Snow Cannons at Work on Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch

We had near-record snowfall in December that left about four feet of snow in our yard and even higher drifts during the holidays. Then a tropical heat wave arrived in January and melted virtually all the snow. The above picture taken while I was sitting at my desk shows the plumes of snow cannons making skiing snow on Cannon Mountain just after the big January thaw. Now February is setting snowfall records once again with snow falling on eight of the last eleven days. We do have some bits of outdoor color even though most everything is white. Below you can see our wild cranberries and one of our flower boxes outside my window.

Trinity University generously provides me with a secretary back in San Antonio. She's also our long-time friend. This XMAS she sent us a living plant. I know what it's called but I can't spell it. In any case, it was just a bulb in a pot that sprouted on January 1, grew astoundingly fast, and bloomed with three blossoms shown below by the end of January. Thank you Debbie Bowling for bringing some color into our white winter world in the White Mountains.

David Fordham subsequently informed me about how to spell "amaryllis". There is even a " www.amaryllis.com " site.

Beside my desk is a white Christmas cactus that bloomed on schedule. On the other side of the porch is colored Christmas cactus. So we do have a little additional color from the blooming things in the dead of winter.

The temperature dipped below zero early this morning, and we're expecting another foot of new snow by noon tomorrow. There are frost heaves in our roads, and wind gusts have been 30-45 mph (read that over 100 mph on nearby Mt. Washington). Springtime (late in May) seems a long way off, but the days are getting longer. Seems like it's daylight until 4:30 p.m. This gives us some cheer. Below is a picture of a Sunset in December. I suspect this was about 3:30 p.m. The camera was pointing almost due south through our birch trees.

Trojan Horse Risk in Email Messages
On Valentine's Day Beware of These "Loving" Headers --- http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/valentine.asp

Tidbits on February 12, 2008
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/

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

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

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

Undercover Agent Experiment
Frozen Grand Central Station (NYC) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo

Frontline (from PBS) videos on accounting and finance regulation and scandals in the U.S. --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/regulation/view/
This link was forwarded by Richard Cambell.
Note that one of the Frontline videos in about the Enron scandal --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/regulation/view/
Another video explains why an Enron-like scandal is likely to happen once again (More Enrons Again)
Bob Jensen’s Enron Quiz --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnronQuiz.htm

Amazing Facts About Israel --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxK6OwIpK5o

Is this the best health care taxation can buy (in Canada)? --- http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php

Code Stink: Berkeley City Council Edition (featuring old hippies) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCXqYvJ0DaA

Link forwarded by Lynn
Seasons in Life --- Click Here

Gathering The Jewels: The Website for Welsh Cultural History (Multimedia) --- http://www.gtj.org.uk/en/index

SPARROW - Sound & Picture Archives for Research On Women of India (Multimedia)
http://www.sparrowonline.org/

Link forwarded by Dr. Wolff
First stopped drinking out of those poorly washed glasses in even the best hotel rooms. Now we learn that those wedges of lemons in restaurants are probably full of bacteria from bare-hands handling by food servers who touch a lot of food and dirty plates during the day (with video) --- http://www.healthinspections.com/video.cfm?bWVkaWFJRD0yOA
My advice:  Bring your own lemon wedges.

On a related matter (no video) in the context of putting a chip back into the dip after taking a bite or two
Last year the (Clemson University) food microbiologist's undergraduate students examined the effects of double dipping using volunteers, wheat crackers and several sample dips. They found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from an eater's mouth to the remaining dip sample. "I was very surprised by the results," Dawson said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I thought there would be very minimal transfer. I didn't think we would be able to detect it." The professor said the students' research didn't get into the risk behind such a bacteria transfer, but they got the idea.
"Double dipping? 'Seinfeld' was right," Yahoo News, February 1, 2008 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080202/ap_on_he_me/double_dipping 

Thunderbird's Evolving Mission (video from Business Week) --- Click Here

Venture Capital Videos

• Women in Venture Capital (video from PBS) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPz3GXrFL64
• Heidi Roizen, Mobius Venture Capital --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfoslEh_7YA 
• PWC's Joe Strain on the Q1 MoneyTree Report --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvbSO6eMT3Q
• The Berkeley China Initiative: Venture Capital in China --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP9XgYVSHE4
• Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) at the National Venture Capital Association --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl8bEApvblg
• Tutorials on How to Do It --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VsEyWxIuP4
• Venture 2007 Venture Capital Presentation - Broadwick Corp. --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10hh8OsCIlU
• VCTV (Venture Capital TV) Welcome --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs_rnWn51Os
• 6 Tips for Start-Ups --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS04yv4xgpE
• Amazing Facts About Israel --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxK6OwIpK5o
• Venture Capital Rocks Out (funny and not so funny) See the February 7, 2008 Financial Rounds video) --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/

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

Karl Böhm Brahms Symphony No.3 F Major Op.90 Part 1 of 4 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaRPBQuloyk
Karl Böhm Brahms Symphony No.3 F Major Op.90 Part 2 of 4 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0zFzz-1uZA
Karl Böhm Brahms Symphony No.3 F Major Op.90 Part 3 of 4 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0zFzz-1uZA
Karl Böhm Brahms Symphony No.3 F Major Op.90 Part 4 of 4 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN31t_vUpdg

Legendary Folk Artist Doc Watson in Concert (full concert) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18353822

Take Me Back to the Sixties --- http://objflicks.com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm

Chubby Checker (Twist Again) --- Click Here

Barbara Streisand's Soprano Opera:  The Belle of 14th Street (Video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fj_hQzfWY8 

I Just Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore (video) --- (video) --- http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20071221/MULTIMEDIA/283841756 
Also see http://www.rushfrisby.com/youtubedotnetdemo/GetVideo.aspx?VideoID=Z06vdR8W3VM 
Also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAnpUxbhxiU 

Cold, Cold Heart --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/c002/coldheart.html 

It's hard to kiss the lips that chew your ass out all day long --- http://jbreck.com/itsshardtokiss.html 
(Click on the play button in the upper left corner) Also enter "chew your ass out" at http://songza.com/ 

Mississippi Squirrel Revival --- http://mywebpages.comcast.net/singingman7777/MSR2.htm
Also enter "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" at http://songza.com/ 

Stompin' Tom Connors - Sudbury Saturday Night (Live 2005) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw7rzpvDvS0 

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

Photographs and Art

Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

EUROPA: Key facts and figures about Europe and the Europeans --- http://europa.eu/abc/keyfigures/index_en.htm

"Million Books Scanned at U. of Michigan -- and Counting," Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 4, 2008 ---  Click Here

Librarians at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor threw themselves a party on Friday to celebrate a milestone in their ambitious effort to scan every single book in the collection. They scanned the one millionth book, leaving just 6.5-million to go.

Most of the scanning has been done as part of the library’s controversial deal with Google. The search giant is working with dozens of major libraries around the world to scan the full text of books to add to its index. But Michigan is one of the only institutions to agree to scan every one of its holdings — even those that are still covered by copyright. Some publishers have sued Google for copyright infringement over the scanning effort, though officials from Google say their effort is legal because they are not making the full text of copyrighted books available to the public.

"Institutional Repositories, Tout de Suite" is available at http://www.digital-scholarship.org/ts/irtoutsuite.pdf. The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License, and it can be freely used for any noncommercial purpose in accordance with the license.

International Children’s Digital Library --- http://www.icdlbooks.org/

The Baldwin Online Children’s Literature Project --- http://www.mainlesson.com/main/displayfeature.php

One More Story is an interactive online library for children --- http://www.onemorestory.com/ 

An electronic library that teaches children how to read better
Chelsea Waugaman, "Read the story again? Sure. Computers don't get tired," The Christian Science Monitor, July 11, 2005 --- http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0711/p12s01-stin.html 

Awesome Library (Elementary) ---
http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/English/Literature/Elementary_Literature.html

Alice in Wonderland (Infomotions) ---
http://www.infomotions.com/etexts/literature/english/1800-1899/carroll-alices-99.txt

Lewis Carroll Homepage --- http://www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll.html

Through the Looking Glass (Infomotions) ---
http://www.infomotions.com/etexts/literature/american/1900-/burroughs-tarzan-334.txt

A Wonderland Miscellany - Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898) --- http://www.wordtheque.com/pls/wordtc/new_wordtheque.w6_start.doc?code=13891&lang=EN

Bush reached his lowest approval rating in The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on Friday as only 30 percent said they like the job he is doing, including an all-time low in his support by Republicans. Congress' approval fell to just 22 percent, equaling its poorest grade in the survey. Both marks dropped by 4 percentage points since early January.
Alan Fram, "Bush, Congress hit bottom in AP poll," Yahoo News, February 8, 2008 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080208/ap_on_go_ot/bush_congress_ap_poll

Now that the excitement of Super Tuesday has passed, we should remember the kinds of policies and principles at stake. Exhibit A: three pieces of legislation pending in Congress that would dramatically increase the liability of private companies for alleged acts of employment discrimination. The first would resurrect the discredited idea of "comparable worth." The second would add various sexual orientations to the classifications protected from employment discrimination. The third is a plaintiffs' bar wish list, aimed mostly at overturning cases it lost in the Supreme Court . . . There are actually two versions of comparable worth legislation, the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. The former is co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama; the principal sponsor of the latter is Sen. Hillary Clinton (Mr. Obama is a co-sponsor). Both would push companies to set wages based not on supply and demand -- that is the free market -- but on some notion of social utility. The goal is to ensure that jobs performed mostly by men (say, truck drivers) are not paid more than those performed mostly by women (paralegals, perhaps) . . . The third measure -- the Civil Rights Act of 2008, introduced on Jan. 24 by Sen. Kennedy (co-sponsored by Sens. Clinton and Obama) -- is the plaintiffs' bar wish list. It would, among other provisions, eliminate existing damage caps on lawsuits brought under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act; add compensatory and punitive damages to the Fair Labor Standards Act; and push states into waiving sovereign immunity in individual claims involving monetary damages. It would also give authority to the National Labor Relations Board to award back pay to undocumented workers.
Roger Clegg, "Equal Rights Nonsense," The Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2008; Page A16 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120243354900752415.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Jensen Comment
Sports Management graduates are mostly male varsity athletes who are in abundant supply for rather low-paying coaching jobs in middle schools and high schools. Nursing graduates are predominantly female in short supply and as of late have relatively high-paying careers. Isn't it ironic that an assistant middle school football coach who barely graduated in Sports Management might ultimately have to be legally upgraded to Nursing pay with a whole lot less job stress, science courses, and bad hours? The Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act, if taken to extremes in the final legislation, are mixed blessings at the university level. These will quell much, but not all, of the interdisciplinary strife among faculty. Average pay in all disciplines will be equal irrespective of supply and demand. Universities will have to give enormous pay raises to some lower-paid disciplines having surplus labor supply. For example suppose that there are nearly 100 applicants for an Assistant Professor of Primary School Education tenure track opening relative to disciplines having excess labor demand (say Computer Science that graduates less than 10% women and gets very few if any female or male PhD applicants for every tenure track opening). The collegiate losers will be students already facing faculty shortages of teachers in some disciplines like Computer Science.  Economists have concluded for years that price fixing and equalization are generally a disaster except for believers in the Marxist  Labor Theory of Value. Both the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act are disasters for universities seeking to make education more affordable for students. The only way this will be possible in most colleges will be to revert more and more tenure track positions to part-time temporary teaching positions.

The problem in hiring faculty is that some disciplines offer greater competitive salaries than in other disciplines. For example, the average new PhD in Computer Science ceteris paribus has more alternatives for high paying employment in industry than do many (most?) other disciplines. Denying demand/supply pricing in the law is a disaster for students who want more and more courses in Computer Science, Nursing, Business, Medicine, and many other professional disciplines. Already some students, especially graduate students, in Business and Computer Science are entering degree programs in other countries, especially in Europe and Asia. Some schools in these nations (e.g., China) are now offering courses only in English to attract top U.S. talent. Will the U.S. really be better off with dwindling national undergraduate and graduate programs in the professions? Since law professors are now the highest paid faculty members on average, and most members of Congress are lawyers, there's still hope for the demise of or significant watering down of both the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act before enactments.

The biggest winners from the other disastrous proposed legislation will be tort lawyers seeking uncapped punitive damage awards for such things as fraudulent asbestos and other medical claims under the Civil Rights Act of 2008. The plaintiffs' bar is flashing  middle fingers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers rant and rave about excessive CEO compensation (and they're correct) while allowing themselves court awards far in excess of what CEOs fraudulently truck home. Watch the cost of medical insurance malpractice insurance take another leap upward when this legislation passes. Will the last obstetrician in practice please turn out the lights! In reality we must have obstetricians. What the tort lawyers really want is for taxpayers to ultimately pay the insurance premiums from seemingly boundless tax revenues. Ultimately billions of tax dollars will then be diverted to tort lawyers in uncapped punitive damages.

For example, for the flesh-and-blood people who were in the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers in income in 1996, their average increase of income over the next decade was 91 percent -- so they almost doubled their incomes. Meanwhile, for the people in the top 1 percent -- presumably the rich who are getting richer -- their average income declined 26 percent. That's diametrically the opposite from what we're hearing from nearly every newspaper and practically every political platform. But of course it's also true that if you look at the income tax brackets, the distance of the top bracket from the lowest bracket has increased. One reason is that the very lowest bracket is zero, so it can't go any lower. So as you pay people more and more money and as the economy grows and skills become more sophisticated, obviously the ratio from the top and the bottom is going to increase.
Thomas Sowell in FrontPageMagazine.com  on his new book, "Economic Facts and Fallacies," The Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2008 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120251765671955489.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

Last year's spate of pro-baby pregnancy movies has kept journalists, bloggers, and pundits abuzz. Knocked Up, Juno, Waitress, and Bella star heroines who, upon finding themselves unexpectedly and inconveniently with child, choose to have their babies. Trend, coincidence, conspiracy, or zeitgeist? The question of whether the movies are pro-choice, pro-life, or a more complex mix of the two is being hotly debated online and in print. Now that Juno has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, we're sure to hear more on the subject . . . It would be a message that posits that the whole phenomenon of abortion in the United States is a kind of giant analytical error on the part of American women — tons and tons of them are getting pregnant and having abortions because they think carrying the pregnancy to term would have very bad consequences for their lives, but actually they're mistaken. You might think your unplanned pregnancy would hurt your career as an on-air television personality, but really it will advance your career! You might think your parents will be mad and your friends will ostracize you, but really they'll all be supportive! Best of all, sticking with your unplanned pregnancy is a solid ticket to love and marriage!
Suzannah Tully, "The Year of Unplanned Pregnancies," Chronicle of Higher Education, February 8, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i22/22b00401.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Jensen Comment
 I've been pro choice from get go, and what I find surprising is that the last two sentences above appeared in the staunchly pro-feminist Chronicle of Higher Education. Furthermore the financial disasters of recent anti-war, anti-religion, and liberal-cause Hollywood offerings coupled with the profitable success of more recent patriotic films suggests that Hollywood is pro box office above all else since its actors, directors, and producers have a much more liberal agenda in their personal lives. This must make Hollywood rather sad since Hollywood films, more than anything else, are the windows through which the world views American life. I guess we can conclude that even Hollywood listens to the silent majority when it comes to greed for current dollars and future residuals.

Conclusion - history, unfortunately, is too often considered inert, people think that it should be forgotten, denied as having significance now, as the world so rapidly shifts. It's pretty clear we never thought to include the culture of the Muslim world in most of our history books. Our efforts as educators to respond to these feelings has perpetuated these negative perceptions. Awareness leads to discovery and appreciation. It implies life, growth, and moving forward.
Beverly C. Lucey, "History Lessons," The Irascible Professor, February 8, 2008 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-02-08-08.htm

In truth, the war in Vietnam was lost on the propaganda front, in great measure due to the press's pervasive misreporting of the clear U.S. victory at Tet as a defeat. Forty years is long past time to set the historical record straight. The Tet offensive came at the end of a long string of communist setbacks. By 1967 their insurgent army in the South, the Viet Cong, had proved increasingly ineffective, both as a military and political force. Once American combat troops began arriving in the summer of 1965, the communists were mauled in one battle after another, despite massive Hanoi support for the southern insurgency with soldiers and arms. By 1967 the VC had lost control over areas like the Mekong Delta -- ironically, the very place where reporters David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan had first diagnosed a Vietnam "quagmire" that never existed. In truth, the war in Vietnam was lost on the propaganda front, in great measure due to the press's pervasive misreporting of the clear U.S. victory at Tet as a defeat. Forty years is long past time to set the historical record straight. The Tet offensive came at the end of a long string of communist setbacks. By 1967 their insurgent army in the South, the Viet Cong, had proved increasingly ineffective, both as a military and political force. Once American combat troops began arriving in the summer of 1965, the communists were mauled in one battle after another, despite massive Hanoi support for the southern insurgency with soldiers and arms. By 1967 the VC had lost control over areas like the Mekong Delta -- ironically, the very place where reporters David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan had first diagnosed a Vietnam "quagmire" that never existed. Their editors at home, like CBS's Walter Cronkite, seized on the distorted reporting to discredit the military's version of events. The Viet Cong insurgency was in its death throes, just as U.S. military officials assured the American people at the time. Yet the press version painted a different picture. To quote Braestrup, "the media tended to leave the shock and confusion of early February, as then perceived, fixed as the final impression of Tet" and of Vietnam generally. "Drama was perpetuated at the expense of information," and "the negative trend" of media reporting "added to the distortion of the real situation on the ground in Vietnam."
Arthur Herman, "The Lies of Tet," The Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2008; Page A19 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120226056767646059.html 
Jensen Comment
David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan also failed to report the massive intimidation and genocide that North Vietnam was conducting among rural farmers before the Viet Nam War. I suspect that this was a convenient and biased oversight on their part.

