A good place to start if you're looking for something http://www.melissadata.com/Lookups/
(Addresses, People, Zip Codes, Maps, etc.)

Google (Shopping) Catalogs --- http://catalogs.google.com/cathp

Yahoo (Shopping) Catalogs --- http://snipurl.com/YahooCatalogs

O'Keefe Accounting Library Searches http://library.sau.edu/bestinfo/Majors/Accnt/accindex.htm

Fee Based Google Specialized Services (including an enterprise-level search appliance)
Google Inc. added two beefier Minis to its line of business search appliances.
The Mountain View, Calif.company said Minis are now available with capacities of 200,000 documents and 300,000 documents for $5,995 and $8,995, respectively. The new versions were in addition to the current 100,000-document appliance that sells for $2,995. Google also sells an enterprise-level appliance that can search up to 15 million documents. The device starts at $30,000 for searching up to 500,000 documents.
Antone Gonsalves, "Google Unveils Two Search Appliances," InternetWeek, January 12, 2006 --- http://www.internetweek.cmp.com/showArticle.jhtml?sssdmh=dm4.163237&articleId=175804113

Bob Jensen's threads on search engines are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 

Academics should remember that Google Scholar greatly narrows down the search hits --- http://scholar.google.com/

Holland launches the immigrant quiz
The U.S. just admitted 3,000 Muslims in one block from Russia
What do you think would happen if we applied a topless-woman test to each immigrant in the U.S.?
TWO MEN kissing in a park and a topless woman bather are featured in a film that will be shown to would-be immigrants to the Netherlands. The reactions of applicants — including Muslims — will be examined to see whether they are able to accept the country’s liberal attitudes. From this Wednesday, the DVD — which also shows the often crime-ridden ghettos where poorer immigrants might end up living — will form part of an entrance test, in Dutch, covering the language and culture of Holland.
Nicola Smith, "Holland launches the immigrant quiz," London Times, March 12, 2006 --- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2089-2081496%2C00.html
Jensen Comment: 
Seems like this test will increase the number of male immigration applicants from outside the Muslim world. Where are Holland's feminists in all this?

Typical Diversity in Academe:  Preaching to the Choir
Members of Amnesty International and Students for Social Justice gathered in the Welles-Brown Room on Wednesday night to listen to three UR professors chair a panel on the current war in Iraq. If they need three profs to chair a panel, it must be because they want a variety of viewpoints--left, middle and right--right? No, of course not. It's left, left and left. But the funniest participant was the philosopher.
Opinion Journal, March 9, 2006

"Professors speak against war," by: Matt Majarian, Campus Times, March 3, 3006 --- Click Here

After introductions and applause for each member of the panel, Holmes took the microphone to address the assembled audience and chastise the U.S. Government.

"We are in violation of international law in the actions that we are taking," Holmes said. "In having attacked Iraq and overthrown its government, we have committed the same violations of the U.N. Charter for which we killed many Nazis."

Too bad there wasn't a historian on the panel to point out that Nazi Germany had fallen by the time the U.N. Charter came in to existence.
Opinion Journal, March 9, 2006

Jensen Comment
Is it bad we "killed so many Nazis?" And if it had been in violation of a U.N. Charter, should we have waited for the an insane mass murderer to control all of Europe and to exterminate millions more Jews, homosexuals, and others deemed genetically undesirable among the master Aryan race? To this we might add that Hitler was also working on WMDs that may well have given him the early-on power to rule the entire planet and to exterminate all people of color, including the despised Jessie Owens. Following the World War I fiasco, going off to another one of Europe's wars was not a popular idea in the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s. President Roosevelt secretly got the U.S. deeply involved without legislative approval. I doubt that he would have paid the least bit of attention to U.N. objections.

Seeing is not believing, at least not after visiting the following site

Computational Visual Cognition Laboratory at MIT --- http://cvcl.mit.edu/gallery.htm

The Computational Visual Cognition Laboratory is part of the Perceptual Science Group, in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. CVCL is a new research laboratory at MIT and is currently located in the 4th floor of the NE-20 Building, above the MIT COOP, in the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, MA.

Our research program concerns the investigation of high-level human cognition and more particularly real world scene understanding. Scenes are 3-dimensional complex structures composed of a variety of objects, textures, colors, materials and spatial layouts. Yet, we understand novel scenes quickly and effortlessly. In the laboratory, we approach the scene understanding problem from a computational stance (e.g., what are the statistics in natural images that are relevant for perception and categorization? How can we model scene categorization?); a brain imaging approach (e.g., what are the neural correlates of scene and space recognition?); and a behavioral viewpoint (e.g., how well do humans recognize scenes under various perceptual conditions and task constraints?).

Our current activities investigate the psychological, formal and neural substrates of the representation of visual complexity and visual simplicity in the context of real world scenes; the representation of spatial envelope and spatial layout; the relations between image statistic descriptors and the conceptual representation of scenes and objects; the perception and modeling of higher-level scene attributes; the mechanisms of scene recognition in brief glances (gist) as well as mechanisms of attentional deployment in complex scene. These research topics bring together disciplines such as perceptual science, cognitive psychology and neuroscience, photography, architecture and interior design, image processing and computer graphics.

Students and visitors in the lab have the opportunity to be trained in computational, brain imaging and perceptual/cognitive aspects of a visual science topic, as well as collaborating with researchers in the Boston area (BCS department, CSAIL, Psychology Department at Harvard, Boston University, the Visual Attention Lab at Harvard Medical School).

Facilities in the lab includes Dell and Macintosh workstations, 3-D stereo equipments, eyetracker, panoramic screen. Behavioral experiments, data analysis and modeling are all based in Matlab.

US navy, 'pirates' clash off Somalia
On March 15, the UN Security Council encouraged naval forces operating off Somalia to take action against suspected piracy. Pirate attacks against aid ships have hindered UN efforts to provide relief to the victims of a severe drought in the area. The pirate raids are part of the anarchy wracking Somalia, which has had no effective government since 1991, when warlords ousted a dictatorship and then turned on each other.
"US navy, 'pirates' clash off Somalia," Al Jazeera, March 19, 2006 --- Click Here

Twelve suspects, including the wounded, were taken into custody after the early morning gun battle , said Lt Cmdr. Charlie Brown, spokesman for the US navy's 5th Fleet, on Sunday.

The nationalities and identifications of the suspected pirates were unknown.

The shootout early on Saturday ensued after the navy ships, patrolling the area as part of a Dutch-led coalition task force, spotted the suspect 30-foot-long fishing boat towing smaller skiffs and prepared to board and inspect the vessels, Brown told The Associated Press.

A statement from the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said the suspected pirates were holding what appeared to be rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

When the suspects began shooting, naval gunners on the US ships returned fire with mounted machine guns, killing one man and igniting a fire on the vessel.

Field treatment

Three suspects were seriously wounded and being treated on one of the navy ships, Brown said. A Dutch navy medical team was en route aboard the HNLMS Amsterdam. No US sailors were injured in the gun battle.

Pirate attacks surged to 35 last year from two in 2004 (File pic)

The navy boarding teams confiscated an RPG launcher and automatic weapons, the statement said.

The navy said the incident involving the Norfolk, Virgina-based USS Cape St. George and USS Gonzalez occurred at about 5:40 am local time, approximately 25 nautical miles off the Somali coast in international waters.

The International Maritime Organisation has warned ships to stay away from the Somali coast because of pirate attacks, which surged to 35 last year from two in 2004.

Continued in article

Also see http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49338

Harvard Study Critical of Pro-Israel Lobby in the U.S.
A new study, claiming that the pro-Israel lobby in America caused the United States to skew its Middle East policy in favor of Israel, is stirring controversy in the pro and anti-Israel communities in the US. The 81-page report, written by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, argues that the pro-Israel lobby in the US managed to convince American lawmakers, officials and US public opinion to support Israel, even though this support runs counter to America's own national interests.
Nathan Guttman, "Study: AIPAC works against US interests," Jerusalem Post, March 19, 2006 --- Click Here

For a highly critical review see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HarvardDavidDuke.htm

The American Association of University Professors in February postponed an international conference on academic boycotts that was scheduled to take place that month in Italy. Both the participant list for the invitation-only session and the materials distributed for the session had come under fire. AAUP officials defended the invite list (which was criticized as anti-Israel by some) and apologized for including in conference packets an anti-Semitic article published in a magazine affiliated with Holocaust deniers . . .
Scott Jaschik, "AAUP Calls Off Boycott Conference," Inside Higher Ed, March 21, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/21/aaup

But in a letter sent last week to conference participants, association leaders said that they could not go ahead with the conference. The organizers wanted to hold the conference with the original invitees, but realized, the letter said, that such a course of action would “reactivate opposition that has proved too severe to enable us to go forward.” So instead, no conference will be held, but written comments prepared by the invitees for the meeting will be published by the AAUP in Academe, its magazine.

The idea behind the conference grew out of debates over a movement last year by Britain’s main faculty union to boycott two Israeli universities. The AAUP and many other academic groups criticized the boycott as antithetical to academic freedom and the boycott was eventually rescinded. In the wake of that controversy, the AAUP started drafting a statement about academic boycotts (strongly opposing them) and organizing the conference, which was to have been held at Bellagio, in Italy, where 22 scholars from around the world were to have gathered to discuss academic boycotts.

Criticism of the conference initially focused on those 22 scholars, a number of whom were active in the movement in Britain to boycott the Israeli universities. The critics said it didn’t make sense for a conference trying to outline an intellectual viewpoint against boycotts to include prominent supporters of just the kinds of boycotts it was trying to discourage. AAUP officials, however, defended the invitations, saying it was appropriate to talk to all parties.

Privately, some backers of the conference characterized the controversy as primarily the result of pro-Israel activists working to discredit the meeting. While some pro-Israeli scholars spoke out against the conference, others who questioned the way the conference was organized are in fact critical of the government there and are not involved in pro-Israel activism.

The letter announcing that the conference would not be held at all defended the original invitation list and said it would be wrong to alter the list now.

“Opposition to the conference as originally planned, from those who claimed it focused unduly and unfairly on the Middle East, was intense even prior to our inadvertent and careless inclusion of a paper from an anti-Semitic Web site. Our error, though quickly discovered and corrected by us, was then effectively cited by those, within and without the association, who urged postponement and reorganization,” last week’s letter from the AAUP said. “This view persists. But to hold the conference with a significantly revised set of participants, as critics suggest, would unfairly exclude some previously scheduled participants. Moreover, altering the list of participants in order to pacify our critics would imply that we had come to accept their arguments about the direction and composition of the conference. We have not.”

By publishing the thoughts of conference invitees in Academe, the letter said, along with an explanation of why the conference was designed as it was, organizers hope to fulfill some of their original goals. “Our goal then and now is a full and frank exchange of views,” the letter said.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi has never been known as the brightest bulb in Congressional chandelier, but with her seniority she often is a difficult obstacle for Republicans. She faces a difficult challenge of representing the most liberal anti-business and anti-war district in the United States.

Why then has Nancy suddenly become the darling of the Editorial Page of The Wall Street Journal?

"Two Cheers for Nancy Pelosi," by Mallory Factor, The Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2006, Page A9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114264532108001981.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

Have America's entrepreneurs and corporate leaders found a new voice of regulatory sanity in, of all people, Nancy Pelosi? Apparently so, and that should be a wake-up call to Republicans -- because like everything else in the free market, the free enterprise agenda is up for grabs. In the recent "Innovation Agenda" that the House Democratic leader and her party unveiled, Ms. Pelosi acknowledges specifically the need to "ensure Sarbanes-Oxley requirements are not overly burdensome," and endorses reform. Meanwhile, the scourge of Wall Street, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, is criticizing Sarbanes-Oxley's "unbelievable burden on small companies" and its possible role in "preventing some initial public offerings."

Ms. Pelosi and other Democrats have been quicker to recognize what many traditional champions of free enterprise have been slow to see: the law's disastrous consequences for our nation's ability to compete. Congress passed this law hastily in 2002 after the egregious accounting frauds at Enron and WorldCom. The intent was to hold publicly held companies and their executives more accountable and weed out bad actors; but that's not been the effect. Four years after passage, it is now evident that the costs of Sarbox clearly outweigh the benefits.

Consider first the costs. Recent estimates from the American Electronic Association, for example, show that U.S. companies are spending $35 billion annually simply to comply with the law as opposed to original federal estimates of $1.2 billion. A University of Nebraska study found that audit fees for Fortune 1000 companies, on average, increased a staggering 103% from 2003 to 2004. The costs of being a U.S. public company are now more than triple what they were before the law passed, according to a study conducted by the Milwaukee-based law firm of Foley & Lardner. Some smaller firms report that they are spending 300% more on Sarbox compliance than on health care for their employees.

Based on a growing body of theoretical and empirical research, the SEC's Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies concluded that Sarbox places a disproportionate compliance burden on small public companies, making it more difficult for them to compete with foreign companies and to a lesser extent with larger U.S. companies. Consider the survey by the American Electronics Association, which found that companies with sales of $100 million and under are spending 2.6% of their revenues on Sarbox compliance -- enough to tip many of them from profitability into unprofitability. This makes it something of a challenge for these companies to innovate, compete or grow -- or even survive.

As a result of these burdensome costs, enterprises are deciding not to go public, or else are opting to back out of our capital markets. Explaining his company's absorption into privately held Koch Industries, Peter Correll, the CEO of Georgia-Pacific, said, "There is a lot of time spent by top management on things that are not value-adding, but are simply bureaucratic and are required by a raft of regulation." In fact, the Foley & Lardner study found that 20% of public companies are considering going private just to avoid Sarbox compliance. It's no wonder, then, that the London Stock Exchange -- eager to exploit a competitive advantage -- now promotes itself by reminding companies that by listing on the LSE they are not subject to Sarbox.

Beyond the direct cost of compliance to individual companies, a recent University of Rochester study concluded that the total effect of the law has reduced the stock value of American companies by $1.4 trillion. That is $1.4 trillion that could be invested in infrastructure improvements, jobs, innovative technologies or research and development. As Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy says, Sarbanes-Oxley throws "buckets of sand into the gears of the market economy."

The true beneficiaries of Sarbox are the nation's large auditing firms, which now maintain a regulatory oligarchy composed of a handful of entrenched services corporations. They will continue to champion Sarbox, since it provides a guaranteed market for their services. Surely this law was not intended by its authors to become a full employment act for the same auditing industry which was implicated in the original malfeasance of four or five years ago.

Continued in editorial

Bob Jensen's threads on auditing reforms are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudProposedReforms.htm

Question
Can you really run Windows XP on a Mac that runs on an Intel processor?

The answer is yes, but you must be a geek to do it.

"Apparent Proof of XP on Intel Mac," Wired News, March 15, 2006 --- http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/

Apparent Proof of XP on Intel Mac Mac on Intel has provided a link to a video that appears to show the full procedure for installing, booting and using Windows XP on an Intel Mac by narf2006. The contest sponsors are still testing the procedure now.

You can see the video here or here. It's fairly convincing stuff. The only possible way I can think to fake this would be if they got into the iMac's internals and connected its screen to an outside computer. I haven't messed with a current-generation iMac, but it was certainly possible back when it came in colors. If real, this is a pretty astounding accomplishment, given that Microsoft won't be supporting EFI for years.

This comes on the same day that two readers of MacWindows reported about their experiences with Q, the cocoa-based port of QEMU, on their Intel Macs. Apparently, Win XP SP1 and 98 run pretty darn well. Yes, you read that right.

"Mac Runs Both Windows XP, Mac OS X:  A pair of Californians figured out a way to dual-boot an Intel Mac with both Mac OS X and Windows XP, winning a $14,000 prize. But the technique isn't for beginners," by Gregg Keizer, Information Week, March 16, 2006 --- http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=183700267 

After I retire I intend to shift to a Mac largely because of the enormous protections it has against viruses, spyware, etc. relative to infection-prone Windows operating systems.  However, in recommending this for everybody, there are some special considerations.

Walt Mossberg provides some help in this regard.  Especially note his last paragraph!!!
From The Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2005; Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112795300004055314,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

Q:
I am considering switching to a Mac. However, I have hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of software for my PC. Are the new G5 Macs capable of running PC software?

A:
When you contemplate a switch to the Mac, you have to separate the concept of your data, or files, from the concept of the programs, or software, you currently use to display, edit or play that data on your Windows PC. The Macintosh, out of the box and unmodified, won't run your current Windows programs. But it will almost certainly handle all of your data using different software or programs designed for the Macintosh. And most of that Macintosh software is free.

For instance, if you have photos on your Windows PC in the common "JPG" format, which almost all digital cameras produce, you may be viewing them in the "My Pictures" folder in Windows, or by using a program like Adobe Photoshop Album. This folder and this program don't work on the Mac. But, if you copy those pictures to a new Mac, you can view and edit them in iPhoto, an excellent -- and free -- photo program that comes on every Mac, and which I regard as better than the Windows photo programs in its category.

The Mac doesn't run the Windows version of Microsoft Office. But all of your Office documents can be viewed and edited, and new ones created, if you buy the Mac version of Microsoft Office. Even if you don't, the Mac can read and edit Microsoft Word files out of the box. It can also open and create PDF files without downloading or purchasing any software from Adobe.

In fact, for all of the types of files commonly used by mainstream Windows users, the Mac is able to handle them through its own programs that are generally better than their Windows counterparts. And most of these programs, except for Microsoft Office for the Mac, are free on every new Mac.

Still, if you insist on running Windows programs on a Mac, because you strongly prefer them, or there isn't a Mac equivalent, you can modify a Mac to do so. You do this by buying and installing a $250 program made by Microsoft called Virtual PC for the Mac. It creates a virtual Windows PC inside your Mac that runs alongside the Mac operating system.

However, I don't recommend relying heavily on Virtual PC for daily use, because it is slower than a regular Windows PC, even on a very fast Mac; and it can also open you up to Windows viruses and spyware that normally have no effect on a Mac.

Walt Mossberg's answer to transferring PC files to a Mac computer, The Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2005; Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/mossberg_mailbox.html

Q: I know the Macintosh can handle most common types of files used on Windows computers. But my question is more basic: if I switch to a Mac from Windows, how do I physically transfer my files? A: If you buy your new Mac at an Apple store, Apple will do this job, or part of it, free. According to the Apple Web site, you can just bring the two computers to the store, and a "Genius" -- Apple's name for a tech support person in its stores -- will move all the files in any folder you choose on your Windows machine onto your new Mac. Presumably, this would include the My Documents folder, which contains most of the data files on most Windows PCs. The "Genius" will also do this for $50 for people who bought their Macs elsewhere. There is some fine print to this deal. For details, see: www.apple.com/switch/howto/genius.html.

Jensen Comment
Maybe you should just keep your old PC computers for your PC files.  Mac is a a safer computer for Web surfing since it is highly spyware and virus resistant, but when you want to work in Excel or some other MS Office product, turn to your old PC.

If you switch to a Mac, a must book is Mac OS X: The Missing Manual by David Pogue http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596000820/002-3743809-1628824?v=glance 

This book explains how to translate what you liked to do in Windows into how to do the same things on a Mac. Watch for any updated versions by David Pogue.  He's a great tech analyst.

Newspapers discover creative destruction
There's no question the industry has been subjected to a great deal of competitive pressure over the past decade or so, with promises of more to come as the Internet and wireless technology transform the way Americans receive news and information. And newspaper companies have struggled with how to handle these changes to their readers' habits and their revenue models. Those of us who preach the benefits of creative destruction for everyone else are now getting to live the experience, and it isn't always fun.
"The Future in Black and White:  Newspapers discover creative destruction," The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2006 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008087
Jensen Comment
Because newspapers hire thousands upon thousands of reporters around the world, they are the main source of the news that gets re-reported in radio, television, and blogs. A huge number of those reporters are now being laid off. The extent of coverage can only go down hill as our primary discovery system goes down the tubes with the "black and whites."

