Good Horses Make Good Videos

Down the road from our cottage in New Hampshire an elderly man's life centers on his Belgian draft horses. Although Mr. Schmidt lives humbly, some of his big horses are quite valuable. He told me he turned down an offer of over $100,000 for a team because he suspected that the buyer might not treat the horses right. In the summer he takes some of his horses to pulling contests around New England (usually at county fairs). He's an expert on training young horses for pulling competitions.

Draft horses were bred to be more gentle than most other types of horses even though they originated to carry crusaders donned in heavy armor. They're the biggest horses on the planet and were bred to pull their hearts out (although they cannot take extreme heat as well as mules and oxen). The record height was a shire over seven feet tall at the withers (neck base). Best known because of Budweiser show horses are the handsome and feathered (long hair around the hooves) Clydsdales. Over a hundred years ago these handsome and powerful horses pulled wagons loaded to the top with beer kegs.

Among my favorite recollections of childhood are memories of draft horses. On the Jensen home farm the breeds were mixed although the favored breed was probably the Belgian (or part Belgian) work horse. The Jensen horses were good workers but they were not show horses. My grandfather Christian Granville (Grant) Dourte, however, owned show horses, including the 1910 Iowa State Grand Champion named "Hierogliphe" (a Percheron stallion). Today my cousin Don Jenson has black Percherons that he drives at events like weddings and town parades in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. His great joy in life is hauling a wagon full of laughing children in a parade. If you visit the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld you will see Percheron horses pulling carriages on the Main Street USA.

In the early 1900s, long before I was born, Grant Dourte owned the livery stable in Swea City, Iowa. He held horse shows and traded in top breeds of horses, especially draft horses. My grandfather was a colorful horse trader who in his prime owned nine farms and half the town of Swea City. He sometimes would rent a private train car to take to Chicago for business. He got out of the horse business when his fine livery barn in Swea City burned to the ground. Fifteen big and beautiful draft horses perished in that tragic fire. Grandfather later lost eight of his nine farms and got me in the Great Depression, but he did manage to keep one farm about nine miles north of Swea City. I eventually inherited this farm after it was passed on to my parents. In the summertime I spent weeks at a time living with my grandparents in Swea City during the 1940s. I've very fond memories of those carefree childhood days --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm

One of the things that slowed my grandfather down was a run-away team out on the farm. When the wagon flipped at full speed my grandfather broke both shoulders, a collar bone, an arm, and both legs. After that he drove his horses and his cars at a snail's pace.

A number of horse breeds are used as draft horses, with the popularity of a given breed often closely linked to geographic location. Examples include: American Cream, Ardennes, Belgian, Boulonnais, Breton. Clydesdale, Dole Gudbrandsdal, Irish Draught, Percheron, Shire, Suffolk Punchand and the Gypsy Vanner horse.
Draft Horses (with pictures) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_horse

Videos of Draft Horses

The best-known horse originating in New England is the mixed breed horse first bred by Justin Morgan West Springfield, Massachusetts in 1789. Morgan horses combined the strength of draft horses with the speed and stamina of Arab breeds. Morgans are smaller than draft horses but can often do more work for longer periods of time and in hotter weather. Vermont named the "Vermont State Horse" after the Morgan horse --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Horse
I'm told that today Morgans are bred to be somewhat smaller like the one named Travis that I bought for my young son while living in Florida. They generally have a very heavy mane and tail.

History of and care of a horse --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse

THE AGE OF A HORSE (Author Unknown)
http://www.horseloversheadquarters.com/site/570970/page/741468
To tell the age of any horse
Inspect the lower jaw of course;
The six front teeth the tale will tell,
And every doubt and fear dispel.

Two middle nippers you behold
Before the colt is two weeks old;
Before eight weeks two more will come
Eight months: the corners cut the gum.
 		 At two the middle "Nippers" drop:
At three the second pair can't stop;
When four years old the third pair goes,
At five a full new set he shows.

The deep black spots will pass from view
At six years from the middle two;
The second pair at seven years;
At eight the spot each corner clears.
 		 From the middle "Nippers" upper jaw
At nine the black spots will withdraw.
The second pair at ten are bright;
Eleven finds the corners light.

As time goes on the horsemen know
The oval teeth three-sided grow;
Then longer get - project before -
Till twenty, when they know no more."

Jensen Comment
In elderly horses and humans the teeth do not grow longer. They only seem longer because the gums recede with age. Hence the expression "getting a little long in the tooth."

I said that the Jensen farm did not have show horses. Actually for many years my Uncle Millen Jensen on the home farm had an albino stallion named Cap, but Cap was a saddle horse rather than a draft horse. Cap was trained to do some show ring tricks, and people brought mares from hundreds of miles away for breeding with Cap. Cap was always called an "albino stallion," although I recently learned that there are no purely albino horses. The only horses properly called white are those with pink skin under a white hair coat, a far more rare occurrence than grays with black skin underneath. There are no truly albino horses (no pigmented skin and pink eyes). True albinism is a lethal gene in horses --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse#Common_myths_and_terminology_errors
The best known white horse was the Lone Ranger's horse named Silver --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Ranger
Hi ho Silver away!

 

Tidbits on January 18, 2008
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

On May 14, 2006 I retired from Trinity University after a long and wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. I was generously granted "Emeritus" status by the Trustees of Trinity University. My wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm

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/
Also see http://www.yackpack.com/uc/   

Free Online Tutorials in Multiple Disciplines --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials

Google Maps Street View --- http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/

World Clock --- http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php

Tips on computer and networking security --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm

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

If you think your life is not going anywhere, think again --- http://dingo.care2.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf

Patriots 16-0 (Make that 17-0) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGbua9TV18c

Forwarded by Roger Hermanson
Some of the world's greatest quotations from great leaders (video) --- http://www.greatquotesmovie.com/

Aristocrats of Campus Humor (video) --- http://chronicle.com/media/video/v54/i18/comedy/
(Not always politically correct)
A college comedy contest in New Jersey offers a peek inside the undergraduate mind. It isn't pretty in there.
Thomas Bartlett, "Funny You Should Say That," Chronicle of Higher Education, January 11, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i18/18a00801.htm

Reviewer Persona & Shadow: Insights from Jungian Psychology, by our friend Dan Stone at the University of Kentucky ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0J7AfM4gRw
Jensen Comment
I confessed to changing my "reviewer persona and shadow" at http://snipurl.com/jensenconfession
The longer URL is http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits071206.htm#JensenConfession

From the U.S. Library of Congress
Exploring the Early Americas --- http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/earlyamericas/

A cocaine boom in Europe and the continent's strong currency have combined to fuel a thriving industry: euro laundering.
The Wall Street Journal Video --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120044304824892769.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

George Wright forwarded the link to this nasty video
How to Cheat With Crib Notes (Video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpQZDJ2fGnI
Especially beware of a student who brings in a six pack.
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm

Teamwork Cheating on Exams --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH2KZTyp3_A&feature=related
(But students in the front row are out of luck.)

Skirting an Exam --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slL9WkjZt-g
(There's hope for the front row too. But if you have a male instructor, your chances of getting caught are greater.)

How to cheat in an exam with just a pen and paper --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fr0e8DqQ-E&feature=related

How to Cheat at School --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcmHVSZr32o

Howstuffworks: "How Electric Cars Work" --- http://auto.howstuffworks.com/electric-car.htm

Mike Gasior filmed a new video on the supposed "credit crisis" --- http://www.afs-seminars.com/video/2008-January-768K.wmv 
His past video commentaries are at http://www.afs-seminars.com/v-commentary.html

Math in Daily Life --- http://www.learner.org/interactives/dailymath/index.html

Cell Phone Karma --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFuq01NvEnA

Talking Dogs --- http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=lt16jr0xaf

Accounting Videos on YouTube --- http://www.youtube.com/
Search for “campbell79” or “susancrosson”
Links forwarded by Richard Campbell

Texas Ditch Surfing (read that "Lawyers Delight") --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVKOCOn8pu4
Also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMP2dRg-YIw

Netflix's coming attraction: Unlimited movies streamed over the Internet --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/20062/?nlid=806
Jensen Comment
For years I've loved renting Netfix DVDs. It's a heck of a deal for movie lovers.

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

NPR Archives --- http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=1107

The Year 2007 in Music for Kids --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16881065

Berlin Philharmonic, in Concert at Carnegie Hall --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16227797

Daniel Pollack at the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18026453

Jam session with Ray Charles, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis (video) --- http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe5w0_ray-charles-jerry-lee-lewis
Also see --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_k-CL3dJ8k 

APM Highlights Great Classical Voices of 2007

WXPN's 'Blues Show' host counts off the best blues CDs of 2007.

World Music 2007 Top 10
A sampling of year's best releases from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Bob Jensen listens to music free online (and no commercials) --- http://www.slacker.com/ 

Photographs and Art

Harbin Snow and Ice Festival in China --- http://rtoddking.com/chinawin2003_hb_if.htm

Global Distribution of Poverty --- http://sedac.ciesin.org/povmap/

Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings --- http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2007/freud/

MacWorld in 2008 --- Click Here

Laura den Hertog Galleries (reminds me of Andrew Wyeth) --- http://www.lauradenhertog.com/Lauradenhertog.com/Laura_den_Hertog_.html

Irish Blessing --- http://www.e-water.net/viewflash.php?flash=irishblessing_en
My favorite is still the one from Jesse
The Irish Blessing --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/blessing.htm 
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of the page and turn it on. Then scroll back to the top for the Irish countryside slide show.
Also found at http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/c001/thebend.html 
Also see http://www.e-water.net/viewflash.php?flash=irishblessing_en 

"Flickr Taps User Tags to Organize Library of Congress Images," by Scott Gilbertson, Wired News, January 16, 2008 --- http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/01/flickr-taps-use.html

Flickr has unveiled a new project, dubbed The Commons, which will give Flickr members an opportunity to browse and tag photos from Library of Congress archives. The goal is to create what Flickr likes to call an "organic information system," in other words, a searchable database of tags that makes it easier for researchers to find images.

The pilot project features a small sampling of the Library of Congress’ some 14 million images. For now you’ll find two collections. The first is called “American Memory: Color photographs from the Great Depression” and features color photographs of the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection including “scenes of rural and small-town life, migrant labor, and the effects of the Great Depression.”

The second collection is the The George Grantham Bain Collection which features “photos produced and gathered by George Grantham Bain for his news photo service, including portraits and worldwide news events, but with special emphasis on life in New York City.” The Bain collection images date from around 1900-1920.

In effect the Library of Congress has become a Flickr user, complete with its own stream and while it’s great to see these image available to a much wider audience, we’re not so sure how much it’s going to help researchers.

If you’re looking for historical photographs do you want to search through comments from self-appointed experts criticizing the composition skills of photography pioneers or adding the ever insightful “wow?” Then there’s the inevitable comments soliciting photos to be added to whatever banal and increasingly inane groups and pools that Flickr members have come up with.

The tagging aspect will no doubt produce something of value, but pardon our cynicism, this may well turn out to be a good test of whether the positive aspects of the Flickr community outweigh the negative.

 

 

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

Forwarded by Roger Hermanson
Some of the world's greatest quotations from great leaders (video) --- http://www.greatquotesmovie.com/

Printmaking
Vive la difference: The English and French stereotype in satirical prints, 1720-1815 --- http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/viveladifference/

Arden: World of William Shakespeare --- http://swi.indiana.edu/arden/gi_specs.shtml

Dilbert Comic Strip --- http://snipurl.com/wpdilbert

Banned (Forbidden) Books --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Banned

Open Library --- http://www.openlibrary.org/
For a good review, see http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/08/08/mclemee 

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/ 

Finnegans Wake Extensible Elucidation Treasury --- http://www.fweet.org/ 

Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) --- Click Here

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) --- Click Here

From the University of Pennsylvania PENNsound [audio poetry, literature, and reviews) --- http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/ 

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. --- http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/AlcLitt.html 

Great electronic "books" from the University of Texas and Princeton University Dante Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise (a multimedia learning experience) --- http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/ 
Also see Princeton University's contribution (in Italian or English) --- http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/
Princeton's versions have both lectures and multimedia!

The great strength of the AICPA is that it brings so many men and women together as members of a single profession. Individually, we do great things for American households, businesses and governments. Together, we are an even more powerful force for prosperity in the economy at large—we pool our knowledge and speak with one voice. In the face of many challenges, we—as a united profession—have a fantastic future ahead of us.
AICPA Chairman Randy Fletchall’s inaugural speech delivered as he accepted the chairmanship of the Institute’s Board of Directors at the governing Council’s October 2007 meeting in Tampa, Fla. --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jan2008/united_profession.htm
AICPA=American Institute of Certified Public Accountants --- http://www.aicpa.org/
AICPA Accounting Education Center --- http://ceae.aicpa.org/

Accounting is the most popular major on US college campuses, according to the Job Outlook 2005 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The study found more college students are choosing to pursue accounting than any other discipline, followed by electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and business administration/management.
CA Magazine, "The New IT Profession," April 2006 --- http://www.camagazine.com/index.cfm/ci_id/30481/la_id/1.htm

Yesterday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, General Motors announced a partnership with Coskata of Warrenville, IL, a new company that claims it can make ethanol from wood chips, grass, and trash--including old tires--for a dollar a gallon. That's significantly less than it costs to make the biofuel from corn grain, which is the source of almost all the ethanol made in the United States.
Kevin Bullis, "Cheap Ethanol from Tires and Trash:  GM teams with a startup aiming to produce low-cost biofuels," MIT's Technology Review, January 14, 2008 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20056/?nlid=803
Also see http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20080113-0946-autoshow-gm-ethanol.html
Also see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/business/14gm.html

With the credit markets convulsing and merger activity slowing, what, pray tell, is the fate of law-firm associates who serve the titans of Wall Street? For sure, the most vulnerable are lawyers in so-called structured-finance practices. These are attorneys involved in the process of packaging assets such as mortgages, auto loans or credit-card debt into securities. But will layoffs creep into other practice areas as well?
Peter Lattman, "Structured Finance Proves To Be a Vulnerable Area," The Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2008; Page B17 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120045941678994161.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

In their shared opinion the local funeral home was the best-looking place in Petunia (Texas). “It figures you’d have to die in this town to experience beauty,” Mr. Leleux quotes his mother as having said.
Janet Maslin when reviewing The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy by Robert Leleux, The New York Times, January 14, 2008 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/books/14masl.html

The Wall Street Journal ran out a new Web site for the WSJ's editorial page, offering all editorials/op-eds, video interviews, and commentary --- for free --- http://online.wsj.com/public/page/opinion.html
Jensen Comment
The embedded Web links are quite useful even for scholars who generally disagree with WSJ editorials. For example, I'm often riled by the WSJ's visceral hatred of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but I find the referencing useful. I cannot determine as of yet whether the archives of the WSJ Editorial Page will henceforth also be free. For quite some time some of the other major newspapers have made virtually all the current articles free but not the archives. The WSJ has never had a free electronic version for all current articles although links from a newsletter called Opinion Journal have often been free for some current editorial page articles. I think that the new owner of the WSJ intends to eventually expand the free electronic version to other areas of current news in the WSJ. The free versions of editorial page items are is probably the first step. I do not anticipate making the WSJ archives free.

However, college students and faculty can usually access archives of thousands of newspapers and magazines free through the subscription services paid for by their campus libraries. These libraries, however, require passwords from authorized users in each campus community. It's very easy at times to forget to use those wonderful and expensive database subscriptions made available to campus communities for free. Authorized persons who've not used these for some time may be surprised at how much easier the libraries have made access to these archives as well as archives of other scholarly publications. I make use of this service for particularly expense items and for items that I do not consult frequently.

A new survey estimates that 151,000 violent deaths took place in Iraq between March 2003 and June 2006. The finding increases the controversy surrounding an earlier study that came up with a much higher death count for the years following the American-led invasion. That earlier study put the number at over 600,000.The new research, described in a paper published online on Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine, was based on interviews with people in homes grouped in clusters throughout Iraq.
Lila Gutterman, "Violent Deaths in Iraq Overestimated by Scholars, New Study Suggests," Chronicle of Higher Education, January 10, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/01/1175n.htm
Also see NPR's account at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17970231
Jensen Comment
A liberal Johns Hopkins scientist is shown to be more interested in politics than in science. Here are a couple of archived tidbits on October 16, 2006 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/%7Erjensen/tidbits/2006/tidbits061016.htm

Statistical analysis or politics?
The MSM had a field day on October 11 with two reports. The first was by a Johns Hopkins scientist, suggesting that there have been more than 600,000 civilian deaths in Iraq during the current conflict - a full order of magnitude greater than the US-government estimate of 30-50,000. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election." They're almost certainly way too high. This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.
"Rumsfeld, Casey Reject Reports on Iraqi Civilian Deaths, Troop Levels," by Mark Finkelstein, Newsbusters, October 12, 2006 --- http://newsbusters.org/node/8269

At a separate Pentagon briefing, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said that the figure "seems way, way beyond any number that I have seen. I've not seen a number higher than 50,000. And so I don't give it that much credibility at all."
San Francisco Chronicle, October 12, 2006 ---
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/12/MNGUTLNP6C1.DTL
 

 

It is estimated that at the Battle of the Somme in World War I, one million soldiers were killed or wounded. The men were subjected to continuous bombing and machine-gun fire, engaged in hand-to-hand combat, as well as endured poison gas attacks. On the most hideous day of the fight, the British lost over 50,000 troops. It has been called one of the bloodiest battles in all of history. It is not surprising, therefore, that a few of survivors reacted negatively, and experienced shell-shock, which is a complete mental breakdown. Incidentally, the term originated in that war.
William M. Briggs, January 14, 2008 --- http://wmbriggs.com/

Once again, the power of pork to sustain incumbents gets its best demonstration in the person of John Murtha (D-PA). The acknowledged king of earmarks in the House gains the attention of the New York Times editorial board today, which notes the cozy and lucrative relationship between more than two dozen contractors in Murtha's district and the hundreds of millions of dollars in pork he provided them. It also highlights what roughly amounts to a commission on the sale of Murtha's power as an appropriator: Mr. Murtha led all House members this year, securing $162 million in district favors, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. ... In 1991, Mr. Murtha used a $5 million earmark to create the National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence in Johnstown to develop anti-pollution technology for the military. Since then, it has garnered more than $670 million in contracts and earmarks. Meanwhile it is managed by another contractor Mr. Murtha helped create, Concurrent Technologies, a research operation that somehow was allowed to be set up as a tax-exempt charity, according to The Washington Post. Thanks to Mr. Murtha, Concurrent has boomed; the annual salary for its top three executives averages $462,000.
Edward Morrissey, Captain's Quarters, January 14, 2008 --- http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016617.php

When Jeff Flake was elected to Congress in 2000 from Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District with the hope of “effectively advanc[ing] the principles of limited government, economic freedom, and individual responsibility,” he was a relatively unknown entity outside Arizona. Some may have dismissed the Arizona newbie as just another congressman out of a 435-member body, but that would have been a big mistake.Over his seven years in the House, the mild-mannered contrarian has become the bane of porkers everywhere. To the chagrin of his congressional colleagues, the Arizona representative has made a career out of targeting some of Congress’s most outrageous pork projects by introducing amendments to eliminate those projects from congressional spending bills. In 2006, Flake introduced nineteen amendments, putting each member of Congress on record either in favor or in opposition to spending taxpayer dollars on such crucial projects as the National Grape and Wine Initiative, a swimming pool in California, and hydroponic tomato production in Ohio.
Pat Toomey, "Make It Flake! An appropriating move," National Review, January 17, 2008 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
Jeff Flake is a thorn in Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi's side as she agrees to earmarks in order to grease legislation through the House. It's really hard to manage a bunch of thieves  without giving them something to steal.

The California State Court of Appeals announced today their decision to overturn one of the most restrictive gun bans in the country, following a legal battle by attorneys for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and a previous court order against the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. “Today’s decision by the California State Court of Appeals is a big win for the law-abiding citizens and NRA Members of San Francisco,” declared Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist.
"San Francisco Gun Ban Ruled Null and Void," NRA-ILA, January 9, 2008 --- http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/NewsReleases.aspx?ID=10468
Jensen Comment
Now all eyes are shifted toward the U.S. Supreme Court's much larger pending decision on the banning of handguns in Washington DC ---
http://polipundit.com/index.php?p=19032

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is making it clear that she doesn’t share Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s view that the Bush administration is too cozy with the student-loan industry.After winning the Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday in New Hampshire, Senator Clinton complained that “predatory student-loan companies” have enjoyed “seven years of a president who stands up for them.”Ms. Spellings, asked about that remark during an address here today at the National Press Club, said the Bush administration actually has provided “vigorous oversight when we see abuse in the financial and student-lending industry.”The secretary cited the case of the 9.5-percent loan-subsidy program, which, according to the department’s inspector general, had a loophole through which lenders pulled hundreds of millions of dollars in excess profits. That abuse “has come to an end under this administration,” Ms. Spellings said.
"Secretary Spellings Stands Up to Senator Clinton," Chronicle of Higher Education, January 10, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/news/article/3735/secretary-spellings-stands-up-to-senator-clinton?at
Jensen Comment
As much as I would like to force the student-loan industry to pay the money back, it was Congress that created the loop hole in the first place. I wish they had to personally pay it back.

January 10, 2008 message from Israel's Naomi Ragen [nragen@netvision.net.il]

The good things that a person does are not negated by the bad things. They are totally separate. George W. Bush removed the threat of Saddam Hussein from the world, and took out the rockets aimed at Israel. He helped dry up terrorist funding in the world. He went after Bin Laden. He did all these things when people like you were baying for his blood, and waiting to elect some moron like John Kerry, who would have done none of these things.

Now Mr. Bush is coming to the end of his term. He has been given some devastating advice by those he trusts. And he is acting on that advice, destroying his legacy and endangering Israel, the Middle East and the world. While you may sit back and gloat: I told you so, I will say this: My world, is also your world. I feared, as did everyone else, that the constant pressure on the Bush administration from the Left would eventually cause this breakdown. The American government's failure to destroy the Iranian nuclear threat, to support Israel in her righteous attempt to protect herself from her enemies, and to set clear boundaries on terror organizations like Mahmoud Abbas' PLO will not only affect the life that I lead in Israel, but the life you lead in America. I don't know how this will happen, but the world is a very small place. When the Nazis targeted their Jewish community and Americans said: what does this have to do with us? the end result was a World War. I am sorry Mr. Bush has been mislead. I am devastated when I look ahead at the consequences of his delusional stance on what needs to been done in the Middle East. But this doesn't negate all the good he did. This doesn't negate the fact that his opponents were even worse.

The uprooting of Jews, and their replacement with hardened terrorists, will never bring peace, whatever people like you delude yourself into believing. It doesn't matter if many Israelis are similarly deluded, the end will be the same. And the election of Rudolph Giuliani, who in the past was a staunch friend of Israel, and a man of principle when it came to terrorists, might not make a difference, you're right. But the election of Hillary or Obama, et al, will certainly sound the final knell for the world as we know it. It's the same world you live in,believe it or not Ira. Sorry, you don't get to sit it out. You and those like you will finally have to face the fruits of your willfully blind choices along with us.

Naomi

Jensen Comment
What I cannot figure out is why Israel keeps furthering its bad image in the world by building more and more housing on the West Bank. To me this is not a good way to make friends with skeptics in the world. Naomi may also be misjudging the commitment of the Democratic Party candidates to Israel. Certainly the Jewish lobby in the U.S. is solidly behind the Democratic Party. This always has been and probably always will be until the Democratic Party truly abandons Israel's hope for a future --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Lobby

Arnold Schwarzenegger said in an address this week that California must end its "binge and purge" budget process -- his way of kicking off a binge worthy of Imperial Rome in its decadent late period. Yep: As his state reels from one of its recurrent fiscal crises, the Governor is making some headway on his "universal" health-care plan. California is carrying a $14 billion budget deficit and Mr. Schwarzenegger is suggesting across-the-board spending cuts. So perhaps it's unwise to introduce a new government entitlement that costs north of $14.4 billion a year. But then, you have to understand the Kremlinology of liberal health-care reform: This effort has as much to do with politics as public policy. Mr. Schwarzenegger devoted more than a year to health feuding with Sacramento. He strafed his own party for opposing tax increases. Meanwhile, many Democrats (and most labor unions) fought the Governor's agenda because the subsidies weren't extravagant enough. Desperate, the Governor brokered a last-minute bargain with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez in December. Thus Mr. Schwarzenegger's ambitions didn't die -- but for now, maybe call them the living dead. The negotiators rushed to patch together a policy framework before 2007 ended, but they didn't have the votes to actually pay for it. A two-thirds majority in the state legislature is required for tax increases, and Mr. Schwarzenegger alienated the Republicans he needed. So if this scheme is to become reality, new taxes on tobacco, hospitals and business must be ratified by voters in a November ballot initiative.
"State of the Living Dead," The Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2008; Page A8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120010319878085493.html
Jensen Comment
Unlike the Federal government, state governments and private individuals have no power to create money out of thin air to cover their excesses. How money is created (note that its not simply a matter of printing on more paper) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation
Sadly for The Terminator, California cannot create new money. It has to be raised or saved. Governor Schwarzenegger is married to a spendthrift legislature that has a zero fiscal responsibility mentality. Lately the Gov ernor himself has caved in to politics of insanity delusions. What happens when a state gets a zero credit rating with billions in bills to pay under contract? Never fear, Nancy Pelosi will ride in on a white horse with saddlebags full of taxpayer money from the other 49 states. Perhaps  Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislature aren't so dumb after all. There is a way for California to create new money out of thin air if Nancy remains Speaker of the House after November 2008. But if the GOP wins back the House in November, The Terminator gets terminated!

What we need is change I guess experience is kind of a leper.
Bill Richardson, failed but gentlemanly candidate for the 2008 presidential nomination --- Click Here

Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
Samuel Smiles as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-01-15-08.htm

During Huckabee’s tenure as Governor, evolution education in Arkansas languished in an environment of general hostility and insufficiency. Two anti-evolution bills were introduced in the state’s House of Representatives; textbooks in the Beebe, Arkansas public high school carried disclaimer stickers denigrating evolution; the state’s science curriculum earned a grade of “D” overall and an abysmal “zero” for its treatment of evolution; a creationist “museum” enjoyed state-funded advertising; and evolution was systematically and broadly squeezed out of schools and other educational institutions across the state. Huckabee did nothing to deter any of this – in fact, some of his public statements might indicate his tacit support . . . Finally, the teaching of creationism alongside of evolution in public schools for which Huckabee has called has been repeatedly rejected by the nation’s courts. The oath of office obliges the president to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It is unacceptable for a presidential candidate to advocate such clearly unconstitutional educational policy. University scientists, professors who train science teachers, and others who care about the quality of science education ought to oppose candidates who disparage evolutionary science and who condone the injection of religious doctrine into the public school science curriculum.
Jason R. Wiles, "The Huckster’s Artful Dodging on Evolution," Inside Higher Ed, January 11, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/01/11/wiles

A Hollywood Yarn Unravels:  Oliver Stone's FARC heroes are child abusers, too.
For (Hollywood Producer/Director) Mr. Stone, an anti-American Christmas miracle was in the offing. His film would portray Mr. Chávez as a humanitarian hero while demonizing Mr. Uribe. But it wasn't to be an obscure foreign film with no American message. It would also complement the assertions of U.S. unions, other trade protectionists and President Bush's political adversaries, all of whom insist -- against the evidence -- that the Colombian president violates human rights. Of course, the American left's current obsession with Mr. Uribe is not really about concern for human life. It's about the pending U.S.-Colombian free trade agreement, which they want to kill on "moral" grounds. Depicting Mr. Uribe as an intransigent right-winger is critical to their narrative. In this, the protectionists are allies of the rebels. The truth is that Mr. Uribe's restoration of law and order in Colombia has thrown the guerrillas back on their heels, and they are now frantically pulling the levers of international propaganda . . . Press reports say that doctors diagnosed the baby with anemia, malaria, a parasitic skin disease, malnutrition and an arm that had been broken at birth and not treated. "Anyone would have fallen apart before this child, with so many diseases," the hospital director told the Miami Herald. "He didn't raise his eyes. He got toys but did not pick them up. He did not stand but dragged himself on his butt. He cried but no tears came because of the malnutrition." When the news of the child's whereabouts broke Mr. Stone went away spitting mad, not at his FARC heroes, who had been exposed as child abusers, but at Mr. Uribe and Mr. Bush. Of the FARC he said, "Grabbing hostages is the fashion in which they can finance themselves and try to achieve their goals, which are difficult. I think they are heroic to fight for what they believe in and die for it, as was Castro in the hills of Cuba." Meanwhile, with Mr. Chávez looking like a fool, the two women were finally freed on Thursday. The FARC had reason to help him try to salvage his image: As this column has frequently noted, it needs Venezuela as its main transit route for cocaine and as a safe haven.
Mary Anatasia O'Grady," "A Hollywood Yarn Unravels (with video)," The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2008; Page A12 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120027020311287237.html

Another mortgage-refinancing boom is under way. But this time around, many homeowners will be watching from the sidelines. For the first time since 2005, mortgage rates have slipped well below 6%, ending last week at about 5.87%, according to mortgage tracker HSH Associates. Some lenders are offering even lower deals. At these levels, about 37% of homeowners could refinance their mortgages and save money on their monthly payment, estimates investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. As rates drop further -- and some expect that to happen if the economy continues to weaken -- increasing numbers of consumers will find refinancing their existing mortgage worthwhile . . . The result: The big winners will be conventional borrowers with so-called conforming loans -- those eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored entities that rule the mortgage market. In particular, borrowers with high credit scores or a large amount of equity already in their home, or some combination of both, stand to benefit, says Dale Westhoff, who heads Bear Stearns's mortgage research. In the past, when rates have dived below 6%, "you'd normally see subprime and Alt-A and jumbo borrowers" in the market, Mr. Westhoff says. "But they're really not going to be participants in this refi wave."
Jeff D. Opdyke, "Prime Time: The New Boom In Refinancing," The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2008; Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120052772271795781.html
Jensen Comment
Remember that the drop in mortgage payments can be misleading if you ignore the upfront costs of lowering these payments. There's no free lunch.

According to university (University of Rochester) officials, Arun Gandhi is in India right now. Joel Seligman, president of the university, released a statement Friday in which he said he was “surprised and deeply disappointed” by Gandhi’s post and that “his subsequent apology inadequately explains his stated views, which seem fundamentally inconsistent with the core values of the University of Rochester.” Said Seligman: “In particular I vehemently disagree with his singling out of Israel and the Jewish people as to blame for the ‘Culture of Violence’ that he believes is eventually going to destroy humanity. This kind of stereotyping is inconsistent with our core values and would be inappropriate when applied to any race, any religion, any nationality, or either gender.” Seligman added: “We are also committed to the right of every person to address complaints or allegations personally and directly. Arun Gandhi currently is in India. I will discuss this matter with him in person as soon as he returns to Rochester later this month.”
Scott Jaschik, "," Inside Higher Ed, January 14, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/14/gandhi

If our Washington, D.C., readers noticed a cortege of blue suits carrying a casket in front of the Brookings Institution last week, be not mournful. You were merely watching the leading economists of the Democratic Party burying the faith once known as Rubinomics. May it rest in peace. Rubinomics is the concept of "deficit reduction" as growth policy: Lower the federal budget deficit and, as dawn follows night, interest rates will fall and prosperity will break upon the land. Named for former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and much celebrated in the 1990s, the concept was embraced as gospel by nearly all Democrats as recently as a few weeks ago. But last week it officially expired, as those same Democrats reconverted to Keynesian deficit spending in the name of "economic stimulus."
"Rubinomics R.I.P," The Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2008; Page A12 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120035796472889887.html

In-store surveillance cameras showed that the man, who police identified as Derrick Kosch, 25, of Kokomo, shot himself as he placed the gun into the waistband of his pants, police said. Authorities declined to release the surveillance footage early Tuesday. Shortly after the robbery, dispatchers got a call from someone in a home in the 1000 block of East North Street about a man who was shot. When officers arrived, they found Kosch with a gunshot wound to a testicle and leg. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.
The Indy Channel.com, January 15, 2008 --- http://www.theindychannel.com/news/15051234/detail.html
Great Balls of Fire --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQMYtUB2Y_k

The winner in the Fallaci category is the brilliant General David Petraeus, who achieved something many were beginning to believe impossible. And the winner of the Fiskie, the idiotarian of the year par excellence, the most outstandingly hypocritical empty-skulled yapper in the universe according to LGF readers: MSNBC spokeshole Keith “The Mouth” Olbermann.
The 2007 Fiskie and Fallaci Winners! --- http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=28608_The_2007_Fiskie_and_Fallaci_Winners!&only
General Petreaus is really General Betray Us? (NBC's Keith Olbermann calls our top general in Iraq an outright liar) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rLSna0bqc8

Actor Wesley Snipes didn't pay federal taxes on $37.9 million in income from 1999 to 2004, according to documents filed ahead of the actor's tax fraud trial scheduled to begin on Monday in U.S. District Court in Ocala, FL, 80 miles northwest of Orlando.
"Actor Wesley Snipes spars with tax prosecutors," AccountingWeb, January 15, 2008 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=104463
Jensen Comment
Wesley doesn't take much comfort in knowing that Sophia Loren went to jail for tax evasion (but only for 18 days in Italy).

A special Kansas City police counter-terrorism unit says they are battling international and domestic terrorism in the metro. The department's homeland security division has five detectives dedicated to investigating threats of terrorism. The unit's commander says it's an evolving threat. . . . "In Kansas City, we face a silent, careful enemy," Dailey testified. "Disguised as legitimate Islamic organizations and charities we find threads leading to violent Islamist extremism." Dailey believes there are some in the metro posing as refugees from east-African countries. Though, he would not name specific organizations like Al-Qaeda or Hamas.
"Unit battles terrorism in Kansas CIty," MSNBC, January 15, 2008 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22667177

As many as 1,500 white Britons are believed to have converted to Islam for the purpose of funding, planning and carrying out surprise terror attacks inside the UK, according to one MI5 source. Lord Carlile, the Government's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation, said many of the converts had been targeted by radical Muslims while serving prison terms. Security experts say the growing secret army of white terrorists poses a particularly serious threat as they are far less likely to be detected than members of the Asian community.
Richard Elias, "Al-Qaeda's white army of terror," Scotsman, January 17, 2008 --- Click Here

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday that one of the biggest threats to U.S. security may now come from Europe.
Rob Gifford, "Chertoff Says Europe Poses Terror Threat," NPR, January 17, 2008 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18177084

With that as pretext, our sordid tale began Thursday when that bastion of socialism on the West Coast, the San Francisco Chronicle, curiously published an article harshly critical of folks like Penn who suck up to despots the paper typically reveres (emphasis added):  . . . With so many celebrities making asses of themselves these days, D-list actors and has-been pop stars need to get more resourceful. And what could be more controversial than hanging out with the world's most notorious dictators and other authoritarian figures? As ridiculous as the idea sounds, it's already coming into style. Naomi Campbell had a flirty interview with Venezuela President Hugo Chavez for a British GQ article that comes out today. At one point the controversial leader and potential ruler-for-life asked her to "touch my muscles." Danny Glover is friends with Chavez, who is reportedly funding two of the San Francisco actor's forthcoming films. Others who have made recent Chavez-related headlines include Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and Barbara Walters, who placed Chavez on her list of the most fascinating people of 2007.
Noel Sheppard, "Sean Penn Slams Paper That Mocked Celebs Sucking Up To Chavez," Newsbusters, January 16, 2008 --- Click Here 

Iran is awash with natural gas, a relatively clean-burning fuel that can produce electricity far cheaper than nuclear power plants ever could. Nearly all of its Middle Eastern neighbors sit on significant gas reserves or could have ready access to them through pipelines. Nuclear power, by contrast, is so costly that even in advanced economies it needs massive government subsidies and guarantees. True, many Middle Eastern states currently suffer from a shortage of natural gas. But this supply squeeze could be overcome relatively quickly once Middle Eastern states price electricity at market rates, develop their gas fields more fully and run pipelines to states with more gas on tap. This, though, would mean raising subsidized domestic energy prices, costly investments and solving outstanding border disputes.
Henry Sokolski, "Atomic:  Why are France and America helping the Mideast go nuclear?" The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2008 ---  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120052554733695743.html

The Democratic-led Congress is unlikely to block U.S. plans to sell $123 million worth of sophisticated precision-guided bomb technology to Saudi Arabia, despite concerns from some members that the systems could be used against Israel. . . . The sale is a key element in the U.S. strategy to bolster the defenses of its Arab allies in Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing majority Sunni Muslim Gulf nations against threats from Shiite Iran.
Matthew Lee and Anne Flaherty, "Congress likely to OK Saudi arms deal," Seattlepi.com, January 14, 2008 --- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1153ap_us_saudi_arms_sales.html

Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years . . . The nearly 4.3 million births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. births. But non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were having more babies, too.
Mike Stobbe, "Against the Trend, U.S. Births Way Up," PhysOrg, January 15, 2008 --- http://physorg.com/news119638009.html

In addition, the survey, conducted between June and October of 2007, found that a wide majority of Democratic (67%), Republican (66%), and Independent (70%) voters believe that health insurance costs should be shared by individuals, employers and the government. Further, a majority of the public was strongly or somewhat in favor of requiring individuals to have health insurance coverage—with government help for those who cannot afford it. Sixty-eight percent of Americans favor such a proposal, with 80 percent of Democrats in support, and more than half of Republicans (52%) and two-thirds of Independents (68%) in favor, according to a report on the survey findings, The Public’s Views on Health Care Reform in the 2008 Presidential Election. The Commonwealth Fund today also released a report that describes and evaluates the Presidential candidates’ health reform plans. The analysis found that both leading Democratic and Republican candidates seek to expand health coverage through the private insurance market, but the leading Democratic candidates would require employers to continue participating in the health insurance system either by providing coverage directly or contributing to the cost of their employees’ coverage, whereas the Republicans support changes in the tax code that have the potential to significantly reduce the role of employers in the provision and financing of health insurance. “In some ways, the Republican proposals seek bigger changes to the way most people currently obtain coverage,” said lead author Sara Collins, Assistant Vice President at The Commonwealth Fund. “Most of their plans propose a diminishing role for employers, whereas the leading Democrats favor keeping employers in the game.”
PhysOrg, January 15. 2008 --- http://physorg.com/news119627984.html
Jensen Comment
Two of the leading scholars in America (Gary Becker and Richard Posner) discuss the healthcare proposals of the leading U.S. Presidential candidates at
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/  (January 13, 2008)
Nobel Laureate Gary Becker states the following:

As Posner indicates, American health care generally gets poor grades in international comparisons of health care systems. Although major reforms are needed in the American approach, international comparisons underrate American health care. This is partly because these comparisons give insufficient weight to the fact that most of the new drugs to treat major diseases originated in the US, along with many of the new surgical procedures, and insights about the importance of lifestyles in good health. This helps explain why many Canadians and those from other countries come to the US to treat serious diseases rather than visa versa. The US is also much more generous than other countries, such as Great Britain and France, in making expensive surgeries and drugs available to older persons through Medicare and private insurance. This too significantly raises the cost of health care. Moreover, the American health system is decentralized and "messy", and many health evaluators prefer a single payer (i.e., government) centralized approach to health care as opposed to any market-based approach.

This is not to deny that the American health care system has serious defects. If I were running for president, and allowed only four reforms, I would emphasize the following (assuming I do not worry about getting enough votes to be elected!):

1) Eliminate the link between employment and the tax advantage of private health insurance. Since much of the spending on health are investments in human capital, there is good reason to exempt these expenditures, along with other investments, from income taxes. However, this employment link is inequitable because it does not provide the same tax advantages to families without employment-based insurance. It also encourages expensive employer health plans that have significant consumption components since the government picks up much of the cost of such coverage. President Bush has proposed a reasonable alternative; give every family a flat $15,000 standard deduction (and half that amount for individuals), whether or not their health insurance is obtained through their employer. They would still get this deduction if they spend less on their insurance, so they have incentives to economize on their health care (but by my reform number 4, everyone would have to take out catastrophic coverage). Consumers would have to pay for any coverage in excess of $15,000, so they would only choose such coverage if they were willing to spend their own money, not taxpayers.

2) Encourage the spread of Health Savings Accounts (see my discussion on Feb. 5, 2006) that encourage consumers to economize on unnecessary medical expenditures. Present law allows tax-free contributions to these Accounts of up to about $2700 for individuals and double that amount to $5450 for families, as long as these contributions are not greater than the deductibles on their health insurance. Contributions to HSAs that are not spent in any year can be carried over to future years without any tax liabilities, and even into retirement income. So HSAs are an efficient way to save as well as to spend on non-catastrophic medical care. Health Savings Accounts have spread since they were introduced several years ago, but might need greater encouragement, such as higher limits.

3) Medicare spending amounts to about $350 billion a year, it constitutes about 12 percent of federal spending, and it is one of the most rapidly growing entitlements. It is projected to continue to grow as a fraction of GDP from its present 2.7 percent level to over 11 percent in 2080. The source of the growth is the continued aging of the population, and the increased per capita medical spending on older person as new medical technologies and drugs are developed. Projections made by Medicare Actuaries indicate that the Medicare HI Trust Fund will be exhausted by the year 2018-only a decade away.

Reform of Medicare is probably among the most challenging not only because of the elderly's political clout, but also because Americans have come to expect access to expensive medical treatments as they age. Still, the prescription drug coverage introduced into Medicare in 2003 was an important step in the right direction, despite the flaws in the program (see my discussion on February 3, 2005). Drugs are not only increasingly available to fight many diseases of old age, but drugs, once developed, are relatively cheap to extend to large numbers of users. Even when drugs provide only small benefits as they are extended to groups that can benefit less from the drugs, the costs are far less than would be required to provide expensive surgeries or hospitalizations to older persons with few years of life remaining. This is why I would greatly increase the generosity of Medicare drug coverage, and compensate for the additional expense by cutting down on allowances for lengthy hospital stays, and raising other co-pays.

4) I do not believe the problem of the uninsured in the US is as serious as usually claimed since most of those without health insurance are young and do not have major medical expenses. When they do, they can use emergency room service at major hospitals, although studies show that they do not even use emergency room care more often than others. Still, it may be desirable to require that everyone must contract for private catastrophic health care since the uninsured tend to use taxpayer and philanthropic funded medical care facilities to pay for the costs of any major illnesses. Medicaid should be extended to cover anyone who cannot afford such catastrophic insurance. Compulsory coverage would integrate the 45 million or so uninsured Americans into an overall health care system while still preserving the desirable decentralized private system of health care.

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

The people running Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign probably haven’t made time to leaf through the University of Illinois Press’s most recent catalog. Too bad for them. They could have placed an early bulk order for Erika Falk’s Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns. The official publication date is next week. It seems like a book that Clinton’s staff would find useful – and not just as a projectile to bounce off the heads of members of the press corps. Falk, who is the associate program chair for the master’s degree program in communications at Johns Hopkins University, analyzes decades of media reports on female presidential candidates. The first was Victoria Woodhull, who campaigned on the ticket of the Equal Rights Party during the election of 1872. The most recent was the bid by Carol Mosley Braun, a Democratic candidate who withdrew shortly before the primaries started in January 2004.
Scott McLemee, "Hillar-ious," Inside Higher Ed, January 16, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/01/16/mclemee

Disgraced and disbarred, Mike Nifong is now bankrupt. The former North Carolina prosecutor, whose career imploded with his botched handling of the Duke University rape case, today filed for bankruptcy, listing liabilities in excess of $180 million (virtually all unsecured).
The Smoking Gun, January 15, 2008 --- http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0115084nifong1.html

In a legal effort to help a U.S. senator, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy. Republican Senator Larry Craig is asking the Minnesota Court of Appeals to let him withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct related to a bathroom sex sting at the Minneapolis airport last year.
"Sex in restroom stalls is private:  ACLU says Civil liberties group goes to bat for Sen. Craig," MSNBC, January 15, 2008 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22674564/ 
Jensen Comment
This leaves some questions unanswered. Is a "wide stance" spillover into adjoining stalls an invasion of privacy in those stalls? Will the U.S. Supreme Court eventually define a "wide stance?"

 Is solicitation of sex from a stall acceptable to the ACLU? Does this include paying money for sex? The ACLU argues that:  "Even if Craig was inviting the officer to have sex, the ACLU argued, his actions would not be illegal." What if Senator Craig put a $100 bill on the toe of his wide stance shoe? Then again what if Senator Craig had simply offered the officer an internship in the U.S. Senate?

Another question we would like the ACLU to address:  What if sex in the only stall of a restroom ties up the stall for two hours while a line of very cramped up people forms for half a block? If the ACLU wins this case we hope that parking clocks will be installed that make very and distracting announcements when the stall time is up! Perhaps boarding announcements should be made in airport restrooms.

If the ACLU wins this appeal then it is only fitting that restrooms also be retrofitted with waterbeds. That way hookers pretending to be on legitimate dates won't have to be confined to sleazy whorehouse rooms. Remember to send money to the ACLU as a thank you for clarifying what kind of sleaze in legal in public restrooms --- http://www.aclu.org/

Match yourself to a presidential candidate --- http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460
(Try pretending to be Santa Claus or Robin Hood)

Question for Walt Mossberg
Q: I want to switch to a Mac, but my life is on Microsoft Outlook, which is only available on Windows. Is there a simple way to convert all of this data to programs on the Mac?

From The Wall Street Journal, January t0, 2008, Page B2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119992737740579599.html


A: There is a $10 program that performs this task. It's called O2M (Outlook to Mac) and is from a company called Little Machines. It can be downloaded at littlemachines.com, where you also will find details about the Mac programs with which it works. This is a Windows program, which transfers your Outlook data into files you copy to your Mac. You then manually import these files into your Mac programs.

According to the company, the program exports Outlook email, email attachments, contacts and calendar appointments and allows you to import this data into Apple's built-in email, address book and calendar programs, as well as into Microsoft Entourage, and other third-party programs.

See http://www.littlemachines.com/

January 17, 2008 reply from Robert C. Holmes, Glendale Community College [rcholmes@GLENDALE.EDU]

When I bought my MacBook Pro the local Mac dealer said it was easy to put all of my Outlook stuff into Entourage. I said fine, throw that in for free as part of the deal. Everything came over and it syncs to my Treo phone/PDA just like it used to using Outlook. They also moved all of the data files from my Windows PC also for free.

CELL PHONES AND HOTEL MAGNETIC KEY CARDS DON’T MIX
The desk clerk at the hotel I was staying in told me that the reason my room key card kept failing was because I kept it in my pocket next to my cell phone. Sure enough, after the clerk reactivated the card and I kept it in a separate pocket, the problem didn’t reoccur. Is that explanation an urban myth? What’s the story?

Answer from Stanley Zarowin, Journal of Accountancy, January 2008 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jan2008/tech_qa.htm
I’ve had the same experience, and when I checked with a manager with my cell phone company, she told me it does happen from time to time—especially with phones that have a metal, rather than a plastic, case.

How to Start Up Your PC Instantly
Many office workers have the same morning routine: turn on the computer, then grab coffee, catch up with coworkers, or look at paperwork while Windows boots up. Others save time, but waste energy, by keeping their machines on all the time. Now Device VM, a startup based in Silicon Valley, has a product that circumvents the everlasting boot-up. The company has recently released a tiny piece of software that, when integrated with common computer hardware, gives users the option to boot either Windows or a faster, less-complex operating system called Splashtop. Depending on the hardware and Splashtop settings, a person using the software--which is based on the open-source operating system Linux--can start surfing the Web or watching a DVD in less than 20 seconds, and, in some cases, in less than five.
Kate Greene, MIT's Technology Review, January 16, 2008 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20072/?nlid=809

The University of California's eScholarship Repository has recently exceeded five million full-text downloads, according to the university
The eScholarship Repository, a service of the California Digital Library, allows scholars in the University of California system to submit their work to a central location where any users may easily access it free of charge. The idea is to ease communication between researchers. Catherine Mitchell, acting director of the CDL publishing group, says the number shows that both content seekers and creators have embraced the service, allaying concerns among researchers that others wouldn't contribute to the repository.
Hurley Goodall, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 16, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2667&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

How Do Scholars Search? --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm#Scholars

Question
What are the big faculty cat fights all about?

"Learning From Cats," by Rob Weir, Inside Higher Ed, January 17, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/01/17/weir 

Academic squabbles are often compared to cat fights, but as one who has owned cats for several decades, I’ve come to believe that such analogies are unfair to felines. Cats, for instance, instinctively know to terminate a chase when they would consume more calories than their prey would provide. And even the pugilist tabbies I’ve owned eventually learned to give wide berth to rivals who consistently bloodied them. All of this suggests that cats may be more evolutionarily advanced than a lot of academics. In the spirit of all those What I Learned from My Cat books now moldering on remainder shelves, here are eight academic debates left over from last year that aren’t worth the calories, let along the anguish.

1. What Do We Do About Poorly Prepared Incoming Students?
How about teach them? It seems like I’ve been hearing the same tape loop since I was 18 and was told my generation was ignoramus-ridden because it had no training in Latin. Let’s just admit that each generation comes to the table with different skill sets and move on. This is the ultimate lost chase. What students ought to know is irrelevant when faced with a classroom of those who don’t know it.

2. The Great Books versus Multicultural Readings:
This is another tired horse ready for pasturage. We’ve been fighting over the canon for so long that it has escaped the debaters’ notice that the passion for books has fallen from fashion. I, for one, am grateful when students read anything and get excited. If they want to declare Neil Gaiman graphic novels part of the canon, that’s fine with me if it helps us talk about myth, archetypes, and culture.

3. Should the Academy Operate According to a Consumer Model?
If you answered “no,” prepare to be boarded; your ship has been vanquished. The high price tag of higher ed makes it a market-place commodity and it’s as naïve to assert that a college education is its own reward as to believe that the Olympics are a still bastion of amateurism. Whether we like it or not, kids shop for courses just like they hit the mall. Profs and departments can assume the crusty purist’s demeanor, or they can start making course offerings jazzier and sexier. The latter path leads to the vitality, the first to extinction. If you don’t believe it, ask a classicist or a labor historian.

4. Why Should Faculty Be Forced to Be Tech-Savvy?
Because it’s the 21st century, we’re educators, and we need to communicate with students. Every campus has a few cranks who wear electronic illiteracy as a badge of honor. They walk about in crumpled garb, wax eloquent about the glories of their old Olivetti, and brag they don’t use e-mail. The rest of us tolerate them as if they were an eccentric aunt, and defend them when students grouse about them. Here’s a better idea: Give students the e-mail addresses of the department chair and the academic dean. Just in case they wish to register their complaints.

5. Should Colleges Be Required to Dip Deeper into Endowment Funds?
Yes, but this debate is really not worth having as the future is clear: Either everyone will follow the preemptive lead of those well-endowed schools that have begun spending a higher percentage of their endowment, or Congress will act and impose the same 5 percent standard with which foundations must comply.

6. How Can We Improve Our ‘U.S. News & World Report’ Rating?
Unless you’re a member of an embattled admissions department, who cares? The battle worth fighting would be a campaign to put all such Miss Congeniality-modeled guides out of business. I’d happily don armor for a federated effort to do that.

7. Are Campus Conservatives the Victim of Discrimination?
Does anyone have any spare crocodile tears for the group that pretty much runs the country? What a silly debate. There’s a difference between being a minority and being a victim, just as there’s a difference between free speech and the guarantee that others will agree with you. When stripped to its basics the brief is that neo-cons feel uncomfortable in places like Amherst, Berkeley, Cambridge, and Madison. Well, duh! That’s like a vegetarian complaining about the menu at a Ponderosa Steakhouse. Oddly enough, one seldom hears pleas for more feminists at faith-based institutions, pacifists at military academies, or evolutionary scientists on the Mike Huckabee campaign staff.

8. Ward Churchill or David Horowitz?
Neither please! If nothing else, can we resolve that in 2008 we will uphold the principle that propaganda of any sort has no place in the college classroom? That would also solve the conservative complaint above. Best of all, it would relegate the boorish Churchill and Horowitz to the obscurity they have so richly earned.

Everyone altogether now: Meow!

 

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

Humanities Professors Can Be a Condescending Bunch
I always thought it was part of their charm.

"It's Their Problem, Not Ours," by Mark Baurline, Chronicle of Higher Education's The Chronicle Review, January 16, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bauerlein/

In either case, a little more respect for public opinion will be more effective than half-baked diagnoses of the public mind.

Posted at 04:30:06 AM on January 16, 2008 | All postings by Mark Bauerlein

Comments Humanities faculty, if nothing else, always have been experts to expressing condescension towards faculty in other fields. They express it in cleverly-worded comments at faculty meetings. They express it in their classrooms to students who major in anything else. They express it in their writing and at their conferences.

They love expressing it. It’s part of their humanity.

It’s part of what makes them so repellent to so many students. And to other faculty.

— Mike Faraday · Jan 16, 07:15 AM · #

Don’t condescend… I’m going to use pop culture to defend the humanities. Specifically, I’m thinking of the 2003 movie “Underworld,” in which a war ensues between vampires and werewolves over an act of injustice and racism. What’s important is that the war continues, as the subject of the movie, because a significant number of the warriors, at least on the vampire side, don’t understand the genesis of the war. And why not? Because probing history is forbidden. That’s a major though understated theme of the movie. Simply put, I believe in a strong humanities curriculum because I believe critical and analytical thinking is a good thing. And I believe that critical and analytical thinking is best taught in the humanities. It’s a different kind of analytical thinking than offered in the sciences. Without humanities, who knows, we could end up fighting a long and gruesome war for reasons to difficult to determine. Hey, wait a minute…

— Epiphany · Jan 16, 10:57 AM · #

It’s the humanities professors that are experiencing “unease” — they’re the ones concerned with “proving their worth.” The man on the street seems fine.

— Pippin · Jan 16, 12:40 PM · #

“That’s Byrne’s paraphrase, and if it’s accurate….”

Why would you indulge in this formulation? Do you have some particular reason to think that it might be inaccurate? If so, you should make clear what that reason is.

Or is this not merely a familiar academic status-marking gesture — one perhaps best termed “taking a whiz on the journo”? According to the oft-repeated claim, reporters are more or less incapable of quoting anything accurately, let alone understanding it, while professors are wonderfully diligent and precise on both scores. If only that were true.

You have insulted a skilled reporter and editor. You owe him an apology.

— Scott McLemee · Jan 16, 01:30 PM · #

I “indulged” (?) in the accuracy point only because I haven’t seen the original speech. It is clear that I assume Byrne is accurate.

It is quite a stretch to turn my criticism of academic condescension into a specimen of “familiar academic status-marking” against journalists, academic status being something I lost interest in long ago.

— Mark Bauerlein · Jan 16, 07:15 PM · #

While teaching MBAs at the University of Chicago Grad School of Business, I never found an undergrad econ or business major who performed best in my assignments. Always it was undergrad literature or philosophy majors who excelled in MBA work. Why? I wondered at the time, utterly surprised by these results.

My best guess—lacking decent valid data—was and is that articulateness overwhelms all quantitative skills in doing teamwork. The person on the team who can split differences because they can exactly and sympathetically spot and articulate them, controls team outcomes.

Neither professors nor students of humanities departments charm me with their casual arrogances and lack of long term career pay, it must be said. However, in businesses, their grads clearly outperform econ and business grads. Unfortunately the people we like are not always the people who work best for us.

The humanities are to “educate” but they, the tens of thousands of professors who constitute them, have not yet bothered to apply half decent research methods to define what educatedness is and how it helps real world needs. Changes in self understanding exist, can be measured, and their impact on concrete work contexts and challenges can be measured—were there people in the humanities un-lazy enough to define their mission and primary beneficial side-effects in life.

— Richard Tabor Greene · Jan 17, 08:28 AM · #

I agree that we humanists too often condescend and too often fail to think that everyday communication with people outside our in-crowd is worth the time and effort. On the other hand, recognizing this shouldn’t make us miss the elements of truth in Holquist’s statement.

There is a very long tradition of suspicion of and dis-ease with language, especially in the American context. Witness Hillary Clinton’s efforts to portray Barack Obama’s oratory as all eloquence and no substance. Be a doer, not a talker! Walk the Walk, don’t just talk the talk. The list could go on endlessly, but I’ve already blogged about this elsewhere, so I won’t go on. The Puritan plain style is one interesting effort to negotiate the tension created by the inevitable necessity of language and suspicion that the person who relies upon it is somehow inferior or suspect.

I think, then, that the Humanities do suffer in the American context because we traffic above all else in language. This, however, doesn’t excuse us from whatever smugness accompanies and exacerbates this situation. It is, nevertheless, the rhetorical situation into which the humanist has to speak.

— Peter Kerry Powers · Jan 17, 09:05 AM · #

In my view, Prof. Holquist’s formulation—if it is accurately reported—is more vague than condescending, and Professor Bauerlin’s response is equally vagued and “half-baked.” Not that it is entirely wrong—humanists (and scientists, and politicians, and the person at the checkout stand) can be condescending. But the Holquist comment was directed at why humanists fail to communicate with the general public, and his answer seems to be “unease with language.” This weak response is rather ironic since according to new criticism and the abhorred “deconstruction,” among other critical methodologies, such as the Russian formalist “ostranyie” or “making strange,” language (and art) are supposed to make one feel uncomfortable, not at ease, estranged, cast out of one’s normal mode of thinking, thus opening the mind up to new perceptions and knowledge. Bauerlin’s implict, if tiredly familiar response is that we (humanists) have hoist ourselves by our own petard, and our condescension comes in the form of blaming our repressed embarrassment at having done so on the inadequacies of the reader, or public, or student. Fair enough; but in the end, I’m with the party (the professors of humanities, as characterized, comprised of human beings with all kinds of foibles) that, however inadequately and condescendingly, wants to make “the public” and more particularly our students a little uncomfortable with language, or world view, or familiar habit of mind. Perhaps a little more discomfort with our assumptions about the world—communicated through language—might lead us to a better place, eventually. Maybe not; there are no guarantees.

— POD · Jan 17, 09:58 AM · #

The humanities have often abandoned the functions which the ‘general public’, i.e. citizens of the real world, consider important—the preservation of our cultural heritage and the identification, analysis, and teaching of works of excellence. Many of the things in which humanities faculty are interested (‘cognitive atheism’, ‘antifoundationalism’, and pseudo-theorized approaches to race, class, and gender, for example) do not interest citizens of the real world. The issues themselves may, but generally not in the manner used by academics.

The humanities are profoundly important to people in the real world and they are highly respected by them. They need no defense. Similarly, the skills of articulation fostered by humanities study are widely and deeply prized and need no defense. What requires defense is the list of titles of MLA addresses. The ‘general public’ see self-indulgence, effeteness, triviality, self-obsession, and political bias there.