Winter moved in with beautiful snow. The pictures below were taken before we had an added foot or more of snow in the past two days. On Cannon Mountain there was nearly two feet of new glorious powder to add to the base made by Cannon's snow cannons. Mt. Washington shown below had even more snow, but up there much of it blows off because of the dome's winds in excess of 100 mph quite often in the winter. I have a new snow blower and have been somewhat frustrated because it snowed every day this week.  I just get everything cleared out, and before I even finished it's snowing again. But I love it!

These pictures depict a sunrise before we had the heavier snow!
These were taken at my desk inside the front porch.

I love to watch the sunrise behind the mountains.

 

 

 

 

Mt. Washington's white dome shows in the above picture. That mountain is 28 miles away.
The other mountains in the foreground have since changed to pure white.
Below you can see our front yard when the wind was gusting over 40 mph down here.

Life is beautiful.

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.
Doug Larson

 

Tidbits on December 6, 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/

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/  

Songza
Search for a song or band and play the selection --- http://songza.com/
I tried it for Arturo Toscanini, Stan Kenton, and Jim Reeves.
The results were absolutely amazing!

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

Tony Tinker forwarded this Video Link (it's a good animation with informative narration)
Credit squeeze explained in a video graphic --- http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c2c12708-6d10-11dc-ab19-0000779fd2ac.html

Rail Europe Holiday Card
Click "Choose Destination" and then choose a country --- http://downloads.raileurope.com/holidayCard/06_christmas_card.html

Loudly to my online friends (thanks Niki) --- http://www.frontiernet.net/~jimdandy/specials/friend/friend.html

177 UC Berkeley Video Courses (free) --- http://www.jimmyr.com/free_education.php
Other free video courses --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

New York Public Library: Webcasts --- http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/index.cfm?go=5

British Film Institute: Interviews --- http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/interviews/

Do creative people require special management?
Video answers from Jack and Suzi Welch --- http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/sep2007/ca20070913_868167.htm
Jensen Comment
Coaches encounter the similar problems when managing superstars like Allen Iverson, Randy Moss, Bode Miller, etc.
Of course not all superstars are difficult to manage. Examples of coaching dreams are Tom Brady and Bret Farr.
Eccentrics in academe are also difficult, especially ones who do no show up for class and snub or insult colleagues, students, and administrators. Being difficult to manage, however, is something administrators generally tolerate with tightened lips when balancing creativity with scholarship in terms of what is already known in the world. Not all superstars in academe are jerks. Some are the most humble and cooperative professionals on campus. There are professors like Tom Brady and Bret Farr in the academic world.

Wedding Dance (I think it was rehearsed) --- http://my.break.com/content/view.aspx?ContentID=403233

From the Scout Report on November 30, 2007

Jing --- http://www.jingproject.com/ 

Trying to grab screenshots for a project can be trying with some applications, but Jing makes the process quite seamless and stress-free. Jing allows users to grab screenshots and screencasts via a yellow interface device that sits on the screen at all times. This particular version of Jing is compatible with computers running Windows 98 and newer.

Members of the film industry, critics, and others ask: "What is animation?"

'Beowulf' vs. cartoons: Animated debate rages http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ae/articles/1125animation1125.html

Nose on the Prize, but Which Oscar to Sniff? [Free registration may be required] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/movies/awardsseason/28rata.html

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

http://www.animationarchive.org/index.html

Animation History

http://animationhistory.blogspot.com/

Origins of American Animation, 1900-1921 [Real Player, Quick Time] http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/oahtml/oahome.html

Animation World Network

http://www.awn.com/

 

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

Songza --- the best free music database I've ever encountered
Search for a song or band and play the selection --- http://songza.com/
I tried it for Arturo Toscanini, Stan Kenton, and Jim Reeves.
The results were absolutely amazing!

Handel's Messiah
From the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, WHYY and NPR present Handel's holiday masterpiece performed by the "Fabulous Philadelphians" — one of the world's great orchestras, joined by the nationally-renowned Philadelphia Singers Chorale. Acclaimed British choral master Richard Hickox conducts. Hosted by Fred Child and Melinda Whiting ---
(Parts 1, 2, and 3 from NPR) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6581236
If your time is limited I recommend the terrific Part 3.

Verdi's 'Aida' from the Houston Grand Opera (Act 1) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16505142

If My Nose Was Running Money (Aaron Wilburn Video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egCeIwjIuZM

Christmas With a Capital "C" --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAckfn8yiAQ

Dean Martin Variety Show (PHONE CALLS) --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119664737750911299.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

Bob Anderson America's Greatest Singing Impressionist --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG5s0wt7g5o
Also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQCX3Ag07VI

Jack Jones (Judy Garland liked him best) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Jones_%28singer%29

Charlie Rich (one of my favorite sad/sexy song singer) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Rich

Photographs and Art

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Sketches of Northern Italy --- http://www.gsa.ac.uk/mackintoshsketchbook/

Camtasia Video of NASA Photos --- Click Here 

Gift Brings Van Gogh's 'Ox-Cart' to Oregon Museum
The painting has been obscure pretty much since 1884, when it was created. There's not a sunflower in sight. Van Gogh's "The Ox-Cart" is dark as coffee grounds.---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16792247

Finger Paintings --- http://www.fingerpainter.com/

Painting of Fingers and Hands (MSN Video) --- http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&vid=17f50399-00c7-44f0-bdf0-0efa2ca1b586

 

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

Latin American Pamphlet Digital Collection --- http://vc.lib.harvard.edu/vc/deliver/home?_collection=LAP

New York Public Library: Webcasts --- http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/index.cfm?go=5

From MIT The Internet Classics Archive --- http://classics.mit.edu/ 

Great Books (Classics from the Access Foundation) --- http://www.anova.org/ 

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

Writing World --- http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/ 

Readprint.com offers thousands of free books for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast. To find the book you desire to read, start by looking through the author index --- http://www.readprint.com/ 

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

Classic Literature Library --- http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/ 

The Literature Page (Classics) --- http://www.literaturepage.com/ 

Poets & Writers --- http://www.pw.org/ 

In one century we went from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to offering remedial English in college.
Joseph Sobran as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-11-27-07.htm

On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date.
Martin, age 10
Jensen Comment
Sounds like a good quote for online dating.

A 7-year-old-girl is being hailed as an "angel from heaven" and a hero for jumping in front of an enraged gunman, who pumped six bullets into the child as she used her body as a shield to save her mother's life. Alexis Goggins, a first-grader at Campbell Elementary School, is at Children's Hospital in Detroit recovering from gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm. "She is an angel from heaven," said Aisha Ford, a family friend for 15 years who also was caught up in the evening of terror.
Norman Sinclair, Santiago Esparza, and Jennifer Mrozowski, "Detroit girl, 7, takes six bullets to save mom," The Detroit News via the Houston Chronicle, December 5, 2007 --- http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5352346.html 

“One World, One Dream" is China’s slogan for its 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing. But there is one nightmare that China shouldn’t be allowed to sweep under the rug. That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan. China is pouring billions of dollars into Sudan. Beijing purchases an overwhelming part of Sudan’s oil exports and state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, an official partner of the upcoming Olympic Games, owns the largest shares in each of Sudan’s two major oil consortia. China has been indirectly funding the Sudanese government’s war effort in Darfur by massively investing in Sudan’s oil industry. Sudan’s government receives large royalties for the declared 500,000 barrels that are pumped each day, and observers believe as much as 70 percent of this cash goes to the military. The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked the Chinese-run Defra oil field in Kordofan region in October 2007, days before peace talks were scheduled to begin with the government in Sirte, Libya, warning the Chinese to Leave Sudan. Other reports indicate that the government of Sudan (GOS) uses as much as 80% of proceeds from those sales to fund its brutal Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and its allied barbaric proxy militias. It also purchases their machinery of mass destruction such as bombers, assault helicopters, armoured vehicles and all sorts of arms, most of which are Chinese manufactured. Airstrips are constructed and operated by the Chinese have been used to launch bombing campaigns on villages. China has used its Veto Power in the U.N. Security Council to repeatedly obstruct efforts by the International Community to introduce peacekeepers to curtail the slaughter.
Mahmoud A. Suleiman, "Oil for Blood," Sudan Tribune, December 5, 2007 --- http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article25047

