Video of Roger Williams Playing Autumn
Leaves ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_1tp2APNcg
Video of Roger Williams Playing Autumn Leaves ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5cueCo0No
Autumn Leaves (Frank Sinatra) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhB8H1YnRF0
o of Roger Williams Playing Autumn Leaves ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5cueCo0No
Autumn Leaves (Nat "King" Cole) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY17gMP5QvI
Autumn Leaves (Andrea Bocelli) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAMy_hivbtk
Autumn Leaves (Jazz piano trio) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ZzjMNgkZg

The above picture was actually taken at the end of October 2005 when there was
less snow on the mountains
We can now see quite a lot of snow on the Presidential Range about 20 miles
northeast of our closer Kinsman Range.
It has been a great year for foliage and relatively warm October weather.

Above is a view of the Presidential Range of the
White Mountains
Below is a view of Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Clay, and Mt. Washington taken from our
front porch
Twin Mountain in the Twin Mountain Range is in the foreground
Each day of late autumn brings us closer to skiing season
But now we're still enjoying colors of autumn leaves



The
above rock is in the middle of our circular driveway
Below you can make out part of my neighbor's swimming pool that we enjoy when
they occasionally come up here
Our old maple tree's trunk below is over fourteen feet in circumference


Autumn PowerPoint Show (use the arrow keys for
picture transitions) ---
Click Here
Tidbits on October 17, 2007
Bob Jensen
Videos From Bob Jensen's Personal
Camera (the pictures are clear but some of them lost a bit in the video) ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/EdTech/Video/Personal/
The Tidbits.wmv video is narrated.
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/
CPA
Examination ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
You can read about Erika's surgeries and see
her pictures at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Erika2007.htm
Personal pictures are at
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/
Some personal videos are at
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/EdTech/Video/Personal/
Bob Jensen's blogs and various threads on many topics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
(Also scroll down to the table at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )
Set up free conference calls at
http://www.freeconference.com/
World Clock ---
http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
If you want to help our badly injured troops, please check out
Valour-IT: Voice-Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops ---
http://www.valour-it.blogspot.com/
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
A Very Short Video History of Religion ---
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.html
Roger Williams in Concert
Halloween Hangman (interactive video; randomly hit the buttons)
---
http://www.dedge.com/flash/hangman/hangman.swf
From Princeton
University Channel (video and audio) ---
http://uc.princeton.edu/main/
Ideas Worth Spreading ---
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2670820702819322251
Mathematics for Economics: Enhancing Teaching and Learning
(includes video tutorials) ---
http://www.metalproject.co.uk/
Bowdoin College Combines Old and New Architecture ---
http://chronicle.com/media/flash/v54/i08/bowdoin/
Snowball is a medium sulfur-crested Eleanora cockatoo and he
loves to dance and sing ---
http://birdloversonly.blogspot.com/2007/09/may-i-have-this-dance.html
The word-crafted version of California's SB 777 Law (signed by
Governor Schwarzenegger) ---
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_777_bill_20070223_introduced.pdf
A video debate from both sides that leaves viewers pretty well confused ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqyilGupb9A
Al
The bill should be called the Lawyers Full Employment Act since California
courts are bound to become crammed with harassment lawsuits coming form all
sides of society seeking to win the legal lottery. The losers inevitably will be
California taxpayers who ultimately will foot the bill of their school districts
defending themselves in lawsuits, many of which will be cookie cutter lawsuits,
i.e., thousands of lawsuits that are virtual photocopies with the names, dates,
and places changed.
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Richard Wagner's 'Die Walkuere' From the
Washington National Opera (Entire Performance ) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15196750
Placido Domingo, Anja Kampe, Alan Held, Gidon Saks, Linda Watson, Elena Zaremba,
and Fricka Zaremba
Violinist Julia Fischer Voted Artist of the Year
2007 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14992483
Leos Janacek's 'Jenufa' From the Washington
National Opera ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14992132
Josh Ritter in Full Concert (poetic in the style
of Bob Dylan but a better singer) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14939797
Love Is On A Roll (Don Williams video ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub5Y3IHluF8
Jazz pianist Cyrus Chestnut and pop icon Elvis
Presley aren't a likely pairing: Chestnut is one of the top pianists of a
generation born many years after songs like "Love Me Tender," "Hound Dog" and
"Don't Be Cruel" made Presley the king of rock 'n' roll. But on Chestnut's new
CD, Cyrus Plays Elvis, he offers a fresh outlook on Presley ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15039843
'Rag and Bone' by The White Stripes (Meg White,
Drummer) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15319394
The Americans Are Coming (rock) ---
http://www.wishyswavs.com/americanscoming.html?1158520005859
Roger Williams in Concert
Glenn Beck on Global Warming ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xquohKzR8QI
October 13, 2007 message from Peter Webster (The
Acoustic Music Archive)
[peter@acousticmusicarchive.com]
Dear Bob,
I wondered whether you would link to me
from your website. My site is called The Acoustic Music Archive. I have
posted lyrics, chords and information about the origins of some of my
favorite traditional songs, together with my own recordings of them that
visitors can optionally listen to.
I have provided some HTML below that you
could paste in to your Links page (
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm ):
The Acoustic Music Archive
http://www.acousticmusicarchive.com/lyrics_chords_and_downloads.html
The site is a place where people can find
lyrics and chords for folk songs, discover their origins and listen to
recordings of them.
Let me if you want to link and I will put
a reciprocal link back to you from my links page (
http://www.acousticmusicarchive.com/links.html
).
Thanks,
Peter Webster
The Acoustic Music Archive
www.acousticmusicarchive.com
iTune purchases can be played on five iPods at
the same time
"Making iTunes Music Purchases Available to Multiple Computers," by Walter
Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2007; Page B4 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119024466861833141.html
Q: With the new iPods coming out, how
do you deactivate an old one? I think Apple only allows a certain number to
be used with an account.
A: You don't have to deactivate an iPod if
you replace it. The copy-protection rules imposed on Apple by the
entertainment companies allow for copy-protected music and videos purchased
from the iTunes Music Store to be stored and played on an unlimited number
of iPods.
The only "deactivation" iTunes users have
to perform is on a computer -- Windows or Mac -- because the copy-protection
rules allow purchased, copy-protected songs and videos to be played on no
more than five computers at a time. So, before you replace a computer on
which you are storing such purchased, protected iTunes material, you should
deauthorize the machine by going to the "Store" menu in iTunes and selecting
"Deauthorize Computer...".
Of course, if you aren't at or near the
five-computer limit, this issue may not matter. It's also irrelevant if none
of the music or videos you play from within iTunes is copy-protected
material purchased from the iTunes store. You can happily use iTunes and
iPods without buying any copy-protected stuff from Apple. You can restrict
your music and videos to those you copy from legally obtained CDs, those you
create yourself, or those you buy in unprotected formats from iTunes, or
other sites, like eMusic.
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
BookMooch allows you to trade books on
your shelf for other books ---
http://bookmooch.com/
"Only minutes after creating a list of
books I am willing to give away on Bookmooch, I already had enough points to
request free books from others. Tomorrow, I am mailing two complete
strangers some old books. And four strangers have promised to send me books
I was planning to buy on Amazon. An excellent trade! Bookmooch works!"
- Solana Larsen (a BookMooch member)
See Joanne Kaufman, "Clear the Bookshelf and Fill It
Up Again, All Online," The New York Times, October 15, 2007 ---
Click Here
March 27, 2007 message from Tina Bungert
[tina.bungert@hitflip.de]
. . . I would like to introduce
you to our service and web site Hitflip that might be an interesting
addition to your links for books and education. Hitflip is a community
to swap used books and other original media. It is therefore an easy and
cheap alternative to the existing online book stores. You can find
hitflip at
http://www.hitflip.de .
The just recently launched English version can be found at
http://www.hitflip.co.uk .
Poetry Magazine ---
http://www.poetrymagazine.org/
Poetry Magazines ---
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/
Poetry Daily ---
http://www.poems.com/
The Literature Page (Classics) ---
http://www.literaturepage.com/
The Uncommercial Traveller by Charles Dickens ---
Click Here
Songs Of Travel by Robert Louis
Stevenson (1850-1894)
---
http://www.logoslibrary.eu/pls/wordtc/new_wordtheque.w6_start.doc?code=11272&lang=EN
Underwoods by Robert Louis
Stevenson (1850-1894)
---
Click Here
“Islamofascism” is a noxious and counterproductive term — a
bludgeon disguised as an idea. Its use comes at a cost, even
beyond the obvious one that goes with making people dumber.
