It's blue bonnet season in Texas. My secretary Debbie Bowling back at Trinity University and her husband Sam took this picture in the Hill Country. Meanwhile up here in the White Mountains of New Hampshire we're having another Nor-easter that's expected to drop over a foot of new snow in high winds today. I sent an email message to Al Gore requesting that he come up this way and find the switch that turns off the Winter of 2007. Otherwise there may be no Spring of 2007 up here.

Below is  . . . well I think you get the picture of our cottage in Springtime 2007!

Today's howling blizzard winds are shaking the walls of our cottage above pictured just before this storm. The tips of our fence posts were visible before this new blizzard (mixed with rain). The winds are even worse on the summit of Mount Washington (which I cannot see today through the snow):

Update at 5:00 a.m. on April 18
This edition of Tidbits was supposed to be released at 6:00 a.m. on April 16, but, before I could send the file to my Web server, 80+ mph winds toppled tens of thousands of trees in the White Mountains and knocked out our power and Internet connections for nearly two days. Winds on Mount Washington rose to over 150 mph. These roaring winds also took off half of the shingles on the northeast side of our relatively new roof. The falling snow at 5:00 a.m. on April 16 changed to horizontal rain that, among other things, ruined our dining room ceiling (again).  Sigh!

But all-in-all we're lucky. It would've been far worse without heat had the temperatures been below zero. There was never any threat of pipes freezing up. Erika and I stayed relatively cozy with the four iron propane stoves in our fireplaces. We have some trees down in our woods and the dining room ceiling "wall paper" and underlying plaster needs replacing. Our roofing company made temporary repairs to our roof. Others nearby were not so lucky. There will be much damage with flooding down in the lowlands.

Next week, after the horse is out of the barn, we're setting the wheels in motion to install a propane electricity generator that will kick in whenever the power goes out. Outages occur altogether too often up in these mountains, but usually (not like April 16-17) power is restored in less than six hours.  If any of you are interested in a generator, the cost we discovered is about $10,000 for what we want. There are, of course, both cheaper and more expensive alternatives.

We're used to howling winds. but for much of April 16 there was a roaring freight train of wind and rain. The rain quickly melted much of the snow, but where snow drifts were over four feet deep there are still gushy snow banks. I had to shovel yesterday to get into my barn.

What was really eerie was to look out into the pitch black and not see a single light anywhere. Clouds blocked our view of the night sky. Normally we can look down in any direction at the night's lights of several villages  There was not one visible light while our power grid was shut down. It was shut down so that chain saw crews could cut trees leaning on power lines.

And then the first thing we learned when our power was restored was about the senseless tragedy at Virginia Tech, a campus where I've been invited to speak several times over my career. This morning I learned that the daughter of a Virginia Tech accounting professor, Bryan Cloyd, was killed. She was a first-year student in a French class when she was shot.

This makes our storm ordeal seem entirely trivial.

Bob Jensen

Tidbits on April 16, 2007
Bob Jensen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vonnegut Videos --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9554280

What I Like About Texas (where I lived for 24 years) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGukLuXzH1E 

How to Tell When the Relationship is Over --- http://www.depict.org/content/films/2003/relationship_over_320.html

Video from J.H. Cohn in April 2007 --- FASB's Fair Value 'Option' --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/standard/smartsurvey/jhcohn.asp
For Bob Jensen's threads on Fair Value Accounting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#FairValue

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

Pianist Brings Power to Liszt Concerto --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9451775

Gaetano Donizetti's 'Anna Bolena' (opera) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9485401

What I Like About Texas (where I lived for 24 years) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGukLuXzH1E 

Rickie Lee Jones' Divine Departure --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9435180

A Song of Faith, Devotion and Lung Power --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9431443

Delayed but Not Denied, a Lost Soul Classic --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9556942

Lily Allen in Concert with The Bird and The Bee --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9348709

A Rock Sleeper Makes Guitars the Star --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9527798

Google not only lets you search for movie information, it also is a great search engine for music. Google knows the names of tens of thousands of popular performers; all you have to do is enter the performer’s name in the search box, and Google returns specific information about that performer.
Informit.com --- http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=675528&seqNum=14&rl=1

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

National Poetry Month 2007 (poems chosen by the Academy of American Poets) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9043294&ps=h1

Poetry Online (read and/or listen to the poems) --- http://www.wiredforbooks.org/poetry/

Authorama.com, featuring completely free books from a variety of different authors, collected here for you to read online or offline --- http://www.authorama.com/

Latest (out of many available):
Books from Google Books
Monkey Games
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature
Essays by Alice Meynell
Le portrait de monsieur W.H.
Red Money
History of Holland
More Jataka Tales
The Light in the Clearing
Lewis Rand
The Wheel of Life

ShortStories --- http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/indexframe.html

Classics at the Online Literature Library --- http://www.literature.org/authors/

Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce --- Click Here

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle --- Click Here

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe --- Click Here

A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman by Mary Shelley --- Click Here

Martha Stewart's advice on how to entertain --- Click Here

April 18, 2007 reply by Bob Jensen

I added the above glossary link to the following sites:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070416.htm

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

Bob Jensen

Accountancy and the da Vinci Code

April 12, 2007 message from Barry Rice [brice@LOYOLA.EDU] 

From the April 11 Brisbane Times:

Forgotten magic manual contains original da Vinci code
AFTER lying almost untouched in the vaults of an Italian university for 500 years, a book on the magic arts written by Leonardo da Vinci's best friend and teacher has been translated into English for the first time.

The world's oldest magic text, De viribus quantitatis (On the Powers of Numbers), was penned by Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan monk who shared lodgings with da Vinci.

Continued at http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/04/10/1175971101054.html  .

E. Barry Rice, MBA, CPA
Director, Instructional Services
Emeritus Accounting Professor
Loyola College in Maryland
BRice@Loyola.edu
410-617-2478
www.barryrice.com 

Facebook me! http://www.facebook.com/p/Barry_Rice/20102311

April 13, 2007 reply from Patricia Doherty [pdoherty@BU.EDU]

This is fascinating!!! How incredible to find that Pacioli and DaVinci were best friends and roommates!.

p Don't waste time learning the tricks of the trade. Instead, learn the trade.