Since the start of the euro in 1999, the French economy has outperformed its German counterpart. During that period, the average annual growth rate has been over 2% west of the Rhine, but less than 1.5% east of the river. This year, Germany will likely come out ahead for the first time, growing by some 2.5% against 2.1% for France. Rather than just a blip, this signals a longer lasting inversion of fortunes. In a nutshell, weak domestic demand over the past eight years has forced German industry to seek its fortunes abroad, whereas the opposite happened in France. Why was domestic demand so weak in Germany? It basically comes down to a stark difference in the evolution of the two countries' real estate sectors. The key facts here are quite simple: In Germany, real housing prices peaked around 1995 and then declined continuously. France, on the other hand, experienced an unprecedented real estate boom over the last decade. French house prices have doubled relative to those in Germany.
Daniel Gros, "Coming Home to Roost," The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2007 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119663729972211101.html

"It is ultimately a cruel misunderstanding of youth to believe it will find its heart's desire in freedom," says Leo Naphta, the great character of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" "Its deepest desire is to obey." On Sunday, voters as far apart as Caracas and Vladivostok took to the polls and put Naphta's theory to a practical test. In Russia, the result of parliamentary elections was a triumph for President Vladimir Putin: His party, United Russia, won 64% of the vote. Add that to the votes taken by the Kremlin's allies and the Putin tally reaches 80%, with the principal "democratic" opposition represented (at 11.5%) by the Communists. The vote sets up Mr. Putin, an exceptionally fit 55, to rule Russia for another four-year term, and perhaps several terms beyond that. By happy contrast, Hugo Chávez's effort to establish himself as Venezuela's president-for-life via a constitutional referendum seems to have failed by a narrow margin. Even so, an astonishing 49% of voters were prepared, according to the official count, to permanently forgo the opportunity to choose a president other than Mr. Chávez.
Bret Stephens, "The Allure of Tyranny Russians voted away their freedoms, and Venezuelans almost did. Why?" The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010942

All eyes in Venezuela were on the polls yesterday, as the electorate went to a referendum on 69 constitutional reforms. If approved, the amendments will give President Hugo Chávez dictatorial power and formalize the end of Venezuelan democracy. But further south in Bolivia, where Chávez ally President Evo Morales has been trying to consolidate power in a similar fashion, democracy took an even more direct hit last week.
Mary Anastasia O'Grady, The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2007; Page A20
Watch the video --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119664737750911299.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

In a by-election for Hong Kong's legislature Sunday, the pro-democracy candidate, Anson Chan, beat her Communist-backed opponent, Regina Ip, by a margin of 12 percentage points. Mrs. Chan, the former head of Hong Kong's civil service, supports full democracy for Hong Kong by 2012. Mrs. Ip, also a former government official, wants a form of managed democracy where Beijing can control the pool of chief executive candidates through a "screening mechanism."
The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2007 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119671823364512169.html

Ethics Risk Landscape Just as Treacherous as Before Enron
Six years after high-profile corporate scandals rocked American business, there has been little if any meaningful reduction in the enterprise-wide risk of unethical behavior at U.S. companies, according to the Ethics Resource Center's 2007 National Business Ethics Survey. Interviews with almost 2,000 employees at U.S. public and private companies of all sizes for the biennial NBES show disturbing shares of workers witnessing ethical misconduct at work -- and tending not to report what they see. Conflicts of interest, abusive behavior and lying pose the most severe ethics risks to companies today. The measurable lack of progress in business ethics should signal a need for company management, boards of directors, policy-makers, investors and consumers to reassess their approach to that challenge, said ERC President Patricia Harned, Ph.D. "Despite new regulation and significant efforts to reduce misconduct and increase reporting when it does occur, the ethics risk landscape in American business is as treacherous as it was before implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002," Dr. Harned said.
SmartPros, December 3, 2007 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x60008.xml
Bob Jensen's threads on proposed reforms are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudProposedReforms.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on "Rotten to the Core" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
Bob Jensen's other fraud documents are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

Southwest airlines reported net earnings slightly below $500 million in 2005 and 2007.
Is it possible for an airline to make more from buying fuel than from selling seats?
Southwest Airlines owns long-term contracts to buy most of its fuel through 2009 for what it would cost if oil were $51 a barrel. The value of those hedges soared as oil raced above $90 a barrel, and they are now worth more than $2 billion. Those gains will mostly be realized over the next two years. Other major airlines passed on buying all but the shortest-term insurance against high fuel prices...
Jeff Bailey, "An Airline Shrugs at Oil Prices," The New York Times, November 29, 2007 --- Click Here

There's a shelf of financial bestsellers whose titles now sound absurd: Ravi Batra's The Great Depression of 1990; James Glassman's Dow 36,000; Harry Figgie's Bankruptcy 1995: The Coming Collapse of America and How to Stop It. There’s BusinessWeek’s 1979 description of "the death of equities as a near permanent condition,
Michael Lewis, "The Evolution of an Investor," Blaine-Lourd Profile, December 2007 ---
http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2007/11/19/Blaine-Lourd-Profile#page3
As quoted by Jim Mahar in his Finance Professor Blog at http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/

As a group, professional money managers control more than 90 percent of the U.S. stock market. By definition, the money they invest yields returns equal to those of the market as a whole, minus whatever fees investors pay them for their services. This simple math, you might think, would lead investors to pay professional money managers less and less. Instead, they pay them more and more...Nobody knows which stock is going to go up. Nobody knows what the market as a whole is going to do, not even Warren Buffett. A handful of people with amazing track records isn’t evidence that people can game the market. Nobody knows which company will prove a good long-term investment. Even Buffett’s genius lies more in running businesses than in picking stocks. But in the investing world, that is ignored. Wall Street, with its army of brokers, analysts, and advisers funneling trillions of dollars into mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity funds, is an elaborate fraud.
Michael Lewis, "The Evolution of an Investor," Blaine-Lourd Profile, December 2007 ---
http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2007/11/19/Blaine-Lourd-Profile#page3
As quoted by Jim Mahar in his Finance Professor Blog at http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/

THE king is dead. Long live the king. For now, and for a long time to come, the future belongs to Kevin Rudd's Labor government. But we should certainly pause a moment to consider the prime ministership of John Howard. In terms of national security, defence and foreign policy, Howard is an absolute giant of Australian history. He has remade national security policy at all levels. Mostly it has been evolution rather than revolution. But there have also been dazzlingly revolutionary moments. Howard has had a consistent view of Australia's interests and its place in the world. I rank Howard at least among the top five strategic prime ministers in Australian history. The denigration and neglect of Australian history have generally meant that we are not aware of just how well we have been led strategically for most of the past 100 years. Our prime ministers have generally had a good sense of their nation's vulnerabilties and potential, and have shaped policy to that end. There are only four other prime ministers who rank with Howard on strategic issues.
Greg Sheridan, "Tribute to Howard," The Australian, November 29, 2007 --- http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22838146-7583,00.html

