Up close, lupin (genus Lupinus) are field flowers of perfection. In a a flower garden they are a weed that takes over other flowers. The Lupin Festival came to a shivering end in Sugar Hill. Now the yellow black eyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta and R. serotina) are taking over our outer field. It is truly wonderful to watch the flowers change in the wild throughout the summer. I like the wild flowers best because a I don't have to pull weeds in a wild field. All that's necessary is to mow everything down in autumn.

Not much new to report from Sugar Hill. The Fourth of July celebrations were frozen out with high winds, low temperatures, and driving rain. It's been a cold summer, but forecasters tell us that things will change this weekend even in northern New England. It won't matter much to me. I'm leaving on a consulting trip to Irvine, California where it's even hotter.

Tidbits on July 7, 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

Canadian Forces Paralympics Program (Real, I mean REAL, Heroes) --- http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/lf/English/6_1_1_1.asp?id=2078

Soprano Beverly Sills: A Silvery Voice, Silenced at 78
Watch a historic video of her on the Ed Sullivan Show --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11618782

Paintjam Dan Dunn --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIJtKxdRQzY
Too the great tune of "Georgia On My Mind" followed by "I Got a Woman" and others

Open Video Project --- Shadow Poetry --- http://www.shadowpoetry.com/ 

From The Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2007
Quartets Contend With Disharmony In the Barbershop
For 69 years, the Barbershop Harmony Society has worked to "keep the whole world singing" -- preferably in the style of unaccompanied, four-part harmony. But these days, the organization has its hands full just keeping itself together.
• Video: Clips from the Barbershop Harmony Society (This may not work if you aren't subscribed to electronic WSJ editions)

Al Qaeda finally speaks English (typical and scary propaganda) --- http://www.glumbert.com/media/alqaeda
Adam Gadhan The priveliged California rich brat raves as an official spokesman of Al Qaeda Al Qaeda speaks in his native tongue (English).
 

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

Soprano Beverly Sills: A Silvery Voice, Silenced at 78
Listen to some of her best recordings --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11618782
Carol Burnett Remembers Friend Beverly Sills --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11710174

From Jessie
Go Rest on That Mountain --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/restmtn.htm

Fountains of Wayne: Long-Distance Dedication (Humor Music) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9136191

From the Salzburg Festival
Mozart's 'La finta semplice' (three full acts) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11488099

A Paean to the Music of Summer of 2007 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11477724

Veteran Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer finished recording a solo album just before he died --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11713863

Paintjam Dan Dunn Video --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIJtKxdRQzY
Too the great tune of "Georgia On My Mind" followed by "I Got a Woman" and others

A music download site that was the poster child for U.S. anti-piracy crusaders and an obstacle to Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization has been shut down by Russian authorities, according to the U.S. government. The victory, however, was short lived: The same company behind Allofmp3.com has launched a similar site that resembles the shuttered service, provides the same legal disclaimers and sells songs at a fraction of the price of iTunes.
Alex Nicholson, "Russian Music Site Down, Sister Site Up," PhysOrg, July 3, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102700373.html

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

From the University of Pennsylvania
Online Books Page --- http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/new.html

Internet Resources --- http://www.internet-resources.com/writers/wrlinks-wordstuff.htm

Source Text --- http://www.sourcetext.com/

Book Crossing --- http://bookcrossing.com/home

Shadow Poetry --- http://www.shadowpoetry.com/

Salon Books (note especially the posthumous memoir from murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya gives readers a glimpse of the dark side of post-Soviet Russia in A Russian Diary) --- http://dir.salon.com/topics/books/

A Study In Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle --- Click Here

William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe --- Click Here

Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson --- Click Here

Pudd'N'Head Wilson by Mark Twain --- Click Here

The Fisherman and His Soul A Fairy Tale by Oscar Wilde --- http://www.artpassions.net/wilde/fisherman_and_his_soul.html

How Times Have Changed: Helping Her Wasn't "Convenient"
As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said. The June 23 situation, captured on the store's surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday. Police have refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation.
Roxanna Hegman, MSNBC, July 4, 2007 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19587242/print/1/displaymode/1098/

How Times Have Changed:  A Fuel Efficient Car Offsets Carbon Emissions of Marijuana Smoking?
Al Gore, the concert organizer and former U.S. vice president, today defended his son, Al III, after the younger Gore’s arrest for speeding and drug possession, applauding his use of the hybrid Toyota Prius to offset the carbon emissions of his smoking marijuana.
Scott Ott, "Al Gore Defends Arrested Son's Carbon Offset Strategy" July 5, 2007 --- http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2627
NPR's account of the arrest is at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11746613
The CNN version is at http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/04/gore.son.arrest.ap/index.html

How Times Have Changed:  Men Are as Talkative as Women
An article in this week's issue of Science blasts the popular myth that women are more talkative than men. The researchers found that women speak a little more than 16,000 words a day. Men speak a little less than 16,000 words. The difference is not statistically significant.
Richard Knox, "Study: Men Talk Just as Much as Women," NPR, July 6, 2007 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11762186
Also see http://physorg.com/news102865702.html

How Times Have Not Changed:  The Role Model for Husbands is Still . . .  Walter Mitty?
Study finds wives have greater power in marriage problem-solving behavior:  Men may still have more power in the workplace, but apparently women really are "the boss" at home. That's according to a new study by a team of Iowa State University researchers.
PhysOrg, July 4, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102698342.html

The Nazi-like indoctrination of small children in Palestinian Gaza continues, using a Mickey Mouse clone to instill hatred and loathing in toddlers that will last a lifetime. When protests worldwide condemned the use of the cartoon creature, Hamas responded by having it killed off-- by an Israeli! This is what those who want Peace Now should deal with; not fantasy scenarios where somehow surrendering land turns us in to friendly neighbors.
Naomi Ragen [nragen@netvision.net.il], July 1, 2007

The thwarted car bombings in London last week and the terror attack this weekend against Scotland's busiest airport were "completely justified" and likely the beginning of many more attacks in Britain, a prominent UK Islamist leader connected to terror supporting groups told WND yesterday. "There is no doubt whatsoever that there will continue to be attacks against the British government, its interests and the home front as long as we see the continued British and American occupation of Muslim land in Iraq and Afghanistan, support for criminal Israel, and draconian measures taken against Muslims in the UK," said Anjem Choudary, founder and former chief of two Islamic groups disbanded by the British authorities under antiterror legislation.
Aaron Klein, "More London bombings on way, warns Muslim UK Islamist leader claims Brits ready to carry out 'many attacks'," WorldNetDaily, July 2, 2007 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56469

Necessity has no law.
Oliver Cromwell --- Click Here

Hamas' purported rescue operation today in which kidnapped BBC reporter Alan Johnston was freed from captivity really was a "movie" staged by Hamas to endear itself to the international community and demonstrate it is capable of imposing order in Gaza, a senior Palestinian Authority official charged.
"BBC reporter's freedom 'really staged for movie'," WorldNetDaily, July 5, 2007 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56515

Al-Qaida's deputy chief called on all Muslims to join the holy war against the West. "May Allah pluck out your eye if you haven't yet seen that jihad is an individual duty," the transcript quoted al-Zawahri as saying.
"Al-Qaida No. 2 Al-Zawahri Tapes New Call for Jihad," NPR, July 6, 2007 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11746350

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy. By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology. Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers. And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.
Hassan Butt, "My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror," The Guardian, July 2, 2007 --- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330116751-102273,00.html
Jensen Comment
My information sources claim the current driving force for terror is really rooted in Syria, Iran, Hizbullah, and Hamas.

Medical syringes are fortunately made to save lives, not to burn them and blow them apart
The London bomb plot allegedly planned by a cell of doctors failed early last Friday morning because a medical syringe used as part of the firing mechanism caused a malfunction,
Richard Esposito and Jim Sciutto, ABC News, July 4, 2007 --- http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3345743&page=1

A group of 45 Muslim doctors threatened to use car bombs and rocket grenades in terrorist attacks in the United States during discussions on an extremist internet chat site. Police found details of the discussions on a site run by one of a three-strong "cyber-terrorist" gang. They were discovered at the home of Younis Tsouli, 23, Woolwich Crown Court in south-east London . . .
John Steele, London Daily Telegraph, July 5, 2007 --- Click Here

Princeton Economist Wrote These Warnings Before the Recent Terrorists Were Discovered to by Physicians
"As a group, terrorists are better educated and from wealthier families than the typical person in the same age group in the societies from which they originate," Mr. Krueger said at the London School of Economics last year in a lecture soon to be published as a book, "What Makes a Terrorist?" . . . "Each time we have one of these attacks and the backgrounds of the attackers are revealed, this should put to rest the myth that terrorists are attacking us because they are desperately poor," he says. "But this misconception doesn't die."
David Wessel quoting Princeton University Economist Alan Krueger , "Princeton Economist Says Lack of Civil Liberties, Not Poverty, Breeds Terrorism,"  The Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2007; Page A2 --- Click Here

He began poking around this sordid subject a decade ago when he and a colleague found little connection between economic circumstances and the incidence of violent hate crimes in Germany. Among the statistical pieces of the puzzle a small band of academics have assembled since are these: • Backgrounds of 148 Palestinian suicide bombers show they were less likely to come from families living in poverty and were more likely to have finished high school than the general population. Biographies of 129 Hezbollah shahids (martyrs) reveal they, too, are less likely to be from poor families than the Lebanese population from which they come. The same goes for available data about an Israeli terrorist organization, Gush Emunim, active in the 1980s.   • Terrorism doesn't increase in the Middle East when economic conditions worsen; indeed, there seems no link. One study finds the number of terrorist incidents is actually higher in countries that spend more on social-welfare programs. Slicing and dicing data finds no discernible pattern that countries that are poorer or more illiterate produce more terrorists. Examining 781 terrorist events classified by the U.S. State Department as "significant" reveals terrorists tend to come from countries distinguished by political oppression, not poverty or inequality.   • Public-opinion polls from Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey find people with more education are more likely to say suicide attacks against Westerners in Iraq are justified. Polls of Palestinians find no clear difference in support for terrorism as a means to achieve political ends between the most and least educated.

Why should we fear the Oods/Quds Force?
Senior Iranian leaders know about the operations of Iran's Qods Force in fomenting violence in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday, in some of the most direct accusations yet against Tehran over the chaos in Iraq. Military spokesman Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner said the Qods Force was also using the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite militia group Hezbollah to sponsor violence in Iraq.
Alister Bull and Dean Yates, Reuters, July 2, 2007 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070702/ts_nm/iraq1_dc_2

Iran's elite Quds force helped militants carry out a January attack in Karbala that killed five Americans, a U.S. general said Monday. U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner also accused Tehran of using the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah as a "proxy" to arm Shiite militants in Iraq.
Lee Keath, Associated Press, July 2, 2007 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070702/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq 

Pipe bomb explosion in Orlando, Fl. & Terror suspect nabbed in England
Fox News, July 2, 2007 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1859507/posts

Interesting Defense Tactic
Death row inmate Mark Dean Schwab is a "scientific mystery" who should be spared execution so he can be further studied to prevent other pedophiles from raping and killing children, his attorney said in a motion for clemency. Schwab, 38, was sentenced to death for the 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez of Cocoa. Schwab, who had recently been released from prison for raping another child, targeted Junny after seeing his picture in a newspaper.
Fox News, "Attorney: Convicted Killer Should Be Spared for Psychological Study," July 2, 2007 --- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287620,00.html
Jensen Comment
Since this is not in Texas, Mark will probably die in 80 or more years from natural causes without having been the subject of intense scientific study.

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
Phyllis Diller --- Click Here

The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here

Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails.
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here  

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here  

History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here  

I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend, than be one.
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here  

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here  

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here  

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here  

California town auctioned on eBay up for sale yet again By: Associated Press Wire Reports -BRIDGEVILLE, Calif. (AP) -- A Northern California town put up for auction twice on eBay is on sale again after the hamlet's latest owner committed suicide. A real estate agent handling the sale confirmed Friday that the tiny Humboldt County town of Bridgeville, population about 30, is on the market for $1.3 million. The picturesque but dilapidated village on the Van Duzen River gained international notoriety five years ago when its 83 acres were put on the cyber-auction block . . .
North Country Times, July 1, 2007 --- http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/07/02/news/state/7107130407.txt

Harvard University is so horrified by genocide in Darfur that it won’t profit from companies there — unless there’s a middleman.
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, July 2, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/02/harvard
Jensen Comment
In the world of both one nation's crude oil and Darfur investments, finding these items in the hierarchy of world markets is a lot like finding DeMorgan's infamous fleas --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeMorgan

Ohio State University has been trying to recruit E. Gordon Gee, its president during the 1990s and now chancellor of Vanderbilt University, to return to his old job, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Gee was popular in Ohio, and is also so at Vanderbilt, so popular in fact that when The Wall Street Journal reported on his extremely high compensation, most on campus said he deserved it. At Vanderbilt, Gee has put money and his personal recruiting skills into attracting top faculty members. Gee gave the Columbus paper a close-to-Shermanesque statement about the Ohio State presidency, saying that his commitment to Vanderbilt was “unwavering and unshakable.”
Inside Higher Ed, July 2, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/02/qt
Jensen Comment
I once heard President Gee state that, after leaving Ohio State's Presidency, it was nice to at last be making more than his university's football coach.

In 1993, a television ad featuring "Harry and Louise" -- a "typical" American couple dismayed by the Clinton administration's universal health care proposal -- helped to kill health care reform in the U.S. for the next decade. With the 2008 presidential election in sight, the debate has resurfaced, but are the prospects for universal health care any better today? In an ongoing study of health care systems spanning five countries, Arnold J. Rosoff, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics, has identified a set of factors that, in one combination or another, come into play when a country commits to adopting universal health care. This time, he says, one thing seems likely: Instead of a health care "revolution" in the U.S., change will come in increments.
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Knowledge@wharton , June 27, 2007 --- Click Here

Expressing frustration with the lack of a federal immigration law overhaul, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona signed a bill yesterday providing what are thought to be the toughest state sanctions in the country against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Ms. Napolitano, a Democrat, called the bill flawed and suggested that the Arizona Legislature reconvene to repair problems with it, but she nevertheless moved forward “because Congress has failed miserably,” she wrote in a statement. The bill requires employers to verify the legal status of their employees. If they fail to do so, they risk having their business licenses suspended....
Randall C. Archibold, "Arizona Governor Signs Tough Bill on Hiring Illegal Immigrants," The New York Times, July 3, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/us/03arizona.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Jensen Comment
This is all political show. About all this bill will do is add fuel to the fire of the phony document industry that's already thriving. Until the federal government gets serious about ID databases, this kind of legislation will never work. It might help somewhat to make English mandatory for employment, but a rare partnership between business owners and left wing liberals will never allow any legislation pass that truly limits employment for illegal aliens.

A hybrid scrub oak that looks like a tall, overgrown shrub in a Salt Lake City historical park is a rare and ancient tree from a time when Utah and the Great Basin were warmer and wetter. The branches of the 15-foot-high tree cover nearly an acre a few feet east of the Mary Fielding Smith house at This is the Place Heritage Park.
PhysOrg, July 3, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102689512.html
Jensen Comment
Now that the secret is out, some human nut will probably try to poison it as was the case with an ancient oak in Austin, Texas

The virtual collapse at Cantarell -- the world's second-biggest oilfield in terms of output at the start of last year -- is unfolding much faster than projections from Mexico's state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex....
Khebab, The Oil Drum, Jan. 3, 2007 --- http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2226

Racing Each Other for the Bottom
Pelosi's approval rating (July 2) has plunged 13 percentage points in California since March, from 52 percent to 39 percent, according to the survey by the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California --- Click Here
Her national rating was 34% compared to Bush's rating of 31% following the election in November 2006. By July, Pelosi's national approval rating dropped to 24%. A NBC/Wall St. Journal poll released June 13 has President Bush at 29% approval rating. Congress, however, is even worse off at 23%. --- Click Here
The lowest rating of a president in office in recent decades goes to Truman at 22% and Nixon at 23% when he resigned from the presidency following the Watergate scandal. Carter bottomed out at 28% and lost to Regan in his bid for a second term of office. Regan had a low of  35% during the Contra scandals. George Bush, Sr. plunged to 29% while still in office. Bill Clinton sank to 27% in 1998 and faced a serious threat of impeachment while in office --- Click Here

In August 1999 President Clinton granted executive clemency to 16 members of FALN, the Puerto Rican terror group behind some 130 bombings, including one that killed four people at New York's Fraunces Tavern in 1975. Even the ultraliberal New York Times (September 9, 1999) looked askance --- Click Here

To be sure, an American President has an absolute power to pardon. But that does not relieve him of the obligation to defend any and every decision to intervene in the criminal justice system. Indeed, this President's rare use of the pardoning power makes it all the more important for him to reveal his reasoning. Of more than 3,000 applications for clemency filed since 1993, he has granted only 3. The suspicion is rampant that his motivation was a political effort to please the Puerto Rican community that is crucial to Mrs. Clinton's hopes in the coming Senate race from New York.

Jensen Comment
Later, on his way out of office on January 21, 2001, President Clinton granted a controversial and record-setting astounding number of over 100 self-serving pardons that were truly unbelievable. Many pardons were for political favors, funding of the Clinton Library, and allegedly (in at least one instance) sexual favors. How former President Clinton can hold his head up after all those pardons I will never know.

A listing of those President Clinton pardoned when departing his high office is available from the U.S. Department of Justice at at http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pardonchartlst.htm
The listing also mentions crimes for which these criminals were convicted. Probably the worst instance was Clinton's self-serving pardoning of Mark Rich who was initially indicted by, then, U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani. Even left-wing newspapers and columnists rebuked Clinton for pardoning Mark Rich. In the tangled web of Washington DC scandals, the now-infamous Scooter Libby represented Mark Rich from 1985 until the spring of 2000. Libby claimed, somehow with a straight face, that Rich was innocent of tax law violations even while Rich was on the FBI's most wanted fugitive list ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich
Even then we should've learned that Libby lies and lies and lies. In May 2007, Mark Rich received an honorary doctorate from Bar Ilan University in recognition of his contribution to Israel and to the university's research programs. Can you believe an honorary doctorate for sharing stolen millions upon millions of dollars from investors and taxpayers in the U.S.? Billionaire Mark Rich can buy virtually anything but respect from the U.S. public.

Bob Jensen's A Glimpse of Tomorrow's World

July 5, 2007 message from Paul Anderson [pvanderson@APU.EDU]

Does anyone know of professionally produced DVD presentations of plant tours of some of the major companies.

Paul Anderson
Azusa Pacific University
626 969-3434 X3315

July 6 reply from Bob Jensen

Bradley University provides a rather long listing of virtual plant tours --- http://bradley.bradley.edu/~rf/plantour.htm 

For example, the BMW plant tour in South Carolina features the components of BMW models and discusses manufacturing framing and assembly --- http://www.bmwusfactory.com/build/ 

You come away wondering what humans in the future are going to do for jobs in a robotic manufacturing plant. Perhaps these plants will be totally automated once maintenance and repair robots can maintain and repair all of the "direct labor" robots. The last human in the plant might as well turn out the lights.

The discipline of management is in big trouble. There may not be any people left to manage.

The BMW plant tour certainly illustrates how Manufacturing Overhead has become so huge relative to the incredibly shrinking cost of direct (human) labor in modern plants. This is useful especially in cost/managerial accounting courses.

This makes me think that one day war, terrorism, and anti-terrorism will be mostly robotic. Unmanned aircraft will one day be sending rockets into unmanned "suicide" ground vehicles and aircraft. Suicide robots will rush into oil and battery recharge "cafes" and blow up themselves while the other robots having their morning "breaks."

Humans blowing themselves apart will be so decadent. Video games of today will probably be the reality of the future in both war and peace (e.g., automobile manufacturing and driving).

Where will the humans be found in such a world of tomorrow? They'll probably be inside heavily-guarded (by robots) compounds grazing like cattle at the foot of the Big Rock Candy Mountain --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rock_Candy_Mountain 

The best recording was from Burl Ives. Unfortunately, you can only get the first few bars at http://www.marysvale.org/brcm/song.htm 

Bob Jensen

Vehicles are getting smarter all the time, thanks to a combination of sensor and wireless communications technologies. Car manufacturers say that tomorrow's drivers will be assisted by a wealth of safety information generated by vehicles that can talk to not only each other but to the roadway itself. But with so much data often comes information overload. And that's why computing giant IBM has launched a project to help the driver get the right information at the right time.
"A Smarter Car:  IBM wants to improve communication between cars, roads, and drivers," by Clark Boyd, MIT's Technology Review, July 6, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19017/?a=f 

Bob Jensen's Glimpse of Heaven --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm
(No Robots in Heaven)

Question
What eventually happened to all who signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence?

See Mathew Spalding's answers in The National Review, June 30, 2001 ---
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTZiYWJhM2FhZTMyOWY1Mzk0ODQxNzBlNTFjZDJkNzg=

How do some professors spend their summers? (Some of these will break you up!)
"Summer Summary," by David Galef, Inside Higher Ed, July 3, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/07/03/galef

Strip away all the esoteric rhetoric about Modern Portfolio Theory, the Capital Asset Pricing Model and Efficient Market Hypothesis

Investment Markets:  'Alpha Hunters' war with 'Beta Builders'
Strip away all the esoteric rhetoric about Modern Portfolio Theory, the Capital Asset Pricing Model and Efficient Market Hypothesis and you'll see that Peter Bernstein's brilliant new book, "Capital Ideals Evolving," is the perfect combat training manual for these Alpha Hunters in a war worth over $200 billion annually to Wall Street . . . Wall Street's high-tech "Alpha Hunters" (benchmark beaters) are in an aggressive psychological war with America's 95 million Main Street investors, the "Beta Builders," average folks who are happy with portfolios that match the market averages....Every day the Alpha Hunters go into battle, and you are their enemy in a cunning psychological battle that targets your mind; distracting, misleading, softening, disarming you. Alpha Hunters want you defenseless, the better to control your behavior, get you acting against your best economic interests. Know your enemy: This book has no defensive strategies to help you Beta Builders protect yourselves against Alpha Hunters. No, it was written for Wall Street's Alpha Hunters on the attack. But you'll be better able to defend yourself knowing your enemy's strategies and weapons.
Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch, July 2, 2007 --- Click Here

July 5, 2007 reply from Brady, Joseph [bradyj@LERNER.UDEL.EDU]

Along these lines, the 7/2/2007 New Yorker had an article about hedge funds. Do hedge funds beat the benchmarks, after taking the high fees into account? Recent academic research shows that hardly any do. “Hedge Clipping”, John Cassidy.

Joe Brady
Lerner College of Business & Economics
University of Delaware

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

Question
What new technology reads emotions in faces?

A demonstration version of the face detection and analysis software package is available for download at: http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/bv/kognitiv/biom/dd.jsp 

"Happy, sad, angry or astonished?" PhysOrg, July 3, 2007 ---

An advertisement for a new perfume is hanging in the departure lounge of an airport. Thousands of people walk past it every day. Some stop and stare in astonishment, others walk by, clearly amused. And then there are those who seem puzzled when they look at the poster.

With the help of a small video camera, the system automatically localizes the faces of everyone who walks past the advertisement. And nothing escapes its watchful eye: Does the passerby look happy, surprised, sad or even angry?

The system for rapid facial analysis is being developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in Erlangen. Highly complex algorithms immediately localize human faces in the image, differentiate between men and women and analyze their expressions.

“The special feature of our facial analysis software is that it operates in real time,” says Dr. Christian Küblbeck, project manager at the IIS. “What’s more, it is able to localize and analyze a large number of faces simultaneously.” The most important facial characteristics used by the system are the contours of the face, the eyes, the eyebrows and the nose. First of all, the system has to go through a training phase in which it is presented with huge quantities of data containing images of faces. In normal operation, the computer compares 30,000 facial characteristics with the information that it has previously learned.

“On a standard PC, the calculations are carried out so quickly that mood changes can be tracked live,” explains Küblbeck. However, we do not need to worry about an invasion of our privacy, as the software analyzes the data on a purely statistical basis.

The software package is not only of interest to advertising psychologists; there are numerous potential applications for the system. It can be used, for example, to test the user-friendliness of computer software programs. The system monitors the facial expressions of the user in order to determine which aspects of the program arouse a particularly strong reaction. Alternatively, it can assess the reactions of the users of learning software, in order to establish the extent to which they are put under stress or challenged by the task they are performing. The system could also be used to check the levels of concentration of car drivers.

A demonstration version of the face detection and analysis software package is available for download at: http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/bv/kognitiv/biom/dd.jsp 

Bob Jensen's threads on Visualization of Multivariate Data (including faces) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm

Question
What's the latest ploy to funnel money from the West into terror groups?

Authorities say terrorist supporters have started using the global commodity trade to funnel money to local terrorist groups. The technique, called trade-based money laundering, was pioneered by Latin American drug cartels in the 1990s.
NPR, July 2, 2007 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11654606

Question
What is the new, and poorly named, eBay service called Kijiji?
Hint: It is not an Internet auction service

EBay, the Internet auction leader, has quietly introduced a new online classified advertising service in the United States. The new service, called Kijiji, pits eBay, based in San Jose, Calif., against a company it partly owns: Craigslist, the San Francisco-based company that manages classified ad sites for 300 cities, which attract 12 million new ad listings each month. EBay bought a 25 percent stake in Craigslist in 2004.
"EBay to Be Rival of Craigslist in Online Classifieds," The New York Times, July 4, 2007 --- Click Here

The "local and free classifieds site" called Kijiji --- http://www.kijiji.com/

Craigslist --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist

Combating Teacher Turnover
Teacher turnover (also known as teachers quitting their jobs) is becoming a critical concern for school and district administrators. Not only can it have a negative impact on student learning, especially in troubled districts, but it's emerging as a fairly major financial drain on districts in all regions, according to a recent study released by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF). So is there anything school and district technology leaders can do about it?
David Nagel, T.H.E. Journal, July 5, 2007 --- http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20900

Combating Corporate Takeover --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeover#Tactics_against_hostile_takeover

Question
What's unique about the new campus of Yale University?

It has been a long time since college biology meant simply dissecting frogs and squinting at paramecia under the microscope. Now the field is one of the hottest areas of competition among top universities, which are under pressure to hire big-name scientists and find space for their research. Yale took what it hopes will be a giant step forward in that race with its announcement last month that it would buy the 136-acre campus of Bayer HealthCare, which straddles the line between West Haven and Orange, Conn., seven miles from downtown New Haven and the university’s main campus. Along with the land, Yale will acquire 17 buildings that include about 550,000 square feet of laboratories, offices and warehouse space, as well as a day care center.
Karen Arenson, The New York Times, July 4, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/education/04yale.html
 

"Are American Scientists an Endangered Species?" by Marc Zimmer, Issues in Higher Ed, July 2, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/07/02/zimmer 

There is little doubt that the United States has some of the best science and engineering schools in the world. So why should we be concerned that the American scientist might become an endangered species?

The main problem is that too few Americans are enrolling in these programs. Although the number of students enrolled in science and engineering graduate programs in the United States has increased by 25 percent from 1994 to 2001, the number of U.S. citizens enrolled in these programs has declined by 10 percent during that period. Contrast this with India, Japan, China and South Korea, where the number of bachelor’s degrees in the sciences has doubled and the number of engineering bachelor’s degrees has quadrupled since 1975.

In the United States, 17 percent of all bachelor’s degrees are awarded in the sciences and engineering, while in China, 52 percent of four-year degrees focus on STEM areas. This trend is just as obvious in graduate programs: U.S. graduate degrees in the sciences make up only about 13 percent of graduate degrees awarded in this country. In Japan, South Korea, Sweden and Switzerland over 40 percent of the graduate degrees are awarded in science.

The numbers indicate that the American scientist population is not healthy, especially not in comparison to scientists in other countries. This will impact America’s ability to retain its place in the global (scientific and technological) food chain. What could be responsible for this decline? My money is on the changing habitat of the American scientist , climate change, and the introduction of exotic species.

Changing habitat. The number of males going to colleges and universities in America is declining. This has a significant effect on the number of scientists, since white males make up two-thirds of the scientific workforce but represent only one third of the population. Possible reasons for this — competition from computer games and the disappearance of chemistry sets. Fortunately the number of females entering the sciences is increasing; however it’s not fast enough to keep up with the disappearing males.

African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians comprise 23 percent of the American population and the percentage is increasing. However, students from under-represented minority groups make up only 13 percent of science graduates. They are an intellectual talent pool that is waiting to be tapped.

Climate change. The authority and autonomy of science is being eroded. The current administration is mainly responsible for this. How can we expect our youth to aspire to being scientists when NASA, NOAA and the Smithsonian admit to changing reports, graphs and scientific conclusions in order to appease the Bush administration’s ideas about global warming?

There are no modern Einsteins gracing the cover of Rolling Stone. Most Americans will have difficulty naming a living and influential scientist. Perhaps this is due to the decrease in popular science writing. In the same week as the Time/People/Fortune group of magazines laid off their three science writers they paid $4.1 million for the pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s baby.

Decreased biodiversity. In 2005, 29 percent of science and engineering graduate students were not U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Due to stricter immigration regulations after 9/11 fewer of these graduates were able to join the ranks of the American scientist — depleting the species of diversity and many talented individuals.

Introduction of exotic species. Pseudoscience is putting a dent in the reputation of the American scientist at home and abroad. A $27 million museum just opened in Kentucky. It claims to use science to prove that everything in the book of Genesis is true. Three Republican presidential candidates do not believe in evolution, not surprising since a recent poll showed that half of Americans agree, and think the age of the earth is in the thousands of years, not billions. Here again the authority and autonomy of science are called into question.

According to EndangeredSpecie.com, “One of the most important ways to help threatened plants and animals survive is to protect their habitats permanently in national parks, nature reserves or wilderness areas. There they can live without too much interference from humans.” Perhaps this could be adapted for the endangered American scientists: One of the most important ways to help threatened scientists is to protect their habitats permanently in laboratories, classrooms and museums. There they can live without too much interference from politics and religion.

Bob Jensen's threads on controversies in higher education are at
 http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/07/02/zimmer

How to Opt Out of Credit Card Offers That You Do Not Solicit

I received the following from a close personal friend who is also the Director of Instructional Services at Loyola College in Maryland.

I elected to opt out using the Consumer Reports Web address given near the bottom of his message. You have to feed in the information to get a form that you then mail in via the postal service. The form is automatically filled in from the information that you typed in earlier. All you have to do is sign and date the form.

I sent in a second form in my wife’s name.

By the way, have you ever had troubles with forms that seem to do things like automatically change your state initials in a list box? The trick to avoid this is to not leave your cursor in that list box when you submit an electronic form. Click on some open-ended box such as your name box or a comment box before submitting the form.

Bob Jensen

From: AECM, Accounting Education using Computers and Multimedia [mailto:AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU] On Behalf Of Barry Rice
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 1:26 PM
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Subject: Fed up with shredding credit card offers?
 

[The following was written for my family members, most of whom are not technically sophisticated. Feel free to share this information with YOUR family.]
 

I was just looking at a credit card offer before shredding it and noticed an 888 toll-free number where I could opt out of getting such junk mail. When I searched for more information about this in Consumer Reports, I found a free article that says you can "Remove your name from preapproved offers for credit or insurance by going to www.optoutprescreen.com  or calling 888-5-OPT-OUT. And if you're willing to deny yourself unsolicited catalogs and junk mail, opt out at the Direct Marketing Association site ( www.the-dma.org/cgi/offmailinglist )  ."
 

The complete article is at http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/personal-finance/news/what-if-your-identity-is-stolen-from-you-6-06/overview/0606_stolen-identity_ov.htm?resultPageIndex=1&resultIndex=7&searchTerm=opt-out .

 

The 888-5-OPT-OUT number above is the same one on the bottom of my credit card offer. However, I choose to use the www.optoutprescreen.com  Web site for my own opt out. It requires you to enter your name, address, Social Security number and date of birth. I am convinced it is safe to do so because of the Consumer Reports recommendation and because the above link takes you to https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t which is secure since it has the "s" after "http." The page also has information about how your information is secure.
 

Barry Rice

AECM Founder

 

_________________________

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! www.facebook.com/p/Barry_Rice/20102311

Bob Jensen's consumer helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm

"Catching Cheaters with Their Own Computers:  Anti-cheating hardware could keep online game players honest," MIT's Technology Review, July 3, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19005/?a=f .

Researchers at Intel are working on a system that could make it much harder to cheat at online games. Unlike current software-based anti-cheating technology, Intel's Fair Online Gaming System would be built into a player's computer, in a combination of hardware, firmware, and software.

Since the early days of video games, players have cheated. Some players tried altering the game's programming, for example, to give themselves benefits such as infinite lives or infinite ammunition. When large groups of people began playing shared games online, these cheats--which seemed harmless in single-player games--became a cause for concern, especially since many of them allow players to make devastating attacks on others.

Too many cheaters in an online game can destroy the group atmosphere that makes online gaming fun, says Mia Consalvo, an associate professor at Ohio University who researches cheating in video games. Although game developers and third-party specialists are always working to combat cheaters, the problem has continued. Some cheaters simply want to wield more power, while others are lured by prize money offered in tournaments.

Gamers can opt to play on servers that block those who haven't installed anti-cheating software. Such software scans a player's computer and alerts other players if it detects cheats. But anti-cheating software can only catch cheats once they become known: like antivirus software, it works by scanning for things that look like known cheats, and the list of cheats requires constant updating.

Intel's researchers say that their system would work without needing updates. By watching at the hardware level for cheating strategies, the system should be able to detect current and future cheats, says Intel research scientist Travis Schluessler.

For example, the system would go after input-based cheats, in which a hacker feeds the game different information than he enters through the keyboard and mouse. A cheater playing a shooting game might use an input-based cheat known as an aimbot, for example, to point his guns automatically, leaving him free to fire rapidly, and with deadly accuracy. Schluessler says that the Fair Online Gaming system's chip set would catch an aimbot by receiving and comparing data streams from the player's keyboard and mouse with data streams from what the game processes. The system would recognize that the information wasn't the same and alert administrators to the cheat. In tests, Schluessler says, the system ran without slowing the play of a game.

In addition to input-based cheats, Schluessler says that the system would go after network-data cheats that extract hidden information from a game's network, such as the location of other players, and display it to the cheater. Intel's system would also target cheats that attempt to disable anti-cheating software. Schluessler says the goal isn't to replace anti-cheating software but to strengthen and augment it.

Tony Ray, president of Even Balance, which makes the anti-cheating software PunkBuster, says this type of system could go a long way toward addressing continuing problems with cheaters. "There are a couple of things that can only be done properly with hardware," he says. "These are things we expend considerable effort in addressing with software ... Having real-time hardware verification that PunkBuster has not been compromised in memory after loading would go a long way toward thwarting even the best private hack authors."

Continued in article

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

Boys who play video games on school days spend 30 percent less time reading and girls spend 34 percent less time doing homework than those who do not play such games, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Julie Steenhuysen, "Video games rob reading, homework time: U.S. study," Reuters, July 2, 2007 --- http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKN0235135620070702
Also see http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070702/tc_nm/videogames_dc

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

Ubiquitous Computing: Shirts of Tomorrow Will Talk Back
Imagine wearing a smart T-shirt or a suit embedded with tiny electronics that can monitor your heart or respiratory function wirelessly. When dirty, you take it off and throw it in the wash or have it dry-cleaned.
"Smart Suit Doesn't Miss a Beat," PhysOrg, July 3, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102680259.html

Jensen Comment
One day our shirts will probably talk to each other without our even knowing it. Imagine teaching students' shirts in class long after they stopped paying attention.

Bob Jensen's threads on ubiquitous computing are at http://physorg.com/news102680259.html

From Jim Mahar's Blog on July 2, 2007 --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/

Reading list

I am not sure how it happened, but my book-picking skills have been in top form of late. So since so many liked the last list, here once again I have hit the jackpot with a series of really good books. So without further adieu, here are some of the books I am recommending right now:

Finance related:

The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Wow. Not only does Taleb explain what I have wanted to say (some things just happen out of the blue and by their very nature are unpredictable) but he does so in a funny, entertaining, and remarkably sticky. Taleb sets much of what we rely on on its head. For instance, you will never think of stats the same way—you will find yourself thinking more about tails (not like that;)). Not only does this way of thinking have huge financial implications (consider managing a large fund, you may be hedged against things you can think of, but not other Black Swan events), it also should have implications in many many walks of life. For instance, before BonaResponds goes to a disaster area, we concede we can not prepare for what we did not know. Rather than plan for an infinite number of eventualities, we plan to be flexible enough to adapt to whatever happens. The same is true in most businesses, armies, governments, and even many personal dealings. VERY good and important book. BTW Be sure to read the Prologue. Even if the rest of the book were not included, I would have been happy with my purchase BEFORE page 1.
 

The Economic Naturalist: in Search of Explanations for Every Day Enigmas by Robert Frank (Cornell Economist). Good stuff. Reminds me of Freakonomics, but I think I like this one's better (maybe because its Cornell, maybe because of the key role students played in the book, or maybe because the short essays better fit my limited attention span. For instance why are most beverage containers round but most dairy case items (milk and OJ for instance) predominantly sold in square containers. Or why do brides buy wedding dresses while grooms rent tuxes. Good stuff!

Non financial reading:

Innocent Man by John Grisham. Not sure where to start on this one. It is Grisham’s non fiction work on two men (the focus, and hence title, is on one of them) who were improperly convicted of a very violent rape and murder. In some ways it is this era’s To Kill a Mocking Bird or Black Like Me. Not From the treatment of prisoners, to the fallibility of police and courts, the book is eye-opening and disturbing. As an aside, I now see why when I was interviewed to be on a jury, one of the questions the lawyers asked was whether I had read the book.
 

Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley, and America’s Greatest Marathon. It is hard to imagine a time when US marathoners dominated, but this was it. The book tells the engrossing story of the two going stride for stride from Hopkington to downtown Boston on a hot sunny day in April 1982. In exploring these 26.2 miles, the book also gives much background on each runner and shows what led to the race and what happened afterwards that so dramatically changed the lives of each runner and the sport itself.

Enjoy!

Writing for Street.com, Scott Rothbout looks at 5 hedging technigues. The five include pairing, shorting, ETFs futures, and options.

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
Clarence Darrow --- Click Here  

Question
If crooked politicians and corporate executives do more good than harm for their constituencies, should that net positive balance justify no jail time?

Well, err . . make that three years
"Siegelman, Scrushy Get About 7 Years," SmartPros, July 2, 2007 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x58242.xml

Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy got nearly seven years Thursday in a bribery and corruption case that the judge said damaged public trust in state government.

Supporters of both men had testified at their sentencing hearing, describing the positive impact they have had in Alabama during their careers, as attorneys pleaded with U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller to show mercy.

"While it is true the good far exceeds the bad, I must impose a fair punishment to reassure all that come before this court that justice is blind," Fuller said in sentencing Siegelman.

Both men were immediately taken into custody after the judge denied defense requests to let them remain free while they appeal.

The two once-prominent figures in politics and business were escorted out of the courtroom by U.S. marshals and were not allowed to talk to family members. Scrushy's family cried quietly in the courtroom. Siegelman's wife, Lori, left immediately.

Asked by reporters about her husband's sentence and being immediately taken into custody, she said, "I expected it." She got into her car without further comment.

Siegelman was fined $50,000 due immediately and ordered to pay $181,325 in restitution to a state agency where prosecutors said kickbacks were made. He is to perform 500 hours of community service when his sentence of seven years, four months is completed.

Scrushy was fined $150,000 due immediately, plus ordered to pay restitution of $267,000 to United Way of Central Alabama. He also was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service after serving six years and 10 months in prison.

Both are to be on supervised release for three years when their terms end.

Fuller had increased the possible sentence range for Siegelman to more than 15 years earlier Thursday and left Scrushy's possible range at eight to 10 years. But he was not bound by the guidelines. Prosecutors asked for 30 years for Siegelman and 25 for Scrushy, while the defense pleaded for probation for both.

. . .

Scrushy founded a small health care company in Birmingham in the early 1980s that would grow into HealthSouth Corp., one of the nation's leaders in outpatient surgery and rehabilitative health care.

He was fired as a $1.7 billion accounting scandal was uncovered, but he was acquitted of criminal charges in the fraud by a federal court jury in Birmingham in 2005. Siegelman also had criminal charges against him dismissed after a federal judge in Birmingham struck down key evidence in an alleged Medicaid fraud case.

Continued in article

The external auditor embroiled in the HealthSouth fraud was Ernst & Young --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Ernst

Question
What are Sears Tears?

Since Kmart acquired Sears in 2005, Sears Holdings has prospered as a company, but the sales performance of its chains has continued to decline. Since then, Sears Holdings has prospered as a company, but the sales performance of its chains has continued to decline. As the retailing industry has grown increasingly competitive, Sears Holdings has poured relatively little capital into its stores and has cut back on marketing and other expenses. The low level of spending has been particularly vexing for mall operators, analysts say. Once the nation’s leading retailer, Sears has 861 mall stores, 518 of them owned and 343 of them leased.
Terry Pristin, "Sears Responds to Its Critics With a Call for Patience ," The New York Times, July 4, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/business/04sears.html?ref=business

Surprise! Surprise! Insider Trading Never Ceases
A former Credit Suisse Group banker and a former Pakistani financier were indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to make illegal insider trades related to acquisitions on which the bank advised. The indictment, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, names as defendants Hafiz Muhammad Zubair Naseem, who worked at the New York office of Credit Suisse, which is based in Zurich, and Ajaz Rahim, former head of investment banking at Faysal Bank in Karachi, Pakistan. They must appear in court to enter a formal plea to the charges.
"Two Are Indicted in Insider Trading Case," The New York Times, July 4, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/business/04insider.html

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

ConAgra Allegedly Cooks the Books
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint accusing three former ConAgra Foods Inc. executives of improper accounting practices that helped pump up profit statements. The SEC named former Chief Financial Officer James P. O'Donnell, former Controller Jay D. Bolding and Debra L. Keith, a former vice president of taxes, as defendants in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court. The complaint alleged improper accounting from fiscal 1999 through 2001. The SEC filed a separate complaint against former controller Kenneth W. DiFonzo, 55, of Newport Beach, Calif.
"ConAgra's Books Draw SEC Action," The Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2007; Page A10 --- Click Here

Some questions were raised at a subsequent date about independence between KPMG and head of ConAgra's Audit Committee who is a former CEO of KPMG --- http://www.secinfo.com/drFan.z2d.d.htm

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

"Prosecution for Profit," The Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2007; Page A14 --- Click Here

When President Bush issued an executive order in May barring federal agencies from hiring private lawyers on a contingency fee basis, the press corps yawned. But Mr. Bush was getting out ahead of one of the bigger legal battles now raging across the country: prosecutorial neutrality.

America's legal system is based on the idea that government officials act on behalf of the public interest, not for personal profit. That's why we don't pay policemen per arrest, judges a percentage of damages they award, or prosecutors a bounty for each conviction. Yet public officials are increasingly violating this ethic by outsourcing legal work to tort lawyers who profit from prosecuting public claims.

The practice developed in the 1990s, when state Attorneys General promised trial lawyers a percentage (a contingency) of any settlement they could beat out of Big Tobacco, and it has since spread like bird flu. In Rhode Island and California, prosecutors have tried to give plaintiff firms a cut of judgments against lead paint makers. Oklahoma wants to reward private attorneys for suing poultry companies. Mississippi AG Jim Hood has signed contingency deals in securities cases.

The practice has become a lucrative new tort business, to the point that plaintiffs attorneys are now recommending lawsuits to state officials. In some instances, governments simply target an industry, and then let the tort lawyers decide whom to sue and on what grounds. The tort lawyers then turn around and send a portion of their profits back to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions.

The good news is that defendant companies are starting to fight back in court -- and are winning. The Superior Court of California in April ruled that the county of Santa Clara could not pay contingency fees to private attorneys -- in this case, tort lawyer giants Thornton & Naumes and Motley Rice -- who were suing lead-paint manufacturers on behalf of the government. The county had argued that since government retained "oversight" of the attorneys, there was no problem.

Judge Jack Komar pointed out the impossibility of determining how much control a government attorney must exercise to make a contingency fee deal legitimate. He cited the California Supreme Court's 1985 Clancy decision, which noted that a contingency arrangement "is antithetical to the standard of neutrality that an attorney representing the government must meet."

Unfortunately, California's high court is one of the few to have addressed such fee agreements. Some defendants have noted the 1927 Supreme Court decision in Tumey v. Ohio, which barred paying government officials a bounty for arrests and convictions during Prohibition. The Rhode Island Supreme Court last year seemed intrigued by this argument, and returned a lawsuit over contingencies to a lower court for more consideration. Still, prosecutors are busy dreaming up reasons why Tumey doesn't apply, and the contingency issue is probably destined for the Supreme Court. In the meantime, some states are moving to bar these contracts, or make them more transparent.

Government prosecutors claim they need outside lawyers because they lack the money and resources for big suits. But surely if the tort bar is as interested in "public justice" as it professes, it'll work by the hour. And if prosecutors feel underfunded, they can always request more money from the state legislatures that control the purse strings. Budgetary oversight is in fact one check on prosecutorial excess.

Continued in article

"Tahoe fire shows cost of paradise still rising," by George Skelton, The Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2007 ---
Click Here

ANOTHER natural disaster, another lesson. But not the predictable lesson.

Not the tired, nagging lecture about people who insist on living in the trees and on the bluffs, at the edge of the surf and along the riverbanks, asking for what they get.

That situation's not going to change, no matter the finger-wagging. People are too drawn to the beauty and the lifestyles. There's too much money to be made by developers. And too many campaign dollars to be paid politicians who make decisions on land use.

No, the lesson from the Tahoe wildfire is this: There's no economy in numbers because of an exploding population — no growth discount for taxpayers funding the services they need.

It's precisely the opposite: The more people we cram into California — not just beneath the pines and along the waterfronts, but into the comfy suburbs and struggling inner cities — the more it's going to cost each of us. Cost us not only to retain some semblance of the California lifestyle, but often to survive. There's a premium to be paid for living here, and it keeps rising.

Fifty years ago at Tahoe, when I first started vacationing there, the urban area that just erupted in flames off the south end of the lake was practically a wilderness. There was a dirt road. It was wooded and undeveloped. It's still wooded, but populated with very expensive homes — or was until Sunday.

If some hiker had dropped a cigarette butt and burned a few acres back then, it would have been smoky, but not devastating. With thousands of people living there, it becomes a natural disaster and a multimillion-dollar firefighting and cleanup job for government.

Who pays? Not just the neighborhood. All Californians do. And so do the feds.

State Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) got a bill passed three years ago that required homeowners in wildfire-threatened areas to thin trees and brush within 100 feet of their houses. But the law is largely ignored. There isn't much government enforcement. Moreover, to obtain a tree-cutting permit often requires a frustrating venture into the bureaucratic bush. And paying someone to take down a tall pine can cost $1,000.

There need to be more government enforcers and permit-expediters. Maybe also government grants to help homeowners pay for tree removal. Sacramento used to have such a program, but it was felled in a budget crunch.

In the last 10 years — since President Clinton held a "save Lake Tahoe" summit — the feds have thinned 12,700 acres of national forest and have plans for 37,000 more.

All this costs tax money — local, state and federal — and funds are scarce.

Here is one example of how ridiculous our tax system is:

My wife and I are partners with some other people in a condo on Tahoe's north shore. Because the place has been, for tax purposes, under the same ownership for decades, our property tax bite is a laugher: only one-seventh of our neighbor's, who bought his condo just last year. Mind you, ours isn't even a personal residence. It's a vacation retreat.

A lot of us aren't paying our fair share, especially we who live in tinderboxes.

Preventing and suppressing wildfires is just one government expense that increases for each Californian as the population grows.

We also have to pay for water supply and flood protection. The water gets harder and more expensive to find; people keep crowding into flood plains near leaky levees. Because all this is so pricey, we have to borrow at double the cost, counting interest.

Never mind natural disasters. Just packing people into densely populated areas causes problems.

I call this the chicken coop syndrome, observed as a boy while growing up on a small citrus ranch in Ojai. The more chickens we'd cram into the coop, the more they'd act up, compete, fight. That's nature. And it's human nature.

Continued in article

Refried Bean Counters
Mexico's tax reform proposes neither rate cuts nor simplifications. (Video)
Mary Anastasia O'Grady, "Refried Bean Counters," The Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2007, Page A14 --- Click Here  

From The Washington Post on July 2, 2007

Which country banned the use of BlackBerrys in certain government buildings?

A. United States
B. France
C. Britain
D. Germany

From The Washington Post on July 3, 2007

Which wireless carrier is the only one that sells Sidekicks?

A. Nextel
B. Verizon
C. AT&T
D. T-Mobile

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

July 2, 2007

• Veggie Booty Snack Recalled
• Weight Loss Cuts Type 2 Diabetes
• Harry Potter Has Migraines?
• 4 Habits Cut Heart Disease
• Fragile X Study May Help Autism

Features

• Light Ice Cream Brands Compared
• Get Your Pre-Pregnancy Body Back
• New Ways to Treat Arthritis
• Diet Tips From The Biggest Loser
• OxyContin: Pain Relief vs. Abuse

July 4, 2007

• Stress Unlocks Fat, Ups Obesity
• Is Driving With Dementia Safe?
• Off-Road Vehicles Risky for Kids
• Video Games May Zap Homework
• Generic Lamisil Approved

Blogs

All Blogs

• Stop Putting That Thing in Your Ear!
• It's Never Too Late to Quit Smoking
• A Little Nip/Tuck? Get the Doc's References First

 

Message Boards

All Boards

• Should a Person With Dementia Be Driving?
• "Getting pregnant at 40 ... without medication?"
• Is July Fourth Just Another Day off for You?

 

Ask The Experts

All Experts

• "What else can I do to keep hydrated?"
• "Are safety glasses regulated?"
• "What sugar substitutes are best?"

 

July 5, 2007

• Andrew Speaker's TB Reclassified
• Xolair Gets 'Black Box' Warning
• 1st IVF Birth From Frozen Egg
• Ritalin's Side Effects Studied
• Stress Unlocks Fat, Ups Obesity

Features

• 6 Best Summer Weight Loss Foods
• Beach Safety 101
• How Much Fish Should You Eat?
• Managing Chemo Side Effects
• Do Men Get HPV Too?

Why do humans get so addicted to harmful things?
Humans have an odd habit of getting hooked on harmful things. New research is revealing why, and opening the door to the long-dreamed-of cure.
Michael D. Lemonick, Time Magazine Cover Story, July 6, 2007 --- Click Here

Sigh! Exercise in elderly proven to improve quality of life
A new study appearing in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society compares the efficacy of three programs designed for reducing falls and improving quality-of-life among the elderly; education, home safety assessment and modification (HSAM) and exercise training. The study also examines the secondary effects of these programs on functional balance, daily activity, fear of falling and depression level, finding that exercise training yields the most significant improvements.
PhysOrg, July 5, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102864741.html

China Faces a New Worry: Heavy Metals in the Food
China's tainted food supply has fallen under heightened scrutiny. But after decades of industrial pollution, some of the worst contaminants making their way into the country's food comes from the soil in which the food is grown.
Nocholas Zamiska and Jane Spencer, The Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2007; Page A1 --- Click Here

Papworth breathing technique cuts asthma symptoms by a third
A sequence of breathing and relaxation exercises known as the Papworth method has been shown to reduce asthma symptoms by a third by the first randomised controlled trial to investigate the technique, which is published online ahead of print in Thorax.
PhysOrg, July 2, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102592140.html

Chronically sleep deprived?
 You can't make up for lost sleep We’ve all experienced that occasional all-too-short night of sleep -- staying out too late at a party on a weeknight, studying into the wee hours for a morning exam or being kept up during the night with a sick child . . . Our bodies try to catch up by making us sleep more and/or more deeply the following night. Now sleep researchers at Northwestern University have discovered that when animals are partially sleep deprived over consecutive days they no longer attempt to catch up on sleep, despite an accumulating sleep deficit. Their study is the first to show that repeated partial sleep loss negatively affects an animal’s ability to compensate for lost sleep. The body responds differently to chronic sleep loss than it does to acute sleep loss.
PhysOrg, July 3, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102610856.html

Good and Bad News for Chocoholics Like Me (I prefer the old fashions bars with almonds)
Here's some good and bad news for chocoholics: Dark chocolate seems to lower blood pressure, but it requires an amount less than two Hershey's Kisses (a mere 30 calories will do) to do it, a small study suggests.
Lindsey Tanner, "Study: Chocolate lowers blood pressure," SanLuisObispo.com, July 3, 2007 --- http://www.sanluisobispo.com/353/story/83636.html

The PhysOrg account is at http://physorg.com/news102700122.html

Jensen Comment
30 calories of chocolate is analogous to a half a thimble full of booze.
 

Why we learn from our mistakes
Psychologists from the University of Exeter have identified an 'early warning signal' in the brain that helps us avoid repeating previous mistakes. Published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, their research identifies, for the first time, a mechanism in the brain that reacts in just 0.1 seconds to things that have resulted in us making errors in the past.
PhysOrg, July 2, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102565601.html

Teenagers from low income families at greater risk of migraine
Teenagers from low income households with no family history of migraine are more likely to suffer migraine than children from upper income families, according to a study published in the July 3, 2007, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
PhysOrg, July 3, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102613667.html

"Mechanical Fingers Give Strength, Speed to Amputees," by Rob Beschizza, Wired News, July 2, 2007 --- http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2007/07/xfinger

Yawning Helps to Cool the Brain (Is this good? What warms it up?)
The newest theory put forward about human yawning from the State University of New York at Albany claims it's because yawning cools the brain. In the May issue of Evolutionary Psychology, a psychology professor and colleagues wrote that experiments showed volunteers yawned more often in situations in which their brains were likely to be warmer.
PhysOrg, July 5, 2007

"An Anti-Progressive Syllabus," by Mark Bauerlein, Inside Higher Ed, July 5, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/07/05/bauerlein 

And yet, outside the anthologies and beyond the campus, these outlooks have influenced public policy at the highest levels. Their endurance in public life is a rebuke to the humanities reading list, and it recasts the putative sophistication of the curriculum into its opposite: campus parochialism. The damage it does to humanities students can last a lifetime, and I’ve run into far too many intelligent and active colleagues who can rattle off phrases from “What Is an Author?” and Gender Trouble, but who stare blankly at the mention of The Public Interest and A Nation at Risk.

This is a one-sided education, and the reading list needs to expand. To that end, here are a few texts to add to this fall’s syllabus. They reflect a mixture of liberal, libertarian, conservative, and neoconservative positions, and they serve an essential purpose: to broaden humanistic training and introduce students to the full range of commentary on cultural values and experience.

• T.E. Hulme, “Romanticism and Classicism” (first published 1924). This essay remains a standard in Anglo-American modernist fields, but it seems to have disappeared from general surveys of criticism. Still, the distinctions Hulme draws illuminate fundamental fissures between conservative and progressive standpoints, even though he labels them romantic and classical. “Here is the root of romanticism: that man, the individual, is an infinite reservoir of possibilities; and if you can so rearrange society by the destruction of oppressive order then these possibilities will have a chance and you will get progress,” he says. The classicist believes the opposite: “Man is an extraordinarily fixed and limited animal whose nature is absolutely constant. It is only by tradition and organization that anything decent can be got out of him.” That distinction is a good start for any lecture on political criticism.
• T.S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919). Eliot’s little essay remains in all the anthologies, but its central point about the meaning of tradition often goes overlooked. Teachers need to expound why tradition matters so much to conservative thinkers before they explain why progressives regard it as suspect. Furthermore, their students need to understand it, for tradition is one of the few ideas that might help young people get a handle on the youth culture that bombards them daily and nightly. They need examples, too, and the most relevant traditionalist for them I’ve found so far is the Philip Seymour Hoffman character (“Lester Bangs”) in the popular film Almost Famous.
• F.A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science (U.S. edition, 1952). Most people interested in Hayek go to The Road to Serfdom, but the chapters in Counter-Revolution lay out in more deliberate sequence the cardinal principles behind his philosophy. They include 1) the knowledge and information that producers and consumers bring to markets can never be collected and implemented by a single individual or “planning body”; and 2) local customs and creeds contain values and truths that are not entirely available to “conscious reason,” but should be respected nonetheless. Such conceptions explain why in 1979 Michel Foucault advised students to read Hayek and other “neoliberals” if they want to understand why people resist the will of the State. We should follow Foucault’s advice.
• Leo Strauss, “What Is Liberal Education?” (1959). For introductory theory/criticism classes, forget Strauss and his relation to the neoconservatives. Assign this essay as both a reflection on mass culture and a tone-setter for academic labor. On mass culture and democracy, let the egalitarians respond to this: “Liberal education is the necessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society. Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.” And on tone, let the screen-obsessed minds of the students consider this: “life is too short to live with any but the greatest books.”
• Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intellectuals (English trans. 1957). Aron’s long diagnosis of the intellectual mindset remains almost as applicable today as it was during the Cold War. Why are Western intellectuals “merciless toward the failings of the democracies but ready to tolerate the worst crimes as long as they are committed in the name of the proper doctrines”? he asks, and the answers that emerge unveil some of the sources of resentment and elitism that haunt some quarters of the humanities today.
• Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (1992). First formulated just as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, Fukuyama’s thesis sparked enormous admiration and contention as the interpretation of the end of the Cold War. When I’ve urged colleagues to read it, though, they’ve scoffed in disdain. Perhaps they’ll listen to one of their heroes, Jean-Francois Lyotard, who informed people at Emory one afternoon that The End of History was the most significant work of political theory to come out of the United States in years.
• Irving Kristol, Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (1995). With the coming of the Bush administration, the term neoconservative has been tossed and served so promiscuously that reading Kristol’s essay is justified solely as an exercise in clarification. But his analyses of the counterculture, social justice, the “stupid party” (conservatives), and life as a Trotskyist undergraduate in the 1930s are so clear and antithetical to reigning campus ideals that they could be paired with any of a dozen entries in the anthologies to the students’ benefit. Not least of all, they might blunt the aggressive certitude of political culture critics and keep the students from adopting the same attitude.
• David Horowitz, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey (1997). Many people will recoil at this choice, which is unfortunate. They should not let their reaction to Horowitz’s campus activism prevent them from appreciating the many virtues of this memoir. It is a sober and moving account of America’s cultural revolution from the moral high points to the sociopathic low points. At the core lies the emotional and ethical toll it took on one of its participants, who displays in all nakedness the pain of abandoning causes that gave his life meaning from childhood to middle age. Students need an alternative to the triumphalist narrative of the Sixties, and this is one of the best.

Professors needn’t espouse a single idea in these books, but as a matter of preparing young people for intelligent discourse inside and outside the academy, they are worthy additions to the syllabus. Consider them, too, a way to spice up the classroom, to make the progressivist orthodoxies look a little less routine, self-assured, and unquestionable. Theory classes have become boring enough these days, and the succession of one progressivist voice after another deadens the brain. A Kristol here and a Hayek there might not only broaden the curriculum, but do something for Said, Sedgwick & Co. that they can’t do for themselves: make them sound interesting once again.

Mark Bauerlein is professor of English at Emory University.

 

Forwarded by Paula

Recently, I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure.

Standing near the security gate, they hugged, and the mother said, "I love you, and I wish you enough."

The daughter replied, "Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom."

They kissed, and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there, I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy, but she welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?"

Yes, I have," I replied. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?"

"I am old, and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead, and the reality is - her next trip back will be for my funeral," she said.

"When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?"

She began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail, and she smiled even more. "When we said, 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them."

Then, turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

Then, she began to cry, and walked away.

They say, it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but an entire life to forget them.

Funny Classified Ads and Other Innocent (Funny but maybe not all innocent) English ---
http://www.innocentenglish.com/

Includes a video of Bush Bloopers!

The Favored Women of Our Day Now Avoid Photo Shoots --- Click Here

For pictures --- Click Here

Forwarded by Dick Haar

WOMAN'S PERFECT BREAKFAST She's sitting at the table with her gourmet coffee. Her son is on the cover of the Wheaties box. Her daughter is on the cover of Business Week.. Her boyfriend is on the cover of Playgirl. And her husband is on the back of the milk carton. WOMEN'S REVENGE "Cash, check or charge?" I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet , I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse. "So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked. "No," she replied, "but my husband refused to come shopping with me, and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally." UNDERSTANDING WOMEN (A MAN'S PERSPECTIVE) I know I'm not going to understand women. I'll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root, and still be afraid of a spider. MARRIAGE SEMINAR While attending a Marriage Seminar dealing with communication, Tom and his wife Grace listened to the instructor, "It is essential that husbands and wives know each other's likes and dislikes.." He addressed the man, "Can you name your wife's favorite flower?" Tom leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and whispered, "It's Pillsbury, isn't it?   WIFE VS. HUSBAND A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position. As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of yours?" "Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws." WORDS A husband read an article to his wife about how many words women use a day... 30,000 to a man's 15,000. The wife replied, "The reason has to be because we have to repeat everything to men.. The husband then turned to his wife and asked, "What?" CREATION A man said to his wife one day, "I don't know how you can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time. "The wife responded, "Allow me to explain. God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me; God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you ! WHO DOES WHAT A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, "You should do it because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee. The husband said, "You are in charge of cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee." Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee." Husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me." So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says ......... "HEBREWS" The Silent Treatment A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 AM ." He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, "It is 5:00 AM . Wake up." Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests. God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece

The Role Model for Husbands is Still Walter Mitty
Study finds wives have greater power in marriage problem-solving behavior:  Men may still have more power in the workplace, but apparently women really are "the boss" at home. That's according to a new study by a team of Iowa State University researchers.
PhysOrg, July 4, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news102698342.html

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