From the Arab Press:  Muslim reactions far exceeds the crime
But what followed was a PR disaster. Some sympathy for the Muslim world was lost, because what followed (violent demonstrations) was a classic example of the punishment far exceeding the crime, and that is true for both sides of the equation. What followed involved the Muslim version of the man-on-the-street participating in excess. Many were hurt. Many were killed. Many were arrested in the violent riots. During the first week of February, two people were killed as protesters assailed the US airbase at Bagram, although the US was not involved with the images of Muhammad.
Sandy Shanks, "February was a bleak month for moderates," Al Jazeera, March 12, 2006 --- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E09D421F-5B8D-4100-A5B6-CD83ABC3D2A5.htm
 

Was Picasso a plagiarist and a thief?
He was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century and also one of the most controversial. And now, 33 years after his death, the first significant exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work in South Africa has provoked a furious row after a senior government official accused him of stealing the work of African artists to boost his "flagging talent" . . . In a letter to a local newspaper, Sandile Memela, the department's head of communications, wrote: "Today the truth is on display that Picasso would not have been the renowned creative genius he was if he did not steal and re-adapt the work of 'anonymous [African] artists'."
Stephen Bevan, "Picasso 'stole the work of African artists'," London Telegraph, March 3, 2006 --- http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/12/wpablo12.xml

Microsoft's new gadget:  All hype and no hope
The most interesting thing about Origami is how Microsoft manipulated bloggers and journalists into hyping it. Far from the Transformer gadget hinted at (Eight toys in one! Changes from iPod to camcorder to computer and back!), the device is just a small Tablet PC. And Microsoft's only actual new product is a software suite intended to further dumb down Windows XP's user interface.Unveiled at CeBIT, the week-long festival of consumer tech and all-day drinking that has more booths than most shows have attendees, Origami is a category of devices officially called the "Ultra-Mobile PC." Like other Tablets, these are full PCs that have hard drives and run Windows XP, so they can run the same applications as any desktop or laptop. The only difference is that they're a bit smaller, with those at CeBIT measuring only 7 inches across.
Andy Dornan, InformationWeek Newsletter, March 13, 2006

The unfolding debit card scam that rocked Citibank this week is far from over, an analyst said Thursday as she called this first-time-ever mass theft of PINs "the worst consumer scam to date."
The scam has hit national banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Washington Mutual, as well as smaller banks, all of which have reissued debit cards in recent weeks, says a Gartner research vice president.
Gregg Keizer, "PIN Scandal 'Worst Hack Ever'; Citibank Only The Start," Information Week, March 9, 2006 --- http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181502474

Bob Jensen's threads on ID theft are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#IdentityTheft

The Unfolding Tax Frauds at H&R Block
"It's Taxing Times for H&R Block:  New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is suing the tax preparer, alleging it fraudulently steered some customers toward a dubious IRA product. It's the latest travail to hit the company," by Adrienne Carter, Business Week, March 16, 2006 --- Click Here

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has set his sights on a new corporate target: H&R Block (HRB ). On Mar. 15, Spitzer, who has previously taken on the mutual-fund and insurance industries, filed a $250 million suit against the nation's No. 1 tax preparer over what he says are money-losing IRA accounts.

The complaint alleges that the Kansas City (Mo.)-based company fraudulently pushed hundreds of thousands of largely low-income clients into its Express IRA product. These tax-deferred individual retirement accounts are typically used by investors to help save for retirement (see BW Online, 2/16/06, "Life Without a 401(k)"). But Spitzer charges that the H&R Block accounts were "virtually guaranteed" to lose money for most contributors.

H&R Block refuted the allegation, saying the Express IRA helped more than a half-million Americans save.

SHRINKING ACCOUNTS?  "The conduct described in today's complaint is particularly appalling because many of those hardest hit were working families who struggle to save," Spitzer said in a news release. "Instead of providing these families with accurate information that would have allowed them to make informed choices, H&R Block steered them into retirement accounts that actually shrank over time."

In many cases, the suit claims, the fees charged by H&R Block exceeded the interest that clients were earning on their money. On top of a $15 setup fee, many investors were also charged a $15 recontribution fee for additional investments and a $10 annual maintenance fee. At the same time, the money was invested in an interest-earning money-market account.

According to the company, such accounts earned between 0.8% and 1% from January, 2003 through early 2005. H&R Block says it upped the interest rate to 3% in January, 2006, following three rate hikes in the previous year. It says it has also eliminated the recontribution fee.

"PROUD OF THE OPPORTUNITIES."  One client highlighted in Spitzer's complaint opened an Express IRA account in 2002 with $300 -- the minimum contribution. Over that period, the investor reports paying $45 in fees and earning $10.29 in interest. "The investment lost 12% of its value and will continue to decline," the suit charges.

H&R Block CEO and Chairman Mark Ernst said in a statement that the company will "fight vigorously to defend" the product. Its Express IRA accounts, he says, have helped clients save more than $360 million and realize tax benefits north of $50 million. H&R Block also asserts that its interest rates are in line with competitors and offer advantages over similar products, like low minimum deposit requirements.

"Make no mistake -- we believe in the Express IRA product and are proud of the opportunities it presents for our clients," Ernst said. "At a time when the country's savings rate has declined to minus 0.7%, we've helped 596,000 of our clients begin saving for their future, and more than 40% of them had never saved before" (see BW Online, 3/10/06, "More Feathers for Your Nest").

March 18, 2006 reply from Ronald Todd [rltodd@IX.NETCOM.COM]

From what I read it looked like the issue was an audit failure by  Price Waterhouse Coopers. It was not clear if the accounting error was uncovered by the company's employees or the successor auditor,  KPMG.

March 18, 2006 reply from Denny Beresford [DBeresfo@TERRY.UGA.EDU]

Professor Todd's comment raises an interesting issue. For most (if not all) of the restatements and often resulting reported material weakness in internal controls by public companies in recent years, the auditing firm failed to catch the problem the first time around. While I'm not privy to the H&R Block details, I am personally familiar with a couple of other situations. I've asked the accounting firms in question whether they would admit to a material weakness in internal control themselves because of not catching the problem in the first place. They looked at me like I was crazy because they obviously don't have to report under Section 404 themselves. But maybe they should!

Denny Beresford
University of Georgia

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

Bob Jensen's taxation helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation

Red Faced GM delays annual report because of accounting "errors"
Note mention of GM's argument with its auditors (Deloitte)
Also note the historical reference to fraud fighter Abe Briloff

"Now G.M. Has Woes on Audits ," by Floyd Norris, The New York Times, March 18, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/business/18place.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

There was a time when General Motors was seen as the paragon of financial quality. Its bonds were rated triple A, and it was known for the most conservative accounting. Let other companies use liberal accounting rules to make results look better; G.M. did not need such things.

The announcement late Thursday that General Motors would revise profit figures for every year of this decade, and would have to restate the 2005 earnings it had already reported, shows how far the icon has fallen. Less than a year after it lost its investment-grade bond rating, its bonds are viewed as middling even among junk bonds.

"You have to question what controls are in place," said Charles W. Mulford, an accounting professor at Georgia Tech. "When companies like G.M. are profitable, there is not a need to engage in aggressive accounting. What we are seeing now is a pattern of very aggressive accounting that took them well beyond the limits of generally accepted accounting principles."

. . .

At one hearing, G.M. told the accounting rule makers that it should not be required to follow revised pension accounting rules because they conflicted with its union contract. The rule makers were unimpressed. Today, G.M.'s generous pension policies are one reason it is in trouble.

In 1984 and 1986, when it made two major acquisitions, buying Electronic Data Systems and Hughes Aircraft, it used tracking stock, which it invented. Those shares were supposed to trade based on profits of the acquired subsidiaries. Abraham Briloff, an accounting professor at Baruch College, complained that G.M. was overstating those profits because they ignored good will charges, but G.M. made no changes.

Then in 1987, G.M. decided that it had been too conservative in evaluating the useful lives of many of its assets. By stretching out the depreciation of the assets, it increased pretax profits that year by more than $1 billion. But a few years later, it had to write down the value of many assets.

The latest announcement, coming just when G.M. had planned to file its annual report, seemed to indicate that the company may have been in an argument with its auditors from Deloitte & Touche. It cited consultations with Deloitte as a reason for one change. A Deloitte spokeswoman declined to comment.

Some of the changes may also have reflected changes at the top of the company. In December, G.M. announced that John M. Devine, who had been chief financial officer since 2001, would step aside and be succeeded in January by Frederick Henderson, who had been running the company's European operations. That move came weeks after the company said it had uncovered accounting errors that would be detailed in the annual report.

While the changes will raise its stated loss for 2005 by $2 billion, those additional losses do not affect cash flow and attracted less attention than the issue that was new, and that the company said had delayed the filing of its annual report.

"GM Board Seeks Probe of Mistakes In Bookkeeping:  Last-Minute Error at GMAC Caught Directors by Surprise; Share Price Drops Nearly 5%," by Monica Langley and Lee Hawkins Jr., The Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2006; Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114261055772101341.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

The board of General Motors Corp. called for an investigation into the cause of newly uncovered accounting errors that forced the troubled auto maker to delay filing its annual report and could postpone a critical sale of part or all of its financing arm, said people familiar with the matter.

During a hastily scheduled conference call Friday morning, directors expressed displeasure over the last-minute filing delay to Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, who was calling in from Asia, and to Chief Financial Officer Frederick "Fritz" Henderson, these people said.

Philip Laskawy, the director in charge of the audit committee, asked for an analysis of the last-minute problem. Jerome B. York, the newly elected board member who represents billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, GM's largest shareholder, followed up by pushing for an in-depth review of what GM would do to fix its accounting problems.

Mr. Wagoner said little during the meeting and did not offer an explanation for the accounting issue or the delay, these people said. The directors' questions were answered by Mr. Henderson. Mr. Henderson, who just took over as CFO this year, told the board he hoped to have preliminary answers next week.

The unusual meeting came just hours after the late Thursday announcement in which GM said it had to delay filing its 10-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission after discovering the accounting errors by a residential mortgage business owned by its finance arm, General Motors Acceptance Corp.

GM, which already faces an SEC probe into its accounting practices, also disclosed that its 10-K report, when filed, will outline a series of accounting mistakes that will force the car maker to restate its earnings from 2000 to the first quarter of 2005. GM also said it was widening by $2 billion the loss it reported for 2005.

GM shares sank 4.9% to $21.13 in 4 p.m. composite trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange on news of its latest setback. In recent months the company has been struggling amid poor demand for its vehicles in North America and high labor and other costs.

Continued in article

Jury Rigged -- Scam: Don't fall for it!

Forwarded by Paula

Checked with Snopes to verify authenticity....it is true.

Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS News.

In this con, someone calls pretending to be a court official who threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you didn't show up for jury duty. The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Sometimes they even ask for credit card numbers. Give out any of this information and bingo! Your identity just got stolen. The scam has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado. This (scam) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try and bully people into giving information by pretending they're with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their websites, warning consumers about the fraud.

Check it out here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp 

Bob Jensen's scam alerts are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudreporting.htm#Fraud%20Alerts

Ford's Credit Rating:  From the top of the junk pile to deeper into the junk
Fitch Ratings cut the credit ratings of Ford Motor Co. deeper into junk territory, saying Ford's financial woes could soon be exacerbated by the troubles of companies in its supplier base.
Lee Hawkins, Jr., and Simona Covel, "Ford's Credit Rating Is Cut Further:  Financial Woes of Suppliers Spur Fitch Into Deepening Auto Maker's 'Junk' Status," The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2006; Page C4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114227153408296752.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing

Possible answers to your questions about back pain

"Your Questions on Back Pain," NPR, March 8, 2006 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5252993

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