This spurious argument ignores these facts: Rising health costs currently threaten to bankrupt the U.S. Treasury, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CEOs of some of our largest businesses are saying the same thing about their companies. Public spending on health care is rising faster than GDP, so spending on other essential public needs must be reduced or taxes increased. Most health-care spending is not discretionary, but is dictated by illness and injury and by the decisions of providers and insurers who profit from a system in which price-competition cannot function as it does in other parts of our economy. Finally, as Mr. Graham acknowledges, "averages obscure many harsh realities and hide the fact that many Americans are unable to afford health care." Further, the numbers of uninsured and underinsured continue to rise as health costs increase. The health cost crisis is not a "myth."
Arnold S. Relman, M.D., Harvard Medical School Boston, The Wall Street Journal, November 26, 2007 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119604751824503629.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

And yet the public does not seem to feel all that heatedly about the warming of the planet. In survey after survey, American voters say that they care about global warming, but the subject ranks quite low when compared with other concerns (e.g., the economy, health care, the war on terror). Even when Mr. Gore's Oscar-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth," was at the height of its popularity, it did not increase the importance of global warming in the public mind or mobilize greater support for Mr. Gore's favored remedies--e.g., reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by government fiat. Mr. Gore may seek to make environmental protection civilization's "central organizing principle," as he puts it, but there is no constituency for such a regime. Hence even the Democratic Party's presidential candidates, in their debates, give global warming only cursory treatment, with lofty rhetoric and vague policy proposals.
"The Lowdown on Doomsday:  Why the public shrugs at global warming," The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2007 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110010913 

Family-Friendly Cities
This focus--epitomized by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm's risible "Cool Cities" initiative--is less successful than advertised. Cincinnati, Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit and Memphis have danced to the tune of the hip and the cool, yet largely remain wallflowers in terms of economic and demographic growth. Instead, an analysis of migration data by my colleagues at the Praxis Strategy Group shows that the strongest job growth has consistently taken place in those regions--such as Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham--with the largest net in-migration of young, educated families ranging from their mid-20s to mid-40s. Urban centers that have been traditional favorites for young singles, such as Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have experienced below-average job and population growth since 2000. San Francisco and Chicago lost population during that period; even immigrant-rich New York City and Los Angeles County have shown barely negligible population growth in the last two years, largely due to a major out-migration of middle class families.
Joel Kotkin, "The Rise of Family-Friendly Cities It's lifestyle, not lattés, that our most productive workers want," The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010911
Jensen Comment
Of course other factors are at work as well. New York/New Jersey and California have the highest taxes and real estate prices. Some growth industries like oil and banking have for a number of reasons originated (e.g., Houston) or merged into (e.g., Raleigh-Durham) corporate headquarters in "family-friendly" cities. High crime rates and traffic congestion are prevalent in family-friendly Houston as well as the other urban centers mentioned above. Some "family-friendly" downtown centers have virtually no families relative to New York and Boston, e.g., Houston Downtown versus Manhattan. Then again, does Houston even have a "downtown?" Interestingly, the so-called "family-friendly" cities have the worst urban transit systems.

Not-So-Family-Friendly City
Months after tackling the problem of rowdy street behavior, the Berkeley City Council tonight will consider a scaled-down plan to reduce yelling, urinating, littering, camping, smoking, sex and drunkenness on sidewalks and in parks.
Carolyn Jones, "Berkeley City Council to consider revised homeless initiative," San Francisco Chronicle, November 27, 2007 ---
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/27/BAJ3TJGDG.DTL

I was distressed to read that the administration is assigning human apparatchiks to monitor Brandeis classrooms to assure linguistic conformity and political orthodoxy. Surely the administration knows that the technology of authoritarian surveillance has advanced far beyond the primitive methods employed by the likes of J. Edgar Hoover and Erich Honecker. A laptop and a webcam can do the job far more cheaply and efficiently. Just position one unit per class in the back of the room, then patch the feed into a mainframe system... This simple expedient would not only provide an accurate audio-visual record of conversational malfeasance by faculty and students, but the real-time administration would allow the administration to dispatch agents immediately into the classroom to stop the utterance of verboten words or ideas.
Thomas Doherty as quoted by UD, "UD Gives Thanks to Thomas Doherty," Inside Higher Ed, November26, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/blogs/university_diaries/ud_gives_thanks_to_thomas_doherty
Jensen Comment
Sounds like Big Brother is listening in on every lecture (and perhaps eventually every faculty office) to detect any violations of political correctness. This is McCarthyism in reverse, and it makes David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights like academic free speech in comparison

Much is being made of the fact that, in accepting the administration's invitation, Syria apparently reversed a previous decision, coordinated with Iran, to boycott the conference. This plays into the view that Syria can be persuaded to abandon its 25-year-old ties to Iran and return to the Arab fold, thereby severing the encircling chain that links Tehran to Damascus to southern Lebanon to the Gaza Strip. High-profile ridicule of the conference by Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who called it "useless") and spokesmen for Hezbollah and Hamas add to the impression that Mr. Assad may be prepared to chart an independent course--all for the modest price of the U.S. agreeing (with Israel's consent) to put the issue of the Golan Heights on the conference's agenda. It really would be something if the Syrian delegation could find their own road to Damascus on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. But that would require something approximating good faith. The Syrians' decision to be represented at Annapolis by their deputy foreign minister--his bosses evidently having more important things to do--is one indication of the lack of it. So is the Assad regime's declaration (via an editorial in state newspaper Teshreen) that their goal at Annapolis is "to foil [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert's plan to force Arab countries to recognize Israel as a Jewish state." And lest the point hadn't been driven home forcefully enough, the Syrian information minister told Al Jazeera that Syria's attendance would have no effect on its relations with Iran or its role as host to the leadership of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.
Bret Stephens, "Condi's Road to Damascus:  The price America will pay for her Syrian photo-op," The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010912

Think of the money that Medicare pays doctors for seeing patients as though it's a pie called the "Sustainable Growth Rate." This pie is not going to get bigger unless Congress cooks some more pies by New Years. Otherwise, when more patients join Medicare and more pieces are needed next year, we will have to cut the pieces that doctors are paid each time we see a patient into smaller and smaller pieces. I wimped out: I closed my office in 2003 because I saw the costs of the requirements for medical reporting and "privacy" coming and I figured that I could work part time for other people and make more money than I was making as a solo doc. (And I hate the business part of medicine.) I'm not sure how many others are making the same decision, but we often read about "boutique" practices and docs who won't take Medicare or new Medicare patients. Have you noticed how many doctors in your town are adding things like Botox shots, laser therapy and other cash-pay services?
"Medicare Pie Cut Thinner," Life Ethics, November 28, 2007 --- http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/2007/11/medicare-pie-cut-thinner.html
For more information and history, read this article or watch this video from the Texas Academy of Family Physicians.

The authors of the study, “The Immigrant University: Assessing the Dynamics of Race, Major and Socioeconomic Characteristics at the University of California,” released by Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, say their analysis is designed to show the need for a more complex method of defining “diversity,” “beyond older racial and ethnic paradigms.”
Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, November 28, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/28/immigrant

The organizers of stunts like Islamofascism Awareness Week are the “useful idiots” of jihadism. They are directly helping the cause of Islamic fundamentalism. Short of stealing plutonium or blowing yourself up, one of the best things you can do to help spread terrorism is to support efforts that make the United States look like the enemy of Islam. Just remember, Al Qaeda is counting on you to raise “Islamofascism Awareness.”
Scott McLemee, "Beyond Islamophobofascism," Inside Higher Ed, November 28, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/11/28/mclemee

I've had bowls of spaghetti that were more tightly structured than this argument.
Anthony Lane

An Example of Dubious Reasoning:  This Time from a Liberal Scholar Who Should Know Better
Barack Obama represents "the only hope for the US in the Muslim world," according to Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Because Obama's father was a Muslim, he "could lead a reconciliation between the Muslim countries and the US." With any of the other candidates as president, Hersh said, "we're facing two or three decades of problems in the Mideast, with 1.2 billion Muslims."
Jon Wiener, "Obama and Islam," The Nation, November 16, 2007 --- http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/?pid=252300
Jensen Comment
Without finding fault with Obama or his campaign, I find this genetic father bit the most spurious argument imaginable from supposed intellectuals. Senator Obama is an active worshipper in the Trinity United Church of Christ --- http://www.tucc.org/about.htm . Both Hersh and Wiener play down that fact! Barack Obama's father had zero influence upon raising his son. Senator Obama's parents separated when he was two years old. His father eventually moved back to Kenya and did not communicate with his ex-wife and young son.  Obama's  mother then married an Indonesian student. The family moved to Jakarta in 1967 where Obama attended local schools from ages 6 to 10. Afterwards he lived with his maternal grandparents in the U.S. If there was any Muslim influence on Senator Obama's childhood in Indonesia it had absolutely nothing to do with his genetic father in Kenya. Basing peace hopes on Muslim genes is an unbelievable stretch among intelligent people. Perhaps Seymour Hersh is appealing to ignorant voters. Most likely Hersh is grasping at straws and trying to move the electorate with bad reasoning to choose his favored candidate. Hersh is among the most liberal of the writers in the leftist-leaning magazine called The New Yorker. Jon Wiener writes for The Nation --- whose editors are making a concerted effort to have either Obama or Edwards upend Senator Clinton's bid for the U.S. presidency. So is Seymour Hersh making such an effort to beat down Senator Clinton.

Another Example of Dubious Reasoning:  This Time From Bush Supporters
Supporters of President Bush credit his stubborn resistance to the use of human embryos for stem cell research with being the impetus that led scientists to discover how to transform skin cells into stem cells (“Behind the Stem Cell Breakthrough,” editorial, Dec. 1). Those who champion this president’s actions should recall President Lincoln telling a colleague that calling a donkey’s tail a leg does not make the donkey have five legs. Any citizen with a family member or a friend suffering a degenerative illness understands that President Bush has provided nothing to stem cell research but impediments. Perhaps this new science will allow humankind to circumvent the backward notions of this president.
James E. Chenitz, "Bush and Stem Cells," The New York Times, December 5, 2007 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
This reminds me of when the guard delivers an attorney's bill to a convicted loser's cell with a note attached saying:  "We just can't win them all. The law is a game of chance."

What if they held a war movie, and no one came? That's the tale of woe at this year's fall box office, where Tinseltown's bleak vision of Iraq has many movie-goers taking a pass. Films from Brian De Palma's low-budget screed "Redacted" to Robert Redford's star-studded "Lions for Lambs" are playing to empty seats. Small wonder. As Hollywood sees it, the fictionalized stories worth telling about Iraq and the war on terror involve the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl by American soldiers ("Redacted"); the kidnap and torture of an innocent Egyptian ("Rendition"); the duplicity of the Army surrounding a soldier's death ("In the Valley of Elah"), and other American perfidy. "Lions for Lambs" has performed so poorly that it may not make back its $35 million investment.
"Hollywood Bombs," The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2007; Page A22 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119621011146905938.html

Will Hollywood add the final nails to Christianity, Jewish, and Islamic Religion Coffins?
A star-studded, big-budget fantasy film released for Christmastime features religion as the villain. Hollywood is collaborating with a militant atheist British children's book author to indoctrinate children. "The Golden Compass," which opens this week, stars Nicole Kidman and cost Time Warner's New Line Cinema $180 million to produce, is based on the first installment of Phillip Pullman's children's book trilogy "His Dark Materials." Pullman is a fire-breathing British atheist who has told the Washington Post that "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief" and remarked that "My books are about killing God." He has also noted that "I am of the Devil's party and I know it."
"Liars And Kidnappers," Investor's Business Daily, December 4, 2007 --- http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=281663560294553
Jensen Comment
Phillip Pullman seems far more dangerous to religion than Danish cartoons or the apostate Salman Rushdie, because his motives are convince the world that God is a myth. Will this theme sell this season of Christmas and Honnaka.

"The surge hasn't accomplished its goals... We're involved, still, in an intractable civil war," says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid's pronouncement puts him at odds with . . .  John Murtha, who returned from a Thanksgiving visit to Iraq and said, "The surge is working." Democrats across the country and their Old Media amplifiers are also backing away from the dire rhetoric of defeat, shifting focus to a lack of political reconciliation or U. S. domestic issues. However, Democratic Congressional leadership is mired in a quagmire of defeatism that renders it incapable of giving American troops the respect, admiration and gratitude they earned with blood and sacrifice.
Jeff Gannon, December 4, 2007 --- http://www.jeffgannon.com/archives/general/index.html

It (Israel) said Iran had probably resumed the nuclear weapons program the American report said was stopped in the fall of 2003. “It is apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear program for a certain period of time,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio. “But in our estimation, since then it is apparently continuing with its program to produce a nuclear weapon.” Israel led the reaction around the world today to the new intelligence assessment released in the United States on Monday that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
Steven Erlanger and Graham Bowley, "Israel Unconvinced Iran Has Dropped Nuclear Pro," The New York Times, December 4, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/world/middleeast/05webreact.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Also see http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546799748&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The three authors of a National Intelligence Estimate seen as undermining the Bush administration's efforts to keep Iran from creating a nuclear weapon are all "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials," the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday in an editorial, citing an unidentified intelligence source. "As recently as 2005, the consensus estimate of our spooks was that 'Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons' and do so 'despite its international obligations and international pressure.' This was a 'high confidence' judgment. The new NIE says Iran abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 'in response to increasing international scrutiny.' This too is a 'high confidence' conclusion. One of the two conclusions is wrong, and casts considerable doubt on the entire process by which these 'estimates' — the consensus of 16 intelligence bureaucracies — are conducted and accorded gospel status," the newspaper said. "Our own 'confidence' is not heightened by the fact that the NIE's main authors include three former State Department officials with previous reputations as 'hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials,' according to an intelligence source. They are Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Greg Pierce, "Hyper-partisan," Washington Times, December 6, 2007 ---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071206/NATION03/112060086/1008

On November 15, however, the newly appointed DCI told CIA employees in a memo that "we support the Administration and its policies in our work...we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the Administration or its policies." One of the most insightful analyses of the memo came from Jon Stewart's Daily Show; correspondent Rob Corddry explained it as reflective of the Administration's desire to deal only "with intelligence that's been vetted to support decisions they've already made. They're tired of having to repeatedly misinterpret information the CIA gives them, so from now on intelligence will arrive at the White House pre-misinterpreted." In addition to heralding a likely continuation of the intelligence "stovepiping" process that reformers agree has to change, Goss's memo was a stunning and unparalleled articulation of CIA fealty to the White House. It was also tantamount to a declaration of war by Goss and his Capitol Hill cronies against career civil servants--and necessary intelligence reform--that shows a remarkable lack of judgment and competence.
Jason Vest, "Destabilizing the CIA," The Nation, December 13, 2004 --- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041213/vest

We wish we could be as sanguine, both about the quality of U.S. intelligence and its implications for U.S. diplomacy. For years, senior Administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, have stressed to us how little the government knows about what goes on inside Iran. In 2005, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report underscored that "Across the board, the Intelligence Community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors." And as our liberal friends used to remind us, you can never trust the CIA. (Only later did they figure out the agency was usually on their side.)
"'High Confidence' Games:  The CIA's flip-flop on Iran is hardly reassuring," The Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010946

As recently as 15 years ago, the academic study of human trafficking was, for all purposes, nonexistent. In a sign of how much times have changed, dozens of faculty members and legal experts packed into Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies Tuesday to discuss ways to turn recent interest in the subject into material to be woven into college curriculums.
Elia Powers, "Studying Human Trafficking," Inside Higher Ed, November 28, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/28/sais

The idea that Ivy League alumni or graduates of similar institutions run all the businesses that matter is just a myth, at least in the Silicon Valley. The San Jose Mercury News reported on a survey of the CEO’s of the 150 largest public companies in Silicon Valley — and two thirds were educated at state universities, state colleges, or other regional institutions.
Inside Higher Ed, November 29, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/29/qt

Earlier this week, campaigning in New Hampshire, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton asserted that health insurance companies spend $50 billion to avoid paying claims. "This is all part of their business model," she was quoted as saying. "This is how they make money, but it's so bad for the rest of us. I say to them, use the $50 billion to actually take care of people." Statements like these raise real questions about Sen. Clinton's grasp of the facts. But they are also part of a broader effort by the left to disparage the private-sector health insurance industry as wasteful and inefficient, meanwhile claiming that there would be great savings if the government covered more people. The health insurance industry does indeed monitor claims as they come in -- and pays the vast majority without hesitation. There is a cost to that monitoring. But there is also a cost to not monitoring those claims, and it is significantly higher . . . Then there's fraud. Last summer, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that administers the country's two largest insurance programs, announced a pilot program to investigate fraud in the medical device industry. Law enforcement officials, for example, visited 1,600 businesses in Miami that were billing Medicare for services. One-third of them didn't even exist, yet they billed Medicare for $237 million in the previous year. The government has now charged 120 people in 74 cases, and Medicare filings in the area are down by $1.4 billion from last year.
Merrill Mathhews, "Hillary's False Claims,"  The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2007; Page A12 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119646509038709996.html
Jensen Comment
Do the nationalized health care and disaster insurance plans not monitor claims. Nations would soon go bankrupt if claims were not carefully monitored.

Speaking of Defrauding Insurance Companies
The alleged conspiracy flows from litigation after Hurricane Katrina. The Scruggs Law Firm established a tort consortium called the Scruggs Katrina Group to shake down the insurance industry for not paying enough in claims, even though most homeowner policies excluded flood damage. Not atypically, a dispute emerged between Mr. Scruggs and one of the group's attorneys, John Griffin Jones, over how to divide the $26.5 million in attorneys' loot from a mass settlement with State Farm Insurance Co. According to the indictment, after Jones v. Scruggs moved to court, Mr. Scruggs attempted to buy off presiding circuit court Judge Henry Lackey. Judge Lackey reported the bribery overture and assisted with an FBI investigation. Presumably the Judge wore a wire, since the U.S. Attorney's case so far seems based largely on evidence gathered from secret conversations.
"The Trial Bar on Trial," The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010925

 

Jane K. Fernandes, who last year was named as the next president of Gallaudet University but was then denied the position after students protested her appointment, has a new job. The University of North Carolina at Asheville announced Friday that she will be its next provost. Fernandes served as provost at Gallaudet for six years. While she is deaf, many students questioned her commitment to the deaf rights movement and to their ideas. Since she lost the Gallaudet presidency, Fernandes has been circumspect about what happened, but in an interview with The Asheville Citizen-Times, Fernandes said that she had been a victim of deaf politics. She noted that an increasing number of deaf children these days grow up with hearing implants that lead their parents and medical professionals to see no need for them to learn sign language. Fernandes said she wanted to make Gallaudet more “inclusive” to the “diversity” of deaf people, but that protesters wanted a focus on deaf, sign-language oriented culture. Today, Fernandes said she wishes Gallaudet well, and believes that “everything works out for the best” and that she now has a “dream job.” (Most of the comments by Fernandes on Gallaudet are not in the article, but are about midway though the audio of the interview that accompanies it.)
Inside Higher Ed, December 3, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/12/03/qt

Is Women's History History?
It might be, if it's not rescued from the legitimate but more-abstract study of gender relations, writes Alice Kessler-Harris. Image of suffragette circa 1915 from Hulton-Deutsch Collection, Corbis.
Alice Kessler-Harris, "Do We Still Need Women's History?" Chronicle of Higher Education, December 3, 2007 --- Click Here

As the housing market continues to deteriorate, the pressure to respond is growing in Washington. A Treasury Department plan -- to work with mortgage servicers to streamline the process for modifying loans for subprime borrowers who can't afford higher monthly payments -- has been in the news the past few days. Yesterday Hillary Clinton announced a plan for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a five-year freeze on mortgage payments for subprime borrowers. It won't be long before demands are made -- including from Wall Street -- for a taxpayer bailout of homeowners facing foreclosure. A taxpayer bailout of distressed homeowners would be expensive, unfair to the vast majority of homeowners and renters who have made prudent financial decisions, and set a troubling precedent that would invite reckless behavior in the future. What's more, a bailout will not stop the inevitable correction in home prices, and is unlikely to prevent the associated economic repercussions.
Andy Laperriere, The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2007; Page A21 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119672746089712445.html

In a similar attempt to go beyond Fed easing, the head of the FDIC recently proposed that the government impose an across-the-board limit on the mortgage interest increases that are now scheduled to occur. With more than $350 billion of mortgages scheduled to adjust up in 2008, such an imposed limit could no doubt avoid many personal defaults. But arbitrarily changing the terms of mortgages now held by investors around the world would also destroy the credibility of American private debt. Who would invest in U.S. bonds or mortgages if the government could arbitrarily reduce the contracted interest payments? What's really needed is a fiscal stimulus, enacted now and triggered to take effect if the economy deteriorates substantially in 2008. There are many possible forms of stimulus, including a uniform tax rebate per taxpayer or a percentage reduction in each taxpayer's liability. There are also a variety of possible triggering events. The most suitable of these would be a three-month cumulative decline in payroll employment. The fiscal stimulus would automatically end when employment began to rise or when it reached its pre-downturn level. Enacting such a conditional stimulus would have two desirable effects. First, it would immediately boost the confidence of households and businesses since they would know that a significant slowdown would be met immediately by a substantial fiscal stimulus. Second, if there is a decline of employment (and therefore of output and incomes), a fiscal stimulus would begin without the usual delays of the legislative process.
Martin Feldstein, "How to Avert Recession," The Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2007; Page A25 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119682440917514075.html
Dr. Feldstein is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University

Nursing homes are increasingly administering antipsychotics to subdue elderly patients -- whether they are psychotic or not. The growing use of the medicines has ramped up Medicaid spending and is now coming under fire . . . One reason: Nursing homes across the U.S. are giving these drugs to elderly patients to quiet symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
Lucette Lagnado, The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2007; Page A1--- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119672919018312521.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

The populist who has the most radical tax plan imaginable.
"The Huckabee Contradiction," The Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2007; Page A24 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119682363824414053.html

Some say Mr. Huckabee is the tribune of the "religious left," and that strikes us as about right. He exhibits protectionist instincts, distancing himself from Nafta and saying he would insist on penalties and barriers to countries that don't support his conception of "fair trade." He delivers populist sermons against income inequality, but in favor of farm subsidies and an expanded government role in health care. He regularly knocks Wall Street, and he borrows from the Democratic playbook with digs at "the rich."