“Islamofascism” is the preferred term of those who don’t see any
distinction between Al Qaeda, the Iranian mullahs, and the
Baathists. Guess what? They are different, which might just have
been worth understanding a few years ago. (Better late than
never, maybe; but not a whole lot better.)The more serious
consequence, over the long term, is that of offering deliberate
insult to those Muslims who would be put to the sword under the
reign of Jihadi fundamentalists. Disgust for cheap stunts done
in the name of
“Islamofascism awareness”
is not a matter of doubting that the jihadis mean what they say.
On the contrary, it goes with taking them seriously as enemies.
Scott McLemee, "Be
Aware (Beware)," Inside Higher Ed, October 17, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/10/17/mclemee
For the really
suave expression of Islamophobofascism,
however, no local sideshow can compete with
an
interview
that the British
novelist Martin Amis gave last year. At the
highest stages of cosmopolitan literary
influence, it seems, one may express ideas
worthy of a manic loon phoning a radio
talk-show and get them published in the
London Times.
“There’s a definite urge — don’t you have
it? — to say, ‘The Muslim community will
have to suffer until it gets its house in
order,’ ” Amis said. “What sort of
suffering? Not letting them travel.
Deportation — further down the road.
Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching
people who look like they’re from the Middle
East or from Pakistan.… Discriminatory
stuff, until it hurts the whole community
and they start getting tough with their
children.”
The cultural theorist
Terry Eagleton issued a response to Amis in
the preface to a new edition of his book
“Ideology: An Introduction” — first
published in 1991 by Verso, which reissued
it a few weeks ago. It stirred up a
tiny tempest in
the British press, which reduced the
argument to the dimensions of a clash
between two “bad boys” (albeit ones grown
quite long in the tooth).
Quickly mounting to
impressive heights of inanity,
the coverage and
commentary managed somehow to ignore the
actual substance of the dispute: what Amis
said (his explicit call to persecute all
Muslims until they acted right) and how
Eagleton responded.
“Joseph Stalin seems not to be Amis’s
favorite historical character,” wrote
Eagleton, alluding to the novelist’s Koba
the Dread, a venture into Soviet
political history published a while back.
“Yet there is a good dose of Stalinism in
the current right-wing notion that a spot of
rough stuff may be justified by the end in
view. Not just roughing up actual or
intending criminals, mind, but the
calculated harassment of a whole population.
Amis is not recommending such tactics for
criminals or suspects only; he is
recommending them as a way of humiliating
and insulting certain kinds of men and women
at random, so they will return home and
teach their children to be nice to the White
Man. There seems to be something mildly
defective about this logic.”
Eagleton’s introduction doesn’t
underestimate the virulence of the
jihadists. But his remarks do at least have
the good sense to acknowledge that
humiliation is a weapon that will not work
in the long run. (As an aside, let me note
that some of us don’t have the luxury of
either ignoring terrorism or regarding it as
something that will be abated by a more
aggressive posture in the world. Life in
Washington, D.C., for the past several years
has meant rarely getting on the subway
without wondering if this might be
the day. The “surge” did not reduce the
faint background radiation of dread one
little bit. Funny how these thing work out,
or don’t.)
Anybody with an ounce of brains and
responsibility can tell that fostering an
environment of hysteria is useful only to
one side of this conflict.“The best way to
preserve one’s values,” writes Eagleton, “is
to practice them.” Well said; and worth
keeping in mind whenever the
Islamophobofascists start to rush about,
trying to drum up some business.
We shouldn’t regard them as just nuisances.
They are something much more dangerous.
Determined to turn the whole world against
us, they act as sleeper cells of malice and
stupidity. There are sober ways to respond
to danger, and insane ways. It is the
demagogue’s stock in trade to blur the
distinction.
In the spirit of Scott's article above, you might read the "Resident Alien"
sermon forwarded by Dr. Wolff ---
Click Here
Forwarded by Dick Haar
Let's Tax The Rich!
The latest figures (2005 data) from the IRS and the
Tax Foundation shows:
The top 1% accounted for 21.2% of all income and
paid 39.4% of all taxes
The top 5% accounted for 35.8% of all income and
paid 60.0% of all taxes
That's right the top 5% paid more taxes than the
other 95%
The top 50% in income paid 97% of all taxes.
Gee Whiz let's lay some more taxes on the rich.
Gee Whiz let's also lay a Windfall Tax on all pension savers (i.e. a
huge penalty for long-term saving by all workers):
. . . Nancy Pelosi wants to put a Windfall Tax on all stock market profits
(including Retirement fund, 401Ks and Mutual Funds! and CREF
accounts) . . . When asked how these new tax dollars
would be spent, she replied "We need to raise the standard of living of our
poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million
illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of
unemployed minorities." "Windfall profits taxes could go a long ways to
guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as
'Americans'."
Free Republic, October 16, 2007 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1911844/posts
Jensen Comment
If this Windfall Tax becomes reality after the Democrats
sweep the 2008 election, it will be too bad that you're locked into your
retirement savings plans (e.g., CREF) that depend on the stock market, because
the stock market will plunge south as soon as it even appears that Pelosi's
Windfall Tax has a chance.But when the value of your retirement account plunges you won't
have to pay as much Windfall Tax. Should you look at this as good news or bad
news?
This is about as close as you can get to a retroactive tax
without actually imposing a retroactive tax. Even the millions of employed
minorities have to fear this egalitarian confiscation of their savings. Even if
you shift your pension plan out of corporate equity investments (stocks), you
will be liable for accumulated capital gains up to the date you shift to other
investments. For example, if you started saving for retirement in CREF 30
years ago, nearly all the value of your portfolio is capital gain subject to the
Windfall Tax.
This may be a shot in the arm for the real estate market as
investors cash in their corporate equity savings and invest in real estate. But
it won't do the working poor or the unemployed any good as the corporations cut
back on operations due to higher cost of capital. But don't panic yet! The
Democrats have recently proved (Senator
Reid in particular) that they're just as vulnerable, or possibly more
vulnerable, to corporate lobbying powerhouses.
Every major daily paper in New York took note of
President Bush's decision to bestow the first Medal of Honor of Operation
Enduring Freedom on Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy - a Long Islander who gave his
life for his country and his fellow SEALs. Every paper but one, that is.
"Unfit to Print, The New York Post,
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10132007/postopinion/editorials/unfit_to_print_.htm
The Treasury Department announced today that it had
designated three Saudi nationals as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (“SDGTs”).
All three are accused of providing funds to al Qaeda’s affiliate in the
Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf Group (“ASG”). The first, Abdul Rahim Al-Talhi, is
described as an “al Qaida-affiliated financier, a loyal colleague of Usama bin
Laden, and a member of a Saudi Arabia-based donor network funding terrorists and
supporting extremist activity.” The second, Muhammad ‘Abdallah Salih Sughayr, is
the “principal conduit” for “unidentified Saudi extremist donors wishing to
provide financial and ideological support to the ASG network in the
Philippines.” And the third, Fahd Muhammad ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Al-Khashiban, “gave
then-ASG leader Khadaffy Janjalani approximately US $18,000 to finance a planned
ASG bombing operation targeting either the U.S. or the Australian embassy in
Manila [in the early 2000s].” The plot was disrupted by Philippine authorities
“before its completion,” but “Khashiban continued to routinely provide money to
the ASG.” I thought of two things, primarily, when reading this today. First,
every account I’ve read has said that the Saudis have been fairly unhelpful in
cracking down on the jihadi finance network operating on their own soil.
Thomas Joscelyn, "Saudi Cash for al Qaeda," FrontPage
Magazine, October 11, 2007 ---
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=C2437CDF-BD57-4FAC-B18D-4160EE5309C1
We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
Dwight D. Eisenhower ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower
MTV Arabia, a new 24-hour free satellite channel, will
begin broadcasting in Arabic across the Middle East on Nov. 16. The Viacom
-owned network's flagship show, Hip HopNa ("my hip-hop"), will be co-hosted by
Saudi rapper Qusai Khidr and Palestinian-American producer Farid Nassar, aka
Fredwreck, who has worked with Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, and other marquee names. The
show will visit 10 cities across the Middle East in search of talent, giving
would-be Arab rap stars an international platform. Noujaim won the show's first
competition, and Fredwreck has produced one of his tracks. "This is a music
genre that is bubbling underneath the surface here, and we want to claim it as
our own," says Bhavneet Singh, head of emerging markets for MTV Networks
International (MTVNI ) . . . And U.S. media giant Viacom aims to deliver it, as
well as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and more . . . MTV Arabia is the biggest
test to date of the network's two-decade-old localization strategy. MTV's
flagship music channel has seen its American TV ratings slip and has struggled
online. Management believes the biggest growth will come overseas, and the
network now pumps out a blend of international and local tunes from Russia to
Indonesia to Pakistan. That has helped MTV and sister operations, such as VH1
and Nickelodeon, reach 508 million households in 161 countries. "This isn't
going to be MTV U.S.," Bill Roedy, vice-chairman of MTV Networks, says of the
latest offering. "It is Arabic MTV made by Arabs for Arabs."
"The Arab World Wants Its MTV," Business Week, October 22,
2007 ---
Click Here
"The Politics of Disaster," The Wall Street Journal,
October 10, 2007; Page A20 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119197595006254164.html
We've been warning of the financial
disaster looming off the Florida coast ever since Governor Charlie Crist
socialized the state's hurricane insurance market and put Florida taxpayers
on the hook for billions. Earlier this year, Mr. Crist stumped for and then
signed a law making the Florida government the state's dominant insurer, but
without the reserves that would be required of real insurance companies. The
plan will work splendidly as long as there are no hurricanes in Florida, but
the state will face a difficult challenge once the inevitable storm hits:
how to pry new tax revenue out of Floridians just as they begin sifting
through the rubble that used to be their homes.
Now Florida's politicians are doubling
down on their mistake, by trying to make all American taxpayers subsidize
insurance for Florida homeowners. Congressman Ron Klein (D., Fla.) is hoping
for a floor vote this fall on his Homeowners' Defense Act and has been
assured by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that this is a top priority. Governor Crist
is also lobbying hard.
Mr. Klein's bill would force the U.S.
Treasury to issue below-market loans to state-insurance programs, while also
creating a kind of Fannie Mae of disaster reinsurance, a federally chartered
organization called the "National Catastrophe Risk Consortium." Like Fannie,
the consortium would carry an implicit guarantee from the federal government
as it issues securities in the capital markets, distorting prices as it
sells subsidized reinsurance to participating states, all the while saddling
taxpayers with new risks. According to Treasury Assistant Secretary Phillip
Swagel, "Taxpayers nationwide would subsidize insurance rates in high-risk
areas, which would be both costly and unfair."
Transferring the risk from condo-owners in
Boca to taxpayers in Syracuse does not reduce the cost of hurricane
disasters. In fact, now that Congress looks ready to volunteer middle-class
taxpayers nationwide as the financial backstop for lovely beachfront
properties, South Florida developers will have even less incentive to use
sturdy materials and set homes a reasonable distance from the waterline. We
have already run this experiment with the National Flood Insurance Program,
with predictable results. When people can buy insurance at below-market
rates, they tend to stay in accident-prone homes.
Continued in article
Meanwhile, the credibility of conservatives has
diminished steadily. These days they cannot even achieve clarity on the meaning
of their favorite cliches. For instance, the president hates "federalized health
care," but sponsors a Medicare prescription drug program that wastes hundreds of
billions on drug companies and private insurers. Right-wing definitions no
longer seem so clear, either. When the government awards a billion dollars in
sweetheart mercenary contracts to a wealthy Republican family in Michigan,
that's "private enterprise." But when the government helps a struggling
middle-class family in Maryland send its children to the doctor, that's creeping
socialism.
Joe Conason, "Why 'Socialism' Evokes No Fear," RealClearPolitics,
October 11, 2007 ---
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/10/why_socialism_evokes_no_fear.html
Three months after Democrats made headlines with a
plan to double the taxes on hedge funds and private equity, Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid seems to have had a change of heart. On Monday, the Nevada
Senator indicated he won't follow through on the tax-the-rich plan, demurring
that the Senate is awfully busy. This is a little awkward for a party that has
made income inequality a campaign staple. But the turnabout isn't so mysterious
in an election season when Wall Street moneymen have made more than $6 million
in political donations, with most going to Democrats, especially a certain
Senator from New York
"Reid's Tax Hedge," The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2007; Page A20 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119197609550554166.html
The word-crafted version of California's SB 777 Law (signed by
Governor Schwarzenegger) ---
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_777_bill_20070223_introduced.pdf
Jensen Comment
A video debate from both sides that leaves viewers pretty well confused ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqyilGupb9A
The bill should be called the Lawyers Full Employment Act since California
courts are bound to become crammed with harassment lawsuits coming form all
sides of society seeking to win the legal lottery. The losers inevitably will be
California taxpayers who ultimately will foot the bill of their school districts
defending themselves in lawsuits, many of which will be cookie cutter lawsuits,
i.e., thousands of lawsuits that are virtual photocopies with the names, dates,
and places changed.
Dr. Hawley Crippen was hanged for murdering and
dismembering his showgirl wife, then fleeing with his mistress across the high
seas with the police in hot pursuit. Loaded with enough sordid details and
twists to eventually fuel more than 40 books and several movies, this London
case is second only to Jack the Ripper in its sensational notoriety . . . For
nearly a century, Crippen, a homeopathic physician, was thought to have poisoned
his flamboyant and domineering wife with an obscure toxin, dismembered her body
and buried little more than tissue in his London cellar. Crippen was labeled
“one of the most dangerous and remarkable men who have lived in this century.” .
. . “Crippen was not convicted just of murder – but the murder of Cora Crippen,”
Trestrail said. “If that body is not Cora, then that’s another trial.”
"Science casts doubt on famous British murder case:
Ninety-seven years after an American was hanged in London in one of the most
notorious and famous murder cases in British history, forensic science at
Michigan State University is producing evidence that his execution was a
mistake," PhysOrg, October 16, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news111759429.html
The fighting in Pakistan this week has been more in
tense than any current op erations across the border in Afghanistan. President
Musharraf is paying, with interest, for trying to cut a deal with Islamist
fanatics. The combat operations in North Waziristan involve thousands of ground
troops, artillery barrages and attack aircraft. This isn't internal policing.
It's war.
Ralph Peters, "Coddling Killers:
Pakistan's Appeasement Fails," New York Post, October 11, 2007 ---
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10112007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/coddling_killers.htm?page=0
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in a BBC
interview, played down the Israeli (possible nuclear site)
raid, saying that Israeli jets took aim at empty military buildings, but he did
not give a specific location. His statement differed from the initial Syrian
claim that it had repulsed the air raid before an attack occurred.
Hugh Naylor, "Syria Tells
Journalists Israeli Raid Did Not Occur," The New York Times, October 11,
2007 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/world/middleeast/11syria.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed
against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a
partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has
used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and
foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports. The description of
the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6
attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its
determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclear project in a neighboring
state. The Bush administration was divided at the time about the wisdom of
Israel’s strike, American officials said, and some senior policy makers still
regard the attack as premature. The attack on the reactor project has echoes of
an Israeli raid more than a quarter century ago, in 1981, when Israel destroyed
the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq shortly before it was to have begun
operating. That attack was officially condemned by the Reagan administration,
though Israelis consider it among their military’s finest moments. In the weeks
before the Iraq war, Bush administration officials said they believed that the
attack set back Iraq’s nuclear ambitions by many years. By contrast, the
facility that the Israelis struck in Syria appears to have been much further
from completion, the American and foreign officials said. They said it would
have been years before the Syrians could have used the reactor to produce the
spent nuclear fuel that could, through a series of additional steps, be
reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium.
David E. Sanger and Mark Mazzetti,
"Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria," The New York
Times, October 14, 2007 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/washington/14weapons.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
A bomb hidden in a cart of toys killed two children
and wounded 17 others in a playground in northern Iraq on Friday, the first day
of a national holiday to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Mussab Al-Khairalla, Yahoo News,
October 12, 2007 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071012/ts_nm/iraq_dc
Canada's socialized health care system, hailed as a
model by Michael Moore in his documentary, "Sicko," is hurting, government
officials admit, citing not enough money for more equipment and staff to handle
high risk births. Sarah Plank, a spokeswoman for the British Columbia Ministry
of Health, said a spike in high risk and premature births coupled with the lack
of trained nurses prompted the surge in mothers heading across the border for
better care
Sara Bonasteel, "Canada's Expectant
Moms Heading to U.S. to Deliver," Fox News, October 10, 2007 ---
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C300939%2C00.html
Also see Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ---
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/
An art theft from the art gallery at Linfield College is particularly personal
and painful for the artist.
The Oregonian
reported that the work, “The Sexy Sex: All Nude Revue Rug One,” was a life size
nude self-portrait by Tamera Bremer, a Portland artist who is an adjunct at the
college. She told the paper that she felt “violated” by the theft. As to how she
got the idea to produce a nude of herself in the form of a rug, she said that
she got the idea that “a bearskin rug could really be a bare-skin rug.”
Inside Higher Ed, October 12, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/12/qt
China's Looming Crisis-Inflation Returns ---
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/pb54_keidel_china_looming_crisis_final.pdf
Shed not for her the bitter tear Nor give the heart to vain regret Tis but
the casket that lies here The gem that filled it sparkles yet.
Epitaph of Myra Maybelle Shirley "Belle" Starr
---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Starr
According to legend,the Bandit Queen Belle Starr had been a spy, a Confederate
General, the brains behind many outlaw gang, and the consort of nearly every
western badman including all of the Younger Brothers. In 1889, she was killed by
a shotgun blast while horseback riding. Although there were multiple suspects
including both of her children, the killer was never identified
Wansink's research on bottomless bowls of creamy
tomato soup (hidden tubes imperceptibly keep refilling them) won in the
nutrition category. He was on hand to receive his trophy, Oct. 4, at Harvard
University from six authentic Nobel laureates. The research, published as a
featured article in the journal Obesity Research in 2005 showed that people
eating from soup bowls that don't empty ate 73 percent more soup than those
eating from normal bowls, said Wansink. Yet, the slurpers at the self-filling
bowls did not rate themselves any fuller than the normal-bowl slurpers, said
Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and of Applied Economics at
Cornell, and author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think."
PhysOrg, October 12, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news111406356.html
The Ig Nobel homepage is at
http://www.improb.com/
A new survey says working in an office may be hard on the waistlines of nearly
half of U.S. workers ---
http://physorg.com/news111396200.html
To finance its Schip largesse, the House would
eviscerate Medicare Advantage, an innovative 2003 program that allows seniors to
choose among various private health plans. It's growing rapidly and currently
serves some 8.3 million seniors, or about 18% of the eligible population.
According to the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services, most are the urban
poor, seniors in rural areas and minorities. No doubt they are attracted by the
additional benefits, increased access to specialized medicine, and coordinated
preventative services that Advantage offers over the traditional version.
"The Schip Revelation," The Wall Street Journal, August 9,
2007; Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118662306308792513.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Google famously and charmingly admonishes itself,
"Don't Be Evil." Google also cultivates the image of the ultragreen company,
giving subsidies to employees to buy hybrid cards and spending millions to
install 1.6 megawatts of photovoltaic panels at its Mountain View, CA,
headquarters. So on the day that Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize for promulgating accurate climate
science in the public interest, here's a riddle: why does Google lend its
technical muscle to science-bashing and fact-distorting websites that mislead
Gmail readers and other Google customers on global warming and climate change?
David Talbot, "Nobel Prizes, Climate
Keywords: Google helps organize the world's disinformation, too," MIT's
Technology Review, October 12, 2007 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/21882/?nlid=601
David Talbot is the Senior Editor of MIT's Technology Review ---
http://www.entforum.caltech.edu/Past_Archive/bios1202.pdf
After President Bush vetoed Congress's major
expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, Nancy Pelosi
declared: "President Bush used his cruel veto pen to say, 'I forbid 10 million
children from getting the health benefits they deserve.' " As far as political
self-parody goes, that one ought to enter the record books. It's wrong on the
facts, for one, which Speaker Pelosi knows. The Schip bill was not some
all-or-nothing proposition: A continuing resolution fully funds the program
through mid-November, so none of the 6.6 million recipients will lose coverage.
And even if Washington can't agree by then, there will be another stopgap,
because Schip might as well already be an entitlement. In truth, the Bush
Administration endorses a modest expansion. A majority of Congress backs a much
larger expansion. The controversy is over the role of government in health care.
"Schip Howlers When children become political props," The Wall Street Journal,
October 13, 2007 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110010730
It is true that a house divided against itself is a
house that cannot stand. There is a division in the American house now and
believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency
to become involved in the partisan divisions that are now developing this
political year. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the
nomination of my party for another term as President.
Lyndon Baines Johnson ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_Baines_Johnson
October 2007 Presidential Candidate Fund Raising Totals to Date ---
http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2007/Q3/
Honest Abe would never have a chance to become President of the United States in the 21st Century
David Bach's "Latte Principle" ---
Click Here
A Penny Saved Compounds to Much More Than a Dollar Earned
Jim Mahar provided the following two links:
"Penny's Add Up to Millions," Free Money Finance, October 15, 2007 ---
http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2007/10/pennies-add-up-.html
Here's a post from
Yahoo Finance that details the author's
struggle with her husband to take his
lunch to work. But the essence of what
she says is really that
saving/watching your pennies is the key
to wealth. Her
thoughts:
I'm
convinced that for the average
person who wants to build wealth,
pennies count.
Pennies
have a funny way of snowballing into
dollars, and then hundreds, and then
thousands, especially if you use
them to buy the stocks of
well-managed companies. Consider the
story of a parking attendant who
earns $20,000 a year but has amassed
a $500,000 equity portfolio. Or the
one about a group of New Yorkers who
managed to save for a down payment
on a (very expensive, very tiny)
piece of the Big Apple. Or the clan
of seven dubbed "America's cheapest
family," who paid off their mortgage
in nine years on a salary of $35,000
a year.
I've seen article after article bashing
David Bach's "Latte Principle" -- the
idea that if you save on small spending
you can amass a large amount of wealth.
The main argument against it is that
people should be paying attention to
large expenditures -- that's where the
real difference is made. But Bach isn't
saying to ignore the expensive decisions
in life. He's just aware that for many
of us there are small amounts we spend
every day without really thinking about
how much they end up costing us. And
that if we just limit a few of them and
save that money, we can save a good
amount throughout the years.
Continued in article
"How to Save a Bundle of Money," Free Money Finance, October 15,
2007 ---
http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2007/10/how-to-save-a-b.html
Yahoo Finance has
a list of
ten money drains along with the annual
costs of each of them.
I view this as a
list of where we all can save a bundle
of money. Here's their list as well as
the annual amounts spent on each of them
(in other words, what you could save if
you eliminated them):
1.
Coffee -- $360 per year.
2. Cigarettes -- $1,660 a year.
3. Alcohol -- $3,650 per year.
4. Bottled water from convenience
stores -- $365 per year.
5. Manicures -- $1,068 per year.
6. Car washes -- $348 per year.
7. Weekday lunches out -- $2,350 a
year.
8. Vending machines snacks -- $260
per year.
9. Interest charges on credit card
bills -- $4,868 in interest (over
time).
10. Unused memberships -- $480 per
year.
Now of course I wouldn't suggest that
someone cut out everything and eliminate
all of life's pleasures. After all, we
should use part of our money to enjoy
ourselves. But for those people out
there looking for a way to save a bit
extra, for those who simply "can't make
it on what I earn", and for those who
would simply like to pay down their
debt, this is a pretty good list to
consider cutting down on -- even if it's
for a short period of time. And you
don't have to eliminate each of the
items above, simply consider cutting
back on them. There's still tons of
savings available by cutting your car
washes, manicures, or alcohol
consumption in half.
And if these
aren't enough money saving ideas, check
out my
list of ways to save money from
2005-2006 as
well as
my 2007 list.
Jensen Comment
Of course eliminating all the above would not necessarily be wise. If there's
five feet of snow on the ground, I'm not about to wash my own car. Yet getting
the car washed in winter is more important than in summer if you live where they
salt and sand the roads. Spending $358 each winter car washes may well save
thousands if you can, thereby, double the life of your car.
New cars
lose 60% of value in the first four years. Most people waste more money on cars and interest charges for car
financing than any other single cash drain in their lives, including the cost of
housing. Cars are a necessity of life for most of us who have no convenient
public transportation alternatives. But frequent trading in of good cars for new
cars is a monumental mistake in finance. Leasing is also a synonym for
stupidity. Insiders call it "fleecing
a car." But I'm grateful for ignorant people who are constantly turning in
good owned or leased cars. Most of the cars I've owned over the years were
turned back leased cars. Great mechanics put my previously-owned or
previously-leased vehicles back in top shape, and I save a bundle relative to
their prior owners. If you must finance your next vehicle, please be a smart
shopper and be informed how dealers cheat ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudDealers.htm
I lived in San Antonio for 24 years where over
500 cars per month are stolen. See the video ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQPSXCqBqz4
My answer was to buy an old car (usually a station wagon) and make it look even
less desirable to the thousands of car thieves cruising about San Antonio by day
and by night. Little did thieves know that underneath the hood was a new power
train and other features that made my old heaps just like new. I always remember
a comedy show that featured a company in Los Angeles that would ghettoize a new or relatively-new car to make it look like a junk yard dog. My city cars were like that. My
wife and I were more safe since our cars were of little temptation to
carjackers. But my children generally crouched down in the seats or asked to be
let out a block away so their friends would not see them in my cars.
Next to car financing, the biggest mistake most people make is credit card
financing to a point where they seldom zero out what they owe on credit cards.
This is the "dirty secret" of that makes credit card companies suck billions
upon billions of dollars out of the economy ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO
When we're about to go on long trips, I overpay monthly expenses ahead of time
so that if we're delayed in returning home we never have to worry about being
charged interest or late payment penalties. For example, I put huge credit
balances into our credit card accounts before going on a long adventure.
Do I buy into David Bach's "Latte Principle?"
Well yes and no. I do not believe in Spartan living so I can watch my savings
grow for the sake of watching my savings grow. I don't drink latte, but I also
opt for four-star or five-star hotels or lovely country inns when my wife and I
are on adventures. Expensive restaurants are generally wastes of money, but we go to them
when the mood is right and/or the friends we're with prefer a top restaurant.
Often you can eat just as well in the hotel's lounge as in the expensive
restaurant down the hall. There's a huge difference between what you splurge for on daily (like credit
card interest and latte) versus what you splurge for infrequently. When I used
to come home at night and have a couple of drinks daily, I drank cheap Boca
Chico rum in my cubalibras. Now that I don't drink daily, I splurge on fine wine
and expensive liquor once in a while.
In the final analysis, I would have to say that I live better in retirement
because I pretty much followed the "Latte Principle" before it was called "Latte
Principle." Most of my travels in life were
financed by others who made me sing (lecture) for my supper, but I enjoyed
the fellowship and strokes of these types of trips more than I did boring
leisure vacations. I spent as much as I could possibly afford on land and
houses, but these generally returned more than I paid for them. I spent as
little as possible on cars and preferred to buy finely-tailored suits in upscale second hand shops
(look for Second Looks in San Antonio and Austin).. I think most of the former owners
of my suits had passed on in life.
I never argue with my wife over money even when she tips almost as much as
the check itself. I never object when she hands out ten dollar bills to
receptionists, postal clerks, trash haulers, window washers, and bell
ringers outside the Wal-Mart stores. She's thrifty but likes a lot of new things
she generally buys on sale. She seldom shops in stores. But the UPS truck stops up here in the mountains
nearly every day. While my wife is wearing the "8" and "0" buttons off on phone in our den
(mostly she orders gifts), I'm on the computer ordering everything from books to
groceries to space heaters from
Amazon.com (a great, great place to shop). Our UPS driver's name is
Joe, and if I'm not at home he comes into the basement and assembles what he's
just delivered. Will your UPS driver do that?
I truly got my money's worth out of faculty clubs. I would've joined
expensive country clubs but I never had time for a round of golf even once a
week. Such is the price one pays for being a workaholic.
It's easier for a workaholic to live by the "Latte Principle." But most of us
workaholics are doing what we like best.
October 17, 2007 reply from Barbara Scofield
[scofield@GSM.UDALLAS.EDU]
When my husband was in training to be a police
chaplain, the trainer began talking about the issue of stolen cars by
pointing to my husband and saying, “What kind of car do you drive?” Rob, my
husband, responded, “A ’99 Saturn wagon.” The police trainer told him, “You
can leave the keys in your car.”
Barbara W. Scofield, PhD, CPA
In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel
Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and
brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks
captured the attention of the Free World.
The prize was also not awarded to
Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders
who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while
protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.
Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a
Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years
in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.
Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia
al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive
Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions
to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.
Or to Colombian President Álvaro
Uribe, who has fought tirelessly to end the violence wrought by left-wing
terrorists and drug lords in his country.
Or to Garry Kasparov and the several
hundred Russians who were arrested in April, and are continually harassed,
for resisting President Vladimir Putin's slide toward authoritarian rule.
Or to the people of Iraq, who bravely
work to rebuild and reunite their country amid constant threats to
themselves and their families from terrorists who deliberately target
civilians.
Or to Presidents Viktor Yushchenko
and Mikheil Saakashvili who, despite the efforts of the Kremlin to undermine
their young states, stayed true to the spirit of the peaceful "color"
revolutions they led in Ukraine and Georgia and showed that democracy can
put down deep roots in Russia's backyard.
Or to Britain's Tony Blair, Ireland's
Bertie Ahern and the voters of Northern Ireland, who in March were able to
set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in
Northern Ireland.
Or to thousands of Chinese bloggers
who run the risk of arrest by trying to bring uncensored information to
their countrymen.
Or to scholar and activist Saad Eddin
Ibrahim, jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour and other democracy
campaigners in Egypt.
Or, posthumously, to lawmakers Walid
Eido, Pierre Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem, Rafik Hariri, George Hawi and Gibran
Tueni; journalist Samir Kassir; and other Lebanese citizens who've been
assassinated since 2005 for their efforts to free their country from Syrian
control.
Or to the Reverend Phillip Buck;
Pastor Chun Ki Won and his organization, Durihana; Tim Peters and his
Helping Hands Korea; and Liberty in North Korea, who help North Korean
refugees escape to safety in free nations.
These men and women put their own
lives and livelihoods at risk by working to rid the world of violence and
oppression. Let us hope they survive the coming year so that the Nobel Prize
Committee might consider them for the 2008 award.
Question
Do we want the Shotgun Game to be so dominant in academic research?
Just got another rejection from a journal. I'm not
all that surprised, because it was a pretty good (I think it was ranked #5 in
it's area) journal and it was a stretch to send this piece there. But you never
know - sometimes you catch a referee (and editor) in the right frame of mind. Oh
well, this just means we make a few changes and send it back out to another
journal. I used to panic about this stuff, but I now know that most papers (if
they're decently well done) eventually find a home somewhere. I felt pretty good
a couple of weeks back, since I had five pieces under review. But one of them
got accepted (darn!) another came back with a revise-and-resubmit, and this one
got rejected. So, I'm no longer "Mungo Compliant" - I fall short of the "three
papers under review" standard. So it's time to get the R&R's off my desk and back
in an editor's hands. I have five other projects in various stages (two of them
are actually somewhat completed working papers), but until they're submitted to
a journal somewhere, they're nothing but vaporware. So it's back to the academic
salt mines...
Unknown Professor who generates the Financial Rounds Blog, October 10, 2007 ---
http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/
Jensen Comment
In no way to I want to criticize what the Unknown Professor (I know who he is
and respect him a lot) is doing while playing the publish or perish game.
Actually he's a recently-tenured and very talented associate professor who's
seemingly still playing the "Shotgun Game" he learned to play, as an assistant
professor, while seeking tenure and promotion. Most academics still actively
seeking publication in research journals are playing the same game.
Think of each shotgun pellet as a research paper which in modern times is
generally a co-authored paper that gives rise to more pellets (i.e., more
papers) loaded into the shotgun shell. The "Shotgun Game" (my definition) is
analogous to standing at one end of a football field and firing a 12-gage into
the air while hoping that one or more of the tiny pellets will fall down on a
target beyond the opposite goal line. At first the target is a very small Tier 1
academic journal target. There may even be several of small targets of about the
same Tier 1 small size, especially when foreign journals are allowed to be
targets. The game may be replayed several times with substituted Tier 1 targets
until the player and/oror the referees grow weary of repeated plays at the Tier 1
level. Then the player moves up to Tier 2 journals that have targets twice the
size of Tier 1 journals and are, accordingly, easier (not necessarily easy) to
hit. Then there are Tier 3 journals, Tier 4 journals, and on and on. Ultimately
there are conference proceedings with targets that take up half a football field
and are easy to hit even when played by blind researchers. Each shell fired is
reloaded with pellets that missed the targets on earlier plays of the game.
My point
is that the Shotgun Game became the medium of tenure, promotion, and
performance evaluation processes over the past four decades. Really talented
faculty members who are capable of doing great research studies more
analogous to high-powered mortar projectiles that can only be fired
infrequently (not annually) are discouraged by their colleges’ annual
performance evaluation processes because the mortar-sized studies are long,
tedious, and prone to dead ends along the way. But when the mortar rounds
eventually hit a target they make a much more noticeable hole so to speak
and, thereby, do much more damage to conventional wisdom.
I realize that colleges and universities are aware of the limitations of
shotgun-pellet publications in research, but with annual performance reviews
becoming so dominant the Shot Gun Game has become "The
Game" in academic research ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
It's no longer a particularly fun or rewarding game, and being happily retired I
no longer take the shotgun out of storage. My mind is now focused on larger
projectiles rather than pellets.
How would I
change the Shotgun Game?
Professors waste too much time loading up small pellets and reloading after
trying to deal with reviewer demands that are generally more time consuming than
they're worth to the researcher or to the world. I would have the researchers
publish their small stuff (pellets) in blogs or personal Websites and let the
entire world become the "cloud" of potential reviewers. Promotion and tenure
committees, especially at the departmental level, would actually have to read
these working papers. Abstracts of working papers could be published in
Wikipedia or similar search sites where readers would be linked to the
working papers in full. Wikipedia provides "Discussion" tabs where readers could
act much like referees who make suggestions for improving or burying each line
of work. The researcher could rite rejoinders but is under no obligation to
revise the small stuff unless inspired to do so. The papers should be open
sharing and free, unlike
SSRN working papers that charge fees even to readers who are only mildly
curious about the research
This would free up the Tier 1 and possibly Tier 2 journals for formal peer
reviews of mortar shells. The Tier 3 and Tier 4 journals would happily float off
from the clouds into outer space, never to be seen again.
Controversies over "micro-level" research remain ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#MicroLevelResearch
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
October 13, 2007 reply from David Albrecht
[albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]
In business education you bet we want the shotgun
game! It is codified into AACSB standards. Professors must be academically
qualified, which means only peer-reviewed papers. Locally, the pressure
becomes intense to remain AQ. At my school, ANYTHING peer-reviewed counts. I
wouldn't be surprised if it's the same at other schools. Profs that don't
play the game much anymore look through filing cabinets and old floppy disks
hoping to find something close enough finished to send out. Stuff that was
mercifully killed years ago by the author now gets pulled out and submitted.
I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't a few that start with the lowest
tiered journals because it might increase the chance of an acceptance.
What I find insultingly ludicrous is that getting
publications counts for so much while at the same time most published
accounting research carries little or no real world value. Perhaps I should
qualify that. Any non-education publication with my name attached carries
little world value. OK,they all carry no real world value.
And what about ethics? How many authors cave in to
what they perceive as unnecessary referee demands just so the paper gets
accepted? Isn't this some form of prostitution? And how many co-authors
is(are?) too many? Will you add my name to your paper just pulled out of the
filing cabinet and dusted off if I add your name to my paper reclaimed from
the trash heap?
Perhaps I shouldn't admit it, but I am one of 8
co-authors to a recently accepted paper. It's to a nice journal, and I'm
glad I did it. But in the old days, I wouldn't even have put it on my resume
for fear that too many would laugh at my joining with 7 others on a paper.
But now? Maybe it'll help me keep AQ.
Why is it that securing professional development in
education is not a factor in qualifying you to teach accounting classes?
David Albrecht
October 14, 2007 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi David,
I was on the faculty of a university where I encouraged a senior
colleague accounting professor to apply for a sabbatical leave. He'd not
taken a single leave of absence in over 30 years.
His proposal was to leave town and take several professional courses (not
all in accounting) in residence at the University of Texas. This would have
done him a lot a good aside from giving him a breather from teaching three
of the largest sections of students in the entire university.
A "professional leave" sabbatical, in my viewpoint, would've made him
much better able to serve our students with fresh material and renewed
enthusiasm.
In spite of my repeated appeals with the rest of our faculty who voted on
leave proposals, he was turned down because a professional scholarship
proposal was not a research proposal. If he'd proposed running a stupid
survey on whether hair color made a difference on passage of the CPA
examination in the first sitting among our alumni, he'd have gotten the only
sabbatical in his entire career.
This professor was a good teacher but he was not a researcher. He
could've conducted a stupid hair color survey, but he refused on principle.
Bob Jensen
Question
Can you succinctly distinguish
egalitarianism versus
individualism versus
communitarianism?
"The Culture War on Facts: Are you entitled to your own truth?" by
Ronald Bailey, Reason Magazine, October 9, 2007 ---
http://www.reason.com/news/show/122892.html
"There is a culture war in America, but it is about
facts, not values," declare the researchers at the
Yale Cultural Cognition Project in a
new study called "The Second National Risk and
Culture Study: Making Sense of-and Making Progress In-the American Culture
War of Fact" (full study not yet available online). Contrary to the late New
York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's
famous maxim, the study finds that most Americans
believe they're more than entitled to their own opinions; they believe that
they are entitled to their own facts. Obviously, this complicates public
policy debates.
The chief aim of the Yale Cultural Cognition Project is to show how cultural
values shape the public's risk perceptions and related policy beliefs.
Project scholars define "cultural cognition" as "the tendency of individuals
to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact to values that
define their cultural identities." Their research found that cultural
identity values "exert substantially more influence over risk perceptions
than does any other individual characteristic, including gender, race,
socioeconomic status, education, political ideology and party affiliation."
This is intuitive to most of us. Ask nearly any American a couple of
questions about what they think of a list of policy issues: the death
penalty, abortion, gay rights, the minimum wage, school choice, nuclear
power, public health, gun control, climate change, the propriety of
Christmas crèches in town squares, and affirmative action. You will quickly
get a pretty good idea of what they think about all of the issues on the
list. But why do the ways people think about policy issues tend to cluster
together? The answer turns on how people feel about societal risks and the
policies aimed at reducing those risks. And how people feel about risk is
shaped by their core values.
The Project usefully classifies cultural values on
two cross-cutting axes: hierarchy-egalitarianism and individualism-communitarianism.
Hierarchs think that rights, duties, goods and offices should be
differentially distributed on the basis of clearly defined and stable social
characteristics (e.g., gender, wealth, ethnicity). Egalitarians believe that
rights, duties, goods and offices should be distributed equally without
regard to such characteristics. Individualists think that people should
secure the conditions of their own flourishing without collective
interference or assistance. Communitarians believe that societal interests
trump individual ones and that society should be responsible for securing
the conditions for individual flourishing.
. . .
So is the proper framing of public policy issues
really enough to bring an end to the culture war? I doubt it. After all,
just who is going to make polluters, green scaremongers, Republicans, gun
control nuts, neocons, fetus fetishists, Democrats, drug warriors,
neo-luddites, global warming catastrophists, climate change deniers and the
like stop distorting, I mean, framing the facts to fit their cultural
values?
Continued in article
Intellectuals, Free speech, and Capitalism
"Intellectuals, Free speech, and Capitalism-Becker," by Nobel Laureate
Gary Becker,
The Becker-Posner Blog, October 7, 2007 ---
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/
Although there are numerous exceptions in
economics and political science departments, business and medical schools,
and elsewhere, the majority of faculty is considerably to the left of the
general population. They are at the forefront of the politically correct
movement. This is why Larry Summers ran into the problems that led to his
resignation as president of Harvard. However, college faculties are not the
only promoters of political correctness. Many print and TV journalists,
actors and movie directors, and others involved in more intellectual and
creative pursuits have the same views. Why is this so?
I wish I had the answer; I don’t, so I
will speculate about possible reasons. In his 1950 book, Capitalism,
Socialism, and Democracy, the great economist, Joseph Schumpeter, discussed
exactly this question when asking why intellectuals were so opposed to
capitalism during his time? His answer mainly was that businessmen do better
under capitalism, whereas intellectuals believe they would have a more
influential position under socialism and communism. In essence, Schumpeter's
explanation is based on intellectuals' feeling envious of the success of
others under capitalism combined with their desire to be more important.
I do believe that Schumpeter put his
finger on one of the important factors behind the skepticism of
intellectuals toward markets, and their continuing support of what
governments do. Neither the unsuccessful performance of the US government
first in Vietnam and now in Iraq, which they so strongly condemn, nor even
the colossal failures of socialism and communism during the past half
century, succeeded in weakening the faith of intellectuals in governmental
solutions to problems rather than private market solutions. Since their
basic hostility to capitalism is largely unabated, but they are embarrassed
to openly advocate socialism and very large governments, given the history
of the 20th century, intellectuals have shifted their attacks to criticisms
of the way they believe private enterprise systems treat women and
minorities, the environment, and various other issues. They also promote
political correctness in what one can say about causes of differences in
performance among different groups, health care systems, and other issues.
I believe considerations in addition to
simple jealousy and envy are behind the opposition of intellectuals to
capitalism. A belief in free markets requires confidence in the view that
both sides to a trade generally gain from it, that a person's or a company's
gain is not usually at the expense of those they trade with, even when
everyone is motivated solely by their own selfish interests. This is highly
counter-intuitive, which is why great intellectuals like the 16th century
French essayist, Marquis de Montaigne, even had a short essay with the
revealing title "That the Profit of One Man is the Damage of Another ". It
is much easier to believe that governments are more likely than private
individuals and enterprises to further the general interest.
Of course, the evidence that has been
accumulated since Schumpeter's book gives good marks to free market systems
in promoting the interests of the poor and middle classes, including
minorities. And examples abound of corrupt and incompetent government
officials who either mess things up for everyone, or promote these
officials' interests. This evidence has impressed the man and woman in the
street, but intellectuals are more removed from the real world, and tend to
rely on and trust ideas and intellectual arguments.
This would be my primary explanation for
the questions raised by Posner about why faculty (and I add other
intellectuals too) have become further to the left of their students and the
general population. In effect, intellectuals have changed their views far
less than other groups in response to the evidence. While intellectual
opinions have stood rather still, the general population has moved their
thinking against government solutions and toward solutions that use markets
and other private transactions and relations.
"Intellectuals, Free speech, and Capitalism-Posner," by
Richard
Posner, The Becker-Posner Blog, October 7, 2007 ---
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/
Probably another reason for the left's
influence in higher education is that Americans who came of age during the
late 1960s, a portion of whom were radicalized then, are today in senior
positions in many faculties. (A man or woman who was 18 in 1968 is 57
today.) A third reason may be the dearth of other outlets, besides faculty
politics, for political activism today. There is no serious left-wing
movement in the United States. There is a strident Republican right
influential in the Republican Party, but the strident Democratic left exerts
little influence on the Democratic Party. You can post an angry comment on
MoveOn.org, but that cannot be a very satisfactory mode of political
expression compared to frightening the University of California's Board of
Regents into embarrassing itself by disinviting a Democrat of Larry Summer’s
stature and distinction, or épater-ing the bourgeoisie by inviting
Ahmadinejad to thunder against Bush and the West from a perch on Morningside
Heights.
An ironic counterpoint to university
leftism is the increasing, and increasingly successful, imitation of
business firms by America's colleges and universities. The leading
universities are becoming giant corporations with multi-hundred-million
dollar (or even billion dollar) budgets. As they grow, they need and so they
hire professional management. Professional university management, in turn,
takes its cues from its peers in the business sector. So we have
universities deeply involved in hedge funds, greedy for supracompetitive
investment returns, engaged in the commercialization of scientific research,
angling for applications for admission by the children of the rich,
manipulating their statistics in order to move up in U.S. News & World
Report’s college rankings (for example by fuzzing up their admissions
criteria, so that they get more applicants and therefore turn down more and
so appear more selective), exaggerating the job prospects of their
advanced-degree graduates, bidding for academic stars by offering high
salaries and low teaching loads, and, related to the bidding wars, creating
a two-tier employment system with tenured and tenure-track faculty on top
and tenure-less, benefit-less graduate students and temporaries on the
bottom to do the bulk of the teaching. And so the modern American university
system allows its faculty and administrators to live right, while thinking
left.
The 88 Duke University faculty members who took
out a hysterical ad, supporting those local loudmouths who were denouncing
and threatening the Duke students, have apparently had nothing at all to say
now. Not only did many Duke University professors join the lynch mob
atmosphere, so did the Duke University administration, which got rid of the
lacrosse coach and cancelled the team's season, without a speck of evidence
that anybody was guilty of anything.
Thomas Sowell, "The Duke Case's Unfinished Business," RealClearPolitics,
June 19, 2007 ---
Click Here
Here’s why: My students should not be able to tell,
at least from what I say in class, who I prefer to sit in the oval office. For
one thing, this would be a form of “bait and switch,” since nothing about the
sharing of my political opinions appears in the catalogue that the students
presumably consult before paying their money and scheduling my course. More to
the point, however, is that I am not qualified to teach students about who
should be elected. In fact, I am no more qualified to tell people who they
should vote for than I am to teach a class in quantum mechanics. I have
colleagues over in the physics department who are qualified to offer a course in
the latter subject; none of us has the same credibility when it comes to the
former. Indeed, in an important way, this blanket incompetence is a part of the
class lesson — particularly, though not exclusively, in a class on American
government. It is an implicit argument for democracy, or at least democratic
equality. It is also, however, an argument about education.
Paul A. Sracic, "Teach Only What You Know," Inside Higher Ed,
October 11, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/10/11/sracic
Faculty
members identify as liberals and vote Democratic in far greater
proportions than found in the American public at large. That
finding by itself won’t shock many, but the national study
released Saturday at a Harvard University symposium may be
notable both for its methodology and other, more surprising
findings. The 72-page study —
“The Social and Political Views of American Professors”
— was produced with the goal of moving
analysis of the political views of faculty members out of the
culture wars and back to social science. The study offers at
times harsh criticism of many of the analyses of these issues in
recent years (both from those hoping to tag the professoriate as
foolishly radical and those seeking to rebut those charges). The
study included community college professors along with four-year
institutions, and featured analysis of non-responders to the
survey (two features missing from many recent reports). The
results of the study find a professoriate that may be less
liberal than is widely assumed, even if conservatives are
correctly assumed to be in a distinct minority. The authors
present evidence that there are more faculty members who
identify as moderates than as liberals. The authors of the study
also found evidence of a
significant decline by age group in faculty radicalism,
with younger faculty members less likely than their older
counterparts to identify as radical or activist. And while the
study found that faculty members generally hold what are thought
to be liberal positions on social issues, professors are divided
on affirmative action in college admissions.
Beware of Security Patch Email Messages Purportedly from Microsoft
"Virus Alert: Beware fake Microsoft patch e-mails," AccountingWeb,
October 12, 2007 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=104068
Microsoft Security alerts
are such a part of computing life that virus writers have now created spoof
security alert e-mails to trick users into activating a trojan horse
program.
Symantec's
security
response blog
recently reported on the appearance of fake Microsoft
Security Bulletins that either carried the Trojan.Dropper virus as an
attachment, or included infected links in the e-mail.
The blog posting includes an
example message purporting to be MS06-602, a cumulative security update for
Internet Explorer. It's a plausible sounding message an an extremely clever
piece of what security experts call "social engineering" to trick people
into activating the malicious code - but no such bulletin exists.
"We urge users to refrain from
opening files or clicking links in e-mails from unknown sources," writes
blog contributor Vikram Thakur.
"We recommend all users to always
keep their computers up-to-date on latest patch levels for all software
installed. In doing so, it's important that users always download these
patches from the original software vendor sites, by visiting the sites
themselves rather than following links in e-mails or other third-party Web
pages."
Bob Jensen's threads on computing and network security are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm
When liberals and feminists debate pornography ---
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/mcelroy_17_4.html
(Note that I am Robert E. Jensen retired from Trinity University. I'm not
Robert W. Jensen, Associate Professor of Journalism, from the University
of Texas.)
"How Higher Ed Can Fix K-12?," by Thurston Domina, Inside Higher Ed,
October 12, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/10/12/domina
Texas’s recent
educational policy-making history helps to explain how.
Texas became a national leader in school reform in the 1980s
and early 1990s, adopting standardized testing and school
accountability policies that provided a model for the No
Child Left Behind Act. But all that changed in 1996 when the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit banned
affirmative action at Texas colleges and universities. The
Hopwood decision was discouraging news for minority
high school students in Texas, and in the year after the
decision, the state’s public high schools slipped on several
important indicators of school quality, from student
attendance to advanced course taking and college enrollment.
Hopwood also threw the state’s educational
policy-makers for a loop. In the years that followed the
decision, the state put its high school reform program on
autopilot as it scrambled to maintain racial and ethnic
diversity at its flagship public universities in the
post-affirmative action era.
Between
the discouraged students and the distracted policy-makers,
it sounds like a recipe for educational disaster. But as I
demonstrate in
a paper published in the journal
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Texas
high schools posted record numbers just two years after
Hopwood. And in the years that followed, those numbers kept
climbing.
What
happened? The short answer is that Texas’s higher education
establishment got involved in the state’s high schools.
Worried that black and Hispanic enrollment at the University
of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M would plummet in the wake
of the affirmative action ban, the state created a series of
policies designed to clearly articulate higher education
standards and broadcast them widely to students across the
state.
The best
known of these policies was H.B. 588, the Texas top 10
percent law. Passed by the Legislature in 1997, the law
guaranteed admission to any in-state public college or
university to any student who graduated in the top 10
percent of his or her Texas high school class. The law was
conceived as a racially neutral alternative to affirmative
action, designed to use high school racial segregation to
build diversity at UT and A&M. But the law had an unexpected
effect on the state’s high schools as well. Previously, the
criteria for UT and A&M admissions were so complex that
high-performing students at high schools where there was
little formal or informal college counseling frequently
didn’t even bother applying. The top 10 percent law changed
that, replacing a confusing admissions system with a simple
one, and boosting college application rates from
high-poverty and high-minority schools that had frequently
sent few applicants. And that’s not all: Under the new
admissions regime, advanced course enrollment and student
attendance rates also improved at disadvantaged high
schools. By clearing the path to college, the top 10 percent
law created an academic press in high schools where
alienation and demotivation once ruled.
Continued in article
Thurston Domina does a good job highlighting the positives but a poor job
highlighting the negatives. For example, no mention is made about how students
are gaming the Texas Ten Percent Rule" by avoiding the hard courses, hard
instructors, and even not taking college admission tests (they can get into the
finest public universities in Texas without taking admission tests) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#10PercentLaw
A few good things can be said for the learning incentives of having to study for
SAT/ACT tests and for taking the more difficult humanities, math, and science
courses in high school. Many bad things can be said for having incentives to
avoid such important things just to raise grade averages to meet the ten percent
threshold.
New technology can detect whether a passenger in your car is a dummy
Solo commuters frustrated by snarled traffic have taken
extreme measures to sneak into high-occupancy carpool lanes: costumed mannequins
in passenger seats, dolls swaddled like babies--even dogs in bonnets. But a
company called Vehicle Occupancy, based at Loughborough University, in
Leicestershire, England, says that it has developed an infrared camera-mounted
scanning system that foils 95 percent of such trickery.
"Foiling Carpool-Lane Cheaters," MIT's Technology Review,
October 11, 2007 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19523/?nlid=595
Jensen Comment
It would save a lot of time and trouble if new admissions to college had to pass
through the same scanning system.
This can become a life/death game up here in deep snow country
"'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation,"
PhysOrg, October 9, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news111145481.html
When it comes to explaining the evolution of human
cooperation, researchers have traditionally looked to the iterated
Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) game as the paradigm. However, the observed degree
of cooperation among humans is generally higher than predicted by
mathematical models using the IPD, leaving unanswered the question of why
humans cooperate to the extent they do.
A group of researchers from the University of
Lausanne in Switzerland and the University of Edinburgh in the UK suggests
that a different game, called the “iterated Snowdrift game” (ISD), may more
realistically reflect social situations that humans face, compared with the
IPD. In experimental tests, the proportion of cooperative acts in the ISD
game (48%) was significantly higher than those in the IPD (29%).
The cause for this difference is due to the higher
risks of being exploited in the IPD compared with the ISD, where the risk of
being exploited by someone who doesn’t cooperate when you do is lower.
“In principle, natural selection predicts
individuals to behave selfishly,” Rolf Kümmerli, co-author of the study,
told PhysOrg.com. “However, we observe cooperation in humans and other
organisms, where cooperation is costly for the actor but benefits another
individual. The question is why does natural selection favor such
cooperation? One solution to this problem is given by the ‘Snowdrift’ game
(but not by the PD), where individuals gain direct benefits from their
cooperative acts.”
The situation of the Snowdrift game involves two
drivers who are trapped on opposite sides of a snowdrift. Each has the
option of staying in the car or shoveling snow to clear a path. Letting the
opponent do all the work is the best option (with a pay-off of 300 used in
this study), but being exploited by shoveling while the opponent sits in the
car still results in a pay-off of 100. (The other two possibilities, both
shoveling and both sitting, have pay-offs of 200 and 0, respectively.)
Compare this with the Prisoner’s Dilemma. For a
quick synopsis, two prisoners being questioned each have the choice to
either defend the other’s innocence or betray the other’s guilt. As in the
Snowdrift game, the best option is to betray your opponent while he defends
you (pay-off of 400), and next for both of you to defend each other (pay-off
of 300). Also, as in the Snowdrift game, both of you betraying results in a
pay-off of 0.
However, the significant difference is in the
greater risk in the Prisoner’s Dilemma when you cooperate while your
opponent defects: while shoveling snow always helps you out, even when the
opponent sits (100 pay-off), defending an opponent who betrays you results
in the worst outcome for you—a pay-off of -100. In the study, participants
cooperated more in the ISD because they could always obtain individual
benefits by cooperating, while the costs of cooperating were shared between
cooperators.
The researchers noticed other interesting trends in
the study, which involved 96 participants (38 female and 58 male) divided
into 16 groups and arranged in 48 pairs, not knowing their partner’s
identity or gender. Each pair repeated (“iterated”) both games 12 times,
though were initially told the number of repetitions was randomly
determined. The researchers created global competition by revealing that the
players with the four highest pay-offs would receive monetary awards.
Players who employed “Tit-for-Tat” and “Pavlovian”
strategies—known to increase pay-offs in the IPD—had better pay-offs in both
games than players who did not use these strategies. Further, the
researchers found that female participants were twice as likely to use one
of these strategies as male participants in the ISD (but not the IPD),
resulting in both greater cooperation in female-female pairs compared with
male-male pairs, as well as greater pay-offs for individual females.
Interestingly, these results contrast with the theory of social sciences,
suggesting that there is no simple rule on how males and females behave in
different social dilemmas.
“The most significant result is that humans adapt
the degree of cooperation according to the social context (ISD or IPD) and
the behavior and gender of their partner,” Kümmerli said.
Besides offering a potential explanation for the
high levels of cooperation among humans, the ISD may also have more
real-life associations than the IPD. For example, as the researchers point
out, two scientists collaborating on a report would benefit if the other
worked harder. But when your collaborator doesn’t do any work, it’s probably
better for you to do all the work yourself. You’ll still end up with a
completed project, rather than life in prison.
“Many natural situations of cooperation are much
more similar to the SD than to the PD,” Kümmerli said. “For that reason, I
think that the SD can provide more indications why cooperation is favored by
natural selection than the PD. However, the PD is still a useful tool for
mathematical models and to demonstrate differences in cooperation between
two groups and in treatment of the gender differences in our study.”
Citation: Kümmerli, Rolf, Colliard, Caroline,
Fiechter, Nicolas, Petitpierre, Blaise, Russier, Flavien, and Keller,
Laurent. “Human cooperation in social dilemmas: comparing the Snowdrift game
with the Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Proc. R. Soc. B, doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.0793.
Coexistence of cooperators and defectors is common
in nature, yet the evolutionary origin of such social diversification is
unclear. Many models have been studied on the basis of the assumption that
benefits of cooperative acts only accrue to others. Here, we analyze the
continuous snowdrift game, in which cooperative investments are costly but yield
benefits to others as well as to the cooperator. Adaptive dynamics of investment
levels often result in evolutionary diversification from initially uniform
populations to a stable state in which cooperators making large investments
coexist with defectors who invest very little. Thus, when individuals benefit
from their own actions, large asymmetries in cooperative investments can evolve.
Michael Doebeli, Christoph Hauert,Timothy Killingback, "The Evolutionary Origin
of Cooperators and Defectors," Science, October 2004 ---
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/306/5697/859
Jensen Comment
There is a rather good module about game theory at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Theory
Prisoner's Dilemma ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
Chicken Game ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_chicken
Nash Equilibrium ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Equilibrium
Anecdotally Let Me Tell You a Snow Drift Tale About My Father (Vernon
E. Jensen)
After leaving the family farm following World War II, my father commenced
driving gasoline transports in his cousin Martin's business that owned
a chain of D-X Stations and Bulk Plants in small towns in northern Iowa and
Southern Minnesota (but mostly in Iowa). Eventually he bought into this "jobbering"
corporation and became the territory manager of the entire operation.
Once he got caught in a whiteout on Highway 169 between Humboldt and
Algona. Although he was only about 16 miles from home, the wind-whipped
drifts of snow made it impossible for the car to move in any