Tidbits on October 5, 2010
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

The most popular tourist season in the mountains of New England is the foliage season
For three weeks or more the country inns and hotels are booked to near capacity
Too much rain and too little cold weather prevented this season from being the best color that I've seen up here
But it still dazzles both visitors and the home crowd with a rainbow of colors across in the trees and on the ground

This week I made a special photo page on my favorite autumn foliage photographs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/Foliage/FoliageFavorites.htm 

FRIENDSHIP OR LOVE ♥ PRIJATELJSTVO ILI LJUBAV --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfbchq0xQmQ I
This is unbelievable

Take a Laughter Break --- http://www.thelaughtermovie.com/?cm_mmc=CheetahMail-_-MO-_-9.06.10-_-LVACMovie

Tidbits on October 5, 2010
Bob Jensen

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

NEW!
Bob Jensen's threads on Annuities With Unequal Compounding and Payment Periods:  The CFA Deconstruction Analysis
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryAnnuity01.htm

Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

FRIENDSHIP OR LOVE ♥ PRIJATELJSTVO ILI LJUBAV --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfbchq0xQmQ
This is unbelievable

Take a Laughter Break --- http://www.thelaughtermovie.com/?cm_mmc=CheetahMail-_-MO-_-9.06.10-_-LVACMovie

Tim Hawkins- Old Rock Star Songs --- Click Here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnPINGavPP0&feature=PlayList&p=92312574A1E6459C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=47

Digital UMass (multimedia campus history) --- http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/umarmot/?page_id=697 

Illinois State Museum: Audio-Video Barn --- http://avbarn.museum.state.il.us/

New Perspectives: The Cleveland Museum of Art [Flash Player] --- http://www.clevelandart.org/collections/New Perspectives.aspx 

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

Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive (includes comedy and music) --- http://www.dartmouth.edu/~djsa/

Those Old 45s --- http://oldfortyfives.com/TakeMeBackToTheFifties.htm  

Puccini's 'La Boheme' From The Vienna State Opera (Clips from the Introduction) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130239317

Web outfits like Pandora, Foneshow, Stitcher, and Slacker broadcast portable and mobile content that makes Sirius look overpriced and stodgy ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090327_877363.htm?link_position=link2

TheRadio (my favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.theradio.com/
Slacker (my second-favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.slacker.com/
Gerald Trites likes this international radio site --- http://www.e-radio.gr/
Songza:  Search for a song or band and play the selection --- http://songza.com/
Also try Jango --- http://www.jango.com/?r=342376581
Sometimes this old guy prefers the jukebox era (just let it play through) --- http://www.tropicalglen.com/
And I listen quite often to Soldiers Radio Live --- http://www.army.mil/fieldband/pages/listening/bandstand.html
Also note U.S. Army Band recordings --- http://bands.army.mil/music/default.asp

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

Photographs and Art

Illinois State Museum: Audio-Video Barn --- http://avbarn.museum.state.il.us/

Fort Ticonderoga --- http://www.fort-ticonderoga.org/index.htm 

The Center for Cartoon Studies --- http://www.cartoonstudies.org/

The Hale Scrapbook (cartoon history) --- http://cartoons.osu.edu/hale/Hale.php

The Stuart McDonald Cartoon Collection http://www.library.und.edu/digital/McDonald.htm

Bill Mauldin's Military Cartoons --- Click Here

The Opper Project (editorial cartoons) --- http://hti.osu.edu/opper/index.cfm

University of Nebraska Libraries Digital Collections: Government Comics Collection --- 
http://contentdm.unl.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/comics

Digital Comic Museum --- http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/ 

New Perspectives: The Cleveland Museum of Art [Flash Player] --- http://www.clevelandart.org/collections/New Perspectives.aspx 

Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History

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

The Red Brush (writings from Imperial China) --- http://digital.wustl.edu/r/red/

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

Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on October 5, 2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations100510.htm        

Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

4G (fourth generation wireless) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G

"The state of 4G wireless at a glance," MIT's Technology Review, September 21, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/wire/26335/?nlid=3540&a=f

This is a summary of how U.S. wireless carriers are dealing with the transition to fourth-generation, or 4G, network technology, which promises faster data speeds:

-- Sprint Nextel Corp. subsidiary Clearwire Corp. already has a 4G network up and running, and Sprint started selling the first compatible phone this summer. But Clearwire is using WiMax, a technology that's imcompatible with LTE, which everyone else is using or plans to use.

-- Verizon Wireless plans to bring LTE to 25 to 30 cities later this year, mainly for PC modems. Phones will come next year.

-- AT&T Inc. plans to launch commercial LTE service in the middle of next year. In the meantime, it's upgrading the speeds on its 3G network.

-- T-Mobile USA hasn't made any specific plans public. It's focusing on upgrading its 3G network for now.

-- LightSquared is a dark-horse entrant funded by a private equity firm. It plans to build an independent LTE network, with service starting next year, but financial and regulatory hurdles remain.

-- MetroPCS Communications Inc. turned on LTE in Las Vegas on Tuesday, and plans to expand it to the rest of its coverage area by January.

Bob Jensen's technology bookmarks are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm

Listings of U.S. University Endowments (including a table on endowments per student) 2005-2009 ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment

Surprising things happen in tables for endowments per student. Number 1 is Princeton University and Number 2 is Bryn Athyn College (never heard of it until now). However, the table below is only for years 2005 and 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment

A more current listing of many university data tables is provided in the "Almanac Issue 2010-2011" from the Chronicle of Higher Education. August 27, 2010I got my booklet in hard copy in late August 2010. None subscribers can get the booklet at a cover price of $15. Most online links to this Almanac data are only available to subscribers, although students and faculty on campus may be able to use their library's subscription ---
http://chronicle.com/section/Almanac-of-Higher-Education/463/

Ignobel Prize --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
I think the panel that awards these prizes annually have overlooked hundreds, maybe thousands, of great accountics research candidates

List of Ignoble Prize Winners --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners

2010 Winners --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners#2010

• Engineering: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and others for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
• Medicine: Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.
• Transportation Planning: Toshiyuki Nakagaki and others for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
• Physics: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
• Peace: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
• Public Health: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
• Economic: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.
• Chemistry: Eric Adams, Scott Socolofsky, Stephen Masutani and British Petroleum, for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
• Management: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
• Biology: Libiao Zhang and others, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.

Academics Win Prestigious MacArthur Fellowships:  It helps to be employed by a prestigious university ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/28/qt#239254

Academics are well-represented among the 23 winners, named today by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as new MacArthur Fellows for 2010. The awardees receive $500,000, no strings attached, and they didn't even have to apply. The winners include professors at the California Institute of Technology; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cornell, Harvard, Oregon State and Stanford Universities; the University of California campuses at Berkeley, Davis, and San Diego; and the Universities of Chicago and Minnesota.

"Really Engaging Accounting: Second LifeTM as a Learning Platform," by Steven Hornik and Steven Thornburg, Issues in Accounting Education 25(3), 361 (August 2010) (Not Free) --- Click Here

ABSTRACT: This position paper argues that the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) be integrated across the accounting curriculum, in a manner relevant to the temporal stage and content of particular courses within the curriculum. XBRL is a metadata representation language for the Internet, based on the World Wide Web consortium's eXtensible Markup Language (XML). XBRL provides an important foundation for the automated transfer of accounting information and associated metadata. The design of XBRL is fine-tuned to meet the particular needs of accounting and related disclosures. Several countries have adopted XBRL in a variety of information value chains, notably in the USA context the Securities and Exchange Commission's interactive data program. XBRL has implications for the totality of the accounting curriculum and pedagogy. A program for the integration of XBRL across a typical accounting curriculum is developed. The proposed XBRL assignments, as part of this program, are aligned with Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objectives. Recommendations are made for faculty, case and textbook writers, and the leadership of the XBRL and academic accounting communities

PS
The entire August 2010 issue of IAE is a special issue devoted to AIS, XBRL, and related topics.

Bob Jensen's threads on Second Life and Other Virtual Worlds ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#SecondLife

Hate may be too strong a verb, but this article does raise some good points
"Why Do They Hate Us?" by Thomas H. Benton, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 26, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Do-They-Hate-Us-/124608/

I  am only a decade out of graduate school—and I suppose it's possible that I am a disagreeable person—but I have had more than a few unpleasant conversations with complete strangers, and even some friends, in which they have expressed their anger about professors while knowing that I am one.

• "What you teach is worthless—I mean, who needs more measurements of Walt Whitman's beard when the economy and the environment are collapsing?"

• "Being a professor is good money for, like, six hours of work per week. What do you do with all that free time?"

• "Oh, I can't talk to you, since I'm not politically correct or anything."

• "I wish I had tenure and didn't have to worry about being fired for not doing my job." 

• "Why don't you English profs just teach people how to write?"

• "I still owe more than $50,000 for my undergraduate degree, and it's never done me any good."

• "My job [pharmaceutical sales] saves lives; your so-called work is a waste of other people's time and money."

I seldom admit or discuss my primary occupation with nonacademics nowadays, if I can avoid it. It's safer to say that I'm a program administrator.

By now, most academics are inoculated against attacks from the right, the conversational relics of the culture war of a generation ago: Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (1987), Charles Sykes's ProfScam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education (1988), and Martin Anderson's Impostors in the Temple (1992), to name just a few. I almost feel nostalgia for that time, since the conversation was about what professors should teach. There was no doubt, as yet, whether higher education would continue in some recognizable form.

Over the last 20 years, the positions on both sides have hardened. But now the criticisms of academe are also coming from the left, and not just from the think tanks and journalists, but increasingly from within academe. Some of those works include Marc Bousquet's How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation (2008); Cary Nelson's No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom (2010); and, most recently, Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—And What We Can Do About It (2010), by Andrew Hacker and Claudia C. Dreifus; and Mark Taylor's Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities (2010).

For the past several months, The Chronicle's forums and the comment section of its articles—and the larger blogosphere—have been abuzz with discussions of a string of seemingly anti-faculty articles with titles like "Goodbye to Those Overpaid Professors and Their Cushy Jobs" (July 25) and "Do All Faculty Members Really Need Private Offices?" (July 30). The majority feeling seems to be that the present model of higher education is no longer sustainable, and that the necessary changes will focus—for good or ill—on the working lives of professors.

I can't remember a time when professors, particularly in the humanities and social sciences—already the survivors of a 40-year depression in the academic job market—had a stronger feeling of being under siege. At some institutions, there is something aggressive and visceral about the recent rounds of cutbacks and accountability measures. They go beyond mere economic justifications.

So "hate" is not too strong a word, I think, for how nonacademics feel about us. Some of the reasons should flatter us, some are the result of economic and institutional forces beyond our control, and a few should cause us to wonder whether we deserve to be the last generation of traditional academics.

Anti-intellectualism and populism. Those tendencies in American life are not new, but they have become more virulent (see parts one and two of my column "On Stupidity"). Traditionally, professors have countered the tendency toward simplistic, slogan-based thinking—and manipulation—by teaching students to evaluate sources and reach their own conclusions on the basis of evidence derived from painstaking research.

The notion that knowledge is always political, and that perspectives are always relative, has eroded the belief in expertise and earned authority. If everyone's biased, including professors, why not just "go with your gut"? It's much easier, and it empowers you against the academics whose admonitions—as we have lost influence—have become increasingly condescending, sanctimonious, and shrill.

Market-based values. Academics, as a group, are among the last people who question the market as the sole determiner of value. We continue to hold out against the idea that our students are customers who must be pleased even at the cost of their own development. I think most professors still believe, privately, that our role is to liberate students and prepare them for lives of leadership in a relatively democratic society.

A generation ago, we could still defend the belief that our courses in literature, art, history, philosophy—the liberal arts, broadly defined, and always self-critical—were enriching in ways that could not be deposited in a bank or measured by outcomes assessment. In the intervening years, that consensus has fragmented, and we are no longer able to articulate a coherent vision of why others should value what we teach. And with that, I think, we have lost any remaining justification for our autonomy.

The rising cost of higher education. The price of a college degree has risen faster than the cost of health care. Anxiety about those costs crowds out the mental space that might be given to contemplating subjects without direct, practical applications.

The cost increase is driven not by faculty salaries, primarily, but by the rapid growth of administration, massive athletics programs, and the amenities arms race—not who has the most full-time faculty members so much as who has the most successful football team and the fanciest dorm rooms. Some institutions have astronomical endowments and tax-exempt status, asking a mostly excluded population to support what looks like country-club indulgences for elites.

But it is the faculty members who are held accountable for the cost of education, even while a growing majority of them are adjuncts and graduate students who receive no benefits and earn less than the minimum wage.

The changing job market. For a long time, college has been marketed as a requirement for entry into middle-class occupations. A lot of students—surely the majority—now attend college for reasons that have little to do with education for its own sake. Even so, when higher education was a reasonably secure pathway to employment, professors were worthy of some respect: We were gatekeepers, and we could help you. But in today's economic climate, a college degree is expensive, time-consuming, coercive, and does not necessarily lead to employment.

If institutions can't respond to that situation, why shouldn't students, who are not wealthy or devoted to the life of the mind, invest their money and time in something else, like starting a business?

Ignorance about what professors do. Highly paid academic stars make it politically possible to paint faculty members as pampered elites. A few weeks ago, I heard Andrew Hacker say, in an NPR interview, that a major problem with higher education is that "you have professors drawing six-figure salaries for two hours in the classroom each week."

That's a common claim, most often made by politicians looking to slash education budgets. But academic superstars are rare. They are limited to elite research universities, where professors are not paid, primarily, for their teaching.

For all of us, time in the classroom is just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to published research (now required of faculty members at most levels of higher education), courses must be prepared, papers graded, students advised and supported, and administrative work conducted. Many tenure-track faculty members spend more time on administrative work than they do on teaching or research, because there are relatively few of us left to conduct the business of our institutions.

Professors are not a leisure class. Most of us work more than 50 hours a week, and whatever free time we have is generally spent thinking about work or answering e-mail and texts from colleagues and students. We are never off the clock.

Overproduction of scholarly research. Specialized research is inherently difficult to understand, yet we often hear demands that work outside of the sciences should be immediately accessible to the general public. There is no question that more work can be done to publicize the value of scholarship in many fields, but there is also no doubt that a lot of scholarly productivity is a result of the increasing competitiveness of the academic job system.

The pressure to publish, at every level, arguably at the expense of our students, is not something that most academics have chosen, and it has led to a collapse of the university-press system, skyrocketing publishing costs, unsustainable pressures on library budgets, and, ironically, declining engagement with our larger disciplines—a loss of a common scholarly culture—since it's a challenge simply to keep up with a few subfields.

Another result is that many courses reflect specialized research interests rather than broader topics that might be more useful to our students.

Tenure. In a period of extreme anxiety about economic security, when millions of people are losing their jobs, and their lives are unraveling, the appearance of a professor with a job for life and no accountability seems as offensive as a portly aristocrat being carried in a sedan chair through the streets of Paris during the hungry summer of 1789.

Continued in article
 

Jensen Comment
Can you think of other reasons to "hate us?" For example, many employees in the private and public sectors give up their returns from work-related consulting and book royalties. Top professors six-figure salaries and keep additional consulting fees and book royalties that, in many instances, are enhanced by the reputations of their employers. For example, a MIT professor who consults or obtains successful textbook royalties greatly benefits by being affiliated with one of the great universities of the world. Sounds like a cushy deal to me!

The counter argument of course is that professors would do less consulting and textbook writing if they did not get huge rewards for their added efforts. The public, however, does not always see it this way, especially when they are taxpayers helping to pay the salaries of the professors.

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

Humanities Versus Business --- That is the Question

Undergraduate business degrees -- the go-to “employment friendly” major -- has increased from 1970-71, with 115,400 degrees conferred, to 2007-08, with 335,250 conferred. In a parallel development, institutions graduated seven times more communications and journalism majors in 2007-08 than in 1970-71. And while numbers are small, there has been exponential growth in “parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies,” “security and protective services,” and “transportation and materials moving” degrees. Computer science, on the other hand, peaked in the mid-80s, dropped in the mid-90s, peaked again in the mid-2000s, and dropped again in the last five years.
"Liberal Arts I: They Keep Chugging Along," by W. Robert Connor and Cheryl Ching  Inside Higher Ed, October 1, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/10/01/connor

When the economy goes down, one expects the liberal arts -- especially the humanities -- to wither, and laments about their death to go up. That’s no surprise since these fields have often defined themselves as unsullied by practical application. This notion provides little comfort to students -- and parents -- who are anxious about their post-college prospects; getting a good job -- in dire times, any job -- is of utmost importance. (According to CIRP’s 2009 Freshman Survey, 56.5 percent of students -- the highest since 1983 -- said that “graduates getting good jobs” was an important factor when choosing where to go to college.)

One expects students, then, to rush to courses and majors that promise plenty of entry-level jobs. Anticipating this, college administrators would cut back or eliminate programs that are not “employment friendly,” as well as those that generate little research revenue. Exit fields like classics, comparative literature, foreign languages and literatures, philosophy, religion, and enter only those that are preprofessional in orientation. Colleges preserving a commitment to the liberal arts would see a decline in enrollment; in some cases, the institution itself would disappear.

So runs the widespread narrative of decline and fall. Everyone has an anecdote or two to support this story, but does it hold in general and can we learn something from a closer examination of the facts?

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that the number of bachelor's degrees in “employment friendly” fields has been on the rise since 1970. Undergraduate business degrees -- the go-to “employment friendly” major -- has increased from 1970-71, with 115,400 degrees conferred, to 2007-08, with 335,250 conferred. In a parallel development, institutions graduated seven times more communications and journalism majors in 2007-08 than in 1970-71. And while numbers are small, there has been exponential growth in “parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies,” “security and protective services,” and “transportation and materials moving” degrees. Computer science, on the other hand, peaked in the mid-80s, dropped in the mid-90s, peaked again in the mid-2000s, and dropped again in the last five years.

What has students’ turn to such degrees meant for the humanities and social sciences? A mapping of bachelor degrees conferred in the humanities from 1966 to 2007 by the Humanities Indicator Project shows that the percentage of such majors was highest in the late 1960s (17-18 percent of all degrees conferred), low in the mid-1980s (6-7 percent), and more or less level since the early 1990s (8-9 percent). Trends, of course, vary from discipline to discipline.

Degrees awarded in English dropped from a high of 64,627 in 1970-71 to half that number in the early 1980s, before rising to 55,000 in the early 1990s and staying at that level since then. The social sciences and history were hit with a similar decline in majors in 1970s and 1980s, but then recovered nicely in the years since then and now have more than they did in 1970. The numbers of foreign language, philosophy, religious studies, and area studies majors have been stable since 1970. IPEDS data pick up where the Humanities Indicator Project leaves off and tell that in 2008 and 2009, the number of students who graduated with bachelor's degrees in English, foreign language and literatures, history, and philosophy and religion have remained at the same level.

What’s surprising about this bird’s-eye view of undergraduate education is not the increase in the number of majors in programs that should lead directly to a job after graduation, but that the number of degrees earned in the humanities and related fields have not been adversely affected by the financial troubles that have come and gone over the last two decades.

Of course, macro-level statistics reveal only part of the story. What do things look like at the ground level? How are departments faring? Course enrollments? Majors? Since the study of the Greek and Roman classics tends to be a bellwether for trends in the humanities and related fields (with departments that are small and often vulnerable), it seemed reasonable to ask Adam Blistein of the American Philological Association whether classics departments were being dropped at a significant number of places. “Not really” was his answer; while the classics major at Michigan State was cut, and a few other departments were in difficulty, there was no widespread damage to the field -- at least not yet.

Big declines in classics enrollments? Again, the answer seems to be, “Not really.” Many institutions report a steady gain in the number of majors over the past decade. Princeton’s classics department, for example, announced this past spring 17 graduating seniors, roughly twice what the number had been three decades ago. And the strength is not just in elite institutions. Charles Pazdernik at Grand Valley State University in hard-hit Michigan reported that his department has 50+ majors on the books and strong enrollments in language courses.

If classics seems to be faring surprisingly well, what about the modern languages? There are dire reports about German and Russian, and the Romance languages seem increasingly to be programs in Spanish, with a little French and Italian tossed in. The Modern Language Association reported in fall 2006 -- well before the current downturn -- a 12.9 percent gain in language study since 2002. This translates into 180,557 more enrollments. Every language except Biblical Hebrew showed increases, some exponential -- Arabic (126.5 percent), Chinese (51 percent), and Korean (37.1 percent) -- while others less so -- French (2.2 percent), German (3.5 percent), and Russian (3.9 percent). (Back to the ancient world for a moment: Latin saw a 7.9 percent increase, and ancient Greek 12.1 percent). The study of foreign languages, in other words, seems not to be disappearing; the mix is simply changing.

Theoretical and ideological issues have troubled and fragmented literature departments in recent years, but a spring 2010 conference on literary studies at the National Humanities Center suggests that the field is enjoying a revitalization. The mood was eloquent, upbeat, innovative; no doom and gloom, even though many participants were from institutions where painful budget cuts had recently been made.

A similar mood was evident at National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education, a gathering of some highly regarded assistant professors in the humanities and social sciences this past February. They were well aware that times were tough, the job market for Ph.D.s miserable, and tenure prospects uncertain. Yet their response was to get on with the work of strengthening liberal education, rather than bemoan its decline and fall. Energy was high, and with it the conviction that the best way to move liberal education forward was to achieve demonstrable improvements in student learning.

It’s true that these young faculty members are from top-flight universities. What about smaller, less well-endowed institutions? Richard Ekman of the Council of Independent Colleges reports that while a few of the colleges in his consortium are indeed in trouble, most were doing quite well, increasing enrollments and becoming more selective. And what about state universities and land grant institutions, where most students go to college? Were they scuttling the liberal arts and sciences because of fierce cutbacks? David Shulenburger of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities says that while budget cuts have resulted in strategic “consolidation of programs and sometimes the elimination of low-enrollment majors,” he does not “know of any public universities weakening their liberal education requirements.”

Mark Twain once remarked that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. The liberal arts disciplines, it seems, can say the same thing. The on-the-ground stories back up the statistics and reinforce the idea that the liberal arts are not dying, despite the soft job market and the recent recession. Majors are steady, enrollments are up in particular fields, and students -- and institutions -- aren’t turning their backs on disciplines that don’t have obvious utility for the workplace. The liberal arts seem to have a particular endurance and resilience, even when we expect them to decline and fall.

One could imagine any number of reasons why this is the case -- the inherent conservatism of colleges and universities is one -- but maybe something much more dynamic is at work. Perhaps the stamina of the liberal arts in today’s environment draws in part from the vital role they play in providing students with a robust liberal education, that is, a kind of education that develops their knowledge in a range of disciplinary fields, and importantly, their cognitive skills and personal competencies. The liberal arts continue -- and likely will always -- give students an education that delves into the intricate language of Shakespeare or Woolf, or the complex historical details of the Peloponnesian War or the French Revolution. That is a given.

But what the liberal arts also provide is a rich site for students to think critically, to write analytically and expressively, to consider questions of moral and ethical importance (as well as those of meaning and value), and to construct a framework for understanding the infinite complexities and uncertainties of human life. This is, as many have argued before, a powerful form of education, a point that students, the statistics and anecdotes show, agree with.

W. Robert Connor is the former president of the Teagle Foundation, to which he is now a senior adviser. Cheryl Ching is a program officer at Teagle.

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

"Introducing “Kno” — Unique approach to computer design," by Rick Lillie, Thinking Outside the Box Blog,  September 27, 2010 —
http://iaed.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/introducing-kno-unique-approach-to-computer-design/

Here’s a technology change that is worth looking into.  Late last week, I read a blog comment about Kno, a computer designed to be a digital textbook, with touch screen interaction in a single or dual screen format.  It’s a tablet computer that you can write on, highlight, watch video, and read.  It includes a pen stylus with inking technology like full-blown tablet computers.  Kno can include a student’s textbooks, course materials, notes, web links, and more.  It’s a complete tablet computer.  Click the picture below to view the Kno website.  View the video and listen to reactions from students who use Kno.

I have used an IBM (Lenovo) ThinkPad X61 for sometime now.  It’s an incredible machine that in my opinion goes way beyond the capabilities of Apple’s  iPad.  I can hardly wait to see the Kno tablet computer.  This is exciting technology.

Enjoy.

Rick Lillie

Bob Jensen's technology bookmarks are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm

Chris Deeley in Australia and I have been corresponding regarding an antique learning curve paper that I published nearly 20 years ago. You can read some of our correspondence at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theorylearningcurves.htm
In that correspondence I discuss the good and evil of the Wolfram Alpha computational search engine.

Instructors might want to consider adding this to their teaching modules on time value of money and annuity mathematics of finance.

Working Paper 440
Annuities With Unequal Compounding and Payment Periods:  The CFA Deconstruction Analysis
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Financial calculators and Excel financial formulas for computing present value, interim payments, and rates of return assume that p=m where p is the number of equally-spaced payments per year and m is the number equally-spaced interest compoundings per year. Complications introduced by p not being equal to m are not trivial problems. These complications are overlooked in many (probably almost all) mathematics of finance modules in both high school and college courses.

This note will demonstrate how to deal with complications when the number of payments per year is unequal to the number in times interest is compounded per year. This is not a purely academic problem. Companies buying and selling annuities often do not want to change the number of times interest is compounded every time they change the number of payments per year in a contract such as semi-annual payments versus quarterly payments versus monthly payments.

The paper was inspired by the following working paper sent to me by an Australian professor named Chris Deeley. Chris subsequently allowed me to put his paper on one of my Web servers:

"IDENTIFICATION AND CORRECTION OF A COMMON ERROR IN GENERAL ANNUITY CALCULATIONS"
by Chris Deeley  cdeeley@csu.edu.au 
Working Paper, Charles Sturt University, Australia, September 22, 2010
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeeleyAnnuityCorrections.pdf

For illustrative purposes I will focus on the following example on Page 11 of Professor Deeley's working paper:

Example 2
A loan of $1million is to be repaid in equal monthly installments over four years. If the annual interest rate is 10% compounded semi-annually, how much is the monthly repayment?

The two solutions given by Professor Deeley for p=12 payments per year and m=2 interest compoundings per year are as follows:

Deeley Solution 1 PMT = $25,265.60 per month which Professor Deeley claims the "conventional solution"

Deeley Solution 2 PMT = $25,260.70 per month which Professor Deeley claims is his "proposed better solution"

I contend that there is a CFA Deconstruction and Rate Equivalence solution that I offer as an "alternate conventional solution" used of Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) examinations.

CFA Deconstruction PMT = $25,483 per month which conforms to David Frick's solution tutorial

I show how to calculate this $25,483 using both Wolfram Alpha and Excel in my Working Paper 440 ---
Bob Jensen's analysis of Annuities With Unequal Compounding and Payment Periods:  The CFA Deconstruction Analysis
 http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryAnnuity01.htm

The Insignificance of Testing the Null

October 1, 2010 message from Amy Dunbar

Nick Cox posted a link to a statistics paper on statalist:

2009. Statistics: reasoning on uncertainty, and the insignificance of testing null. Annales Zoologici Fennici 46: 138-157.

http://www.sekj.org/PDF/anz46-free/anz46-138.pdf

Cox commented that the paper touches provocatively on several topics often aired on statalist including the uselessness of dynamite or detonator plots, displays for comparing group means and especially the over-use of null hypothesis testing. The main target audience is ecologists but most of the issues cut across statistical science.

Dunbar comment: The paper would be a great addition to any PhD research seminar. The author also has some suggestions for journal editors. I included some responses to Nick's original post below.

Jensen Comment
And to think Alpha (Type 1) error is the easy part. Does anybody ever test for the more important Beta (Type 2) error? I think some engineers test for Type 2 error with Operating Characteristic (OC) curves, but these are generally applied where controlled experiments are super controlled such as in quality control testing.

Beta Error --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_error#Type_II_error

Kind of Great Video:  Visualization of Multivariate Data
In countless applications analysts are finding that visualization of data may be more rewarding than traditional statistical analyses.

Watch the Entire Video
"Journalism in the Age of Data, a Visually Stunning Documentary," Good Topics, September 28, 2010 --- Click Here
http://www.good.is/post/journalism-in-the-age-of-data-a-visually-stunning-documentary/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+good%2Flbvp+%28GOOD+Main+RSS+Feed%29

I watched the entire video. It was great on why to explore clever ways to visualize data, but the video was weak on how to create data visualizations. The message is that the state of the art today is still incredibly complicated for animated visualization --- not the kind of thing most accounting/journalism professors can tackle on their own. But the day will come when software will be more user friendly for accounting and journalism professors.

As usual Google is on the leading edge of bringing visualization to the Web.

For me, one type of graphic of great interest is a stream graphic that often depicts temporal data over time. An early application not mentioned in the video is Minard's historic graphic of Napoleon's disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia ---
"The Visual Display of Data," by Phillip D. Long, Syllabus, December 2002, pp. 6-8 --- http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=6987 

The computer has provided a revolutionary tool to represent information visually. Its power is clearly demonstrated by the captivating power of today's video games. While usually describing a narrative of mayhem and destruction, the stunningly seductive rendering of 3D imagery in video games draws the gamer into new visual worlds. It also has the power to bring forward data from multiple dimensions to render information.

One of the most stunning multidimensional graphical representations of human folly was created 141 years ago by Charles Joseph Minard, a French engineer and general inspector of bridges and roads. Sometimes called the "best statistical graphic ever produced," and a work that "defies the pen of the historian," Minard drew a flow-map depicting the tragic fate of Napoleon's Grand Army in the disastrous 1812 Russian campaign. Using pen and ink, Minard captured on the two-dimensional page no fewer than six dimensions of descriptive data.

Edward Tufte, an information designer who, for over three decades, has cultivated the art and science of making sense of data, has eloquently described Minard's map.

The thick band in the middle describes the size of Napoleon's army, 422,000 men strong, when he began the invasion of Russia in June of 1812 from the Polish-Russian border near the Niemen River. As the army advances, the line's thickness reflects its size, narrowing to reflect the attrition suffered during the advance on Moscow. By the time the army reached Moscow (right most side of the drawing), it had been reduced to 100,000 men, one-quarter of its initial size. The lower black line depicts the retreat of Napoleon's army, and the catastrophic effect of the bleak Russian winter. The line of retreat is linked to both dates and temperature at the bottom of the graphic. The harsh cold reduced the army to a mere 10,000 men by the time it re-crossed into Poland. In addition to the main army, Minard characterizes the actions of auxiliary troops who move to protect the advancing army's main flanks.

Minard's map is a tour de force of data representation, an escape from flatland. He conveys a central reality about the world: Things that are interesting are multidimensional. Minard captures and plots six variables: the size of the army (1); the army's location on a two-dimensional surface (2, 3); direction of the army's movement (4); the temperature on various dates during the retreat from Moscow (5, 6).

The truth is nearly everything is multidimensional. Consider giving directions. Telling someone how to get from Logan airport to Cambridge at different times of the day requires the traveler to juggle information in four dimensions.

Continued at http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=6987 

For earlier history on data visualization see
Bob Jensen's threads on multivariate data visualization
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm

Two thirds of those who have mobile communicating apps use any of them
The Rise of Apps Culture --- http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/The-Rise-of-Apps-Culture.aspx
Jensen Comment
It's a bit like having exercise equipment gathering dust.

Wave Goodbye to this nation's top economic advisor
"Lawrence Summers Will Leave White House Post and Return to Harvard," Chronicle of Higher Education, September 21, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Lawrence-Summers-Will-Leave/27092/

A Bit of History for all You Many Feynman Fans
"Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine," by by W. Daniel Hillis, Physics Today ---
http://www.longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine/

"Two Cheers for the New Bank Capital Standards:  Why do we still rely on the rating agencies, and why are we still allowing Lehman Brothers levels of leverage," by Alan S. Blinder, The Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704523604575511813933977160.html#mod=djemEditorialPage_t

On Sept. 12 the heads of the world's major central banks and bank-supervisory agencies met to bless what is called "Basel III," the latest international agreement on bank capital requirements. Should we be applauding or frowning upon this agreement? A little of each.

The first big achievement, and it is a big achievement, is that 27 countries, each with its own disparate views and parochial interests, were able to agree at all—just 18 months after many of them were still fighting the last acute phase of the financial crisis.

But what about the substance of the agreement? What was it supposed to fix, and did it?

Remember, the essence of the Basel accords is establishing a minimum ratio—of capital to risk-weighted assets—and ratios have both numerators and denominators. It turns out that defining the numerator, a bank's capital, is fraught with difficulties: What counts and what doesn't? Most of the changes from Basel II to Basel III are about the numerator: raising the amount of capital required and stiffening the definition of what counts. Measuring assets is more straightforward, but risk-weighting them is not, which is the essence of the denominator problem.

Before the crisis, at least three major shortcomings of Basel II were apparent:

• Once you cut through the complexities, Basel II actually reduced capital requirements relative to Basel I. Even before the financial wreckage of 2007-2009, that looked like a mistake. After the crisis, it looked absurd.

• In determining risk weights for the denominator, Basel II assigned a major role to risk assessments by credit rating agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's. Once again, that looked dubious before the crisis and ludicrous thereafter.

• Basel II allowed the largest—did someone say, the "most sophisticated"?—banks to use their own internal models to measure risk. Let me repeat that: The biggest foxes were allowed to assess the safety of the chicken coops—another serious risk-weighting (denominator) problem.

Then along came the crisis, revealing two more glaring weaknesses:

• One was the startling extent to which some banks had used structured investment vehicles (SIVs) and similar arrangements to avoid capital requirements by shifting assets off balance sheet. This loophole cried out for plugging.

• The Basel Accords have always focused on minimum capital requirements. But the crisis demonstrated that, in a crunch, shortages of liquidity can be just as hazardous as shortages of capital. Indeed, it was often hard to tell one from the other. That made the need for minimum liquidity requirements apparent.

Those five issues should have formed the core of the Basel III agenda. What was actually accomplished? Let's go down the list.

First the good news: Capital requirements will be raised substantially. Right now so-called Tier 1 capital must be at least 4% of risk-weighted assets and Tier 2 capital must be at least 8%. The Basel II definition of Tier 1 capital includes some things that are not common equity, such as some types of preferred stock; and Tier 2 includes many more things, such as certain types of reserves and subordinated debt. Basel III places the focus squarely where it belongs: on common equity, which is undoubtedly real capital. And, after a long phase-in period, it will raise the minimum common-equity requirement to 7%. Hooray for both. But, folks, couldn't we have asked the world's bankers to comply with the higher standard before 2019? Maybe if we said, "pretty please"?

Because of demonstrable problems in assigning appropriate risk weights, Basel III also resurrects, as a kind of backstop, the old-fashioned leverage ratio: Tier 1 capital divided by total assets, with no risk weighting. Good idea. But, once again, why must we wait until 2018 for full implementation? Furthermore, the chosen capital requirement is only 3%—which you may know by its other name: 33-to-1 leverage. Isn't that about what Lehman Brothers had?

Second, while the Dodd-Frank Act wisely removed most provisions in U.S. law that gave the rating agencies special exalted status, Basel III did not. So the agencies that did so poorly in rating mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations will continue to play major roles in the risk-weighting process.

It gets worse. Didn't the Basel Committee notice that the internal risk models of most of the world's leading financial institutions led to disaster? Whether it was gross-but-honest errors in assessing risk or self-serving behavior is an important moral question, though not an important operational one. Either way, letting banks grade themselves worked out about as well as letting students grade themselves. Yet this grotesque shortcoming of Basel II remains in place.

Fourth on the list is the off-balance-sheet entities that caused the world so much grief. Here, some technical improvements were made, thank goodness. For example, SIVs and the like will be put back on banks' balance sheets for purposes of computing the leverage ratio. But unfortunately not for the main risk-weighted capital requirements.

Last, but not least, genuine progress was made toward new minimum liquidity requirements. The technical problems and novelty in defining liquidity proved to be formidable, as did the opposition from the banking industry. So this job is not finished. But the Basel Committee did at least institute a new liquidity requirement that will become effective in 2015.

Beyond that, the committee kicked most of the novel ideas down the road. For example, imposing higher capital requirements on systemically-important institutions is left for the future.

So let's applaud Basel III, though one-handedly. More capital, better capital, a leverage ratio, and a liquidity requirement are all important steps forward. But the unwarranted reliance on rating agencies, the disgraceful internal risk models of banks, and the disastrous SIVs should have been easy marks for reformers.

Should the U.S. adopt the Basel III changes? Absolutely, with no hesitation. But work on Basel IV should begin immediately.

Mr. Blinder, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and vice chairman of the Promontory Interfinancial Network, is a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Bob Jensen's threads on the recent banking scandals ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

Rotten to the Core ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#InvestmentBanking

"Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors: 2010," Cato Institute, September 30, 2010
Download the PDF of Policy Analysis no. 668 (493 KB) --- http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA668.pdf
View this Policy Analysis in HTML --- http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/html/PA668/PA668index.html

"College Employees Give Millions to Federal Campaigns, Especially to Democrats," by Kevin Kiley, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 22, 2010 --- http://chronicle.com/article/College-Employees-Give/124572/

Employees of colleges and other educational entities have donated a total of about $13.5-million to candidates for federal offices this election cycle, with most of that money going to Democrats, says a report released on Wednesday by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The center, a Washington-based research group that compiles and analyzes federal campaign contributions, explored the donations made by employees of educational institutions through July 31. While nonprofit colleges cannot contribute directly to political campaigns, administrators, faculty members, and other employees are allowed to make individual contributions.

The University of California, which employs more than 180,000 faculty and staff members, topped the list of colleges whose employees contributed the most. They gave a total of $483,981 to various campaigns, 86 percent of which went to Democrats.

The list of the top-10 college contributors, based on employee donations, includes other large and selective universities, including Harvard University in second place, Stanford University in third, and the University of Texas in sixth. Some for-profit education companies and groups also ranked in the top 10, including the Apollo Group, which owns the University of Phoenix and ranked fourth, and the Association of Private-Sector Colleges and Universities, formerly the Career College Association, which represents for-profit colleges and ranked fifth.

Royall & Company, a marketing company for for-profit universities, topped the list of education entities whose employees gave the most to Republican candidates, but it was not ranked among the top 20 institutions for overall contributions. Company employees gave $80,367 to Republican campaigns.

The report also mentions individual employees who made large contributions to political campaigns. Carol H. Winograd, an associate professor emerita of medicine and human biology at Stanford, topped the list, contributing $136,300 to various Democratic campaigns this election cycle.

The top three recipients in the Senate were all Democrats. Barbara Boxer of California, who received $175,019, Charles E. Schumer of New York, who took in $170,175, and Harry M. Reid of Nevada, who took in $143,700. In the House, the top three recipients were also Democrats. Bill Foster of Illinois took in $126,945, George Miller of California took in $115,961, and Paul W. Hodes of New Hampshire received $93,700.

Liberal Bias in the Media and Academe ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias

"Gmail Has Won Me Over," by Brad Feld, MIT's Technology Review, September 26, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=358&bpid=25804&nlid=3560

Jensen Comment
I'm about to find out. I've been on Outlook forever. This week Trinity University is migrating my files from Outlook to a Gmail system known on campus as Tmail. It seems like the whole world is moving more and more from Microsoft to  Google's Gmail, Google Docs, and on and on and on. One wonders if Bill Gates one day will sell used cars for a living.

My point here is that neither private sector auditors nor public sector auditors are going to be truly independent as long as their plumbs are ripening when they leave their auditing posts and still maintain their old “friends” and “contacts” in the auditing firms or the government auditing agencies.
This a topic that students might address in ethics and auditing classes.

Recently on the AECM there was a thread running on whether a government audit agency could be more effective than the private sector in auditing corporations selling securities to the public.

One topic this thread seemed to avoid is a problem that neither the public or the private sector deals well with in regard to auditing firm/agency plum trees. I define “plumb picking” as the tendency of the audit clients to hire away the top auditors at huge salaries that are like plumbs waiting to be picked. 

For example, the CFO at Lehman who engineered what I think was bad Ernst & Young auditing of Repo 105 and 108 contracts was a former auditor from E&Y in charge of auditing the Lehman account. This is not an exception. Rather it is more like the rule that the auditors in charge will eventually pick the plumbs by being offered executive level (CEO, CFO, or CAO) jobs with audit clients.

But having government agencies may compound this plumb picking problem.

See below were SEC Agent Barasch picked the plum offered by Ponzi crook R. Allen Stanford

Kotz also reported that Barasch, who left the SEC in 2005, later represented Stanford before the SEC despite ethics laws against doing so. An SEC spokesman confirmed that the agency's ethics office referred the matter to the State Bar of Texas to consider whether Barasch committed any professional misconduct.

Barasch may have gone over the edge, but it is extremely common for FDA agents to go to work for drug and agribusiness companies, Defense Department workers and generals to go to work for defense contractors, FPA agents to go to work for power companies, EPA workers to go to work for polluting industries, SEC and FBI and IRS agents to go to work for accounting firms and business corporations, and on and on and on and on.

How do industries leverage the regulatory agencies?
The primary control mechanism is to have high paying jobs waiting in industry for regulators who play ball while they are still employed by the government. It happens time and time again in the FPC, EPA, FDA, FAA, FTC, SEC, etc. Because so many people work for the FBI and IRS, it's a little harder for industry to manage those bureaucrats. Also the FBI and the IRS tend to focus on the worst of the worst offenders whereas other agencies often deal with top management of the largest companies in America.

My point here is that neither private sector auditors nor public sector auditors are going to be truly independent as long as their plumbs are ripening when they leave their auditing posts and still maintain their old “friends” and “contacts” in the auditing firms or the government auditing agencies.
This a topic that students might address in ethics and auditing classes.

The SEC’s failure to prevent the Madoff Ponzi fraud may have been a little different. In that instance the plum was a woman rather than a high salary --- Plum  = a Madoff family member who eventually became the wife of the SEC agent who repeatedly forestalled investigation of tips sent to the SEC that Madoff was running a Ponzi theft.

Our Main Financial Regulating Agency:  The SEC Screw Everybody Commission
The Great Ponzi Crooks (R. Allen Stanford and Bernie Madoff) Who Allegedly Manipulated the SEC

"Ex-SEC Official May Be Prosecuted for Role in Stanford Inquiries," SmartPros, September 23, 2010 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x70500.xml

Sept. 23 (The Dallas Morning News) — WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities are considering whether to prosecute a former securities regulator in Fort Worth who repeatedly quashed investigations into whether R. Allen Stanford was running a Ponzi scheme.

Under questioning at a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission's inspector general told lawmakers that he's "had discussions with criminal authorities about whether there would be any criminal action arising because of that."

In a report issued earlier this year, Inspector General David Kotz wrote that Spencer C. Barasch had "a significant role" in decisions over the years not to formally investigate Stanford, who is accused of bilking investors out of $8 billion. The Houston businessman has pleaded not guilty.

The report said that some SEC examiners thought as early as 1997 that Stanford's financial empire was built on a Ponzi scheme.

"If you don't get the Justice Department involved in this, shame on you as the inspector general," said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky. "That, to me, is criminal negligence. And the sooner they get him before a U.S. court, the better I will like it."

Barasch remains a partner in the Dallas office of Andrews Kurth. Bob Jewell, the firm's managing partner, said Wednesday that Kotz's testimony was "disappointing" and that Barasch "served the SEC with honor, integrity and distinction."

"We disagree with the characterization of Mr. Barasch's involvement put forth by the inspector general," Jewell said in a prepared statement. "We believe he acted properly during his contacts with the Stanford Financial Group and the Securities and Exchange Commission. He did not violate conflicts of interest."

Kotz also reported that Barasch, who left the SEC in 2005, later represented Stanford before the SEC despite ethics laws against doing so. An SEC spokesman confirmed that the agency's ethics office referred the matter to the State Bar of Texas to consider whether Barasch committed any professional misconduct.

A spokeswoman for the State Bar said such grievances remain confidential unless a district court or grievance panel sanctions the lawyer.

Many senators at Wednesday's hearing appeared to be grappling with Kotz's report for the first time.

The SEC made the report public on the same day in April that it charged Goldman Sachs with fraud, a case that got far more attention in the media. Several senators questioned whether the timing was an attempt to reduce public attention to the inspector general's embarrassing report.

The report said that SEC examiners in Fort Worth thought as early as 1997 that Stanford might be operating a Ponzi scheme and referred the matter to the enforcement staff. A manager who was leaving the agency told her boss that year that Stanford's business "looks like a Ponzi scheme to me, and someday it's going to blow up," according to Kotz's report.

However, the enforcement staff opened and closed its case after Stanford refused to voluntarily produce any records. Led by Barasch, the enforcement staff didn't open investigations after three other examinations in 1998, 2002, and 2004 all concluded that Stanford's certificates of deposit were probably a Ponzi scheme or other type of fraud.

"Any way you look at it, this is a colossal failure of the SEC," said Sen. Richard Shelby, D-Ala.

The SEC charged Stanford and three of his firms with fraud and other securities violations in February 2009. Rose Romero, the regional director of the SEC in Fort Worth, told lawmakers Wednesday that the SEC has notified other former Stanford employees that it intends to seek fraud charges against them. The group includes "former high level executives and financial advisers," Romero said.

Kotz said that Barasch and other enforcement attorneys believed the Stanford case was too complex and would absorb too many resources. The group believed that Washington judged regional offices based on how many cases they brought, which led them to pursue easier cases, Kotz said.

SEC officials generally conceded that they'd missed opportunities to cut off Stanford's alleged fraud.

The officials said they were implementing several changes to their enforcement priorities, including placing more emphasis on cases that affect a substantial number of investors. The SEC also said it has increased coordination between its examiners -- who originally suspected the Stanford fraud -- and its enforcement staff.

Robert Khuzami, the SEC's director of enforcement, told the panel that his staff has focused on complex accounting and securities cases, particularly since the credit crisis of 2008.

"If you look at the course of cases that we have brought in the last 18 months, particularly across the credit crisis -- New Century, Countrywide, Goldman, Dell, State Street, Evergreen, ICP, Citigroup, Bank of America -- these are hugely complicated accounting fraud, structured product cases," Khuzami said.

"We're not getting quick stats on those cases, I assure you."

 

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on September 10, 2009

Madoff Report Reveals Extent of Bungling
by Kara Scannell and Jenny Strasburg
Sep 05, 2009
Click here to view the full article on WSJ.com

TOPICS: Auditing, Ponzi Schemes

SUMMARY: "The SEC's inspector general released the full 477-page version of his report on how the SEC missed red flags on [Bernard Madoff]....and details just how many opportunities there were for examiners to find the fraud and how bungled their efforts were." For example, "one anonymous complaint directed the SEC to a 'scandal of major proportion' by the Madoff firm and said assets of a specific investor 'have been 'co-mingled' with funds controlled by the Madoff firm. The SEC called Mr. Madoff's lawyer and had him ask Mr. Madoff if he managed money for that investor. When the lawyer said Madoff didn't, the complaint wasn't pursued further. The IG report concludes that 'accepting the word of a registrant who is alleged to be engaged in a specific instance of fraud is an inadequate investigation'....SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said, 'In the coming weeks, we will continue to closely review the full report and learn every lesson we can to help build upon the many reforms we have already put into place since January.'"

CLASSROOM APPLICATION: The article makes clear the need for auditing roles at the SEC as well as in public accounting firms auditing general purpose financial statements.

QUESTIONS: 
1. (Introductory) What is a "Ponzi Scheme"? When was Mr. Madoff convicted of running such a scheme? How did this scheme impact Madoff's investors?

2. (Introductory) Who issued the report on the SEC's failure to uncover the Madoff scheme before it collapsed and he himself admitted to the crime?

3. (Advanced) What did "an unnamed hedge-fund manager" say in an email to the SEC? Explain how each of the points listed in the email indicate the possibility of a Ponzi scheme in operation.

4. (Introductory) What is "front-running" in trading? How did a senior examiner explain this trading activity as his choice of action to investigate in Mr. Madoff's operations?

5. (Advanced) How do you think a choice of action in examination should be determined if the SEC receives a credible indication of possible fraud in operating an investment firm such as Mr. Madoff's? How should this choice drive the determination of expertise needed on an investigatory team?

6. (Advanced) What audit step failure was evident in the SEC investigatory actions undertaken between December 2003 and March 2004, as described in the article?

7. (Introductory) What expertise do you think was needed on the investigative teams handling the Madoff case, at least as described in this article?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

RELATED ARTICLES: 
Ex-SEC Lawyer: Madoff Report Misses Point
by Suzanne Barlyn
Sep 04, 2009
Online Exclusive

'Evil' Madoff Gets 150 Years in Epic Fraud
by Robert Frank and Amir Efrati
Jun 30, 2009
Online Exclusive

 

New Hints at Why the SEC Failed to Seriously Investigate Madoff's Hedge Fund
After being repeatedly warned for six years that this was a criminal scam
It's beginning to look like a family "affair"

(The SEC's) Swanson later married Madoff's niece, and their relationship is now under review by the SEC inspector general, who is examining the agency's handling of the Madoff case, the Post reported. Swanson, no longer with the agency, declined to comment, the Post said.
"SEC lawyer raised alarm about Madoff: report," Reuters, July 2, 2009 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090702/bs_nm/us_madoff_sec
The Washington Post account is at --- Click Here

A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer warned about irregularities at Bernard Madoff's financial management firm as far back as 2004, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing agency documents and sources familiar with the investigation.

Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, a lawyer in the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, sent emails to a supervisor saying information provided by Madoff during her review didn't add up and suggesting a set of questions to ask his firm, the report said.

Several of the questions directly challenged Madoff activities that turned out to be elements of his massive fraud, the newspaper said.

Madoff, 71, was sentenced to a prison term of 150 years on Monday after he pleaded guilty in March to a decades-long fraud that U.S. prosecutors said drew in as much as $65 billion.

The Washington Post reported that when Walker-Lightfoot reviewed the paper documents and electronic data supplied to the SEC by Madoff, she found it full of inconsistencies, according to documents, a former SEC official and another person knowledgeable about the 2004 investigation.

The newspaper said the SEC staffer raised concerns about Madoff but, at the time, the SEC was under pressure to look for wrongdoing in the mutual fund industry. Walker-Lightfoot was told to focus on a separate probe into mutual funds, the report said.

One of Walker-Lightfoot's supervisors on the case was Eric Swanson, an assistant director of her department, the Post reported, citing two people familiar with the investigation.

Swanson later married Madoff's niece, and their relationship is now under review by the SEC inspector general, who is examining the agency's handling of the Madoff case, the Post reported.

Swanson, no longer with the agency, declined to comment, the Post said.

SEC spokesman John Nester also declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation by the agency's inspector general, the newspaper said.

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

Bob Jensen's threads on Ponzi crooks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#Ponzi

Auditors Work for Banking Clients, Not Investors:  Resistance to Disclosing Subprime Poison Repurchase Risk
"Auditors Aren’t Forcing Full Repurchase Risk Exposure Disclosure," by Francine McKenna, re:TheAuditors, September 27, 2010 ---
http://retheauditors.com/2010/09/27/auditors-arent-forcing-full-repurchase-risk-exposure-disclosure/

Bob Jensen's threads on where the where the poison originated and where it ended up ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

Where were the auditors?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#AuditFirms

From the Scout Report on September 24, 2010

PRTG Network Monitor 8.1.0.1607 --- http://www.paessler.com/prtg/download 

This application is designed for users who wish to keep tabs of their entire network with ease and efficiency. With this application, users can take advantage of traffic and usage monitoring, packet sniffing, and concise reporting. The web-based interface for the application makes configuring the network devices and sensors quite simple. This version is compatible with computers running Windows XP and newer.

---

Free Video Catcher 1.2 --- http://www.geeksofts.com/ 

Visitors with an interest in capturing videos and other materials from the Internet will find this application most useful. Free Video Catcher 1.2 can be configured to capture only audio from a video file, and it can be used with popular sites such as YouTube, Google Videos, and many others. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 2000 and newer.

---

Jonathan Franzen --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Franzen

Nine years later, Oprah Winfrey and Jonathan Franzen meet again Oprah Winfrey and Jonathan Franzen make up over Freedom http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/16/oprah-winfrey-jonathan-franzen-freedom  

Franzen On The Book, The Backlash, His Background http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129747555 

A touch of Franzenfreude http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/19/books-franzen-gender-wars-reviews   

Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner Speak Out On Franzen Feud
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-pinter/jodi-picoult-jennifer-weiner-franzen_b_693143.html    

Publishers Weekly http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/home/index.html 

Arts & Letters Daily http://www.aldaily.com/

 

Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance, economics, and statistics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

Education Tutorials

The Center for Cartoon Studies --- http://www.cartoonstudies.org/

The Hale Scrapbook (cartoon history) --- http://cartoons.osu.edu/hale/Hale.php

The Stuart McDonald Cartoon Collection http://www.library.und.edu/digital/McDonald.htm

Bill Mauldin's Military Cartoons --- Click Here

The Opper Project (editorial cartoons) --- http://hti.osu.edu/opper/index.cfm

University of Nebraska Libraries Digital Collections: Government Comics Collection --- 
http://contentdm.unl.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/comics

Digital Comic Museum --- http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/ 

Two thirds of those who have mobile communicating apps use any of them
The Rise of Apps Culture --- http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/The-Rise-of-Apps-Culture.aspx
Jensen Comment
It's a bit like having exercise equipment gathering dust.

"Podcast: The Google Generation — Myth or Reality?" by Rick Lillie, Thinking Outside the Box Blog, September 17, 2010 ---
http://iaed.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/podcast-the-google-generation-myth-or-reality/

JISC is an advisory committee to higher education in the UK.  Periodically, JISC issues research reports about higher education.  Click the icon below to access one of JISC’s latest reports dealing with “The Google Generation.“

We have all heard about “Millennial” students and how tech savvy they are supposed to be.  From my experience, I am not at all certain that what we hear is true.  I find that Millennial (Google Generation) students have the fastest thumbs in the west and can answer a cell phone call at the speed of light.  Beyond this, their technology related skills, from an academic perspective, seem quite limited.

This JISC podcast talks about characteristics of Millennial (Google Generation) students.  It runs about 22 minutes.  Click the icon below to access the JISC website.  Click the start button (>) to listen to the podcast.

Enjoy.

Bob Jensen's technology updates are at
http://iaed.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/podcast-the-google-generation-myth-or-reality/

Find a College
College Atlas --- http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray Zone of Fraud  (College, Inc.) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud

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

Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

New York Sea Grant --- http://www.seagrant.sunysb.edu/default.asp

National Design Triennial --- http://exhibitions.cooperhewitt.org/Why-Design-Now/

Two thirds of those who have mobile communicating apps use any of them
The Rise of Apps Culture --- http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/The-Rise-of-Apps-Culture.aspx
Jensen Comment
It's a bit like having exercise equipment gathering dust.

Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine tutorials are at --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science

Social Science and Economics Tutorials

Bracero History Archive (Mexican Guest Workers) ---  http://braceroarchive.org/ 

Three Proposed Initiatives for Improving Mobility, Quality of Life, and Economic Growth in the West Bank [pdf] http://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/2010/RAND_CP610.pdf

Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social

Law and Legal Studies

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law

Math Tutorials

Chris Deeley in Australia and I have been corresponding regarding an antique learning curve paper that I published nearly 20 years ago. You can read some of our correspondence at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theorylearningcurves.htm
In that correspondence I discuss the good and evil of the Wolfram Alpha computational search engine.

Chris also sent me his latest working paper on an entirely different topic (which I've not yet found time to delve into). I asked if I could serve up the paper to my AECM friends and others. When I find time I would like to test some of his formulas in Wolfram Alpha. Chris is skeptical.

September 23, 2010 message from

Bob
Yes, by all means post my working paper on general annuities on the AECM website. I suspect that Wolfram Alpha may not be able to handle this sort of thing. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the application of standard maths has created and entrenched the error. Chris

Chris Deeley
Senior Lecturer in Accounting & Finance
School of Accounting,
Faculty of Business
Charles Sturt University,
Locked Mail Bag 588
Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678
Ph: +612 69332694 Fax: +612 69332790
Email: cdeeley@csu.edu.au 
Web:www.csu.edu.a u

I put his paper on one of my Web servers. I'm sure that Chris will appreciate any comments that you have regarding this technical topic. It may be a good exercise for accounting and finance students to study this paper.

"IDENTIFICATION AND CORRECTION OF A COMMON ERROR IN GENERAL ANNUITY CALCULATIONS," by Chris Deeley, Charles Sturt University, Australia., September 23, 2010 Working Draft ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeeleyAnnuityCorrections.pdf

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

History Tutorials

Digital UMass (multimedia campus history) --- http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/umarmot/?page_id=697 

The Red Brush (writings from Imperial China) --- http://digital.wustl.edu/r/red/

Illinois State Museum: Audio-Video Barn --- http://avbarn.museum.state.il.us/

Fort Ticonderoga --- http://www.fort-ticonderoga.org/index.htm 

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society --- http://dig.lib.niu.edu/ISHS/index.html

History: The Colonial Williamsburg Official History Site --- http://www.history.org/history/index.cfm

Caroline Bartlett Crane: Everyman's House --- http://www.wmich.edu/library/digi/collections/everyman/ 

Regional History Project: UC-Santa Cruz --- http://library.ucsc.edu/regional-history-project

New Perspectives: The Cleveland Museum of Art [Flash Player] --- http://www.clevelandart.org/collections/New Perspectives.aspx 

Bracero History Archive (Mexican Guest Workers) ---  http://braceroarchive.org/ 

New York Sea Grant --- http://www.seagrant.sunysb.edu/default.asp

Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm  

Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive (includes comedy and music) --- http://www.dartmouth.edu/~djsa/

Language Tutorials

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages

Music Tutorials

Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive (includes comedy and music) --- http://www.dartmouth.edu/~djsa/

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music

Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Writing Tutorials

Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries

Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/

May

September 22, 2010

September 23, 2010

September 25, 2010

September 26, 2010

September 27, 2010

September 28, 2010

September 29, 2010

September 30, 2010

October 1, 2010

October 2, 2010

"The Many Forms of Melanoma," The New York Times, September 22, 2010 ---
http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/the-many-forms-of-melanoma/?hpw

Ignobel Prize --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
I think the panel that awards these prizes annually have overlooked hundreds, maybe thousands, of great accountics research candidates

List of Ignoble Prize Winners --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners

2010 Winners --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners#2010

• Engineering: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and others for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
• Medicine: Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.
• Transportation Planning: Toshiyuki Nakagaki and others for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
• Physics: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
• Peace: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
• Public Health: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
• Economic: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.
• Chemistry: Eric Adams, Scott Socolofsky, Stephen Masutani and British Petroleum, for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
• Management: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
• Biology: Libiao Zhang and others, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.

 

Forwarded by Paula (oldies but goodies)

Comprehending Accountants - Take One

Two accountancy students were  walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great  bike?"
The second student replied, "Well, I was walking along  yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this  bike.
She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want."
The first student nodded approvingly,  "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have  fit."

Comprehending Accountants - Take Two

An architect, an  artist and an accountant were discussing whether it was better to spend time  with the wife or a mistress.
The architect said he enjoyed time with his  wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship.
The artist  said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he  found there.
The accountant said, "I like both."

"Both?"  

The accountant replied "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they  will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go  to the office and get some work done."

Comprehending Accountants  - Take Three

To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the  pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the accountant, the glass is twice as  big as it needs to be.

Comprehending Accountants - Take Four

"An Accountant and His Frog"
An accountant was crossing a  road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful  princess".
He bent over, picked up the  frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said, "If you  kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful  princess, I will stay with you for one week". The accountant took the  frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.
The  frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into princess,
I'll stay with you and do  ANYTHING you want." Again the accountant took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally,  the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you and do anything you want.
Why won't you kiss me?"
The accountant said,  "Look I'm an accountant. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a  talking frog, now that's cool."

Comprehending Accountants - Take  Five

A businessman was interviewing applicants for the position  of Divisional Manager. He devised a simple  test to select the most suitable person for the job. He asked each applicant the question, "What is two and two"?
The first interviewee was a journalist. His answer was  "twenty-two."

The second applicant was an engineer. He pulled out a  calculator and showed the answer to be between 3.999999 and 4.000001.
 

The  next person was a lawyer. He stated that in the case of Jenkins v. Commr of  Stamp Duties (Qld), two and two was proven to be four.
 

The last applicant was  an accountant. The business man asked him, "How much is two and two?" The accountant got up from his chair, went  over to the door, closed it then came back  and sat down. He leaned across the desk and said in a low voice, "How much do you want it to be?" He got the job.
--------------
What's the definition of an  accountant?
Someone who solves a problem you didn't know you had in a way  you don't
understand.
-------------
What's the definition of a good tax  accountant?
Someone who has a loophole named after  him.
------------
When does a person decide to become an  accountant?
When he realizes he doesn't have the charisma to succeed as  an undertaker.
-------------
What does an accountant use for birth  control?
His personality.
-------------
What's an extroverted  accountant?
One who looks at your shoes while he's talking to you instead of  his own.
-------------
What's an auditor?
Someone who arrives after  the battle and bayonets all the wounded.
-------------
Why did the auditor  cross the road?
Because he looked in the file and that's what they did last  year.
-------------
There are three kinds of accountants in the  world.
Those who can count, and those who can't.
-------------
How do  you drive an accountant completely insane?
Tie him to a chair, stand in front  of him and fold up a roadmap the wrong
way.
-------------
What's the most wicked thing a group of young  accountants can do?
Go into town and gang-audit  someone.
-------------
What do accountants suffer from that ordinary  people don't?
Depreciation.
-------------
An accountant is having a  hard time sleeping and goes to see his doctor.
"Doctor, I just can't  get to sleep at night."
"Have you tried counting  sheep?"
"That's the problem - I make a mistake and then spend  three hours trying to find  it."

Forwarded by Gene and Joan

Absolutely Brilliant!

Tidbits Archives --- 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/

Find a College
College Atlas --- http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray Zone of Fraud  (College, Inc.) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

• With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
• With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
• With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR
• With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses

What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?  ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm

Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So

Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

World Clock --- http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/
Interesting Online Clock and Calendar --- http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones --- http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) --- http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
         Also see http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
         Facts about population growth (video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth --- http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons --- http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

CPA Examination --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle --- http://cpareviewforfree.com/

I recommend that you watch the video of Joe Hoyle's "Last Lecture"
Last Lecture Series: Joe Hoyle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjwHxVbZq1o&feature=grec_index

Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at http://iaed.wordpress.com/

Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social Networking ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm 
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

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

Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting educators.
Any college may post a news item.

Accountancy Discussion ListServs:

For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a ListServ (usually for free) go to   http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm

AECM (Educators)  http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/  AECM is an email Listserv list which provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets, multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc Roles of a ListServ --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm

CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/  CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or education. Others will be denied access.

Yahoo (Practitioners)  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be anything  from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA.

AccountantsWorld  http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1  This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and taxation.

Business Valuation Group BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com  This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag [RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM]

Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) --- http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm

Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Some Accounting History Sites

Bob Jensen's Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
 

Accounting History Libraries at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) --- http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/accountancy/libraries.html
The above libraries include international accounting history.
The above libraries include film and video historical collections.

MAAW Knowledge Portal for Management and Accounting --- http://maaw.info/

Academy of Accounting Historians and the Accounting Historians Journal ---
http://www.accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aah/

Sage Accounting History --- http://ach.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/269

A nice timeline on the development of U.S. standards and the evolution of thinking about the income statement versus the balance sheet is provided at:
"The Evolution of U.S. GAAP: The Political Forces Behind Professional Standards (1930-1973)," by Stephen A. Zeff, CPA Journal, January 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/105/infocus/p18.htm
Part II covering years 1974-2003 published in February 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/205/index.htm 

A nice timeline of accounting history --- http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2187711/A-HISTORY-OF-ACCOUNTING

From Texas A&M University
Accounting History Outline --- http://acct.tamu.edu/giroux/history.html

Bob Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds

History of Fraud in America --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone:  603-823-8482 
Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu