
M’Mburugu had a machete in one hand but dropped that to thrust his fist down the leopard’s mouth. He gradually managed to pull out the animal’s tongue, leaving it in its death-throes. “It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds stop chirping,” he told the daily Standard newspaper of how the leopard came at him and knocked him over. The leopard sank its teeth into the farmer’s wrist and mauled him with its claws. “A voice, which must have come from God, whispered to me to drop the panga (machete) and thrust my hand in its wide-open mouth. I obeyed,” M’Mburugu said.
"Kenyan, 73, kills leopard with bare hands," MSNBC, June 22, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8317484/

Butt jiggle is just another way of waving goodbye.
Maxine

Few women admit their age;  Few men act it.
Maxine

Forwarded by Dick Haar

BBQ: A Real Man's Cooking
It's the only type of cooking a real man will do. When a man volunteers to do the BBQ, the following chain of events are put into motion:

1) The woman buys the food.
2) The woman makes the salad, vegetables, and dessert.
3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man who is lounging beside the grill -- beer in hand. Here comes the important part .
4) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL. More routine....
5) The woman goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery.
6) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is burning. He thanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he deals with the situation. Important again .
7) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN. More routine.....
8) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces, and brings them to the table.
9) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes. And most of all .
10) Everyone PRAISES the man and THANKS him for his cooking efforts.
11) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed "her night off." And, upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there's just no pleasing some women!

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

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

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

 

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