The irony is that if he ever did win the nomination, Mr. Huckabee would be vulnerable to the same sort of attacks from the left, if not more so. The political contradiction of his economic policy is that, even as he campaigns as a populist, his signature tax proposal is the most radical reform imaginable -- the so-called "fair tax."

The fair tax has been knocking around GOP precincts for years and has been heavily promoted by Texas millionaire Leo Linbeck, among others. We've heard their pitch in our offices and admire their passion. Their concept is to junk the federal tax code -- payroll, income, corporate, Social Security, everything -- and substitute a 23% national retail sales tax on nearly all goods and services. But while proponents use that 23% figure as an easier political sell, the rate is closer to 30% when it's calculated like any other sales tax, with the levy on top of the price. State sales levies would go on top of that.

There's a lot to be said for taxing consumption over income, and the fair tax would be worth consideration if we were writing a tax code from scratch. Realistically, we're not. The plan would require repealing the Sixteenth Amendment that allowed a federal income tax, and the chances of that happening are approximately zero. The political risk, given the nature of government, is that we'd end up with both an income tax and a national sales tax. Europe, here we come.

Mr. Huckabee has latched onto the fair tax in part to show his antitax bona fides -- which is necessary given his mixed tax and spending record during his decade in Little Rock. The Club for Growth has documented that record, with prejudice. But the fair tax also fits into Mr. Huckabee's populist pitch as a way to "abolish" the hated IRS. GOP audiences love that one, and so do we.

But in the case of the fair tax this boast is also misleading. One problem with a national sales tax is that its rate would have to be very high to raise enough money to fund the government. A rate of 30%, or even 23%, is high enough to invite its own major enforcement problems, so the tax police would still be very much with us.

As a political matter, the fair tax would offer a bull's-eye for Democrats, who would love to run against a plan that would instantly make most purchases 30% more expensive. Though the fair tax includes a complicated rebate system to shield the working poor, a levy on consumption would nonetheless hit hard the young, middle-income families that Mr. Huckabee is courting. It would also tax medical services and home prices, sure to be flashpoints this election season in particular.

In 2004, Democrats came from nowhere to nearly beat South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint by pounding his support for the fair tax. His opponent said it would raise taxes on 95% of state residents, and Mr. DeMint had to disavow his support. In the American system, such a radical change as the fair tax is possible only in a crisis, and we aren't living in one now.

Mr. Huckabee nonetheless writes that "when" his reform is enacted, "it will be like waving a magic wand releasing us from pain and unfairness." That glib naivete should provide some indication of how seriously the former Governor has thought through the political and policy complications of his biggest idea -- and also explain why, until recently, Mr. Huckabee was considered an implausible candidate.

Question
What do you know about the flat tax?
Are you for it or against it without knowing much about it?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Tax

Jensen Comment
I have to admit that I have some concerns in this regard, especially a problem we don't hear much about. At the moment wealthy and upper middle class Americans are willing to sacrifice high returns and take on higher investment risk by investing in tax-exempt (in terms of U.S. income tax) bonds/notes of American's schools, local government, and state government. These non-profit organizations thereby raise capital at considerably lower interest costs than individuals and business firms. If a truly flat tax replaces the income tax, how would these non-profit organizations such as schools and municipalities avoid having oppressive increases in costs of capital to a point where quality of education, quality of roads, quality of municipal services, etc. are severely threatened? What incentives would investors have for continuing to invest in these nonprofit organizations? Under a flat tax, it would seemingly take an astronomical amount of Federal dollars to make up the difference and adjust for risk differentials in debt of municipalities and schools. Would the Feds then have to micromanage to a point where Washington DC decides if Lone Rock, Iowa gets a new school and if so, how much will be spent on Lone Rock's new school. We might, thereby, have more people working for the Federal Government than in the entire private sector. Or do we already have that?

Damn, I love being on the cutting edge of obsolescence!
Mark Diller

Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and YouTube as Knowledge Bases on
the Spectrum of Data to Information to Knowledge

My search helpers are located at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm

A professor wrote to me drawing a fine line between information and knowledge. Information is just organized data that can be right or wrong or unknown in terms of been fact versus fiction. Knowledge generally is information that is more widely accepted as being "true" although academics generally hate the word "true" because it is either too demanding or too misleading in terms of being set in stone. Generally accepted "knowledge" can be proven wrong at later points in time just like Galileo purportedly proved that heavy balls fall at the same rate of speed as their lighter counterparts, thereby proving, that what was generally accepted knowledge until then was false. "Galileo Galilei is said to have dropped two cannon balls of different masses from the tower to demonstrate that their descending speed was independent of their mass. This is considered an apocryphal tale, and the only source for it comes from Galileo's secretary." Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa#History

In my opinion there is a spectrum along the lines of data to information to knowledge. Researchers attempt to add something new and creative at any point along the spectrum. Scholars learn from most any point on the spectrum and usually attempt to share their scholarship in papers, books, Websites, blogs, and online or onsite classrooms.

That professor then mentioned above then asserted that Wikipedia and YouTube were information databases but not knowledge bases. He then mentioned the problem of students knowing facts but not organizing these facts in a scholarly manner. He conjectured that this was perhaps do to increased virtual learning in their development. My December 5, 2007 reply to him was as follows (off-the-cuff so to speak).

Although I see your point about information versus knowledge, the addition of the “Discussion tab” in Wikipedia changed the name of the game. As “information” gets discussed and debated and critiqued it’s beginning to look a whole lot more like knowledge in Wikipedia. For example, note the Discussion tab at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Design

And when UC Berkeley puts 177 science courses on YouTube (some of them in biology), it’s beginning to look a lot more like YouTube knowledge --- --- http://www.jimmyr.com/free_education.php

With respect to virtual learning, my best example is Stanford’s million+ dollar virtual surgery cadaver that can do more than a real cadaver. For one thing it can have blood pressure such that a nicked artery can hemorrhage. Learning throughout time is based on models and simulations of sorts. Our models and simulations keep getting better and better to a point where the line between virtual and real world become very blurred much like pilots in virtual reality begin to think they are in reality.

Much depends on the purpose and goals of virtual learning. Sometimes edutainment is important to both motivate and make learners more attentive (like wake them up). But this also has drawbacks when it makes learning too easy. I’m a strong believer in blood, sweat, and tears learning --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
When I put it into practice it was not popular with students of this generation who want it to be easy.

You note that:  “These students have prepared but it is poorly arranged, planned, and articulated.” One thing we’ve noted in Student Managed Funds (like in Phil Cooley’s course where students actually control the investments of a million dollars or more of a Trinity University's endowment) where students must make presentations before the Board of Trustees greatly improves students “planning and articulation.” You can read more about this at the University of XXXXX (December 4) at http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/
Note that the portfolios in these courses are not virtual portfolios. They’re the real thing with real dollars! Students adapt to higher levels of performance when the hurdles require higher ordered performance.

I prefer to think of higher order metacognition --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition
For specific examples in accounting education see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
One of the main ideas is to make students do their own discovery learning. Blood, sweat, and tears are the best teachers.

Much of the focus in metacognitive learning is how to examine/discover what students have learned on their own and how to control cheating when assessing discovery and concept learning --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

Higher order learning attempts to make students think more conceptually. In particular, note the following quotation from Bob Kennelly at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge

We studied whether instructional material that connects accounting concept discussions with sample case applications through hypertext links would enable students to better understand how concepts are to be applied to practical case situations.

Results from a laboratory experiment indicated that students who learned from such hypertext-enriched instructional material were better able to apply concepts to new accounting cases than those who learned from instructional material that contained identical content but lacked the concept-case application hyperlinks. 

Results also indicated that the learning benefits of concept-case application hyperlinks in instructional material were greater when the hyperlinks were self-generated by the students rather than inherited from instructors, but only when students had generated appropriate links. 

Along broader lines we might think of it in terms of self-organizing of atomic-level information/knowledge ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization

I look forward to your writings on this subject when you get things sorted out. You’re a good writer. Scientist's aren't meant to be such good writers.

Wikipedia (heavily used by scholars in spite of authenticity risks)--- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s

Who is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? --- http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/who_is_mahmoud_ahmadinejad.html
The Iranian-born author of the above article invites anybody to contact him with corrections at amil_imani@yahoo.com
It would be great to see if and how the author tries to defend himself about contentious “facts.”

Wikipedia --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

It goes without saying that Wikipedia modules are always suspect, but it is easy to make corrections for the world. I think this particular model requires registration to discourage anonymous edits.

What is often better about Wikipedia is to read the discussion and criticisms of any module. For example, some facts in dispute in this particular module are mentioned in the “Discussion” or “talk” section about the module ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

Perhaps some of the disputed facts have already been pointed out in the “Discussion” section. Of course pointing out differences of opinion about “facts” does not, in and of itself, resolve these differences. I did read the “Discussion” section on this module before suggesting the module as a supplementary link. I assumed others would also check the “Talk” section before assuming what is in dispute.

Since Wikipedia is so widely used by so many students and others like me it’s important to try to correct the record whenever possible. This can be done quite simply from your Web browser and does not require any special software. It requires registration for politically sensitive modules.

Wikipedia modules are often “corrected” by the FBI, CIA, corporations, foreign governments, professors of all persuasions, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. This makes them fun and suspect at the same time. It’s like having a paper refereed by the world instead of a few, often biased or casual, journal referees. What I like best is that “referee comments” are made public in Wikipedia’s “Discussion” sections. You don’t often find this in scholarly research journals where referee comments are supposed to remain confidential.
Reasons for flawed journal peer reviews were recently brought to light at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#PeerReviewFlaws

The biggest danger in Wikipedia in generally for modules that are rarely sought out. For example, Bill Smith might right a deceitful module about John Doe. If nobody’s interested in John Doe, it may take forever and a day for corrections to appear. Generally modules that are of great interest to many people, however, generate a lot of “talk” in the “Discussion” sections. For example, the Discussion section for George W. Bush is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:George_W._Bush

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

 

 

"Forget the Articles, Best Wikipedia Read Is Its Discussions," by Lee Gomes, The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2007; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118712061199497533.html

You already know about Wikipedia -- or think you do. It's the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, the one that by dint of its 1.9 million English-language entries has become the Internet's main information source and the 17th busiest U.S. Web site.

But that's just the half of it.

Most people are familiar with Wikipedia's collection of articles. Less well-known, unfortunately, are the discussions about these articles. You can find these at the top of a Wikipedia page under a separate tab for "Discussion."

Reading these discussion pages is a vastly rewarding, slightly addictive, experience -- so much so that it has become my habit to first check out the discussion before going to the article proper.

At Wikipedia, anyone can be an editor and all but 600 or so articles can be freely altered. The discussion pages exist so the people working on an article can talk about what they're doing to it. Part of the discussion pages, the least interesting part, involves simple housekeeping; -- editors noting how they moved around the sections of an article or eliminated duplications. And sometimes readers seek answers to homework-style questions, though that practice is discouraged.

But discussion pages are also where Wikipedians discuss and debate what an article should or shouldn't say.

This is where the fun begins. You'd be astonished at the sorts of things editors argue about, and the prolix vehemence they bring to stating their cases. The 9,500-word article "Ireland," for example, spawned a 10,000-word discussion about whether "Republic of Ireland" would be a better name for the piece. "I know full well that many Unionist editors would object completely to my stance on this subject," wrote one person.

A ferocious back and forth ensued over whether Antonio Meucci or Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. One person from the Meucci camp taunted the Bell side by saying, "'Nationalistic pride' stop you and people like you to accept the truth. Bell was a liar and thief. He invented nothing."

As for the age-old philosophical question, "What is truth," it's an issue Wikipedia editors have spent 242,000 words trying to settle, an impressive feat considering how Plato needed only 118,000 words to write "The Republic."

These debates extend to topics most people wouldn't consider remotely controversial. The article on calculus, for instance, was host to some sparring over whether the concept of "limit," central to calculus, should be better explained as an "average."

Wikipedia editors are always on the prowl for passages in articles that violate Wikipedia policy, such as its ban on bias. Editors use the discussion pages to report these sightings, and reading the back and forth makes it clear that editors take this task very seriously.

On one discussion page is the comment: "I am not sure that it does not present an entirely Eurocentric view, nor can I see that it is sourced sufficiently well so as to be reliable."

Does it address a polarizing topic from politics or religion? Hardly. The article was about kittens. The editor was objecting to the statement that most people think kittens are cute.

These debates are not the only treasures in the discussion pages. You can learn a lot of stray facts, facts that an editor didn't think were important enough for the main article. For example, in the discussion accompanying the article about diets, it's noted that potatoes, eaten raw, can be poisonous. The National Potato Council didn't believe this when asked about it last week, but later called back to say that it was true, on account of the solanine in potatoes. Of course, you'd have to eat many sackfuls of raw potatoes to be done in by them.

The discussion about "biography" included random facts from sundry biographies, including that Marshall McLuhan believed his ideas about mass media and the rest to have been inspired by the Virgin Mary. This is true, said McLuhan biographer Philip Marchand. (Mr. Marchand also said McLuhan believed that a global conspiracy of Freemasons was seeking to hinder his career.)

Remember, though, this is Wikipedia, and while it tends to get things right in the long run, it can goof up along the way. A "tomato" article contained a lyrical description of the Carolina breed, said to be "first noted by Italian monk Giacomo Tiramisunelli" and "considered a rare delicacy amongst tomato-connoisseurs."

That's all a complete fabrication, said Roger Chetelat, tomato expert at the University of California, Davis. While now gone from Wikipedia, the passage was there long enough for "Giacomo Tiramisunelli" to turn up now in search engines as a key figure in tomato history.

Wikipedia is very self-aware. It has a Wikipedia article about Wikipedia. But this meta-analysis doesn't extend to "Wikipedia discussions." No article on the topic exists. Search for "discussion," and you are sent to "debate."

But, naturally, that's controversial. The discussion page about debate includes a debate over whether "discussion" and "debate" are synonymous. Emotions run high; the inability to distinguish the two, said one participant, is "one of the problems with Western Society."

Maybe I have been reading too many Wikipedia discussion pages, but I can see the point.

Jensen Comment
This may be more educational than what we teach in class. Try it by clicking on the Discussion tab for the following"

Credit Derivative --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_derivative

Capital Asset Pricing Model --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_asset_pricing_model

Socratic Method --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_Method

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

"Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits," by Katie Hafner, The New York Times, August 19, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html?ex=1188532800&en=c387035de4ec887b&ei=5070

"CIA, FBI Computers Used for Wikipedia Edits," by Randall Mikkelsen, The Washington Post, August 16, 2007 --- Click Here
"CIA and Vatican Edit Wikipedia Entries," TheAge.com, August 18, 2007 --- Click Here

Jensen Comment
Wikipedia installed software to trace the source of edits and new modules.

Bob Jensen's threads on tools of education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

Global Warming Test:  The Issue of Milankovitch Orbital Variations

A geoscientist criticized the following link that I placed (and then removed from) the September 10 edition of Tidbits.
The Global Warming Test  --- http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html

 A reply from this geoscientist.

I owe you a longer response, so here goes:

 
Much of the information on the test is correct... but facts out of context can often mislead!

 
I have strong issues with several questions on those grounds:

 
Question 3 asks what the main cause of global warming is, and gives 3 possible choices. There are two major problems here. First the question is time dependent. Second, several "main" causes aren't even listed as possibilities. Some examples:  If I ask what the main cause of the warming that has occurred over the last 18,000 years is, the answer is Milankovitch orbital variations (which include more than the "eccentricities" listed in answer b), but if I ask what the main cause of global warming was in the late Mesozoic, the answer is CO2 released by tectonic activity. If I ask what the main cause of global warming was between 1992 and 1999, the answer is the diminishing effects of the SO2 released by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. And if I ask what is the main cause of global warming has been over the past two centuries, the answer is increasing atmospheric greenhouse gasses, some of which are human produced.  Although the author discusses many of these causes on his answer page, clearly understanding relative time scales and interactions go way beyond his simplistic multiple choices.

 
Question 5 implies that something less than 1 degree C is negligible... but continuous changes of this magnitude in overall global averages implies that polar high temps are increasing more... since hotter equatorial regions stay relatively the same. This may be insignificant to the author, but ask a polar bear!

 
Question 6 implies that just because CO2 has been higher in the geologic past means we don't need to worry about current trends. This ignores two significant issues. First, solar output was much different in the past. Second, rate of change is more important for ecosystems than absolute changes. It took millions of years for CO2 to rise in the mid Mesozoic... not several centuries. Berner's data without error bars is also a bit misleading.

 
Question 7 has only simplistic answers. Sure, trees love CO2. But things we love can hurt us. Eat too many Twinkies and you die of clogged arteries. While forests like the CO2, individual species can't necessarily adapt to rapid climate changes. Your grandchildren won't see any Sugar Maples in New England, despite their use of CO2.

 
Question 9 depends on how one defines drastic. And check out the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine...

 
Question 10 is simplistic... all three means are important to determining how the Earth is changing. To say that high altitude temps are the only important measure is absurd. What is worse, the answer page still hawks the line that satellite data shows decreasing temperatures. This is well known error in early analyses that NASA has repudiated.

 
So the upshot is that there are many truths in this quiz. But that are presented along with untruths, and half truths in order to support a particular viewpoint. Whether that viewpoint is right or wrong is unimportant. Science must not seek to prove a point. That is what faith is for.

 
You may remember Ana Unruh, Trinity's first (and so far only) Rhodes Scholar. She is now a Senior Policy advisor for the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming (she is also now Ana Unruh Cohen). She likes to point out that climate models now been shown to be very accurate over the last 10-12 years but many politicians are unwilling to accept them, but the same politicians are willing to budget based on economic models that have much less basis in theory and much worse track records for predictive capability.

 

Below are some tidbits I added for this edition of Tidbits

The study by the Danish National Space Center rebuts a July study by UK scientists who allege there has not been a solar-climate link in the past 20 years. The Danish researchers, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, contend the UK study erroneously relies on surface air temperature, which, they say, "does not respond to the solar cycle." Over the past 20 years, however, the Danes argue, the solar cycle remains fully apparent in variations both of tropospheric air temperature and of ocean sub-surface water temperature.
"Sun still main force in climate change Rebuts widely publicized study this summer by UK scientists," WorldNetDaily, October 3, 2007 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57949

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

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change --- http://www.ipcc.ch/

How do we know global warming isn't Mother Nature having a hot flash?
Maxine --- http://pressroom.hallmark.com/maxine_dotcom.html

Mr. Christy is director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a participant in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time . . . I haven't seen that type of climate humility lately. Rather I see jump-to-conclusions advocates and, unfortunately, some scientists who see in every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse. Explaining each successive phenomenon as a result of human action gives them comfort and an easy answer. Others of us scratch our heads and try to understand the real causes behind what we see. We discount the possibility that everything is caused by human actions, because everything we've seen the climate do has happened before. Sea levels rise and fall continually. The Arctic ice cap has shrunk before. One millennium there are hippos swimming in the Thames, and a geological blink later there is an ice bridge linking Asia and North America.
John R. Christie, "My Nobel Moment," The Wall Street Journal, November 1, 2007; Page A19 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119387567378878423.html

"Carbon Offsets," by Richard Posner," Becker-Posner Blog, December 2, 2007 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

The most serious drawback of the carbon-offsets movement is that it is likely to make the problem of excessive carbon emissions more rather than less serious, and this for three reasons. The first is that it creates the impression that modest reductions in the rate of annual increases in carbon emissions make a meaningful contribution to the fight against global warming. They do not. Given the limitations of the carbon-offsets movement that I have noted (its purely voluntary nature and the fact that only consumer emissions are affected), plus the fact that any reductions attributable to the movement are more than offset by continuing rapid increases in emissions by China, India, and other rapidly developing economies, the movement can at best limit only very slightly the rate of annual increase in carbon emissions, whereas the need is to reduce the level of those emissions. The reason is that, because atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans only very gradually (and the ability of the ocean to act as a "carbon sink" apparently is declining), a high annual level of carbon emissions tends to have a cumulative effect, so that even if that level were steady (rather than increasing, as it is), the atmospheric concentration would rise.

Second, the movement encourages the belief that anyone who reduces his carbon "footprint" (that is, the emissions of carbon dioxide that he causes) to zero has done his bit to combat global warming. My wife and I have two cars, two houses, and fly a certain amount, but according to TerraPass's calculation, we can reduce our carbon footprint (roughly 32 tons of carbon dioxide a year) to zero at a cost of $282 a year. Then I will feel good about myself. But if a million American families having similar carbon footprints eliminate them at this rather modest price, the result--a reduction of 32 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted per year--will be microscopic, as the worldwide hourly emission of carbon dioxide is 16 million tons. A million American families would be roughly 1 percent of the U.S. population. Suppose the carbon-offsets movement, which is recent, and is getting a boost from the increasingly ominous evidence of global warming, grows beyond my expectations, to a point at which 10 percent of the U.S. population is paying TerraPass or other carbon-offset providers to offset an average of 32 tons per family. The effect would be to reduce annual worldwide carbon emissions by 20 hours' worth, or about one-quarter of 1 percent, and the reduction would be greatly offset by the worldwide growth of emissions, currently running at about 3 percent a year.

Third, and most serious, the carbon-offset movement, combined with well-publicized projects by Google and other companies to reduce carbon emissions, creates the false impression that global warming can be tamed by voluntary efforts, just as cleaning up after dogs has been achieved by voluntary efforts, without need for legal compulsion. Global warming cannot be tamed by voluntary efforts, because the costs of significantly reducing carbon emissions in order to reduce the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (or at least stop it from increasing) are enormous. If people believe that voluntary efforts will suffice, there will be no political pressure to incur the heavy costs that will be necessary to avert the risk of catastrophic climate change.

Continued in article

"Carbon Offsets," by Nobel Laureate Gary Becker," Becker-Posner Blog, December 2, 2007 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

The natural link between an offset system, whether compulsory or voluntary, and an emission trading system does dispose of the criticism that offsets are not desirable because they are like the indulgence system of the Middle Ages, In that system, sinners could purchase forgiveness for some of their sins without either having to repent, or having to agree not to sin anymore. Yes, an offset system does essentially involve buying the rights to pollute, but buying such rights helps get polluting into the hands of those businesses and consumers who get the most value from these rights. That is why the world has gravitated toward a cap and trade system rather than merely a cap system.

Another major problem with any carbon-offset system is that activities