Birds of the Mountains
Set 01 of my favorite bird pictures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Birds/Set01/BirdsSet01.htm 
Ducks on the Golf Course ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/2009/Tidbits090714.htm 
Also see ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/2009/Tidbits090714.htm

 

 

 

Tidbits on December 17, 2013
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

 

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

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


Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   


Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.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

Watch The Idea, the First Animated Film to Deal with Big, Philosophical Ideas (1932) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-idea-1932.html

Watch Soviet Animations of Winnie the Pooh, Created by the Innovative Animator Fyodor Khitruk ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/soviet-animations-of-winnie-the-pooh.html

Noam Chomsky on Commemorating the JFK Assassination: It “Would Impress Kim Il-Sung” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/noam-chomsky-on-the-commemoration-of-the-jfk-assassination.html

The “Pursuit of Ignorance” Drives All Science: Watch Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein’s Engaging New TED Talk ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-pursuit-of-ignorance-drives-all-science.html

See a Beautifully Hand-Painted Animation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1999) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/see-a-beautifully-hand-painted-animation-of-ernest-hemingways-the-old-man-and-the-sea-1999.html

John Cleese Stars in a Morbidly Funny Anti-Smoking Campaign (1992-1994) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/john-cleese-helps-you-quit-smoking-with-a-macabre-ad-campaign.html

The History of Economics & Economic Theory Explained with Comics, Starting with Adam Smith ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-history-of-economics-economic-theory-explained-with-comics.html

German Trapeze Couple ---
 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=717211468307619&set=vb.234538950336&type=2&theater


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

Library of Congress: A Night at the Opera --- http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/night-at-the-opera/

The Art of Making Timelapse Films ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-art-of-making-timelapse-films.html

The Record Of Singing: Opera Across The Ages --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102728168
Also see the opera channel at  http://www.theradio.com/ 

Slavoj Žižek Examines the Perverse Ideology of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/slavoj-zizek-examines-the-perverse-ideology-of-beethovens-ode-to-joy.html

The Story of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music History in 8 Minutes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-story-of-the-bass.html

Great New Archive Lets You Hear the Sounds of New York City During the Roaring 20s ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/sounds-of-new-york-city-during-the-roaring-20s.html

Secret drum corps at Edinburgh ---
http://www.youtube.com/embed/HW3QVLlK-kE?feature=player_embedded

Free Hip Hop Beats --- http://www.worldhiphopbeats.com/free_hip_hop_beats.html

The 66 Most Stunning Science Pictures Of 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/beautiful-science-pictures-2013-11

A Capella Rendition Of 'Little Drummer Boy' ---
http://www.ijreview.com/2013/12/98522-watch-incredible/

Maria Callas Performs at Covent Garden in 1962, Toward the End of Her Brief But Spectacular Career ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/maria-callas-performs-at-covent-garden-in-1962.html

The Pulp Fiction Archive: The Cheap, Thrilling Stories That Entertained a Generation of Readers (1896-1946) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-pulp-fiction-archive.html

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

Pandora (my favorite online music station) --- www.pandora.com
TheRadio
(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's threads on nearly all types of free music selections online ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm


Photographs and Art

The British Library Puts 1,000,000 Images into the Public Domain, Making Them Free to Reuse & Remix (Photographs, Photography) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/british-library-puts-1000000-images-into-public-domain.html

15 Stunning Mountaintop Hotels ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-stunning-mountaintop-hotels-2013-12
They're on Bob Jensen's bucket list.

These Awesome Photos Show F-4 Phantoms Dogging Soviet Bear Bombers During The Cold War ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/phantoms-tail-soviet-bombers-during-cold-war-2013-12

How A Mig-31 Repelled The World's Fastest Spy Plane From Soviet Skies ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-mig-31-repelled-an-sr-71-blackbird-from-soviet-skies-2013-12

How Hans Christian Andersen Revolutionized Storytelling, Plus the Best Illustrations from 150 Years of His Beloved Fairy Tales ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/18/taschen-the-fairy-tales-ofhans-christian-andersen/

54 Unforgettable Pictures From 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-photos-of-2013-2013-12

Selfie --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfie

Alice’s Restaurant: An Illustrated Version of Arlo Guthrie’s Thanksgiving Counterculture Classic ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/alices-restaurant-illustrate.html

The Most Amazing Satellite Images Of The Year ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/digitalglobes-top-satellite-images-of-2013-2013-12

The Story of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music History in 8 Minutes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-story-of-the-bass.html

Poweshiek History Preservation Project (Iowa History) ---http://digital.grinnell.edu/drupal/content/about-phpp

The 44 Most Mesmerizing Sports Photos Of 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/strangest-sports-photos-2013-2013-12

US Navy Releases Incredible Photos Of Pearl Harbor Now Compared To Day Of The Attack ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-pearl-harbor-then-and-now-2013-12
Also see http://www.businessinsider.com/pearl-harbor-attack-photos-2013-12

Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine ---
http://www.artic.edu/art-and-appetite-american-painting-culture-and-cuisine

The Moscow-based photographer captured dozens of structurally diverse snowflakes, showcasing the complexity of each one against a dull backdrop.---
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/snowflake-photos-alexey-kljatov/20716778

Catena: Digital Archive of Historic Gardens + Landscapes --- http://catena.bgc.bard.edu/

City of Cambridge, Mass.: CityViewer --- http://www2.cambridgema.gov/GIS/search.cfm?applicationid=CDDPub

John Singer Sargent Watercolors --- http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/john-singer-sargent-watercolors

Center for Pacific Northwest Studies: Photograph Catalog --- http://www.library.wwu.edu/photo_cat_cpnws

Engraved in Wood: The Work of John DePol --- http://www.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/johndepol

Gustave Doré’s Exquisite Engravings of Cervantes’ Classic, Don Quixote ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/gustave-dores-definitive-engravings-of-don-quixote.html

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 13 Best Biographies, Memoirs, and History Books of 2013," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, November 25, 2013  ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/25/best-biographies-memoirs-and-history-books-of-2013/

Alice’s Restaurant: An Illustrated Version of Arlo Guthrie’s Thanksgiving Counterculture Classic ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/alices-restaurant-illustrate.html

Watch Soviet Animations of Winnie the Pooh, Created by the Innovative Animator Fyodor Khitruk ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/soviet-animations-of-winnie-the-pooh.html

George Saunders’ Lectures on the Russian Greats Brought to Life in Student Sketches ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/george-saunders-lectures-on-the-russian-greats-brought-to-life-in-student-sketches.html

Virginia Woolf Loved Dostoevsky, Oscar Wilde Sometimes Despised Dickens & Other Gossip from The Reading Experience Database ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-reading-experience-database.html

See the Original Magazine Publication of Heart of Darkness and Other Great Works by Joseph Conrad ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/original-magazine-publication-of-heart-of-darkness.html

Bob Dylan Reads From T.S. Eliot’s Great Modernist Poem The Waste Land ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/bob-dylan-reads-from-t-s-eliots-the-waste-land.html

Metazen (short fiction and poetry) --- http://www.metazen.ca/

Bibliographic Guide to Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 2002-On --- http://media.library.uiuc.edu/projects/ggm/

Gustave Doré’s Exquisite Engravings of Cervantes’ Classic, Don Quixote ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/gustave-dores-definitive-engravings-of-don-quixote.html

See John Steinbeck Deliver His Apocalyptic Nobel Prize Speech (1962) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/see-john-steinbeck-deliver-his-apocalyptic-nobel-prize-speech-1962.html

Alice Munro Talks About the Writing Life in Her Nobel Prize Interview ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/alice-munro-talks-about-the-writing-life-in-her-nobel-prize-interview.html

"Why All the Fuss About Proust? The 100th anniversary of Swann's Way reminds us of his introspective genius," by

Next month marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of "Swann's Way," the first volume of Marcel Proust's six-volume masterpiece "In Search of Lost Time." The novel is about a man compelled by a sudden surge of memory to revisit his past and, in the process, to draw meaning out of his seemingly uneventful life. Its unfolding is prompted, famously, by the narrator's dunking of a madeleine in a cup of herbal tea.

Untold universities have planned at least one reading or roundtable dedicated to Proust. Every self-respecting bookstore will hold its own Proustathon, with authors, actors and book lovers reading snippets from his epic novel. The Center for Fiction in New York has scheduled a Proust evening, and the French embassy is organizing its own Proust occasion. There are Proust T-shirts, Proust coffee mugs, Proust watches, Proust comic series, Proust tote bags, Proust fountain pens, and Proust paraphernalia of all stripes.

Still, for all the brouhaha, many modern readers still find themselves in agreement with the two French publishers who turned down Proust's manuscript in 1912. A third agreed to publish it, provided that Proust himself cover the expenses. As one early reader declared: "At the end of this 712-page manuscript…one has no notion of…what it is about. What is it all for? What does it all mean? Where is it all leading to?" The writer André Gide is said to have avoided even reading the manuscript on grounds that the author was a renowned socialite snob. What could a wealthy, delicate fop like Proust possibly have to tell anyone?

A great deal, it turns out.

Proust's novel is so unusually ambitious, so accomplished, so masterful in cadence and invention that it is impossible to compare it with anyone else's. He is unabashedly literary and so unapologetic in his encyclopedic range that he remains an exemplar of what literature can be: at once timeless and time bound, universal and elitist, a mix of uncompromising high seriousness with moments of undiminished slapstick. Homer, Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Proust—not exactly authors one expects to whiz through or take lightly, but like all works of genius, they are meant to be read out loud and loved.

Nothing would have shocked Proust more than to hear that his work was perceived as difficult or inaccessibly rarefied. For years I have taught Proust to students at Bard High School in New York City, and I often find that after two or three hours with the novel, they are hooked.

After all, the story couldn't be simpler. It's about a young man of an unspecified age who enjoys reading, who is shy and introspective, but not necessarily awkward or antisocial, who likes his mother, who wants to travel to Venice but, because of poor health, never quite manages to do so until later in life. Marcel, the hero of Proust's autobiographical novel, loves nature, music, restaurants, hotels, beaches, churches, art, theater, Paris, fantasizes about friendships and girls, dissects the grown-ups around him with no less unforgiving irony and acuity than when he studies himself, and ultimately worships the good and beautiful things of life, hoping one day to craft the story of his maturation as a human being and as an artist.

Proust is interested in minutiae because life, as he sees it, is seldom ever about things, but about our impression of things, not about facts, but about the interpretation of facts, not about one particular feeling but about a confluence of conflicting feelings. Everything is elusive in Proust, because nothing is ever certain. He isn't interested in characters the way Tolstoy and Dickens are interested in characters; he is interested in the vivisection of identity, in people who turn out to be everything they claim they are not, in relationships that are always inscrutably opaque, in situations that conceal an underside that ends up flattering neither the betrayer nor the betrayed. It is Proust's implacable honesty, his reluctance to cut corners or to articulate what might have been good enough or credible enough in any other writer that make him the introspective genius he is.

All great writers hold mirrors to their readers. In Proust's case, he holds a magnifying glass, not to showcase the blighted peculiarities of his characters but to introduce us to one character we might recognize but are not always eager to know better: ourselves. To read Proust and not to find ourselves in every paragraph is simply to misread Proust. To read him is to learn that we are never introspective or candid or, for that matter, bold enough to admit what we feel, much less what we want. As for the love we all claim to crave, it is so gnarled and incomprehensible that when it happens to us, it shows up with a face so distorted, that we would seldom recognize it if we didn't already know its other name was jealousy, spite, and cruelty.

As Proust recognized, who we are to the outside world and who we are when we retire into our private space are often two very different individuals. Proust the snob and Proust the artist may share the same address, the same friends, and the same name, even the same habits; but one belongs to society, the other to eternity.

Continued in article

 

Free Electronic Literature --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
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 December 17, 2013
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2013/TidbitsQuotations121713.htm      

U.S. National Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Also see http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Peter G. Peterson Website on Deficit/Debt Solutions ---
http://www.pgpf.org/

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




Internet Guide --- http://www.internet-guide.co.uk/

The Biggest Flops In Tech This Year ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-biggest-flops-in-tech-2013-12?op=1


Malware --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware

Comparisons of Antivirus and AntiMalware Software --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_antivirus_software#Microsoft_Windows

Malwarebytes Details the Biggest Threats of 2013 in Their End-of-Year Report ---
http://www.howtogeek.com/177399/malwarebytes-details-the-biggest-threats-of-2013-in-their-end-of-year-report/

Bob Jensen's threads on malware ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection


"Microsoft's Surface 2 Tablets Are Sold Out Everywhere," by Steve Kovach, Business Insider, December  16, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/surface-2-sold-out-2013-12

. . .

The Surface Pro 2 is basically a regular laptop crammed into a tablet form. It has an Intel processor and the full version of Windows 8, meaning you can run just about any Windows app on it.

The Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 are some of the best Windows machines you can buy. However, they don't have as many apps as competing Android tablets and the iPad.


Executive Compensation at Private Colleges, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Executive-Compensation-at/143541/#id=table


Ph.D. Recipients From U.S. Universities: 2012 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/12/phd-recipients.html

Ph.D. Number Male/Female Job/Post-Doc Mean Debt Debt-Free
Life Sciences 12,045 44%/56% 62% $18,334 53%
Physical Sciences 8,952 71%/29% 68% $12,177 64%
Engineering 8,427 78%/22% 64% $11,183 66%
Social Sciences 8,353 42%/58% 70% $33,346 39%
Humanities 5,503 48%/52% 58% $29,281 39%
Education 4,802 31%/69% 69% $31,848 43%

Jensen Comment
In accounting there were about 135 Ph.D. graduates in the USA in 2012 ---
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/XDocChrt.pdf
The in part explains why starting salaries are so much higher in accounting.


"The 13 Best Psychology and Philosophy Books of 2013," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, December 2, 2013 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/12/02/best-psychology-philosophy-books-2013/
With relatively long reviews and quotations.

Bib Jensen's threads on how to find electronic literature ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm


"The Decay of American Political Institutions," Francis Fukuyama, The American Interest, December 8, 2013 ---
http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2013/12/08/the-decay-of-american-political-institutions/


My Glimpse of Heaven While Growing Up ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm 

Question
Why do kids spend all day on social media (and electronic games)?

Answer
Mostly because they can't find jobs and are not allowed to leave the house except for school 4.5 hours per day when schools are in session. The home schooled kids are home 24/7. Kids can't find jobs because their grandparents and sometimes parents have taken over the minimum wage jobs.

"Parents: Don’t Panic About Your Kids’ Social Media Habits:  Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd tries to puncture some myths about teenagers and the Internet," by Brian Bergstein, MIT's Technology Review, December 10, 2013 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/qa/522421/parents-dont-panic-about-your-kids-social-media-habits/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20131212

Kids today! They’re online all the time, sharing every little aspect of their lives. What’s wrong with them? Actually, nothing, says Danah Boyd, a Microsoft researcher who studies social media. In a book coming out this winter, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Boyd argues that teenagers aren’t doing much online that’s very different from what kids did at the sock hop, the roller rink, or the mall. They do so much socializing online mostly because they have little choice, Boyd says: parents now generally consider it unsafe to let kids roam their neighborhoods unsupervised. Boyd, 36, spoke with MIT Technology Review’s deputy editor, Brian Bergstein, at Microsoft Research’s offices in Manhattan.

I feel like you might have titled the book Everybody Should Stop Freaking Out.

It’s funny, because one of the early titles was Like, Duh. Because whenever I would show my research to young people, they’d say, “Like, duh. Isn’t this so obvious?” And it opens with the anecdote of a boy who says, “Can you just talk to my mom? Can you tell her that I’m going to be okay?” I found that refrain so common among young people.

You and your colleague Alice Marwick interviewed 166 teenagers for this book. But you’ve studied social media for a long time. What surprised you?

It was shocking how heavily constrained their mobility was. I had known it had gotten worse since I was a teenager, but I didn’t get it—the total lack of freedom to just go out and wander. Young people weren’t even trying to sneak out [of the house at night]. They were trying to get online, because that’s the place where they hung out with their friends.

And I had assumed based on the narratives in the media that bullying was on the rise. I was shocked that data showed otherwise.

Then why do narratives such as “Bullying is more common online” take hold?

It’s made more visible. There is some awful stuff out there, but it frustrates me when a panic distracts us from the reality of what’s going on. One of my frustrations is that there are some massive mental health issues, and we want to blame the technology [that brings them to light] instead of actually dealing with mental health issues.

I take your point that Facebook or Insta­gram is the equivalent of yesterday’s hangouts. But social media amplify everyday situations in difficult new ways. For example, kids might instantly see on Facebook that they’re missing out on something other kids are doing together.

That can be a blessing or a curse. These interpersonal conflicts ramp up much faster [and] can be much more hurtful. That’s one of the challenges for this cohort of youth: some of them have the social and emotional skills that are necessary to deal with these conflicts; others don’t. It really sucks when you realize that somebody doesn’t like you as much as you like them. Part of it is, then, how do you use that as an opportunity not to just wallow in your self-pity but to figure out how to interact and be like “Hey, let’s talk through what this friendship is like”?

You contend that teenagers are not cavalier about privacy, despite appearances, and adeptly shift sensitive conversations into chat and other private channels.

Many adults assume teens don’t care about privacy because they’re so willing to participate in social media. They want to be in public. But that doesn’t mean that they want to be public. There’s a big difference. Privacy isn’t about being isolated from others. It’s about having the capacity to control a social situation.

So if parents can let go of some common fears, what should they be doing?

One thing that I think is dangerous is that we’re trained that we are the experts at everything that goes on in our lives and our kids’ lives. So the assumption is that we should teach them by telling them. But I think the best way to teach is by asking questions: “Why are you posting that? Help me understand.” Using it as an opportunity to talk. Obviously there comes a point when your teenage child is going to roll their eyes and go, “I am not interested in explaining anything more to you, Dad.”

The other thing is being present. The hardest thing that I saw, overwhelmingly—the most unhealthy environments—were those where the parents were not present. They could be physically present and not actually present.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
This is a bit of an exaggeration since kids today also spend some time away from home each week in organized activities like Little League activities, soccer clubs, guitar lessons, and maybe organized church activities.

Question
So what's different than when I was a kid in the late 1940s and early 1950s?

Firstly, I was in school 8.0 hours a day when school was in session --- almost twice as long as today. We got an hour off each day for football and baseball practice.

Secondly, when I was under seven years of age I spent long days with farm chores --- the hog, cow, horse, and chicken manure to be pitched seemed endless ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm

Thirdly, after we moved to town my bike wheels on non-school days hit the streets of this Iowa farm town early in the mornings when I joined up with friends. As kids we we thought up creative things to do in total freedom I've never known since age 12. There was no Little league or any other organized child activities. One day we were infantry soldiers in Riverview Cemetery holding back the German Panzer tanks. Another day we were pirates on the masts of rows of trees. An on and on and on where we had to use our imaginations to entertain ourselves with zero fears of gangs and pedophiles.

Fourthly, at age 13 I commenced the years of part-time jobs starting with car washing in Chrysler and Oldsmobile dealerships. Then there was hoeing in Pioneer Seed Corn test research plots outside the town along with corn detasseling in late mid-summer. In high school there was meat cutting in the Fairway Grocery Store which mostly entailed cutting up tough old dairy cow quarters for the hamburger grinder. Also there were the weeks each summer when I lived back on the family farm and wearily looked out at the lights of town at where there was more than manure.

My point is that between when I worked on the farm and age 14 when I commenced a variety of part-time jobs, very little in my life was organized. I was on my bike each day social networking and flirting with girls face-to-face. There were organized sports but not until high school where I played football quite well and baseball quite poorly.

Given a choice I would rather be a free-to-choose kid in 1948 than a prisoner kid in 2014 --- any day!

My Glimpse of Heaven While Growing Up ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm 


Question
What States and Provinces in North America Have the Most Economic Freedom ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2013/12/14/the-most-procapitalism-place-to-live-in-north-america-is-n1762720?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Jensen Comment
Canada also wins out in terms of long-term prosperity. The reasons are complicated. Obviously a low population controlling a vast amount of economic resources such as oil, minerals, and timber contributes to long-term prosperity. A pay-as-you go government that does not destroy itself with unfunded entitlements helps. There are other benefits such as living almost free under the USA defense umbrella and the USA research umbrella (particularly medical research) reduces Canadian budgets.

There are climate advantages that discourage illegal immigration from warm climates. The geographic USA geographic cushion also is a barrier to illegal immigration.

Canada also has a national health care plan that is far from perfect but is paid for partly by all taxpayers. In the USA the health care plan is becoming more and more a free service as people increasingly lie about incomes for free Medicaid or government subsidies to lower premium costs. The threat of USA Medicaid and premium subsidy enforcement of rules at this point is a sham in the USA but not in Canada.

The main advantage in my opinion is a low Canadian population controlling a vast amount of natural resources with a huge market for those resources south of the Canadian border and in parts of Asia. Scandinavian countries also benefit from low populations and minimal immigration.

 


The Financially Literate
America's Wealth Is Staggeringly Concentrated In The Northeast Corridor
---
http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-wealth-is-staggeringly-concentrated-in-the-northeast-corridor-maps-2013-12

The Financial Illiterate
20 Lottery Winners Who Blew It All
---
http://www.businessinsider.com/lottery-winners-who-lost-everything-2013-12

Bob Jensen's threads on financial literacy ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers


"How Tech Has Changed Sex, Dating, And Mating," by Ryan Bushey, Business Insider, December 13, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-tech-changed-sex-and-relationships-2013-12

Whether we want to admit it or not, technology is changing every single part of our lives in the 21st century.

One particular area that's been impacted by this is our relationships. Online dating, considered to be an ugly term a long at first, has now been redeemed with the creation of apps like OKCupid, Tinder, and Grindr.

Sparks and Honey, in collaboration with the Museum of Sex, have made an excellent deck explaining this evolution and where it could go in the future.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
A couple that we interact closely with up here in the mountains raised two sons who, like their parents, are very strong Christians. One son is an officer in the Merchant Marine and lives mostly on huge ships at sea all over the globe. He had few opportunities for meeting religious women. However, he met a  woman online who is now his wife and the mother of  his 1.6 babies. They met through mutual advertisements on Craig's List. His bride comes from a strong Jewish family. We attended the outdoor wedding in the mountains that was doused with sheets of rain accompanied by driving winds against the big tent. Everybody ended up soaking wet that day. This was the first marriage for both the bride and the groom.

I wonder if online dating has become more common for young college alumni who did not get married to a college classmate. Also it might be that online dating has become more popular with men and women from broken marriages. Of course there are are risks of dangerous encounters, but there are also risks of dangerous encounters elsewhere such as in singles bars.

Perhaps persons who meet online and share photographs should eventually provide references before face-to-face encounters. Sigh! That's part of my inherent suspicions as an accountant.


9 'Facts' You Learned In School That Are No Longer True --- http://www.businessinsider.com/changed-facts-2013-12

Jensen Comment
One of my neighbors, who has a second home nearby, is a physician practicing in Salem, Mass. I need to check out one of these failed facts with him.


Women and Minority Professionals Practicing Law and Accountancy

"Diversity in the Legal Profession, 2013," by Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog, December 12, 2013 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/12/diversity-in-.html

"The 33 Whitest Jobs In America," by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, November 6, 2013 ---
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/the-workforce-is-even-more-divided-by-race-than-you-think/281175/

CPA firms hire more women than me at the entry level but retention percentages are lower in part due to mothers leaving the workforce.
CPA firms increased their hiring of minorities to over 30% at the entry level, but the retention level drops back down to the neighborhood of 20% ---
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2012/Jun/20114925.htm
Reasons for lower retention rates include failure of new hires to pass the CPA Examination after being hired. Another perhaps more important reason is the traditionally high turnover of more recent employees in the larger CPA firms where most of those employees move into higher paying jobs (often with clients) or move out of the labor force to become full-time parents. Top minority employees of CPA firms are especially likely to receive attractive job offers from clients.

Bob Jensen's threads on diversity in academe ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#AffirmativeAction


Competency-Based Examinations --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competency_evaluation

"Competent at What?" by Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed, December 12, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/12/lumina-funded-group-seeks-lead-conversation-competency-based-education

Competency-based education appears to be higher education’s "next big thing." Yet many academics aren’t sure what it is. And that goes double for lawmakers and journalists.

A new group is stepping in to try to clear up some of the confusion. The nascent Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN) will include up to 20 institutions that offer competency-based degrees or are well on their way to creating them.

The Lumina Foundation is funding the three-year effort. Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization, is coordinating the work.

The group’s overarching goals are to share intelligence and discuss "best practices" on competency-based education, while also influencing the national conversation, according to the invitation for applications, which are due at the end of next month.

"This national network will consist of representatives from colleges and universities willing to commit time and effort to solving common challenges around developing quality competency-based models capable of scaling or spreading to affordably serve more students," the invitation document said.

The reason for the project’s creation, said several officials who are working on it, is a growing need for shared guiding principles. Interest in online education is high, and many college leaders want competency-based education to avoid the hype, misconceptions and resulting backlash massive open online courses have received.

"There’s really a danger of people just repackaging what they’re doing and calling it competency-based education because it’s the buzzword du jour," said Amy Laitinen, a former Education Department and White House official who is deputy director of the New America Foundation’s higher education program.

Network and Incubator

Laitinen is a consultant for the project. Joining her is Mike Offerman, an expert on competency-based education, and Sally Johnstone, vice president for academic advancement at Western Governors University.

The group will focus on the nitty-gritty details of building a new program, including how to design sound assessments, comply with financial aid policies and make tweaks to business processes and information technology systems.

Participants will also discuss how to talk about and market their new degrees. Everything will be on the table, said several officials, even the term "competency."

A separate Lumina grant will help pay for a website that will make public much of the network’s work and research. Southern New Hampshire University is responsible for creating the website.

"We’re going to share as much of that as possible," said Paul LeBlanc, the university’s president.

Southern New Hampshire, which has moved aggressively into competency-based education, will also host quarterly meetings at its campus for the group’s members.

The network will be limited to colleges that are at least close to creating competency-based degrees. However, a separate, somewhat similar new effort is aimed at institutions that are interested in getting into the space.

That project is an "incubator" that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding through its Next Generation Learning Challenges grant, which is managed by Educause. To participate, colleges will need to submit a plan to begin creating a competency-based program by January 2015, according to a draft document about the grant.

"C-BEN and the incubator share the goals of developing and advancing competency-based business models capable of scaling and serving many more students from all backgrounds," the document said. "Both will offer exposure to subject matter experts and will encourage the development and testing of relevant tools for institutions."

Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, welcomed the deepening conversation over competency-based education. She said she hopes the network can provide some clarity on the emerging delivery model, which the association has viewed warily.

The competency-based movement does have promise, she said. Ideally, Schneider said, competency-based programs share goals with the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP), a Lumina-funded effort that attempts to define what degree holders should know and be able to do. Schneider helped author the profile.

However, Schneider said competency-based education could also lead to degrees that are based on a haphazard grouping of one-off competencies rather than a holistic curriculum. And she said competency is "now being used to define so many experiments."

Defining Competency

Competency-based education’s defining feature, experts said, is that it places a priority on the assessment of defined learning outcomes, regardless of where the learning occurs. That typically means breaking credit requirements into discrete "competencies" that indicate a student has mastered concepts.

The idea is hardly new. Decades ago pioneering institutions like Alverno College, Excelsior College, Thomas Edison State College and others with a focus on adult students began assessing competencies and issuing college credit for experiential learning. As with Advanced Placement tests, students could pass assessments and earn credit for knowledge and skills they gained outside the traditional classroom.

Western Governors offers a twist on this model. Created in 1997, the online university added the element of self-paced instruction. Students at Western Governors can work through automated, asynchronous online course material at their own speed. And the university’s instructors act more like tutors than professors in a lecture hall.

A third style first hit the scene this year. This approach, which is called "direct assessment," drops the credit-hour standard and completely severs the link between competencies and the amount of time students spend mastering them.

Earlier this year the federal government and regional accreditors gave a green light to new direct assessment offerings from College for America, a subsidiary of Southern New Hampshire, and Capella University.

Northern Arizona University has also pursued a direct-assessment program. So has the University of Wisconsin System, with its growing "Flexible Option." More are on the way, including one from Brandman University. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), a regional accreditor, this week approved Brandman's new, competency-based, bachelor degree in business administration.

Even advocates for competency-based education say it raises plenty of questions.

For example, Laitinen, who is a prominent critic of the credit hour, has begun publicly worrying about moving too fast on competency-based education. She said lawmakers in particular might be overeager to help spur the creation of new programs by making changes to legislation before academics even know what changes might help.

The work around competency-based education "needs to be done responsibly and thoughtfully, and with the right motivation" said Laitinen, adding that "the right motivation is outcomes."

Schneider agreed. "We’re in a long-term change from a higher education system organized around credit hours” to one based on “demonstrated achievements of capabilities."

That’s a difficult undertaking, she said. "We’re trying to invent something new."

The Lumina-funded group’s creators want its members to help lead conversations around those big-ticket questions.

A steering committee composed of representatives from 10 or so colleges with experience on competency-based education will help set the network’s agenda, said several officials who are involved in the effort.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on competency-based education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge


"Speaking Up for the Creditless MOOC," by Matt McGarrity, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 12, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/12/12/speaking-up-for-the-creditless-mooc/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Last year I agreed to teach a public-speaking MOOC on the Coursera platform. I wasn’t a MOOC advocate, but I believe that the study of speech and rhetoric benefits individuals and society as a whole. I routinely offer speech workshops for civic and professional groups around Washington State. A MOOC on public speaking would allow me to run a speech workshop on a global scale.

I developed the course subsequent to the open letter sent by San Jose State’s philosophy department to Michael Sandel, the Harvard philosophy professor who teaches a MOOC on justice.  The San Jose professors rejected their university’s attempt to use Sandel’s course, JusticeX, because, in their words, “there is no pedagogical problem in our department that JusticeX solves.” They saw the massive open online course as subverting their own efforts to teach their students.

I certainly didn’t want my MOOC to be regarded as similarly invasive. I wanted to design a course that might be a useful resource for other public-speaking teachers, without having to worry that my class was eliminating jobs. I decided that my course would not offer any credit or certificate of completion.

Instead of thinking of this MOOC as a class in which I had to grade students, I viewed it as educational broadcasting, akin to a PBS show with interactive elements and a sense of community. I structured it like my for-credit course, but in the MOOC the assignments were optional. If participants wanted feedback, they could record and upload videos of their speeches, and receive evaluations through Coursera’s peer-review system.

Most of the people who signed up for my course had no need for college credit or completion certificates anyway. Both pre- and post-course surveys showed that more than 70 percent of the participants already held college degrees, with around 50 percent having advanced or professional degrees. Moreover, while U.S. residents made up the largest group, they were only 24 percent of the total enrollment. The story of my MOOC wasn’t one of currently enrolled U.S. students turning to the online course to augment or replace college classes, but midcareer professionals from around the world looking to sharpen their intellectual and oratorical skills.

The benefits of this educational-broadcasting model quickly became apparent. I was able to provide structure to the assignments, but the content of the presentations (usually a matter of close concern in live speech classes) was open. Instead of trying to find topics that people from the 160 countries in my course could speak on comfortably, I was able to simply throw open the doors and ask people to adapt their individual interests to a universal audience. If certification had been a goal, such flexibility would have been a challenge rather than an opportunity, since the variety of speeches would have made it impossible to hold them to a single standard.

This is not to suggest that I simply dumped content online and walked away. Just as in a live course, I carefully plotted the student experience and monitored it through the online discussion forums.

I don’t know how many people completed the course. Of the 120,000 who signed up, about half actually started when the content was made available. By week three, we’d dropped to 20,000, and later to around 9,000. Yet the course remains open to those initial 120,000, and despite its “ending” in August, I still see new discussion-forum posts from students who are early in the course. In that sense, students didn’t drop out; some are simply taking a 10-week course on a 30-week (or longer) timeline.

Of the thousands of active participants, relatively few recorded and uploaded speeches. Were this a campus course, I would wring my hands about dropout rates and low participation. But viewed as an educational broadcast, the course was a success. People came to the material as they needed and wanted. Thousands returned week after week to learn about and discuss public speaking, but they never submitted a speech to the class. The gap in activity seems to show that the course material was useful regardless of whether individuals did the assignments.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on edX, MITx, MOOCs, and other online offerings from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


"Georgia Tech Designs Its Udacity Pilot to Avoid Failure," Chronicle of Higher Education, December 13, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/?p=48947?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

G.P. (Bud) Peterson, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, is determined not to become the next casualty of a failed MOOC experiment.

Mr. Peterson saw what happened at San Jose State University earlier this year: An experiment with Udacity, a company that specializes in massive open online courses, turned into an embarrassment for Mohammad H. Qayoumi, San Jose State’s president, after its first run, in the spring semester, produced underwhelming results.

Georgia Tech is taking precautions to make sure its own high-profile experiment with Udacity does not meet a similar fate. The experiment is a fully online master’s program in computer science that Georgia Tech professors will teach on the Udacity platform with help from “course assistants” hired by the company.

Mr. Peterson refuses to even call the Udacity collaboration an experiment. “This is a pilot,” he said in an interview with The Chronicle. “Experiments fail. I’m doing everything I can to make sure this does not fail.”

Georgia Tech’s cautious approach starts with enrolling students who are likely to succeed. One of the variables that sank San Jose State’s initial experiment with Udacity last spring was including at-risk students in the experimental trials. Courses offered to a broader mix of students during the summer, however, had better outcomespossibly because more than half of them already held college degrees.

Georgia Tech’s experiment plays it relatively safe. Because it involves a master’s program, the students will have already earned undergraduate degrees, and many of them already have jobs in the industry. And the students who were admitted have an average undergraduate GPA of 3.58.

The inaugural class is also neither massive nor open. The program has admitted 401 students—360 men, 41 women—out of 2,300 candidates. Those who decide to enroll will begin classes on January 15, according to Jason Maderer, a spokesman.

With exacting admissions criteria and an entering class in the low hundreds, Georgia Tech’s collaboration with Udacity seems less like a MOOC than many existing online graduate programs. Other than the low tuition—set at $6,600, a fraction of the price of the university’s face-to-face program—the difference is that these students will have the same experience as the program eventually hopes to deliver to thousands of students at once, said Mr. Peterson.

If 250 students end up enrolling, he said, the university will “approach those 250 as though they’re 2,500.”

“We believe this model is scalable,” he added.

In any case, the Georgia Tech president made it clear that he was doing all he could to make sure the Udacity pilot got off on the right foot. Mr. Peterson alluded to the beating his university took in the press last winter after it was forced to abort a dysfunctional MOOC—one about online-course design, no less—after it had started. When it comes to experiments, “being first is important,” he said. But that knife cuts both ways.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on edX, MITx, MOOCs, and other online offerings from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


Davidson College is one of the top liberal arts colleges in the USA ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidson_University

edX MOOC --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EdX

Advanced Placement (AP) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement

"Davidson College and edX to Offer AP Teaching Modules," Chronicle of Higher Education, December 5, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/quickwire-davidson-college-and-edx-will-offer-teaching-modules-for-ap-students/48807?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Davidson College has teamed up with the College Board and edX, the nonprofit provider of massive open online courses, to create online teaching modules for high-school students taking Advanced Placement courses in calculus, macroeconomics, and physics, The New York Times reported. Davidson faculty members and teachers at high schools near the college, the article said, are using College Board data to determine what AP topics high-school students have the most trouble with, and then designing video lessons and assignments to help students better understand the concepts involved.

Bob Jensen's threads on edX, MITx, MOOCs, and other online offerings from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


U.S. prosecutors have charged 49 current and former Russian diplomats and their family members with participating in a scheme to get health benefits intended for the poor by lying about their income . . . Meanwhile, according to the charges, the family members had their housing costs paid for by the Russian government and spent "tens of thousands of dollars" on vacations, jewelry and luxury goods from stores like Swarovski and Jimmy Choo.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/05/usa-russia-healthfraud-idUSL2N0JK1AV20131205

"Audit reveals half of people enrolled in Illinois Medicaid program not eligible," by Craig Cheatham, KMOV Television, November 4, 2013 ---
http://www.kmov.com/news/just-posted/Audit-reveals-half-of-people-enrolled-in-IL-Medicaid-program-not-eligible-230586321.html?utm_content=buffer824ba&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

The early findings of an ongoing review of the Illinois Medicaid program revealed that half the people enrolled weren’t even eligible.

The state insisted it’s not that bad but Medicaid is on the federal government’s own list of programs at high risk of waste and abuse.

Now, a review of the Illinois Medicaid program confirms massive waste and fraud.

A review was ordered more than a year ago-- because of concerns about waste and abuse. So far, the state says reviewers have examined roughly 712-thousand people enrolled in Medicaid, and found that 357-thousand, or about half of them shouldn't have received benefits. After further review, the state decided that the percentage of people who didn't qualify was actually about one out of four.

"It says that we've had a system that is dysfunctional. Once people got on the rolls, there wasn't the will or the means to get them off,” said Senator Bill Haines of Alton.

A state spokesman insists that the percentage of unqualified recipients will continue to drop dramatically as the review continues because the beginning of the process focused on the people that were most likely to be unqualified for those benefits. But regardless of how it ends, critics say it's proof that Illinois has done a poor job of protecting tax payers money.

“Illinois one of the most miss-managed states in country-- lists of reasons-- findings shouldn't surprise anyone,” said Ted Dabrowski.

Dabrowski, a Vice-President of The Illinois Policy Institute think tank, spoke with News 4 via SKYPE. He said the Medicaid review found two out of three people recipients either got the wrong benefits, or didn't deserve any at all.

We added so many people to medicaid rolls so quickly, we've lost control of who belongs there,” said Dabrowski.

Continued in article


Before reading this tidbit it might be a good idea to read about why statisticians cannot identify the "best" vegetable for you health even when cost considerations are excluded ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

"The people who shaped higher education this year made their mark through the courts; through the power of an idea; through the act of writing an open letter; even in death. Here are 10 individuals who have had a lasting impact," by Ed O’Bannon, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 9, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Chronicle-List-This/143485/?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
This listing is entirely subjective and highly controversial. For example, should Aaron Schwartz be a role model because he openly and knowingly violated copyright law? If he had not be punished by MIT it would be open season for neglect of copyrights. If Aaron Schwartz has not been punished the wonderful JISTOR scholarly journal archiving service might well have gone out of business.

Perhaps the most absurd choice of 2013 heroes are the philosophy professors at San Jose State are called "MOOC Busters."
What makes MOOC busting ipso facto a good thing to anybody except faculty unions and those who misunderstand the true purpose of MOOCs?

How to Mislead With Statistics

"Report by Faculty Group Questions Savings From MOOCs," by Lawrence Biemiller, Inside Higher Education, October 16, 2013 --- Click Here
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/report-by-faculty-organization-questions-savings-from-moocs/47399?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

In the second of a series of papers challenging optimistic assumptions about massive open online courses, a coalition of faculty-advocacy organizations asserts that online instruction “isn’t saving money—and may actually be costing students and colleges more,” but that “snappy slogans, massive amounts of corporate money, and a great deal of wishful thinking have created a bandwagon mentality that is hard to resist.”

The paper, “The ‘Promises’ of Online Higher Education: Reducing Costs,” was released by the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education, whose backers include a number of faculty unions. Drawing on news articles and public-opinion surveys, it says that while the business model supporting MOOCs is “still a work in progress,” the trend is to offer courses free but charge for “a degree or a certificate or anything from the MOOC that carries real value.”

Merely having taken one of the courses, the paper says, is “virtually valueless in the marketplace.”

“The bottom line for students? The push for more online courses has not made higher education cheaper for them. The promise has always been that it will—but that day always seems to be in the future,” the paper says.

MOOCs may also cost colleges money, the paper says, citing an agreement between Udacity and the Georgia Institute of Technology to offer an online master’s degree in computer science.

“Udacity gets the intellectual content for a master’s program of 20 courses at an upfront cost of $400,000,” the paper says. “It borrows Georgia Tech’s reputation as its own, at a huge discount (no training of graduate students, no support for labs, no decades of accumulated know-how through which Georgia Tech earned its reputation).  It acquires these courses for a proprietary platform: Georgia Tech cannot offer these OMS CS courses, created by its own faculty, to a competing distributor.”

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
This is a classic study on how to mislead with statistics. The study does not give credit to the fact that the MOOC effort commenced by Stanford that fits totally within the Open Knowledge Initiative of MIT and other prestigious universities was intended not to save money.

By definition, a MOOC is free to anybody in the world and does not have prerequisites or admission standards. Anybody can take a MOOC free of charge by the very definition of a MOOC. The prestigious universities offering such courses intended these courses to give the world access to course materials and some of the top teaching professors of the world.

There are adaptations like SMOCs, Future Learn, and Iversity that are intended to become massive (10,000+ plus students) distance education courses that are not MOOCs. And there are options to pay for transcript credits for some MOOCs but this entails paying fees for competency-based examinations ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Firstly, in my opinion the universities with hundreds of billions of dollars in endowments given from rich sources that took advantages of tax deductions when contributing to those endowment funds can well afford to offer some free MOOCs. Were not talking in the case of Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Texas, etc. about stealing tuition money paid by on-campus students and taxpayers to benefit the poor people who take MOOCs. The universities offering free MOOCs can afford to pay the costs from endowment funds ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Second, what I find as inconsistent is that the same professors, often union activists, arguing that:  "Merely having taken one of the (MOOC) courses, the paper says, is “virtually valueless in the marketplace," have not conducted any meaningful study of how many students who intently completed MOOCs are using the knowledge gained. If they did they would find some teachers who benefitted when taking licensure examinations to become teachers. If they did they would find many college professors who added what they learned in MOOCs to the courses they themselves teach. Most MOOCs, by the way, are advanced courses on highly specialized topics like the literature of both famous and obscure writers. Otherss are basic courses that contribute to career advancement.

Third, the above study ignores what universities save by having their students take some off-campus free offerings. For example, the Khan Academy is now partnering with various colleges that require free Khan Academy modules as part of the curriculum. Those colleges do not have to hire as many instructors like math instructors to meet the needs of students both at the introductory and advanced levels of mathematics.

The study confuses free MOOCs with fee-based distance education. For example, Harvard University offers many MOOCs as a free public service to the world. The Harvard Business School, however, will soon offer expensive distance education MBA courses because of enormous anticipated profits from those courses.

Fourth, if Georgia Tech is losing money on its online engineering degree it's not necessarily a bad thing. Georgia Tech loses money on its on-campus engineering degrees that require taxpayer subsidies to survive. Why are taxpayer subsidies for Georgia Tech's online engineering degrees any worse in in principle? An argument might be made that there is more justification since taxpayers do not also have to subsidize room and board fees.

Five, distance education courses are gaining acceptance in the academic sector, the private sector, and public sector. For example, a distance education outfit called 2U has gained prestigious acceptance.
"3 Universities (Baylor, Southern Methodist, and Temple Universities) Will Grant Credit for 2U’s Online Courses," by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 30, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/3-universities-will-grant-credit-for-2us-online-courses/45143?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

I have one word for the self-serving study cited above that contends;
"Merely having taken one of the (MOOC) courses, the paper says, is “virtually valueless in the marketplace,"
My word for such an assertion is --- BARF!

Of course this not mean that there are not tremendous problems with MOOCs. One of the problems is that most of them are advanced courses, thereby shutting out introductory students.

Another problem is that most students sign up for MOOCs out of curiosity without the intent, time, and ability to successfully complete the courses with heavy sweat that is usually necessary for serious learning.. MOOCs probably would pass the benefit-cost tests for these casual students, but the prestigious universities are intending to make opportunities available to those students who will successfully complete the courses for financial and other educational benefits in their lives. These are courses they could never afford at on-campus student prices.

Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs and how to sign up for them from prestigious universities in the USA, the United Kingdom, France, and now Asia ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


"News Bitcoin’s Rise Constrained by Heists and Lost Fortunes," by Tom Simonite, MIT's Technology Review, December 11, 2013 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/522411/bitcoin-loss-and-theft-woes/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20131211

A man showed up at a trash heap in Wales last month with an unusual request: he needed help finding a hard drive he had thrown out weeks earlier that held the cryptographic key to 7,500 bitcoins, currently worth over $6 million.

James Howells is unlikely to ever be reunited with that digital cash, and he’s far from alone in having lost a fortune in the math-backed currency. Pioneers of Bitcoin are in high spirits due to the currency’s rising value and the friendly reception it has received from U.S. regulators (see “Regulators See Value in Bitcoin”). But the ease with which bitcoins can be lost or stolen remains a barrier to mainstream adoption. And no obvious remedy is in sight.

The problem is caused by the design of the software that underpins Bitcoin. It uses cryptography to allow people to exchange funds securely without trusting each other or needing a third party to oversee the trade. But individual collections of bitcoins are secured using an alphanumeric private key that is impossible to recover or reset if lost or stolen, and is near impossible to memorize.

A private key resides in a simple text file called a wallet file and looks something like this: E9 87 3D 79 C6 D8 7D C0 FB 6A 57 78 63 33 89 F4 45 32 13 30 3D A6 1F 20 BD 67 FC 23 3A A3 32 62. If someone else learns that key or copies your wallet file, he or she can spend your bitcoins; if you lose your key or wallet file, Bitcoin’s cryptographic design makes it impossible to regain access to your bitcoins.

“The hackers figured this out really quickly. I think this is a really bad thing for the bitcoin ecosystem,” said venture capitalist William Quigley at the Future of Money conference in San Francisco on Monday. He believes that bitcoins can’t become more than a plaything for speculators unless tools and companies appear that make it easier to manage and safeguard a bitcoin wallet.

It’s a concern echoed by other bitcoin investors and entrepreneurs, including Steve Kirsch, a software entrepreneur turned investor. He has converted over $1 million into bitcoins over the past six months and has struggled to keep them both secure and accessible. “I think that all of the existing mechanisms are problematic.”

Continued in article


Outrageous CEO Perks

From 24/7 Wall Street on December 11, 2013

CEO compensation, relative to the amount the average american is paid, has skyrocketed in the past few decades. In 1965, the average CEO pay was 18.3 times the average worker pay. By 2012, CEOs made 200 times workers pay. In addition to huge paychecks, the nation’s biggest corporate heads are also often receiving special treatment and perks that arguably cross the line of fair compensation for work performed. But that's frequently just the beginning.

Here are eight outrageous CEO perks.

Bob Jensen's threads on outrageous compensation and schemes that reward failure ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#OutrageousCompensation


Citizens of Iceland Overthrow Government Over Bank Fraud ---
http://lastresistance.com/3983/citizens-iceland-overthrow-government-bank-fraud/

Also see the video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMcihtYecQs

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


"Cayman Islands and Costa Rica agree to share bank account details with US:  The alleged tax havens have signed agreements with the United States to tell the IRS about funds held offshore by Americans," The Guardian, November 29, 2013 ---
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/29/cayman-costa-rica-us-tax

Jensen Comment
Yeah right!

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


Did Tesla engage in fraud?
You be the judge ---
http://doubtingisthinking.blogspot.com.es/2013/10/tesla-carbon-credits-ongoing-scandal.html


In 1900, Ladies’ Home Journal Publishes 28 Predictions for the Year 2000 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/ladies-home-journal-publishes-28-predictions.html

Also see
Isaac Asimov’s 1964 Predictions About What the World Will Look 50 Years Later — in 2014

Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of Nails It

1930s Fashion Designers Imagine Year 2000

 


Before reading this tidbit it might be a good idea to read about why statisticians cannot identify the "best" vegetable for you health even when cost considerations are excluded ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

"Statistically, Who's the Greatest Person in History? Why quants can't measure historic significance,"  by Cass Sunstein, New Republic, December 3, 2013 ---
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115669/ranking-historical-figures-skiena-and-wards-whos-bigger-reviewed

Who was the greatest baseball player of all time? Some people say Willie Mays. They emphasize that he had all of baseball’s “five tools”: he could run, hit, field, throw, and hit with power. Other people insist on Ty Cobb, who had the highest career batting average in baseball history. Still others say Cy Young, on the ground that good pitchers are more important than good hitters, and Young won more games than any pitcher who ever lived. Joe DiMaggio has his advocates, who note that he had the longest hitting streak in baseball history, and who emphasize that hitters, unlike pitchers, play every day. Still others say Hank Aaron, who had the most career home runs (except for Barry Bonds, whose all-time record was marred by steroid use).

It is certainly possible to rank baseball players in terms of batting average, wins, hitting streaks, and home runs. But people vigorously disagree about the relationship among those particular rankings and overall “greatness.” Can we mediate these disagreements? Baseball statisticians are trying. After all, the goal of a baseball player is to help his team to win. Maybe we can measure greatness in baseball by exploring how much a player contributes to wins. In fact, a statistical measure called Wins Above Replacement Player (warp) tries to isolate each player’s contribution, by specifying how many wins a player adds, compared with a standardized lesser player (say, a player who does not normally make it into the starting lineup). It turns out that Mays had 156 warp over his career, Cobb 151, Young 168, DiMaggio 78, and Aaron 142. With these numbers, we might be inclined to conclude that Young was baseball’s all-time greatest player (with the exception of Babe Ruth, who heads the warp list at 184)

Whatever its limitations, warp is a far better measure than imaginable alternatives. To identify the greatest baseball player of all time, it would not make a lot of sense to use some kind of poll or referendum. People might choose a recent player, because he is familiar to them or because he is their personal favorite. (David Ortiz, president of Red Sox Nation, might do well this year.) Not knowing about statistics, people might rely on a measure, such as batting average, that is not a valid test of baseball greatness. A poll would enable us to identify the player that polltakers favor, but unless their own measures are fairly reliable, it will not tell us a lot more than that. As compared with polls, statistical analysis has real advantages.

And who was the greatest president in American history? Reasonable people might say George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But how is presidential greatness measured? Can we devise a warp for presidents—something like Wins Above Replacement President? If so, we would need to specify the functional equivalent of “wins.” Maybe the term would refer to economic growth or to wars averted or to wars won, controlling for historical circumstances; if so, we would need to produce some kind of measure twhat would aggregate presidential “wins.” The problem is that history is run only once. Outside science fiction, it is not possible to say what a Replacement President would have done, and to specify how things would have turned out if he had done it. In the fullness of time, we might be able to make some progress in measuring presidential greatness in statistical terms, but it is not exactly surprising that, to date, rankings of presidents tend to rely on polls, flawed as they are.

And what about religious leaders, scientists, philosophers, artists, and novelists? Can they be ranked as well—in terms of greatness or importance? Might we be able to play some kind of Moneyball with Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy? Can cultural figures from diverse fields be ranked against each other? How might we compare Einstein, Plato, Descartes, Hume, Michelangelo, Suzanne Farrell, and Bob Dylan? True, it might be ridiculous, or even a bit crazy, to try. Skeptics might wonder about the point of such efforts: what kind of game is this? This is a good and potentially devastating question, but if we want to understand the arc of history and the nature of social influence, the endeavor might turn out to be interesting and perhaps even worthwhile. (And besides, many people find it fun.)

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Although it does not help with mathematical and statistical problems when ranking "the best" on multiple criteria, one thing that is common among highly respected performers is that they are not usually flashes in the pan. They tend to have enduring and prolific contributions. Artists of note generally were prolific. Opera greats appeared in an unbelievable number of performances. Our movie idols tended to be in a lot of films.I can't recall the study off hand, but there is research that Nobel Prize winners tend to be highly prolific in terms of numbers of published research papers. Of course there are occasional flashes in the pan whose careers were cut short by various tragedies.

A huge problem arises when there are tradeoffs among multiple criteria. For example, Denny McLain was a three-time All-Star baseball pitcher who won the Cy Young Award twice in his career. But his total win-loss total record was hurt by also being limited mostly to his great fastball. Such fast ball reliant pitchers also give up a lot of home runs and walks.

Greatness is also affected by "changes in the game." For example, it's difficult to compare pitching records of the 21st Century with pitching records of earlier years when pitchers tended to pitch all or most of each game. In the 21st Century use of relief pitchers is commonplace such that tired arms are no longer such a draw down on performance statistics of a great starting pitcher.

Similarly, it's not at all clear that Paton Manning or Tom Brady would be a great quarterbacks if forced to play with the size and shape of 1890 footballs ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_%28ball%29
By the way, the first football was most likely the bladder of a pig. I don't think it was possible to throw it 60 yards in the air.

Great skiers of the 21st Century set record times with skis and boots that totally changed the sport of skiing. Similarly, the materials in bicycles and tennis rackets have changed dramatically from earlier years.

Hence greatness is usually a very relative honor.


"3 accused in FIU (felony) cheating scandal," by Scott Travis, Sun Sentinel, December  10, 2013 ---
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-fiu-cheating-scandal-20131210,0,1033690.story

. . .

Police say Alex Fabian Anaya, 30, an FIU alumnus, logged into a professor's email account in 2012 to access four test exams, and then organized a distribution system where he was paid up to $150 per person for a copy of the stolen exam. Police equated the alleged crime to breaking into someone's house and stealing their property. Anaya was charged with dealing in stolen property, felony theft and burglary of an unoccupied structure.

Two current students, Krissy Alexandra Lamadrid, 24, and Jason Anthony Calderon, 24, were charged with dealing in stolen property. Police say they sold exams to other students. Anaya and Lamadrid couldn't be reached for comment, while Calderon declined comment.

Anaya "stated that he was well aware that his actions were illegal," according to the FIU police report. Lamadrid and Calderon said they knew the exams were stolen, according to the police report.

. . .

Cheating has been going on for a long time, but what has changed is the technology," said Ralph Rogers, provost at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. "There are very small devices, essentially a watch, where you can access the Internet, and that has become a challenge."

The University of Central Florida made national news in November 2010, when students in a business class bought a test bank sold online. It was shared with 200 students in the class, leading to unusually high grades.

The instructor, Richard Quinn, confronted students, who were required to come clean and take an ethics class or face expulsion. Most admitted their involvement.

A cheating scandal involving the athletic program at Florida State University resulted in a four-year probation in 2009. An FSU athlete reported he'd been instructed by a learning specialist to take an online quiz for another athlete. The university then discovered that 61 athletes in 10 sports, including football and men's basketball, had committed varying degrees of academic fraud. Most of the wrongdoing occurred in an online music course.

The Alligator, the student newspaper for the University of Florida, reported a 2012 case where a professor discovered that 242 students in a computer science class had cheated.

UF is now studying new ways to combat cheating as it launches an online university in the spring. This includes software that uses cameras to monitor students as they take tests, said Jen Day Shaw, dean of students.

While cheating allegations aren't unusual, most don't lead to criminal charges. More common is for students to receive a grade penalty, and be sent to an ethics class. They may face academic probation, or in some cases get expelled.

NSU's Rogers said criminal charges are appropriate in the FIU case if the allegations are true.

"It's a very serious issue to hack into a computer and steal information," he said. "Someone didn't just find this information lying around."

Bob Jensen's threads on students and professors who cheat ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#RebeccaHoward


Government is still adding the most new jobs, but the fastest rates of growth are in manufacturing and professional services
"Who’s Hiring (and Who Isn’t) in Five Charts," by Justin Fox, Business Review Blog, December 8, 2013 ---
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/whos-hiring-and-who-isnt-in-five-charts/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&cm_ite=DailyAlert-120913+%281%29&cm_lm=sp%3Arjensen%40trinity.edu&cm_ven=Spop-Email

Jensen Comment
What this article does not tell us is how many of those new jobs are part-time jobs without benefits.


For-Profit Journals Having Second Thoughts About Allowing Authors to Open-Share Their Articles

"Posting Your Latest Article? You Might Have to Take It Down," Chronicle of Higher Education, December 6, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/posting-your-latest-article-you-might-have-to-take-it-down/48865?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Guy Leonard received an unpleasant surprise in his inbox early this morning: a notice from Academia.edu saying it had taken down a copy of an article of his that he’d posted on the research-sharing platform. The reason? A takedown request from Elsevier, which publishes the journal in which the paper had appeared.

Mr. Leonard, a research fellow in the University of Exeter’s College of Life and Environmental Sciences, tweeted his dismay and posted a link to a screengrab of the notice.

“Unfortunately, we had to take down your paper,” the notice reads. “Academia.edu is committed to enabling a transition to a world where there is open access to scientific literature. Unfortunately, Elsevier takes a different view.” It also mentions that more than 13,000 researchers so far have signed a petition “protesting Elsevier’s business practices.”

Richard Price, the founder and chief executive officer of Academia.edu, said in an email that “Elsevier has started to send academics on Academia.edu takedown notices in batches of a thousand at a time.” The email Mr. Leonard received “is the notification that we sent to our users,” Mr. Price said, adding that his company usually receives one or two individual notices from publishers a week, “but not at scale like this.” (Academia.edu has close to six million registered users; it said it had received about 2,800 takedown notices from Elsevier so far.)

Mr. Leonard was not the only researcher to receive such a notice this week, as Michael P. Taylor, a paleontologist and open-access advocate, reported in a post on his group blog. Many researchers post copies of their articles online, Mr. Taylor said, even if they’re not legally supposed to. “It’s always been so, because even though technically it’s in breach of the copyright transfer agreements that we blithely sign, everyone knows it’s right and proper,” he wrote. “Preventing people from making their own work available would be insane, and the publisher that did it would be committing a PR gaffe of huge proportions.”

Tom Reller, Elsevier’s vice president for global corporate relations, said via email that the publisher “does issue takedown notices from time to time when the final version of the published journal articles has been, often inadvertently, posted. However, there are many other good options for authors who want to share their article. We aim to ensure that the final published version of an article is readily discoverable and citable via the journal itself in order to maximize the usage metrics and credit for our authors, and to protect the quality and integrity of the scientific record. The formal publications on our platforms also give researchers better tools and links, for example to data.”

Mr. Leonard told The Chronicle by email that it had been his habit to post PDFs of all of his published papers. The disappeared one, which was published in the Elsevier journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution, had been posted on Academia.edu “for at least a year without issue,” as far as he could remember. He noted that a PDF of the paper is also available on ResearchGate.net, another research-networking site, as well as on his current lab’s website. “There may also be a possibility that a copy exists on Mendeley!” he said, referring to the reference-management service. “For now I have not removed the other PDFs and also have not had any requests to remove them.”

Jensen Comments
This is really painful for faculty and students at some state universities where the state legislatures are blocking state university library funding for journal articles that are not open shared. These legislative moves are prompted by for-profit publisher rip offs of university libraries. Should taxpayers in Illinois pay $1 million per year for a subscription to Nature in each of its state university libraries? The Illinois State Legislature said no!

Bob Jensen's Threads on How
Commercial Scholarly and Academic Journals and Oligopoly Textbook Publishers Are Ripping Off Libraries, Scholars, and Students ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals


Smart TVs Are Stupid: Why You Don’t Really Want a Smart TV ---
http://www.howtogeek.com/176392/smart-tvs-are-stupid-why-you-dont-really-want-a-smart-tv/

Wouldn’t it be great to have a smart TV? Well, not really. If you do have a smart TV, you’d be better off combining it with a cheap set-top box rather than actually using its smart features.

Smart TVs are actually a decent idea. The problem isn’t that the idea of a smart TV is stupid, the problem is that the smart TVs themselves are stupid — or, at least, not very smart.

Smart TVs in Theory

A smart TV may also be referred to as a “connected TV.” Essentially, it’s a TV that’s connected to the Internet. It has built-in apps to take advantage of this — for example, a smart TV would likely have apps for playing videos from Netflix and YouTube. Smart TVs generally also have other built-in apps — a web browser, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Angry Birds, and so on.

In theory, having a smart TV would be great. The TV would have a network connection and be able to connect to the Internet to play videos from sources like Netflix and YouTube without needing a separate box. You get a web browser and everything else you’d want to use. It’s all integrated into the TV, saving you money and eliminating the clutter of additional boxes and cables.

The Problem With Smart TVs

In practice, smart TVs just aren’t that great. Smart TVs have software made by TV manufacturers like Samsung, Sony, LG. Their software is generally not very good. Smart TVs usually have confusing, often baffling interfaces. Controlling the smart TV’s features will generally involve using a remote, probably using on-screen buttons on the the TV. The menu interfaces usually feel old.

But don’t take our word for it. A report from NPD last year indicated that only 10% of smart TV owners has used the web browser on their smart TV and about 15% had listened to music from online services. The majority of them had used video apps, however — for example, to watch Netflix on their TV without plugging in additional boxes.

Smart TVs will become dumber over time as they don’t receive updates. New video services won’t work on old TVs, and their operating systems may never receive updates from the manufacturer. Some smart TVs may already lack services you’d want to use. For example, Amazon notes that “Amazon Instant Video is available on select 2012 and 2013 LG Smart TVs.” Not all of them, in other words — just some of them. You’d have to do your research before buying a smart TV to get the services you want.

Even if you choose a smart TV with all the services you want, you’ll likely have a bad interface for them and may never get updates for existing services or new services.

Continued in article


The source of these oddities is Brian Dillon's intriguing Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing (Hayward Publishing), a new volume of essays, excerpts, descriptions, and photographs that accompanies his exhibit of the same name, touring Britain and the Netherlands during 2013-14. But what does it mean to be curious?

"Triumph of the Strange," by James Delbourgo, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 8, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Triumph-of-the-Strange/143365/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

Bob Jensen's threads on Real Science versus Pseudo Science ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm


A validity testing testimony illustration about how research needs to be replicated.
GM is also the company that bought the patent rights to the doomed Wankel Engine ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_Engine

"The Sad Story of the Battery Breakthrough that Proved Too Good to Be True," by Kevin Bullis, MIT's Technology Review, December 6, 2013 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/522361/the-sad-story-of-the-battery-breakthrough-that-proved-too-good-to-be-true/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20131209


Two lurkers on the AECM listserv forwarded the link below:
"The Replication Myth: Shedding Light on One of Science’s Dirty Little Secrets
," by Jared Horvath, Scientific American, December 4, 2013 ---
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/12/04/the-replication-myth-shedding-light-on-one-of-sciences-dirty-little-secrets/

In a series of recent articles published in The Economist (Unreliable Research: Trouble at the Lab and Problems with Scientific Research: How Science Goes Wrong), authors warned of a growing trend in unreliable scientific research. These authors (and certainly many scientists) view this pattern as a detrimental byproduct of the cutthroat ‘publish-or-perish’ world of contemporary science.

In actuality, unreliable research and irreproducible data have been the status quo since the inception of modern science. Far from being ruinous, this unique feature of research is integral to the evolution of science.

At the turn of the 17th century, Galileo rolled a brass ball down a wooden board and concluded that the acceleration he observed confirmed his theory of the law of the motion of falling bodies. Several years later, Marin Mersenne attempted the same experiment and failed to achieve similar precision, causing him to suspect that Galileo fabricated his experiment.

Early in the 19th century, after mixing oxygen with nitrogen, John Dalton concluded that the combinatorial ratio of the elements proved his theory of the law of multiple proportions. Over a century later, J. R. Parington tried to replicate the test and concluded that “…it is almost impossible to get these simple ratios in mixing nitric oxide and air over water.”

At the beginning of the 20th century, Robert Millikan suspended drops of oil in an electric field, concluding that electrons have a single charge. Shortly afterwards, Felix Ehrenhaft attempted the same experiment and not only failed to arrive at an identical value, but also observed enough variability to support his own theory of fractional charges.

Other scientific luminaries have similar stories, including Mendel, Darwin and Einstein. Irreproducibility is not a novel scientific reality. As noted by contemporary journalists William Broad and Nicholas Wade, “If even history’s most successful scientists resort to misrepresenting their findings in various ways, how extensive may have been the deceits of those whose work is now rightly forgotten?”

There is a larger lesson to be gleaned from this brief history. If replication were the gold standard of scientific progress, we would still be banging our heads against our benches trying to arrive at the precise values that Galileo reported. Clearly this isn’t the case.

The 1980’s saw a major upswing in the use of nitrates to treat cardiovascular conditions. With prolonged use, however, many patients develop a nitrate tolerance. With this in mind, a group of drug developers at Pfizer set to creating Sildenafil, a pill that would deliver similar therapeutic benefits as nitrates without declining efficacy. Despite its early success, a number of unanticipated drug interactions and side-effects—including penile erections—caused doctors to shelve Sildenafil. Instead, the drug was re-trialed, re-packaged and re-named Viagra. The rest is history.

This tale illustrates the true path by which science evolves. Despite a failure to achieve initial success, the results generated during Sildenafil experimentation were still wholly useful and applicable to several different lines of scientific work. Had the initial researchers been able to massage their data to a point where they were able to publish results that were later found to be irreproducible, this would not have changed the utility of a sub-set of their results for the field of male potency.

Many are taught that science moves forward in discreet, cumulative steps; that truth builds upon truth as the tapestry of the universe slowly unfolds. Under this ideal, when scientific intentions (hypotheses) fail to manifest, scientists must tinker until their work is replicable everywhere at anytime. In other words, results that aren’t valid are useless.

In reality, science progresses in subtle degrees, half-truths and chance. An article that is 100 percent valid has never been published. While direct replication may be a myth, there may be information or bits of data that are useful among the noise. It is these bits of data that allow science to evolve. In order for utility to emerge, we must be okay with publishing imperfect and potentially fruitless data. If scientists were to maintain the ideal, the small percentage of useful data would never emerge; we’d all be waiting to achieve perfection before reporting our work.

This is why Galileo, Dalton and Millikan are held aloft as scientific paragons, despite strong evidence that their results are irreproducible. Each of these researchers presented novel methodologies, ideas and theories that led to the generation of many useful questions, concepts and hypotheses. Their work, if ultimately invalid, proved useful.

Doesn’t this state-of-affairs lead to dead ends, misused time and wasted money? Absolutely. It is here where I believe the majority of current frustration and anger resides. However, it is important to remember two things: first, nowhere is it written that all science can and must succeed. It is only through failure that the limits of utility can be determined. And second, if the history of science has taught us anything, it is that with enough time all scientific wells run dry. Whether due to the achievement of absolute theoretical completion (a myth) or, more likely, the evolution of more useful theories, all concepts will reach a scientific end.

Two reasons are typically given for not wanting to openly discuss the true nature of scientific progress and the importance of publishing data that may not be perfectly replicable: public faith and funding. Perhaps these fears are justified. It is a possibility that public faith will dwindle if it becomes common knowledge that scientists are too-often incorrect and that science evolves through a morass of noise. However, it is equally possible that public faith will decline each time this little secret leaks out in the popular press. It is a possibility that funding would dry up if, in our grant proposals, we openly acknowledge the large chance of failure, if we replace gratuitous theories with simple unknowns. However, it is equally possible that funding will diminish each time a researcher fails to deliver on grandiose (and ultimately unjustified) claims of efficacy and translatability.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
I had to chuckle that in an article belittling the role of reproducibility in science the author leads out with an illustration of how Marin Mersenne could not reproduce one of Galileo's experiments led to suspicions that the experiment was faked by Galileo. It seems to me that this illustration reinforces the importance of reproducibility/replication in science.

I totally disagree that "unreliable research and irreproducible data have been the status quo since the inception of modern science." If it really were the "status quo" then all science would be pseudo science. Real scientists are obsessed with replication to a point that modern science findings in experiments are not considered new knowledge until they have been independently validated. That of course does not mean that it's always easy or sometimes even possible to validate findings in modern science. Much of the spending in real science is devoted to validating earlier discoveries and databases to be shared with other scientists.

Real scientists are generally required by top journals and funding sources to maintain detailed lab books of steps performed in laboratories. Data collected for use by other scientists (such as ocean temperature data) is generally subjected to validation tests such that research outcomes are less likely to be based upon flawed data. There are many examples of where reputations of scientists were badly tarnished due to inability of other scientists to validate findings ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize

Nearly all real science journals have illustrations where journal articles are later retracted because the findings could not be validated.

What the article does point out that real scientists do not always validate findings independently. What this is saying is that real science is often imperfect. But this does not necessarily make validation, reproduction, and replication of original discoveries less important. It only says that the scientists themselves often deviate from their own standards of validation.

The article does above does not change my opinion that reproducibility is the holy grail of real science. If findings are not validated what you have is imperfect implementation of a scientific process rather than imperfect standards.

Accountics science is defined at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm
in short, an accountics science study is any accounting research study that features equations and/or statistical inference.
One of the main reasons Bob Jensen contends that accountics science is not yet a real science is that lack of exacting replications of accountics science findings. By exacting replications he means reproducibility as defined in the IAPUC Gold Book  ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUPAC_Gold_Book

My study of the 2013 articles in The Accounting Review suggests that over 90% of the articles rely upon public databases that are purchased, such as the CompuStat, CRSP, Datastream, and AuditAnalytics. The reason I think accountics scientists are not usually real scientists includes the following:

These and my other complaints about the lack of replications in accountics science can be found at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on Real Science versus Pseudo Science ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm


Flipped Classroom (Flipped Teaching) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_Classroom

"Study Measures Benefits of a ‘Flipped’ Pharmacy Course'," Chronicle of Higher Education, December 5, 2013 --- Click Here
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/study-measures-benefits-of-a-flipped-pharmacy-course/48749?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

A study comparing traditional and “flipped” versions of a pharmacy-school course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that students much preferred the flipped course and got better grades on the final examination. The flipped course replaced in-class lectures with videos that the students watched before they came to class to take part in a series of activities—assessments, presentations, discussions, quizzes, and “microlectures.”

The study is to be published in February in Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, but it is available online now (it can be downloaded using the “Article as PDF” tool). It reports on the 2011 and 2012 versions of a first-year course for graduate students, “Basic Pharmaceutics II.”

In 2011 the course relied on 75-minute lectures two days a week—a total of 29 hours’ worth—plus occasional quizzes. In 2012 instructors “offloaded all in-class lectures to self-paced online videos”—averaging around 35 minutes each and totaling under 15 hours—that students could pause and review as necessary. Class sessions were “devoted to student-centered learning exercises designed to assess their knowledge, promote critical thinking, and stimulate discussion.”

Following the 2012 course, only about 15 percent of the 162 students said they would have preferred a traditional lecture-style classroom experience. Others wrote comments such as “It was different, but I enjoyed coming to class more and I also feel that I will retain the information for longer. It helped make learning ‘fun’ again and not just endless hours of lectures and PowerPoints.”

The study’s authors said that, on the final exam, scores for the flipped class were five points higher on a 200-point scale than scores for the traditional version had been the year before.

9 Video Tips for a Better Flipped Classroom (K-12) ---
http://online.qmags.com/TJL1113?sessionID=4CB36C8DBEEE14AA7090E8682&cid=2399838&eid=18483#pg1&mode1

Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm


Harvard Undergraduate Grades:

Mode = A
Median = A-
In the 1940s both the mode and the median grade was C (the historic average performance grade).

Question 1
What is the most likely explanation of why the median and mode are unequal?

Hint:
Think variance and kurtosis when the A grade is also an upper bound.

Question 2
Nearly 70 undergraduates at Harvard were recently expelled for cheating in a government course that gives every student an A grade for completing the course. This begs the question of why so many students cheated when they were assured of getting a top grade without having to cheat?

Answer to Question 2
The investigation revealed that most of the cheaters were just too lazy to do the writing assignment even though everybody who submitted a paper would get the same top grade. The students who were expelled all plagiarized the same parts of the paper that, when you think about it,made the detection of plagiarism inevitable if a grader actually read each paper.

"Most Frequently Awarded Grade at Harvard: A," Inside Higher Ed, December 4, 2013 ---
 http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/12/04/most-frequently-awarded-grade-harvard

The most frequently awarded grade for undergraduates at Harvard University is an A, and the median grade is A-. University officials released those facts Tuesday at a meeting of arts and sciences faculty members, and a Harvard spokesman confirmed the information Tuesday night. The spokesman cautioned in an email against too much emphasis on the grade data. "We believe that learning is the most important thing that happens in our classrooms and throughout our system of residential education. The faculty are focused on creating positive and lasting learning outcomes for our undergraduates," he said. "We watch and review trends in grading across Harvard College, but we are most interested in helping our students learn and learn well."

Some Harvard faculty members are concerned, however, about grade inflation. Harvey Mansfield, who has repeatedly raised the issue, was the one who brought it up with questions at Tuesday's meeting. He told The Boston Globe that he thought grading patterns were "really indefensible."

Also see
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/3/grade-inflation-mode-a/

Jensen Comment
The number I recall the most is that over 80% of Harvard's graduates graduate cum laude.
Who does this hurt the most?
It probably hurts the top 10% of the Harvard Graduates who are not designated as performing better than the other 60% of the cum laude graduates. If 1,000 cum laude graduates apply for medical school recruiters essentially have to ignore Harvard grade averages in favor of other criteria like GRE scores.

You've got to love the curmudgeon political science professor at Harvard who assigns a transcript grade (almost always an A grades) and a private grade that only each student sees showing what Professor Mansfield thinks the student actually earned if there were not such an epidemic of grade inflation ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Mansfield  
His somewhat weak excuse is that students who take his sections of a course should not be penalized relative to their alternatives for earning A grades in other sections. But does not want most of them leaving his courses thinking that they were nearly perfect.

Unlike Harvard, Princeton University has been making a more concerted effort to lower the mode and median grades in most courses.

Bob Jensen's threads on the major cause of grade inflation across the USA (different colleges and universities compared) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#GradeInflation

F**k Up That Professor Mansfield!
Larry Summers President of Harvard University before he became chief economic advisor to President Obama

"White House economist: 'F--- up' conservative prof 'I was astounded that the president of Harvard would stoop to such tactics'," WorldNetDaily, December 6, 2009 --- http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=118187

According to a university colleague, former president of Harvard and current White House economist Larry Summers once asked for help to "f--- up" one of the school's conservative professors.

Summers' colleague, Cornel West, is a radical race relations instructor who is now a professor at Princeton after departing Harvard in the wake of a dispute with Summers. Obama named West, whom he has called a personal friend, to the Black Advisory Council of his presidential campaign. West was a key point man between Obama's campaign and the black community.

In his recently released memoirs, "Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud," West claims that Summers invited West into his office and asked him to help undermine Harvard government professor Harvey Mansfield, who had professed conservative views.

"Help me f--- him up," Summers reportedly said to West without explaining further.

West writes, "For my part, I was astounded that the President of Harvard would stoop to such tactics."

West further related the details of the alleged encounter in a recent interview with Amy Goodman, host of the far-left Democracy Now Internet television network.

Said West: "And as soon as I walked into the office, [Summers] starts using profanity about Harvey Mansfield. I said, 'No, Harvey Mansfield is conservative, sometimes reactionary, but he's my dear brother.' We had just had debates at Harvard. Twelve hundred people showed up. He was against affirmative action; I was for it. That was fine. Harvey Mansfield and I go off and have a drink after, because we have a respect, but deep, deep philosophical and ideological disagreement. He was using profanity, so I had to defend Harvey Mansfield."

"Wait, so you're saying Lawrence Summers was using profanity?" Goodman asked.

Continued West: "Larry Summers using profanity about, you know, 'help me 'F' so and so up.' No, I don't function like that. Maybe he thought that just as a black man, I like to use profanity. I'm not a puritan. I don't use it myself. I have partners who do."

In response to West's claimed meeting with Summers, Mansfield told WND, "Larry Summers was not out to get me."

"I was not present at the famous interview between him and Cornel West, but in my opinion (Summers) merely used my name in a clumsy attempt to cajole Cornel West into behaving more like a professor, less like a celebrity," said Mansfield.

"Larry Summers was doing many good things at Harvard before his enemies there succeeded in ousting him," Mansfield added.

Neither Summers nor West immediately returned WND e-mail and phone requests for comment.

Mansfield is well-known for his opposition to grade inflation at Harvard, which he has publicly blamed in part on affirmative action. His views led to student protests and a well-attended debate with West.

Mansfield also defended President Bush's use of executive powers and has been criticized by some leading feminists for his views on gender roles. He has made statements that men and women have some different societal roles and wrote a book, "Manliness," in which he bemoaned the loss of the virtue of "manliness" in a "gender neutral" society.

Summers, meanwhile, continues to teach at Harvard but lost his position as president in part after a public feud in which West accused him of racism. Summers serves as director of the White House's National Economic Council.

West served as an adviser on Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March and is a personal friend of Farrakhan. He authored two books on race with Henry Louis Gates Jr., who last summer was at the center of controversy after Obama remarked on the Harvard professor's arrest.

Continued in article

"Sociology and Other 'Meathead' Majors:  Archie Bunker was right to be skeptical of his son-in-law's opinions," by Harvey Mansfield, The Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2011 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576345632061434312.html?_nocache=1306940719500#&mg=com-wsj

College campuses display a striking uniformity of thought
Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield once famously advised a conservative colleague to wait until he had tenure and only then to "hoist the Jolly Roger." But few professors are getting around to hoisting the Jolly Roger at all. Either they don't have a viewpoint that is different from their colleagues, or they've decided that if they are going to remain at one place for several decades, they'd rather just get along. Is tenure to blame for the unanimity of thinking in American universities? It's hard to tell. But shouldn't the burden of proof be on the people who want jobs for life?
Naomi Schafer Riley, "Tenure and Academic Freedom:  College campuses display a striking uniformity of thought," The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2009 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124571593663539265.html#mod=djemEditorialPage

 


"CREATING A FINAL EXAMINATION," by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog, December 2, 2013 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2013/12/creating-final-examination.html

Jensen Comment
I admire Joe because he fights back against grade inflation by making the top grades in his courses a relatively small percentage of the students in the courses. And he does this while, at the same time, earning stellar teaching evaluations from nearly all his students who apparently respect his high standards.

On RateMyProfessors.com I note that teachers who receive similar high teaching evaluations tend to also be graded high on easiness. Not Joe!

Bob Jensen

December 4, 2013 reply from Carolyn Wilson

We appreciate the conversation on strategies for writing final exams. The question is: Do you share your thinking with your students?

Attached is our final exam announcement where we share our strategy with our intro financial course class. This is in contrast to our strategy for the first two exams which include essays using the Toulmin Method of Argumentation. (Also see attached first exam announcement).

The announcements refer to our Course Map (which is a detailed syllabus). If you’re interested, below is a link to our syllabus (including our grade policies). The intent is to share examples of how we teach select topics and encourage others to modify it to fit your and your students’ needs:

http://www.navigatingaccounting.com/syllabus/course-maps-teaching-tips

Here is a link to exercises using the Toulmin Method of Argumentation we use for group projects and similar essay exam questions for the first two exams:

http://www.navigatingaccounting.com/exercise/exercises-critical-thinking-using-toulmin-model

Regards,

Pete and Carolyn Wilson

 


The 18 Most Corrupt Countries In The World (2013) ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-corrupt-countries-in-the-world-2013-12

Transparency International has published its 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their administrative and political institutions are perceived to be on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) and a 100 (very clean).

 

Compiled from a combination of surveys and assessments of "the abuse of entrusted power for private gain," the CPI is the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide. 

Syria, in the midst of a brutal civil war, dropped eight points in the last year as government officials profit from the food crisis.

Libya, in the midst of post-revolutionary turmoil, dropped six points to surpass Iraq in official corruption.

:

Rank Country Score
1 Denmark 91
1 New Zealand 91
     
9 Canada 81
     
19 United States 73
19 Uruguay 73
     
     
175 Somalia 8
175 North Korea 8
175 Afghanistan 8
174 Sudan 11
173 South Sudan 14
172 Libya 15
171 Iraq 16
168 Turkmenistan 17
168 Syria 17
168 Uzbekistan 17
167 Yemen 18
163 Equatorial Guinea 19
163 Chad 19
163 Haiti 19
163 Guinea Bissau 19
160 Cambodia 20
160 Eritrea 20
160 Venezuela 20

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-corrupt-countries-in-the-world-2013-12#ixzz2mQ6c03qp
 

 

 


"Ice Everywhere, But No Hockey Sticks," by Mark Steyn,  National Review, December 2, 2013 ---
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/365220/ice-everywhere-no-hockey-sticks-mark-steyn 

News from Santa’s Grotto:

Global warming hysterics at the BBC warned us in 2007 that by summer 2013, the Arctic would be ice-free. As with so many other doomsday predictions by warmists, the results turn out to be quite the opposite.

Meanwhile, down the other end at Santa’s summer vacation condo:

Antarctic sea ice has grown to a record large extent for a second straight year, baffling scientists seeking to understand why this ice is expanding rather than shrinking in a warming world.

Antarctic ice is now at a 35-year high. But scientists are “baffled” by the planet’s stubborn refusal to submit to their climate models. Maybe the problem with Nobel fantasist Michael Mann’s increasingly discredited hockey stick is that he’s holding it upside down.

Nonetheless, the famously settled science seems to be re-settling:

Scientists Increasingly Moving To Global Cooling Consensus

Global warming will kill us. Global cooling will kill us. And if it’s 54 and partly cloudy, you should probably flee for your life right now. Maybe scientists might usefully consider moving to being less hung up on “consensus” – a most unscientific and, in this context, profoundly corrupting concept.

Continued in article


"CBO: The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2010 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/12/cbo-the.html 

Jensen Comment
Per usual I remind you that there's a $2 trillion underground cash-only economy where income does not get reported and income taxes do not get paid.


Selfie --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfie

See The First “Selfie” In History Taken by Robert Cornelius, a Philadelphia Chemist, in 1839 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-first-selfie-in-history-1839.html


Noam Chomsky on Commemorating the JFK Assassination: It “Would Impress Kim Il-Sung” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/noam-chomsky-on-the-commemoration-of-the-jfk-assassination.html


"Why US Baby Boomers Are Retiring In Latin America," Daniel B. Wood, The Christian Science Monitor via Business Insider,  December 1, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-us-baby-boomers-are-retiring-in-latin-america-2013-12

Jensen Comment
I have two friends who independently packed it in here in the USA to move to Costa Rica ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica
Costa Rica is popular with people who want to purchase relatively inexpensive farm and ranch land without the high risk of kidnapping and crime that limits opportunities in many Latin American nations.  Of course wealthy people are at high risk most anywhere south of the Rio Grande.


"Pentagon’s bosses thwart accurate audit of DOD’s main accounting office," by James Rosen and Marisa Taylor, The Tribune, November 22, 2013 ---
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2013/11/22/2796531/pentagons-bosses-thwart-accurate.html 

"The Pentagon's Doctored Accounting Ledgers Conceal Epic Waste," by Scot J. Paltrow, Reuters, November 19, 2013 --- 
http://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-accounting-conceals-epic-waste-2013-11

LETTERKENNY ARMY DEPOT, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Linda Woodford spent the last 15 years of her career inserting phony numbers in the U.S. Department of Defense's accounts.

Every month until she retired in 2011, she says, the day came when the Navy would start dumping numbers on the Cleveland, Ohio, office of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Pentagon's main accounting agency.

Using the data they received, Woodford and her fellow DFAS accountants there set about preparing monthly reports to square the Navy's books with the U.S. Treasury's - a balancing-the-checkbook maneuver required of all the military services and other Pentagon agencies.

And every month, they encountered the same problem. Numbers were missing. Numbers were clearly wrong. Numbers came with no explanation of how the money had been spent or which congressional appropriation it came from. "A lot of times there were issues of numbers being inaccurate," Woodford says. "We didn't have the detail … for a lot of it."

The data flooded in just two days before deadline. As the clock ticked down, Woodford says, staff were able to resolve a lot of the false entries through hurried calls and emails to Navy personnel, but many mystery numbers remained. For those, Woodford and her colleagues were told by superiors to take "unsubstantiated change actions" - in other words, enter false numbers, commonly called "plugs," to make the Navy's totals match the Treasury's.

Jeff Yokel, who spent 17 years in senior positions in DFAS's Cleveland office before retiring in 2009, says supervisors were required to approve every "plug" - thousands a month. "If the amounts didn't balance, Treasury would hit it back to you," he says.

After the monthly reports were sent to the Treasury, the accountants continued to seek accurate information to correct the entries. In some instances, they succeeded. In others, they didn't, and the unresolved numbers stood on the books. STANDARD PROCEDURE

At the DFAS offices that handle accounting for the Army, Navy, Air Force and other defense agencies, fudging the accounts with false entries is standard operating procedure, Reuters has found. And plugging isn't confined to DFAS (pronounced DEE-fass). Former military service officials say record-keeping at the operational level throughout the services is rife with made-up numbers to cover lost or missing information.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-accounting-conceals-epic-waste-2013-11#ixzz2l7VUc9wz

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Jensen Comment
One of our sons, David, went to Iraq working as an exterminator --- mostly trapping wild dogs and jackals. He lived on a huge army base and reported back that the meals were unbelievable. Every night was a buffett of steamed lobsters, lobster thermadore, steaks of all varieties and sizes, wild game (including partridge and quail) and on and on and on. In the mornings he liked the eggs Benedict, and at noon he liked the prime rib sandwiches on freshly baked bread.

Meals on base were prepared by outside contractors rather than Army cooks.

I can vouch for the fact that Navy chow in my day was never like that . We had lots of powdered milk (yuk) and s--- on a shingle and beans, beans, and more beans. On ship the cooks baked fresh bread every day but were not allowed to serve it until it sat in the air for two days. Some regulation in those days declared fresh bread to be bad for digestion.

PS
What also surprised me is when David remarked that the base perimeter guarding our military personnel and outside contractors was not guarded by the U.S. military. Instead this enormous military base in Iraq was guarded by mercenaries from Uganda. Go figure!


Don't forget the impact of a spouse's income
An employee may not request that the employer deduct and withhold additional Medicare tax on wages of $200,000 or less. (However, an employee who anticipates that he or she will be liable for additional Medicare tax—e.g., if household wages will exceed the married-filing-jointly threshold—may request on Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate, that the employer deduct and withhold an additional amount of income tax.)

The additional Medicare tax was enacted as part of 2010’s health care reform legislation. It imposes an additional 0.9% tax on FICA wages, Railroad Retirement Tax Act compensation, or self-employment income exceeding certain threshold amounts: $250,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly; $125,000 for married taxpayers filing separately; and $200,000 for other taxpayers. The additional Medicare tax is not imposed until wages exceed those thresholds, and the employer does not owe the tax. The tax is effective for wages received in any tax year starting after Dec. 31, 2012.

"Final rules released on 0.9% Medicare surtax," by Sally P. Schreiber, Journal of Accountancy, November 27, 2013 ---
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/News/20139173.htm

The IRS issued final regulations governing the 0.9% Medicare surtax, which took effect this year (T.D. 9645). The regulations contain guidance for employers and individuals on the implementation of the tax, including the requirement to file a return reporting the tax, the process for employers to make adjustments of underpayments and overpayments of the tax, and the processes for employers and employees to file claims for refund for an overpayment of the tax. The final rules adopt the proposed regulations issued last year (REG-130074-11) with only one substantive change.

The additional Medicare tax was enacted as part of 2010’s health care reform legislation. It imposes an additional 0.9% tax on FICA wages, Railroad Retirement Tax Act compensation, or self-employment income exceeding certain threshold amounts: $250,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly; $125,000 for married taxpayers filing separately; and $200,000 for other taxpayers. The additional Medicare tax is not imposed until wages exceed those thresholds, and the employer does not owe the tax. The tax is effective for wages received in any tax year starting after Dec. 31, 2012.

Withholding

The regulations require an employer to withhold additional Medicare tax from an employee’s wages only to the extent that the wages the employee receives from the employer exceed $200,000 in a calendar year. In determining whether wages exceed $200,000, the employer does not take into account the employee’s filing status or other wages or compensation that may affect the employee’s liability for the tax, including a spouse’s wages.

An employee may not request that the employer deduct and withhold additional Medicare tax on wages of $200,000 or less. (However, an employee who anticipates that he or she will be liable for additional Medicare tax—e.g., if household wages will exceed the married-filing-jointly threshold—may request on Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate, that the employer deduct and withhold an additional amount of income tax.)

Employers’ liability for underwithholding

If the employer deducts less than the correct amount of tax, it is liable for the correct amount unless and until the employee pays the tax. In the only change from the proposed regulations, the final rules provide that the employer will not be relieved of this liability until it has shown that the employee has paid the tax. The preamble explains that employers will use Form 4669, Statement of Payments Received, and Form 4670, Request for Relief From Payment of Income Tax Withholding, to request relief from paying tax the employee has already paid. 
 
Reporting and payment obligation

An employee is liable for additional Medicare tax on wages or compensation to the extent that the employer does not withhold the tax. Individuals must report the tax on Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, and will claim on the Form 1040 credit for any tax withheld or pay any tax due that was not previously withheld or paid as an estimated tax.

The regulations illustrate how the threshold amounts for self-employed individuals are reduced (but not below zero) by the amount of any FICA wages taken into account in determining the individual’s additional Medicare tax liability. However, Railroad Retirement Act compensation does not similarly reduce the thresholds.

Interest-free adjustments

Adjustments for underpayments of the additional Medicare tax can be made only if the error is ascertained in the same year the wages or compensation was paid, unless the underpayment is attributable to an administrative error.

An adjustment of overpaid additional Medicare tax can be made only if the employer ascertains the error in the year the wages or compensation was paid and repays or reimburses the employee the amount of the overcollection before the end of the calendar year.

Claims for refund

Employers can claim refunds of overpaid additional Medicare tax only if the employer did not deduct or withhold the overpaid additional Medicare tax from the employee’s wages or compensation.

Employees claim a refund or credit of overpaid additional Medicare tax by taking the overpayment into account in claiming a credit against, or refund of, tax on an individual tax return for the year in which the overpayment was made, or for a tax year for which a tax return has been filed, by filing Form 1040X, Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Employees may claim a refund of additional Medicare tax only if they have not received repayment or reimbursement from their employer in the context of an interest-free adjustment.

Effective date

The regulations are effective for quarters beginning on or after Nov. 29, 2013, the date the regulations will be published in the Federal Register. Some of the proposed regulations issued last year, however, are regulations that taxpayers can apply to quarters before that date. This rule is necessary because the withholding rules have been in effect for all of 2013.


"EU Plan Has Creditors Taking Bigger Hit for Failed Banks Deal Reached That Aims to Reduce Cost to Taxpayers in Case of a Bailout," by Tom Fairless, The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304477704579253653757260572?mod=djemCFO_h

The European Union took a major step to protect taxpayer money from bank failures, announcing Thursday that bondholders and in some cases big depositors will suffer losses before the general public.

European governments also will collect money from banks to seed an insurance fund to prop up failed lenders.

The new rules, completed after 18 months of often difficult negotiations, represent an about-face for a region where governments have routinely dipped into public funds to save failing financial institutions. They form a key part of the euro zone's effort to create a banking union and break the pattern of bailouts of weak banks and their governments that has played out recently in countries such as Ireland and Spain.

"With these new rules in place, massive public bail-outs of banks and their consequences for taxpayers will finally be a practice of the past," said Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for the single market, in a statement.

Governments and regulators around the globe have sought new tools to deal with failing banks since the financial crisis.

After the collapse and near-collapse of a number of commercial and investment banks in 2008 prompted infusions of taxpayer money, the U.S. in 2010 adopted a law giving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. power to step in if a "systemically important" firm is on the brink. Taxpayer funds can be used to stabilize a firm temporarily, but only if the broader economy is at risk and the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department agree.

Soon after the financial crisis ebbed in the U.S., banks across Europe began to topple as economies there weakened. All told, between 2008 and 2011, European governments poured in more than €1.5 trillion ($2 trillion) to shore up their banks. That prompted officials to begin formulating a plan that would span the entire European Union.

Some governments worried that imposing more losses on investors could destabilize Europe's financial markets at a time when the region is struggling to emerge from a five-year slump.

Wealthier countries like Germany and Finland also sought to make it as difficult as possible for poorer countries to tap a rescue fund.

Under the terms of the new European agreement, stockholders, junior bondholders and then senior bondholders will take hits as banks write off debt they can't repay. Individual and corporate depositors with more than €100,000 ($137,700) in their accounts would be hit only during the most severe bank failures. Depositors with less than that will remain safe.

Governments also will collect money from banks as insurance. Resolution funds will have to reach a level of 1% of the covered deposits of the banks in each country within 10 years.

National authorities will be allowed to use that money or money from public purses only after they have imposed on investors losses of at least 8% of a bank's total assets. That would have been sufficient to cover "99% of the cases we have seen during the current crisis," an EU official said.

After the first round of losses, governments and national bank-resolution funds will be allowed to step in to cover further shortfalls up to a maximum of 5% of a bank's total assets, provided there are "extraordinary economic circumstances," an EU official said. Such exceptions will have to be authorized by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.

The deal also allows governments to put up money to support a bank that has failed a stress test and isn't able to raise capital on the markets.

Sven Giegold, a spokesman for the Green party in the European Parliament, said this "preventive recapitalization" clause is a "huge loophole" that will allow governments to continue bailing out banks. "Basically it means if a stress test or asset review shows up additional capital needs, the state can step in and fulfill those needs" without investors losing money, he said.

Banking-industry experts and economists said predictable rules should encourage banks to limit risky behavior.

But the rules also mean that European bank debt carries more risk. "It's an issue investors have long been aware of, but can no longer ignore," said David Marks, head of financial institutions' debt capital markets at J.P. Morgan Chase in London, during a conference.

The European Parliament and EU governments still must approve the deal.

The agreement came a day after finance ministers from the biggest euro-zone countries reached an understanding on a new system for winding down failing banks that would centralize decisions on such bank resolutions and eventually spread the costs among European countries.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
It's not clear what will happen when banks within a given EU nation fail to such a degree that the nation may have to withdraw from the Eurozone as almost happened for Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. There seems to be very widespread sentiment to keep nations in the Eurozone at all costs. Of course not all EU nations are in the Eurozone.

In the USA there are various plans to protect investors, although many of them are private insurance funds. For example, I invest a large portion of my savings in Vanguard's Long-Term "Insured" Tax Exempt Bond Fund. This spreads the losses of failed tax exempt bonds over the holders of this protection insurance. Since the insurance fund is not backed by the government, It's possible that in a complete bond fund collapse the insurance fund with also fail, but the insurance does cover isolated instances of tax exempt bond failure.


Is it "Scoop and Toss" or "Poop and Scoop?"

Jensen Comment
It's a little like spending on new higher-interest credit cards to pay off the debt on current credit cards that are maxed out. Sounds like a good idea except for the fact that it does little to encourage fiscal responsibility in reducing total debt.

But some observers warn that scoop-and-toss refinancings add to interest costs while allowing civic managers to overlook structural economic difficulties. Investors purchasing the debt take on the risk that the securities will lose value, as they did in Detroit's $18 billion Chapter 9 bankruptcy case.

"Borrowing Maneuver Catches Flak 'Scoop and Toss' Involves Selling New Debt to Pay Off Existing Bonds," by Mike Cherney, The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304579404579234441072889918?mod=djemCFO_h

A budget-stretching tactic employed by strapped local governments from California to Puerto Rico is coming under market scrutiny, amid fears that Detroit's record bankruptcy filing could presage further pain for municipal-bond investors.

The maneuver, called "scoop and toss," involves selling new long-term debt to raise funds to pay off maturing bonds, effectively extending the timetable for retiring municipal borrowings. Refinancings that aim to reduce interest rates typically keep the same maturity schedule.

The practice, which has been around for decades, helps cities, states and other local entities to stay current on their obligations as they try to claw out of one of the deepest economic downturns since the Great Depression.

The debt sales often offer above-market interest rates that appeal to many bond buyers at a time of slow economic growth, easy Federal Reserve policy and low rates on relatively safe investments such as U.S. Treasury securities and bank accounts.

But some observers warn that scoop-and-toss refinancings add to interest costs while allowing civic managers to overlook structural economic difficulties. Investors purchasing the debt take on the risk that the securities will lose value, as they did in Detroit's $18 billion Chapter 9 bankruptcy case.

"It's never a good sign to see this," said John Loffredo, portfolio manager of the MainStay Tax Free Bond Fund. Mr. Loffredo said his firm recently started buying Puerto Rico bonds that carried third-party insurance guaranteeing repayment, citing the high yields.

Among the chief practitioners of scoop and toss is Puerto Rico, which since 2006 has relied on new bond sales and loans to help balance its budget and pay off old bonds coming due. The island commonwealth has restructured about $4 billion in debt from its main operating budget since then. About $70 billion of Puerto Rico debt is outstanding.

Yields on Puerto Rico's bonds have risen sharply this year, making it much more expensive to sell debt to investors, following rating-company downgrades. Puerto Rico bond prices are down about 16% in 2013.

In 2011, Puerto Rico sold $356 million of bonds that begin maturing in 2024. Some of the proceeds were used to pay off a bond from 1989 that was maturing in 2011—in effect turning a 22-year bond into a 35-year one.

Lyle Fitterer, head of tax-exempt investments at Wells Capital Management, which oversees about $33 billion in municipal-debt investments, said he would like to see cheaper bond prices or a sustainable economic recovery plan before he boosts his firm's small Puerto Rico holdings.

"The scoop-and-toss strategy might be a good strategy for a short-term solution, if you have a temporary economic recession," he said. "But obviously, the longer it goes on, the more difficult it is to argue that it's a good long-term solution."

Officials in the U.S. territory are seeking to put the island on stronger fiscal footing through tax increases and entitlement reform, and seek to end scoop and toss by 2015. "In the past, it had been restructuring after restructuring," Puerto Rico Treasury Secretary Melba Acosta said recently in an interview. "We are moving away from that."

Puerto Rico officials have said they can make it through this fiscal year without borrowing, and have been drawing down a line of credit from the Government Development Bank, according to Fitch Ratings.

U.S. companies frequently issue new bonds to pay off old debt. But investors typically worry less about corporate-debt issuers because the money can be used to expand the business, which can benefit bond buyers.

"If a corporation started going into decline, you aren't going to see the debt rolling over and being refinanced," said Stan Garstka, accounting professor at the Yale School of Management.

To be sure, there are signs of progress for municipalities. Over the summer, Moody's Investors Service raised its outlook for U.S. states to stable from negative, saying "the slowly improving U.S. economy continues supporting state revenues and reserves."

Other municipal entities have employed scoop-and-toss strategies recently. Suffolk County, N.Y., which recently declared a fiscal emergency, last year sold through an authority about $38 million in bonds backed by tobacco revenues to help cover other debt payments that were due in 2012 and 2013.

In California, the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency, which operates toll roads in Orange County, is looking into a scoop and toss that would pay off bonds from 1999 and extend the maturity of the debt by 13 years to 2053. The bonds are backed primarily by revenues from tolls, but traffic on the roads has grown slower than expected.

Continued in article


From the Scout Report on December 6, 2013

On international science and mathematics test, U.S. students continue
to lag
U.S. students lag around average on international science, math and reading
test
http://m.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-students-lag-around-average-on-international-science-math-and-reading-test/2013/12/02/2e510f26-5b92-11e3-a49b-90a0e156254b_story.html

BBC News: Pisa tests: UK stagnates as Shanghai tops league table
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25187997

PISA: Results from the 2012 data collection
http://www.oecd.org/pisa/

Why Asian teens do better on tests than US teens
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1203/Why-Asian-teens-do-better-on-tests-than-US-teens

NEA: The 10 Best STEM Resources
http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/stem-resources.html

PBS Teachers: STEM Education Resource Center
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/

 

"U.S. 15 and 16-year olds rank 36th of 65 countries in PISA Educational Achievement Tests :  Education Efforts in the U.S. are a Resounding Failure," by Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, December 4, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/12/us-15-and-16-year-olds-rank-36th-of-65-countries-in-pisa-educational-achievement-tests-.html

I’m not surprised. I have consistently blogged about the failed education system in the U.S. Just last week I blogged about the failure of our educational system as one of the reasons the U.S. concept of American Exceptionalism no longer is valid. We’ve tried it all to improve our kids’ educational achievement in the U.S. to no avail. We’ve tried “No Child Left Behind,” charter schools, “Race to the Top,’ and now common core standards, but nothing has worked.

The fact is nothing will work because our leaders are looking for answers to the disappointing results in all the wrong places. Some blame poverty in America and the failure to educate low income/socioeconomic disadvantaged students with the same quality that exists in high-income groups. Some say using tests to measure education achievement is wrong because test-taking results do not indicate whether American kids will be as or more successful than non-Americans once they enter the working arena. Those folks have a retrospective point of view and not a prospective one, which is needed to assess whether today’s education will give our kids the foundation to be future leaders in the global economic system of the 21st century.

U.S. students ranked 35th out of 65 countries in rankings in mathematics, reading, and science according to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) that is administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This places the U.S. below average on math and near the average on reading and science. The numbers are even more sobering when compared among only the 34 OECD countries. The United States ranked 26th in math — trailing nations such as the Slovakia, Portugal and Russia. What’s more, American high school students dropped to 21st in science (from 17th in 2009) and slipped to 17th in reading (from 14th in 2009), according to the results.

When it comes to mathematics, reading and science, young people in Shanghai are the best in the world, according to the survey. What does that say for our ability to compete with China for global economic dominance?

In all three subjects, Shanghai students demonstrated knowledge and skills equivalent to at least one additional year of schooling than their peers in countries like the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Not surprisingly, East Asian kids scored better than the U.S. in all three subjects. Shanghai was first; Singapore second; Hong Kong third; Taiwan fourth; and South Korea was fifth.

Several European countries saw big gains in the test results: Poland, Germany and Ireland moved up in the rankings, and Vietnam, which administered the test for the first time, topped the U.S. in math and science.

I was interested to read the reactions of influential educators. American Federation of Teacher’s head Randi Weingarten used the scores to rally against test-based schooling initiatives that have been pushed by both the Bush and Obama administrations for years.

“While the intentions may have been good, a decade of top-down, test-based schooling created by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top—focused on hyper-testing students, sanctioning teachers and closing schools—has failed to improve the quality of American public education,” she said in a statement. “Sadly, our nation has ignored the lessons from the high-performing nations.”

Sadly, Ms. Weingarten knows nothing about education in the Asian world. I can tell you from teaching Asian kids in college for over 30 years, testing is the be all and end all for these kids. They hyper-ventilate to get high test scores and feel like a failure if they don’t. They may internalize bad results and feel like they have brought dishonor on their family. These feelings can be seen more acutely in first generation college-educated Asian kids.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said: “While we are seeing some encouraging progress on many important measures, the United States’ performance on the 2012 PISA is a picture of educational stagnation. This is a reality at odds with our aspiration to have the best-educated, most competitive workforce in the world.”

The question is, Secretary Duncan, what are the best fixes for these disappointing results? A new mantra for educational achievement means nothing – i.e., race to the top; no child left behind. Throwing money at the problem won’t fix it. Having students evaluate their teachers is not the answer. Selecting some teachers for merit pay won’t work. We’re looking in the wrong places for the answer and that is why nothing will change; in fact, I predict the results will get worse for the U.S. over time.

The reason the results will get worse is virtually all of the countries at the top of the class have something to prove through hard work and applying themselves to the task at hand. Asian countries want to show they have the best educated students; it validates their system; it demonstrates the ability to lead the world economically. Former eastern bloc nations like Poland want to show they have successfully broken away from the old Soviet Union in educational achievement and should be seen as an up and coming economic power.

The ‘elephant in the room’ is the breakdown of ethics in the U.S. Ethics entails working diligently and the pursuit of excellence. I have met maybe 5% of college kids in the last ten or so years that tell me this is their motivation from an educational achievement perspective. A lesser percentage says their goal is learning for the sake of learning.  Most American kids are motivated by getting a high-paying job; better yet, one in which they don’t have to work too hard.

The underlying cause for the stagnant educational achievement of U.S. kids is the lack of a work ethic. Our 15 and 16-year olds have been raised in an era where parents do not instill the value of hard work for the sake of hard work – to learn, to mature, to improve oneself, and to contribute to the betterment of society.

In my classroom I have found that students tune me out very quickly. They don’t have the skill to focus and pay attention for more than about ten minutes, unless I do a song and dance routine in class or a ten-minute monologue.

Then there is the evil of electronic devices. When I tell students not to use electronic devices in class, unless it is to take notes, most aren’t complying. It’s obvious by the smiles on their faces that they are on Facebook or Twitter. My lectures are not that entertaining; I can’t sing or dance and I’ll leave the monologues to Jay Leno and David Letterman.

Continued in article

"Finland Used To Have The Best Education System In The World — What Happened? " by Adam Taylor, Business Insider, December 3, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-finland-fell-in-the-pisa-rankings-2013-12

Jensen Comment
The article tends to blame complacency. However, I would instead focus on the bar being raised. Intense competition, especially in Asian nations, has pushed the competition almost to a point of insanity where the pressures placed upon students in high-scoring nations beyond what is healthy.  I think Finland still sets the gold standard for healthy education.


"Illinois's Fake Pension Fix:  The most dysfunctional state government lives down to its reputation," The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303670804579233901035185122?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

Democrats in Illinois have dug a $100 billion pension hole, and now they want Republicans to rescue them by voting for a plan that would merely delay the fiscal reckoning while helping to re-elect Governor Pat Quinn. The cuckolded GOP seems happy to oblige on this quarter-baked reform.

Legislative leaders plan to vote Tuesday on a bill that Mr. Quinn hails as a great achievement. But the plan merely tinkers around the edges to save a fanciful $155 billion over 30 years, shaves the state's unfunded liability by at most 20%, and does nothing for Chicago's $20 billion pension hole.

Most of the putative savings would come from trimming benefits for younger workers. The retirement age for current workers would increase on a graduated scale by four months for 45-year-olds to five years for those 30 and under. Teachers now in their 20s would have to wait until the ripe, old age of 60 to retire, but they'd still draw pensions worth 75% of their final salary.

Salaries for calculating pensions would also be capped at $109,971, which would increase over time with inflation. Yet Democrats cracked this ceiling by grandfathering in pensions for workers whose salaries currently top or will exceed the cap due to raises in collective-bargaining agreements.

Democrats are also offering defined-contribution plans as a sop to Republicans who are desperate to dress up this turkey of a deal. These plans would only be available to 5% of workers hired before 2011. Why only 5%? Because if too many workers opt out of the traditional pension, there might not be enough new workers to fund the overpromises Democrats have made to current pensioners.

At private companies, such 401(k)-style plans are private property that workers keep if they move to a new job. But the Illinois version gives the state control over the new defined-contribution plans and lets the legislature raid the individual accounts at anytime. That's a scam, not a reform.

Even under the most optimistic forecasts, these nips and tucks would only slim the state's pension liability down to $80 billion—which is where it was after Governor Quinn signed de minimis fixes in spring 2010 to get him past that year's election.

Safely elected in January 2011, Democrats then raised the state's 3% flat income tax rate to 5% and its corporate rate from 7.3% to 9.5%, the fourth highest in the country. All $7 billion a year in new revenues have gone to pension payments, which will leave a huge new hole in the budget when the supposedly temporary tax hikes are phased out in 2015.

The truth is that Democrats will never let the tax increases expire, and state Senate President John Cullerton all but admitted as much in October. Mr. Quinn won't rule out another tax hike, which means round two is a certainty in 2015 if he wins re-election next year. The difference is that this time Democrats will kill the flat income tax and impose a progressive rate scheme that will make future tax hikes politically easier.

It's a sign of their desperation that the state's business lobbies are supporting the reform as the best they can hope for. Others want special tax breaks to offset the 2011 tax hike. Archer Daniels Midland ADM +1.49% (Decatur) and Office Max (Naperville) have threatened to move their corporate headquarters if the state doesn't guarantee $75 million in tax breaks. But Mr. Quinn has refused to approve more gifts for the legislature's corporate cronies until lawmakers pass something on pensions.

Democrats hold comfortable majorities in the legislature and don't need GOP votes. Yet they are demanding Republican support so they won't be the only targets of union wrath. Mr. Quinn watered down the reforms to reduce opposition from the teachers and other government unions, but the unions are still promising to go to court to block the changes if they pass.

GOP leaders who are rounding up votes must be feeling especially charitable this holiday season because they're making an in-kind contribution to Mr. Quinn, who will claim a bipartisan victory as he runs for re-election. While GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner has denounced the pension legislation as window-dressing, his Republican primary challengers aren't as savvy. State Senator Bill Brady, who lost to Mr. Quinn in 2010, is supporting the bill while treasurer Dan Rutherford says it is too hard on unions. Such me-too thinking is why the Illinois GOP has become a useless minority.

Continued in article

"Audit reveals half of people enrolled in Illinois Medicaid program not eligible," by Craig Cheatham, KMOV Television, November 4, 2013 ---
http://www.kmov.com/news/just-posted/Audit-reveals-half-of-people-enrolled-in-IL-Medicaid-program-not-eligible-230586321.html?utm_content=buffer824ba&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

The early findings of an ongoing review of the Illinois Medicaid program revealed that half the people enrolled weren’t even eligible.

The state insisted it’s not that bad but Medicaid is on the federal government’s own list of programs at high risk of waste and abuse.

Now, a review of the Illinois Medicaid program confirms massive waste and fraud.

A review was ordered more than a year ago-- because of concerns about waste and abuse. So far, the state says reviewers have examined roughly 712-thousand people enrolled in Medicaid, and found that 357-thousand, or about half of them shouldn't have received benefits. After further review, the state decided that the percentage of people who didn't qualify was actually about one out of four.

"It says that we've had a system that is dysfunctional. Once people got on the rolls, there wasn't the will or the means to get them off,” said Senator Bill Haines of Alton.

A state spokesman insists that the percentage of unqualified recipients will continue to drop dramatically as the review continues because the beginning of the process focused on the people that were most likely to be unqualified for those benefits. But regardless of how it ends, critics say it's proof that Illinois has done a poor job of protecting tax payers money.

“Illinois one of the most miss-managed states in country-- lists of reasons-- findings shouldn't surprise anyone,” said Ted Dabrowski.

Dabrowski, a Vice-President of The Illinois Policy Institute think tank, spoke with News 4 via SKYPE. He said the Medicaid review found two out of three people recipients either got the wrong benefits, or didn't deserve any at all.

We added so many people to medicaid rolls so quickly, we've lost control of who belongs there,” said Dabrowski.

Continued in article


From the Scout Report on November 27, 2013

SecretInk --- https://secretink.co

What if you could send a message that could only be read once? SecretInk can let you do just that. Visitors can type in a message and send it out via email or text message. Once the message is read, it disappears forever. It's a novel little device and it is compatible with all operating systems.


PDFstash --- https://www.pdfstash.com/ 

Do you ever wonder where you put that last PDF you created? It can be a vexing problem, but with PDFstash you need wonder no more. The program allows visitors to put all of their PDFs in the cloud and then create bookmarks and folders that will keep things neat and tidy. Placing the PDFs in the cloud simply requires users to drag and drop documents. The free account option allows users to store 20 different documents per month and is compatible with all operating systems


Open City --- http://opencityapps.org/ 

Are you interested in improving civic culture and knowledge with apps? If so, you will be delighted to learn about the Open City site. The Open City folks are a group of programmers, citizen activists, and policy types that create apps with open data in order "to improve transparency and understanding of our government." Chicagoans can stop by the Merchandise Mart to meet up and work with Open City in person. Everyone else can check out the Projects page to view apps like "Chicago Councilmatic," "How's Business?" and "Crime in Chicago." Each of these apps takes open source data from the city of Chicago and other organizations to create tools designed to help decision makers, journalists, and scholars with their various projects. The site also contains information about the people behind the organization and press releases about their work.


Court ruling may slow down plans for high speed rail in California
California high-speed rail plans stopped in tracks
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-s-rulings-halt-California-s-high-speed-rail-5011046.php

California's high-speed rail imperiled by court rulings
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_24600456/new-court-rulings-imperil-future-californias-high-speed

California's railways: Applying a brake to high-speed plans
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2013/11/californias-railways

California High Speed Rail Authority
http://www.hsr.ca.gov/

Florida High Speed Rail
http://www.floridabullettrain.com/fhsra/servlet/com.hntb.flhighspeedrail.web9a01.html?cmd=start

The Amtrak Vision for the Northeast Corridor
http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/453/325/Amtrak-Vision-for-the-Northeast-Corridor.pdf

From the Scout Report on December 6, 2013

Surfly --- http://www.surfly.com/ 

Have you ever tried to give a friend specific instructions for what to do and where to go on a website? Perhaps you wanted to show them a series of navigations but were unsure about how to tell them using written instructions. Surfly makes helping from a distance possible, "by showing what to do from your perspective." After registering on the site, visitors can create a unique URL that contains all of the navigation details involved with a set of site explorations. It's a great way to collaborate and share information with family, friends, or work colleagues. This version is compatible with all operating systems.


Infinit --- https://infinit.io/

What's the easiest way to send files? That's the type of question that might start some serious online discussion. Infinit offers one of the easiest ways to complete such a task with an intuitive and well-thought out interface system. First-time visitors can take an online tour to get started and learn how to both accept and transfer files. Users can also learn about all of Infinit's various features, share feedback with other users, and send suggestions for future improvements to the program. This version is compatible with all operating systems.


On international science and mathematics test, U.S. students continue
to lag
U.S. students lag around average on international science, math and reading
test
http://m.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-students-lag-around-average-on-international-science-math-and-reading-test/2013/12/02/2e510f26-5b92-11e3-a49b-90a0e156254b_story.html

BBC News: Pisa tests: UK stagnates as Shanghai tops league table
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25187997

PISA: Results from the 2012 data collection
http://www.oecd.org/pisa/

Why Asian teens do better on tests than US teens
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1203/Why-Asian-teens-do-better-on-tests-than-US-teens

NEA: The 10 Best STEM Resources
http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/stem-resources.html

PBS Teachers: STEM Education Resource Center
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/

 


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


Education Tutorials

The “Pursuit of Ignorance” Drives All Science: Watch Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein’s Engaging New TED Talk ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-pursuit-of-ignorance-drives-all-science.html

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

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for multiple disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm


Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

The (Beautiful) Physics of Adding Cream to Your Coffee ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-beautiful-physics-of-adding-cream-to-your-coffee.html

Physics to Go --- http://www.compadre.org/informal/

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory --- http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/sao/

BioEd Online: Lecture Series --- http://www.bioedonline.org/videos/lecture-series/

Neuro-Opthalmology Virtual Education Libra --- http://novel.utah.edu/

Botanical Accuracy --- http://www.botanicalaccuracy.com/

Catena: Digital Archive of Historic Gardens + Landscapes --- http://catena.bgc.bard.edu/

Massachusetts Conservation --- http://www.nps.gov/NR/travel/massachusetts_conservation/index.html

From DNA to Beer: Harnessing Nature in Medicine and Industry  --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/fromdnatobeer/

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Resources/Materials for Teachers --- http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=9538

New Security Beat (environmental protection) --- http://www.newsecuritybeat.org/

Digital Archaeology --- http://digital-archaeology.org/

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

The History of Economics & Economic Theory Explained with Comics, Starting with Adam Smith ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-history-of-economics-economic-theory-explained-with-comics.html

National Opinion Research Center: Data and Findings --- http://www.norc.org/Research/DataFindings/Pages/default.aspx

Massachusetts Conservation --- http://www.nps.gov/NR/travel/massachusetts_conservation/index.html

NOAA: Weather-Ready Nation (preparing for storms) --- http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/weatherreadynation

MetLink: Weather and Climate Resources --- http://www.metlink.org/

CBC Digital Archives: On This Day (Canadian Broadcasting) ---  http://www.cbc.ca/archives/onthisday/november.html

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

MAA: Curriculum Inspirations --- http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/teachers/curriculum-inspirations

From the Scout Report on December 6, 2013

On international science and mathematics test, U.S. students continue
to lag
U.S. students lag around average on international science, math and reading
test
http://m.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-students-lag-around-average-on-international-science-math-and-reading-test/2013/12/02/2e510f26-5b92-11e3-a49b-90a0e156254b_story.html

BBC News: Pisa tests: UK stagnates as Shanghai tops league table
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25187997

PISA: Results from the 2012 data collection
http://www.oecd.org/pisa/

Why Asian teens do better on tests than US teens
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1203/Why-Asian-teens-do-better-on-tests-than-US-teens

NEA: The 10 Best STEM Resources
http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/stem-resources.html

PBS Teachers: STEM Education Resource Center
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/

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


History Tutorials

The British Library Puts 1,000,000 Images into the Public Domain, Making Them Free to Reuse & Remix (Photographs, Photography) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/british-library-puts-1000000-images-into-public-domain.html

The Art of Making Timelapse Films ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-art-of-making-timelapse-films.html

"The 13 Best Biographies, Memoirs, and History Books of 2013," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, November 25, 2013  ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/25/best-biographies-memoirs-and-history-books-of-2013/

Watch an Illustrated Video of Howard Zinn’s “What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me About the American Empire” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/what-the-classroom-didnt-teach-me-about-the-american-empire.html
Jensen Comment
I don't buy into this empire argument. The author fails to explain who the USA was most reluctantly drawn into WW I and WW II. I'm a believer that we were drawn into the Viet Nam and Korean Wars to stop a red tide in Asia. In spite of our defeats I think the resistance on the part of USA changed the course of the red tide. Was our military action in Bosnia for imperialist purposes? I hardly think so. In all cases that I can remember since we defeated American Indians by conquest, I think we returned our conquered lands back to the people who inhabited those lands before our "invasions."

George Saunders’ Lectures on the Russian Greats Brought to Life in Student Sketches ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/george-saunders-lectures-on-the-russian-greats-brought-to-life-in-student-sketches.html

How Hans Christian Andersen Revolutionized Storytelling, Plus the Best Illustrations from 150 Years of His Beloved Fairy Tales ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/18/taschen-the-fairy-tales-ofhans-christian-andersen/

The Pulp Fiction Archive: The Cheap, Thrilling Stories That Entertained a Generation of Readers (1896-1946) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-pulp-fiction-archive.html

Herbert Randall Survey of New Haven and Environs, 1880-1920 (New Haven Photograph Collection)
http://cslib.cdmhost.com/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15019coll7

New York State Library: Selected Digital Historical Documents (NY Government Documents) --- 
http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/scandocs/historical.htm

Great New Archive Lets You Hear the Sounds of New York City During the Roaring 20s ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/sounds-of-new-york-city-during-the-roaring-20s.html

Bibliographic Guide to Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 2002-On --- http://media.library.uiuc.edu/projects/ggm/

Metazen (short fiction and poetry) --- http://www.metazen.ca/

Minnesota Digital Library --- http://www.mndigital.org/

Massachusetts Conservation --- http://www.nps.gov/NR/travel/massachusetts_conservation/index.html

Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture http://www.fourcenturies.org/

Poweshiek History Preservation Project (Iowa History) ---http://digital.grinnell.edu/drupal/content/about-phpp

The Story of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music History in 8 Minutes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-story-of-the-bass.html

See John Steinbeck Deliver His Apocalyptic Nobel Prize Speech (1962) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/see-john-steinbeck-deliver-his-apocalyptic-nobel-prize-speech-1962.html

Watch The Idea, the First Animated Film to Deal with Big, Philosophical Ideas (1932) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-idea-1932.html

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  

Bob Dylan Reads From T.S. Eliot’s Great Modernist Poem The Waste Land ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/bob-dylan-reads-from-t-s-eliots-the-waste-land.html

Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine ---
http://www.artic.edu/art-and-appetite-american-painting-culture-and-cuisine

Noam Chomsky on Commemorating the JFK Assassination: It “Would Impress Kim Il-Sung” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/noam-chomsky-on-the-commemoration-of-the-jfk-assassination.html

City of Cambridge, Mass.: CityViewer --- http://www2.cambridgema.gov/GIS/search.cfm?applicationid=CDDPub

John Singer Sargent Watercolors --- http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/john-singer-sargent-watercolors

Center for Pacific Northwest Studies: Photograph Catalog --- http://www.library.wwu.edu/photo_cat_cpnws

Digital Archaeology --- http://digital-archaeology.org/

CBC Digital Archives: On This Day (Canadian Broadcasting) ---  http://www.cbc.ca/archives/onthisday/november.html

Engraved in Wood: The Work of John DePol --- http://www.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/johndepol

Discover Friedrich Nietzsche’s Curious Typewriter, the “Malling-Hansen Writing Ball” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/friedrich-nietzsches-curious-typewriter.html

Gustave Doré’s Exquisite Engravings of Cervantes’ Classic, Don Quixote ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/gustave-dores-definitive-engravings-of-don-quixote.html

In 1900, Ladies’ Home Journal Publishes 28 Predictions for the Year 2000 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/ladies-home-journal-publishes-28-predictions.html

Also see
Isaac Asimov’s 1964 Predictions About What the World Will Look 50 Years Later — in 2014

Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of Nails It

1930s Fashion Designers Imagine Year 2000

"Why All the Fuss About Proust? The 100th anniversary of Swann's Way reminds us of his introspective genius," by

Next month marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of "Swann's Way," the first volume of Marcel Proust's six-volume masterpiece "In Search of Lost Time." The novel is about a man compelled by a sudden surge of memory to revisit his past and, in the process, to draw meaning out of his seemingly uneventful life. Its unfolding is prompted, famously, by the narrator's dunking of a madeleine in a cup of herbal tea.

Untold universities have planned at least one reading or roundtable dedicated to Proust. Every self-respecting bookstore will hold its own Proustathon, with authors, actors and book lovers reading snippets from his epic novel. The Center for Fiction in New York has scheduled a Proust evening, and the French embassy is organizing its own Proust occasion. There are Proust T-shirts, Proust coffee mugs, Proust watches, Proust comic series, Proust tote bags, Proust fountain pens, and Proust paraphernalia of all stripes.

Still, for all the brouhaha, many modern readers still find themselves in agreement with the two French publishers who turned down Proust's manuscript in 1912. A third agreed to publish it, provided that Proust himself cover the expenses. As one early reader declared: "At the end of this 712-page manuscript…one has no notion of…what it is about. What is it all for? What does it all mean? Where is it all leading to?" The writer André Gide is said to have avoided even reading the manuscript on grounds that the author was a renowned socialite snob. What could a wealthy, delicate fop like Proust possibly have to tell anyone?

A great deal, it turns out.

Proust's novel is so unusually ambitious, so accomplished, so masterful in cadence and invention that it is impossible to compare it with anyone else's. He is unabashedly literary and so unapologetic in his encyclopedic range that he remains an exemplar of what literature can be: at once timeless and time bound, universal and elitist, a mix of uncompromising high seriousness with moments of undiminished slapstick. Homer, Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Proust—not exactly authors one expects to whiz through or take lightly, but like all works of genius, they are meant to be read out loud and loved.

Nothing would have shocked Proust more than to hear that his work was perceived as difficult or inaccessibly rarefied. For years I have taught Proust to students at Bard High School in New York City, and I often find that after two or three hours with the novel, they are hooked.

After all, the story couldn't be simpler. It's about a young man of an unspecified age who enjoys reading, who is shy and introspective, but not necessarily awkward or antisocial, who likes his mother, who wants to travel to Venice but, because of poor health, never quite manages to do so until later in life. Marcel, the hero of Proust's autobiographical novel, loves nature, music, restaurants, hotels, beaches, churches, art, theater, Paris, fantasizes about friendships and girls, dissects the grown-ups around him with no less unforgiving irony and acuity than when he studies himself, and ultimately worships the good and beautiful things of life, hoping one day to craft the story of his maturation as a human being and as an artist.

Proust is interested in minutiae because life, as he sees it, is seldom ever about things, but about our impression of things, not about facts, but about the interpretation of facts, not about one particular feeling but about a confluence of conflicting feelings. Everything is elusive in Proust, because nothing is ever certain. He isn't interested in characters the way Tolstoy and Dickens are interested in characters; he is interested in the vivisection of identity, in people who turn out to be everything they claim they are not, in relationships that are always inscrutably opaque, in situations that conceal an underside that ends up flattering neither the betrayer nor the betrayed. It is Proust's implacable honesty, his reluctance to cut corners or to articulate what might have been good enough or credible enough in any other writer that make him the introspective genius he is.

All great writers hold mirrors to their readers. In Proust's case, he holds a magnifying glass, not to showcase the blighted peculiarities of his characters but to introduce us to one character we might recognize but are not always eager to know better: ourselves. To read Proust and not to find ourselves in every paragraph is simply to misread Proust. To read him is to learn that we are never introspective or candid or, for that matter, bold enough to admit what we feel, much less what we want. As for the love we all claim to crave, it is so gnarled and incomprehensible that when it happens to us, it shows up with a face so distorted, that we would seldom recognize it if we didn't already know its other name was jealousy, spite, and cruelty.

As Proust recognized, who we are to the outside world and who we are when we retire into our private space are often two very different individuals. Proust the snob and Proust the artist may share the same address, the same friends, and the same name, even the same habits; but one belongs to society, the other to eternity.

Continued in article

Listening to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, (Maybe) the Longest Audio Book Ever Made --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/listening-to-prousts-remembrance-of-things-past-maybe-the-longest-audio-book-ever-made.html


Language Tutorials

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


Music Tutorials

Library of Congress: A Night at the Opera --- http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/night-at-the-opera/

The Record Of Singing: Opera Across The Ages --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102728168
Also see the opera channel at  http://www.theradio.com/ 

The Story of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music History in 8 Minutes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-story-of-the-bass.html

Slavoj Žižek Examines the Perverse Ideology of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/slavoj-zizek-examines-the-perverse-ideology-of-beethovens-ode-to-joy.html

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

University of Richmond: Writer's Web --- http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.html

Alice Munro Talks About the Writing Life in Her Nobel Prize Interview ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/alice-munro-talks-about-the-writing-life-in-her-nobel-prize-interview.html

"Anne Lamott's Timeless Advice on Writing and Why Perfectionism Kills Creativity," by Maria Popova, November 22, 2013 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/22/bird-by-bird-anne-lamott/

How Hans Christian Andersen Revolutionized Storytelling, Plus the Best Illustrations from 150 Years of His Beloved Fairy Tales ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/18/taschen-the-fairy-tales-ofhans-christian-andersen/

Jensen Comment
Even before the days of the Internet I wrote a lot of essays (writing makes me think better) that I never bothered to "perfect" for submissions to publishers. Partly it was because of the time and boredom it takes to write toward perfection, and partly it's the dread of having to satisfy referees who often do not agree with each other.

At times for research papers I've taken on co-authors primarily because they are good writers. I did the research, and they perfected the writing.

Email and my Websites changed a lot of that, because now I can publish rough drafts and not much care about perfecting these drafts. As the saying goes:  "What you see is what you get!" Who said that?

What is neat is that readers often respond about how to improve my thinking without themselves concerning themselves about perfecting their own writing. In a sense I now have multiple referees who focus on my thinking and not my writing. Unless they request otherwise I publish their replies with my rough drafts on my Website. For example, note the many "debates" at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm
and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
Special thanks to Tom Selling, Patricia Walters, Paul Williams, Jagdish Gangolly, Jim Peters, and Steve Kachelmeier.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton

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


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

November 27, 2013

December 2, 2013

December 3, 2013

  • RA Patients See Big Boost in Quality of Life
  • Do You Sound Tall or Small?
  • New HIV Strain May Move to AIDS More Quickly: Study
  • Mild Heart Disease: Equal Risks for Men and Women?
  • Breast-Density Changes May Be Tied to Cancer Risk
  • Ecstasy Use on Rise Again Among U.S. Teens: Report
  • FDA Starts Regulating Compounding Pharmacies
  • Consumers Report Healthcare.gov Improvements
  • Chickenpox Vaccine Not Responsible for Rise in Shingles, Study Says
  • December 4, 2013

    December 5, 2013

    December 6, 2013

    December 7, 2013

    December 9, 2013

    Dece,ber 10, 2013

    December 11, 2013

    December 13, 2013

    December 16, 2013

     

     


    Lobotomy --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy

    From The Wall Street Journal: The 2,000 WW II Veterans Lobotomized By Their Own Doctors

    In 1945, thousands of soldiers returned to the United States from combat on the Pacific and European fronts of World War II with severe mental trauma. Unable to treat their terrible injuries and illnesses, US Veterans Affairs hospitals lobotomized some 2,000 of them. Wall Street Journal:The Lobotomy Files Part One is telling the story of these soldiers and the misjudged medical process they went through as part of a special project called The Lobotomy Files, the first of which focuses on Roman Tritz. Tritz, a 90-year-old veteran who flew a B-17 Flying Fortress across Nazi Germany, began to hear voices on his return from Europe. Doctors responded by sawing holes in the sides of his skull and severing brain connections. Other entries in The Lobotomy Files include a video documentary featuring Tritz and the unsettling case study of one mentally ill veteran's life in a prisoner of war camp and eventual lobotomy. Two additional reports are due soon.

     




    A Bit of Humor

    Anchorman Ron Burgundy --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Burgundy
    The Best Quotes From Ron Burgundy's Interview With Peyton Manning ---
    http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-burgundys-interview-with-peyton-manning-2013-12

    Male Striptease --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=47f7O9V4ELE&feature=youtu.be

    'Worst Lady On An Airplane' Gives Travel Tips On SNL's 'Weekend Update'
    http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-lady-on-an-airplane-gives-travel-tips-on-snls-weekend-update-2013-11

    John Cleese Stars in a Morbidly Funny Anti-Smoking Campaign (1992-1994) ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/john-cleese-helps-you-quit-smoking-with-a-macabre-ad-campaign.html

    ARDEN HAYES, 5 YEAR OLD GENIUS ---
    http://biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=44336


    Forwarded by Paula
    Martha Versus Maxine With all the holidays,
    I thought some cooking advice from Martha and Maxine might come in handy....

    Martha
    To keep apples from budding, place an apple in a bag with them.

    Maxine
    Buy Potato Buds mashed potato mix. In the pantry it will keep for a year.

     

    Martha
    When the recipe calls for flouring the baking pan use cake mix instead. There won't be any white mess on the outside of your beautiful cake.

    Maxine
    Go to the bakery. They'll even decorate it for you.

     

    Martha
    Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting it in the refrigerator. Fresh celery thereby will keep for weeks.

    Maxine
    Celery? Never heard of it.

     

    Martha
    Cure for Headaches:  Cut a lime in half and rub each half into your forehead. The throbbing should go away.

    Maxine
    Mix the lime halves with tequila and drink. Keep drinking until the pain goes away.

     

    Martha
    Freeze leftover wine in ice cube trays. Then thaw when wine is called for in recipes.

    Maxine
    Leftover wine? Hello!

     

     


    Forwarded by Gene and Joan


    1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

    2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

    3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

    4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

    5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

    6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

    7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

    8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

    9. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

    10. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, Notify:' I put  'DOCTOR'.

    11. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy. (ever been to WAL MART)

    12. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

    13. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure..

    14. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

    15. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

    16. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

    17. I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one now.


    Humor Between December 1 and December 31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q4.htm#Humor121713

    Humor Between November 1 and November 30, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q4.htm#Humor113013

    Humor Between October 1 and October 31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q4.htm#Humor103113

    Humor Between September 1 and September 30, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q3.htm#Humor093013

    Humor Between July 1 and August 31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q3.htm#Humor083113

    Humor Between June 1-30, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q2.htm#Humor063013

    Humor Between May 1-31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q2.htm#Humor053113

    Humor Between April 1-30, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q2.htm#Humor043013

    Humor Between March 1-31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q1.htm#Humor033113

    Humor Between February 1-28, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q1.htm#Humor022813

    Humor Between January 1-31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q1.htm#Humor013113

     

     




    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/

    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

    The Cult of Statistical Significance: How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm

    How Accountics Scientists Should Change: 
    "Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review I just don't give a damn"
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
    One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm 

    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/

    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

    Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials

    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.

    Accounting  and Taxation News Sites ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

     

    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://listserv.aaahq.org/cgi-bin/wa.exe?HOME
    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.

    Over the years the AECM has become the worldwide forum for accounting educators on all issues of accountancy and accounting education, including debates on accounting standards, managerial accounting, careers, fraud, forensic accounting, auditing, doctoral programs, and critical debates on academic (accountics) research, publication, replication, and validity testing.

     

    CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/  (Closed Down)
    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
    FEI's Financial Reporting Blog
    Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2008 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2008/smart_stops.htm
    FINANCIAL REPORTING PORTAL
    www.financialexecutives.org/blog

    Find news highlights from the SEC, FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board on this financial reporting blog from Financial Executives International. The site, updated daily, compiles regulatory news, rulings and statements, comment letters on standards, and hot topics from the Web’s largest business and accounting publications and organizations. Look for continuing coverage of SOX requirements, fair value reporting and the Alternative Minimum Tax, plus emerging issues such as the subprime mortgage crisis, international convergence, and rules for tax return preparers.
    The CAlCPA Tax Listserv

    September 4, 2008 message from Scott Bonacker [lister@bonackers.com]
    Scott has been a long-time contributor to the AECM listserv (he's a techie as well as a practicing CPA)

    I found another listserve that is exceptional -

    CalCPA maintains http://groups.yahoo.com/taxtalk/  and they let almost anyone join it.
    Jim Counts, CPA is moderator.

    There are several highly capable people that make frequent answers to tax questions posted there, and the answers are often in depth.

    Scott

    Scott forwarded the following message from Jim Counts

    Yes you may mention info on your listserve about TaxTalk. As part of what you say please say [... any CPA or attorney or a member of the Calif Society of CPAs may join. It is possible to join without having a free Yahoo account but then they will not have access to the files and other items posted.

    Once signed in on their Yahoo account go to http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxTalk/ and I believe in top right corner is Join Group. Click on it and answer the few questions and in the comment box say you are a CPA or attorney, whichever you are and I will get the request to join.

    Be aware that we run on the average 30 or move emails per day. I encourage people to set up a folder for just the emails from this listserve and then via a rule or filter send them to that folder instead of having them be in your inbox. Thus you can read them when you want and it will not fill up the inbox when you are looking for client emails etc.

    We currently have about 830 CPAs and attorneys nationwide but mainly in California.... ]

    Please encourage your members to join our listserve.

    If any questions let me know.

    Jim Counts CPA.CITP CTFA
    Hemet, CA
    Moderator TaxTalk

     

     

     

     

    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

    Bob Jensen's Threads ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

    More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

    All my online pictures --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/

     

    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