When you're through changing, you're through.
Bruce Barton

Time is a great teacher, unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
Hector Berlioz

One can really forgive a man for being a fool for an hour when there are so many who never stop being fools even for an hour in their entire life.
Francisco de Quevedo Villegas (1580-1645) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Quevedo

One reason that I'm retiring tomorrow is that I did not want to become one of these
"Hell No — He Won’t Go," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, May 4, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/04/maryland

---

I guess I'm retiring tomorrow in the nick of time

"Should You Be Fired for Using the Internet While at Work? Lines between professional and home lives start to blur," by Freeman Klopott, PC World via The Washington Post, May 2, 2006 --- Click Here

BlackBerry devices. Cell phones. Pagers. Wireless Internet access. Broadband at home.

The growing list of communications technologies that links workers to the workplace 24/7 increasingly is blurring the lines between work and home.

Employees surf the Web at work, checking the weather, making travel plans, and shopping. At home, many send e-mail, continue their work chores on the Internet, and otherwise stay connected with their professional lives.

While employers rarely discourage the extra work done at home, many want employees' attention focused on work while at the office.

In a recent decision , a New York City administrative law judge adds another angle to the debate between employers and employees over personal use of the Internet in the workplace. Ruling in the case of an employee who allegedly used the Internet for personal reasons during work hours, the judge, John B. Spooner, compared Internet use at work to reading a newspaper or making a telephone call. (Go here for more on the increased use of the Internet as a news source.)

"It should be observed," Spooner wrote, "that the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for their work."

Spooner recommended that Toquir Choudhri, a 14-year veteran of the city Department of Education, receive the slightest reprimand for insubordination, even though supervisors wanted him fired for using the Internet for personal matters after he was told not to.

Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project says it "sounds like the judge was recognizing a reality for lots of workers."

Rainie says the "boundary between work and leisure, work and home, is becoming more permeable."

The New York administrative court's rulings serve as recommendations to city department heads who make a final decision. In fiscal year 2005, 99 percent of department heads agreed with the findings and altogether rejected just 16 percent of the recommendations.

Despite the mixing of work and personal time, employers fear the loss of salaried time from workers who are not devoting all their workplace time to, well, work.

Continued in article

But I eased by conscience with the following article:
"The New Rules Of Web Surfing," by Jason Fry, The Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2006 --- http://www.collegejournal.com/successwork/onjob/20060504-fry.html 

It was the wrist slap that struck a blow for office workers everywhere: You may surf the Web -- provided, of course, that you also do your job.

That was the message from an administrative law judge forced to report on a petty spat between the New York City Education Department and a longtime employee. The employee was charged with disobeying a supervisor's order to stop using the Internet, and with insubordination in replying to a supervisor's explanation for what he was doing on the Net. Judge John B. Spooner sustained those charges, but recommended a reprimand -- which, he noted, was "the most minor penalty available under the Civil Service Law."

Continued in article

---

Remotely Accessing Your Campus Computing System

Windows XP Remote Desktop access to my campus PC cannot penetrate the Trinity University firewalls --- http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/tools/rdclientdl.mspx

Access Your Campus PC
For the past three years, I’ve used GoToMyPC to remotely operate my computer while off campus. GoToMyPC can penetrate the Trinity University firewalls. This worked pretty well and only cost me about $179 per year. Software installed on my campus computer allowed me to operate my campus computer from anywhere in the world via a browser on any PC or Mac. You may try this service free on a trial basis --- https://www.gotomypc.com/  

Access Your Campus Network
The techies at Trinity have now installed a free alternative VPN from Cisco on my laptop computer --- http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/secursw/ps2308/index.html
Trinity University installed this for free, and I will not have to pay any annual fee.

When I double click on the Cisco VPN icon on my laptop and choose “Connect” and read in a password, my laptop acts like I’m on campus even though I’m many miles from campus. I can access all the Trinity TigerNet drives, including my two Web servers, my e-Mail exchange server, and my LAN drives. My laptop tunnels right into the Trinity system via the Internet. All communications are deeply encrypted. I can edit and save files on my servers as if I’m on campus. My laptop can be a Windows or Mac operating system laptop.

One drawback I can see relative to the GoToMyPC alternative is that my main operating computer no longer sits on campus and, therefore, is not protected by the heavy firewalls at Trinity. In other words, with GoToMyPC, I could surf the Internet remotely on my campus PC that hides behind Trinity University’s security walls. Now I must surf the Internet on my laptop PC off campus and will not have quite as much firewall protection (although I would never use any online computer without some firewall protection).

A second drawback is that I cannot tunnel into Trinity’s system from just any computer in the world via the Internet such as a lab computer on another college campus.  I can only use a remote computer that has Cisco VPN installed by Trinity’s magical technicians who know the right installation secrets. Actually, the techies did give me an executable file so that I can easily install on other computers. But these must be computers to which I have administrative rights. This would not be the case on lab computers on another college campus or a public library.

A third drawback is that I’m used to using Windows software, particularly FrontPage, for writing HTM files and Internet Explorer for surfing the Web. With GoToMyPC I could access my Windows machine on campus and then operate my desktop Windows PC computer. With the Cisco VPN system I must use whatever software is on my remote computer. If it is a Mac, I must use Safari instead of Internet Explorer unless I operate Windows software on a Mac. In other words, I cannot use a Mac from a remote site to operate a Windows PC back on campus. I can, however, use my Windows laptop instead of a Mac if I want to run Windows programs.

The Cisco VPN is free to me and a bit faster. I do not have to have any computer on campus. Also, in retirement I can operate my campus email system and TigerNet files just as if I was on campus even though I will be 2,500 miles away in the mountains.

I thought you might like to know about these two powerful remote access alternatives. You should always make sure that any alternative you choose can tunnel through your campus firewalls. GoToMyPC worked for me in the past, but there is no assurance that GoToMyPC can penetrate every system. Most alternatives let you try for free.

---

---

---

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

Comedy Central Corners The Laughs Business, by Joe Fling, The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2006 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114704678745746219.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_marketplace
The Comedy Central home page (with links to video clips) --- http://www.comedycentral.com/

From The Washington Post on May 2, 2006
How many homemade videos does YouTube.com stock daily on its Web site?

A. 8,000
B. 35,000
C. 104,000
D. 220,000

Shadow Puppetry --- http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/shadowpuppets/artsedge.html

A Dancer’s Journal: Learning to Perform the Dances of Martha Graham --- 
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/marthagraham/index.htm 

 

---

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

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

Great Photography PowerPoint Show (turn up your speakers) --- Click Here 

Classical Music from NPR
Jan Vogler and Mira Wang: A Musical Marriage --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5373721

From NPR
War Protest That Sings: Neil Young's 'Living with War' --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5377060

From NPR
Ralph Towner's Guitar Journey --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5386169

Hear a bagpipe medley in the Strathspeys & Reels genres played by Alasdair Gillies, bagpipes professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

---

Photographs and Art

---

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

Boston Public Library
100 Most Influential Books of the Century Booklists for Adults ---
http://www.bpl.org/research/AdultBooklists/influential.htm

Imperial History (British Empire) --- http://www.britishempire.co.uk/resource/imperialhistory.htm

British Civil Wars 1638-1660 --- http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/

Temple's Diary
A Tale of Benjamin Franklin's Family A Tale of Benjamin Franklin's Family --- http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/temple/single.htm 

John Keats Selected Poetry --- http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry.html

Poetry Slam --- http://live-poetry-slam.group.stumbleupon.com/forum/12400/

A variety of free technical textbooks (many in science, computing, and engineering) --- http://www.e-dsp.com/free-ebooks/

Ted Hughes Poems (includes poems for children) --- http://www.earth-moon.org/

Poetry as News --- http://www.citylights.com/poetrynews.html

An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) --- Click Here

The Hound Of The Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) --- Click Here

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) --- Click Here
 

---

---

---

Never diminish with the setting sun
Nor rest like tired eyes
But turn on into tomorrow
And twist in with hints of sorrow
The mad writers must coincide
Never or always stoking the fire
Burning now for eternity
Lighting the page in front of thee
Author Unknown, Poetry Slam --- http://live-poetry-slam.group.stumbleupon.com/forum/12400/

And the Moral is this: Be it madam or miss
To whom you have something to say,
You are only absurd when you get in the curd
But you're rude when you get in the whey.
Guy Wetmore Carryl (1873-1904). THE EMBARRASSING EPISODE OF LITTLE MISS MUFFET --- http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/the_embarrassing_episode_of_little_miss_muffet.html

No they whisper, You own nothing,
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaim
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way.
Margaret Atwood, Easting Fire, Poetry Archive --- http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=100

"Those with insight," the Iranian tells Mr. Bush, "can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems. We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking toward a main focal point--that is the Almighty God. . . . My question for you [Mr. Bush] is, 'Do you not want to join them?' " Loopy as this sounds, it should be of some comfort to those on the American left who believe Mr. Bush is already a theocrat. But consider some of Mr. Ahmadinejad's other weird diplomatic and historical insights . . . What's wholly absent, however, is any indication that he is prepared to moderate his positions as a way of meeting the U.S. or U.N. half way. As a psychological comparison, the Unabomber's manifesto comes to mind.
"Crazy Mahmoud Would you buy a "grand bargain" from this man?" The Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2006 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008355

With a birth rate of only 1.3 children per woman, way below the "replacement level" of 2.1, in only 12 generations there won't be any Germans left.
Silvan Koch-Mehrin, "A Dying Nation's Schizophrenia," The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2006 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114703851794146086.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
George Bernard Shaw as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-05-03-06.htm 

Life has been a futile pursuit, and wandering - a great deal of talk without meaning.
Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal

In 1990 there were roughly 50 people (all physicists) on the Web.  Go figure!
"Today, the online audience in the US represents less than a quarter of Internet users across the globe, versus 10 years ago when it accounted for two-thirds of the global audience," said Peter Daboll, president and chief executive of comScore Media Metrix.
"694 million people online worldwide: survey," PhysOrg, May 5, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news65976817.html

Jensen's "Tips" on Web Page Design

May 2, 2006 message from XXXXX

Hi Bob,

I've just hired someone to design a website for me. She insisted on asking me questions -- all kinds of questions she seemed to think were necessary; silly questions for which I had no answer: "What do you want your site to look like? What would you like it to feel like? What do you want to say?" You know....questions I thought she should instinctively know. But, since neither of us seemed to know what I wanted I did a search and was fortunate to find your super site. It was enormously helpful and for that, I thank you. I don't think I'll tell my website designer about you, though. I want her to believe the ideas I present are all mine.

Keep up the great work. I have no doubt you have helped countless other helpless, technologically and idea challenged mortals.

XXXXX

May 2, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen

My concern has always been content rather than design. People generally find you via search crawlers such as Google that search content rather than design.

My opening page is relatively short although some of my main content documents are very long (without graphics or multimedia). People often ask why some of these documents are so long. The reason for this is so that it is more efficient to do word searches via an Internet browser such as Internet Explorer. Examples of long documents are as follows:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

In fact my default opening page is rather unimpressive without music or graphics. This is on purpose. Users who are still on dial-up Internet (without broadband) access must download multimedia pages very, very slowly. I try to accommodate them by not having a fancy multimedia opening page.

The most important things are content and efficient linkages to your content documents.

Consultants cannot help you much with content. They tend to create fancy, slow loading pages.

Best of luck in designing your own Website.

Bob Jensen

I hadn't thought of this Webpage design to attract students
How to Attract Viewers to Your Blog:  Go Topless (not recommended for most males however)
A lecturer at the University of Southern California said she started a blog because her students wanted “more of me after our class time has ended,” she wrote. And they got it. Diana Blaine, who lectures on feminist theory, recently linked her blog to an online photo album that has topless photos of her near a painting of a topless woman, and at Burning Man, an annual weeklong festival in Nevada where clothing is optional. After a student who has made a habit of criticizing Blaine on his blog, “ Cardinal Martini,” linked to the photos, an NBC station in Los Angeles reported that the pictures are “causing concern,” bringing Blaine even more exposure.
David Epstein, "Overexposed?" Inside Higher Ed, May 10, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/10/usc

---

Beware of the So-Called Investor Education Programs (especially beware of infomercials)

"I don't see frankly much out there that really does the job, and that's partially because investors are their own worst enemy," says former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt. "They refuse to invest skeptically, and are too easily seduced by all the purveyors of financial products that prey upon their worst instincts."
"Investor Education 101: How to Avoid Scams:  Outreach Programs Target Most-Vulnerable Americans, But Success Is Hard to Assess,"  By Lynn Cowan, The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2006; Page D3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114713241888747241.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

An onslaught of investor education is being unleashed, thanks to an ever-growing stockpile of money set aside for this purpose by regulators.

Senior-citizen investors being preyed upon? The nonprofit Investor Protection Trust is financing a Florida state program that teaches retirees to identify and report suspected scams.

Military families feeling pressured into buying unnecessary financial products? The National Association of Securities Dealers' Investor Education Foundation has launched a specialized Web site: saveandinvest.org.

Auto workers receiving lump-sum retirement buyouts in coming months? There is a new Securities and Exchange Commission publication that warns that they could be prime targets for fraud.

There seems to be no end to the list of publications, public-service announcements and seminars being funded in the wake of a landmark settlement in 2003 between regulators and Wall Street over stock analysts' conflicts of interest. The settlement provided $80 million in investor-education funds, and regulators add to that amount every year with more penalties for new securities-industry transgressions.

Unfortunately, there's also a seemingly infinite trove of outright hucksters and smooth marketing materials bombarding investors every day, say regulators and observers. And no one knows how effective investor-education programs are in combating them.

"I don't see frankly much out there that really does the job, and that's partially because investors are their own worst enemy," says former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt. "They refuse to invest skeptically, and are too easily seduced by all the purveyors of financial products that prey upon their worst instincts."

There's also little information available about what kinds of programs really work to educate and protect investors. Regulators and investor-education specialists say they are working hard to expand their materials beyond brochures with basic information to encompass interactive games for students, television programs and in-person seminars.

But regulators add that they are also fighting against strong forces in their battle to educate and protect investors from scam artists, their own emotions and a legacy of conflicts of interest in the brokerage industry.

Scam artists are the most easily identified investor-protection issue: Often organized in pyramid, or "Ponzi," structures, the schemes promise outsized returns and can exist for years before collapsing. Investor-protection programs can easily focus on warning about this kind of threat because it has some obvious hallmarks.

Regulators' second villain is trickier: investors' own inertia and greed. Getting most people in the U.S. to learn the basics of a careful investing strategy is akin to asking them to read a legal footnote, but there is no shortage of people willing to sign up for the chance to earn 130% on ersatz securities.

Possibly the most innovative investor-education program in existence today targets investors who are drawn to these get-rich-quick scams. The SEC runs several Web sites that pose as can't-fail investment schemes. One, growthventure.com, outlines the business dealings of a fake construction-supply company, Growth Venture, which invites viewers to invest and receive returns of 350% a year. Anyone falling for the bait is linked to an SEC page that gently chides them and describes how to avoid scams.

But such educational tools aren't as easy to construct for one of the thorniest issues facing investor-education programs: teaching people about protecting themselves in daily interactions with the legitimate brokerage industry.

Although larger Ponzi scams, such as the Financial Advisory Consultants bust in California in 2004, are headlined for bilking investors out of as much as $300 million, industry wide brokerage scandals involving well-known firms have surpassed $1 billion apiece. From Prudential Securities' abusive sales of limited partnerships in the early 1990s to the conflicts of interest in analyst research in the late 1990s, major Wall Street firms appear to be struggling with improper systematic conduct every decade.

Yet investor educators often express concern about finding the right balance between warning investors and condemning a highly regulated industry that provides legitimate advice and services.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Also be careful what mutual fund or brokerage firm you deal with. My advice is to avoid high-commission brokerage firms. My advice is to also compare the mutual fund expense rates with benchmark rates of Vangaard and Fidelity.

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

Check the fraud rates of firms of better known firms. For example do a search on "Merrill" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

Bob Jensen's investment helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#Finance

---

In High Schools, Technical Schools, and Colleges:  Online Enrollment is Skyrocketing

"Degrees@StateU.edu: Online University Enrollment Soars as Quality Improves; Tuition Funds Other Projects," by Daniel Golden, The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2006; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114713782174047386.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

While overall higher-education enrollment in the U.S. is virtually stagnant, online enrollment is skyrocketing, and the recent repeal of a federal rule requiring colleges to provide at least half of their instruction on campus will boost it more. By early 2008, one out of 10 college students will be enrolled in an online degree program, Boston-based market research firm Eduventures estimated last year.

Public schools are driving much of the growth. Overcoming skepticism among some faculty members, state universities are capitalizing on their traditional advantages -- quality education at affordable prices -- to attract a nontraditional student body: online learners who often live out of state. What's more, the online programs generate millions of dollars that can be ploughed back into university operations.

At UMass, online enrollment has quadrupled to 9,200 students since 2001. Most are working adults between the ages of 25 and 50, and 30% are from out of state, compared with 20% of on-campus students. UMass's online applicants undergo the same admissions review as candidates for on-campus slots and can choose among 61 programs, ranging from a master's degree in business to certificates in gerontology and casino management.

Tuition is slightly higher than on-campus students pay, because Web-based courses aren't state subsidized, enabling the online program to net a projected $10 million this year for other university endeavors. For instance, online students pay $670 a credit toward a professional master's degree in business administration, compared with $540-$600 for on-campus students. Still, UMass's online program is a bargain compared with some for-profit ones: Ms. Patel says she has paid $18,000 in tuition for two years at UMass, while her brother paid Phoenix $24,000 over a similar period.

"Public universities are moving into the online environment extremely rapidly," says Gary Miller, associate vice president for outreach at Pennsylvania State University, which has 5,691 students taking online courses, up 18% from the prior fiscal year. "It's part of our mission as a land grant university of reaching out to people. The question in our case wasn't 'Should we do this?' but 'How do we do it right?' "

Continued in article

From the University of Wisconsin
Distance Education Clearinghouse ---  http://www.uwex.edu/disted/home.html

The Distance Education Clearinghouse is a comprehensive and widely recognized Web site bringing together distance education information from Wisconsin, national, and international sources. New information and resources are being added to the Distance Education Clearinghouse on a continual basis.

The Clearinghouse is managed and maintained by the University of Wisconsin-Extension, in cooperation with its partners and other University of Wisconsin institutions.

Jensen Comment
This site has glossaries and many links to other distance education sites.

Bob Jensen's listing of online training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm

---

Diploma Mills:  Beware of training and education snake oil claims on television

"Who Needs a Four-Year College?" by Sanford Pinsker, The Irascible Professor, May 11, 2006 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-05-11-06.htm

I also learned about Keiser College, an institution that doesn't show up in US News & World Report's annual rankings of the nation's colleges.  Why so?  Because Keiser College and a growing number of other vocational training schools not only operate under the radar but also just beyond the law.  What they promise, in television ads that regularly interrupted "Law & Order," is a chance to get a high paying job -- as a  medical coding and billing specialist, a fingerprint analyst, or a nurse's aide -- all in eight months or less.

Each of the ads featured satisfied graduates who looked into the camera and got right down to business. "I didn't want to waste four years in college.  So, I enrolled in Keiser College and four months later, I graduated as a billing and coding specialist.  Keiser College even helped me land my dream job. They could do the same for you."  At that point, the camera pans to a bank of telephone operators as an 866 number flashes across the screen.

What's wrong with this picture? Well, for one thing, I had world-class trouble with the medical billing and coding person at the hospital when I tried to get myself discharged.  I would not have been surprised if this person was a recent graduate of Keiser College's accelerated medical billing and coding program.  But more importantly, proprietary for-profit institutions that promise to change lives in a matter of a few months rank with the television ads that show people who have lost 60, 70, or 80 pounds -- all without changing their diets or exercising.

In  short, the claims of Keiser College and its cousins often are so much snake oil.  The sad part is that they fleece the very people who can least afford it -- or they fleece a government that does not seem to know the difference between a real college and those that offer questionable vocational programs.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mill frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill

---

Question
What is the highest salary (possibly?) ever paid to a college president?

Boston University announced Tuesday that John Silber, the former president, received $6.1 million in compensation during fiscal 2005, most of it in deferred compensation earned previously. Boston University must report the income to state and federal officials. Past information about Silber’s compensation — he was for years among the best paid employees in academe — has prompted criticism of the university.
Inside Higher Ed, May 10, 2006

---

Morgan Stanley Hit for Millions and Billions in Civil Suits

"Morgan Stanley Settles Email Case for $15 Million," by Judith Burns, Susanne Craig, and Jed Horowitz, The Wall Street Journal,  May 11, 2006; Page C3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114727870115749075.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $15 million to settle a civil lawsuit with the Securities and Exchange Commission over failure to produce tens of thousands of emails during probes of conflicts of interest among Wall Street analysts and other issues between late 2000 and mid-2005.

New York-based Morgan Stanley neither admitted nor denied the SEC's charges, which have been previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. The SEC said $5 million of the fine will go to the New York Stock Exchange and the NASD, formerly the National Association of Securities Dealers, to settle separate related proceedings.

A Morgan spokesman said the firm is glad the matter is behind it. The firm continues to negotiate with regulators about failure to produce emails in probes of its retail brokerage unit.

It is appealing a much larger headache: Last May the firm was ordered to pay billionaire financier Ronald Perelman $1.45 billion over a lawsuit that, in the end, focused largely on the firm's inability to produce documents. In that case, the judge concluded that in many instances Morgan Stanley's actions "were done knowingly, deliberately and in bad faith." The firm is appealing the verdict. Oral arguments for the appeal are scheduled for June 28 in state court in West Palm Beach, Fla.

According to the SEC, Morgan Stanley failed to "diligently search" for backup tapes containing emails until 2005 and couldn't produce some emails because the company overwrote backup tapes. In addition, the SEC said Morgan made "numerous misstatements" about its email retention. The SEC charged the company with failing to provide records and documents in a timely manner, as required by U.S. securities laws.

According to the SEC complaint, it received an anonymous tip in the fall of 2004 that Morgan Stanley had destroyed some electronic documents and failed to produce others.

Morgan Stanley and nine other firms agreed in 2003 to pay $1.4 billion as part of a so-called global settlement over charges that they issued biased research to win investment banking business.

The fine won't reopen the global settlement, according to people familiar with the matter, and isn't likely to help the hundreds of investors who failed in their attempt to win damages against the firm, in part because Morgan Stanley was unable to produce emails.

The SEC also said Morgan Stanley was lax in searching for and delivering emails during its investigations of Wall Street's distribution of hot initial public offerings during the dot-com boom. Morgan Stanley paid $40 million in 2005 to settle SEC allegations of improper IPO allocation practices.

Continued in article

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

---

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

Latest Headlines on May 9, 2006

• How Women Respond to Pheromones
• Antiviral Drugs May Cut Shingles Pain
• Biofeedback for Overactive Bladder?
• Men More Likely to Die From Stroke
• Comas Rarely Realistic in the Movies
• Disclosing HIV Status Without Regrets
• What Causes Kids' Chronic Cough?
• RSS WebMD Health News

Latest Headlines on May 11, 2006

• Malpractice Suits: Frivolous or Real?
• French Bird Flu Vaccine No Panacea
• Study Probes Cancer Cure in Mice
• Easing Kids' Breathing Before Asthma
• FDA Rejects Green Tea Heart Claim
• Kids' Headaches: Link to Bad Behavior?
• Trim Calories for Healthier Aging?
• RSS WebMD Health News

 

---

"A Clue to Living Longer According to a study with mice, restricting calories may boost longevity -- by altering growth hormone and insulin," by Courtney Humphries," MIT's Technology Review, May 11, 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16826&ch=biotech

Scientists have long known that a very low-calorie diet can increase life span in organisms as diverse as yeast, flies and mice. One of the most puzzling questions in aging research, however, is how it works. If they can figure out the molecular processes underlying the boost in longevity, scientists think they might be able to harness the life-extending benefits without restricting diet.

A new study offers evidence that a decline in growth hormone and a corresponding boost in sensitivity to insulin may be the reason why mice live longer when they eat less -- and that those two hormones may be critically important in controlling aging and longevity.

The study opens up new questions about the role of growth hormone in aging. In humans, growth-hormone levels decline with age, and artificial growth hormone has been touted as an anti-aging drug. But at least in mice, high levels of growth hormone reduce life span, says Andrzej Bartke, a physiologist at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, who led the study. And these results suggest that lowering growth hormone in mice can mimic the benefits of calorie restriction without the diet.

Within the last few years, biologists have found that mutating certain genes in lower organisms can make them live longer. These discoveries helped fuel the idea that life span is directly controlled by a genetic program in the body -- a program that scientists may be able to manipulate. But, so far, none of these genes have explained the remarkable effects of calorie restriction.

The current study, published in the May 16 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined a line of mice who was resistant to growth hormone, which promotes childhood growth and has several other functions in the body. These mice, who are smaller than normal, lack the growth hormone receptor, a molecule that sits at the surface of cells and binds to growth hormone circulating in the blood. Without the receptor, the body's tissues are deaf to the hormone's signal.

Scientists have previously shown that caloric restriction can increase life span in mice by 25 to 30 percent. In the new study, the researchers found that mutant mice, which lack the growth hormone receptor, live just as long as caloric-restricted mice -- even though they ate a normal amount of food. The results suggest that lack of growth hormone triggers a molecular reaction similar to caloric restriction.

Continued in article

---

Dangers of Binge Drinking in College
A 2005 study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found 1,700 college students from age 18 to 24 die every year, either from alcohol poisoning or alcohol-related injuries. Another 599,000 students are unintentionally injured while intoxicated and 696,000 are assaulted by fellow students who were also drinking.
A 2004 University of California at San Francisco study found that "heavy" social drinking (as few as three drinks a day) can lead to brain damage.
"Cocktail hour cure for heavy drinking," PhysOrg, May 8, 2006 --- http://www.physorg.com/news66323020.html

---

Learning Biofeedback May Help Older Women Cope With Urge Incontinence
A new study shows that older women with overactive bladders (urge incontinenceincontinence) benefited from learning biofeedback techniques. The benefits were strongest in women who had a history of depressiondepression, according to the study, which was presented in Chicago at the American Geriatrics Society's annual meeting. Biofeedback uses measuring devices to help people become aware of and learn to control certain bodily functions. Some people with overactive bladder use biofeedback to gain control of their bladder and muscles used in urination.
Miranda Hitti, "Learning Biofeedback May Help Older Women Cope With Urge Incontinence," WebMD, May 8, 2006 --- http://www.webmd.com/content/article/121/114482

---

From NPR
Q & A: Your Questions on Migraine --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5381403

---

Eat a Banana Monyana

Forwarded by Top Banana Dick Haar

Bananas Containing three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber, a banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes. But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.

Depression:
According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS:
Forget the pills -- eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia:
High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure:
This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it the perfect way to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power:
200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation:
High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers:
One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn:
Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness:
Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites:
Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.


Nerves:
Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.


Overweight and at work?
Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.


Ulcers:
The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control:
Many other cultures see bananas as a "cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand, for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.


Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD):
Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking:
Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress:
Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes:
According to research in "The New England Journal of Medicine," eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin An and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"

---

Study Finds Few Therapies Work Well on Hot Flashes
For women who want a drug to ease menopausal hot flashes but do not want to take hormones, certain antidepressants and other medicines may help, researchers are reporting. But those medicines have side effects, little is known about whether it is safe to take them for a long time and they do not work as well as hormones. Given the drawbacks, the nonhormonal drugs "are not optimal choices for most women," according to an article being published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Denise Grady, "Study Finds Few Therapies Work Well on Hot Flashes," The New York Times, May 3, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/health/03hormone.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

---

"Scientists Discover Gene Linked to Higher Rates of Prostate Cancer," by Nicholas Wade, The New York Times, May 8, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/08/health/menshealth/08prostate.html

A team of scientists says it has detected a variant gene associated with prostate cancer, a finding that may make possible a diagnostic test to help decide which patients are the best candidates for aggressive treatment.

The discovery, by DeCode Genetics, a gene-finding company in Iceland, may also help explain why African-Americans, in whom the variant is more common, have a greater incidence of the disease.

Prostate cancer is a common disease with many causes, both genetic and environmental. Detection of the underlying genes is difficult because each seems to have only a small effect on the risk of getting the disease. Several candidate genes have been identified in one family or population but have generally not been confirmed by researchers trying to replicate the finding in other populations.

Continued in article

---

Iowa State University to Have the Most Realistic Virtual Reality Room in the World
More than $4 million in equipment upgrades will shine 100 million pixels on Iowa State University’s six-sided virtual reality room. That’s twice the number of pixels lighting up any virtual reality room in the world and 16 times the pixels now projected on Iowa State’s C6, a 10-foot by 10-foot virtual reality room that surrounds users with computer-generated 3-D images. That means the C6 will produce virtual reality at the world’s highest resolution.
"Iowa State To Have The Most Realistic Virtual Reality Room in the World," PhysOrg, May 9, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news66397184.html

---

Harvard Professors Accused of Poor Scholarship by a Leading Professor of International Affairs

The essay fails not because of anti-Semitism but because of shoddy scholarship. They wanted to prove a thesis and proceeded to cherry-pick history, wrench quotes out of context, simplify complicated historical processes, ignore alternative arguments and transform half-truths into facts, then connected those facts in highly controversial ways. It is their poor scholarship that has left them vulnerable to charges that their essay resembles foul-smelling tracts, including "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Mearsheimer and Walt hoped to trigger a debate about U.S. support for Israel. A fine motive. But we do not need a debate that sinks to the level of "The Israel Lobby." Let the debate happen. But, please, let it be informed.
"Michael Barnett: 'Israel Lobby' argument is unsupported:  No, its authors are not closet anti-Semites. But they twisted facts and cherry-picked history," by Michael Barnett, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 8, 2006 --- http://www.startribune.com/562/story/415215.html

Molly Ivins' defense of John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt's controversial essay, "The Israel Lobby," is nearly as distorting of their argument as their argument is of the causes and consequences of U.S. support for Israel. If, as she suggests, these two distinguished professors had limited themselves to the claim that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) attempts to influence U.S. foreign policy, and at times does so quite successfully, or that we need a debate about whether unqualified support for Israel hurts American interests, there would be little controversy.

Many, including myself, have long championed a two-state solution, have opposed AIPAC's stance on a variety of issues, and have advocated that the United States use its considerable leverage to pressure Israel to abide by its agreements with the Palestinians. However, their essay "The Israel Lobby" and their longer unpublished piece are rife with highly questionable and noxious assertions.

Their fundamental claim is that the "Israel Lobby" distorts American foreign policy. In their view, U.S. support for Israel does not make moral, political, or strategic sense; Israel's behavior does not deserve American support because it is a serial and mass violator of human rights; support for Israel harms U.S. influence in the region and is a primary cause of Islamic terrorism and instability.

Why does the United States act in a way so contrary to its basic national interests? The Israel Lobby (they do capitalize it), which for them is Public Enemy No. 1. Who is the Israel Lobby? It is not limited to AIPAC, as Ivins suggests. Mearsheimer and Walt offer a long list of members, including the Christian Right. Yet they focus on Jewish organizations, Jewish public intellectuals and Jewish public officials.

At various times the authors accuse these actors of various offenses, including a most explosive charge: that they care more for Israeli interests than they do American interests. In their effort to give credence to their claims, Mearsheimer and Walt reference various events, including the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They suggest that Jews in the Bush administration and Jewish organizations on the outside pushed, pressured and conned the Bush administration into undertaking an action that would help no one but Israel.

There are good reasons, then, why many are alarmed by their essay. Some have reacted by attacking Mearsheimer and Walt, charging them with being (closet) anti-Semites. I have known both for years, exchanged views with them on their essay, and wholly reject such accusations. But this does not mean that those who are critical of and even outraged by the essay are trying to stifle debate (as Ivins suggests), any more than anyone who is critical of Israel is anti-Semitic.

The essay fails not because of anti-Semitism but because of shoddy scholarship. They wanted to prove a thesis and proceeded to cherry-pick history, wrench quotes out of context, simplify complicated historical processes, ignore alternative arguments and transform half-truths into facts, then connected those facts in highly controversial ways. It is their poor scholarship that has left them vulnerable to charges that their essay resembles foul-smelling tracts, including "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Mearsheimer and Walt hoped to trigger a debate about U.S. support for Israel. A fine motive. But we do not need a debate that sinks to the level of "The Israel Lobby." Let the debate happen. But, please, let it be informed.

Michael Barnett is Stassen chair of International Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

From the Opinion Journal on May 8, 2006

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of a notorious anti-Israel screed, have responded to some of their critics. In a piece published in the London Review of Books (and reprinted on the moonbat site Counterpunch.org), they answer various letters to the editor of the London Review. We'll just look at the paragraph responding to the argument we made http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008117  in detail back in March:

*** QUOTE ***

At least two of the letters complain that we "catalogue Israel's moral flaws," while paying little attention to the shortcomings of other states. We focused on Israeli behaviour, not because we have any animus towards Israel, but because the United States gives it such high levels of material and diplomatic support. Our aim was to determine whether Israel merits this special treatment either because it is a unique strategic asset or because it behaves better than other countries do. We argued that neither argument is convincing: Israel's strategic value has declined since the end of the Cold War and Israel does not behave significantly better than most other states.

*** END QUOTE ***

This is as intellectually dishonest as their original paper. In the first place, they did not claim merely that "Israel does not behave significantly better than most other states," but that "neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America's support for Israel."

Furthermore, they fail to support even the more modest claim they now make. One cannot show that "Israel does not behave significantly better than most other states" merely by cataloguing Israel's real and alleged faults. One must compare them to those of other states--which Mearsheimer and Walt did not do, surely because they realized that an honest accounting would show that Israel in fact behaves far better than its adversaries.

 

---

David Horowitz Accused of Poor Scholarship

From the moment in February that David Horowitz’s new book appeared, scholars have been poking at it, identifying errors and what they consider to be distortions (even as Horowitz was praised by many conservative talk show hosts, who have helped him boost sales). Today, a coalition of academic and civil liberties groups is releasing a more detailed analysis of the Horowitz book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. In “Facts Count,” the debunking document being released today, Horowitz’s book is slammed as “sloppy in the extreme.” The analysis also says that the details included in the book suggest that Horowitz is not concerned with the students he says he is trying to protect, but is actually trying to punish professors whose views he doesn’t like.
"Fact-Checking David Horowitz," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, May 9, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/09/report

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

---

"Classified MoD report reveals the secrets behind UFOs," PhysOrg, May 8, 2006 --- http://www.physorg.com/news66281961.html

The four year study, codenamed Project Condign, says that unexplained UFO sightings are caused by 'plasmas', which create false memories of alien experiences and burn the skin. The report says these plasmas are rare and are created by 'more than one set of weather and electrically charged conditions'. Another of the causes may be 'by meteor re-entry, the meteors neither burning up completely nor impacting as meteorites but forming buoyant plasmas'

The report states that plasmas have been proven to cause responses in the temporal lobe of the human brain, and claims that this may cause observers to suffer extended memory retention and repeat experience which may be 'a key factor in influencing the more extreme reports... [which] are clearly believed by the 'victims'.' It also says that radiated effects from these plasmas can in rare instances be enough to scorch the skin.

The report refers to UFOs as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) and asserts that they pose little or no danger to aircraft unless violent manoeuvres are undertaken to either chase or avoid them. However, it does say that they have caused fatalities in other countries where aircraft have deliberately chased the UAP.

Continued in article

---

Question
Of Penises and Pesticides: Were males "bigger and better" in the old days?

"Of Penises and Pesticides:  Are synthetic chemicals responsible for male shortcomings?" by Ronald Bailey, Reason Magazine, May 5, 2006 --- http://www.reason.com/rb/rb050506.shtml

"Pesticides May Affect Penis Size, " runs the headline in the London Free Press. The first paragraph alarmingly reports that "A renowned U.S. scientist who has documented fertility and sex changes—including decreasing penis size—due to environmental contamination says he wouldn't apply pesticides on his own lawn."

Whose sexual organs was the renowned scientist talking about? Alligator penises. Specifically, the penises of some American alligators that grew up in Florida's most polluted lake. In 1980 a massive industrial pesticide spill drained into Lake Apopka, contaminating it with high levels of pesticides with anti-androgenic activity. The toxins clearly had deleterious effects on wildlife. The renowned scientist cited in the article is University of Florida researcher Louis Guillette, who also apparently asserted, "This is important because it is not just an alligator story. It is not just a lake story. We know there has been a dramatic increase in penile and genital abnormalities in baby boys."

One sometimes gets the impression from some scientists and activists that pesticides are just pure evil developed by wicked corporations for the purpose of poisoning people, not substances devised to protect crops or eradicate disease-carrying vermin. In any case, since it turns out that activists were wrong when they claimed that pesticides were causing a cancer epidemic, then surely the chemicals must be doing something else vile. How about hitting men where it really hurts? That'll get their attention!

But is it true there has been a "dramatic increase" in penile abnormalities? The evidence is equivocal. A major scientific review in 2005 found that male congenital anomalies had increased from 7 per 1000 in 1988 to 8.3 per 1000 in 2000. Interestingly, the same study found that the higher a family's socio-economic status, the higher the risk that a boy would be born with penile abnormalities. Another study found higher than expected rates of male genital deformities among newborns in some parts of the Netherlands. Specifically, researchers found a correlation between a father's exposure to pesticides and the probability of cryptorchidism (failure of one or both of the testicles to descend into the scrotum) in his newborn son. There was no correlation between paternal and maternal pesticide exposure and the incidence of hypospadias (a genital defect in which the urethra opens on the underside of the penis rather than at the end).

Continued in article

---

Pesticide-free "organic" foods may not be what they're  to be

"Farmers Say Mega-Dairies Milk the Organic System," by Jeff Brady, NPR, May 7, 2006 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5389487

The organic food business has grown from a health-conscious movement to a multi-billion dollar business. Americans now spend $2 billion on organic milk alone.

For milk to be labeled organic, the USDA says that cows must be raised on pesticide-free feed, without hormones. But it doesn't regulate how much time the cows must spend out in pasture.

As organic mega-dairies with thousands of cows sprout up across the country, small-dairy farmers complain that some so-called "organic" cows don't get enough meadow time. They say the huge dairy operations are taking advantage of the system at the expense of the smaller farms that built the organic movement into a lucrative industry.

---

If you're looking for a new bride, here's the "World's Largest Matrimonial Service" --- http://www.shaadi.com/

Also see "Multicultural Parody Along The Information Highway," by Frank Ahrens, The Washington Post, April 30, 2006 --- Click Here

---

Hate Groups on the Internet
Hate groups around the world, including Islamic militants, often use Internet servers based in the United States to send propaganda and instructions to followers, according to a report released Thursday by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. In its eighth annual report on Internet hate speech, the Wiesenthal Center said it had logged some 6,000 Web sites in the past year used by racists and bigots to incite violence.
"Report: Web Is a "Cornerstone" for Hate Groups:  According to this watchdog group, purveyors of bile and violence often prefer U.S. Internet servers," MIT's Technology Review, May 5, 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16785

---

Researchers in Australia say if you want to persuade anyone to agree with your line of thinking, serving coffee to that person may help. I wonder if Starbucks funded this study.

"Study says coffee helps in persuasion," PhysOrg, May 2, 2006 --- http://www.physorg.com/news65712252.html

Jensen Comment
I wonder if the researchers thought to test double martinis for the same purposes. You know the old saying: "Coffee might help, but liquor's quicker."

---

"It Pays To Read License Agreements," by Larry Magid, PC Pitstop --- http://www.pcpitstop.com/spycheck/eula.asp

---

Law Library of Congress --- http://www.loc.gov/law/public/law.html

---

Lobbying (Searchable) Database --- http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/index.asp

---

North Korea is trying to weaponize the bird flu virus
LONDON – The pariah state of North Korea is trying to weaponize the bird flu virus, making it the ideal threat for al-Qaida, the British intelligence agency MI6 has learned. The Bush administration has given briefings classified "Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information" to members of Congress and the Senate on the threat. In aerosol form it would be undetectable at all border crossings and virologists at Porton Down – Britain's research center responsible for developing antidotes against biological attacks – fear that a genetically engineered version of the virus would be far more lethal than any current threat from the virus.
"North Korea trying to weaponize bird flu:   Bio-warfare experts call it potentially 'greatest threat al-Qaida could unleash'," WorldNetDaily, May 8, 2006 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50093

---

Native Americans Are Suing for Billions of Dollars for Accounting Fraud and Mismanagement

"Counting Up What Indians Are Owed," SmartPros, May 8, 2006 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x52897.xml

What is ground zero for an accounting that will take seven years and cost $335 million owes its existence to a bitter class-action lawsuit brought against the Interior Department a decade ago. Still, it's only a short version of the historical accounting that Indians demanded but no longer want, because they do not think it can be done properly.

The Indians say the government mismanaged a trust in their names for 120 years and now owes them tens of billions of dollars.

The dispute dates to 1887, when Congress made the Interior Department the trustee for 145 million acres of Indian lands. Indians were supposed to benefit, but the government gave most of the land to white settlers.

Today, the department manages 10 million acres of trust land for individual Indians and 46 million acres for tribes. In 1996, the Indians sued to reconcile their historical accounts. The Indians, and Congress, demanded an audit. The Indians may be owed a century's worth of grazing rents, oil and gas royalties and timber sales from the land, plus interest.

Both the Indians and the Interior Department agree $13 billion was collected between 1909 and 2001.

The Indians had claimed the unpaid interest could be more than $150 billion, but have offered to drop the whole thing if the government coughs up $27.5 billion. They would spread the money among individual Indian accountholders, about one-fifth of the 2.5 million Indians now living in the U.S., mainly in the West.

No way, the Bush administration replied, saying the government all along has forwarded most of the rents and royalties to tribes and individual Indians.

"It could be just $30 million that's owed to the Indians," said Ross Swimmer, the department's special trustee for Indians. He also is a member of Oklahoma's Cherokee Nation.

During a tour of the Kansas cave, Swimmer and other department officials were eager to show that many more Indian records exist than people realize. They also wanted to demonstrate their ability to check the accuracy of financial transactions with Indians.

"They're finally going to get their accounting," Swimmer said. "For once we've gotten something right for the Indians."

In an irony befitting an "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" legal war, the government is relying on the Indian-demanded accounting - actually, it's a statistical sampling - to come up with figures that Indians claim low-ball what they are owed.

"It's a number in the m's, not the b's," said Fritz Scheuren, who oversees the department's sampling. Scheuren was president of the American Statistical Association last year.

The Indians who sued say now that too many records have been destroyed to come up with an accurate figure. Before 1990, the Treasury Department routinely destroyed the Indian trust's canceled checks, and court documents attest to numerous destroyed records.

"The documents that the government has preserved are a fraction of those that have been lost and destroyed," said Dennis Gingold, a lawyer for the Indians. "Massive hard copy and electronic destruction ... make the accounting legally and factually impossible."

The Indians' biggest ally is U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a former Reagan administration official whose strongly worded rulings condemn the Interior Department.

After nine years presiding over the case, Lamberth concluded last July that the agency is a "pathetic outpost" that has bungled its fiduciary duty.

Continued in article

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

---

"A True eBay Crime Story," by Jen Shreve, Wired News, May 8, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70752-0.html?tw=wn_index_1

It was the scandal that rocked the internet. A seemingly worthless painting sold on eBay in early 2000 for $135,805 -- all because buyers believed it might be the work of the 20th-century abstract painter Richard Diebenkorn.

It wasn't.

Nor was the story behind the painting true.

In fact, Sacramento, California, lawyer Kenneth Walton had forged the suspiciously Diebenkorn-esque signature, which appeared in an auction photograph, and concocted the hokey yarn about finding it at a garage sale some years back. Some of the highest bids, it turned out, came not from serious art-buyers but from Walton's eBay business partner, Ken Fetterman.

Before long the tangle of deceits that led to the historic sale began to unravel on the front pages of newspapers around the country. Walton and another business partner, Scott Beach, pled guilty to federal felony charges. After three years as a fugitive, Fetterman was finally arrested while on his way to a Frisbee golf tournament in Kansas.

Walton tells his side of this true internet crime story in his new memoir, Fake: Forgery, Lies, & eBay. Wired News spoke to him about the book and his experiences as an online outlaw.

"Queens Man Fails to Deliver Spiderman Comics," 1010Wins, May 5, 2006 --- http://www.1010wins.com/pages/32516.php

A Queens man is being charged with selling $10,000 worth of Spiderman comics on Ebay to a Virginia resident -- then failing to deliver the goods.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says Gabriel Mitchell, 20, of East Elmhurst is charged with grand larceny.

The DA says Mitchell posted the Spiderman collection for sale in February and a winning bid of $19,000 from Shawn Key of Manassas, Virginia was accepted. DA Brown says Mitchell e-mailed the buyer copies of the bar codes, supposedly taken from the comics -- and asked that the buyer send $10,000 for half of them and $200 for shipping.

After the buyer sent the money, he received a package containing blank papers.

The Virginia man complained to Ebay and the online auction called New York law enforcement.

Bob Jensen's threads on how to avoid fraud on eBay ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#eBay

---

One of the larger SEC civil penalties for accounting fraud
In one of the largest civil penalties the Securities and Exchange Commission has ever obtained against an individual in an accounting-fraud case, a federal judge has ordered Henry C. Yuen, former chief executive officer of Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., to pay $22.3 million for his role in a fraud that led the company to overstate revenue by more than $225 million between 2000 and 2002. The ruling comes four years after the SEC launched its investigation of Gemstar, a once highflying Hollywood company that publishes TV Guide magazine and holds patents on technology used for cable- and satellite-television programming guides. Earlier this year following a three-week trial, U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer found Mr. Yuen liable for securities fraud, lying to auditors and falsifying Gemstar's books.
Jane Spencer and Kara Scannell, "Gemstar Ex-CEO Is Ordered To Pay $22.3 Million:  Henry Yuen's Civil Penalty Is Among Largest Sought By SEC Against Individual," The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2006; Page A3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114713467418347300.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment
The outside auditor was KPMG.

You can read more about KPMG at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#KPMG

---

From the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania
"How New Accounting Rules Are Changing the Way CEOs Get Paid (Audio Available)," Knowledge@Wharton, May 3, 2006 --- http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1465

When a well-known compensation consulting firm predicted in early April that new accounting rules wouldn't have any impact on the use of options as compensation for corporate executives, Wharton accounting professor Mary Ellen Carter was ready to disagree. "That's just not true," she says. "Options will be cut and directors will be switching to restricted stock for executive compensation."

Carter's response is the result of her research into the role of accounting in the design of CEO equity compensation, specifically as it relates to the use of options and restricted stock. Her study coincides with a ruling, implemented this year by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), requiring all firms to expense the value of employee stock options. Specifically, Carter looks at the accounting practices of 1,500 firms from 1995 to 2001, before many large companies began expensing stock options but during the years when the FASB began pushing the reform. Carter corroborates the findings of her study by examining changes in CEO compensation within firms that voluntarily began to expense options in 2002 and 2003.

In a new paper on this topic entitled, "The Role of Accounting in the Design of CEO Equity Compensation," Carter concludes that CEO compensation will change now that companies are required to subtract the expense of stock options from their earnings, just as they are required to account for salaries and other costs. And Carter predicts that as a result, firms will switch from options to restricted stock as a preferred compensation option.

"By eliminating the financial reporting benefits of stock options, firms expensing stock options no longer have an ability to avoid recording expenses with any form of equity compensation," writes Carter, who authored the study with Luann J. Lynch, a professor at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, and Wharton accounting professor Irem Tuna.

"We found that companies prior to the rule changes granted more options because of favorable financial reporting. Results suggest that favorable accounting treatment for stock options led to a higher use of options and lower use of restricted stock than would have been the case absent accounting considerations. Our findings confirm the role of accounting in equity compensation design."

Leveling the Playing Field

The timing of Carter's report could hardly be better.

This past year, a revised FASB rule took effect that requires companies to expense the value of stock options given to employees. Most public companies are required to expense options for fiscal years beginning after June 15, 2005. Since most companies operate on a calendar basis, this means expensing options by March 31, 2006. Known as SFAS 123(R), the new accounting standard was developed by the FASB to create a more level playing field when it came to management incentive compensation and its impact on a company's bottom line. Before SFAS 123(R), companies that gave out stock options did not have to report the "fair value of the option" -- i.e., did not have to claim the options as an expense, which in turn would result in a reduction in net income at the end of the fiscal year. However, companies that relied on cash bonuses or restricted stock for equity compensation have always had to report or "expense" the value amount, an accounting requirement that reduced corporate net income at year's end.

The FASB first proposed changing the accounting standard in 1991. At the time, the move was strenuously opposed, particularly by many hi-tech firms and start-up businesses that relied heavily on stock options as an incentive to recruit and motivate employees to work for companies that reported little or no income. As nearly everyone knows, stock options are perks given to employees that allow them to buy company stock in the future at a set price. If the stock rises before the options are exercised, the employee can buy the stock at the lower predetermined price, and then sell it at the higher price and quickly realize the difference.

During the dot-com boom, the use of stock options skyrocketed. According to the National Center for Employee Ownership, up to 10 million employees held stock options by 2002. "Stock options were always seen as an incentive, a way of tying employee or executive action and company performance to compensation," says Carter. "In other words, 'You will get something if you get the stock price to go up.' It was a way of aligning employees' and executives' interests with those of the shareholders."

But from the beginning, companies balked at putting a numerical value on options and expensing them, arguing that doing so would result in a negative impact on their stock price. After intense lobbying, the FASB backed off the proposal in the early 1990s, but issued a compromise, known then as SFAS 123: Companies had to disclose the use of stock options and their fair value in the footnotes of their financial reports or proxy statements.

Nearly 10 years later -- in the wake of the volatile post-Enron era, when improper and unethical accounting practices were widely exposed in one corporate scandal after another -- the FASB returned to the concept of expensing stock options. At the time, corporate institutions like Global Crossing and WorldCom, in addition to Enron, had became synonymous with corporate greed, and anyone who followed their downfalls quickly understood how company executives who held substantial stock options were motivated to artificially inflate stock prices for their own financial gain.

In an effort to distance themselves from companies that routinely "cooked the books," many corporations wanted to showcase their ethical financial practices. So they began to voluntarily expense options in their proxy statements, a step above and beyond the footnote citation already required by the FASB. In 2002, General Electric, Bank One Corp., Coca-Cola, The Washington Post Co., Procter & Gamble and General Motors announced that they would expense options, along with Amazon.com and Computer Associates. Some companies -- like Papa John's International, USA Interactive and Microsoft -- announced that they were doing away with options altogether.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting for employee stock options are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm

---

"Kosher Cures for the CIA," by Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2006; Page A19 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114713479585547305.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

Morale at the agency is rock bottom, as is its reputation with the public. The director has been forced to resign. Relations with the politicos are under strain. There have been several high-profile operational fiascos, one of which nearly wrecked relations with a key Middle Eastern ally.

Porter Goss's CIA? Wrong. This was the Mossad, Israel's fabled spy agency, circa 1997. In September of that year, a botched Mossad attempt on the life of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Amman, Jordan, forced an acute political crisis between the Jewish state and its Hashemite neighbor. Five months later, another Mossad agent was arrested while wiretapping a phone line in Bern. The agency's travails attracted wide notice: "Swiss Confirm New Fiasco by Agents for Israel," was how the New York Times covered the story.

Today, the Mossad is again at the top of its game. Among other coups, it is believed to have assassinated Hezbollah terror masters Ali Hussein Saleh in 2003 and Ghalib Awwali in 2004. So it's worth taking note of how the Mossad repaired its own house -- and of what two former Israeli spymasters have to say about how CIA Director nominee Michael Hayden might go about repairing his.

In a telephone interview, Efraim Halevy, Mossad chief from 1998 to 2002 and author of the memoir "Man in the Shadows," offers this advice. The new director "must first work quickly to repair the image of the organization by producing results. He must re-establish credibility at the political level, and this isn't going to be easy because political leaders will be wary of intelligence judgments. He must pass a message of confidence in and respect for the troops. He has to stand up for his people, and not take a back seat while someone else takes the rap. And he has to be creative and allow creativity and courage to show themselves."

Mr. Halevy knows whereof he speaks. "I entered my job in a crisis situation," he recalls. Not long into his tenure, a Turkish newspaper claimed -- falsely, according to Mr. Halevy -- that the Mossad had been involved in the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish leader of the terrorist PKK. The report, which put Israelis at risk of PKK reprisals, had to be discredited in a way that would be believed. Rather than issue a public denial, Mr. Halevy circulated a memo within the Mossad disavowing any link to the Ocalan operation. The memo then "leaked," achieving the desired impression.

There are lessons here for Gen. Hayden, starting with the fact that it helps to run an organization where leaks, when they happen, are authorized and purposeful. In recent years, the CIA has lost that ability, in part because of a deep-seated ideological animus to the Bush administration (witness the careers of anti-Bush partisans Valerie Plame, Paul Pillar, Michael Scheuer and Mary McCarthy), but also, it seems, as payback from careerists who felt rudely handled by Mr. Goss. If you want to plug leaks -- and manage change -- try getting the troops on board.

On the whole, however, Mr. Halevy is fairly sanguine about CIA prospects. "I think the quality of the intelligence is very high," he says. Mr. Halevy has interacted with the CIA for nearly four decades, during which he "has not seen a decline" in the caliber of its work. It isn't clear if he's only being polite.

Continued in article

---

A Helper Site for Starting a New Business --- http://www.startupnation.com/index.asp

If you are looking for expert advice on all aspects of starting a business and turning it into a successful company, and want to have fun along the way, you've come to the right place: StartupNation. You are joining a robust community of entrepreneurs and s