Tidbits
on March 9, 2005
Bob
Jensen at Trinity
University
For earlier editions of New
Bookmark
s go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Archives of Tidits: Tidbits Directory --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Click
here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search
Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term
"Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that
covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.
Bob Jensen's home page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
Education's purpose is to
replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm
S. Forbes
All too often some of us probably clutter the open mind.
Now you should probably download Google's free Desktop Search for finding
documents within your own computer. The product has emerged from Beta
testing with more new features. But first read about security and then
decide.
While the beta only indexed Microsoft Outlook
e-mail and Internet Explorer Web browsing history, the latest release also can
search e-mail from the Mozilla Thunderbird and Netscape clients and browsing
history from the Firefox and Netscape browsers, Google announced. To make
more desktop data searchable, the latest release adds indexing support for the
full text of PDFs to existing support for Microsoft Office formats. It also
indexes the metadata of video, images and audio, such as titles or artist
information. To make more desktop data searchable, the latest release adds
indexing support for the full text of PDFs to existing support for Microsoft
Office formats. It also indexes the metadata of video, images and audio, such as
titles or artist information. "With regard to users, we have tens of
thousands of applications and file types they want to search," said Nikhil
Bhatla, a Google product manager. "We've addressed the top requests and
most popular applications, and the best way to address [this] is by making
desktop search available for developers to write plug-ins
Matt Hicks, "Google Moves Desktop Search Out of Beta," eWeek,
March 7, 2005 --- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1772568,00.asp
You can read more about security at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1735080,00.asp
I downloaded a free version of the program from http://desktop.google.com/
Yahoo also has a desktop search program, but I don't think it is as sophisticated as the new one from Google. You can read more about this at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm
Did you know there is battle raging between neo-Malthusians and
Cornucopians?
Jared Diamond, a professor of geography at the
University of California, Los Angeles, tells the story of the Greenland Norse in
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, published earlier this
year, and asks, Why did the colonists raise cattle at all? His answer is
depressing: because in Scandinavia, cows were proof of wealth. Diamonds thesis,
traced from Easter Island to modern Los Angeles, is that environmental
strategies that work for a society at one time and place may be maladapted when
circumstances change. If people wont adopt new strategies, if their environment
is fragile and deteriorates, their society collapses. Diamond is famous
for an earlier book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies,
which won the Pulitzer Prize by arguing that European civilization triumphed
through geographical luck. Collapse has become a sensation, too. But at 575
pages, Collapse is long, life is short, and most commentators have grappled not
so much with the book itself as with shadows of the book in particular, with a
simplistic summary Diamond published in the New York Times on New Years Day,
2005, titled "The Ends of the World as We Know Them."
Environmentalists liked the summary and, therefore, Collapse, because they
thought it served the cause; likening our own time to the periods preceding
previous historical collapses, Diamond declared, "We can't continue to
deplete our own resources as well as those of much of the rest of the
world." Conservative commentators have been uniformly hostile to what they
think the book is about; they complain that Diamond does not understand
"the tragedy of the commons "that is, the phenomenon whereby commonly
shared resources are undervalued and, very frequently, ruined by those who use
them. In short, Collapse has been drafted into the battle between
neo-Malthusians, who believe our economic life is wickedly destructive and must
be constrained by governments, and Cornucopians, who think wealth can grow
indefinitely and who adore the unfettered power of markets.
Jason Pontin, "Lets Go Dutch, MIT's Technology Review, April 2005
--- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/04/issue/editor.asp?trk=nl
Differences among nations loom far larger than you might have imagined
Each country reveals its own preoccupations, usually
born out of its peculiar history and current circumstances. Leave it to the
Dutch, for example, to pour computer modeling resources into the management of
water and soilendeavors without which the Netherlands very existence would be
imperiled. The United States has measured the value of R&D projects largely
by their potential for adding to the nervous nations power to fight wars and
defend against terrorist attack. In Germany, home of the worlds first
superhighways and some of its most storied carmakers, its no surprise to see
projects aimed at making driving safer and smarter. In all, our reporters
identified more than two dozen emerging technologies or ideas about innovation
as vital to the futures of these seven countries. But even those innovations
that most directly address urgent regional needs prove to have application for
the entire planet.
Herb Brody (editor), "What Matters Most Depends On Where You Are,"
MIT's Technology Review, April 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/04/issue/feature_gp.asp?trk=nl
One Theory on WMDs
Russia Moved Iraqi WMD Charles R. Smith Thursday, March
3, 2005 Moscow Moved Weapons to Syria and Lebanon According to a former top Bush
administration official, Russian special forces teams moved weapons of mass
destruction out of Iraq to Syria. "I am absolutely sure that Russian
Spetsnatz units moved WMD out of Iraq before the war," stated John Shaw,
the former deputy undersecretary for international technology security. Story
Continues Below According to Shaw, Russian units hid Saddam's arsenal inside
Syria and in Lebanon's Bekka valley. "While in Iraq I uncovered detailed
information that Spetsnatz units shredded records and moved all...
Newsmax, March 5, 2005 --- http://www.newsmax.com/
Using Google for Identity Theft
Teams of hackers surfed the Web at Seattle University
yesterday, harvesting Social Security and credit card numbers like a farmer
cutting wheat. In less than an hour, they found millions of names, birth dates
and numbers -- cyberburglar tools for the crime of identity theft -- using just
one, familiar Internet search engine: Google. But these were the good guys --
members of a somewhat secretive organization of computer security pros, forensic
cybercops, prosecutors and federal agents called Agora. The group decided to
lift the curtain of secrecy for a day to sound a warning about the dangers of
"Google...
Paul Shukovsky, " 'Good guys' show just how easy it is to steal ID Elite
teams of computer gurus hack into Google and find loads of credit card numbers
and sensitive information," Seattle Post Intelligencer, March 5,
2005 --- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/214663_googlehack05.html
The Selling of the Curriculum?
Through a family foundation, they created the John
William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a research organization that
regularly releases studies that criticize colleges in North Carolina for lack of
rigor, too much excitement over trendy disciplines and wasting taxpayer funds.
Pope publications mix serious analysis with a lot of mocking -- and individual
faculty members are frequently the target. So when faculty members at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill heard that the Pope family was
talking to administrators about a multi-year grant to support study of Western
civilization, many were upset. Seventy-one faculty members signed an open letter
in The Daily Tar Heel complaining that the negotiations have been conducted
secretly, in a manner that is "disrespectful to the faculty," and
urging that the talks be suspended. Bernadette Gray-Little, dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences and the lead negotiator over the proposed gift, did
not respond to a request for an interview. But in a
letter to The Daily Tar Heel, she said that the proposed Pope grant has
received more public discussion and more faculty input than similar grants. And
she insisted that there were no unusual conditions attached.
Scott Jaschick, "The Selling of the Curriculum?" Inside Higher Ed,
March 7, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/the_selling_of_the_curriculum
India truly realizes the importance of education
The Indira Ghandi National University in India now has 1 million students.
Twenty percent of all Indian students are in distance education programs, and
the Indian policy is to raise that to 40 percent. So this is a different kind of
phenomenon, far from the phenomenon of online learning. I don't mean innovation
isn't like that. People do things, and then they discover the consequences were
not exactly what they expected.
THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING http://ctl.stanford.edu
(as forwarded to me by Jagdish Gangolly)
When bashing the French, a few things should be kept in mind
France has a glorious military tradition and has troops
serving in the field in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Africa and Haiti. In Kosovo,
3,000 French soldiers are deployed side by side with 1,800 American soldiers; in
Afghanistan, our forces are also operating side by side as are our ships in the
Gulf of Oman and reconnaissance aircraft in Djibouti. Our intelligence services
and special forces also cooperate closely and appreciate working together.
France is a driving force in European integration and in strengthening European
defense. It is encouraging its partners to do more and better in assuming their
responsibilities for security issues in Europe and the world. It is making an
exceptional effort regarding its own defense budget.
Michele Alliot-Marie, "Let Us Be Partners," The Wall Street Journal,
March 8, 2005 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111024396859873017,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
The word "f__king" doesn't mean
anything. It's just a figure of speech.
Martin Lawrence in the movie Bad Boys II --- http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/badboys2/site/
Jensen Comment: Maybe so. It was used in nearly every third line of
dialog in this movie, is not in my desk dictionary, and turns me off whether I
hear it in a movie or when spoken by students and faculty (yes faculty) on
campus. The Web definitions include "sexual intercourse,"
"informal intensifier," and a "colloquial
intensifier." But it was used in Bad Boys II so often that it
didn't intensify anything. When used in a great movie called Human
Stain, it was used very infrequently and did indeed
intensify. The problem with youth today is that they don't understand the
role of linguistic intensifiers. I blame a major part of this on
Hollywood's failure to understand the same thing. In general, it's use
degrades the speaker and his/her audience.
This is probably overkill, but I do support the idea of being to
selectively order cable channels
While their announcement has outraged the
telecommunications industry and civil libertarians, most observers believe their
idea stands little chance of progressing through Congress. More intriguing,
however, is the possibility that the cable and satellite indecency news will
resurrect the issue of offering consumers a la carte options for selecting cable
channels. The brouhaha began on Tuesday, when Senator Ted Stevens,
(R-Alaska), head of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee,
declared that he wanted to apply the same standards of decency that govern the
content of over-the-air television and radio to pay cable and satellite
television. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as
over-the-air" broadcasters, he told the National Association of
Broadcasters, according to several wire reports. "There has to be some
standard of decency." On Wednesday, Stevens got support from the
other side of the Hill when House Representative Joe Barton (R-Texas), head of
the House Energy and Commerce Committee agreed with him.
Eric Hellweg "Indecent Proposal," MIT's Technology Review,
March 4, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/wo/wo_hellweg030405.asp
One in five teens and adults in the U.S. have genital herpes.
Do our students know this? The rise in "hanging out" sometimes
leads to oral sex without intercourse.
Unsuspecting ways to get genital herpes and, by the way, experts say it will
never go away
Most people know that women can get genital herpes from
unprotected intercourse. After all, it affects one in five teens and adults. But
receiving oral sex is also a significant risk. Oral sex can transmit HSV-1, the
virus that causes cold sores, and can cause genital herpes. Research shows
that women who receive oral sex are nine times as likely to get genital
herpes. Women should be sure that their partners are not showing any sign
of a cold sore. Early signs include a small area of tingling or numbness in the
lips -- even without a visible sore. This is a sign that the virus is active and
can be transmitted.
Brunilda Narario, "Genital Herpes From a Surprising Place," WebMDHealth,
March 5, 2005 --- http://my.webmd.com/content/article/101/106359.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_td_01
She says the undergraduates are eager for sex but don't know
much about it
She went on to get a master's degree in human sexuality
education from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in sexology from Curtin
University of Technology in Western Australia, with a thesis on women's first
experiences of sexual intercourse and the implications of this for sex
education. She later became head of Curtin's sexology program, where she
launched a master of forensic sexology, and although she's now moved to Bond,
she still supervises some postgraduate students there. In her books and on
her website, she habitually refers to herself as Dr Gabrielle, or Gabrielle
Morrissey PhD, presumably to reassure readers that, despite all the references
to peckers and boobs, she is a serious academic. Still, she has had her
share of awkward moments. In the acknowledgments in Urge, she writes: "Dad,
please skip over the oral sex chapter, please, please." "I don't
think he did," she sighs over the phone from her home in Brunswick Heads,
near Byron Bay
"Under Covers," Sydney Morning Herald, March 5, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/03/1109700593110.html
All health plans should at least be as good as Medicare on preventative
maintenance
The new year brought changes in Medicare benefits: a
one-time "Welcome to Medicare" physical exam, cardiovascular
screening, and diabetes screening -- all part of a new emphasis on prevention
and early detection, all designed to provide seniors with better care and a
higher quality of life. In addition, there will be more changes in drug
coverage. How will this affect you? Medicare & Medicaid Services
Administrator Mark B. McClellan, MD, PhD, joined us on Jan. 25 to answer your
questions about Medicare coverage
"Medicare Update 2005," WebMDHealth, January 25, 2005 --- http://my.webmd.com/content/chat_transcripts/1/105396.htm?z=1728_00000_0007_qp_02
Hitler's A-Bomb: So close and yet (fortunately) so far
Adolf Hitler had the atom bomb first but it was too
primitive and ungainly for aerial deployment, says a new book that indicates the
race to split the atom was much closer than is believed. Nazi scientists
carried out tests of what would now be called a dirty nuclear device in the
waning days of World War II, writes Rainer Karlsch, a German historian, in his
book Hitler's Bomb, to be be published this month. Concentration camp
inmates were used as human guinea pigs and "several hundred" died in
the tests, conducted on the Baltic Sea island of Rugen and at an inland test in
wooded hill country about 100 kilometres south of Berlin in 1944 and early 1945.
Ernest Gill, "Hitler won atomic bomb race, but couldn't drop it,"
Sydney Morning Herald, March 5, 2005 --- http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/03/04/1109700677446.html
Most of the "luxuries" are on the not-for-profit campuses
For-profit institutions also try to maximize their
revenue. But in addition to maximizing revenue, for-profit schools want to
minimize their expenses. That's why they don't have any football stadiums or
massage therapists. Simply, maximum revenue and minimum expenses yield maximum
profit. That does not mean, as their critics suggest, that they will
necessarily exploit their students. The only way for-profit schools can maximize
their revenue, after all, is by bringing in as many students as possible. They
can't, therefore, reduce expenses to any point below which they can provide the
education students are willing to pay for. Kirp's discussion of DeVry helps
confirm this. "Instruction is more intense than in most community colleges
and regional universities ... and it is often better as well." Moreover,
"graduates do get hired ... DeVry's proudest boast has been that within six
months of graduation, 95 percent of graduates are working, and not behind the
McDonald's counter but at jobs with a future." Are for-profit schools
perfect? Hardly. As their critics regularly point out, for-profit education's
past is checkered by scams and frauds. And it still has troublemakers. In
January, "60 Minutes" aired an expose on questionable practices at
Career Education Corporation, which runs 82 for-profit campuses. But general
hostility to for-profit education, its past, and the ongoing scrutiny it
receives as a result force for-profit schools to police themselves.
Neal McCluskey, "Don’t Blame the Market," Inside Higher Ed,
March 7, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/don_t_blame_the_market
Some major IT acronymns: How many can you define? --- Webopedia --- http://www.webopedia.com/
More important, which newer ones are left out like RFT or RFIT or RFID --- http://availabletechnologies.pnl.gov/securityelectronics/rftags.stm
Will Viagra's RFID tags will play Bolero and old Sinatra recordings?
In
an effort to combat drug counterfeiting and protect patients, Pfizer has
announced a new initiative to use radio frequency identification (RFID) tags
that will enable wholesalers and pharmacies to authenticate all Viagra sold in
the United States.
"Viagra tablets will soon have small radio frequency tags,"
News-Medical-Net --- http://www.news-medical.net/?id=6324
Jensen Comment: I was thinking of an antenna joke and decided against it.
PhD: Purchased higher Degree
The dean of administration at the College of the Ozarks
has resigned, a year after he was enmeshed in a controversy involving the
legitimacy of his doctoral degree, the News-Leader of Springfield, Mo., reported
Thursday. College officials declined to comment on the resignation of Larry
Cockrum, the newspaper reported.
Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/quick_takes_epa_fine_a_dean_resigns
Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mills are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill
Hush up Bill! She's first got to worry about being re-elected to the
U. S. Senate from a blue state
Maybe it's natural for Bill Clinton to be bragging on
his wife's chances to become the next president, but some of his friends wish
that he'd just shut up.They say that Bubba's cheering is distracting from
Hillary's efforts to show that she isn't an old style liberal.'It's
counterproductive,' says one insider, 'at a time when she's quietly building a
voting record that is closer to Sen. John McCain than Ted Kennedy.'
"Shushing Bubba," U.S. News and World Report, March 14, 2005
--- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/050314/whispers/14whisplead_2.htm
Mohamed Khodr's Opinion of the Mayor of London
No politician has ever had the courage to pen such a
column although many have privately expressed your sentiments. Those, like me,
who do write on such matters are excluded from the mainstream press and thus
toil in the world of virtual reality, the internet. The world agrees with you
but is too cowardly to speak out. I wholeheartedly pray that your courage has
opened the door for others to overcome their "Anti-Semitic" fears and
do justice to the suffering of the Palestinians, victims of the Sykes-Picot,
Balfour Declaration, the Cold War, Zionism, the Holocaust, and the surrender of
American foreign policy to the "elite Zionist experts" in Washington
D.C. who understand the "Arab/Muslim" mind given America's naiveté
and ignorance..
Mohamed Khodr, "To Ken Livingstone, With Gratitude, Love and
Admiration," Aljazeerah, March 5, 2005 --- http://snipurl.com/aljazeerahMarch5
Jensen Comment: Ken Livingstone is the Mayor of London --- http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/mayorbiog.jsp
Take that Larry Summers: IT's a woman's world
Women seem to be giving men a run for their money in
every profession today. This holds true even in the technology sector, which was
till recently dominated by the male fraternity. In fact, technology seems to be
creating new-age careers for women in sectors ranging from the number-crunching
banking to the research-oriented medicine. Says Jayanthi Sivaswami, associate
professor, International Institute of Information Technology (Hyderabad),
"Around 31 per cent of the workforce in India today constitutes of women,
of which 19 per cent are in the IT sector." Sivaswami was speaking at a
panel discussion on 'Technology enables new-age careers...
"IT's a woman's world," Rediff, March 5, 2005 --- http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/mar/05woman.htm
Lessons From the Edge
Much of traditional academe doesn't know what to
make of for-profit higher education. Is it to be emulated or feared? Gary A.
Berg, dean of extended education at California State University Channel Islands,
studied the sector -- and received extensive access to University of Phoenix
administrators and faculty members. The result is Lessons From the Edge:
For-Profit and Nontraditional Higher Education in America, recently published as
part of the American Council on Education/Praeger Series on Higher
Education. The article contains Berg's answers to some questions about his
research and his book:
Scott Jaschik, "Lessons From the Edge," Inside Higher Ed, March
4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/lessons_from_the_edge
How have for-profit higher education changed traditional universities?
I think they have probably accelerated a general trend, rather than changed the
course in American higher education at this point. Central components of the
for-profit model such as increased use of part-time faculty, intensive formats,
standardization, distributed and distance learning formats, an emphasis on
assessment are all increasingly used in traditional universities. For-profits
have come to symbolize the great transformation that is occurring in higher
education, but are not the sole cause.
Gary A. Berg, "Lessons From the Edge," Inside Higher Ed, March
4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/lessons_from_the_edge
Distance education is easier to assess
Yet assessing quality may be easier with an electronic course, Patrick said,
because so many measures can be tracked, including the number of times students
and teacher interact. That's not as transparent in a traditional class, she
said, because "the door is shut."
"Distance learning becoming part of school life," CNN, March 3,
2005 --- http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/03/03/distance.education.ap/index.html
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
It's too darn easy to alter the
letter F into B? With artistic talent, why Photo Shop it into an A?
. . .many mentioned the ease of altering report cards
and transcripts using desktop publishing software like Adobe Photoshop, which
allows students to capture a school's seal off its Web site and paste it into a
file to create an official-looking document. One administrator told of a
student who was caught forging his report card when the nearby Kinko's called
the school to report that a student had left a copy of his grades on the copier.
One principal said he had heard of students forging transcripts with
generic-embossed seals to avoid paying for official transcripts.
Jensen Harrumph: Students are really taking a chance on getting
caught for artfully doctoring the transcript of their dreams. In fact
that's really stupid. Why not order a professionally generated transcript
from Back Alley Press?
--- http://www.backalleypress.com/
Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mill frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill
Q: If I am considering buying a new laptop, should I wait until the new
802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking standard is available? If I purchase a laptop
now, should I buy one with an external wireless card so I can easily upgrade to
the new standard later?
A: If you need a new laptop now, I wouldn't wait,
even though the new "n" flavor of Wi-Fi promises to be faster and to
have much better range than the current "a," "b," and
"g" versions. I have no idea when the "n" standard will make
it into the marketplace, since it's still in the hands of a standards committee,
and such bodies tend to move slowly. I would also note that the new
standard is almost certain to be backwards-compatible with the current wireless
chips sold as internal equipment on today's laptops. So it isn't as if a laptop
purchased now with built-in Wi-Fi will be useless when the new standard emerges.
In fact, based on my testing of the so-called pre-N Wi-Fi gear made by Belkin,
some of the new standard's range and speed improvements will still be
attainable, even with older chips in your laptop.
Walter Mossberg, "Waiting for Wireless," The Wall Street Journal,
March 3, 2005, Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110980770284968899,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Q: I am ready to leave Hotmail and switch to another free mail service. I
tried to set up a Google "Gmail" account, but was unable to find any
sign-up page on their Web site. What are my best choices for setting up a new
free e-mail account?
A: At the moment, Gmail is available only to new
users who have been invited to join by existing members. That's why you couldn't
simply sign up. The main attraction of Gmail is that it offers one gigabyte of
mail storage free, a huge amount for an online e-mail service. So, if you know
somebody who is a Gmail user, you might try to get invited. Overall, I
prefer Yahoo Mail among the free online competitors. I find it's easy to
navigate, reliable, and packed with useful features. And, for a modest $20 a
year, you can boost your Yahoo mail storage to two gigabytes from the standard
250 megabytes, and get some other added services as well.
Walter Mossberg, "Q&A," The Wall Street Journal,
March 3, 2005, Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110980770284968899,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Say what? NHL games might become intramural sports matches if
purchased by a bottom feeder
Wall Street buyout firm part of joint proposal made to
owners. National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman reportedly invited Bain
Capital Partners LLC and Game Plan International to make a 30-minute
presentation to league owners on Tuesday. TORONTO - A Wall Street buyout firm
and a sports advisory company reportedly made a joint proposal to buy all 30 NHL
teams for as much as $3.5 billion. Bain Capital Partners LLC and Game Plan
International, both based in Boston, made the offer in a 30-minute presentation
to NHL owners on Tuesday in New York, sources told the Toronto Star and The...
"Report: $3.5 billion offer to buy all NHL teams," MSNBC, March
3, 2005 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7073831/
Drug Warning: Note that Asian-Americans are specifically targeted
The cholesterol drug Crestor is being relabeled to add a warning that starter
doses should be reduced in Asian-Americans and some other patients.
"Warning for Cholesterol Drug," The Wall Street Journal, March
3, 2005, Page D4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110979071346968482,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Q: What are the most commonly cited cases in law?
A: See Yale Law School's "The Curiae Project" at http://curiae.law.yale.edu/
If you’re looking for
an extreme example of bad ethics in your courses, this is it!
But some of the latest in hunting tech pushes the
ethical envelope, and some states are outlawing high-tech innovations that game
managers feel give hunters an undue advantage. A San
Antonio entrepreneur recently created an uproar
with a Web site, www.live-shot.com
, that aims to allow hunters to shoot exotic game animals or feral pigs on his
private hunting ranch by remote control, with the click of a mouse, from
anywhere in the world. "The idea of sitting at a computer screen
playing a video game and activating a remote controlled firearm to shoot an
animal is not hunting," said Kirby Brown, executive director of the Texas
Wildlife Association, a hunters' group. "It's off the ethical charts."
Jeff Bernard, "In Hunting, Tech Pushes Envelope of What's
Ethical," MIT's Technology Review, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/ap/ap_2030405.asp?trk=nl
Jensen Comment: This is even worse than hunting wolves or other wild game
with aircraft. Not only is it not sporting, it can become a tool for
terrorists. Lee Harvey Oswald could've been in Siberia on November 22,
1963 if this technology was available. I realize that the Air Force can do
this now, but I don't think there's a USAF Live-Shot Web site. The popular
“smoking gun” in court just went up in smoke.
Accounting usually gets them in the end
Remember the SCO mouse that roared when suing IBM and Linux
SCO says it missed the filing deadline over issues
relating to the accounting of its common stock and equity compensation plan. As
a result of adjustments to its accounting, SCO will be restating its earnings
for the first three quarters of 2004, BusinessWeek has learned. While the
restatements won't change its net loss or cash balance for that year, they are
likely to reduce its cash position by $500,000 or more in fiscal year 2005, says
an insider. . . What once looked like a mortal threat to Linux appears to be
fading. As a result, the suit has become a nonfactor in corporate buying
decisions. "I can't imagine how this will go anywhere," says Alex
Dietz, chief information officer at Acxiom, a Little Rock consumer-data-analysis
company that uses Linux.
"A Linux Nemesis on the Rocks SCO's lawsuit is floundering -- and now the
struggling software company faces regulators' scrutiny and questions about its
management," Business Week, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005033_4497_tc119.htm
Jensen Comments
The independent auditor for SCO is KPMG.
A SCO Versus IBM Website is at http://sco.iwethey.org/
The Anti-PHishing Working Group is an
international association dedicated to the elimination of fraud and identity
theft on the internet from phishing, pharming and spoofing. Their site contains
up-to-date reports on the extent of such activities.Anti-Phishing
Working Group
From Gerald Trite's Blog, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.zorba.ca/blog.html
Bob Jensen's threads on phishing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#Phishing
Social Security is a lot more than FDR envisioned when he started a
national pension plan
But the program has a multitude of other objectives,
moving money every which way. An essential reason for the decline in old-age
poverty, for example, is that older generations - which paid lower payroll taxes
- have received transfers from younger generations, who have paid higher taxes
to get the same or even lower levels of benefits. Social Security aims to
protect women who stay out of the work force to raise children, offering spousal
and survivor benefits that depend on the earnings of the working spouse. And the
program's disability insurance favors workers in tougher jobs, mainly at the
lower end of the income spectrum. Social Security's income redistribution
includes some unintended quirks. Survivor benefits are regressive, favoring
people whose spouses were high earners. And the nation's changing demographics
have created a patchwork of winners and losers that, to some extent, has
overridden the system's original purpose of favoring the poor. That's
because Social Security is more generous to people who have more time to collect
benefits, like women, who are expected to live three years longer than men, on
average, after retirement, and whites, who, after reaching 65, are expected to
live a year and a half longer than blacks.
Eduardo Porter, "Who Wins in a New Social Security?" The New York
Times, March 6, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/business/yourmoney/06view.html
When you gotta go, you don't gotta go
Do we not? The trouble is, if we have, why do I not
remember a student ever leaving the classroom to go to the bathroom during my
own college years? (Much less sleeping or eating.) Once during graduate school I
remember a student was asked to leave, because he would not stop talking to the
person next to him. He left immediately. The rest of us could not have been more
shocked than if he had got up suddenly and squatted in front of his chair.
During my more than 30 subsequent years as a professor I remember a few students
pleading bodily necessity in asking permission to leave. The first was a male,
who basked in his boldness after he asked. I told him, "sure, you can go,
but don't come back." Then it seemed he didn't have to go so urgently after
all. I insisted, saying that I couldn't live with either his urethra or his anus
on my conscience. The rest of the class laughed. Those were the days.
Terry Caesar, "Purely Academic Going to the Bathroom," Inside
Higher Ed, March 4, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/purely_academic
Lifestyle Changes: What hotel rooms do you like best (in terms of
rooms rather than settings)?
In fact, the room isn't in a hotel at all. It's one of
seven test guest rooms that sit unused, night after night, in the depths of
Marriott International Inc.'s headquarters. The rooms are part of
Marriott's effort to capitalize on a decade of research and tens of millions of
dollars to figure out what guests want. They also illustrate how hotel
operators are catering to a new generation of travelers whose trips are equal
parts work and play, and who more than ever yearn for the comforts of home even
when they're thousands of miles away.
"Building a better hotel room," Boston Globe, March 6, 2005 ---
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/03/06/building_a_better_hotel_room/
Jensen Comment: I thought the whole point was to make hotel rooms dreary
and uncomfortable so that guests spend more time in the stores, bars,
restaurants, and conference meetings where it's easier to sleep.
Why not just model the rooms after the world's most expensive hotel (or so we're told by Barb Hessel) --- http://www.dagbladet.no/
One woman's take on Martha before she served her time
The characters in your trial (who rather acted as
character witnesses) may seem uniquely rotten, as if Lady Luck heaped all the
putrid apples in your aproned lap. Not true. Open any psychology textbook;
you'll find profiles of each and every one, which means you'll meet them all
again. Repeatedly. As long, that is, as you're You (a Forbes-listed,
high-society kitchen Picasso) and people are People (parasitic ass-kissers
hoping your ilk will choke to death on a drumstick). Forgive me—my cynicism is
indelicate. But judging from your megalomaniac fibbing (yes, yes, I know, the
investigation was petty in light of the mighty Martha brand name), and genuine
horror at the Lilliputians who dared rat you out (the only one-woman
conglomerate in human history!)...well, your judgment seems a little off.
Elizabeth Koch, "Martha On the Inside: Jailhouse advice for the
domestic diva," ReasonOnLine, October 7, 2004 --- http://www.reason.com/martha/oct7.shtml
Now schools need to hire guards for the bathrooms as well as
teachers
A couple filed a lawsuit Friday against the Anchorage
School District, saying their 6-year-old son was sexually assaulted by a
classmate after the boys were left unattended in a school bathroom. The lawsuit
seeks damages and changes to district policies regarding how students and staff
are trained to handle sexual assaults and how students are monitored. The
lawsuit doesn't name the family or the child's school, to protect
confidentiality, said attorney Dennis Maloney, who is representing the
plaintiffs. The district has 40 days to respond to the lawsuit. "I will not
dispute the fact the incident occurred," Superintendent...
"Parents sue school district over rape of 6-year-old," Juneau Empire,
March 6, 2005 --- http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/030605/sta_20050306008.shtml
Modern Day Bullies
Cyberbullies, mostly ages 9 to 14, are using the
anonymity of the Web to mete out pain without witnessing the consequences. The
problem — aggravated by widespread use of wireless devices such as cellphones
and BlackBerrys — is especially prevalent in affluent suburbs, where
high-speed Internet use is high and kids are technically adept, says Parry Aftab,
executive director of WiredSafety.org, an online safety group. “Some
kids can't wait to get home so they can continue taunting,” says Aftab, who is
also an Internet lawyer. “Maybe we need to protect kids from one another
online as much as we shield them from dangerous adults.” Often, the
social cruelties escape the notice of schools, which focus on problems on
campus, and of parents, who are unaware of what their kids are doing online.
Jon Swartz, "Schoolyard bullies get nastier online: Hurtful messages
can hit kids anytime, anywhere," USA Today, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050307/1a_cover07.art.htm
Small Business Helpers from Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2005 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2005/news_web.htm
Food for Thought
www.businessownersideacafe.com
“A fun approach to serious business” is the tag line here, with lively graphics and laid-back narrative that punch up its material. The Small Biz Tax Center helps clarify IRS tax and recordkeeping requirements and gives tips for start-up business owners. The CyberSchmooz “lobby” opens onto message forums on e-commerce, marketing and working at home. The Your Biz section includes a “fridge” full of business forms, e-mail protocols, marketing tips and even yoga instructions.Small Company, Big Resources
www.allbusiness.com
From forms for consulting and confidentiality agreements to advice on sales and marketing or using the Internet, this Web stop offers guidance to CPAs who advise start-ups and small businesses. The Business Plans section has articles such as “Common Business Plan Mistakes for Startup Companies,” while the Small Business Advice section provides tax basics. Users also can tap into an FAQ section or a business glossary or sign up for a free e-newsletter.A Dear Abby for Small Business
www.score.org
Since first listed here in June 2003, this site has added resources to its Business Toolbox section including a gallery of downloadable templates for bank loan applications, business plans and sales forecasts, as well as expanded links to such small business topics as finance, franchising and international trade. The Learning Center has a list of tips for business planning, marketing, public relations and office management.
Bob Jensen's small business helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness
I wasn't sure if I was reading about a resort or
a diversity-optimized college campus on the Oregon coast
FOR REASONS OF HEALTH & SAFETY OCEAN HAVEN CANNOT
ACCOMMODATE SMOKERS, PETS, FOLKS TRAVELING IN A HUMMER, OR FOLKS WHO VOTED FOR
BUSH & HIS NATURE DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES
Ocean Haven on the Oregon Coast --- http://oceanhaven.com/htmls/practices.html
And for those living guest, I think you have to take your own sewage back home
where it belongs.
Jokes from night TV --- http://www.newsmax.com/liners.shtml
Jay Leno says "Hillary would make a good president but not a good
intern."
These are sources you might look at when tracking the resignation of the president of Colorado University and the saga of Ward Churchill and his little eichmans:
CBS4 Denver --- http://news4colorado.com/cuscandal
She says it's the budget rather than her bad boys
The president of the University of Colorado, Elizabeth Hoffman, resigned Monday
after struggling with a football recruiting scandal and a firestorm over a
professor who likened some Sept. 11 victims to Nazis . . . She said in a
telephone interview that the Churchill case was not the impetus for her
resignation, but that it had become a distraction that was hindering her ability
to address what she called a more serious problem, a budget crisis at the
university over a shortage of state financing. "It was becoming
increasingly difficult to be strong on the issues that were important in the
long run because it kept coming back to questions about me," Dr. Hoffman
said, "so I decided I had to take my future, my job, off the table."
Dr. Hoffman, 58, was named the university's president on Sept. 1, 2000, after
serving as provost at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Kirk Johnson, "University President Resigns at Colorado Amid Turmoil,"
The New York Times, March 8, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/national/08colorado.html
Bob Jensen's threads on Ward Churchill --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyChurchill.htm
Egads! Is this what you call filling in where schools fail?
The College Board will administer its revised
college-admissions test to thousands of high-school juniors for the first time
on Saturday, and the test has generated a bonanza of new study aids. "The
new SAT has led to a flurry of new products because all publishers are starting
new -- there's a new thing to compete over," says Justin Kestler, a founder
of SparkNotes LLC, a division of Borders
Group Inc. Adds Jon Zeitlin, manager of college-prep programs for
Kaplan Inc., a unit of Washington
Post Co.: "We've been on a product-creation jag for months."
Test-prep giant Princeton
Review Inc., which isn't affiliated with Princeton University, has developed
software that delivers test questions, including critical-reading passages, to
cellphone screens -- then grades the answers and sends the results home to Mom
and Dad. Its chief competitor Kaplan has software for a cellphone or a Palm
device: Order up easy, medium or hard questions in reading, writing or math.
Texas
Instruments Inc. is programming all of its latest graphing calculators with
SAT math and vocabulary drills. And SparkNotes has its test-prep eye on the
ubiquitous iPod. "We're trying to figure out how to do it in audio,"
says Mr. Kestler. "It's the next big killer application."
June Kronholz, "To Tackle New SAT, Perhaps You Need A New Study Device:
Test-Prep CDs, Puzzles, Cellphone Software Hit A June Market of
Nonreaders," The Wall Street Journal, March 8. 2005, Page A1
--- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111024562510773081,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment
College admission tests serve many purposes, not the least of which is to guide
students into what to learn in school. One of the failings of our schools
and the college tests is the failure to test and motivate students toward
understanding personal finance. Why is this important? Personal
finances are a major cause of suicide and divorce. Sometimes I don't think
teachers really are concerned about the tragedies of life that affect nearly all
people later in life from the very poor to the very rich. Our graduates
mess of their lives because they mess up their personal finances and/or allow
themselves to be screwed by credit card companies, finance companies, brokers,
financial advisors, and banks (yes and banks).
Please read the following:
"Survey: Students Not Taught Basic Finance," Ben Feller, SmartPros,
March 7, 2005 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x47289.xml
And then look at the following:
March 4, 2005 message from a staff member at Trinity University
Think of the many people whose lives might be saved and whose marriages might be more successful if they understood the basics of who to keep out of digging themselves into financial holes and how to stop digging once they're in those holes.
Bob Jensen's threads on the dirty tricks of credit card companies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO
Free credit report offers seem to flood the Internet these days. Most companies claiming to give you a free credit report are really looking to sell you something in the long run, such as a credit monitoring service or identity-fraud protection.
So, stop surfing around online for a
free credit report, most of the offers you will find are not really free. If you
do not qualify for a free credit report, you are still better going straight to
the actual credit bureaus and just paying the $8 that a credit report costs.
Knowing what your credit file says about you is priceless.
"Free Credit Report Offers... Are They Really Free? - Consumer Alert,"
AccountingWeb, March 3, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/item/100593
Free credit report offers seem to flood the Internet these days. Most companies claiming to give you a free credit report are really looking to sell you something in the long run, such as a credit monitoring service or identity-fraud protection. Once you purchase the service, you will be given a copy of your credit report, usually from just one of the major credit bureaus. Since there are three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Transunion, and Equifax), you will not see the complete picture if you do not receive a report from each one.
Other websites that sell credit reports are resellers for the real credit bureaus and exist to make a profit. Some of these websites are very useful if you intend to pay, and are very convenient as a centralized place to obtain a 3-in-1 report with a personalized account that you can return to at anytime to order more reports; however, you will not receive anything for free.
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 you are entitled to a free credit report if your application for credit, insurance or employment is denied because of information provided by a credit reporting agency (CRA). The company that you applied to must provide you with a denial notice which will contain the name, address, and phone number of the CRA that was used. You must request your report within 60 days of receiving the notice of the action. In addition, you are entitled to one free report a year if (1) you are unemployed and plan to look for a job within 60 days, (2) you are on welfare, or (3) your report is inaccurate because of fraud.
Residents of Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and Vermont already have a right to one free report per bureau each year because of laws enacted by those states. However, a new Federal provision enacted in 2003, grants access to free credit reports to all consumers in every state.
Free Annual Credit Reports Available to Everyone
According to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, every consumer is entitled to one free credit report each year. The final rule on this Act issued by the Federal Trade Commission in June 2004, provides for a centralized source from which consumers can obtain their credit reports from each of the three credit bureaus.
The centralized source is becoming available in cumulative stages, over a period of nine months, rolling-out from west. The rollout began in December 2004 and will be complete by September 1, 2005. Western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming) became eligible on December 1, 2004;
Midwestern states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) will become eligible on March 1, 2005; Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas ) will become eligible on June 1, 2005; Eastern states (Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia), Puerto Rico, and all U.S. territories will become eligible on September 1, 2005.
So, stop surfing around online for a free credit report, most of the offers you will find are not really free. If you do not qualify for a free credit report, you are still better going straight to the actual credit bureaus and just paying the $8 that a credit report costs. Knowing what your credit file says about you is priceless.
You can read more about free credit reports at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/credit/ycr_free_reports.htm
I agree with the
habit of spending within one’s means. But
there still is a question of stupid spending within one’s means.
For example, should families really spend extra for an entirely new car
even if they can make the payments? And
do they understand the car’s financing --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudDealers.htm
For earlier editions of New
Bookmark
s go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Archives of Tidits: Tidbits Directory --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Click
here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search
Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term
"Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine
that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.
Bob Jensen's home page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse
H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity
University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax:
210-999-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu
