Cannon Mountain is one of the oldest ski mountains in North America.  The mountain is in the Franconia State Park and is managed by the Park Service. The mountain is also a popular mountain for technical rock and ice climbing. The picture below shows our view (with camera zoomed last autumn) of the top of the aerial tram that, along with a number of chair lifts, takes skiers to the top of the mountain. The second picture from my desk (camera unzoomed) shows some of the ski trails and clouds hanging over Franconia notch. Mt. Lafayette and Mt. Lincoln are shown on the left side of the Notch. The bright light is the reflection of my camera's flash in the front window. The tram pictured below runs in the winter and summer.

 

Below is a shot of Mt. Washington that I took from my desk in December. There's also a very popular ski area, as well as a very historic hotel/resort, on Mt. Washington. The famous July 1944 United Nations Bretton Woods Monetary and Financial Conference attended by President Roosevelt and other world leaders was signed in the hotel pictured below. Unfortunately, Mt. Washington has some of the worst weather (high winds) in the continental U.S.

 

 

The story below won't be found in the traditional media. It was forwarded by my friend Col. Robert Booth.

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

Over the last 12 months, 1,042 soldiers, Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel have given their lives in the terrible duty that is war. Thousands more have come home on stretchers, horribly wounded and facing months or years in military hospitals. This week, I'm turning my space over to a good friend and former roommate, Army Lt. Col. Robert Bateman , who recently completed a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and is now back at the Pentagon.

Here's Lt. Col. Bateman's account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning. It first appeared on May 17 on the Weblog of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Website.

"It is 110 yards from the "E" ring to the "A" ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.

This hallway, more than any other, is the `Army' hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other, G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not have seen ea ch other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew.

Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was not designed for this p ress of bodies in this area.

The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares. "10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.

"A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first class.

"Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the burden ... yet.

"Now almost everyone lining the hallway is, like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran. This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The soldier's chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.

"Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private, corporal, or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.

"11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how stupid that sounds in my own head. My hands hurt. Please! Shut up and clap. For twenty-four minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway - 20, 25, 30. Fifty-three legs come with them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.

They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals. Some are wheeled along. Some insist upon getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway, through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.

"There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war-bride pushing her 19-year-old husband's wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have, perhaps more than their wounded mid-20s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son's behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past.

These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years.

" Did you know that?

The nation's newspapers and television stations have not reported this story

 

 

Tidbits on February 28, 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 

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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/ )

Global Incident Map --- http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

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

More Demands from Islam (video) --- http://www.dotsub.com/films/moredemands/index.php?autostart=true&language_setting=en_1618

How science stuff works --- http://science.howstuffworks.com/

Hugs and kisses from the King of the Jungle --- http://www.telestereo.com/Archivos/video.html

PowerPoint Explanation of the Subprime Mess --- Click Here
(Hit the arrow buttons to change screens)

The Unknown Professor who runs the Financial Rounds blog says his kids love
Pinky and the Brain, Tongue Twister  --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIu4fP4fOHE
I would never be able to read this script out loud!

William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925-2008) died yesterday --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley%2C_Jr.

Distinctive Voices@ The Beckman Center --- http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Beckman_main

Distinctive Voices@The Beckman Center highlights innovations, discoveries, and emerging issues in an exciting and engaging public forum. Do you wonder how things work? What the future holds? If you are curious about the science and technology behind today’s hot topics, Distinctive Voices is for you!

Spend an evening gaining insights on significant advances in medicine, biotechnology, energy, the environment, space exploration, and more. Learn from some of the best minds in the world -- including members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine -- in presentations geared to the general public.

Yahoo Science --- http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/

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

Switzerland Slide Show --- Click Here

Nat King Cole Slide Show --- Click Here

Vasectomy (Humor) --- Click Here

Barbra Streisand - He Touched Me (1967) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO-wPOgVtqg

Do You Remember These? (Statler Brothers) --- http://oldfortyfives.com/DYRT.htm

Statler Brothers Videos --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statler_Brothers

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

Photographs and Art

Explore Art (multimedia) --- http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/

Florida's Shipwrecks: 300 Years of Maritime History --- http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/flshipwrecks/

Other, smaller blogging communities connect to the core through one-way links (usually produced when an obscure blog at the edge links to a well-known blog at the core), represented here by hairlike strands.
Erica Naone, "Between Friends:  Sites like Facebook are proving the value of the 'social graph,'" MIT's Technology Review, March/April 2008 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20223/?nlid=894

Switzerland Slide Show --- Click Here

Glaswegians Photo Archive (Scotland) --- http://www.glaswegians.org/

Canadian Architectural Archives --- http://www.caa.ucalgary.ca/

Claremont Colleges Photo Archive --- http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/col/ccp/

 

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

Medical Dictionary --- http://www.medterms.com/script/main/hp.asp

Botanicus --- http://www.botanicus.org/

The Encyclopedia of TV --- http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/index.html

USDA: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service --- http://www.aphis.usda.gov/

Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson --- http://libtextcenter.unl.edu/higginson/

Small Business Administration information services guides
Business.gov --- http://www.business.gov/
Bob Jensen's small business helpers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness
Bob Jensen's links to business and economics data --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics

Planet eBook (download the classics) --- http://www.planetebook.com/

Off-the-record discussions between Robert Frost and Dartmouth College students 60 years ago may provide new insights into the poet, as transcripts are about to be published, the Associated Press reported. The sessions were recorded on reel-to-reel tapes and are becoming public because of the work of an editor at the Poetry Foundation who came across them while an undergraduate at Dartmouth. The first transcript will be published this month in the journal Literary Imagination, whose editor described the conversations as “Frost unplugged.”
Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/25/qt

Through a partnership that marks a turning point in scholarly publishing at Indiana University, Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries Patricia Steele announced today (Feb. 21) the publication of Museum Anthropology Review, the first faculty-generated electronic journal supported by the IU Bloomington Libraries ---
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/7590.html

 

As David Bartholomae observes, “We make a huge mistake if we don’t try to articulate more publicly what it is we value in intellectual work. We do this routinely for our students — so it should not be difficult to find the language we need to speak to parents and legislators.” If we do not try to find that public language but argue instead that we are not accountable to those parents and legislators, we will only confirm what our cynical detractors say about us, that our real aim is to keep the secrets of our intellectual club to ourselves. By asking us to spell out those secrets and measuring our success in opening them to all, outcomes assessment helps make democratic education a reality.
Gerald Graff, "Assessment Changes Everything," Inside Higher Ed, February 21, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/02/21/graff
Gerald Graff is professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago and president of the Modern Language Association. This essay is adapted from a paper he delivered in December at the MLA annual meeting, a version of which appears on the MLA’s Web site and is reproduced here with the association’s permission. Among Graff’s books are Professing Literature, Beyond the Culture Wars and Clueless in Academe: How School Obscures the Life of the Mind.

50 percent divorce rate was the catalyst for The 30-Day Sex Challenge. The church set up a Web site concerning the challenge, Local 6 reported. "And that's no different for people who attend church," Wirth said. "Sometimes life gets in the way. Our jobs get in the way." Oh, and the flip side of the challenge? No rolling in the sheets for the unwed. Church member Tim Jones and his fiancee agreed to take on the challenge, though he acknowledges it'll be a tough month. But he added: "I think it's worth trying to find out other things about each other."
"Church Challenges Members: Have Sex Every Day," Orlando Channel 6, February 19, 2008 --- http://www.local6.com/news/15338180/detail.html
Jensen Comment
What's more important is the impact this is having on the flood of new membership applications from both married and single men on the theory that this is all part of God's new plan to save relationships. We've come a long ways from the serpent in Eden.

In a National Headache Foundation survey of some 170 headache patients, 46% reported having had sex-related headaches. The survey, conducted on the National Headache Foundation's web site during December, included 182 people, mainly women aged 21 and older. Nearly all participants -- 96% -- reported getting headaches from any cause. The same percentage said they're sexually active.
Miranda Hitti, WebMD, February 19, 2008 --- http://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/news/20080215/headaches-from-sex

A 44 year-old man from Sittingbourne, Kent, England, who failed his accounting exams, has been sentenced to two years' imprisonment for urging Moslems to launch terror attacks on accountants. Malcolm Hodges, 44, had failed an exam set by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) ten years ago, and had been arguing about it with the Association ever since. The grudge festered over time, and Hodges widened his one-man campaign by writing a series of letters to the British royal family, the Chancellor, and the Prime Minister, outlining the "grave injustice" behind his low marking. Hodges' mission changed from farcical to dangerous in November 2006, when he began writing to UK mosques, claiming to be a follower of Osama Bin Laden.
AccountingWeb, February 26, 2008 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=104702

Among the latest exploits of the United Methodist Women’s Division is a children’s book intended to instill anti-Israel themes among Methodist youngsters. Innocuously called, “From Palestine to Seattle; Becoming Neighbors and Friends,” the booklet portrays Israel as an oppressor of Palestinians while omitting all mention of terrorism. It was written by Mary Davis, a former United Methodist missionary in “Palestine,” where she led “study tours,” whose political content no doubt was predictable. The United Methodist Women’s Division, with over $60 million in assets, $30 million in annual income, and nearly 700,000 members, is one of the most powerful women’s groups in America. Its mostly older members, strung across over 30,000 local churches, earn money for their New York-based headquarters with bake sales, Christmas bazaars, and church suppers. Few among them realize that their donations fund causes of the radical left, including anti-Israel activism. In the children’s story, a Seattle Methodist pastor just returned from “Palestine” shares a letter from a young Arab boy in Bethlehem with his own children. The Arab boy, Tarek, has never been to McDonald's because the closest one is in Jerusalem, and travel there requires a pass by the Israelis. Naturally, the American children are disturbed. In an ongoing pen pal exchange, Tarek asks the American children why their country thinks all Palestinians are terrorists. The Americans are embarrassed. They summon up the nerve to ask Tarek why passes are needed to travel to Jerusalem.
Mark Tooley, "The Methodist Child Indoctrination League," Frontpage Magazine, February 19, 2008 ---
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F25F6DEA-B3D3-4BFB-960D-DA94B95B2EB8

Corruption and Rampant Crime:  The Sad State of Higher Education in Russia
Presidents use their positions to create fiefdoms on campus, doling out perks to themselves and their allies. Admissions officials demand bribes to enroll otherwise-qualified students, and professors expect money from students in exchange for passing grades. The black-market pipeline of money and perks thrives even as the system itself is eroding. Professors are underpaid, textbooks are of poor quality, and buildings are in dire need of repair. Last year 10 students died in a fire in a Moscow classroom building. The private institution, short of money, had rented the building's lower three floors as office space, which blocked the fire exits.
Anna Nempsova, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 22, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i24/24a01801.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Jensen Comment
What can we expect since there are doubts that Vladimir Putin even read the doctoral dissertation that he himself plagiarized --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#Celebrities
It's not likely that such a leader will fight to instill integrity and opportunity in Russia's higher education system. Better to have bigger bombs to blow up the world when Russia falls into more crime, despair, and ignorance.

MI6 agents have monitored secret meetings between top Serbian officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin's anointed successor, Dmitry Medvedev, to discuss the installation of Russian nuclear missiles to contribute to what he told a Moscow election rally this weekend would "help to ensure Serbian security." The president-in-waiting – no one seriously believes any other candidate will win this coming Sunday's election – also will ensure that President Vladimir Putin will become the nation's prime minister, effectively remaining the real power behind Medvedev after stepping down from the presidency.
"Putin offers nukes to Serbia Missile threat escalates as Russia goes to polls," WorldNetDaily, February 26, 2008 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57373

The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Monday Israel would soon be destroyed by the "hands of Hezbollah", the Lebanese group which is backed by the Islamic Republic, Fars News Agency reported. Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari made the comment in a letter to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to offer condolences after the killing of senior guerrilla commander Imad Moughniyah in a car bomb last week in Damascus. "In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the cancerous existence of Israel by the powerful and competent hands of the Hezbollah combatants," Jafari was quoted as saying. Iran does not recognize Israel and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often predicted the imminent demise of the Jewish state, drawing criticism from the West which fears Iran wants to make nuclear bombs that could threaten the region.
"Hezbollah will soon destroy Israel, says Iran Guards," Reuters, February 18, 2008 --- http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSBLA83745220080218
Jensen Comment
 Mohammad Ali Jafari and Mary Davis should be more careful --- they might get what they ask for!

David Horowitz will not be appearing at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, which is expected to draw thousands of professors to San Diego in November. On that fact, everyone is in agreement. But whether he isn’t participating because he was making unreasonable demands, because he was never invited in the first place (not totally the truth), because the association gave in to members who didn’t want to give him a forum, or some combination of factors is the subject of much disagreement. . . . As for Horowitz, he said that it was “splitting hairs” to say he hadn’t been invited. Via e-mail, he said that the early e-mail from Hogan appeared to be an invitation. “It offers me an honorarium, tells me who my debating partner is, etc. I took it as an invitation. Do you think Hogan would have sent me such a letter if it was normal for his board to then veto his proposals?” he said. Horowitz said of the turn of events: “It is obviously a rejection of the idea of by the NCA — the idea being that after five years David Horowitz should actually get to present his ideas to an academic association.... The fact that no academic group has had the balls to invite me says a lot about the ability of academic associations to discuss important issues if a political minority wants to censor them.”
Scott Jaschik, "Communicating About David Horowitz," Inside Higher Ed, February 19, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/19/horowitz
Jensen Comment
Although I've not been happy with some of David's comments and antics, this is one of millions examples that political correctness still reigns supreme among the liberal academic establishment. That establishment preaches diversity but only to the point of not not embracing controversial conservatives or pro-Israeli speakers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#PoliticalCorrectness
If he'd accept the invitation, the NCA would most likely be thrilled if  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current President of Iran, would accept an invitation to speak at this annual meeting.

Cosby's TV show about the Huxtable family, from 1984 to 1992, wasn't just a sitcom. His "post-racial" middle-class Huxtables were an explicit attempt by him to stanch the downward pitch of black street culture. He lost. In his current book, "Come On, People," written with psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, Cosby lists the grim, by-now familiar data on the social pathologies of black males. As before, he hammers popular black culture: "The Ku Klux Klan could not have devised a media culture as destructive." The famous Million Man March of 1995, Cosby says, didn't make a dent. "What do record producers think when they churn out that gangsta rap with anti-social, women-hating messages?" He said, " Martin and Malcolm and Medgar Evers must be turning over in their graves." For many, the pull and potency of this media-led downward mobility made it seem an impossible situation. The book is a self-help road map to going in another direction.
Daniel Henninger, "Obama and Race," The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2008; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120356078969481875.html

Unfortunately, taxation did not come up in the (Clinton-Obama, February 26) debate, along with other strange absences on important issues like immigration and the government's out-of-control deficits. Some estimates put Obama's total proposed government spending at more than $800 billion over the current federal budget. The means to pay for that spending remains an unknown, and apparently, not a big deal to the mainstream media.
Steve Adcock, "Obama, Clinton debate the merits of big government,: SmallGovTimes.com, February 27, 2008 --- http://www.smallgovtimes.com/story/08feb27.obama.clinton.debate/index.html

Mideast terrorist leaders today thanked actress Sharon Stone for claiming to Arab media the U.S. used the Sept. 11 attacks as "pretext" for launching wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The terrorists stated Stone's remarks, published this week in Arabic, reinforce their views that current U.S. foreign policy is leading America toward destruction. "What Stone said strengthens what we have been saying all along – that the Bush administration and the American evangelical Christians who control U.S. policy are leading America to defeat," said Muhammad Abel-Al, spokesman and senior leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terrorist organization.
Aaron Klein, "Terrorist leaders applaud Sharon Stone's anti-war remarks," WorldNetDaily, February 19, 2008 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56828

That there's one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a Western liberal democracy, but I think it's a misunderstanding to suppose that that means people don't have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society, and the law needs to take some account of that, so an approach to law which simply said, 'There is one law for everybody and that is all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or your allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts' — I think that's a bit of a danger.
Rowan Williams (Archbishop of C, "Shariah in Europe," Chronicle of Higher Education Chronicle Review, February 29, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i25/25b00401.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Jensen Comment
Rev. Williams defenders adamantly point out that this church leader of 80 million Christians is not advocating relative laws that, because one happens to live under Sharia law while living in Europe, would allow stoning adulterer women to death, wife beating, and raping of a woman found in the presence of a man who is not her brother, husband, or father. However, he most definitely is advocating relativism without attempting to draw the line as to where Muslim women have different legal protections than Christian women. Given that he does not, and indeed cannot, provide examples of bright line differences, we have to wonder why he stirred up both liberals (especially feminists) and conservatives on this matter in the first place. Indeed if Rowan Williams was not such a Bush bashing liberal, the attacks on his legal relativism for Muslims would've been even more dramatic in the liberal press. Perhaps this is why one of the more liberal magazines in the U.S., The Nation, repeatedly features Rev. Williams bashing of Iraq, Israel (his statements often skirt on the edge of anti-Semitism), and Bush but The Nation is virtually silent on Rev. Williams support of legal relativism for Muslim women.

Many explanations for the archbishop's statements have already been proffered: the weakness of the Church of England, the paganism of the British, the feebleness of Williams' intellect, the decline of the West. At base, though, his beliefs are merely an elaborate, intellectualized version of a commonly held, and deeply offensive, Western prejudice: Alone among all of the world's many religious groups, Muslims living in Western countries cannot be expected to conform to Western law — or perhaps do not deserve to be treated as legal equals of their non-Muslim neighbors. Every time the police shrug their shoulders when a Muslim woman complains that she has been forced to marry against her will, every time a Western doctor tries not to notice the female circumcisions being carried out in his hospital, they are acting in the spirit of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Anne Applebaum, Chronicle of Higher Education Chronicle Review, February 29, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i25/25b00401.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Mr. McCain gets a chance to question Mr. Obama's declaration he won't be beholden to lobbyists and special interests. After Mr. Obama's laundry list of agenda items on Tuesday night, Mr. McCain can ask why, if Mr. Obama rejects the influence of lobbyists, has he not broken with any lobbyists from the left fringe of the Democratic Party? Why is he doing their bidding on a range of issues? Perhaps because he occupies the same liberal territory as they do. The truth is that Mr. Obama is unwilling to challenge special interests if they represent the financial and political muscle of the Democratic left. He says yes to the lobbyists of the AFL-CIO when they demand card-check legislation to take away the right of workers to have a secret ballot in unionization efforts, or when they oppose trade deals. He won't break with trial lawyers, even when they demand the ability to sue telecom companies that make it possible for intelligence agencies to intercept communications between terrorists abroad. And he is now going out of his way to proclaim fidelity to the educational unions. This is a disappointment since he'd earlier indicated an openness to education reform. Mr. Obama backs their agenda down the line, even calling for an end to testing, which is the only way parents can know with confidence whether their children are learning and their schools working. These stands represent not just policy vulnerabilities, but also a real danger to Mr. Obama's credibility and authenticity. He cannot proclaim his goal is the end of influence for lobbies if the only influences he seeks to end are lobbies of the center and the right.
Karl Rove, "Obama's New Vulnerability," The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2008; Page A17 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120355939956381797.html

Barack Obama has pledged to "renew American diplomacy." Except, apparently, when it might interfere with an endorsement from the Teamsters. President James Hoffa bestowed the powerful union's blessing on Mr. Obama yesterday, not so coincidentally only days after the Senator declared his opposition to the pending U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. In a statement inserted in the Congressional Record last week, Mr. Obama said he believes the pact doesn't pay "proper attention" to America's "key industries and agricultural sectors" like cars, rice and beef. Opposition to free-trade deals is now a union litmus test, especially for the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union, which endorsed the Senator last Friday.
"Obama's Teamster 'Diplomacy'," The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2008; Page A16 --- Click Here

And now, in the most amazing trick of all, a silver-tongued freshman senator has found a way to sell hope. To get it, you need only give him your vote. Barack Obama is getting millions. This kind of sale is hardly new. Organized religion has been offering a similar commodity -- salvation -- for millennia. Which is why the Obama campaign has the feel of a religious revival with, as writer James Wolcott observed, a "salvational fervor" and "idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria." . . . Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He's going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can't possibly redeem. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs. Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war -- with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow. Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After  which will come the awakening. It will be rude.
Charles Krauthammer, "Obama spell mesmerizing but empty," Chicago Tribune, February 18, 2008 ---
"Inspiration vs. Substance,"by Joe Klein, Time Magazine, February 7, 2008 --- http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1710721,00.html
"The Barach Blowout," by Joe Klein, Time Magazine, February 14, 2008 --- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1713497,00.html

It turns out that not only is the Mohammed al-Dura myth a total fabrication, but the conventional wisdom about another "martyr", the American Marxist activist Rachel Corrie, is also a total fabrication. Yes, Virginia, the mainstream media have been caught lying again. Rachel Corrie did not die while protecting a house about to be flattened by an Israel bulldozer. She died while protecting an arms-smuggling tunnel, as the video available here
(http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-rachel-corrie-really-died-hint-not.html)  clearly shows.
February 22, 2008 message from Naomi Ragen

"Seems like they turned all our victories into defeats," Tom Moorer growled. They did it on the battlefields of our own campuses and in our newsrooms, as Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber pointed out so astutely in "The American Challenge." To the New York Times, in particular, it was more important to engineer our defeat than to print the truth. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger said he did not care if what the New York Times was reporting about the Vietnam War was true or not. He and the New York Times were against the Vietnam war, he said, and the paper would keep on reporting the way it had been. Now they set out to lose another war, and Obama is their instrument. Only this time, we don't yet have any "tigers" in place to pick up the pieces.
"New York Times' strategy for defeat," WorldNetDaily, February 25. 2008 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57239

When have either of these two candidates ever spoken favorably about the free market, entrepreneurship, or American business and industry? When have they ever paid due respect to the U.S. Constitution, or praised it? To them, these institutions are evil and must be eradicated. All we ever hear from them is how poor Americans really are and how much they need government assistance from Democrats. Aren’t we all getting a little sick of hearing these isolated stories of the misery of the downtrodden, of how Americans are living hand to mouth and unable to pay for both food and medicine, and how they’re losing their homes (that they couldn‘t afford to buy in the first place)? Do you know anyone who fits these descriptions? I don’t. They attempt to create a false picture of America, then offer their socialist solutions for it. It’s the same old propaganda game of creating a false premise, then a solution to fix it. The only people who relate to this hysteria are the people who show up at Obama and Clinton rallies simply because they have no place better to be, like at a job. In the case of Obama, he seems to be advocating for only the poor black community without actually saying so, but that is where you find the conditions he describes. His solution to the problem is to keep them dependent on big government with the taxpayers’ money and somehow, that will lead them to the American dream.
JR Dieckmann, Great American Journal, February 2008 --- http://www.greatamericanjournal.com/editor/archives/ObamaChangedMyMindAboutMcCain.htm

On Friday, arbitration judge Sam Cianchetti ordered Health Net to repay that amount while providing $8.4 million in punitive damages and $750,000 for emotional distress. "It's hard to imagine a situation more trying than the one Bates has had to endure," Cianchetti wrote in the decision. "The rug was pulled out from underneath, and that occurred at a time when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, one of the leading causes of death for women." Bates, a mother of two, said she screamed when she heard about the damage award. "I am elated," she said . . . Health Net said it was implementing a freeze on policy cancelations that would last until the company sets up a third-party review panel to scrutinize cases. "Obviously we regret the way that this has turned out, but we are intent on fixing the processes to maintain the public trust," spokesman David Olson said. The award came a day after the Los Angeles city attorney sued Health Net, claiming it illegally canceled the coverage of about 1,600 patients. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo also said the company illegally ran an incentive program in which it paid bonuses to an administrator for meeting targets of policy cancelations . Health Net acknowledged that such a program existed in 2002 and 2003 but was subsequently scrapped. "It's hard to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the recision of health insurance that helps keep the public well and alive," Cianchetti wrote in the Bates decision.
Thomas Watkins, "Cut-Off Cancer Patient to Get $9M," PhysOrg, February 24, 2008 --- http://physorg.com/news123046583.html
Jensen Comment
Need we have to ask why Democrats are favored in the November 2008 elections?

But the principle cause for concern today is the paralysis of the credit markets. Credit is always key to the expansion of the economy. The collapse of confidence in credit markets is now preventing that necessary extension of credit. The decline of credit creation includes not only the banks but also the bond markets, hedge funds, insurance companies and mutual funds. Securitization, leveraged buyouts and credit insurance have also atrophied. The dysfunctional character of the credit markets means that a Fed policy of reducing interest rates cannot be as effective in stimulating the economy as it has been in the past. Monetary policy may simply lack traction in the current credit environment. The collapse of the credit markets began last summer when the subprime mortgage crisis demonstrated that financial risk of all types had been greatly underpriced, that the market prices of complex financial assets overstated their true values, and that the credit scores provided by rating agencies are not to be trusted. Because market participants now lack confidence in asset prices, they are unwilling to buy existing assets, thus preventing current asset owners from providing credit to new borrowers. The lack of confidence in asset prices also translates into a lack of confidence in the creditworthiness of other financial institutions, impeding the extension of credit to those institutions. And because financial institutions do not even have confidence in the value of their own capital and in the potential availability of liquidity, they are reluctant to make new lending commitments.
Martin Feldstein, "Our Economic Dilemma, The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2008; Page A15 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120347007609178711.html

“The New York Times — the newspaper that gave MoveOn.org a sweetheart deal to run advertisements attacking General Petraeus — has shown once again that it cannot exercise good journalistic judgment when it comes to dealing with a conservative Republican,” campaign manager Rick Davis send in an e-mail to supporters. “All I can conclude is that this is the largest liberal newspaper in America trying to unfairly attack the integrity of the new conservative Republican nominee for president,” said McCain adviser Charlie Black. “There is no other good explanation for it.” McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt called the report “a smear … it reads like a tabloid gossip sheet.” “I think this is going to play badly for The New York Times and John McCain is going to be fine,” Schmidt said. The Republican National Committee even used the story as a fundraising pitch Thursday in an e-mail to donors.
"Fit to Print? New York Times in Crosshairs for Report on McCain and Female Lobbyist," Fox News, February 21, 2008 --- Click Here

News organizations inevitably have an effect on the events they cover, but good newsmen are circumspect about the line between reporting and political advocacy. The Times's treatment of this McCain story suggests that the desire to make an impact overcame that circumspection.
The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal, November 22, 2008

The article had repercussions for both McCain and The Times. He may benefit, at least in the short run, from a conservative backlash against the “liberal” New York Times. The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and Iseman had a romance . . . It was not for want of trying. Four highly respected reporters in the Washington bureau worked for months on the story and were pressed repeatedly to get sources on the record and to find documentary evidence like e-mail. If McCain had been having an affair with a lobbyist seeking his help on public policy issues, and The Times had proved it, it would have been a story of unquestionable importance. But in the absence of a smoking gun, I asked Keller why he decided to run what he had. “If the point of the story was to allege that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, we’d have owed readers more compelling evidence than the conviction of senior staff members,” he replied.
Clark Hoyt (Public Editor of The New York Times), "What That McCain Article Didn’t Say," The New York Times, February 24, 2008 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
Whether or not this tabloid reporting/publication has a net positive or negative impact on Senator John McCain and the Republican Party, such biased and shoddy reporting by The New York Times sends a terrible message to schools of journalism and communication that are desperately trying to to bring back ethics and professionalism to the U.S. media.

We won't waste time wondering whether The Times would've reported the peace if it had instead been about Senators Obama or Kennedy or Schumer. What's scandalous is that it shows journalism students that The Times has sunk to a new low by becoming worse than a tabloid rag since it has thrown its historic reputation behind sex accusations for which it admittedly had "no proof." It also shows that the Times will do anything to drive the Republican party into the ground in November 2008. This includes selling its soul and what little integrity remains after its sweet heart illegal deal with the MoveOn advocacy cohort!

John Stewart cleverly makes Bush/McCain/BOP bashing part of his comedy routine. The Times cleverly tries to make Bush/McCain/GOP bashing part of Page 1 factual reporting. One ceased to be funny a long time ago except among Bush/McCain/GOP haters. The other long ceased being an unbiased role model for journalism and communications schools in the world. It's quite all right to express opinions on editorial pages. But is is quite another matter for a leading newspaper to show flagrant disregard for truth and integrity on Page 1.
 

"Press Corps Quagmire," by William McGurn, The Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2008; Page A19 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120338469685475857.html

When a man hangs up his byline to write for a president, he gets more than a new job. He gets to see how the press and pundit corps look from the other side of the notepad.

And over three years in the West Wing, you see a few things. You see who's a straight shooter, and who's full of snark. You see who's smart, and whose outrageous behavior would have made its way to Drudge had it involved White House staffers instead of White House correspondents. Most of all, you see how conventional wisdom can keep otherwise talented reporters and commentators on the same stale storyline long after the facts on the ground have changed.

Let me put this in context with three contentious issues -- one economic, one cultural, and one on foreign policy. In each case, President Bush took a clear stand. In each case, he was accused of stupidity or stubbornness and sometimes both. In each case, the facts on the ground increasingly bear the president out, sometimes dramatically. Yet the beat goes on -- with no sense of the great irony that it may be our writers and pundits who are stubbornly clinging to old assumptions.

Start with taxes. In the first three years of his administration, the president signed into law a series of tax cuts. They helped families by lowering rates, doubling the child credit, and reducing the marriage penalty. They helped small businesses, by increasing the incentives for investment and lowering the rate at which most small businesses pay taxes. And they put the death tax on the road to extinction.

Critics attacked on all fronts. The tax cuts were unfair because they only helped the rich. They would blow out the deficit, and do nothing for the economy. And when the economy began to improve, the focus shifted to a "jobless recovery."

We now know that "jobless recovery" in fact produced the longest period of consecutive job growth in our history. We now know that the tax cuts that were supposed to blow a hole in the federal budget deficit actually contributed to economic growth that has in turn yielded record tax revenues. As for unfairness, we also know that if the Democrats have their way and allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, a family of four with $60,000 in earnings in 2007 would see their taxes go up by about $1,800. So who's being stubborn?

Or take stem cells. Shortly after taking office, the president had to make a tough decision about federal funding for embryonic stem cell research that holds out hope for life-saving treatments. The problem was that getting the stem cells requires destroying embryos. In July 2001, Mr. Bush announced a reasonable compromise. The solution was that the federal government would support embryonic stem cell research, but would not support the creation of life just to destroy it.

For more than six years, the critics have reacted by suggesting America was regressing into a new Dark Ages. "An act of self-serving political Houdinism" said one columnist. A later editorial after a presidential veto ran under the headline "The President's Stem Cell Theology." The science reporter for ABC News put it this way: "We talk to a lot of scientists who believe nothing will change until the next inauguration in 2009."

Well, we didn't have to wait until 2009 for something to change. Last November, scientists discovered a way to reprogram adult skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells. In other words, we now have the potential to cultivate adult cells with the same pluripotent qualities that make embryonic cells so valuable -- and without having to destroy human life. That sure sounds like a welcome development. So let me ask: How many stories or editorials have you read giving the president his due?

Finally there is Iraq. By the end of 2006, sectarian violence was tearing Iraq apart, the terrorists were getting away with spectacular acts of murder, and our strategy plainly was not working. For a man said to resist unpleasant truths, the president acted boldly. He replaced his defense secretary, replaced his commanders on the ground, and completely overhauled his strategy. Granted, it would have been better had it come earlier. But it was a tough thing to do, he did it -- and he did it knowing full well that the critics would jump all over him.

The president announced the surge in a nationally televised address in January 2007. A conservative columnist accused the president of offering nothing but "salesmanship and spin." A cable TV host went on a rant declaring "the plan fails militarily, the plan fails symbolically, the plan fails politically." Columnists and commentators either hedged their bets or predicted disaster ahead, with allusions to Vietnam sprinkled in for good measure.

Yet the surge went ahead. In Anbar Province, Marines were sent in to take advantage of a popular Sunni revolt against al Qaeda -- and by April the capital city of Ramadi was being taken back from the terrorists. By September, U.S. and Iraqi forces were clearing out Baquba, a one-time al Qaeda town in Diyala Province. And though Gen. David Petraeus says that the gains can still be reversed, sectarian killings are down, civilian deaths are down, and the people of Baghdad are getting a taste of normal life. Surely the president deserves a little credit here.

Of course, if you are one of those experts who reassured us that a "well managed defeat" in Iraq was the way for America to go, you don't like hearing the president use plain words like "win" and "victory." Then again, you're not the audience George W. Bush worries about. During one of my first meetings in the Oval Office, the president told me and my fellow speechwriters that we must always be mindful of how his words would sound to the enemy -- and how they would sound to the young Marine risking his life against that enemy in some dusty town in Afghanistan or Iraq.

President Bush hasn't always been right. But he's been right on the things that matter most, and he's been willing to take the heat. I, for one, admire him for it.

 

Question
Where is there a simple explanation of the transition from analog TV to HDTV in early 2009?
If I still want to use my faithful analog set in 2009 should I get a free coupon from Uncle Sam and buy a converter box?

You only need an Analog-to-Digital converter box if you want to still have your old analog set fed by an antenna after February 17, 2009. Chances are that you're already connected to cable or a satellite dish such that you can still use your old analog set without adding the Analog-to-Digital converter. HDTV users will supposedly have a better picture, but if you only rarely watch television you probably don't care a cat's patoot about better quality and fatter people on your HDTV screen.

If you do use an antenna so you can watch free television without having to pay a monthly free for cable or satellite reception, you must buy a converter box. Even then you may have a somewhat smaller set of channels have decent reception. Life can be bummer in the digital age. You can find out more about coupons from the government that will save you money if you decide you want a converter box --- http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html

Link answer forwarded by David Fordham
"DTV transition from analog to digital TV:  No, you don't need to buy a new TV next February," by David Katzmaier, C|Net, February 20, 2008 --- http://reviews.cnet.com/dtv-transition/?tag=links%3bfeature&tag=nl.e501

On February 17, 2009, millions of TVs across the U.S. will go blank, displaying the snowy screen that for decades has meant the lack of a TV signal. No matter which channel their owners tune to, or how long they wait, the snow will remain. When this happens, thousands of Americans will ask their local TV station, landlord, caregiver, or tech-savvy relative for an explanation. If the person they ask happens to be you, this guide will give you the answers. If you happen to be someone who watches analog TV using an antenna, read on to find out how you can save your old TV from a snowy death for about $20 or less.

Continued in article

 

Question
Why isn't this the best time to buy a new Blu-ray DVD player/recorder even though it will be the new standard for movies on DVD disks?
Do I need to buy a new Blu-ray DVD drive for my computer?

Chances are the optical drive in your computer is now a CD drive or a data DVD (old-style) drive that you can use to burn files in CD or DVD blanks. The relatively cheap blanks that you use now will be sold for years to come such that you don't have to rush into anything yet. Those drives wouldn't play HD-DVD or Blu-ray movies, but if that hasn't bothered you up to now, why rush out to buy a new computer or an external Blu-ray drive for your computer. Not many of us are really into watching full-length movies on our computers.

If you're buying a new HDTV set, then by all means do not buy a now obsolete HD-DVD drive for your new television set. You will probably eventually want a Blu-ray DVD drive but shop around and perhaps wait until prices of Blu-ray drives and recorders are more reasonable. Although you can notify NetFlix or Blockbuster to send you Blu-ray rental movies, you can continue renting the disks you're renting at the moment. It's not necessary jump immediately into Blu-ray madness.

The most troublesome aspect of this Blu-ray business for colleges will be the need to install Blu-ray drives in electronic classrooms. It's not necessary to do so in the next few months, but by Fall of 2008 most classrooms will probably have shiny new Blu-ray drives so professors can show the very latest Hollywood crap or segments thereof to students.

Richard Campbell forwarded this sobering link about timing to buy a Blu-ray DVD player--- http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9864122-1.html

You can get answers from the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-Ray

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD-DVD

Technical --- http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hd-dvd3.htm

More than you ever wanted to know about DVD --- http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

"Flash memory prices to plummet, analysts say:  The weak U.S. economy, plus falling demand and a flooded market, should push NAND flash prices down this year," by Agam Shah, PC World via The Washington Post, February 22, 2008 --- Click Here

Question
What department store chains rank highest and lowest in the University of Michigan customer service update research?

"Unhappy Returns," by Jennifer Waters, Money Magazine, February 2007 ---
http://money.aol.com/marketwatch/general/_a/unhappy-returns/20080222112709990001

The University of Michigan's quarterly American Customer Satisfaction index, released this week, dipped to 74.9 on the 100-point scale, off 0.4 from the third quarter. That was the second straight quarterly drop and marked the lowest score in 2007 and is a harbinger of what's ahead. "When customer satisfaction declines, consumers have less enthusiasm for repeating experiences that no longer provide the same gratification," said Claes Fornell, director of the Donald C. Cook Professor of Business Administration and head of the ACSI.

. . .

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, also is the worst rated among department and discount stores, according to the ACSI. Its score fell 6% to 68, well below the industry average of 77 and at an all-time low.

"Competing on price is no longer enough to offset lagging quality," Fornell said.

Meanwhile, deep discounter

Nordstrom, long known for its strong customer service and high-quality merchandise, led all department and discount stores at 80, followed by Kohl's at 79.

Home Depot, the No. 1 home-improvement retailer is also among the lowest scorers on the index., coming in at 67. It's arch rival Lowe's climbed 1% to 75, widening the gap between the two.

Elsewhere, the gap was narrowed between Best Buy and Circuit City. Best Buy's score slid 3% to 73 while Circuit City rose 3% to 71.

Among specialty retailers, Barnes & Noble was in the lead at 83 with Borders Group and Costco tying at second with scores of 81.

Continued in article

"Countrywide Cancels Ski Trip Amid Criticism," by James R. Hagerty, The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2008; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120394568109390375.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Countrywide Financial Corp., reacting to negative publicity, canceled plans to host a ski trip this week for about 30 mortgage bankers at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch ski resort in Avon, Colo., a spokesman said.

The cancellation comes as the nation's No. 1 mortgage lender by loan volume responds to criticism of its lending practices, which have led to a surge of home foreclosures.

Countrywide's chief executive, Angelo Mozilo, is scheduled to appear Thursday at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, headed by California Democrat Henry Waxman, who is raising questions about compensation packages for top executives of companies involved in the mortgage crisis.

A Countrywide spokesman, referring to the planned ski trip, said the company had hosted similar meetings with business partners and clients for years, but that "in light of recent events, we have decided to cancel all such gatherings for the remainder of the year."

The list price for a regular room on a weekday night at the Ritz in Avon starts at $725. But the Countrywide spokesman said the lender would have paid "much less" than that.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on banking scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#InvestmentBanking

Question
What Internet sites help you compare neighboring K-12 schools?

"Grading Neighborhood Schools: Web Sites Compare A Variety of Data, Looking Beyond Scores," by Katherine Boehret, The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2008; Page D6 ---

I performed various school queries using Education.com Inc., GreatSchools Inc.'s GreatSchools.net and SchoolMatters.com by typing in a ZIP Code, city, district or school name. Overall, GreatSchools and Education.com offered the most content-packed environments, loading their sites with related articles and offering community feedback on education-related issues by way of blog posts or surveys. And though GreatSchools is 10 years older than Education.com, which made its debut in June, the latter has a broader variety of content and considers its SchoolFinder feature -- newly available as of today -- just a small part of the site.

Both Education.com and GreatSchools.net base a good portion of their data on information gathered by the Department of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics, the government entity that collects and analyzes data related to education.

SchoolMatters.com, a service of Standard & Poor's, is more bare-bones, containing quick statistical comparisons of schools. (S&P is a unit of McGraw-Hill Cos.) This site gets its content from various sources, including state departments of education, private research firms, the Census and National Public Education Finance Survey. This is evidenced by lists, charts and pie graphs that would make Ross Perot proud. I learned about where my alma mater high school got its district revenue in 2005: 83% was local, 15% was state and 2% was federal. But I couldn't find district financial information for more recent years on the site.

All three sites base at least some school-evaluation results on test scores, a point that some of their users critique. Parents and teachers, alike, point out that testing doesn't always paint an accurate picture of a school and can be skewed by various unacknowledged factors, such as the number of students with disabilities.

Education.com's SchoolFinder feature is starting with roughly 47,000 schools in 10 states: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey and Georgia. In about two months, the site hopes to have data for all states, totaling about 60,000 public and charter schools. I was granted early access to SchoolFinder, but only Michigan was totally finished during my testing.

SchoolFinder lets you narrow your results by type (public or charter), student-to-teacher ratio, school size or Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), a measurement used to determine each school's annual progress. Search results showed specific details on teachers that I didn't see on the other sites, such as how many teachers were fully credentialed in a particular school and the average years of experience held by a school's teachers.

The rest of the Education.com site contains over 4,000 articles written by well-known education sources like the New York University Child Study Center, Reading is Fundamental and the Autism Society of America. It also contains a Web magazine and a rather involved discussion-board community where members can ask questions of like-minded parents and the site's experts, who respond with advice and suggestions of articles that might be helpful.

Private schools aren't required to release test scores, student or teacher statistics, so none of the sites had as much data on private schools. However, GreatSchools.net at least offered basic results for most private-school queries that I performed, such as a search for Salesianum School in Delaware (where a friend of mine attended) that returned the school's address, a list of the Advanced Placement exams it offered from 2006 to 2007 and six rave reviews from parents and former students.

GreatSchools.net makes it easy to compare schools, even without knowing specific names. After finding a school, I was able to easily compare that school with others in the geographic area or school district -- using a chart with numerous results on one screen. After entering my email address, I saved schools to My School List for later reference.

I couldn't find each school's AYP listed on GreatSchools.net, though these data were on Education.com and SchoolMatters.com.

SchoolMatters.com doesn't provide articles, online magazines or community forums. Instead, it spits out data -- and lots of it. A search for "Philadelphia" returned 324 schools in a neat comparison chart that could, with one click, be sorted by grade level, reading test scores, math test scores or students per teacher. (The Julia R. Masterman Secondary School had the best reading and math test scores in Philadelphia, according to the site.)

SchoolMatters.com didn't have nearly as much user feedback as Education.com or GreatSchools.net. But stats like a school's student demographics, household income distribution and the district's population age distribution were accessible thanks to colorful pie charts.

These three sites provide a good overall idea of what certain schools can offer, though GreatSchools.net seems to have the richest content in its school comparison section. Education.com excels as a general education site and will be a comfort to parents in search of reliable advice. Its newly added SchoolFinder, while it's in early stages now, will only improve this resource for parents and students.

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

Question
What features can you find on the new IBM ThinkPad X300 that you won't find on MacBook Air?

I've been testing the ThinkPad X300 and I have found it to be a solid, innovative laptop that will be perfect for many mobile PC users. It isn't as sexy or inexpensive as the MacBook Air, but it has numerous features the Apple lacks, especially a wide array of ports and connectivity options, a built-in DVD drive and a removable battery.I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation, provided they can live with its two biggest downsides: a relatively paltry file-storage capacity and a hefty price tag. This ThinkPad starts at $2,476 for a stripped-down model and at $2,799 for a preconfigured retail version with a half-size battery. The configuration I expect to be the most popular, with a full-size battery and DVD drive, is about $3,000.The key factor in both of these downsides is the solid-state drive, or SSD, which replaces the hard disk. The SSD is fast and rugged, but today it can hold only a cramped 64 gigabytes of files and is very costly. Apple offers a MacBook Air version with the same solid-state drive for a similar high price. But Apple also has a much more affordable $1,799 model with an 80-gigabyte standard hard disk. Lenovo doesn't.
Walter S. Mossberg, "Price May Be Steep, But Thin ThinkPad Has Abundant Features," The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2008; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120355033462481317.html

Question
Where can a college turn for course management software when the college feels like Blackboard is a monopoly rip-off and Moodle is too dependent upon open source innovations and maintenance?

Before reading this module you may want to first read about Blackboard and Moodle at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

Richard Campbell sent a link to the site below and mentioned that this may be Microsoft's bit to compete with Blackboard.

Microsoft Learning Gateway Community --- http://www.learninggateway.net/default.aspx

Microsoft Learning Gateway (MLG) is a powerful, extensible suite of features designed to help schools meet their priorities using a scalable, cost-effective framework. By deploying a Learning Gateway solution, you can give students personalized learning portals that bring together everything they need to support their classes. Password-protected access can be extended to parents, providing up-to-the-minute information on students’ attendance, grades, assignments, timetables, and upcoming events. Administrators are provided with a secure, personalized interface from which they can improve planning and follow-through and make effective decisions. Senior IT decision makers are better equipped to analyze data and report key information to governors, regulators, ministries, and other key agencies.

Whether your institution adopts a top-down or bottom-up approach, you can deploy a Learning Gateway framework that can support how you want to progress with the flexibility to accommodate later developments. This means your investments are future-proofed, even during times of rapid change. Click on the links below to learn much more about the capabilities of MLG when combined with partner solutions. Afterwards, contact a Microsoft partner who can customize Learning Gateway components into solutions tailored to meet your needs.

Jensen Comment
Happily it's the enormously wealthy Microsoft making this move. Any company making such a move is likely to be sued by Blackboard since Blackboard is now claiming it has a patent on everything connected with course management and distance education. We can hope and pray that Microsoft will spend whatever needed to end these monopoly visions of Blackboard.

"Jury Sides With Blackboard in Patent Case," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/25/blackboard

A federal jury in Texas on Friday awarded the learning services giant Blackboard $3.1 million in its patent infringement lawsuit against a much smaller competitor, adding a new layer of complexity and uncertainty to a complex, uncertain market for higher education learning management systems.

The July 2006 lawsuit, closely watched (and much-derided by many) in the higher education technology world, accused the Canadian company Desire2Learn of infringing dozens of Blackboard patents for online course management and e-learning technologies. Blackboard sought $17 million in damages and an injunction barring Desire2Learn from continuing to infringe the patent. Blackboard came under heavy fire from campus technology officials, including a rare rebuke from Educause, higher education’s main technology association, for asserting the company’s patent rights to technologies that many argued were simple and longstanding technologies in wide use by corporate and open source learning systems.

After a two-week trial in Lufkin, Tex., and just a few hours of deliberation, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (which is seen as being friendly to patent holders) agreed with Blackboard that Desire2Learn’s learning platform uses technologies for which Blackboard received U.S. patents in January 2006. But its verdict gave the company far less than it was asking for, awarding Blackboard $2.5 million for lost profits and $630,000 in royalties.

In addition, the verdict allows the company to petition the judge in the case, Ron Clark, for an injunction against further patent infringement that would force Desire2Learn either to alter its products or to stop selling them to new customers in the United States.

In a statement via e-mail (but not posted on the company’s Web site), Blackboard’s president and CEO, Michael Chasen, said officials were “pleased that the jury recognized the importance of our contribution to e-Learning. We look forward to continuing to innovate and invest in new technologies that help education institutions around the globe improve teaching and learning.”

The statement also contained a statement in which Blackboard’s chief legal officer, Matthew Small, appeared to reiterate to fearful supporters of open source learning systems (such as Moodle and Sakai) that the company did not plan to pursue similar infringement claims against non-commercial competitors. “We also continue to stand behind our Patent Pledge which covers this patent and reflects our ongoing commitment to interoperating with and supporting the evolution of open source and home-grown systems,” Small said.

Desire2Learn officials, in a letter to customers, expressed disappointment with the jury verdict, but vowed to continue to oppose Blackboard’s patent enforcement efforts, not only to “defend ourselves vigorously” but to “stand up against Blackboard ... in the best interest of the entire educational community,” in the words of John Baker, the company’s president and CEO. Desire2Learn noted that the jury’s verdict was only one step in a multipronged process, that will include not just the likelihood of legal appeals but a continuing review of the legitimacy of Desire2Learn’s patents by the U.S. Patent Office.

The blogosphere, which tilts heavily against Blackboard on virtually any and all issues, took a generally dim view of the jury’s verdict. Some commentators sought to play down the significance of the jury’s verdict, noting that it gave Blackboard less than it had sought and that Desire2Learn’s patent is still under review by the U.S. patent office.

But others expressed fear that Blackboard would soon go after other commercial learning management software providers like Angel, and wondered whether Blackboard would abide by its pledge not to take aim at the open source systems that appear to be gaining ground against Blackboard, especially Moodle. Commentators generally agreed that the implications of the case won’t be clear for some time.

“It will take weeks, if not months, to sort out the fallout from the jury ruling yesterday in the Blackboard Inc. v. Desire2learn Inc. case,” Alfred H. Essa, associate vice chancellor and deputy chief information officer of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, wrote on his blog  The Nose. “Although all is not lost, this is a crushing blow to Desire2Learn, one of the few remaining commercial competitors to Blackboard in the higher education LMS market.”

You can read more about the Blackboard and its horrid monopolist tendencies at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

Despite Popularity, Researcher Finds Not Everyone Can Successfully Learn Through Online Courses
PhysOrg, February 25, 2008 --- http://physorg.com/news123168113.html

Since the 1990s, online courses have provided an opportunity for busy adults to continue their education by completing courses in the comfort of their own homes. However, this may not be the best solution for everyone. A researcher at the University of Missouri has found some students may find success in these types of courses more easily than others.

Shawna L. Strickland, clinical assistant professor in the MU School of Health Professions, studied the demographics and personality types of distance learners.

“Correlations between learning styles and success in distance education have shown to be inconclusive,” Strickland said. “However, one common theme reappears: the successful traits of a distance learner are similar to the successful traits of an adult learner in traditional educational settings.”

With a mere 30 percent of distance learners actually completing their courses, learning more about the characteristics of these students would help educators structure online courses to be as beneficial as possible. Considering the lack of institutional support and isolation involved in the nature of online courses, success in these courses requires a person that is determined and responsible, Strickland said.

“The success of distance learning is dependent on communication among the learner, his or her peers and the instructor,” Strickland said. “To encourage success in distance learning, it is necessary to evaluate each individual’s needs on a case-by-case basis.”

One trait that aids in distance learning is related to personality type. Strickland found those with quiet, introverted personalities are more likely to feel comfortable with online learning courses. Shy individuals have a tendency to be uninvolved in the typical classroom setting. Online courses allow them to complete work on their own with a degree of anonymity.

“Distance learning allows the learner to overcome traditional barriers to learning such as location, disabilities, time constraints and familial obligations,” Strickland said. “However, not every learner will be successful in a distance learning environment.”

The study – “Understanding Successful Characteristics of Adult Learners” – was published in the most recent edition of Respiratory Care Education Annual.

Jensen Comment
The source of this publication is rather unusual and surprising --- Respiratory Care Education Annual.

Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning include the following links:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm

"Blackboard Wins Patent-Infringement Case Against Rival Courseware Provider," by Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 22, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/news/article/4022/blackboard-wins-patent-infringement-case-against-rival-courseware-provider

A federal jury in Texas ruled this afternoon in favor of Blackboard Inc., the nation’s leading online provider of course-management software, in its patent-infringement lawsuit against Desire2Learn Inc.

Blackboard sued the smaller Canadian-based company in 2006, asserting that it had infringed a patent that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had granted Blackboard that year. As a result, the larger company said, Desire2Learn had taken away customers that should have been Blackboard’s.

Desire2Learn, which has its headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario, argued that Blackboard’s patent was invalid and should never have been granted in the first place. Lawyers for the company said that Blackboard officials were aware of similar technology, or what’s known as “prior art,” that existed before it filed its patent application, and that the company had failed to divulge that information to the patent office.

The jury, which began deliberating just before noon on Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Lufkin, Tex., announced its verdict this afternoon. The case has been closely watched by campus-technology officials, many of whom feared that a win by Blackboard could stifle innovation and leave colleges and course-management software providers vulnerable to more legal challenges by Blackboard.

Drop Patent, Educause Urges Blackboard
The leaders of higher education’s main technology association have written a powerfully worded letter urging Blackboard to relinquish the rights it gained under a controversial patent of online learning technologies in the public domain and to drop a patent infringement lawsuit it filed in August against a Canadian competitor, Desire2Learn.
Doug Lederman, "Drop Patent, Educause Urges Blackboard," Inside Higher Ed, October 27, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/27/educause

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course management software are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Scribd Wants to Become the YouTube for Documents --- http://www.scribd.com/categories
It has a long way to go, although it now has over 350,000 archived documents --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribd
There are many tutorials such as those in basic accounting.

"A YouTube for Documents?" by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 21, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2762&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Borrowing a page from the popular video-sharing site YouTube, a new online service lets people upload and share their papers or entire books via a social-network interface. But will a format that works for videos translate to documents?

It’s called iPaper, and it uses a Flash-based document reader that can be embedded into a Web page. The experience of reading neatly formatted text inside a fixed box feels a bit like using an old microfilm reader, except that you can search the documents or e-mail them to friends.

The company behind the technology, Scribd, also offers a library of iPaper documents and invites users to set up an account to post their own written works. And, just like on YouTube, users can comment about each document, give it a rating, and view related works.

Also like on YouTube, some of the most popular items in the collection are on the lighter side. One document that is in the top 10 “most viewed” is called “It seems this essay was written while the guy was high, hilarious!” It is a seven-page paper that appears to have been written for a college course but is full of salty language. The document includes the written comments of the professor who graded it, and it ends with a handwritten note: “please see after class to discuss your paper.”

There’s plenty of serious material on the site, too — like the Iraq Study Group Report and an Educause report about the future of technology at colleges.

Bob Jensen's threads on free online documents are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch

Obama Does Not Think Much of Professors Who Sell Their Own Learning Materials to Students
If Barack Obama is elected president, students upset about textbook prices may have an ally. While he hasn’t proposed any legislation on the topic, he used an appearance Friday at the University of Texas-Pan American to criticize the way professors benefit from writing expensive texts. The Chicago Tribune quoted him as saying: “Books are a big scam. I taught law at the University of Chicago for 10 years, and one of the biggest scams is law professors write their own textbooks and then assign it to their students. They make a mint. It’s a huge racket. The Wall Street Journal reported that in a discussion in which Obama reiterated his criticism of private student loans, he also urged students to be careful about their own spending. “Just be careful about those credit cards, all right? Don’t eat out as much,” the Journal quoted him saying.
Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/25/qt

Commercial Scholarly Journals and Oligopoly Publishers Are Ripping Off Libraries, and Scholars, Authors, and Students ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals

Questions
Will we soon be able to lecture without opening our mouths?
Can you send a "relational" database file to a friend by simply shaking hands?
Is this the beginning of a whole new definition of human "relationships?"
Can the message of a hug be digital and unambiguous?
New magic in a kiss or two?
Does your database have halitosis or dirty fingernails or a flu virus?
I'd better stop asking questions about this before I get into big trouble!
 

Japanese firm harnesses the power of human touch
They say you can tell a lot from a handshake. But while it's usually guesswork, the power of human touch will soon be used in Japan to transmit data. Telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) is planning a commercial launch of a system to enter rooms that frees users from the trouble of rummaging in their pockets or handbags for ID cards or keys. It uses technology to turn the surface of the human body itself into a means of data transmission. As data travels through the user's clothing, handbag or shoes, anyone carrying a special card can unlock the door simply by touching the knob or standing on a particular spot without taking the card out. "In everyday life, you're always touching things. Even if you are standing, you are stepping on something," research engineer Mitsuru Shinagawa told AFP. "These simple touches can result in communication," said Shinagawa, senior research engineer at the company's NTT Microsystem Integration Laboratories. He said future applications could include a walk-through ticket gate, a cabinet that opens only to authorised people and a television control that automatically chooses favourite programmes.
PhysOrg, February 21, 2008 --- http://physorg.com/news122793751.html

Bob Jensen's threads on ubiquitous computing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm

The Five Senses of the Future:  Threads on the Networking of the Five Senses (Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch, and Taste) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/senses.htm  

Barbra Streisand - He Touched Me (1967) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO-wPOgVtqg

Question
This is some of the best material ever for legal-writer John Grisham --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Grisham
But will he have the courage to venture into this ethical snakepit?

"Lawsuit, Inc.," The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2008; Page A14 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120389878913889385.html

Should state Attorneys General be able to outsource their legal work to for-profit tort lawyers, who then funnel a share of their winnings back to the AGs? That's become a sleazy practice in many states, and it is finally coming under scrutiny -- notably in Mississippi, home of Dickie Scruggs, Attorney General Jim Hood, and other legal pillars.

The Mississippi Senate recently passed a bill requiring Mr. Hood to pursue competitive bidding before signing contracts of more than $500,000 with private lawyers. The legislation also requires a review board to examine contracts, and limits contingency fees to $1 million. Mr. Hood is trying to block the law in the state House, and no wonder considering how sweet this business has been for him and his legal pals.

We've recently examined documents from the AG's office detailing which law firms he has retained. We then cross-referenced those names with campaign finance records. The results show that some of Mr. Hood's largest campaign donors are the very firms to which he's awarded the most lucrative state contracts.

The documents show Mr. Hood has retained at least 27 firms as outside counsel to pursue at least 20 state lawsuits over five years. The law firms are thus able to employ the full power of the state on their behalf, while Mr. Hood can multiply the number of targets.

Those targets are invariably deep corporate pockets: Eli Lilly, State Farm, Coca-Cola, Merck, Boston Scientific, Vioxx and others. The vast majority of the legal contracts were awarded on a contingency fee basis, meaning the law firm is entitled to a big percentage of any money that it can wring from defendants. The amounts can be rich, such as the $14 million payout that lawyer Joey Langston shared with the Lundy, Davis firm in an MCI/WorldCom settlement.

These firms are only too happy to return the favor to Mr. Hood via campaign contributions. Campaign finance records show that these 27 law firms -- or partners in those firms -- made $543,000 in itemized campaign contributions to Mr. Hood over the past two election cycles.

The firm of Pittman, Germany, Roberts & Welsh was hired by Mr. Hood on a contingency basis to prosecute State Farm. According to finance documents, partner Crymes Pittman donated $68,570 to Mr. Hood's campaign, and other Pittman partners chipped in $33,500 more.

Partners in the Langston Law Firm gave more than $130,000 to elect Mr. Hood, having been retained to sue Eli Lilly. Lead partner Joey Langston has separately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to corruptly influence a judge.

Among others: The Wolf Popper firm from New York was retained to pursue Sonus Networks, a telecommunications firm; Wolf Popper and its partners gave $27,500 to Mr. Hood's campaign. Bernstein, Litowitz sued at least four different companies for the AG, and the firm and its partners chipped in $41,500. Partners at Schiffren, Barroway went after Coca-Cola and Viacom, and donated $37,500.

Then there are the law firms that have piggybacked their class action suits on Mr. Hood's state prosecutions. Mr. Scruggs and his Katrina litigation partners realized a nearly $80 million windfall after Mr. Hood used his powers to pressure State Farm into settling both the state and Scruggs suits. Mr. Scruggs gave $33,000 to Mr. Hood in the 2007 election cycle. (Mr. Scruggs and his son Zach have been indicted in an unrelated bribery case, and claim to be innocent.) David Nutt, a partner in Mr. Scruggs's Katrina litigation, also gave $25,500 to Mr. Hood's campaign last year.

The Mississippi AG has also benefited from the national network of trial lawyers and its ability to funnel money into the state. We've examined finance records of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, a so-called 527 group that helps elect liberal prosecutors. In 2007, law firms that have benefited from Mr. Hood gave the organization $572,000, and in turn the group wrote campaign checks in 2007 to Mr. Hood for $550,000. Guess who supplied no less than $400,000 to the group? Messrs. Scruggs and Langston.

Add all of this up, and in 2007 alone Mr. Hood received some $790,000 from partners and law firms that have benefited financially from his office. That is more than half of all of Mr. Hood's itemized contributions for 2007.

This kind of quid pro quo is legal in Mississippi and most other states. However, if this kind of sweetheart arrangement existed between a public official and business interests, you can bet Mr. Hood would be screaming about corruption. Yet Mr. Hood and his trial bar partners are fighting even Mississippi's modest attempt to require more transparency in their contracts. The AG says it's all part of a plot to undermine his attempts to "recoup the taxpayers' money from corporate wrongdoers."

The real issue is the way this AG-tort bar mutual financial interest creates perverse incentives that skew the cause of justice. A decision to prosecute is an awesome power, and it ought to be motivated by evidence and the law, not by the profit motives of private tort lawyers and the campaign needs of an ambitious Attorney General. Government is supposed to act on behalf of the public interest, not for the personal profit of trial lawyers. The t