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

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of accountancy are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory

Question
Is the word "wiki" in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary?

"Keeping Up With the Web's New Lingo:  With words being created, put to use, and accepted in the blink of an eye, they're becoming a challenge to the reference world's gatekeepers,"  by Catherine Holahan, Business Week, April 12, 2007 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070412_788838.htm?link_position=link1 

The ease and speed with which people publish their lingo online has diminished the ability to judge a word's worth by its written frequency. Within a few short months, a new slang term may appear on thousands—if not millions—of Web pages and blogs, Pitoniak says. Even a misspelled word can return thousands of Web pages on a Google search. "You have to make careful judgments and make sure that the word sticks around," says Pitoniak. "You do degrade the quality of the dictionary when you include words just because they sound trendy."

At the same time, Pitoniak and his colleagues must be wary of shunning accepted, commonly used terms. People turn to the dictionary for a host of tasks—from understanding the meaning of words they hear and read to settling Scrabble disputes. The book becomes dated if it lacks the ability to elucidate matters relevant to technophiles, even if they may seem arcane.

Hence, the inclusion of "wiki" in the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The word, which stems from the Hawaiian phrase meaning "quick," now refers to a set of tools that enables online collaboration among groups.

Jensen Comment
The easiest way to find definitions is to go to Google Define --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#define
Simply go to Google at http://www.google.com/ or http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
In the search box type define and insert the phrase you want defined in quotations.
For example, suppose you want to define “Grid Computing”
Simply type in define “Grid Computing” in the search box and hit the search button 
Or type in define "wiki"
 

Bob Jensen's Technology Glossary is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm

Biotechs Try to Take Corn Out of Ethanol
The ethanol craze is putting the squeeze on corn supplies and causing food prices to rise. Mexicans took to the streets last year to protest increased tortilla prices. The cost of chicken and beef in the United States ticked up because feed is more expensive.
Paul Elias, PhysOrg, April 14, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news95749527.html

"Have China Scholars All Been Bought?" by Carsten A. Holz, Far Eastern Economic Review, April 2007 --- http://www.feer.com/articles1/2007/0704/free/p036.html

IBM's New Website for Data Visualization --- http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/app
IBM's site lets people collaborate to creatively visualize and discuss data on fast food, Jesus' apostles, greenhouse-gas trends, and more

"Sharing Data Visualization," by Kate Greene, MIT's Technology Review, April 11, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18516/ 

IBM is showing that there's more to the social Internet than just sharing pictures and video clips. The company has launched a new website, called Many Eyes, with the hope of adding a social aspect to data visualizations like maps, network diagrams, and scatter plots. The site's users already include Christian bloggers, nutritionists, and professors. Many Eyes teaches people how to build their own visualizations (a simple tutorial can be found here) so that they can dive into complex, multidimensional data. Since its launch in January, the site has amassed nearly 2,000 visualizations that illustrate, for example, the carbon emission of cars and the nutritional information of food on a McDonald's menu. For example, by illustrating numbers graphically, users see how Big Macs compare with double cheeseburgers in terms of calories, fat, and sodium--differences that might be harder to spot on a chart of numbers. Many Eyes was developed by Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viegas, researchers at IBM's Visual Communication Lab, in Cambridge, MA. To be sure, Many Eyes is not the first, or even the most powerful, data-visualization tool available. Spotfire, for instance, is well-known software that businesses use to visualize and analyze trends. But what makes Many Eyes novel is that it's explicitly designed to be a social site for sharing visualizations and analysis; it's essentially the Flickr of data plots. While the field of data visualization in general isn't new, it has seen a sort of rebirth in the past few years thanks to the availability of software tools that explore data sets, as well as the ubiquity of data sets themselves, says Ben Shneiderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, in College Park. "It's one of those things that after 15 years, it's an overnight success." Recently, Shneiderman says, data visualizations have gone from static charts commonly used in PowerPoint presentations to dynamic displays of multidimensional data. "Suddenly," he says, "we've been given a new eye to see things that we've never seen before." The IBM software was built using standard software architectures, says Wattenberg; the visualizations are displayed using Java, and there are a few somewhat sophisticated algorithms that crunch numbers and produce the graph layouts. Ultimately, he says, he and Viegas wanted a simple, immersive experience. "The more that it becomes almost gamelike in its level of activity, the more fun it becomes." Within days of Many Eyes going live, the researchers saw a big spike in traffic from a user-generated visualization. A user named "crossway" had uploaded a data set of names from the New Testament and how often they occurred near one another in the text. The user chose to visualize the data using a network diagram; the result was essentially an illustration of the social network of Jesus and his apostles. Crossway posted the network diagram on his or her well-trafficked Christian blog, and soon awareness of the visualization moved from the Christian community into the technology community, thanks to an appearance on the popular blog BoingBoing.net.

Bob Jensen's threads on multivariate data visualization are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm

Question
What's a craplet? (See Walt Mossberg's advice on how to wipe them out.)

Video: Walt tries to get rid of craplets

Many people are furious about so-called craplets, the unwanted programs that come loaded on most new PCs. Until computer makers stop dumping these junk programs on us, here are some strategies for avoiding them.
"Getting Junk Programs On Your New Computer," by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2007; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117633406738767006.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace 

"Revising the Teaching of Writing," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, April 13, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/13/denver
 

"Facebook gets facelift, adds more social networking tools," MIT's Technology Review, April 11, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/18522/

People Finder Site for the U.S. --- http://www.usa-people-search.com/

April 9, 2007 message from Rebecca Murphy [rebecca@maxhostmedia.com]

I'm interested in the possibility of placing a link on your site, specifically this page: http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm . The link would be for a website
( http://www.usa-people-search.com/ ) which helps people, including potential employers, do inexpensive and exhaustive background checks.

I noticed that you already have a link to a person finding website, and I would hope that you would consider adding this link as an addendum.

Please, if you have the chance, get back to me and let me know if this might be possible. I'd be happy to answer any questions or concerns, and would be happy to discuss anything I can do to help you come to a favorable decision.

Thanks so much for your time, Rebecca Murphy

Jensen Comment
I added the above link to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#SpecializedSearchEngines

From PhD Comics:  Helpers for Filling Out Teaching Evaluations --- http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=847

Question
What is the Semantic Web that is a "rising tide" in the world of business?

The Semantic Web project of the W3C in which automated methods based on quality metadata are envisaged to replace much human searching of the web. Relies on ontologies, XML and RDF --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XMLRDF.htm

"Taming the World Wide Web:  A rising tide of companies are tapping Semantic Web technologies to unearth hard-to-find connections between disparate pieces of online data," by Rachael King, Business Week, April 9, 2007 --- http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070409_248062.htm

When Eli Lilly scientists try to develop a new drug, they face a Herculean task. They must sift through vast quantities of information such as data from lab experiments, results from past clinical trials, and gene research, much of it stored in disparate, unconnected databases and software programs. Then they've got to find relationships among those pieces of data. The enormity of the challenge helps explain why it takes an average of 15 years and $1.2 billion to get a new drug to market.

Eli Lilly (LLY) has vowed to bring down those costs. "We have set the goal of reducing our average cost of R&D per new drug by fully one-third, about $400 million, over the next five years," Lilly Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sidney Taurel told the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan last August.

As part of its cost-cutting campaign, the drugmaker is experimenting with new technologies designed to make it easier for scientists to unearth and correlate scattered, unrelated morsels of online data. Outfitted with this set of tools, researchers can make smarter decisions earlier in the research phase—where scientists screen thousands of chemical compounds to see which ones best treat symptoms of a given disease. If all goes according to plan, the company will get new pharmaceuticals to patients sooner, and at less cost.

Found in Space Those tools are the stuff of the Semantic Web, a method of tagging online information so it can be better understood in relation to other data—even if it's tucked away in some faraway corporate database or software program. Today's prominent search tools are adept at quickly identifying and serving up reams of online information, though not at showing how it all fits together. "When you get down to it, you have to know whatever keyword the person used, or you're never going to find it," says Dave McComb, president of consulting firm Semantic Arts.

Researchers in a growing number of industries are sampling Semantic Web knowhow. Citigroup (C) is evaluating the tools to help traders, bankers, and analysts better mine the wealth of financial data available on the Web. Kodak (EK) is investigating whether the technologies can help consumers more easily sort digital photo collections. NASA is testing ways to correlate scientific data and maps so scientists can more efficiently carry out planetary exploration simulation activities.

The Semantic Web is in many ways in its infancy, but its potential to transform how businesses and individuals correlate information is huge, analysts say. The market for the broader family of products and services that encompasses the Semantic Web could surge to more than $50 billion in 2010 from $2.2 billion in 2006, according to a 2006 report by Mills Davis at consulting firm Project10X.

Data Worth a Thousand Pictures While other analysts say it will take longer for the market to reach $50 billion, most agree that the impact of the Semantic Web will be wide-ranging. The Project10X study found that semantic tools are being developed by more than 190 companies, including Adobe (ADBE), AT&T (T), Google (GOOG), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Oracle (ORCL), and Sony (SNE).

Among the enthusiasts is Patrick Cosgrove, director of Kodak's Photographic Sciences & Technology Center, who is, not surprisingly, also a photo aficionado. He boasts more than 50,000 digital snapshots in his personal collection. Each year he creates a calendar for his family that requires him to wade through the year's photos, looking for the right image for each month. It's a laborious task, but he and his colleagues aim to make it easier.

One project involves taking data captured when a digital photo is taken, such as date, time, and even GPS coordinates, and using it to help consumers find specific images—say a photo of mom at last year's Memorial Day picnic at the beach. Right now, much of that detail, such as GPS coordinates, is expressed as raw data. But Semantic Web technologies could help Kodak translate that information into something more useful, such as what specific GPS coordinates mean—whether it's Yellowstone National Park or Grandma's house up the street.

Continued in article

Also see:
"Q&A with Tim Berners-Lee The inventor of the Web explains how the new Semantic Web could have profound effects on the growth of knowledge and innovation," Business Week, April 9, 2007 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070409_961951.htm 

"The Web's Father Expects a Grandchild:  Tim Berners-Lee is working on the "Semantic Web," with its richer information links that unlock the power of "unplanned reuse of data," Business Week, October 22, 2006 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2004/nf20041022_6972_db083.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on the Semantic Web are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XMLRDF.htm

Bob Jensen's technology glossary is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm

State and local taxes will consume 11% of the nation's income in 2007.
"State and Local Tax Burdens Hit 25-Year High," by Curtis S. Dubay, Tax Foundation Special Report No. 153, April 2007 ---  http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr153.pdf

What states in the U.S. have the highest versus the lowest tax burdens?

April 10, 2007 message from an accounting professor

Prof Jensen
I'm putting together a fact box for the income tax deadline; and was wondering how many taxpayers, on average, fail to file tax returns on time.? And are four out of the five states with the heaviest tax burdens still Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts? Other lesser known factoids about income taxes that readers might find interesting would be appreciated.
Thank You

April 11, 2007 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi XXXXX,

I really don’t know how many late filers there are or the trends in late filings and extension filings. The IRS has a ton of statistics at http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=96629,00.html
The word search box is also excellent at the IRS site.

You really can’t analyze states without factoring in property taxes and all other state taxes. When I moved to New Hampshire, the tax burden was a factor in my decision. I also considered moving to the coast of Maine, but Maine has the highest tax burden in the nation.

You can find the following module at http://www.trinity.edu/%7Erjensen/tidbits/2005/tidbits050622.htm

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

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

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

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

In particular note the state rankings at http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbystate2005/index.html

Bob Jensen

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117651636969369930.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

2007 Update:  Vermont Overtakes Maine
"Democrats and the AMT," The Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2007; Page A8 --- Click Here
(Both the CNN Money and the WSJ used the Tax Foundation databases.)

Martha Stewart Spent a Whole Lot of Her Billion Dollars Upgrading Her Websites

"Martha Stewart aims to be online leader in everything lifestyle," MIT's Technology Review, April 11, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/18518/

Domesticity diva Martha Stewart aims to parlay her authoritative voice on everything about lifestyle to the millions of women who surf the Internet with the relaunch of her namesake Web site. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. -- which scaled back its Web operation as a catalog/e-commerce business in 2005 -- is set to officially relaunch marthastewart.com Tuesday as an information portal. The overhauled site, quietly unveiled late last month, features more than 700 videos, including daily episodes of Stewart's TV shows and how-to clips, provides a community where users can chat about such ideas as the latest recipe for chocolate cake, and features a retooled search engine that allows users to browse either by interest such as the latest scrapbooking techniques or by media property from magazines to TV shows. It also allows users to search across 700 other Web sites to get the best resources. This fall, Martha Stewart Living will be expanding its community sites and personalization features, which will enable users to save, share, review and collect content from the site as well as interact with each other through interest groups dedicated to specific passions like knitting. ''Martha Stewart is the most trusted lifestyle authority,'' Susan Lyne, Martha Stewart Living president and CEO, said in a statement. ''We have a big leg up on other sites because our content libraries are so deep and our creative teams so prolific -- we're a constantly renewed resource for consumers.'' Martha Stewart Living has enjoyed a rebound over the past year and a half after seeing advertising revenue plummet amid the founder's personal legal woes. Stewart completed her prison sentence in March 2005 for lying to investigators about a stock sale. Since then, Martha Stewart Living has stepped up a number of initiatives, from new magazines to developing branded homes with builder KB Home and photo products with Eastman Kodak Co. Such new ventures and the rebound in advertising revenue have helped turn around the business. Martha Stewart Living's profit rose more than fivefold in the fourth quarter from a year ago. Revenue rose 15 percent. Martha Stewart Living's Internet business is one of the company's key pillars for growth. Marthastewart.com is expected to account for 10 percent of the company's overall revenue this year and should make up about 20 percent by 2010, Chief Financial Officer Howard Hochhauser said. The Internet division, which broke even last year, should contribute one-third of the company's total EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, by 2010, according to Hochhauser. Based on the company's internal figures, marthastewart.com averages about 3 million visitors per month; the goal is to increase that figure to 10 million a month by 2010, according to Holly Brown, president of the Internet division. As for its e-commerce ventures, marthastewart.com continues to sell flowers online, but the company has no intentions to be in the business of fulfillment. Heather Dougherty, senior analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings Inc., said that because the online market is so fragmented, Stewart has the potential to be the leader of lifestyle online. ''Martha covers a lot of different areas,'' said Dougherty, noting that rivals offer specialized niches. ''She has a loyal fan base that has stuck with her.'' Brown noted that the company sees competitors such as ivillage.com, glam.com and foodnetwork.com, but none of them has a ''figure head'' like Stewart. One of the key focuses at marthastewart.com is its Web community. The site has general message boards and highlights the company's latest publication, called Blueprint, with a blog called Bluelines. The site is generally limited to what is popular with Martha Stewart editors, but the company wants to let the online community connect with each other and talk about what they might do differently, Brown said. ------ On the Net: Martha Stewart Living: http://www.marthastewart.com Bluelines: http://www.blueprintmag.com/blog

 

Are conservatives being denied tenure and promotions because they are not politically correct?

"Promoting the Converted," by Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed, April 12, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/12/uncw

The complaint is familiar: A professor is denied tenure or passed over for a promotion because of his or her right-leaning politics. The professor goes public, often to outlets such as FrontPageMag.com. Depending on one’s views — because these situations tend to be based chiefly on conflicting verbal accounts — the accusations are either part of a larger liberal bias in academe or represent trumped-up charges by unqualified or overly outspoken faculty members.
 

A lawsuit filed last month features all this and more — but colorful details, as well as plenty of documentation, add weight to an otherwise routine accusation. Take a department chair’s alleged comment that her “image of a perfect job candidate is a lesbian with spiked hair and a dog collar.” Or the professor’s shock tactics on Townhall.com, where a recent political column, musing on a university’s alleged tolerance for terrorists versus homophobes, was titled “How to bomb a gay bath house.”

Mike Adams, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court in North Carolina on March 31, alleging an entire series of events — including a charge that he tear-gassed a colleague’s office, an accusation later dropped — that culminated in a denied request for a full professorship in September 2006. Adams argues that the university and his colleagues involved in the promotion decision violated his rights under the First and 14th Amendments, as well as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Adams’s accusations are interesting because of his self-described conversion from an atheist Democrat to a devout Christian Republican, and the clear record of positive peer evaluations he received before and even after his switch in political ideology and religious beliefs. While most of his colleagues in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, and none who were on the tenure committee, would comment on the outcome, Adams’s complaint provides copies of e-mails and other documents that — lacking competing accounts — would seem to support his allegations.

A key question is whether the same standard for promotion was applied equally to Adams as to other faculty members — or whether there are agreed-upon standards at all. Full professors, the faculty handbook says, should have exhibited “distinguished accomplishment in teaching, a tangible record of research or artistic achievement, and a significant record of service. An individual with the rank of professor should have a reputation as an excellent teacher and be recognized as a scholar within her/his professional field.” The handbook outlines procedures for promoting faculty members, but specific criteria are left up to departments.

Adams said there were no official criteria for promotion but that he had asked colleagues and the chair multiple times over the years about what it would take to be promoted. “They were very honest. What they would do is lay down the number 10,” for 10 published peer-reviewed articles, “and they would refer to it as being safe for promotion to full professor, but they would never say it’s automatic. We never had the magic number approach.”

He added: “I think there have been times when we have lowered the standards sometimes for feminists. My point is we have dipped down below that 10 before, but I have never seen a case where we have gone up above it, especially for a person with teaching awards. No, it is not fair, and it does not make sense at all to me, and it is just without precedent.” Adams published his 11th article last year.

Meanwhile, the university unequivocally denies any charges of discrimination or violation of First Amendment rights. “While the university has not yet been served with the lawsuit, we are prepared fully to defend ourselves,” said a statement. “It’s not unusual for a person not to be promoted to full professor their first time or even their second time through,” said Cecil Willis, a former chair of the department and the assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Beyond the number of publications, promotion deliberations, like yearly evaluations, focus on teaching, advising, research and service. Copies of Adams’s evaluations from the period before his full political “conversion” demonstrate consistently above-average ratings of “good” to “outstanding” in all categories. This continues at least through 2001. The complaint states that from 2004 on, evaluations included criticisms of Adams’s political activities, such as the Townhall.com column, alleging that they were beginning to interfere with his work.

The most objective measure available is from his own promotion application, which cites his peer rating over the past few years. In 2003, his rating of 7.3 (out of 10) was well above the department average of 6.7. After that year, his rating dipped below the average, remaining at 6.0 through 2005. Whether that’s because his colleagues’ political beliefs began to color their evaluations or whether the quality of his work actually declined is a key point of contention.

Adams says his research was never affected, and points to his work as an advocate for First Amendment rights, especially in print, as valuable contributions to the community. Willis, though, noted that it’s not uncommon for the pace of work to fluctuate over a professor’s career. “That’s not unheard of for a person’s work to change over time,” he said. “If you look at the academic career of anyone, we have our ebbs and flows.”

For Adams, the discrimination he says he has endured began once he stopped being the well-liked liberal atheist he was when the department originally hired him. He cites a 1996 trip to an Ecuadorean prison, where he met “the happiest people I’ve ever met in my life,” all religious Catholics, as a turning point in his spiritual life, which by then was in a 13-year lapse of agnosticism to atheism. Several years later, he met a notorious Texas death-row inmate, John Penry, who was eventually executed despite his mental retardation. Adams began reading the Bible and had become a bona-fide conservative Christian by 2000.

But Adams’s troubles began before he ever started publishing his controversial column. Soon after the attacks of September 11, 2001, he responded harshly to a student’s mass mailing criticizing American foreign policy, forwarding it to a few others in the process. The result, the suit alleges, was a long process in which Adams was accused of abuse and libel, culminating in an inspection of his personal e-mail account. A later accusation that he’d sprayed a colleague’s office with tear gas was eventually dismissed — almost five years later.

Like other conservatives who have battled colleagues on ideological territory, Adams believes the “retaliation” he’s suffered is part of a larger pattern. In an article in — where else? — FrontPageMag.com, he recounted specific examples in faculty encounters that he said comprise a pattern of discrimination against Christians and conservatives. He also called the lawsuit “just and meritorious” in a recent Townhall.com column.

The suit is being filed by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian group that opposes abortion rights and spreads its religious message through advocacy and litigation. David French, the senior legal counsel, said he believes they have a strong case. “Imagine instead of a religious conservative, you have a secular liberal professor with a column that was very outspoken about the issues of the day ... subjected to investigations, warned about his writings,” he said. “In the situation of a Ward Churchill, you have a guy making comments that I think by almost any objective measure would be far more inflammatory over anything Mike Adams ever said ... and the guy just glided to department chair in a major state university.”

The suit’s legal arguments, especially under Title VII, will hinge on whether Adams was treated differently because of his beliefs. “What we have is, before he became a Christian and a conservative, this is a guy … who was walking the yellow brick road to success,” French added. “After he becomes a Christian and a conservative, the world changes for him.”

Controversies Over Using College Placement Tests in School Accountability Assessments
According to the Achieve review, the majority of college placement tests are narrowly focused on a subset of knowledge and reflect relatively low levels of rigor. “If states were to incorporate existing placement tests into their formal high school accountability systems, it might inadvertently lead to a narrowing and watering down of the curriculum,” the report says. It adds that while the ACT and SAT are credible measures of student learning, states should use caution when thinking about incorporating the tests into their assessment and accountability systems. Some states are using the placement tests as the official statewide high school exit exams, while others are debating whether students, while still in high school, should take college placement tests as a form of early feedback. These tests don’t fully measure college preparedness and in particular fall short in measuring more advanced concepts and skills, the report notes. Thus, states should create additional questions when relying heavily on these national tests to gauge how students measure up in a given state.
Elia Powers, "Matching Tests to Their Purposes," Inside Higher Ed, April 12, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/12/admissions

"40 Years of Changes in the Student Body," by Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed, April 9, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/09/cirp

For four decades, the University of California at Los Angeles has administered the Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshmen Survey, recording the values, attitudes and backgrounds of the high school graduates who will become the next batch of American college students. Their self-reported answers form the backbone of a large trove of data that has served to illuminate trends in higher education.

Today, UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute is releasing a broad overview of trends gleaned from the survey. The report, “The American Freshman: Forty-Year Trends 1966–2006,” highlights some striking changes in the makeup of college freshman classes, many of which confirm widely reported trends — but not without a few surprising findings.

Amid reports documenting the widening gap between the lowest and highest earners in America, as well as concern among educators that selective institutions are mainly the domain of the financially advantaged, it might not come as a surprise that today’s freshmen are the most well-off since at least 35 years ago — with median incomes 60 percent above the national average, as compared to 46 percent above average in 1971. The report also highlighted a difference between public and private incoming freshmen: the income of families sending students to public institutions is rising faster than that for students at private colleges.

Income Gap Between National Average and Median Parental Income of Freshmen (2006 Dollars)

Type of Institution	1971	2005
Public	$17,800	$25,600
Private	$27,300	$35,700

Meanwhile, two developments in students’ attitudes toward life provide either contradictory or nuanced responses — depending on one’s point of view — about financial goals and altruism. Being well-off is students’ number-two priority (73.4 percent) — second only to raising a family — but helping others comes in third, the highest it’s been as a priority in 20 years.

The percentage of freshmen last year who predicted they’d participate in community service also increased significantly, while being a community leader was rated more important than ever (about a third considered it “very important” or “essential"). The report also noted the increased engagement in community service at the high school level, although it wasn’t clear how much of that was due to college admissions pressures and graduation requirements. Instead of concluding that today’s students are becoming more materialstic, John H. Pryor, director of the CIRP survey, interpreted these trends as showing that students are “very interested in raising families and helping others, both of which are accomplished with greater ease if one is well-off financially.”

These trends have been ongoing within a rapidly changing demographic environment. In 1971, 90.9 percent of first-time, full-time freshmen were white, while today the percentage is down to 76.5. Since then, all minority groups have made attendance gains, although at different rates and some, like African Americans, already reached their numerical peak and, due to various factors, have slowly decreased their share of the freshman population.

Racial/Ethnic Group	1971	1980	1990	2000	2006
White	90.9	84.1	80.7	76.1	76.5
African American	7.5	12.5	12.1	10.4	10.5
American Indian	0.9	0.8	1.3	1.9	2.2
Asian/Asian American	0.6	1.4	3.8	7.1	8.6
Latino/a	0.6	1.4	2.2	6.7	7.3
Other race	1.0	1.7	1.8	3.6	3.6
Multiracial	1.3	1.2	1.7	4.8	7.2

The report also highlighted several other trends:

• The proportion of students claiming no religious affiliation has increased, from 13.6 to 19.1 percent between 1966 and 2006. The fraction of Roman Catholics remained stable, but the share of Jews and Protestants decreased. There was a similar decline among their parents.
• About two-thirds of students today socialize with people of another race or ethnicity in high school, and a similar percentage expect to do so in college. This contrasts markedly with students’ views on racism and their institutions’ obligation to foster interracial dialogue: A little over a third believe promoting racial understanding is “essential” or “very important,” down from its peak just after the Rodney King incident in 1992, while 19.1 percent believe to some extent that racism is no longer a major problem in society. In a departure of tone from the rest of the document, the authors expressed explicit disapproval of these trends, writing, “students’ personal goals and beliefs at college entry may be cause for concern.”
• While students are becoming more and more prepared for college work — in terms of the number of years spent studying certain subjects — gaps favoring men over women persist in the physical and computer sciences, but no longer in mathematics.
• Students’ self-confidence in academic ability continues to soar, with 68.6 percent considering themselves “above average” or in the top 10 percent of their peer group. At the same time, grades are continuing to reinforce those beliefs. Inflation has intensified in the past 20 years, with 24.1 percent of students — a record — reporting an A- high-school average last year. Higher grades are also more likely with more AP and honors courses.
• In a finding that’s not likely to surprise many students, tardiness is also becoming more common in the last year of high school. In the past few years, however, that has slightly reversed, due perhaps to increased vigilance on the part of college admissions officers fighting the spread of senioritis.
• The percentage of students applying to more than three colleges has almost tripled since 1967, to 56.5 percent. But it might not be as out of hand as popular media reports suggest: only 2.2 percent last year applied to 12 or more colleges.
• The importance of going to a college with a high reputation has remained virtually unchanged since 1983, according to responses, but rankings have factored in as increasingly important in making that determination. Still, only 16.4 percent of respondents found rankings to be very important in their overall decision.
• Students are becoming more polarized. Moderates are in decline, and more are labeling themselves as either liberal or conservative. Another interesting finding (which might surprise David Horowitz) concerns campus speakers’ freedom to express themselves: “Over half (55.1 percent) of conservative (and far right) students believe that colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers compared to only 28.5 percent of liberal (and far left) students. Thus, not only may some polarizing issues divide students, but the method by which they engage each other in dialogue concerning these issues may also be a point of disagreement.”

 

From Dartmouth College
Chance News --- http://chance.dartmouth.edu/chancewiki/index.php/Main_Page
Tutorial on Statistics (focus is on learning exercises and how to view media reports critically)

Statistical Guide to Poker
"A Physicist's Guide to Texas Hold 'Em," PhysOrg, April 4, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news94907470.html

What are the odds that poker can be explained by statistical physics, much the same as a variety of other complex systems? They’re pretty good, according to physicist Clément Sire of Université of Toulouse and CNRS in France, who demonstrates in a recent paper that many of the statistical properties of poker tournaments are universal. Sire’s model makes connections between poker and evolution, extreme value statistics and the physical model of persistence.

“In this Letter, we study a very human and futile activity: poker tournaments,” Sire writes in his paper, submitted to an APS Physical Review journal. His model quantifies the evolution of Texas hold ‘em tournaments, based on aspects such as the distribution of chips, the number of surviving players over time, etc. Overall, his results closely mirror those observed in real-life online tournaments.

“While human laws (such as bluff, prudence and aggressiveness) determine much of the individual outcomes of poker tournaments, these tournaments are ideal for statistical analysis because they are isolated systems—they don’t depend on outside factors,” Sire explained to PhysOrg.com.

While Sire’s model provides an accurate description of poker tournaments, the model also shares similar characteristics with other seemingly unrelated areas. For example, the physical model of persistence tells the probability that some random process never falls below a certain level. Or, in poker talk, the persistence model describes the number of surviving players (those that have not lost all their chips).

As Sire explains, the “decay rate” of players (as they lose their chips) is exactly the same as the (exponential) growth rate of the blind bets, which are bets that start off the pot of money at the beginning of every game and are therefore also the minimal bets.

This also means that the growth rate of the blind bets entirely controls the pace of a tournament, which in practice allows the organizers of a tournament to control its duration. The model shows that the total duration of a tournament grows only logarithmically (i.e. very slowly) with the initial number of players, which explains why the wide range of real tournament sizes (100-10,000 players) remains manageable.

“The model can also help poker players to evaluate their current ranking in a poker tournament,” Sire said. “For instance, if a player owns twice the average stack, he is currently in the top 90%. If his holding is only half of the average stack, he only precedes 25% of the other players.

“Consider a temporal random signal [such as the graph of a company’s stock]. Its persistence is the probability that it never goes below (or above) a given threshold,” Sire explains. “With my colleague Satya Majumdar, we have devised several ways to compute this quantity in various contexts, which decays exponentially fast, or as a power-law. Persistence has been measured in many physical systems, and has obvious applications outside physics: for example, what is the probability that Google's stock remains above $450 for the next year (certainly high, I admit)?”

Other connections involve biological evolution. Due to the competitive nature of the game, Sire found similarities with evolutionary models dealing with competing agents. Also, when analyzing the statistical properties of the chip leader (player with the most chips at a given time), Sire found the same phenomenon that occurs in the “leader problem” in evolutionary models. Namely, the average number of chip leaders grows logarithmically (i.e. very slowly) with the number of competing agents, or total number of players.

“Physicists are currently studying models of competing agents,” Sire explained. “Possible applications exist in the field of econophysics: markets, options theory in finance, decision making, rumor propagation, etc. Another application I’ve been involved in is evolutionary biology. One devises simplified models of the creation or extinction of species (or new genes). With my colleagues, we have shown that the number of preeminent ‘species’ generically grow with the total number of species, and that this result should hold in many contexts (for instance, the number of leaders of the Fortune 500).”

A third connection involves extreme value statistics, a physics branch that analyzes the probability of the occurrence of extreme events. In Sire’s model, some of the properties of the chip leader also display extreme value statistics: the probability that the chip leader holds a given stack is universal (and given by the well-known Gumbel distribution in physics.)

“Let us consider a random signal: for example, the stock of IBM, or the daily temperature in New York,” Sire explains. “Now let us look at its maximum in a one-month period. This is itself a random variable. If the initial random signal is only weakly correlated in time, the probability distribution of the (monthly) maximum of the signal takes a universal form which is independent of the precise nature of the considered signal! Recently, physicists have been interested in the maximum of strongly correlated variables, which can now take any form.”

As for finding the best strategies, Sire’s model doesn’t determine optimal playing decisions, other than general hints from observations, For example, the advice that “a player should be careful when playing bad hands if many players have already bet” is totally irrelevant, according to the model, as far as the global evolution of the tournament is concerned. However, the model predicts that there exists an optimal probability to go all-in (to bet all one's chips).

Sire notes that two famous mathematicians (e.g. Emile Borel and John von Neumann) have looked for optimal strategies in head-to-head poker, but prediction for tables with ten players including all-in events still presents a formidable task.

Citation: Sire, Clément. “Universal statistical properties of poker tournaments.” To be published.
(Currently at http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0703122 )

Statistical Guide to Political Poker

Bob Jensen's links to mathematics and statistics tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

"Enron Pays Out $1.47B to Creditors," SmartPros, April 3, 2007 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x57146.xml 

Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron and Worldcom scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm 

In particular, note the timeline at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#EnronTimeline 

Bob Jensen's Enron quiz is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnronQuiz.htm 

Student Loan Frauds
University of Texas campuses will no longer use “preferred lender” lists, which recommend certain lenders to students, the Associated Press reported. Use of the lists has become controversial because officials at some institutions — such as the financial aid director at the University of Texas at Austin — held stock or received payments from lenders.
Inside Higher Ed, April 18, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/18/qt

“Lenders Sought Edge Against U.S. in Student Loans,” by Jonathan D. Glater and Karen W. Arenson, The New York Times, April 15, 2007 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/education/15direct.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin  

At Indiana University in 2004, for example, Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest student lender, offered $3 million that the university could use for “opportunity loans” to some students if it left the direct loan program. Indiana left the direct loan program but said the $3 million was not the reason; Sallie Mae currently administers their loan program.

Bank of America, which won the University of Virginia’s student loan business, said in its 2002 proposal that certain possible incentives had “the potential to violate” federal law. The bank, which said such a discussion was normal in the bidding process, suggested that it discuss the issues with university officials “during the oral presentation phase of the process.”

All of this has helped give private lenders clear dominance of the $69 billion federal student loan industry. The lenders, who defend these practices, say they are winning business primarily because they offer lower interest rates than the government and often lower fees.

Advocates of the direct loan program say that it has been held back from offering more competitive rates and benefits, and that a very small percentage of students can take advantage of the private rivals’ advertised rates and incentives. They argue that private lenders cost the government vast amounts of money because they are subsidized and guaranteed against default.

President Bush’s budget reports that in 2006 for every $100 lent by private lenders, the cost to the government of subsidies, defaults and other items was $13.81, while the same amount lent through the direct loan program cost the government $3.85. The battle for dominance in the loan market has escalated as tuitions have soared and students have borrowed more. This is the context for many of the payments to universities and financial aid officials that have come to light as a result of recent investigations into student loan practices.

“What has happened is unbridled competition meets lack of oversight,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education.

Part of what is generating the competition is that the government runs two loan programs — and universities usually choose to participate in one or the other.

Until the 1990s, the primary program was the federal guaranteed loan program under which private lenders like Citibank, Sallie Mae or Bank of America made the loans to students. They were given a helping hand from the government, which paid subsidies to the lenders and guaranteed them against default.

Bill Clinton campaigned for president on the notion of expanding the federal government’s role as student loan guarantor into a more central position as the direct lender. The idea was that this would prove cheaper and simpler for students and be less costly for taxpayers because borrowers would pay interest to the federal government instead of to the lenders.

The program went into effect in 1994. The Democrats expected it to become dominant. But unwilling to be muscled aside, private lenders began offering schools and students a variety of benefits like scholarship money and lower interest rates and fees.

Tom Joyce, a spokesman for Sallie Mae, said, “The private sector program has better prices, better product selection, better service and better technology.”

For a few years after direct lending went into effect, it grew quickly. But as student loan volume has risen, climbing above $85 billion in 2005-6 from just over $30 billion 10 years earlier, the government’s share as a direct lender has declined, and now amounts to less than a quarter of the total.

Continued in article

"Shaking Up Loan Industry," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, April 13, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/13/ed

A statement released by the department late Thursday said that Spellings has asked Susan Winchell, the department’s chief ethics officer, to review “best practices” on its own financial disclosure forms to identify ways that the department might improve. Spellings also has directed that each financial disclosure form now be reviewed by at least two lawyers.

Last week, Spellings placed on leave Matteo Fontana, an Education Department official who works on student loan issues, after the New America Foundation reported that he had sold at least $100,000 in stock in the Education Lending Group, which owned Student Loan Xpress, a lender at the center of the current controversy.

It is unclear whether that sale (or the prior ownership) violated any laws or regulations, but the news about Fontana prompted calls from Democrats for tougher enforcement of loan rules by the department.

Financial disclosure reports for Fontana released by the department late Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Inside Higher Ed offered conflicting evidence on the extent of his stock ownership and sale and of his disclosures to the department about those assets.

In his initial filing in mid-December 2002, soon after joining the department, he reported owning between $1,001 and $15,000 in stock in Direct III Marketing, as Student Loan Xpress was known at the time, and an equivalent amount of stock in Education Lending, Inc., then the parent company of Student Loan Xpress. (A note written on the form by the ethics officer at the time said “Filer [was] advised to contact Ethics Division if ELG stock exceeds $15K.") In May 2004, his first full financial disclosure, covering the 2003 calendar year, he reported having sold between $1,001 and $15,000 in stock in both companies later in mid- to late December 2002. That could be read to suggest that he had sold all of his stock in both companies.

But in May 2005, according to his disclosure form for the 2004 calendar year, Fontana reported having sold between $100,001 and $250,000 in stock in Education Lending common stock in July 2004. There is no explanation of where that stock came from. The fact that Fontana reported the sale is likely to add to Democratic Congressional criticism about the Education Department, as Fontana’s reporting raises the question of whether anyone at the department took action based on the apparent conflict.

Late Thursday, Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate committee with oversight of education programs, issued a statement saying: “The financial disclosure forms filed by Education Department official Matteo Fontana during his time at the department raise grave concerns about the effectiveness and impartiality of the ethics process at the department. The forms show that department officials were aware that Mr. Fontana held a significant financial interest in a company that he was charged with overseeing. Any American can tell you that this is dead wrong.”

The statement from the department Thursday noted that “like many federal government employees, Department of Education employees may own stock in any company, including companies the Department regulates or with whom the Department does business.” The statement went on to elaborate: “The conflict of interest statute prohibits employees from working on department matters that will affect the companies they own stock in unless the employee receives a waiver or an applicable regulatory exemption. For example, employees are generally permitted to work on any matter even if they do own stock as long as their interest in the matter does not exceed $15,000.”

The department also announced that Spellings has asked for the resignation of Ellen Frishberg from the department’s Negotiated Rulemaking Committee on Student Loans. Frishberg, director of student financial services at Johns Hopkins University, was placed on administrative leave by the university after it learned that she had received payments from Student Loan Xpress.

Frishberg is the second person Spellings has asked to leave a student aid post because of the scandal. Spellings earlier sought the resignation of Lawrence W. Burt from the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Burt is director of financial aid at the University of Texas at Austin, although he too is on leave, following reports that he owned Student Loan Xpress stock.

The investigation of lender-college relationships has been led by Andrew M. Cuomo, attorney general of New York State, but it has prompted considerable interest among Congressional leaders as well. And there are no signs that the inquiries are winding down.

Reuters reported Thursday that the attorneys general of Connecticut and California are also starting probes of the topic, joining a previously announced review by the attorney general of Minnesota.

To date, most of the individuals implicated in the scandal — at least those working at colleges — have been financial aid officers. But on Thursday, a president joined the list of those being scrutinized.

Elnora Daniel, the president of Chicago State University, is a director and shareholder of a lender to which her university steers students, The Chicago Tribune reported. A Chicago State trustee is also chairman of the board of the lender, Seaway National Bank. Daniel told the Tribune that there was “no quid pro quo” in her relationship with the lender. Chicago’s other daily, The Sun-Times, reported, meanwhile, that Western Illinois University was abandoning an arrangement in which it received payment — called kickbacks by critics — from a lender it was recommending to students.

And Bloomberg reported Friday on a number of college officials — including the president of Morehouse College and the executive vice president of the University of Notre Dame — who collected pay or stocks from lenders at the time those lenders were being recommended to their students.

"College Administrator’s Dual Roles Are a Focus of Student Loan Inquiry," by Sam Dillon, The New York Times, April 13, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/education/13loans.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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

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

$2.2 Billion Alleged Accounting Fraud by Founder of Computer Associates
A special committee of the board of directors has accused Charles Wang, founder and former chairman of Computer Associates International Inc., of directing and participating in fraudulent accounting during the 1980s and 1990s. The committee's report, filed late Friday afternoon in Chancery Court in Delaware, is the first investigation that publicly ties Mr. Wang to what the government has described as a $2.2 billion accounting fraud. The committee recommended that the Islandia, N.Y., software company, which has changed its name to CA Inc., file suit to recover at least $500 million from Mr. Wang in costs related to his conduct, including a $225 million payment CA made to a government-ordered restitution fund . . . In a strongly worded statement, Mr. Wang said he is "appalled" by the "fallacious" committee report, saying it is based on the statements of "those who perpetrated the crimes at issue and then lied about them." Mr. Wang said he felt "personally wronged" by Mr. Kumar -- his successor and onetime protégé -- and called his own decision in 1994 to recommend him for the position that would eventually take him to the corner office a "major mistake."
William Bulkeley and Charles Forelle, "Directors' Probe Ties CA Founder To Massive Fraud Report Suggests Suing Wang for $500 Million; Evidence of Backdating, The Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2007; Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117649886174069499.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

The independent auditor of Computer Associates is KPMG.

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

Bob Jensen's threads on KPMG are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#KPMG

Tapping Those Hidden (Intangible) Assets

"Googling Growth," by Chris Zook, The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2007; Page A12 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117607363963063539.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

For most companies, reinvention of a core business doesn't have to involve such high levels of risk. Bain's research shows that nine out of every 10 companies that successfully renewed themselves in the past decade found the solution in mining their hidden assets -- assets they already possessed but had failed to tap for maximum growth potential.

The classic example is Apple. The iPod drew on the company's well-known skills in software, user-friendly product design, and imaginative marketing -- all underexploited capabilities. Samsung focused on a different set of hidden assets -- underinvested business lines -- to redefine its core. It shut down or sold 76 businesses, thereby freeing up resources to invest in its lagging but promising semiconductor and consumer-electronics businesses. Today, Samsung is a leader in memory chips and mobile phones as well as in high-end television sets and flat-screen monitors.

Shouldn't well-run companies already be using all of their valuable assets? In fact, large, complex organizations always acquire more capabilities and businesses than they can focus on at any one time. But when a company needs to redefine its core, it often discovers that secondary assets and capabilities of the past suddenly assume center stage, and are the key to new growth.

One way to open management's eyes to the hidden assets in its midst is to identify the richest hunting grounds. Bain's three-year study of transformation showed that assets yielding the best results are usually camouflaged as hidden business platforms, untapped customer insights, and underused capabilities.

Continued in article

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

From The Washington Post on April 12, 2007

How many iPods has Apple sold so far?

A. 2 million
B. 50 million
C. 100 million
D. 300 million

From The Washington Post on April 13, 2007

What will be the screen thickness of Sony's planned organic electroluminescent TV?

A. 2 millimeters
B. 3 millimeters
C. 5 millimeters
D. 8 millimeters