European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies --- http://ec.europa.eu/european_group_ethics/index_en.htm

Bulgakov's Master and Margarita (Russian Novel) --- http://cr.middlebury.edu/public/russian/Bulgakov/public_html//index.html

Forensic Chemistry Lab Manual (includes interesting stories) --- http://www.asdlib.org/onlineArticles/elabware/thompson/Home1.html

EconStats --- http://www.econstats.com/index.htm
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics

Forwarded by Eileen on August 21, 2008
"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber..."
So begins the winner of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which competitors write incredibly bad opening sentences to incredibly bad novels. Read the full results here ( http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm ).
Visit the following URL to read the rest of the article:
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/blogexcerpts/1500/ 

Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Fashions come and go, but style is eternal.
Andy Warhol as quoted in a recent email message from Patricia Doherty

Meanwhile, Unknown Daughter is reading Fairytopia. Thus speaks the chromosomal divide.
The Unknown Professor's Financial Rounds Blog on August 8, 2008 --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/
He notes that his young son is reading the book Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger by Kevin Bolger while his young daughter is reading Fairytopia by Cicely Mary Barker.

In an interview Friday on NBC, the world's most famous basketball player told Chris Collinsworth how he got "goosebumps" when he received his Olympics uniform. "I actually just looked at it for a while. I just held it there and I laid it across my bed and I just stared at it for a few minutes; just because as a kid growing up this is the ultimate, ultimate in basketball." The Los Angeles Laker went on to call the U.S. "the greatest country in the world. It has given us so many great opportunities, and it's just a sense of pride that you have; that you say, 'You know what? Our country is the best.'" Mr. Collinsworth seemed either startled or impressed by such sentiment, and asked, "Is that a cool thing to say in this day and age? That you love your country, and that you're fighting for the red, white and blue? It seems sort of like a day gone by." To which Mr. Bryant replied: "No, it's a cool thing for me to say. I feel great about it, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I mean, this is a tremendous honor."
"Our Country Is the Best," The Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2008 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121901828943748251.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
Jensen Comment
Just goes to show you that Kobe Bryant never paid any heed, to Jeremiah Wright's Hate America sermons.
I may even become a (cough) a Laker fan.

But Mr. McCain provided, in 2004, one of the most exciting and certainly the most charged moment of the Republican Convention, when he looked up at Michael Moore in the press stands and said, "Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war, it was between war and a greater threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. . . . And certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace." It blew the roof off. And the smile he gave Mr. Moore was one of pure, delighted malice. When Mr. McCain comes to play, he comes to play . . . I still think a one-term pledge could win it for him, because it would allow America to punt. It would make the 2008 choice seem less fateful. People don't mind the chance to defer a choice when they're not at all sure about the product. It would give bitter Democrats a chance to regroup, and it would give those who like Obama but consider him a little half-baked to vote against him guiltlessly while he becomes fully baked. (Imagine the Q&A when Sen. Obama announces his second presidential run in 2011: "Well, Brian, I think, looking back, there is something to be said for the idea that I will be a better president now than frankly I would have been four years ago. Experience, if you allow it, is still the best of all teachers.") More, it would allow Mr. McCain to say he means to face the tough problems ahead with a uniquely bipartisan attitude and without having to care a fig for re-election. That itself would give him a new power, one that would make up for the lost juice of lame duckdom. It would also serve to separate him from the hyperpolitical operating styles of the Clinton-Bush years, from the constant campaign.  
Peggy Noonan, "They're Paying Attention Now," The Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121935481067161515.html?mod=todays_columnists

The Obama campaign could get marching orders to the Texans registered with MyBO with minimal effort. The MyBO databases could slice and dice lists of volunteers by geographic micro­region and pair people with appropriate tasks, including prepping nearby voters on caucus procedure. "You could go online and download the names, addresses, and phone numbers of 100 people in your neighborhood to get out and vote--or the 40 people on your block who were undecided," Trippi says. "'Here is the leaflet: print it out and get it to them.' It was you, at your computer, in your house, printing and downloading. They did it all very well." Clinton won the Texas primary vote 51 to 47 percent. But Obama's ­people, following their MyBO playbook, so overwhelmed the chaotic, crowded caucuses that he scored an overall victory in the Texas delegate count, 99 to 94. His showing nearly canceled out ­Clinton's win that day in Ohio. Clinton lost her last major opportunity to stop the Obama juggernaut. "In 1992, Carville said, 'It's the economy, stupid,'" Trippi says, recalling the exhortation of Bill Clinton's campaign manager, James Carville. "This year, it was the network, stupid!"
David Talbot, "How Obama Really Did It:  The social-networking strategy that took an obscure senator to the doors of the White House," MIT's Technology Review, September/October 2008 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/21222/?nlid=1283&a=f 
Jensen Comment
I think he also did it because the competition from both political parties is so lousy. The ordeal of becoming President of the U.S. is now so lengthy, physically exhausting, mentally draining, family destructive, centered on fund raising, media hostile, and superficial on issues that the most experienced and talented men and women for the job refuse to become candidates. The run for the presidency is more about style than substance; more about Hollywood than Harvard (not that Ivy League professors are best-suited for the presidency). It's possible that on occasion the best candidates for the job are Vice Presidential nominees who are chosen to enter the race late in the process. But even here the best intellectual candidates are turned off by prospects of living from four to eight years in a no-possible-winner life of hostility and hate. Yeah, outright hate! Each four years since the Harry Truman the atmosphere of heat and hate just keeps rising (with the possible exception of the Eisenhower presidency where there was lots of time for golf) and not much effort required to win the election. Senator Obama will probably be our next President of the U.S.A. But in the words of Bette Davis "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy (ride) ." ---
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5__uUuxoU

Much of the problem is the Bush budget deficits that will be inherited by the next U.S. President. Thus far neither candidate has any realistic proposal to how to keep them from continuing to grow based upon more and more government borrowing to meet out-of-control spending bills passed an irresponsible Congress (are there any responsible statesmen and stateswomen left?).

The Social Security Program is now bringing in surpluses, but our reckless Congress is helping to bankrupt this program by spending these surpluses on most everything except Social Security and Medicare. Congress takes the surpluses and replaces them with IOUs to be paid by our grandchildren.

"Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy (ride) ." --- http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5__uUuxoU
But with the White House Office of Management and Budget now forecasting a deficit of $389 billion, or 2.7% of GDP, for the fiscal year ending in September, and $482 billion, 3.3% of GDP, for FY 2009, it's important to note a couple of caveats. It's not that the $482 billion is in any meaningful sense a "record," as the headline on most news accounts went. As a percentage of GDP, deficits were much bigger during the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations (not to mention World War II). But the new deficit projections do call into question the argument that Bush 43 deficit spending has been below average. And, more important, they understate the real deficit.
Time Magazine, July 30. 2008 --- http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/2008/07/how_bad_is_that_bush_budget_de.html

"Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy (ride) ." --- http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5__uUuxoU
"The hard road ahead," The Economist, Aug 21, 2008 --- http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11965260 

When it comes to the issues, it is hardly surprising that The Economist is less impressed. Mr Obama’s tilt towards protectionism during the primary campaign was both wrong and dangerous. So was his insistence on denying funds to the “surge” that has worked so well (if belatedly) in Iraq, and his determination to withdraw troops from the conflict according to a rigid timetable. We are nervous about his incentive-destroying willingness to raise taxes sharply on the well-off, and of the cost implications of many of his policies. But we recognise that his positions have evolved as the campaign has moved from the primary stage, where politicians have to outdo each other in their appeal to their party faithful, to the general election. Were he to become president, they would move further to the centre again. And policies are by no means the whole story of an American election: character and leadership matter greatly, too. Mr Obama is an impressive nominee with the potential to be a fine president.

Democratic doubts

But the road to the White House is still a hard one. Even though the Republican brand is as contaminated as a Soviet-era reactor, and 80% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, Mr Obama is barely ahead of his septuagenarian Republican rival. He is less popular than his party as a whole: in “generic” polling, people prefer Democrats to Republicans by around 12 points, but Mr Obama is ahead of John McCain by an average of only around 45% to 43%. One poll this week had Mr McCain five points ahead. The presidential debates, which will start next month, usually sway a lot of voters. Mr Obama is generally held to have lost his only encounter so far with Mr McCain, in back-to-back interviews with Rick Warren, an evangelical pastor, on August 16th. In the battleground states which will determine the result, Mr McCain has steadily been gaining ground; if the polls are borne out, the result, as in 2000 and 2004, will be nerve-janglingly close.

Many Americans, including a dangerously large number of Democrats, still have their doubts about Mr Obama. Some see him as too young and inexperienced for a dangerous world; others find him unattractively self-regarding and aloof; still others question his patriotism. Many resent his apparent flip-flopping on important issues, like gun-control and whether or not to talk to Iran and Syria, as well as less important ones, like whether to wear a flag pin. His cynical breaking of a promise to be bound by federal campaign-finance limits was shabby by any standards. Perhaps the most damning criticism of him is that he has never exhibited political courage by daring to take on any of his party’s powerful interests, as his rival, John McCain, has done over many issues, including global warming, campaign-finance reform, immigration and torture.

Yes, he still can

From the moment of his coronation in Denver, Mr Obama will have 68 days to allay these doubts. There is not much he can do about his thin résumé or his lack of foreign-policy and security expertise, though he can mitigate the latter somewhat with an astute choice of running mate. And it is a bit late now for principled stands in the Senate. Mr Obama could certainly tone down the triumphalism: opting to make his acceptance speech not in the convention hall but in a 75,000-seater sports stadium seems like another mistake, akin to his hubristic rock-star’s tour of Europe. He needs to be a lot clearer and firmer about how he will deal with America’s foes and rivals: his first instinct when Russia invaded Georgia was to waffle. Acknowledging that the Iraq surge, which he tried to block, has worked would also be a sign of tough-mindedness.

Most of all, he needs to spend those 68 days showing that he understands, and can connect with, ordinary Americans. The economy ought to be the Democrats’ trump card, just as security tends to be the Republicans’. But some of the most surprising recent polls show that Mr Obama is rated lower by voters on how he would handle the economy than is Mr McCain, who has admitted that he doesn’t know much about the subject. That may be because Mr Obama often sounds curiously disconnected from the troubles of anyone except America’s very poorest. Mrs Clinton was much better at empathising with middle America, and Mr Obama needs to show he has learnt from her.

That could also help heal the wounds of the Democratic Party, which, after the bitter contest and Mr Obama’s narrow victory, are still raw. If the Democrats remain divided they will lose the presidency. Were that to happen, after Iraq, Katrina and an economic crisis, they might well want to consider an alternative line of work.

Continued in article

"Obama's Geek Economist Austan Goolsbee is a new breed of economic advisor for a new kind of presidential candidate," by Mark Williams, MIT's Technology Review, September/October 2008 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/21220/?nlid=1286&a=f
You can read more about Austan Goolsbee at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austan_Goolsbee

Goolsbee's academic research focuses on the Internet, the new economy, government policy, and taxes. He currently teaches a class on economics and policy in the telecom, media and technology industries. He's part of a new wave called "new social economics". Along with Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, he and others focus on human activity in natural settings and find economic explanations for how people behave.

In April 2006, Goolsbee began writing for the Economic Scene column in the New York Times. He has also appeared in their Economic View column. Before that he wrote the Dismal Science column for Slate.com, for which he won the 2006 Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism. He has many published papers in various peer-reviewed journals.[

Iran continues to finance, train, arm, and support Shia terror groups in Iraq. The Qods Force, via its Ramazan Corps command operating in eastern Iran, remains active in subverting the Iraqi government and attacking US and Coalition forces. The latest report on Iran's activities inside Iraq from The Associated Press is sourced from an anonymous senior US intelligence official. Elements from the AP report matches prior assessments from Iraqi intelligence officials as well as reports here at The Long War Journal and other publications. Qods Force and Hezbollah currently run training camps for the "Special Groups" as well as the Hezbollah Brigades in at least four locations inside Iran, at Qom, Tehran, Ahvaz, and Mashhad, the senior military officer told the AP. The camps are co-run by Iran's Qods Force and Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon.
Bill Roggio, The Long War Journal, August 15, 2008 --- http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/08/map_details_irans_op.php

Siddiqui, 36, is a Pakistani mother of three, an alumna of MIT, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University. She is also accused of working for Al-Qaeda and was charged last week in New York City with attempting to kill American soldiers. Her arrest serves to remind how invisibly most Islamist infiltration proceeds. In particular, an estimated forty Al-Qaeda sympathizers or operatives have sought to penetrate U.S. intelligence agencies.
Daniel Pipes, "The West's Islamist Infiltrators, Jewish World Review, August 12, 2008 --- http://jewishworldreview.com/0808/pipes081208.php3

I have often wondered why some of the best thinkers of our time refuse to believe in human progress. After all, there was a time when tens of thousands of ordinary citizens flocked to the gates of the Roman Coliseum to enjoy the sight of wild beasts tearing human beings to pieces. Today, such a sight would evoke revulsion and disbelief. Of course, inhumanity still exists, but it is no longer laudable or fashionable in the public sphere. With the exception of exhibition killings by jihadist recruiters, cruelty is no longer a catalyst of mass arousal. Even the Nazis tried to hide their deeds from the eyes of history. Be it for fear or shame, the trend is clear: The norms of civilized society are moving forward, and it is those norms, not their exceptions, that shape the minds of our youngsters and justify our hopes for a better world. All this was true until about three weeks ago, when the royal procession of Samir Kuntar brought barbarism back to the public square. Samir Kuntar is the killer who smashed the head of a 4-year-old girl with his rifle in 1979 after killing her father before her eyes. He was convicted, sentenced to 542 years in prison, and never expressed any remorse. He was released by Israel on July 26 in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who were kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2006. As anticipated, Hezbollah's mass celebration in Beirut, in the presence of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, evoked a chivalrous scene from a fairy tale gone awry. One by one, the whole Lebanese leadership stepped up to "brother Kuntar" to shake the hand and kiss the cheeks of that arch-symbol of barbarity. The focus of my attention naturally turned to Al Jazeera because, with its outreach of 50 million to 100 million viewers from Morocco to the Persian Gulf, this pan-Arab satellite channel is considered the conscience and future of the Arab world. A chill went down my spine when British-accented announcers, who introduced Al Jazeera's English channel correspondent Rula Amin, translated the wisdom of Kuntar's words from the original Arabic. Imagine a voice cast in a perfect Oxford accent articulating in unmistaken empathy: "He has returned to a hero's welcome . . . After 29 years in [an] Israeli prison, Samir Kuntar spent his first day of freedom vowing to continue to fight against Israel. He says he hopes to see the enemy again very soon."
Judea Pearl, "Why Al Jazeera Owes an Apology," The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2008; Page A11 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121884481129346039.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

I have been researching, documenting and studying thousands upon thousands of Obama's campaign donations for the past month. Egregious abuse was immediately evident and I published the results of my ongoing investigation. Each subsequent post built a more damning case against Obama's illegal contribution activity. The media took little notice of what I was substantiating. I went so far as to upload the documents so that anyone could do their own research. I asked readers to download the documents and a number of folks pitched in.
Pamela Geller, "Obama's Foreign Donors: The media averts its eyes," American Thinker, August 14, 2008 ---  http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/obamas_donor_contributions_sil.html

Nonetheless, the moment that changed Ms Bashir’s life, when she was gang-raped over several days by soldiers from the Sudanese army, provides a terrible insight into the conflict. Her description is powerful, harrowing and brave. It forms the key passage of the book. The Sudanese government denies that the army uses rape as a routine weapon of war; it has gone to great lengths to stop any accounts of it coming out of Darfur, gagging aid workers and limiting locals’ access to journalists. Most Sudanese Arabs tend to be in denial about the conflict in general, and especially about the use of rape by their own soldiers. Ms Bashir’s account will help to provide vital testimony—if any locals dare read it. The book’s description of the texture of village life will also help people to understand the subtleties that usually escape Western headlines about Darfur. The description of playground rivalries between the “African” girls and the “Arab” girls captures the racism and snobbery that underlie the conflict. Such first-hand accounts can do more than any number of speeches and statistics to illuminate a bafflingly complex conflict about which most foreigners would rather forget.
"Lifting the Veil," The Economist, August 16, 2008, Page 80 --- http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11919269
This is a review of Tears in the Desert:  One Woman's True Story of Surviving the Horrors of Darfur, by Halima Bashir and Damien Lewis (Hodder & Stroughton, 2008)

The GOP is the White Party
Howard Dean, Chair of the Democratic Party (video), Breitbart, August 15, 2008 --- http://www.breitbart.tv/html/153493.html

Whoa There Howard
"Dean Scream II, or III or IV…." by Bob Parks, Black and Right, August 16, 2008 ---
http://www.black-and-right.com/2008/08/17/dean-scream-ii-or-iii-or-iv/

Some people just don't know when to keep their big mouths shut.

Again, for some of you here this is review but in an attempt to tarnish the Republican Party with the traditional racism charge, DNC Chairman Howard Dean has provided yet another public service for those paying attention.

As Democrats prepare to nominate Sen. Barack Obama to be the first black president…

Hold on right there. Can't it that go. Weren't the Democrats in almost total agreement that a deeply-flawed white man (Bill Clinton) was "the first black president"?

… the Democratic National Committee and its chairman, Howard Dean, have whitewashed the party's horrific and lengthy record of racism. The omission is in the section of the DNC Web site that describes the party's history. The missing history raises the obvious question of whether the Democrats, unable or simply unwilling to put their party on record as taking direct responsibility for one of the worst racial crimes of the ages, will be able to run a campaign free of the racial animosities it has regularly brought both to American presidential campaigns and American political and social life in general.

Well, things haven't been running smoothly for race-queasy Democrats thus far.

The sad thing is that most of the publicly-educated in our country know nothing about the history of the Democrat Party, and their present-day attempts to rewrite their past sins while making their in-agreement followers look the fool.

The DNC Web site section labeled "Party History," linked here, is in fact scrubbed clean of the not-so-little dirty secret that fueled Democrats' political successes for over a century and a half and made American life a hell on earth for black Americans. Literally, the DNC official history, which begins with the creation of the party in 1800, gets to the creation of the DNC itself in 1848 and then–poof!–the next sentence says: "As the 19th Century came to a close, the American electorate changed more and more rapidly." It quickly heads into a riff on poor immigrants coming to America.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
On August 24, 2008 our liberal hero Larry King interviewed the idiot-comedian Bill Maher on CNN. Maher asserted that America was still racist because only (Maher's so-called "fact") 30% of the whites will vote for Obama. A little later he added that he hoped 100% of the blacks would vote for Obama but that this would not be racist with blacks voting as a block. He also claimed Senator Lieberman was a Republican in "Democratic Party clothing." Obviously he's not looked at Lieberman's voting record on social program spending, because Lieberman tilts to the left of Ted Kennedy on social program spending. By the way, did you ever see Larry King's picture on Wikipedia? A conservative must've chosen the picture --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_King

The math backs up his (Obama's) analysis — if he can deliver the turnout he promises. In Georgia, the GOP presidential nominee's average margin of victory in the past four elections was 216,000 votes. If 30% more voting-age blacks go to the polls in November than the four-year average — with all else equal, and Obama capturing all of those votes — he would win the state by 84,000 ballots. Should 90% of those voters go for Obama, a figure he achieved among blacks in some primaries this year, he would still have enough to win the state and its 15 electoral votes.
USA Today, July 16, 2008 --- http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-16-obama-south_N.htm

Turning to America, so far the decline in its total trade deficit has been modest, because of the higher cost of oil imports. But the underlying improvement is more impressive. Excluding oil, the trade deficit has fallen by almost one-quarter since 2006. At the same time as exports have soared, real imports fell by 2% in the year to the second quarter, dragged down by weak domestic demand. If the recent drop in oil prices is sustained, the total trade deficit will shrink more rapidly in the second half of this year than it did in the first half. Meanwhile, America’s overall current-account deficit has fallen to around 5% of GDP from a peak of 6.2% in the third quarter of 2006. Merrill Lynch forecast that it could drop to around 3.5% of GDP in 2009. Bilaterally, it is the same story: America’s exports to China were 20% higher in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2007, while its imports from China were up only 4%. However, America’s import bill for goods from China is so huge—four times that of exports—that the rising exports have not dented America’s overall trade deficit with China. The changing patterns, buried beneath the headline figures, are very hard to spot.
"Rebalancing act," The Economist, August 16, 2008, Page 67 --- http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11921655

The inspector general’s report pegged the rate of improper payments for medical equipment at 31.5 percent, an astonishingly high proportion that implies improper spending of some $2.8 billion, four times what Medicare had claimed. Congressional committees will need to sort out how much of this problem is sloppy documentation and how much reflects payment for medical services that should never have been provided and often weren’t. Congress must also recognize its own failure to give Medicare an important tool to combat fraud and waste. It postponed a new competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment that would require a more intense look at the qualifications and integrity of the suppliers. With Medicare expenditures soaring, there is no room for any more waste, fraud or complacency.
"Medicare’s Claims," The New York Times, August 22, 2008 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/opinion/22fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

De Facto Legalization of Most Male and Female Prostitution (even children)  in San Francisco
"Pimps, Pedophiles: Welcome to S.F." by Debra J. Saunders, Townhall, August 17, 2008 --- http://townhall.com/columnists/DebraJSaunders/2008/08/17/pimps,_pedophiles_welcome_to_sf?page=full&comments=true 

A quick reading of the measure that will go before San Francisco voters in November to decriminalize prostitution easily could leave you with the misimpression that the measure is an exercise in fairness that demands that prosecutors go after men who abuse prostitutes and implement policies "to reduce institutional violence and discrimination against prostitutes." A careful reading of the initiative, "Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers," however, shows a measure that shields child prostitution and traffickers of human beings.

"If I had just heard from the proponents, I would probably vote for it myself," said the Rev. Glenda Hope, whose San Francisco Network Ministries helped found the Tenderloin AIDS Resource, in the mistaken belief the measure is meant "to protect women." But as the executive director of SafeHouse, a residential center that helps women get off the streets, Hope knows too much.

Hope knows that the average age of entry into prostitution is 12 to 14. The office of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who opposes the initiative, has encountered prostituted children as young as 9 years old.

Yet the San Francisco ballot measure completely ignores the prostitution of children. The measure simply states, "Law enforcement agencies shall not allocate any resources for the investigation and prosecution of prostitutes for prostitution." Astonishingly, there's no exemption that encourages police to enforce the law for minors.

If the measure passes, the city is likely to become an international haven for pimps who peddle girls and boys, and perverts seeking sex with minors.

And where does that leave Bay Area youth? "They want new and young," Jasmine, a former teen prostitute from Oakland who now volunteers for the nonprofit SAGE Project, which fights sexual exploitation, explained to me.

The life, which she entered at age 14, was "like a drug." She felt wanted. She brought in $4,000 to $5,000 a week. Sure, she knew girls who were selling themselves against their will. But she could buy things. "I was supposedly involved in a relationship" -- one that ended when police prosecuted her pimp.

The other big problem: The measure prohibits city law enforcement from applying for grants to prosecute human traffickers. That's right, this measure gives a free pass to the human sex-slave trade -- in a city that is a central stop for international sex-trade rings.

A proponent of the measure told Fox News that she believes that it will pass with 75 percent of the vote because the city is "sex-positive."

The SAGE Project's Allen Wilson fears that the measure may prevail because the city has no shortage of rootless residents who "will vote for this because they think it's cool." For them, San Francisco is "one big sandbox."

Let me be clear. I don't want city cops wasting their time prosecuting workers at the discreet bordello that hires healthy adult prostitutes who get regular medical checkups. I would rather see law enforcement focus on serious crimes.

But there is nothing broad-minded about looking the other way when 14-year-old girls and boys sell themselves on the street and massage parlors are staffed by women who are being held against their will. These are not consenting adults.

The measure takes a tone that suggests it will protect women by demanding that San Francisco law enforcement prosecute "coercion, extortion, battery, rape and violent crimes, regardless of the victim's status as a sex worker."

Of course, state law already requires that. More to the point, battery, rape, assault and even murder are crimes that befall prostitutes because they work in an inherently dangerous field bankrolled largely by men who like to demean women and girls.

Violence and pain are the inevitable outcome for those steeped in this dehumanizing way of life. Young women wooed into the life quickly age to the point where they cannot net the high-incomes their pimps demand. They become addicted to drugs. They learn to commit new crimes. Until the day they find they are disposable.

Or as Wilson noted, "We treat animals better."

So do not tell Jasmine that if San Francisco decriminalizes prostitution, it will do so because the city cares about prostitutes. This measure really is a gift, not so much to so-called sex workers, as to pimps, pedophiles and human traffickers. As Jasmine sees it, if the ballot initiative passes, "That's basically saying the city does not care."

"US gets ready to blow its economy away," by Christopher Booker, London Telegraph, August 17, 2008 ---
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/17/do1708.xml

After years when America was vilified for not taking "global warming' seriously, it was a shock to find how "environmentalism" is now threatening to transform what is still the largest and richest economy in the world.

Both candidates favour a version of the proposed "cap and trade" scheme to slash US greenhouse gas emissions to 63 per cent below 2005 levels, at an estimated cost by 2030 of more than $600 billion a year - representing a cumulative loss to the US economy, within 22 years, of $4.8 trillion.

Although America is still dependent on coal for around half its electricity, with reserves estimated as likely to last 200 years, state after state is proposing to ban new coal-fired power stations.

Environmental groups, with powerful political support, are now lobbying equally fiercely against natural gas or any new nuclear power plants.

Most dramatic of all are the implications of a Supreme Court judgment in the case of Massachussets v the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which ruled by a single vote that the EPA must treat any greenhouse gases as "pollution", to be regulated under America's Clean Air Act.

The EPA is thus mandated to impose drastic new limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases from pretty well any source, not just industry and transport but schools, hospitals, even lawn mowers.

The implications are so immense for almost every sector of the US economy that government departments -commerce, agriculture, energy and others - have been queuing up to protest, arguing that the effects of such regulation would be so damaging that it should be regarded as unthinkable.

But politicians of both parties, led by the two men vying for the presidency, are so carried away in the rush to appear "green" that it seems there is no longer any national voice powerful enough to question the sanity of such measures.

All the fashionable talk is of how fossil-fuels must be replaced by massively subsidised sources of "renewable" energy, such as vast arrays of solar panels, even though a recent study showed that a kilowatt hour of solar-generated electricity costs between 25 and 30 cents, compared with 6 cents for power generated from coal and 9 cents for that produced by natural gas.

What is terrifying is the extent to which America's leading politicians seem oblivious to the economic realities of what they are proposing. The readiness of Messrs McCain and Obama to posture in front of pictures of virtually useless wind turbines symbolises that attitude perfectly.

Here, in the EU we are only too sadly familiar with politicians floating off into cloudcuckooland over our future energy policy, with the virtual certainty that before many years this may leave us with a colossal shortfall in our electricity supplies.

But "the lights going out all over Europe" is one thing: if they go out in the richest economy in the world - while China cheerfully continues to build one new coal-fired power station a week - we may look back on the US presidential election of 2008 as a time when history really did reach a watershed; the moment when the nations of the West finally signed up to the most bizarre suicide note the world has ever seen.

Continued in article

The Social Security Program is now bringing in surpluses, but our reckless Congress is helping to bankrupt this program by spending these surpluses on most everything except Social Security and Medicare. Congress takes the surpluses and replaces them with IOUs to be paid by our grandchildren.

"Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy (ride) ." --- http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5__uUuxoU
But with the White House Office of Management and Budget now forecasting a deficit of $389 billion, or 2.7% of GDP, for the fiscal year ending in September, and $482 billion, 3.3% of GDP, for FY 2009, it's important to note a couple of caveats. It's not that the $482 billion is in any meaningful sense a "record," as the headline on most news accounts went. As a percentage of GDP, deficits were much bigger during the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations (not to mention World War II). But the new deficit projections do call into question the argument that Bush 43 deficit spending has been below average. And, more important, they understate the real deficit.
Time Magazine, July 30. 2008 --- http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/2008/07/how_bad_is_that_bush_budget_de.html

'If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system," Barack Obama told an audience in Albuquerque on Monday. He was lauding the idea of a health-care market -- or nonmarket -- entirely run by the government. Most liberals support single payer, aka "Medicare for All," because it would eliminate the profit motive, which by their lights is the reason Americans are uninsured. The Democratic Presidential candidate takes a more moderate campaign line, though we suppose just about everything is "moderate" compared to a total government takeover. While preferring that option in theory, Mr. Obama continued, his health-care plan is designed to "build up the system we got," and over time, "we may . . . decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively."
"Obama's Health-Care Tipoff ," The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121927489088858391.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Jensen Comment
Hillary Clinton proposes moving much more quickly to socialized medicine than Obama.

The Canadian Consumer Tax Index, 2007, shows that even though the income of the average Canadian family has increased significantly since 1961, their total tax bill has increased at a much higher rate. In 1961, the average Canadian family earned an income of $5,000 and paid $1,675 in total taxes - 33.5 per cent of its income. In 2006, the average Canadian family earned an income of $63,001 and paid total taxes equaling $28,311 - 44.9 per cent of its income . . . "The tax burden we face is made up of much more than just income tax. When you add up all the taxes we have to pay to all levels of government, the average Canadian family is paying more of its income to governments in the form of taxes than they spend feeding, clothing and housing themselves," said Niels Veldhuis, the study's co-author and Director of the Centre for Tax Studies with the Fraser Institute . . . Since 1961, the total tax bill for the average Canadian family has increased 1,590 per cent. By comparison, the cost of housing has increased 1,019 per cent, the cost of food 487 per cent and the cost of clothing has increased 447 per cent since 1961.
The Fraser Institute --- http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/April2007/16/c5234.html

"We Can't Tax Our Way Out of the Entitlement Crisis," by R. Glenn Hubbard, The Wall Street Journal,August 21, 2008; Page A13 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121927694295558513.html 

We can also secure a firm financial footing for Social Security (and Medicare) without choking off economic growth or curtailing our flexibility to pursue other spending priorities. Three actions are essential: (1) reduce entitlement spending growth through some form of means testing; (2) eliminate all nonessential spending in the rest of the budget; and (3) adopt policies that promote economic growth. This 180-degree difference from Mr. Obama's fiscal plan forms the basis of Sen. McCain's priorities for spending, taxes and health care.

The problem with Mr. Obama's fiscal plans is not that that they lack vision. On the contrary, the vision is plain enough: a larger welfare state paid for by higher taxes. The problem is not even that they imply change. The problem is that his plans are statist.

While the candidate is sending a fiscal "Ich bin ein Berliner" message to Americans, European critics of his call for greater spending on defense are the canary in the coal mine for what lies ahead with his vision for the United States.

Professor R. Glenn Hubbard is Dean of the College of Business at Columbia University and a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors.

Bob Jensen's threads on the "Entitlement Crisis" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm

Question
What former Andersen partner, who watched the Andersen accounting firm implode alongside its client Enron, has been traveling for years around the United States warning that the United States economy will implode unless we totally come to our senses?
Hints:
David Walker was the top accountant, Controller General, of the United States Government.
He was a featured plenary speaker a few years back at an annual meeting of the American Accounting Association.
See his "State of the Profession of Accountancy" piece in the October 2005 edition of the Journal of Accountancy.
Also see http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jul2006/walker.htm

Videos About Off-Balance-Sheet Financing to an Unimaginable Degree
Truth in Accounting or Lack Thereof in the Federal Government (Former Congressman Chocola) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWTCnMioaY0 
Part 2 (unfunded liabilities of $55 trillion plus) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Edia5pBJxE
Part 3 (this is a non-partisan problem being ignored in election promises) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG5WFGEIU0E

Watch the Video of the non-sustainability of the U.S. economy (CBS Sixty Minutes TV Show Video) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs 
Also see "US Government Immorality Will Lead to Bankruptcy" in the CBS interview with David Walker --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs
Also at Dirty Little Secret About Universal Health Care (David Walker) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGpY2hw7ao8

I.O.U.S.A.:  A Fact-Filled Documentary That Makes the Sicko's Sicko Look Sicko
"Another Inconvenient Truth," The Economist, August 16, 2008, pp 69-69 --- http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11921663

AMERICA’S infamous debt clock, near New York’s Times Square, was switched off in 2000 after the national burden started to fall thanks to several years of Clinton-era budget restraint. However, it was reactivated two years later as the politically motivated urge to splurge once again took over. The debt has since swollen to $9.5 trillion, with the value of unfunded public promises (if you include entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare) nudging $53 trillion—or $175,000 for every American—and rising. On current trends, these will amount to some 240% of GDP by 2040, up from a just-about-manageable 65% today.

David Walker, who until recently ran the Government Accountability Office, has made it his mission to get the nation to acknowledge and treat this “fiscal cancer”. His efforts form the core of a new documentary, “I.O.U.S.A.”, out on August 21st. The message is simple enough: America’s financial condition is a lot worse than advertised, and dumping it on future generations would be not only economically reckless but also immoral.

The biggest deficit of all, the film contends, is in leadership: politicians continue to duck hard choices. It hints at dark consequences. As America has become more reliant on foreign lenders, it warns, so it has become more vulnerable to “financial warfare”, of the sort America itself threatened to wage on Britain, a big debtor, during the Suez crisis. Warren Buffett, America’s investor-in-chief, pops up to warn of potential political instability.

The film is part of a broader effort to popularise the issue. In 2005 Mr Walker set off on a “fiscal wake-up tour” of town halls; sparsely attended at first, it now attracts hundreds to each meeting (though some may be turned off by the giant pie chart strapped to the side of his tour van). The young are being drawn in too, even forming campaign groups; Concerned Youth of America’s activists “crusade against our leveraged future” wearing prison suits. Mr Walker is talking to MTV, a music broadcaster, about a tie-up. His profile has been lifted by a segment on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and an appearance on “The Colbert Report”, a satirical TV show, which dubbed him the “Taxes Ranger”.

Promisingly, the new film was well received at the Sundance Film Festival. Some even wonder if it might do for the economy what Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” did for the environment—perhaps with this comparison in mind, Mr. Walker and his supporters talk of a “red-ink tsunami” and bulging “fiscal levees”. But, unlike the former vice-president, he is no heavy-hitter. And, even jazzed up with fancy graphics, punchy one-liners and a splash of humour, courtesy of Steve Martin, tales of fiscal folly are an acquired taste. Still, “I.O.U.S.A” is a bold attempt to highlight a potentially huge problem. “The Dark Knight” it may not be, but for those who care about economic reality as much as cinematic fantasy, it might just be the scariest release of the summer.

Bob Jensen's threads about how entitlements are leading the United States to economic destruction are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm

"Is America in Decline?" by Nobel Laureate GaryBecker, The Becker-Posner Blog, August 3, 2008 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/ 

Articles about whether America is in decline is a cyclical industry that rises and falls over about a twenty-year cycle. The previous cycle started with Paul Kennedy's bestseller of 1986 "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers", and was vigorously discussed during the next decade. It was finally dismissed after starting in the early years of the Reagan presidency there was more than twenty-five years of vigorous growth in GDP-much faster than in Western Europe- declines in unemployment to very low levels, and the complete absence of any inflationary pressure.

This gloom and doom industry has begun to grow again during the past few years. Kennedy had attributed his projected decline of the United States to its role as the world's policeman, and the resulting spending on defense and military manpower and equipment, Yet, defense spending did not account for more than six percent of GDP, and some of the military spending went for military R&D and training that had carryover to civilian products and services, such as the development of the Internet, and the training of pilots. The new pessimists continue to blame America's role as policeman, and in particular its protracted involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also see possible doom in the debacle in the US housing market, the high price of oil, and the current economic slowdown in income growth, and declines in employment. Much emphasis too is placed on the growth of China and India, and also Brazil, and the shift of the world's attention toward these large rapidly developing nations. Some members of the doom school claim in addition that the United States is getting "old", like old Europe, and is suffering from ailments that afflict old nations.

Readers of our blog will realize that I generally do not subscribe to this gloom and doom school concerning America. I do agree that being the world's policeman does take resources that could be producing civilian output, and countries in Europe and elsewhere free ride off of America's efforts, but when done right this policeman's role also makes the world a safer place in the future. However, the resources spent on military manpower and equipment is not large enough to have a serious effect on the growth of US civilian output. The economy and housing market will before long recover from their current difficulties. The rapid expansion of China, India, and a few other large nations does mean that the share of world GDP produced by the United States has begun to decline, and is likely to continue to decline over the next decade and longer. After all, these two huge nations, along with Brazil, comprise over forty percent of the world's population, so their rapid growth must lead to a decline in America's share of world GDP. But the success of other nations should not be taken per se an indication that America is in decline.

Moreover, and on the whole, the growth of these other nations will help US growth prospects. The United States has been for several decades the world's leader in technological innovation, so that other nations have been able to free ride to some extent over US investments in new ideas and technologies. With the rapid growth of China and others, they too will begin to make considerable innovations, and the US will now be able to take advantage of their technological advances. In other words, in the future, America will become more of an importer as well as continuing to be an exporter of new ideas and innovations.

The expansion of exports from China and other poorer nations has not benefited all nations, especially those that compete with exports of similar products. However, it has greatly benefited the US and other developed countries because the rich countries can import amazingly cheap consumer goods, and these developing countries provide a market for the industrial goods and advanced services of richer nations. As the rapidly developing countries get richer, the mix of their products and services will change, and some of them will compete directly with those of richer nations. Yet the evidence is strong that trade is stronger in general between countries of similar levels rather than different levels of economic development, but is mutually beneficial to both sides. I see no reason why this should not continue as China's, India's, and Brazil's economic development become much closer to that of the US, Japan, and Western Europe.

Another argument made by the America is declining camp is that as countries continue to get richer, individuals lose their motivation and begin to sharply cut their hours of work and ambitions regarding further accumulation of wealth and income. In a celebrated article published in 1931 called, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren", the great economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that as incomes continued to grow, then adults in Europe and the United States would by the year 2030 be working about 15 hours per week, and they would spent most of their time in leisure pursuits. Keynes’ predictions about the long-term rates of growth of income were surprisingly quite accurate, despite the worldwide depression then in effect, but his predictions about how people would spend their growing wealth were way off the mark. He did not appreciate that higher hourly earnings could lead people to work more hours even though their incomes were higher, and that the continuing development of new products, such as computers and television, would increase people's desire for more spending power. These effects were magnified by the interest in relative economic position since that induces men and women to strive for higher incomes in order to move ahead of their peers (on all this, see the article by Luis Rayo and me "Why Keynes Underestimated Consumption and Overestimated Leisure for the Long Run", in the recent collection of essays, "Revisiting Keynes".

I am an optimist about the future prospects of America; that is, I believe the individuality, entrepreneurship, and drive in this country will continue to propel the economy and society forward at a good pace. The biggest risk to America's continuing success lies not in the considerations already discussed, but in the expansion of government regulations and controls that can throttle the dynamic energies of its competitive private sector. Clearly, various forms of government spending and regulation, such as spending on police and the military, on schools and other infrastructure, are crucial to any prosperous society. However, the tendency during the past half-century has been to go further than is warranted as different interest groups look to the government for help. Governments now often decide what consumer goods can be produced (see our blog discussion last week), subsidize housing and other goods, and regulate who can be fired and hired (especially in many European countries but also increasingly in the US). Governments also are placing greater stress on equality as opposed to opportunity and efficiency, and pay for medical spending, provide retirement incomes, and often impose heavy taxes on persons who earn more than average.

So far, this expansion of the role of government has not been a crucial deterrent to entrepreneurship and private energies in the United States-a much greater expansion of government has had much more harmful effects in countries like Italy and France. Although I remain optimistic, I do fear that interest group pressures toward a much larger role of government in the United States may become much harder to resist in the future, and that this could eventually kill, or at least badly wound, the free market-entrepreneurial goose that has been laying the golden eggs.

"Is America in Decline?" by Richard Posner, The Becker-Posner Blog, August 3, 2008 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/ 

I agree that there is no reason to expect the rate of growth of per capita income in the United States to decline in the foreseeable future. Of course it may decline; the future is uncertain; a particular uncertainty concerns the ever-present possibility of catastrophe (see my book Catastrophe: Risk and Response [2004]). Abrupt global warming, nuclear terrorism, a pandemic, an asteroid strike—all are possible events that could have cataclysmic effects on economic growth. Also, it is important to distinguish between monetary income and economic welfare. Increases in leisure and in the quality and variety of products and services can increase welfare without increasing per capita income; conversely, expenditures on security, while they may be cost-justified because of the risk of terrorist or other attacks, reduce consumption; and service deteriorations, for example due to congestion, can reduce welfare; but in neither case would the welfare loss show up in lower per capita incomes. A related example is wasteful expenditures on health care, all of which show up as income to providers, though it is possible that as much as a third of all expenditures on health care in the United States either yield no benefits in greater longevity or better health or exceed what it would cost to achieve the same benefits more cheaply (for example, by exercise and healthy eating).

I do not share Becker's pessimism about the rise of regulation. The deregulation and privatization movements have, since their beginning in the late 1970s, freed large parts of the economy from government control; income tax rates have fallen; unions have continued to decline; and the courts have become more conservative with respect to economic issues. (The Supreme Court's "liberal" Justices are liberal mainly concerning issues, such as abortion, capital punishment, and homosexual rights, that have little economic significance.) There will now be some re-regulation, but I would be surprised if it went far, given the political power of business.

Environmental regulation has increased, but it deals with real externalities. The increased regulation of labor markets, however, mainly as a result of antidiscrimination laws, is difficult to justify on economic grounds, though its economic effects may be largely offset by the decline of unions. Even after the recent increase in the federal minimum wage, that wage in real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) terms is no higher than it was in 1960.

Social conservatives believe that the nation is in free fall because of the decline of traditional social values, a decline reflected in low marriage and high divorce rates, a high rate of births out of wedlock, increases in pornography and vulgarity, the flaunting of homosexual relations, and abortion on demand. Becker does not cite any of these factors as inimical to economic growth; nor would I.

But there is a crucial ambiguity in the word "decline" when applied to a nation, and I will devote the rest of my comment to that. To begin with, the word might denote not a reduction in the rate of growth of per capita income but a reduction in that rate relative to the rate in other countries. Small differences in growth rates cumulate over time, like compound interest. Some nations will grow faster than the United States, but I do not see the growth rate of the United States dropping below the world average.

The idea of national decline might even refer to a decline in a nation's share of world income. The U.S. share peaked in 1951 at 28 percent, fell to 21 percent by 1975, and is about 20 percent today. The percentage will continue to fall as incomes in China, India, Brazil, and other rapidly developing countries rise. This almost certain "decline" has, however, no significance for the welfare of Americans--except insofar as a nation's share of world income is correlated with the nation’s political (and ultimately military) power--"geopolitical power." And when one speaks of a nation in "decline," it usually is to the nation's geopolitical power that one is referring.

Although China's military expenditures are far smaller than those of the United States, they are increasing more rapidly and eventually may surpass ours; and their increase is driving Japan to become once again a major world military power. Russia's military expenditures are increasing as well. India's too. And these are all countries that have potential enemies and so take military preparedness seriously (unlike Western Europe). What is more, the power of large countries such as the United States (and before that, notably, Great Britain) to coerce small ones has declined. When early in World War II Iraq and Iran began leaning toward the Axis powers, Britain (aided in Iran by the Soviet Union) quickly intervened and, more or less effortlessly, changed the governments in those countries. Britain of course for centuries controlled a vast empire with slight military forces. Tiny Holland ruled what is now Indonesia. France ruled what is now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Japan ruled Korea and Taiwan. The Western nations, including the United States, are vastly less powerful than they were half a century ago. The U.S., despite a military budget roughly equal to that of all other nations combined, has its hands full trying to control two militarily third-rate countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, and is incapable of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

From a political rather than an economic standpoint, the United States today may be in a position comparable to that of the Roman Empire in the fourth century A.D. or the British Empire in the 1930s: the world's leading "empire" (in the sense not of having colonies, but of having the most influence over other countries), but, as an empire, in decline.

Size Matters --- http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=FqfunyCeU5g
Otherwise entitled "Shift Happens"

Early History of Mathematics and Calculating in China
The best general source for ancient Chinese mathematics is Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3. In this volume you will learn, for example, that the Chinese proved the Pythagorean Theorem at the very latest by the Later Han dynasty (25-221 CE). The proof comes from an ancient text called The Arithmetical Classic of the Gnomon and the Circular Paths of Heaven. The book has been translated by Christopher Cullen in his Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: The Zhou Bi Suan Jing. Needham also discusses the abacus, or suanpan ("calculating plate").
Steve Field, Professor of Chinese, Trinity University, September 24, 2008
Jensen Comment
Later Han Dynasty --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Later_Han_Dynasty_(Five_Dynasties)
Pythagorean Theorem Theorem --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_Theorem
Pythagorean Theorem (Gougu Theorem in China) History --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_Theorem#History
Suanpan --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suanpan
This makes me respect Wikipedia even more!

Blan McBride's Journal of Backroom Accounting

W. Blan McBride earned a PhD in accounting years ago from the University of Illinois and was inspired earlier to study accounting history by Professor Flowers at the University of Alabama even though Blan's academic background is in engineering. Blan was on the accounting faculty at Florida State University and was instrumental in luring me (Bob Jensen) down to Tallahassee in 1978. However, shortly thereafter Blan left FSU and made millions via consulting, including such things as re-designing a flawed bullet proof vests for the U.S. Army. He made additional millions executing successful turnarounds of failing businesses.

Blan is the author or co-author of several books listed at Amazon.com:

Throughout all of his consulting and CEO activities over the past few decades, however, Blan maintained his hobby of studying accounting history, especially accounting history in the ancient world. He enjoyed featuring accounting history when lecturing in such places as Rotary Club luncheons. Blan can be very entertaining to say the least. He can also be dead serious when you think he's still joking. For example, he showed me how the Spaniard killing of Inca accountants (what Blan calls wiping out the Inca hard drive) was instrumental in the destruction of the Inca Empire.

Recently he posed the following question to me (I didn't have a clue):

P.S.     Here’s your accounting history mystery for today:

 The Inca empire stretched 2500 miles down the coast of South America and into the Andes mountains in the interior.  Francisco Pizzaro landed in 1532 with fewer than 70 men and within fewer than 6 months had conquered the empire and begun shipping gold home. 

 Question:  How did he do it and what part did accounting play in this story?

 Hint: Who kept the records?

 

Blan and I began recently to correspond with respect to accounting history. I helped inspire him to commence writing accounting history papers once again, and he completed a working paper as the first paper in his proposed new “Journal of Backroom Accounting History.” He sent me a rough draft of the first commentary intended for his journal. The title is as follows:

I encourage members of the American Accounting Association to submit comments on Blan's short "Red Light" commentary to the AAA Commons --- http://commons.aaahq.org/pages/home
Click on the menu item "Roles" and then click on "Teaching." Scroll down to the "Journal of Backroom Accounting," Volume 1, 2008.

You can also communicate directly with Blan via email at blan@comcast.net
I don't recommend getting him on the telephone, because you will never get him off. Blan's a talker!
If you meet him face-to-face, I recommend wearing high-topped boots, but I do love him dearly.
He makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Once again his "whorehouse" link is http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/McBride/RedLights01.htm

Additional Accounting History Links

Bob Jensen's home page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

FBI Corporate Fraud Chart in August 2008 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/aug2008/ataglance.htm#Chart1.htm

Controversial FAQs (at least some of them) about global warming --- http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/FAQs.htm

Bob Jensen's threads about global warming are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science

To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.
Horace

Fifteenth Annual Emperor's Awards, Guest commentary by Poor Elijah (Peter Berger), The Irascible Professor, August 19, 2008 ---
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-08-19-08.htm

"35 Innovators Under 35:  Technology Review presents its eighth annual list of leading young innovators," MIT's Technology Review, September/October 2008 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/article/21284/?nlid=1283 

Free Accounting Textbooks, Videos, Learning Games, and Tutorials

August 15, 2008 message from Glen L Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU]

I was at a business luncheon today and I was asked a question that I hope you guys can help answer...

A woman, who manages a large portfolio for a large institution, has a nephew who is a senior in high school who wants to eventual get a job similar to his aunt (investment management). She told him he needs a good grounding in economics and accounting (in addition to finance). He will be doing an independent study in the fall and she thinks that econ and/or accounting would be a good topic for his independent study.

She asked me if I could recommend some books and/or online courses he could view/research/study. Nothing specifically came to mind. I know there has been some mention of free online courses on the AECM, but I don't recall the specifics.

So, with all that said, does any AECM members have some answers to her question regarding online courses and/or books that would provide an econ and/or accounting overview to a high school student?

Thanks in advance. I'll forward your responses to her.

Glen L. Gray, PhD, CPA
Accounting & Information Systems, COBAE
California State University, Northridge
18111 Nordhoff ST
Northridge, CA 91330-8372
818.677.3948
818.677.2461 (messages)
http://www.csun.edu/~vcact00f

August 15, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Glen,

 I have a listing of free online accounting textbooks, videos, and related tutorials at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Scroll through economics to get to the accounting items

At the high school level he may want to take a close look at
Bean Counter's Dave Marshall online book --- http://www.dwmbeancounter.com/tutorial/Tutorial.html

More likely, however, he will prefer the free online videos such as those from Janice Cobb (good stuff).

He might also like some edutainment such as the accounting crossword puzzles --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment

David Fordham's Jeopardy games for basic accounting and basic AIS are also linked for downloading at the above edutainment site.

And he could play David Albrecht's accounting Monopoly with his mom.

Bob Jensen

Beloit College Mindset List for the entering college (graduating) class of 2012 --- http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2012.php

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
11. All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
12. As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”