"What Kind of War Are We Fighting, and Can We Win It? A Symposium," by Fouad Ajami, Commentary, Vol. 124 Issue 4, November 2007, pp. 21-43
--- http://www.commentarymagazine.com/

The origins and legitimacy of the Iraq war have been endlessly debated. For me, it is and remains a just and noble war, waged by an American leader who was fated to take on the troubles and malignancies of the Arab-Islamic world. The distinction between the Islamism of al Qaeda and the "secularism" of the Iraqi regime is a distinction without a difference. A road led from Kabul to Baghdad. We took the war from the Afghan front, which the Arab preachers and financiers and jihadists had secured as a base for their operations, to the Arab world itself. In Baghdad, a despot at once cruel and (fortunately) clumsy held out to the Arabs an example of defiance, proof that no price would be paid by those who took on American power. Once we pulled the trigger in 2003, Iraq became the central front in the war on terror. Fail there, and our enemies would have been emboldened beyond measure, and the world would have depicted our failure as evidence that history's tide was running against us.

We have paid dearly in Iraq, but we held the line, we maintained the American position in the region, we supplied proof that we would not scurry for cover and that we believed there were things worth fighting for. The despots in the region feigned a lack of interest in the fate of Saddam's brutal sons, and in Saddam's execution. But make no mistake: these personalistic regimes got the message. There but for the grace of God, they thought, go we. The sacrifices in Iraq paid dividends in Iraq's neighborhood.

WE HAVE DONE reasonably well since 9/11. American memory is unduly short, and the memory of 9/11 is steadily being lost to us. There is a growing conviction that this was a single day of grief, that the warrant given to our government back then by the most liberal of the liberals should now be withdrawn. The vigilance our country sanctioned after 9/11 is now seen as overly intrusive and given to paranoia. But we take the world as it is, and at least some of the illusions held about Arab and Muslim affairs, about the sources and wellsprings of anti-Americanism, have been shed.

I would very much want to see a more critical assessment of the role of Egypt and of Egyptians in the trail that led to 9/11. Here is a country on the American payroll, a regime in the orbit of American power. But Egypt's ruler has snookered us all along. He takes America's coin but rides with its enemies. He has winked at, and fed, a culture suffused with anti-modernism and anti-Americanism — and anti-Semitism, their inevitable companion. The prestige of Egypt in Arab affairs is great, and so is the influence of its radicalism.

Those in the know — and those who pretend to be — have written and spoken about the influence exercised by the Egyptian thinker and pamphleteer Sayyid Qutb (executed by the Nasser regime in 1966) on the course of modern Islamism. This is good as far as it goes. What is needed is a more sustained analysis of the depth of Egyptian radicalism, and of the skill of that despotic regime in directing the wrath of its own thwarted population toward the United States. Beyond this lies the need for a proper response to the Hosni Mubarak regime. We need to cast that regime adrift.

But grant George W. Bush his due: he broke with Scowcroftian realism, he broke with the likes of James Baker. His speech of November 6, 2003, to the National Endowment for Democracy will remain, for decades, a noble American declaration. It had a startling mea culpa:

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe — because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place for stagnation, resentment, and violence for export.

It was this declaration, and the larger Bush campaign for democracy, that gave heart to the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, which rid that country of a long and cruel Syrian captivity; it was this drive that gave continued justification to the Iraq war after the hunt for weapons of mass destruction there ran aground. The historical truth of Bush's declaration is indisputable. The Bush Doctrine brought about a veritable reversal in the realm of ideas: here was a conservative President asserting that freedom can travel to distant shores, that we can take it to strangers beyond, and here were his liberal critics at home falling back on a surly argument that Iraq, Lebanon, and other Arab and Islamic domains offer insurmountable obstacles to the spread of freedom.

Natan Sharansky is perhaps on the mark with his observation that Bush, in holding onto his belief, is a lonely man even within his own circle of power.

Continued in article

Instead, the new National Intelligence Agency (NIA) assessment stresses that Iran continues to press ahead on enrichment, "the most difficult challenge in nuclear production." It notes that "Iran's efforts to perfect ballistic missiles that can reach North Africa and Europe also continue" -- a key component of a nuclear weapons capability. Then there is the other side of WMD: "We assess that Tehran maintains dual-use facilities intended to produce CW [Chemical Warfare] agent in times of need and conducts research that may have offensive applications." Ditto for biological weapons, where "Iran has previously conducted offensive BW agent research and development," and "continues to seek dual-use technologies that could be used for biological warfare." . . . All this merely confirms what has long been obvious about Iran's intentions. No less importantly, his testimony underscores the extent to which the first NIE was at best a PR fiasco, at worst a revolt by intelligence analysts seeking to undermine current U.S. policy. As we reported at the time, the NIE was largely the work of State Department alumni with track records as "hyperpartisan anti-Bush officials," according to an intelligence source. They did their job too well. As Senator Bayh pointed out at the hearing, the NIE "had unintended consequences that, in my own view, are damaging to the national security interests of our country." Mr. Bayh is not a neocon. Admiral McConnell's belated damage repair ought to refocus world attention on Iran's very real nuclear threat. Too bad his NIE rewrite won't get anywhere near the media attention that the first draft did.
"Iranian Nuclear Rewrite," The Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2008; Page A16 --- Click Here

Imprisoned in a tank hundreds of miles from a mate, Ibolya the female shark resorted to desperate measures. To the astonishment of her keepers, she spontaneously produced a perfectly healthy pup. The virgin birth is making biologists think again about one of the oldest and - in evolutionary terms - most successful creatures. "When I saw the baby shark lying on the bottom of the tank I thought it was a joke," said Attilia Varga, the director of the Nyiregyahaza Centre in Hungary. "When I saw the baby shark lying on the bottom of the tank I thought it was a joke," said Attilia Varga, the director of the Nyiregyahaza Centre in Hungary. "I was amazed when I realised it was a real shark." Ibolya, a white-tipped reef shark, has been with the aquarium for seven years. In that time, she has never shared water with a male.
David Debbyshire, London Daily Mail, February 7, 2008 --- Click Here

You can get the death penalty in China for tax evasion. That's harsh! Imagine the consequences if Congress rolled this sucker out in America! Poor Willie Nelson, Pete Rose, Wesley Snipes, et al. Our industry is based on ethics and it's one we can be mighty proud of in this country. AccountingWEB salutes all of you who "do the right thing" each and every day. As you know, the role of the accounting professional is not an easy one!
Rob Nance, AccountingWeb Newsletter, February 7, 2008

An age of science is necessarily an age of materialism,” declared Hugh Elliot early last century, “Ours is a scientific age, and it may be said with truth that we are all materialists now.
Darwin Day in America, John G. West, xiv as quoted recently by Linda Kimball --- Click Here

I've looked on a lot of women with lust . . . But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock. Christ says, don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife.
Jimmy Carter, Playboy, November 1976

From The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal on February 5, 2008|
On Friday, we drew a connection http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120188087161935467.html  between Jimmy Carter's 1976 remarks on lust and his excuse-making, years later, for evil dictatorships, especially North Korea's. Some readers thought we were reaching back awfully far to make a point. "Is this what they refer to in the business as a 'slow news day'?" quipped one.

But here is a contemporary example of just the point we made last week. The New York Philharmonic leaves this week on an Asian tour that includes a Feb. 26 concert in Pyongyang, North Korea. This has drawn much criticism, including from Terry Teachout http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110010791  in The Wall Street Journal:

*** QUOTE ***
As [music critic Greg Sandow, who supports the trip] acknowledged, "Attendance at the Philharmonic's concerts will be carefully controlled. And of course any concert in Pyongyang can't possibly reach the North Korean people, because only the elite, for the most part, are allowed into Pyongyang." Even if such a concert were to be telecast, the handful of North Koreans lucky enough to see it, isolated as they are from the rest of the world, might well conclude that by sending a great orchestra there, the U.S. was showing its support for the tyrants who rule them. That's why I've come to the conclusion that should the Philharmonic choose to play in Pyongyang, it will be doing little more than participating in a puppet show whose purpose is to lend legitimacy to a despicable regime.
*** END QUOTE ***

Floyd Boring, 92, died Feb. 1 of congestive heart failure at his home in Silver Spring, Md. Boring changed the course of history when he and White House police officers took on two armed men during a shootout near Blair House, where Truman was staying during White House renovations. Boring had just gotten to work Nov. 1, 1950, when the Puerto Rican nationalists arrived to kill Truman. One of the would-be assassins, Oscar Collazo, shot a White House police officer. When they heard the gunshots, Boring and another White House officer took cover and returned fire. Boring shot Collazo near the front steps of Blair House. The other gunman, Griselio Torresola, was killed by White House Police Officer Leslie Coffelt, who was fatally wounded.
"Officer Who Saved Truman Dies at 92," NPR, February 5, 2008 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18707613

Retired NATO commander Wesley K. Clark left last month as Summit Global Logistics chairman following a one-year stint that saw the East Rutherford, N.J. shipping concern's stock fall 60% as its losses rose 10,000%. An ill-fated corporate buying spree fueled by $163 million of debt and equity financing boosted revenues, but not as much as expenses, prompting a default. Clark, once a presidential candidate, had headed the investment bank arranging the initial financing. In 2006 he resigned as a director of Viaspace (otcbb: VSPC.OB - news - people ) after just two weeks amid sharp questions about high-pressure penny-stock promotions on its behalf over the Internet. The Pasadena, Calif. defense contractor denied at the time any involvement in the hard sell.
B. Condon, J. Novack, A. Hawkins and W. P. Barrett, Forbes, January 28, 2008 --- http://www.forbes.com/business/forbes/2008/0128/028.html
Jensen Comment
We haven't heard as much from Bush-hating Gen. Clark in the 2008 election as we did in the 2004 election. Now we know that he's just been too busy with his "high-pressure penny-stock promotions." That's all right, even Abbie Hoffman became a bond salesman. What's true to form is that Gen. Clark became a Director of a defense contracting firm. Isn't that what happens to all retired generals? We don't even blink an eye at such conflicts of interest. Sad isn't it!

If it’s about fairness and competition, I’m dubious. Take Rep. Tom Davis, one of the more camera-hungry politicians to demagogue this issue. After the 2000 census, Rep. Davis maneuvered to have his congressional district gerrymandered to include as many Republicans as possible, ensuring his continual reelection, and limiting the number of real options for his constituents. He ran the next year unopposed. Davis also snuck a provision into an unrelated piece of federal legislation preventing an apartment complex from going up in his district because, he said, he feared it would bring too many Democrats into his district. This guy is cheating at democracy, and he’s lecturing baseball players about fairness. It’s hard to believe the steroid panic is really about the safety of our athletes, either. My copanelist Dr. Fost I think has ably shown that the alleged side affects of anabolic steroids are overstated, and the negative side effects of HGH are negligible at best.
Radley Balko, "Should We Allow Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports? One argument in favor," Reason Magazine, January 23, 2008 --- http://www.reason.com/news/show/124577.html 

Congress and the White House, Democrats and Republicans finally agree on something! We need a stimulus package, they intone. The economy is stagnating, unemployment is climbing, families can't pay their bills. We have to prime the pump, reduce interest rates, increase unemployment benefits, provide temporary tax relief. These unlicensed physicians are prescribing aspirin to counteract the poisons they routinely inject into our economy, while they prepare even bigger doses of arsenic. Every one of these supposed shots of economic adrenaline is counteracted by toxic policies that drive up prices, cause layoffs and put families on energy welfare .
Roy Innus, Townhall, February 2, 2008 --- http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RoyInnis/2008/02/02/poisoning_the_economy
Jensen Comment
The sad part is that neither the U.S. President nor candidates for Congress can be elected if they don't promise to give away the farm.

The core problem is that people who get insurance through their employers pay no income or payroll taxes on the value of the benefit. The Treasury defines this as a "tax expenditure," meaning it's revenue the government forgoes to encourage certain behavior. If these losses were converted to the equivalent of direct spending, the tax exemption would have cost more than $208 billion in 2006. The only federal programs that cost more are Social Security, Medicare and national defense. But all that money props up only employer-provided insurance. Individuals who buy policies don't get any tax breaks and pay with after-tax dollars. If the purpose of health-care reform is to decrease the ranks of the uninsured, these job-related tax breaks are poorly targeted, even regressive. The more generous the employer health plan, the more the subsidies increase. On average, lower-wage workers have more limited coverage as part of their compensation, usually from small- or medium-sized businesses. Estimates show that the subsidy is worth more than $3,000 for upper-income families (with higher marginal tax rates), and less than $1,000 for those on the lower income rungs.
"Equity and Health Care," The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2008; Page A14 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120209218761439809.html

In a speech before the national assembly last month, Mr. Chávez dropped a bombshell, proclaiming that Venezuela now recognizes the Colombian rebel group known as the FARC as a legitimate political actor. He went on to ask that European and South American governments remove the group from their terrorist lists. A day earlier his special envoy for FARC relations went public with his own fondness for the Colombian rebels, and with the news that the Venezuelan government stands ready to help them. This was more than Mr. Chávez playing footsie with the FARC, which he has long been doing. This was a statement of official support for a band of outlaws who seek the destruction of the Colombian democracy. The news shook both nations. It suggested that Colombia is not only at war with the rebels, but also with a neighboring state. Mr. Chávez probably doesn't really want war with the militarily superior Colombia anymore than Galtieri wanted to battle it out with Britain. But by poking his neighbor in the eye, he was undoubtedly hoping for some kind of a reaction, to which Venezuela naturally would be obliged to respond. Amid an escalation of tensions between the two countries, a nationalist outcry to defend Venezuelan honor might dwarf the many troubles at home.
Mary Anastaia O'Grady, "Desperado," The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2008; Page A14 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120209345977739855.html

That is the fixed view of leading analysts, who conclude that through ignorance of the enemy it faces, ignorance of its nature, its goals, its strengths and its weaknesses, the United States is condemned to failure. "The attention of the US military and intelligence community is directed almost uniformly towards hunting down militant leaders or protecting US forces, (and) not towards understanding the enemy we now face," said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University, Washington DC.
Michel Moutot, Yahoo News, February 2, 2008 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/afghanistanunrestqaedapakistanus
Jensen Comment
It appears that since 9/11, scholars in universities, churches, governments, and everywhere else in the world have done little else than try to understand jihad, al Qaeda, and Islamic militants bent on destroying Israel (or at least driving all Jews out of the Middle East) and the strategy of terror aimed at totally innocent people in order to rule Muslins by fear and force the entire world to surrender. Barach Obama advocate's military action against al Qaeda in Pakistan and the military defense of Israel. What does Professor Hoffman understand about militants and terrorists that would make him a better at setting military policy? Terror may beget terror just as Jewish resistance in Warsaw inflamed Nazi tempers. Would it have been better to understand Nazi/Jihadist goals and give in peacefully to gas chambers and tower bombings by laying down in pacifist surrender? Even the great pacifist Bertrand Russell argued that the necessity of defeating the Nazis was a unique circumstance where war was not the worst of the possible evils; he called his position "relative pacifism." When does "relative pacifism" kick in to resist terror tactics? Should we truly fail to protect the millions of Muslins who do not want to surrender to maniacs who terrorize in the name of their faith but rape and kill and maim contrary to their hypocritical pretenses.

The Conference of Arab Interior Ministers held its 25th annual session in Tunis last week - and singled out terrorism as "the principal threat" to the national security of the 22 countries of the Arab League. What took the ministers so long to understand what terrorism is doing to their nations? In fact, their predecessors discussed terrorism at the inaugural session a quarter-century ago; it has been a key item on every year's agenda. The problem was, the Arab states couldn't agree on what constituted terrorism. They shied away from a clear definition for fear that it might apply to the various groups that they financed and armed against Israel, India - or, at times, against each other. Nor were they willing to take a tough line on textbooks, media products and mosque sermons that incited xenophobia, hatred and violence against non-Muslims - and even, in some cases, against Muslims from different "schools." They failed to realize that words have consequences in deeds, that individuals brainwashed into hating "the other" might end up trying to kill.
Amir Taheri, "Arab States Wake Up," New York Post via Frontpage Magazine, February 6, 2008 ---
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E93C51BE-50F4-4045-BFAC-012BB422452D

Where does Arab fanaticism come from? Does it come from the mosque? Or does it come from the fanatics' intended targets refusal to close down the mosque? The death by natural causes of George Habash on January 26 indicates strongly that the latter is the case. Habash, the founder and commander of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was a repugnant, fanatical, mass-murderer. Habash's terror specialties included airplane hijacking, hostage taking, massacre, assassination, and suicide bombings. Far from an Islamic supremacist, Habash was a Christian. One of Habash's signature tactics was his use of Nazi-style "selections." After his henchmen hijacked passenger jets, they would walk among their hostages, separating the Jews from the non-Jews, or sometimes the Jews and the Americans from the non-Jews and non-Americans. They would let the non-Jews and non-Americans go, and hold the Jews and the Americans hostage . . . HABASH'S EVASION of justice for his crimes is typical. In his first term of office, President George W. Bush railed against this harsh reality of non-accountability by referring to it as the "soft bigotry of low expectations." Bush pledged to work to replace Arab bigotry and tyranny which breed fanaticism and embrace terror with tolerance and freedom. Six years later, Bush is not only ignoring his word, he is undermining it by rewarding regimes and societies that lie to him and systematically break their word to him. Case in point is Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. In his State of the Union address last week, Bush praised Abbas as a leader who "recognizes that confronting terror is essential to achieving a state where his people can live in dignity and at peace with Israel." Rather than hold Abbas and his colleagues accountable upholding mass murderers as heroes, Bush insists that they must be given a state before he leaves office. And last month Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paved the way for the international donors' conference in Paris where the international community pledged $7.4 billion in financial assistance to Abbas and his Habash and Arafat worshipping government.
Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, February 4, 2008 --- http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1202064581205&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

History of the War on Jews in the Middle East (slide show produced by David Horowitz) --- http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

United States intelligence sources are reportedly claiming al-Qaeda nuclear weapons expert Abu Khabab al-Misri was the real target of last week's CIA airstrike in northern Pakistan which is said to have killed one of the terror network's key leaders, Abu Laith al-Libi. Al-Misri is reportedly able to make so-called 'dirty bombs' that contain radioactive waste mixed with explosives. US intelligence services reportedly believe that al-Qaeda has since 1997 been seeking to acquire 'dirty bombs' and other weapons of mass destruction.
"Terrorism: Al-Qaeda 'eyeing nuclear weapons'," adnkronos, February 4, 2008 --- http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1843140498

A senior clergyman in the Church of England is calling for the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, because of his comments promoting Islamic sharia law in Britain.The comments were reported by the Times Online, which said the reaction from the "long-standing member of the church's governing body, the General Synod," was just a part of the backlash against Williams over his comments. WND has reported that Williams, chief of the 70-million strong worldwide Anglican Communion, has advocated for establishment of Islamic law, drawing a rebuke from Prime Minister Gordon Brown, among others.
WorldNetDaily, February 8, 2008 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=55898

The London Daily Mail reports this week that one in four Britons don't believe Prime Minister Winston Churchill actually existed.They suspect he is a mythical character, rather than a historical one.Likewise, they think historical figures such as Florence Nightingale, Sir Walter Raleigh, Mahatma Gandhi and Cleopatra were also fictional personalities created for literature or films. On the other hand, they believe Sherlock Holmes was a real person.
Joseph Farah, "Thus ends Western Civilization," WorldNetDaily, February 8, 2008 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=55805

Polaroid Corp. is dropping the technology (and film production)  it pioneered long before digital photography rendered instant film obsolete to all but a few nostalgia buffs. Polaroid is closing factories in Massachusetts, Mexico and the Netherlands and cutting 450 jobs as the brand synonymous with instant images focuses on ventures such as a portable printer for images from cell phones and Polaroid-branded digital cameras, televisions and DVD players.
Mark Jewell, "Polaroid's Instant Film Won't Be Sold After Next Year," The Ledger, February 8, 2008 --- http://www.theledger.com/article/20080208/BREAKING/508728328
Jensen Comment
There's still a glimmer of hope for analog television sets. For those who have not heard the government will give you coupons for $40 on up to two digital to analog TV converters. Apply at: http://www.dtv2009.gov  or call (888) DTV-2009
 Erika and I would like to continue to use our analog set because it has space-saving built-in VCR and DVD players.
Polaroid cameras, Polaroid film, analog television machinery and parts, and VCR manufacturing raise some interesting questions about obsolescence accounting

The shutdown--approved by the  Federal Communications Commission--is called the "analog sunset" because those so-called AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) networks, which were first deployed in the 1980s and brought cellular service to millions of Americans, will finally disappear.
"Last Call: Analog Cell Phone Service Disappearing Most phones now use digital service, but home and business owners with alarm systems may miss the analog signal," PC World via The Washington Post, February 8, 2008 --- Click Here

FAMILIES of victims of the Bali bombings and survivors have expressed outrage at an ABC documentary due to air this evening on two Australian women linked to militant Islam. The documentary, Jihad Sheilas, features comments by Rabiah Hutchinson, the so-called “matriach” of radical Islam in Australia, and Raisah bint Alan Douglas about the 2002 Bali bombing. “Do I feel for the people that died? Not as much as I feel for those 200 Afghani people that gave me and my children shelter,” Ms Hutchinson says. “Why? Because they weren't holidaying in someone's country, sometimes engaging in child pornography or paedophilia or drug taking.” John Harrison, who lost his daughter Nicole in the Bali bombings, said he was strongly opposed to the ABC screening Ms Hutchinson's comments. “I hope to Christ that someone belonging to her, like a son or a daughter, gets killed somewhere along the line and she suffers like we have,” he said. “Last night we saw the news that these mongrels in Bali were going to get another appeal, and that just drops - excuse my French - the arse clean out of you,” he said.
Nicola Berkovic, "Pull 'Jihad Sheilas' doco: victims," The Australian, February 5, 2008 --- http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23163775-601,00.html
Jensen Comment
The victims in Bali were mostly families with children. If they were looking for "child pornography or pedophilia or drugs" the strictly Islamic island of Bali would hardly be the destination of choice.

Again, the Left’s reaction was predictable. Since the 1960s, the Left has grown increasingly opposed to the use of American power. Viewing everything through the prism of Vietnam, the Left distrusts American power and sees war itself as the enemy. In addition, the wars of 9/11 served as fuel for Bush’s black-and-white view of the world—even George Will calls him “our Manichean president”—which view further alienated Bush from the Left. In this regard, it pays to recall that the postmodernism which captivates and animates much of the Left assures us that there are no differences between evil and good, no objective truth, no absolutes—except, of course, the absolute that claims there are no absolutes. Thus, someone who uses phrases like “Axis of Evil” and “evil doers” and “monumental struggle of good versus evil” and, as he did during his final State of the Union, “evil men who despise freedom,” is not likely to be embraced by those who see the world in shades of grey. But those who believe there is good and evil, that force is not inherently evil, that there is even a time for war, would rally around such a president, which may explain why many conservatives still support the president and many leftists never did.
Alan W. Dowd, Bush Derangement Syndrome: A Diagnosis," Frontpage Magazine, February 4, 2008 ---
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F2463402-436E-4BDC-9FCB-6BB0BE741E1A

Whereas Obama's claim to foreign policy fame among Dems has been his opposition from day one to the Iraq war, it appears he may have now put himself to the right of Hillary Clinton on the issue of sustaining the surge.
Mark Findelstein, "Has Obama Put Himself to Right of Hillary on Surge?" Newsbusters, February 4, 2008 ---
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/02/04/has-obama-put-himself-right-hillary-surge

The Democratic presidential hopeful tried to duck the question Sunday, when ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked her about wage-garnishing three times. But she didn't rule it out. Clinton on Sunday described universal health care as "a core Democratic value and a moral principle, and I'm absolutely going to do everything I can to achieve that." The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama is warning voters that Clinton's plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if they can't afford it. "And if they cannot afford it, then the question is what are you going to do about it? Are you going to fine them? Are you going to garnish their wages?" Obama asked Clinton at one of their debates.
Susan Jones, "Clinton May Garnish Wages to Achieve Universal Health Care,: CNS News, February 4, 2008 ---
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200802/NAT20080204b.html

An additional cause for discouragement for public intellectuals and those who look to them for intellectual leadership is that society at large just doesn’t seem to afford its iconic or star public intellectuals much respect anymore. Public intellectuals in America are merely “one side of an argument,” so to speak. From the general public’s point of view, they are either Republican or Democrat; liberal or conservative; left-wing or right-wing; pro-choice or pro-life; and so on. Public intellectuals signify or are reduced by the general public to nothing more than a position — and usually an extreme one — on a topic of contemporary social and political concern.
Jeffrey R. Di Leo, "Public Intellectuals, Inc., Inside Higher Ed, February 4, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/02/04/dileo  

Imagine how different things would be if the first caucus of the election season were held in the state of Manhattan and not in the state of Iowa. The candidates would surely dress a lot better than they do when breakfasting in Des Moines. Issues like rent stabilization and property taxes would be debated as if they had national-security implications. And few politicians would feel compelled to thump the Bible or share their narrative of faith when addressing shivering lunchtime crowds in Central Park. But secular New York City is not America. It is not even remotely representative of America. In America, as we learned from the recent Iowa and South Carolina contests, a presidential aspirant must cite the Scriptures on the campaign trail. In America those who want to gain the White House must talk about God . . . The Bible's position in today's American politics can be seen as an inadvertent compromise, a functional arrangement, an armistice born of no particular negotiations. Secular America is subjected to the indignity of faith-based pandering, but rarely sees faith-based initiatives crystallize into any sort of tangible policy changes. Evangelical America gets its symbol in the public square, but little more than that. That is where we stand. Precariously. Everyone from Manhattan to Iowa is dissatisfied with the status quo.
Jacques Berlinerlau, "Candidates' 'God Talk' Scriptural references are seemingly mandatory this election year, but how seriously should we take them?," Chronicle of Higher Education's The Chronicle Review, February 15, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i22/22b00602.htm?utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en 

I’ll no longer say (after 35 years) that I have supernatural powers. I am an entertainer. I want to do a good show. My entire character has changed.
Uri Geller as quoted by James Randi the Educational Foundation, January 18, 2008 --- http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/149/27/#i1
This link was provided by Jason Hardin at Trinity University.

Three years ago, an explosion rocked a British Petroleum refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers. A proposed plea deal would see BP fined $50 million in exchange for avoiding an investigation of its safety history. But the deal has critics.
Wade Goodwyn, NPR, February 4, 2008 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18656603

More Cubans are fleeing to the United States than ever before. Migration to the United States from Cuba is now at its highest rate since the 1960s. And increasingly, U.S. authorities say Cuban migrants are being brought here by smugglers using high-speed boats.
Greg Allen, NPR, February 4, 2008 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18648382

At one extreme are those who call for the apprehension and eviction of as many illegal residents in the US as is possible. Yet this seems a very unrealistic goal when there are so many illegal residents; the US will not apprehend and return millions of persons to Mexico, or wherever else illegal residents came from. Nor is it desirable to go to the other extreme, and just give blanket amnesty to all illegal residents, for amnesty now would encourage future illegal immigration since they too would expect amnesty. Complete amnesty just makes a mockery of immigration laws, and rewards those who came to the US illegally, as opposed to the many potential immigrants who wait years for the right to immigrate legally . . . I argued earlier on this blog that selling the right to immigrate (Canada's approach) would be the best approach to legal immigration (see my post on May 28, 2007 for details of this proposal). This approach would lead to acceptance of greater numbers of legal immigrants, perhaps by a lot, since the revenue from the payments by immigrants could replace other taxes. Paying for the right to immigrate would also negate the argument that immigrants get a free ride because they gain access to health care and other benefits. Moreover, making immigrants pay for to come attracts the type of immigrants who came much earlier in American history: younger men and women who are reasonably skilled, and who want to make a long-term commitment to the United States. These types would be more willing to pay a perhaps sizable price for admission because they would stand to benefit significantly from migrating. To prevent the price from excluding young and ambitious men and women who would like to immigrate but do not have the financial means, the US government could encourage a loan program to help finance the cost of immigrating that would be similar to the loans available to college students. The analogy to college students is close since immigration is also an investment in human capital . . . One great advantage of selling the right to immigrate is that the same approach can be used to deal with illegal residents, so that it also helps solve the vexing problem of illegal immigration. Instead of offering free amnesty to illegal residents, this approach gives them an opportunity to legalize their status without giving them advantages over those who wait to come as legal immigrants. Illegal residents would be able to come forward and pay to change their status to that of legal residents. Many illegal residents would gladly pay for the right to become legal since that would open up enormously job and other opportunities available to them.
Nobel Laureate Gary Becker, "What (If Anything) to Do About Illegal Immigration," The Becker-Posner Blog, February 3, 2008 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

There are four basic alternatives for dealing with illegal immigration: do nothing; do nothing about the illegal immigrants who are already in the United States but take measures to stop future illegal immigration; amnesty the existing illegals; deport them. The first three alternatives are plausible; the last is not. The United States does not have enough police and other paramilitary personnel, or sufficient detention facilities, to round up and deport 12 million persons (our prisons and jails are bursting with 2 million inmates), and even if it did, the shock to the economy would be profound, as the vast majority of the illegal immigrants are employed. The mass deportation would create a serious labor shortage, resulting in skyrocketing wages and prices . . . The objections to an immigration amnesty, even in its conditional form, are threefold. First, it rewards illegal behavior. But that is something done all the time without controversy. A criminal who agrees to rat on an accomplice may be given a break in sentencing; that is the equivalent of rewarding an illegal immigrant for coming forward and paying a fine to regularize his status. Second, it is argued that an amnesty would create an expectation of a future amnesty and thus encourage further illegal immigration. But the argument just shows that the amnesty would have to be coupled with efforts, which as I have explained are feasible, to prevent further illegal immigration. Third, it is argued that an amnesty would be unfair to those foreigners patiently waiting in line for permission to immigrate legally to the United States. But why the United States should care about these people is obscure. They are not Americans; we do not owe them anything. If an amnesty solves our problems, the fact that it is in some global sense "unfair" to another set of foreigners deserves, in my opinion, no consideration.
Richard Posner, "What (If Anything) to Do About Illegal Immigration," The Becker-Posner Blog, February 3, 2008 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

"Fed wants the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other financial indicators to descend in a managed way," Bolser said. "The Fed wants to drive the DJIA toward the 8,000 level, or below, in order to help create a deep recession which will have the effect of slowing consumption across the board, and dampening the otherwise harmful effects of inflation. "A falling DOW is only one element of the recession effects of the excessive Fed-created housing and credit creation, whose bubbles are now bursting," he added. "Without this recession, we would be on quick trip to hyper-inflation," Bolser, the author of an internationally followed newsletter published in conjunction with his InterventionalAnalysis.com website, said, "and the Fed wants to prevent this."
Jerome R. Corsi, WorldNetDaily, February 5, 2008 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=60041
Jensen Comment
Although I think stock prices are in a bubble ready to burst, I don't think the Fed is trying to let the air out of the Dow down to 8,000. Rather the Fed is playing a dangerous inflation game by lowering interest rates while Bush is trying to pass a dysfunctional stimulus package plus a record-setting and highly inflationary $3.1 trillion Federal budget. As Betsy Stark pointed out on ABC news, if 3.1 trillion dollar bills were stacked they would link the earth with the moon.

Political tricks may not be the only ones turned during the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August. The sex and adult entertainment industries are expecting a boom in business when an estimated 35,000 visitors descend on the Mile High City for the presidential nominating bash. At the Pepsi Center, the focus will be on a single nominee. But outside the event, the choices available to the delegates, journalists and others are unlimited, giving new meaning to the term "conventional sex." More than six months before the convention comes to Denver, the offerings already online range from Claudia the "she- male porn star" to Erin the "adorable college cutie," whose $300- an-hour services are guaranteed to "leave you breathless."
Daniel J. Chicon, Rockey Mountain News, February 4, 2008 --- http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/feb/04/dnc-boost-for-sex-biz/
Jensen Comment
When accounting professors have their international convention in cities like Denver, Chicago, and New York, the hookers schedule vacations. This is not the case for Democratic and GOP political conventions where lobby-enriched big spenders strain the supply side to the limits. Both conventions this year will focus on a full-employment "stimulus deal."

Harems pay off for Muslims (Toronto, Ontario Canada) Mumtaz Ali: "Very liberal-minded country". Hundreds of GTA Muslim men in polygamous marriages -- some with a harem of wives -- are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses, thanks to the city and province, Muslim leaders say. Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said wives in polygamous marriages are recognized as spouses under the Ontario Family Law Act, providing they were legally married under Muslim laws abroad.
Tom Godfrey, Toronto Sun, February 8, 2008 --- http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2008/02/08/4834588-sun.html

"What is happening to Amnesty International?" by Mohammad Parvin, February 2008 ---
http://www.marzeporgohar.org/index.php?l=1&cat=20&scat=39&artid=1316

Amnesty International (AI) is sponsoring an event in Los Angeles under the title, “Human Rights in Iran: How to Move Forward” on February 22, 2008. Mr. Trita Parsi, president of National Iranian American Council (NIAC) an extremely dedicated activist for the establishment of normal and unconditional relations between the religious dictatorship in Iran and the U.S.  is one of the panelists in this event. This is not the first time NIAC has manipulated AI. On July 26, 2007, AI was one of the sponsors of an event organized by NIAC under the title, “Human Rights in Iran and U.S. Foreign Policy Options.”

NIAC is not a human rights organization. There is no trace of a reference to human rights in its mission statement, goals, programs or anywhere else. NIAC has not contributed to any of the numerous urgent actions issued by Amnesty International to stop imminent execution of political prisoners or stoning of men and women to death. NIAC has not made any statements condemning Mullahs for stoning, torture, the execution of political prisoners, or the treatment of women and religious minorities.

. . .

The irony is that AI has always shrugged criticism regarding its conservative approach to dictatorships such as the Mullahs’ tyranny in Iran and has cited the restriction that its goals and mandate place on taking political position. If AI’s mandate for not taking political position prevents it from encouraging the world to apply pressure on Mullahs, why is it that promoting the defender of such regime is not considered political?

NIAC stands tall among all lobby groups in the sense that no other group dares to speak so frankly for the ruling clergy in Iran. The following demand has been made in almost every recent statement made by Mr. Trita Parsi.

Continued in article

"Has Iran Won?" Editorial in The Economist, January 30, 2008 --- http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10608425

The ayatollahs have wriggled off the nuclear hook, but there is a way to put them on again

WHO would have thought that a friendless theocracy with a Holocaust-denying president, which hangs teenagers in public and stones women to death, could run diplomatic circles around America and its European allies? But Iran is doing just that. And it is doing so largely because of an extraordinary own goal by America's spies, the team behind the duff intelligence that brought you the Iraq war.

It doesn't take a fevered brain to assume that if Iran's ayatollahs get their hands on the bomb, the world could be in for some nasty surprises. Iran's claim that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful is widely disbelieved. That is why Russia and China joined America, Britain, France and Germany at the UN Security Council to try to stop Iran enriching uranium. Until two months ago they seemed ready to support a third and tougher sanctions resolution against Iran. But then America's spies spoke out, and since then five painstaking years of diplomacy have abruptly unravelled (see article).

The intelligence debacle over Iraq has made spies anxious about how their findings are used. That may be why they and the White House felt it right to admit, in a National Intelligence Estimate in December, that they now think Iran halted clandestine work on nuclear warheads five years ago. As it happens, this belief is not yet shared by Israel or some of America's European allies, who see the same data. But no matter: the headline was enough to pull the rug from under the diplomacy. In Berlin last month, the Russians and Chinese made it clear that if there is a third resolution, it will be a mild slap on the wrist, not another turn of the economic screw.

At the same time, Iran is finding an ally in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei, is a Nobel peace-prize winner who is crusading to confound those he calls “the crazies” in Washington by helping Iran to set its nuclear house in order, receive a clean bill of health and so avert the possibility of another disastrous war.

Honest spies, a peace-loving nuclear watchdog. What can be wrong with that? Nothing: unless the honesty of the spies is deliberately misconstrued and the watchdog fails to do its actual job of sniffing out the details of Iran's nuclear activities.

Thanks for letting us off Beaming like cats at the cream, a posse of Iranians went to January's World Economic Forum in Davos claiming a double vindication. Had not America itself now said that Iran had no weapons programme? Was not Iran about to give the IAEA the answers it needed to “close” its file? In circumstances like these, purred Iran's foreign minister, there was no case for new sanctions, not even the light slap Russia and China prefer.

Yet Iran's argument is a travesty. Although the National Intelligence Estimate does say that Iran probably stopped work on a nuclear warhead in 2003, it also says that Iran was indeed doing such work until then, and nobody knows how far it got. The UN sanctions are anyway aimed not at any warhead Iran may or may not be building in secret, but at what it is doing in full daylight, in defiance of UN resolutions, to enrich uranium and produce plutonium. We need this for electricity, says Iran. But it could fuel a bomb. And once a country can produce such fuel, putting it in a warhead is relatively easy.

Some countries, it is true, are allowed to enrich uranium without any fuss. The reason for depriving Iran of what it calls this “right” is a history of deception that led the IAEA to declare it out of compliance with its nuclear safeguards. So it is essential that Mr ElBaradei's desire to end this confrontation does not now tempt him to gloss over the many unanswered questions. With a lame duck in the White House and sanctions unravelling, Iran really would be home free then.

Would it be so tragic if a tricky Iran were to slip the net of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? North Korea quit the treaty and carried out a bomb test in 2006. Israel never joined, saying coyly only that it won't be the first to “introduce” nuclear weapons into the region—but won't be the second either. India and Pakistan, two other outsiders, have already strutted their stuff. Why should one more gate-crasher spoil the party?

One obvious danger is that a nuclear-armed Iran, or one suspected of being able to weaponise at will, could set off a chain reaction that turns Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, even Turkey rapidly nuclear too. America and the Soviet Union, with mostly only their own cold war to worry about, had plenty of brushes with catastrophe. Multiplying Middle Eastern nuclear rivalries would drive up exponentially the risk that someone could miscalculate—with dreadful consequences.

Time for Plan B For some this threat alone justifies hitting Iran's nuclear sites before it can build the bomb they fear it is after. But if Iran is bent on having a bomb, deterrence is better. Mr Bush has already said that America will keep Israel from harm. By extending its security umbrella to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, America might stifle further rivalry before the region goes critical.

Much better, however, to avoid a nuclear Iran altogether. Mr Bush says diplomacy can still do this. It is hard to see how. But he does have one card up his sleeve: the offer of a grand bargain to address the gamut of differences between America and Iran, from the future of Iraq to the Middle East peace process. So far Iran's leaders have brushed aside America's offer of talks “anytime, anywhere” and about “anything” by pointing to the condition attached: that Iran first suspend its uranium enrichment. Strangely enough, the best way to put pressure on Iran's rulers now is for America to drop that rider.

There would need to be a time limit or Iran could simply enrich on regardless, with what looked like the world's blessing. Similarly Russia and China would need to agree to much tougher sanctions to help concentrate minds. Iran's leaders may still say no. But the ayatollahs would have to explain to ordinary Iranians why they should pay such a high price in prosperity forgone for making a fetish out of not talking, and out of technologies that aren't even needed to keep the lights on. If Iran's leaders cannot be persuaded any other way, perhaps they can be embarrassed out of their bomb plans.

"A Strike in the Dark," by Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, February 11, 2008 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/11/080211fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=1 

Sometime after midnight on September 6, 2007, at least four low-flying Israeli Air Force fighters crossed into Syrian airspace and carried out a secret bombing mission on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ninety miles north of the Iraq border. The seemingly unprovoked bombing, which came after months of heightened tension between Israel and Syria over military exercises and troop buildups by both sides along the Golan Heights, was, by almost any definition, an act of war. But in the immediate aftermath nothing was heard from the government of Israel. In contrast, in 1981, when the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, near Baghdad, the Israeli government was triumphant, releasing reconnaissance photographs of the strike and permitting the pilots to be widely interviewed.

. . .

In Tel Aviv, the senior Israeli official pointedly told me, “Syria still thinks Hezbollah won the war in Lebanon”—referring to the summer, 2006, fight between Israel and the Shiite organization headed by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. “Nasrallah knows how much that war cost—one-third of his fighters were killed, infrastructure was bombed, and ninety-five per cent of his strategic weapons were wiped out,” the Israeli official said. “But Assad has a Nasrallah complex and thinks Hezbollah won. And, ‘If he did it, I can do it.’ This led to an adventurous mood in Damascus. Today, they are more sober.”

That notion was echoed by the ambassador of an Israeli ally who is posted in Tel Aviv. “The truth is not important,” the ambassador told me. “Israel was able to restore its credibility as a deterrent. That is the whole thing. No one will know what the real story is.”

There is evidence that the preëmptive raid on Syria was also meant as a warning about—and a model for—a preëmptive attack on Iran. When I visited Israel this winter, Iran was the overriding concern among political and defense officials I spoke to—not Syria. There was palpable anger toward Washington, in the wake of a National Intelligence Estimate that concluded, on behalf of the American intelligence community, that Iran is not now constructing a nuclear weapon. Many in Israel view Iran’s nuclear ambitions as an existential threat; they believe that military action against Iran may be inevitable, and worry that America may not be there when needed. The N.I.E. was published in November, after a yearlong standoff involving Cheney’s office, which resisted the report’s findings. At the time of the raid, reports about the forthcoming N.I.E. and its general conclusion had already appeared.

Retired Major General Giora Eiland, who served as the national-security adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told me, “The Israeli military takes it as an assumption that one day we will need to have a military campaign against Iran, to slow and eliminate the nuclear option.” He added, “Whether the political situation will allow this is another question.”

In the weeks after the N.I.E.’s release, Bush insisted that the Iranian nuclear-weapons threat was as acute as ever, a theme he amplified during his nine-day Middle East trip after the New Year. “A lot of people heard that N.I.E. out here and said that George Bush and the Americans don’t take the Iranian threat seriously,” he told Greta Van Susteren, of Fox News. “And so this trip has been successful from the perspective of saying . . . we will keep the pressure on.”

Joshua Lederberg, 82, a Nobel Prize winner for his work in bacterial genetics who is known as one of the founders of molecular biology, a discipline that in the past half-century has begun unlocking the secrets of how organisms live and reproduce, died Feb. 2 of pneumonia at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York.
Patricia Sullivan, The Washington Post, February 5, 2008 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
I mention this because I spent a year in a think thank (Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences) at Stanford University with Joshua. He was very inspirational and at the time (1971) was studying the ethics of cloning.

Biology
Counseling and School Psychology
History
Mathematics
Nursing and Health Science
Political Science
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Bob Jensen's threads on OpenCourseWare and free course videos from major universities around the world are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
 

Amid the flurry of news over Microsoft's bid for Yahoo and Google's rebuttal, a research announcement by Google went largely unnoticed
Last week, the search giant began a public experiment in which users can make their search results look a little different from the rest of the world's. Those who sign up are able to switch between different views, so instead of simply getting a list of links (and sometimes pictures and YouTube videos, a relatively recent addition to the Google results), they can choose to see their results mapped, put on a timeline, or narrowed down by informational filters. Dan Crow, product manager at Google, says that the results of the experiment could eventually help the company improve everyone's search experience.
Kate Greene, MIT's Technology Review, February 6, 2008 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20162/?nlid=857
Jensen Comment
You can read more about this experiment at http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html

February 6, 2008 reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]

Bob,

I tried it, and was a bit disappointed.

What searchers need is really visualisation of search results in a way that makes navigation easier.

A site I would recommend is www.grokker.com , especially its map view.

Regards,

Jagdish

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

Notes on the Smart Pen
The smart pen that Wired Campus flagged back in May was unveiled last week at a technology conference in Palm Springs, Calif. The company behind it, LiveScribe, has been aggressively marketing the device to college students with the slogan "Never miss a word." It's basically a combination recording machine and camera. Users take notes while a minirecorder, embedded in the pen, records whatever is being said. Later, to clarify the written notes, the user can touch the pen to a specific passage and listen to a recording of the instructor speaking those words. A tiny camera links what is being written to what is being recorded. In a takeoff on television commercials for pharmaceuticals, the smart-pen advertisement below features a student who suffers from "restless mind syndrome." The pen is offered as a panacea. Livescribe has set up a Facebook page to push the pen, and offers to pay college students to promote the device on their campuses. It's also advertised on the Web site ThePalestra, where Andy Van Schaack, a senior lecturer at Vanderbilt University, who is an adviser to LiveScribe, is seen praising the pen. Will the pen, which sells for about $200, take off with college students? Will it be used as a crutch for students who are too tired or distracted to listen to their professors?
Andrea L. Foster, "Notes on the Smart Pen," Chronicle of Higher Education, February 5, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2719&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Bob Jensen's threads on gadgets are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#Technology

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

"Microsoft Helps Nab $900M Piracy Ring," Jessica Mintz, The Washington Post, February 8, 2008 --- Click Here

Near-perfect knockoffs of 21 different Microsoft programs began surfacing around the world just over a decade ago.

Soon, PCs in more than a dozen countries were running illegal copies of Windows and Office, turning unwitting consumers into criminals and, Microsoft says, exposing them to increased risk of malicious viruses and spyware.

The case began to turn in 2001 when U.S. Customs officers seized a shipping container in Los Angeles filled with $100 million in fake software, including 31,000 copies of the Windows operating system.

From there, Microsoft pushed the investigation through 22 countries. Local law enforcement officials seized software, equipment and records, and made arrests. A court in Taiwan handed down the last of the major sentences in December. Microsoft estimates the retail value of the software the operation generated at $900 million.

"That is a tremendous accomplishment," said James Spertus, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who later led anti-piracy efforts for the Motion Picture Association of America. "There are only going to be a few cases like this a decade."

Now Microsoft is eager to talk about the experience because taking down that operation _ responsible for about 90 percent of the fake software the company found between 1999 and 2004, more than 470,000 disks _ didn't actually stop piracy. It just left room for more counterfeiters to rise. Microsoft hopes would-be pirates will think twice if they know how far it will go to protect the computer code worth billions in revenue each quarter.

The pirates mimicked complex holograms stamped directly onto disks and packaging materials embedded with the kind of tiny safety threads used in making money. In some cases, it took experts with microscopes to notice that disks printed with codes used by legitimate software factories lacked certain minuscule, unique smudges.

"The copies were so good, we went to tremendous forensic and scientific lengths to establish that the counterfeits were, in fact, counterfeits," said David Finn, an associate general counsel at Microsoft.

Without a solid lead on the source, Microsoft continued to gather string. Members of its 80-person worldwide anti-piracy team made test buys to see if retailers were selling fake disks, knowingly or unwittingly, and worked leads back up the black-market supply chain.

The seizure of the container in Los Angeles led to Taiwan, where the Ministry of Justice raided Chungtek Hightech, recovering an estimated $100 million more in software and equipment. Months later, Taipei city police and the criminal investigations branch of the national police hit Cinway Technology, a related manufacturer in the same industrial complex, seizing another $126 million in phony software. Records found there led to a packing, storage and shipping center in China's Guangdong province, and back to distributor Maximus Technology in Taiwan.

Finally, in 2007, the owner and operator of Chungtek and Cinway, Chen Bi-ching, was sentenced in Taiwan to four years in prison, while her two co-defendants received jail terms of three years and one year. And the distribution outfit's owner, Huang Jer-sheng, was sentenced to four years in prison. In China, the Public Security Bureau raided the packing and shipping company, Zhang Sheng Electronics, and Li Jian, the manager, was sentenced to three years in 2004.

Matching the Taiwanese counterfeits to copies found around the world, Microsoft gave law enforcement agencies ammunition for raids and criminal cases in the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Canada, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Paraguay and Poland. Dozens of big distributors, middlemen and retailers were convicted, including 35 people in the U.S.

One was Lisa Chen, who according to a Customs press release arrived at the scene of the 2001 shipping container bust with additional counterfeit software in her vehicle. Chen was prosecuted by the Los Angeles district attorney's office as a major U.S. distributor of the Taiwan fakes and received a nine-year prison term in November 2002. She has since been released, according to her lawyer at the time.

Microsoft would not say how much it spent on the investigation or how many counterfeit copies of Windows, Office and other programs were found in use on consumer or business PCs.

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Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm