It's a chilly ten degrees above freezing this morning and the coldest beginning of July that I can remember. I guess I picked the best week of the summer to fly to Irvine, California on a consulting trip.

Things seem to come to a head at the end of June. The June 30 edition of New Bookmarks is available at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Booknew.htm . The June 30 edition of Fraud Updates is available at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm . And you are reading the July 2 edition of Tidbits.

As the Fourth of July Independence Day holiday approaches, I selected the above picture snapped from our driveway.  In spite of the political divisiveness that separates our people, this is still a wonderful place to live, work, and retire. Actually 231 is relatively young for a nation still experimenting with freedom and democracy.

God bless our beloved country on the 231st anniversary of its birth.
Peggy Noonan

Inspirational and Patriotic Music --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm#Inspirational

America, Why I Love Her (John Wayne) --- http://sagebrushpatriot.com/america.htm

American Heroes --- http://www.iwo.com/heroes.htm

Tidbits on July 2, 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

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

Museum of Media History --- http://www.broom.org/epic/ols-master.html

Sam the Bellhop --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C96Hc1m7pRU

Press One for English (Country Swing) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJfS1v-fU0

Ted Kennedy breaks out into song (in Spanish) on Latino radio program --- Click Here

The Goat Lady (not humor) --- http://mfile.akamai.com/21772/wmv/gannett.download.akamai.com/21772/streaming/wmv/hancockportraits.asx

"Video: A Virtually New Web: The collision of virtual reality and mapping brings excitement to cyberspace," by Jason Pontin,MIT's Technology Review, July/August, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18976/ 

"Holographic Video for Your Home:  A compact optical setup that produces 3-D video could make holography much less expensive," by Kate Greene, MIT's Technology Review, July/August, 2007 ---  http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18868/

From Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, July 2007 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jul2007/news_web.htm

June 26, 2007 Message from Bob Blystone

From Purdue University
Computer Animation of the 9/11 Collapse of the World Trade Center ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH02Eh44yUg 

The URL is from Purdue Univ. and is a computer animation of what happened when one of the aircraft impacted the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. It is 5 minutes long and gives an idea of how the structural failure of the building occurred.

The visualization is striking in its CIS and Engineering depictions. Yet, it is so stark when one remembers that the animation can not deal with the lives that were impacted by the senseless act.

Bob Blystone

Find Sounds --- http://www.findsounds.com/

How to Buy a DVD Recorder --- Click Here

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

Inspirational and Patriotic Music --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm#Inspirational

Hear Maican and his (symphonic) music on NPR's radio program 'From the Top' and in concert in Washington, D.C. --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11254902

Enthralled By Jazz, Joni Mitchell Sets New Moods --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11460541

Miles Davis: Miles' Styles (54 minutes) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10818946

It's hard to believe that Joan Wasser, the singer-songwriter behind Joan as Police Woman, is only now attracting widespread attention. She could easily be considered an industry veteran: She's performed with the Boston University Symphony Orchestra and collaborated with the likes of John Zorn, Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed and the late Jeff Buckley ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11527627

Press One for English (Country Swing) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJfS1v-fU0

These days, vocalist Cesaria Évora spends much of her time touring, performing for foreign audiences in regions as remote as Siberia. Yet she always returns home to her native Cape Verde --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11426375

Improvising with Keith Jarrett on 'Piano Jazz' --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11461504

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

Obama, Poet --- http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2007/07/02/070702ta_talk_mead

The Poetry Pages --- http://www.poetrypages.com/

Arcanum Cafe (for poets) --- http://www.arcanumcafe.com/

The Literature Network --- http://www.online-literature.com/

Planet PDF (free PDF eBooks) --- http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1

Octavo Digital Rare Books --- http://www.octavo.com/

Grimm's Fairytales (from National Geographic) --- http://www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm/

The Princeton Dante Project --- http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/
The Dartmouth Dante Project --- http://dante.dartmouth.edu/

Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter --- http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/contents.html

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll --- Click Here

American Notes by Charles Dickens --- Click Here

The Altar Of The Dead by Henry James --- Click Here

The Cask Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe --- Click Here

A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain --- Click Here

About half of those polled thought small businesses would be hurt. While some will offer insurance to compete for employees, others are daunted by the requirement to include part-time employees working 35 hours or more a week. “This is going to bring me to my knees,” said Deb Maguire, who runs Liam Maguire’s Irish Pub and Restaurant in Falmouth. Ms. Maguire said she had offered health insurance, costing employees $42 a week and her $45, but only about 10 of 30 employees purchased it. Now the others will enroll, she said, an expense significant for them and “just astronomical for me.”
Pam Belluck, "Massachusetts Universal Care Plan Faces Hurdles," The New York Times, July 1, 2007 --- Click Here 

Opium production in Afghanistan is soaring out of control, the annual UN report on illegal drugs says. The World Drug Report says more than 90% of illegal opium, which is used to make heroin, comes from Afghanistan . . . In the 1980s, Afghanistan produced some 30% of the world's opium, but now that figure has more than tripled, the UN document says . . . In the 1980s, Afghanistan produced some 30% of the world's opium, but now that figure has more than tripled, the UN document says.
Imogen Foulkes, BBC News, June 25, 2007 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6239734.stm
Jensen Comment
This leads me to conclude that the Taliban is really fighting so intensely for drug turf rather than ideology.

More than 200 professors have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion, the AP said, while thousands have fled the country.
Inside Higher Ed, June 27, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/27/qt

A 65-year-old St. Louis man is missing after Amtrak personnel, mistaking his diabetic shock for drunk and disorderly behavior, kicked him off a train in the middle of a national forest, according to police in Williams, Ariz. Police said Roosevelt Sims was headed to Los Angeles but was asked to leave the train shortly before 10 p.m. Sunday at a railroad crossing five miles outside Williams, reported KPHO-TV in Phoenix.
"Diabetic Man Kicked Off Train, Now Missing," Channel Six News, June 28, 2007 --- http://www.theindychannel.com/news/13588607/detail.html
Jensen Comment
But do not fear for that he will stay lost. There are 152,623 attorneys scouring the woods in search of him. For a starving lawyer this will be like winning the lottery.

In Alaska, bald eagles outnumber people and are not viewed with the respect they get in the continental United States.
Charles Homans, NPR, June 30, 2007 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11626226

Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue. Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.
J. Michael Waller, Human Events, May 8, 2006 --- http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14632

The National Council on Teacher Quality on Wednesday released a report criticizing most states for their teacher education policies. Among the criticisms: too few “alternate routes” to teaching for liberal arts graduates and others and insufficient monitoring of the academic skills of those entering and graduating from teacher education programs. Most of the criticisms are similar to those made in previous reports — and are of the sort that teacher ed groups say are outdated. The new report provides state by state analysis in addition to national summary data.
Inside Higher Ed, June 28, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/28/qt

Roll Call on the June 28, 2007 immigration bill in the U.S. Senate --- Click Here

"American Decadence—Part 1 of 4:  The Characteristics of an Uncivilized People," by Reginald Firehammer, The Autonomist, June 2007 --- http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article297.php

The war in Iraq? Opinion within the London newsrooms was overwhelmingly opposed to military action from the start and has never wavered since. Man-made climate change? The BBC has jettisoned all semblance of impartiality on the issue; it now openly campaigns with a constant stream of scare stories. The Arab-Israeli conflict? The BBC's sympathies are firmly on the side of the Palestinians, who, having achieved the status of permanent victims, escape skeptical examination of their actions and motives.
Robin Aitken, "A Biased Look in the Mirror," The Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2007 --- Click Here

"An Academic Hijacking," by Alan M. Dershowitz, The Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2007; Page A13 --- Click Here

Anti-Israel sentiment among left-wing academics, journalists, and politicians in Britain is politically correct and relatively uncontroversial (as is anti-American sentiment). Several years earlier, a petition to boycott several Israeli universities initially passed but was later rescinded, and the British National Union of Journalists has also voted to boycott Israeli products. At about the same time, a British academic journal fired two of its board members apparently because they were Israeli Jews. Some popular British political leaders, most notoriously, London's Mayor "Red Ken" Livingstone, have made anti-Israel statements that border on anti-Semitism, in one instance comparing a Jewish journalist to a Nazi "war criminal."

Many of the academics who have been pushing the boycott most energetically are members of hard-left socialist-worker groups. These radicals devote more time and energy to international issues than to the domestic welfare of their own members, who have suffered a serious decline in salary and working conditions. Their pet peeve, sometimes it appears their only peeve, is the Israeli occupation -- not of the West Bank and, before its return, of Gaza but rather of all of Palestine, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. These are not advocates of the two-state solution, but of a one-state dissolution of Israel, with the resulting state being controlled by Hamas.

In a world in which dissident academics are murdered in Iran, tortured in Egypt, imprisoned in China and fired in many other parts of the world, the British Union decided to boycott only academics from a country with as much academic freedom as in Britain and far more academic freedom -- and more actual academic dissent -- than in any Arab or Muslim country. Indeed, Arabs have more academic (and journalistic) freedom in Israel, even in the West Bank, than in any Arab or Muslim nation.

But these union activists couldn't care less about academic freedom, or any other kind of freedom for that matter. Nor do they care much about the actual plight of the Palestinians. If they did, they would be supporting the Palestinian Authority in its efforts to make peace with Israel based on mutual compromise, rather than Hamas in its futile efforts to destroy Israel as well as the PA.

What they care about -- and all they seem to care about -- is Israel, which they despise, without regard to what the Jewish state actually does or fails to do. The fact that this boycott effort is being undertaken at precisely the time when Israel has ended the occupation of Gaza and is reaching out to the PA, and even to Syria, in an effort to make peace proves that the boycott is not intended to protest specific Israeli policies or actions, but rather to delegitimize and demonize Israel as a democratic Jewish nation. One union activist said on a BBC radio show that "Israel is worse than Stalinist Russia."

The boycotters know that Israel, without oil or other natural resources, lives by its universities, research centers and other academic institutions. After the U.S., Israeli scientists hold more patents than any nation in the world, have more start-up companies listed on Nasdaq, and export more life-saving medical technology.

Continued in article

Opposition continues to grow to the push by leaders of Britain’s faculty union to have professors there boycott academics and universities in Israel. The Guardian reported that faculty members at the University of Oxford are demanding a full vote on the issue. Support for the boycott has generally been strongest at smaller conclaves of faculty leaders, and universitywide votes have suggested that a majority of professors oppose the boycott. On the other side of the pond, the Association of American Universities is the latest group to condemn the boycott. A statement issued Friday said on behalf of its 62 research universities in the United States and Canada said: “Academic boycotts are inimical to the free exchange of ideas that is essential to academic freedom. Members of the academic profession should seek to preserve academic freedom, not restrict it.”
Inside Higher Ed, July 2, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/02/qt

The story of a 6-year-old Afghan boy who says he thwarted an effort by Taliban militants to trick him into being a suicide bomber provoked tears and anger at a meeting of tribal leaders.
"Taliban tricked me into wearing bomb, boy says," MSNBC, June 25, 2007 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19420772/

To many  left-wing British professors and media reporters, Islamic terrorist bombers are their heroes if they kill Jews and Americans. The main difference between a terrorist and a combatant is that the terrorist targets innocent victims even if there are no enemy combatants present.
Letter to The New York Times on June 28, 2007 from a grieving father named Arnold Roth

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/015906.shtml 

Today's New York Times carries a (highly favorable) review of a film called "Hot House" that goes inside Israeli prisons and examines the lives of Palestinian prisoners. We're not recommending the film or the review. But we do want to share our feelings with you about the beaming female face that adorns the article. You can see it here http://tinyurl.com/2wgy7g 

The film is produced by HBO. So it's presumably HBO's publicity department that was responsible for creating and distributing a glamor-style photograph of a smiling, contented-looking young woman in her twenties to promote the movie.

That female is our child's murderer. She was sentenced to sixteen life sentences or 320 years which she is serving in an Israeli jail. Fifteen people were killed and more than a hundred maimed and injured by the actions of this attractive person and her associates. The background is here <http://www.kerenmalki.org/Press/Press_Listing.htm>  Neither the New York Times nor HBO are likely to give even a moment's attention to the victims of the barbarians who destroyed the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem and the lives of so many victims. So we would be grateful if you would pass along this link to some pictures of our daughter whose name was Malki. She was unable to reach her twenties - Hamas saw to that.

Though she was only fifteen years old when her life was stolen from her and from us, we think Malki was a beautiful young woman, living a beautiful life. We ask your help so that other people - far fewer than the number who will see the New York Times, of course - can know about her. Please ask your friends to look at the pictures - some of the very few we have - of our murdered daughter. They are at http://www.kerenmalki.org/photo.htm 

The police phoned to the Roth home immediately after the mourning week (the shiva) was over to say they had found Malki's cell phone in the wreckage of the Sbarro restaurant. Its ballistic nylon holder was shredded by the nails and other shrapnel; a nail and a fragment are at the right of the phone in this photo. On the phone itself, Malki had written: "Assur ledaber lashon harah"; a reminder (in Hebrew) to herself that it is improper to speak ill of other people.

We will not yield, we will not be intimidated,'' he said in an interview with BBC television, after his government raised the national security level to "critical'' following the attacks. He said terrorism "can never be justified as an act of faith'."
The Harald Sun quoting Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown on July 1, 2007 following three botched car bombing attacks in London and Glasgow.

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.
Sir Winston Churchill

Several conflicts of various intensities are raging in the Middle East. But a bigger war, involving more states--Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the Palestinian Authority and perhaps the United States and others--is growing more likely every day, beckoned by the sense that America and Israel are in retreat and that radical Islam is ascending.
Joshua Muravichk, "Winds of War:  Iran is making a mistake that may lead the Middle East into a broader conflict," The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010256

Question
What recent documentary did Corporation for Public Broadcasting fund but refuse to air?
More importantly, why did PBS refuse to air the documentary?

"Liberals vs. Free Speech," by Jack Kelly, Real Clear Politics, June 26, 2007 --- Click Here

Are there moderate Muslims? And if there are, why aren't they speaking out against the beheaders and the suicide bombers?

A lot of people ask those questions. Canadian filmmaker Martyn Burke set out to answer them. He made a documentary. "Islam vs. Islamist," which was financed in part by a $675,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Mr. Burke hired journalists who reported from Denmark, France, Canada and the United States. There are a great many moderate Muslims, they found, but they don't speak out because they are intimidated by threats of coercion, ostracism and physical violence from the Islamists in their communities.

Mr. Burke's findings are important, but this column is about why the Public Broadcasting System chose not to air his documentary.

PBS had two objections, Mr. Burke told Bill Steigerwald of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The first was that Mr. Burke showed "favoritism" to those Muslims who don't want to blow up their neighbors.

"Basically, the attitude...was that the Muslims we were portraying as the moderates were in some way, in their view, not true Muslims because they were Westernized," Mr. Burke told Mr. Steigerwald. "They felt the Islamists somehow represented a truer strain of Islam."

PBS also objected to Mr. Burke's co-producers, Frank Gaffney, a former assistant secretary of defense, and Alex Alexiev, a former RAND corporation expert on Islamic extremism.

"They demanded that I fire my two partners, because my partners were conservatives," Mr. Burke said.

PBS is the beau ideal of many liberals when it comes to free speech. Their point of view is subsidized by the taxpayers. Other points of view are suppressed.

In another triumph for the liberal view of free speech (free for me but not for thee), the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled city officials may override the First Amendment if the exercise of free speech by some city employees offends the delicate sensibilities of liberals.

Some black Christian women who work for the city of Oakland, California produced a flier in which they said "marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values." This was treated as "hate speech" by the city government after another city employee, who is a lesbian, said she "felt threatened" by the sentiment expressed.

Defending marriage is now a firing offense in Oakland, where, however, city officials see nothing inappropriate about permitting gay rights groups to advertise "Happy Coming Out Day" over the city communications system.

Liberal intolerance of other than liberal opinions is behind efforts to reinstate the inaptly named "Fairness doctrine" in radio.

A think tank funded in large part by George Soros and headed by former Clinton aide John Podesta has noted with alarm that 91 percent of total weekday talk programming is conservative. Mr. Podesta attributed the gap between conservative and "progressive" talk radio to "multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system." He proposed new regulations to restrict conservatives and subsidize liberals.

But liberal talk radio is failing not because of "multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system." It's failing because hardly anyone listens to it. Expensive efforts like Air America with big stars such as "comedian" Al Franken flopped because the audience for liberal talk is tiny.

Talk radio is an interactive medium. There may be something in that format that is especially appealing to conservatives. But I suspect talk radio has become a conservative bastion chiefly because the broadcast television networks, two of the three cable networks, and a large majority of the nation's most prominent newspapers and magazines -- not to mention publicly funded PBS and NPR -- are in liberal hands. There are few outlets for conservative expression other than talk radio and Fox News.

Continued in article

Question
What's an advantage of memory failure?

Stanford researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging have discovered for the first time that the brain's ability to suppress irrelevant memories makes it easier for humans to remember what's really important.
Lisa Trei, "Forgetting helps you remember the important stuff, researchers say," Stanford News, June 6, 2007 --- http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/june6/memory-060607.html

For the first time, Stanford researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have discovered that the brain's ability to suppress irrelevant memories makes it easier for humans to remember what's really important.

"It's somewhat of a counter-intuitive idea," said Brice Kuhl, a doctoral student working in the lab of Associate Professor Anthony Wagner of the Psychology Department. "Remembering something actually has a cost for memories that are related but irrelevant." But this cost is beneficial: The brain's ability to weaken unimportant memories and experiences enables it to function more efficiently in the future, Kuhl said.

Continued in article

Question
What topic was so boring to these Chinese students?
Hint:  It wasn't international accountancy

It was like watching a man try to swim up a waterfall. Professor Tao Xiuao cracked jokes, told stories, projected a Power Point presentation on a large video screen. But his students at Beijing Foreign Studies University didn't even try to hide their boredom. Young men spread newspapers out on their desks and pored over the sports news. A couple of students listened to iPods; others sent text messages on their cellphones. One young woman with chic red-framed glasses spent the entire two hours engrossed in "Jane Eyre," in the original English. Some drifted out of class, ate lunch and returned. Some just lay their heads on their desktops and went to sleep.
Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times, June 26, 2007 --- Click Here

Answer
It isn't easy teaching Marxism in China these days.
The subject matter is much more exciting for Harvard and Columbia students.
In Venezuela it's a required subject.

Bob Jensen's threads on financial and academic accountability are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Accountability

Open2 Net Learning from Open University (the largest university in the U.K.) --- http://www.open2.net/learning.html

Bob Jensen's links to online training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

I've mentioned this several times in Tidbits over the years, but the Financial Rounds blog reminds us once again about how to send huge files (i.e., too large for email attachments) for free over the Internet:

Need to send a large file (and you or the person you're sending it to uses an email service that can't handle it)?
Use DropSend or YouSendIt. The first service requires a small bit of personal info, but also offers some storage.
Financial Rounds, June 21, 2007 --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/

Question
Does Jim miss the point on why white collar crime pays even if you know you will get caught?

Answer
For most convicted felons, he probably is on target in his module below. But there are some who would commit the fraud even if they knew ahead of time that they're likely to get caught, because white collar crime often pays quite well. The judge even let Ken Lay's wife keep millions of his ill-gotten heist dollars --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays

From Jim Mahar's blog on June 27, 2007 --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/

Going to jail for a while..

 

Since it now seems that the Rigases will actually serve jail time for their roles in the Adelphia scandal, I thought it would be a good time to mention a very cool paper by Karpoff, Lee, and Martin that is forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics on what happens to managers who “cook the books”.
 

Short version? They burn.

Longer version: Karpoff, Lee, and Martin look at over 2000 (2,206 for those who want more precision) cases of SEC or Department of Justice “enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation” from the late 1970s to September 2006. They find that those managers who were responsible did have a price to pay above and beyond the drop in the value of their stock holdings (and options I would add!).
 

The price varies predictably with severity of crime and strength of governance, BUT overall it is quite clear the managers do pay a personal penalty. It starts with loss of employment--an amazing “93% lose their job by the end of the regulatory enforcement period” with more than fifty percent of those being fired.
 

But the fun does not stop there! Over a quarter are also charged criminally with about three quarters of those “[having] pled guilty or convicted.” If that is their fate, then on average they guilty party is “sentenced to an average of 4.3 years in jail and 3 years of probation.”

Moral: Contrary to what many people believe those at the top do pay the price for their indiscretions.

Bob Jensen's opposing view --- --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays 

Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnronQuiz.htm
Especially note Question 17

June 29, 2007 reply from Glen Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU]

In an episode of the old Alfred Hitchcock TV show, an accountant at the bank goes to the bank manager and says he stole $100,000 (remember this is a TV show from the 1950's). The bank manager said if you give the money back, he'll forget the whole thing. The accountant refuses. The manager calls the FBI. The FBI agent tells the accountant if he gives back the money, he'll be charged with a lesser crime. The accountant refuses. At his trial, judge said if the accountant gives back the money, he would get a lighter sentence. The accountant refuses, so the judge gives him 10 years in prison.

After 10 years, the accountant gets out of prison and checks into a hotel. The old FBI agent goes to his room and says that even though he is now retired, he is going to follow the accountant until gets the $100,000 back and closes the case. The accountant points to a suitcase and says the $100,000 is there and that the FBI agent can take it. The FBI agent leaves with the money.

In the next scene the accountant is on a cruise ship, drinking Champaign, and talking with other passengers. The passengers were talking about how they made their money. One made it in real estate; another said sales. Then they asked the accountant how he made his money. His answer: compound interest.

An interesting ranking of best places to work in IT
Eight colleges and universities made Computerworld’s 2007 list of the best places to work in information technology. Colleges on the list and their ranks among the top 100 are: University of Miami (2), University of Pennsylvania (8), Cornell University (40), Miami Dade College (65), Temple University (67), Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix (73), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (93), and Creighton University (95).
Inside Higher Ed, June 26, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/26/qt

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
Author unknown

Question
What do Felice's cats have in common with the students from the worst high schools in America?

Normally, my cats leave fur and fur balls in their wake as signs that they are alive and well. Occasionally, I will see them stampeding down the hall after an unsuspecting moth that inadvertently flew through an open door. A few weeks ago, I watched as ButtercupOfTunafish sat by my closed front door, waiting patiently while a scorpion pushed its way through the tight seal into our cool, air-conditioned home; then she smashed it. However, since the release of the Cat Challenge List, my cats have been hiding under beds. They are depressed and embarrassed because their score was too low to make the list.
Felice Pager, "The 100 "Best" High Schools in America - The View from the Litter Box," The Irascible Professor, June 24, 2007 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-06-25-07.htm
Jensen Comment
The problem in this analogy is that none of Felice's cats can read, write, or calculate the solution to 367/5. In that respect her cats resemble students form the 100 worst high schools in America. Newsweek Magazines listing of the 100 best high schools can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7761678/site/newsweek/

Question
What does Walt Mossberg think about the Ask3D search engine?

But Ask's new system, called "Ask3D," is a much bolder and better advance in unifying different kinds of results and presenting them in a more effective manner. It shows, once again, that Ask places a higher priority than its competitors do on making search results easy to navigate and use. Both new systems are now the defaults on the search sites. You don't have to do anything special to use them. Indeed, Google's change is so subtle you may not even notice it for some searches.
Walter S. Mossberg, "Ask.com Takes Lead In Designing Display Of Search Results," The Wall Street Journal,  June 28, 2007; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118298543501150751.html

Ask.com --- http://www.ask.com/

Bob Jensen's search helpers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm

"PowerPoint Turns 20, As Its Creators Ponder a Dark Side to Success," by Lee Gomes, The Wall Street Journal,  June 20, 2007; Page B1 --- Click Here

One of the most elegant, most influential and most groaned-about pieces of software in the history of computers is 20 years old. There won't be a lot of birthday celebrations for PowerPoint; the program is one the world loves to mock almost as much as it loves to use.

While PowerPoint has served as the metronome for countless crisp presentations, it has also allowed an endless expanse of dimwit ideas to be dressed up with graphical respectability. And not just in conference rooms, but also in the likes of sixth-grade book reports and at PowerPointSermons.com.

As it happens, what might be called the downside of the culture of PowerPoint is something that bemuses, concerns and occasionally appalls PowerPoint's two creators as much as it does everyone else.

Robert Gaskins was the visionary entrepreneur who in the mid-1980s realized that the huge but largely invisible market for preparing business slides was a perfect match for the coming generation of graphics-oriented computers. Scores of venture capitalists disagreed, insisting that text-based DOS machines would never go away.

With major programming done by Dennis Austin, an old chum, PowerPoint 1.0 for Macs came out in 1987. Later that year, Microsoft bought the company for $14 million, its first acquisition, and three years later a Windows version followed.

Gaskins and Mr. Austin, now 63 and 60, respectively, reflected on PowerPoint's creation and its current omnipresence in an interview last week. They are intensely proud of their technical and strategic successes. But to a striking degree, they aren't the least bit defensive about the criticisms routinely heard of PowerPoint. In fact, the best single source of PowerPoint commentary, both pro and con, (including a rich vein of Dilbert cartoons) can be found at RobertGaskins.com, his personal home page.

Perhaps the most scathing criticism comes from the Yale graphics guru Edward Tufte, who says the software "elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch." He even suggested PowerPoint played a role in the Columbia shuttle disaster, as some vital technical news was buried in an otherwise upbeat slide.

No quarrel from Mr. Gaskins: "All the things Tufte says are absolutely true. People often make very bad use of PowerPoint."

Mr. Gaskins reminds his questioner that a PowerPoint presentation was never supposed to be the entire proposal, just a quick summary of something longer and better thought out. He cites as an example his original business plan for the program: 53 densely argued pages long. The dozen or so slides that accompanied it were but the highlights.

Since then, he complains, "a lot of people in business have given up writing the documents. They just write the presentations, which are summaries without the detail, without the backup. A lot of people don't like the intellectual rigor of actually doing the work."

One of the problems, the men say, is that with PowerPoint now bundled with Office, vastly more people have access to the program than the relatively small group of salespeople for which is was intended. When video projectors became small and cheap, just about every room on earth became PowerPoint-ready.

Now grade-school children turn in book reports via PowerPoint. The men call that an abomination. Children, they emphatically agree, need to think and write in complete paragraphs.

Still, the men don't appreciate PowerPoint being blamed for crimes it didn't commit. Mr. Gaskins studied a vast collection of presentations before designing the program. Bullet points, he says, existed long before PowerPoint.

While the two certainly know how to use PowerPoint, neither consider themselves true power users. They don't even know many of the advanced features it has come to sport. They also have no patience with cubicle warriors who, in the guise of doing actual work, spend endless hours fiddling with fonts. And they like telling the joke that the best way to paralyze an opposition army is to ship it PowerPoint and, thus, contaminate its decision making, something some analysts say has happened at the Pentagon.

Both left Microsoft in the 1990s and now pursue personal projects. Mr. Austin attended every day of last week's Apple developer conference, keeping up with the kids. While the two agree there is probably room for a PowerPoint-like program for building high-end Web sites, neither has any desire to create it.

Not being the self-promoting type, neither of the men are particularly bothered about being much less famous than their creation. Whenever they do tell a stranger what they did in life, they usually hear how much the person can't live without the program.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment and Question
I always viewed PowerPoint as largely a rip-off of earlier presentation software. Can you name at least three of presentation software packages that preceded PowerPoint?
Answers:  See http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/215ach03.pdf

"What's wrong with PowerPoint--and how to fix it," by David Coursey, Executive Editor, AnchorDesk September 10, 2003 --- http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2914637,00.html 
(Thank you Ed Scribner for pointing to this link.)

PowerPoint and Other Teaching Helpers (Socratic Dialogue Gives Way to PowerPoint) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#PowerPointHelpers

June 26, 2007 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]

Bob, my memory might be failing me, but why is everyone claiming that PowerPoint was the "groundbreaking" "innovated" presentation software? I distinctly remember using something called "Harvard Graphics" to produce mylar transparencies (for overhead projectors) on a four-pen color plotter, when I was in the business world back in 1986.

Of course, we didn't have LCD projectors back in those days, but to be honest, I don't believe they had them in 1987 when PowerPoint supposedly came out, either.

I am not sure, and I very well may be mistaken, but I believe there was also a product that ran on HP machines under CP/M, or perhaps early MS-DOS. I was using a Hewlett-Packard HP-150C with an HP-plotter to put together color slides for a presentation I did in Los Angeles in early 1987, and I had been using the product for several months at the time. I also remember several people in our office using Harvard Graphics on an Apple MacIntosh in 1986.

But if my memory is still functioning, Harvard Graphics did essentially the exact same thing that PowerPoint does: it allowed you to create "slides" containing text, bullet points, graphics, pictures, charts, etc., it allowed you to add colors, backgrounds, etc. So, ... why has everyone forgotten this product? I don't even see it mentioned anymore.

Does anyone remember a product that came out in the late 1980's called Toolbook? Or how about Lotus Freelance? I believe all the products were direct replacements for (or were directly replaced by, to be more accurate) PowerPoint. Ahhhh, I guess the present generation doesn't care much about history...

David Fordham
(a former user of CP/M, MS-DOS, and a still-living RPG-II programmer)

June 26, 2007 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi David,

Actually the seminal contribution in my viewpoint was software for Apple Computers called HyperCard. This was followed by HyperWriter, TookBook, Authorware, ScriptX, Harvard Graphics, PowerPoint, Freelance, Astound, etc. ---

There is a distinction between strictly presentation software versus course management software (e.g., Authorware and ToolBook) that also had presentation features. For the history of these various products go to http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/215ach03.pdf 

Most all of this software is dead or dying by now. Many were built with programming codes not suited for the the Internet that became wildly popular after the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989/90. See the many dead hopes and dreams at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 

Richard Campbell reminds me that ToolBook is still alive with a new Version 9.0 out whereas Authorware possibly will be dropped completely by Adobe. But the "new" ToolBook using DHTML is totally unlike the old ToolBook built upon a scripting language called OpenScript. Whereas OpenScript allowed course authors to be very creative, creativity is very limited under the new ToolBook. DHTML is just not good for creativity because it takes hundreds of lines of code to perform simple tasks. Users are largely limited to pre-programmed modules that stifle creativity. The new versions of ToolBook claim to have some creative scripting capability, but I have my doubts regarding efficiency.

The biggest failure was the failure in those early days to anticipate the popularity of the Internet. Most of those early packages like Authorware and ToolBook were coded in languages that were just not adaptable to Internet technologies.

I bought one of the early projectors that you laid on top of overhead projectors. The classroom had to be totally dark, and even then the images on the screen were awful. But then Model T Fords were not the epitome of comfort and speed. And there were flat tires about every five miles or less depending on road conditions.

Technology, like cars, had to start somewhere. But we seldom, if ever, look to Microsoft for the seminal contributions. Microsoft was adept and copying innovations of others. In fairness, however, by the time Microsoft got an MS Office product rolling, it was generally more full-featured than the competition. For example, Excel was certainly more full featured than VisiCalc ---
http://dssresources.com/history/sshistory.html 

Interestingly, a lot of the key strokes of VisiCalc are still built into modern day Excel. For example, the use of the "$" symbol to freeze a row, column, or cell in Excel is the same symbol used for such purposes in VisiCalc.

What's amazing about this technology is how fast it evolved since the Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989/90 following the first Internet networking in 1969 --- http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#World2

Bob Jensen

"Holographic Video for Your Home:  A compact optical setup that produces 3-D video could make holography much less expensive," by Kate Greene, MIT's Technology Review, July/August, 2007 ---  http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18868/

June 29, 2007 message from StudentsReview [administrator@studentsreview.com]

I was browsing for resources for prospective students and I found your webpage. ("Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks for Quarter 2 in the Year 2001" http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q2.htm )

I see that you link to Usnews and Xap, and I was hoping that you might consider linking to StudentsReview ( http://www.studentsreview.com/  ) as well.

StudentsReview has collected 50,000 in-depth college reviews, which it provides freely to prospective students. Students can perform personalized rankings, learn about majors, and read up on campus news/life from over 150 student newspapers. StudentsReview has been mentioned by the Washington Post and is listed as #1 in Google for "College Reviews".

Here is how a student describes us: "I am a senior in high school, and I think that your site is one of the BEST I have seen online. Since it isn't just the brochure perfect things you see from the school, I actually get a more realistic hold on what the colleges are like. [...] Keep up the amazing work~!"

Please let me know -- Anything that we can do to help out students is much needed! Beracah

Beracah Yankama
beracah@studentsreview.com
Director, StudentsReview
http://www.studentsreview.com/

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

June 26, 2007

• Wine May Curb Cavities
• Sex and Drug Stats in America
• FDA OKs Computerized Pillbox
• Drugs Cut Diabetes Nerve Damage
• Dietary Supplement Regulations

June 28, 2007

• 2nd HPV Vaccine on the Way?
• Short-Acting Insulin Not Short
• Stimulation May Cut Alzheimer's
• Permanent Makeup May Have Risks
• Global Warming May Hike Deaths

June 29, 2007 

• FDA Blocks Some Fish From China
• 4 Habits Cut Heart Disease
• Cerebral Palsy Kids Happy
• Fragile X Study May Help Autism
• Both Parents May Pass MS Risk

Adding folic acid to bread could help in the fight against depression
"A unique study by researchers at the University of York and Hull York Medical School has confirmed a link between depression and low levels of folate, a vitamin which comes from vegetables," PhysOrg, June 26, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102082201.html

U.S. Government Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) --- http://www.cdc.gov/

Excessive pressure to succeed can have dire consequences for middle school and high school students
A dramatic rise in mental health problems, increased cheating and pervasive stress characterize the lives of many teens, according to speakers at the fourth annual "SOS -- Stressed-Out Students" conference . . . No longer were they the traditional "problem children" from broken families and harsh upbringings; they were overwhelmingly upper-middle-class teenagers who "looked incredibly good on the outside, but, metaphorically or not, when you rolled up their sleeves, they were bleeding underneath."
Annie Jia, "Teenage fixation on ‘success’ bad for mind and spirit, according to panelists, Stanford News, May 21, 2007 --- http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/may23/sos-052307.html 

"AMA Considers a New Addiction: Video Games --- While noting the risks, it makes sense to also note the rewards," by Erica Naone, MIT's Technology Review, June 25, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/17628/

The American Medical Association (AMA) votes this week on a set of recommendations that caused a stir earlier this month by suggesting that video-game addiction might belong in the next edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders. Other recommendations include calls for parents to pay more attention to what games kids play and for how long, and calls for the industry to better regulate itself. The recommendations are part of a report by the Council on Science and Public Health with the subject "Emotional and behavioral effects, including addictive potential, of video games." The report singles out massive multiplayer, online, role-playing games (MMORPGs) as a cause for concern, saying that video-game overuse is most common in the 9 percent of gamers who play MMORPGs: "MMORPGs are simultaneously competitive and highly social, and provide interactive real-time services. Researchers have attempted to examine the type of individual most likely to be susceptible to such games, and current data suggest these individuals are somewhat marginalized socially, perhaps experiencing high levels of emotional loneliness and/or difficulty with real life social interactions. Current theory is that these individuals achieve more control of their social relationships and more success in social relationships in the virtual reality realm than in real relationships." Current evidence of video-game addiction comes from case studies and surveys that recognize varying symptoms of addiction. The report loosely defines overuse as "a constellation of behaviors observed in persons using the Internet to such an extent that it began to cause other aspects of their lives to become dysfunctional," and it compares video game addiction to pathological gambling. Anywhere from very few to 15 percent of players may overuse video games, according to the report, which calls for more research. In light of the danger of overuse and the well-known concerns about violence in video games, the report recommends that parents be sure that their children under 18 limit their "screen time" (video games, television, and the Internet) to one to two hours a day. Martin Wasserman, executive director of MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society, explains, "There are many tasks you have to learn in adolescence, and you don't have time to do that if you're playing seven hours a night." Continued in article

But then the AMA backs off calling gaming an addiction --- http://physorg.com/news102311722.html

Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side of education technologies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on edutainment and learning games are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theTools.htm#Edutainment

The Downside of Electronic Commerce and Technology:  Psychological Implications --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#Psychology 

"CDC Tracks Sexual Behavior and Use of Cocaine and Other Street Drugs in U.S. Adults, by Miranda Hitti, WebMD, June 22, 2007 --- http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/news/20070622/sex-and-drugs-in-america-new-details

The CDC today released its latest facts and figures on sex and drug use in the U.S.

The report shows that only 4% of adults over 20 have never had sex, and more than 20% of adults aged 20-59 have ever tried cocaine or other street drugs.

Data came from more than 6,200 civilians aged 20-59 who took part in government health surveys conducted nationwide from 1999 to 2002.

Using an anonymous computerized system, participants answered questions about their sex lives and drug use.

The resulting report, "Drug Use and Sexual Behaviors Reported by Adults, United States, 1999-2002," is posted on the CDC's web site.

Continued in article

The June 22, 2007 CDC report is linked at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/07newsreleases/druguse.htm

Can Extinct Animals Be Brought Back to Life?
Today the only place to see woolly mammoths and people side-by-side is on The Flintstones or in the movies. But researchers are on the verge of piecing together complete genomes of long-dead species such as Neandertals and mammoths. (See a brief overview of human genetics.) So now the big question is, Will we soon be able to bring such extinct species back to life? Researchers are divided over how they might try to do this and whether it's even feasible.
Mason Inman, "Mammoths to Return? DNA Advances Spur Resurrection Debate," National Geographic News, June, 25, 2007 --- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070625-dna-resurrection.html

A study confirms the importance of sexual fantasies in the experience of sexual desire
"Scientists of the Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment of the University of Granada (Universidad de Granada) have studied how some psychological variables such as erotophilia (positive attitude towards sexuality), sexual fantasies and anxiety are related to sexual desire in human beings," PhysOrg, June 27, 2007 ---http://physorg.com/news102156597.html

"One Nation: A cheer for these books about America," by David Gelernter, The Wall Street Journal,  June 30, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/fivebest/?id=110010279

1. "On Two Wings" by Michael Novak (Encounter, 2002). Michael Novak describes the nation's birth as it happened, not the way our aggressively secular society likes to remember it. Two wings lofted the American eagle into flight, writes Novak: Enlightenment philosophy and the nation's compact with "the God of the Jews," meaning "the God of Israel championed by the nation's first Protestants." Novak marshals impressive evidence, including the remarkable scene in September 1774 when a clergyman read Psalm 35 to the Continental Congress. John Adams described the scene to his wife: "It was enough to melt a heart of stone. I saw tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave, pacific Quakers. . . . I must beg you to read that Psalm." Novak's account may be ignored but will never be contravened. His book may change forever your ideas about America's founding. 2. "Fields of Battle" by John Keegan (Knopf, 1996). John Keegan is the world's best-known military historian because his books are alive with the sights, sounds, smells and feel of battle; they are as evocative as a fistful of fresh soil. In "Fields of Battle"--a series of related essays, like most of his books--he discusses his American travels, the battle of Yorktown, Confederate fortifications and Custer's last stand. His brilliantly lucid few paragraphs on the Wright Brothers' first flight are worth the price of admission. He explains exactly what knowledge the Wrights inherited and the "conception of genius" that they added. And he tells us (as a bonus) why the famous image of their first flight is "one of the most beautiful" photographs of all. The vivid clarity of Keegan's writing has a similar rare beauty. 3. "The Religion of Abraham Lincoln" by William J. Wolf (Seabury, 1963). This is one of the best (and shortest) of the huge and ever-growing pile of Lincoln biographies. William J. Wolf is a humble historian who stands back and lets Lincoln speak. The author doesn't try to resolve questions that Lincoln himself never answered (was he a Christian?), but he does show us Lincoln's evolving, ever-deepening faith in the Bible and the Bible's God, and the direct connection between Lincoln's faith and his conduct of the Civil War. Wolf also demonstrates Lincoln's tendency to understand Americans (God's "almost chosen people," Lincoln called them) in biblical terms. That a book about Lincoln's religious development should read like a concise biography is an eloquent fact in itself. 4. "The Two-Ocean War" by Samuel Eliot Morison (Little, Brown, 1963). If John Keegan's "Fields of Battle" is military history only in part, Samuel Eliot Morison's "Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War" is the thing itself, the best book I know about Americans in battle. Morison was a distinguished Harvard historian who joined the Navy and sailed into war just to write this authoritative history. His description of the battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942), where Japan's relentless advance was finally thrown back in confusion, is justly renowned. Wave after wave of heroic American flyers were destroyed. Virtually the whole air-strength of the three U.S. carriers on the scene had been used up when a lone squadron of dive bombers finally turned the battle around. Remember the "threescore young aviators who met flaming death that day," Morison urges, "in reversing the verdict of battle. Think of them, reader, every Fourth of June. They and their comrades who survived changed the whole course of the Pacific War." Little enough to ask. (But too much, evidently, for our schools to teach.) 5. "The Inheritance" by Samuel G. Freedman (Simon & Schuster, 1996). A beautifully written, strangely moving book. There are many striking chapters in this story, as the subtitle has it, of "How Three Families and America Moved From Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond." But the most striking of all recounts the 1967 antiwar march on the Pentagon--which Normal Mailer celebrated in "Armies of the Night"--from the standpoint of one of the young military policemen charged with facing down the huge, surging mob of demonstrators. Samuel G. Freedman describes the (generally) non-college-educated MPs who had been drafted and were grimly, bravely doing their duty versus the privileged, patronizing protesters who screamed hate, threw rocks and had no intention of doing theirs. It is an unforgettable account. Mr. Gelernter's "Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion" has just been published by Doubleday. He a national fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of computer science at Yale.

 

Forwarded by Bob Blystone
How do you tell between older faculty and younger faculty and students?
Older faculty (and probably older staff too) double space between sentences.

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Invest in a Sure Thing

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it Would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.

If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have had $49.00 left

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum Recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00.

Tidbits Archives --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

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

Three Finance Blogs

Jim Mahar's FinanceProfessor Blog --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
FinancialRounds Blog --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/
Karen Alpert's FinancialMusings (Australia) --- http://financemusings.blogspot.com/

Some Accounting Blogs

Paul Pacter's IAS Plus (International Accounting) --- http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm
International Association of Accountants News --- http://www.aia.org.uk/
AccountingEducation.com and Double Entries --- http://www.accountingeducation.com/
Gerald Trite's eBusiness and XBRL Blogs --- http://www.zorba.ca/
AccountingWeb --- http://www.accountingweb.com/   
SmartPros --- http://www.smartpros.com/

Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

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

Shared Open Courseware (OCW) from Around the World: OKI, MIT, Rice, Berkeley, Yale, and Other Sharing Universities --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Free Textbooks and Cases --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

Free Mathematics and Statistics Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

Free Science and Medicine Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science

Free Social Science and Philosophy Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social

Free Education Discipline Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm

Teaching Materials (especially video) from PBS

Teacher Source:  Arts and Literature --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/arts_lit.htm

Teacher Source:  Health & Fitness --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/health.htm

Teacher Source: Math --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/math.htm

Teacher Source:  Science --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/sci_tech.htm

Teacher Source:  PreK2 --- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/prek2.htm

Teacher Source:  Library Media ---  http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/library.htm

Free Education and Research Videos from Harvard University --- http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp

VYOM eBooks Directory --- http://www.vyomebooks.com/

From Princeton Online
The Incredible Art Department --- http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/

Online Mathematics Textbooks --- http://www.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.html 

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives --- http://enlvm.usu.edu/ma/nav/doc/intro.jsp

Accountancy Discussion ListServs:

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

AECM (Educators)  http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/  AECM is an email Listserv list which provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets, multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc Roles of a ListServ --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm

CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/  CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or education. Others will be denied access.

Yahoo (Practitioners)  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be anything  from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA.

AccountantsWorld  http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1  This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and taxation.

Business Valuation Group BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com  This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag [RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM]

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone:  603-823-8482 
Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu