Tidbits on January 29, 2015
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Photographs of the Mittersill Alpine Resort, New Hampshire ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/Hotels/Mittersill/Mittersill.htm

Tidbits on January 29, 2015
Bob Jensen

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

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

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

The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/the-public-domain-project-makes-10000-film-clips-free-online.html

Warning:  This is Patriotic
The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/the-public-domain-project-makes-10000-film-clips-free-online.html

My Name is America (patriotic song) ---  http://www.youtube.com/v/6TPgJSZf5Vw?version=

These Photos Show The Quick Death Of A Once-Beloved Mall Chain ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-closed-wet-seal-store-2015-1

Chemistry of Pizza
http://www.labmanager.com/news/2014/10/the-chemistry-of-pizza-video-#.VLhRZcbMS4g
Thank you Bob Blystone for the heads up

Ten Things We Love About Italy ---
http://player.vimeo.com/video/70776419

Who wins?
Epic Fight Between A Wasp And A Tarantula Caught On Camera ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/wasp-tarantula-fight-video-arizona-2015-1

Poetry Out Loud: Teaching Resources --- http://www.poetryoutloud.org/teaching-resources

Pasadena Conference on Aging Part 2 (humor) ---
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LR2qZ0A8vic?rel=0

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

Soundcloud (find musicians and music) --- https://soundcloud.com 

Do black holes make a sucking sound?
NASA Puts Online a Big Collection of Space Sounds, and They’re Free to Download and Use ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/nasa-puts-online-a-big-collection-of-space-sounds-and-theyre-free-to-download-and-use.html

Evolution of Dance --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

Future Ballroom Champions --- https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154281824150128
Thank you Paula Ward for the heads up.

This is one hot salsa!  --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kox7ThqWGE
Thank you Paula Ward for the heads up

Antonio Banderas - Take the Lead - Tango Scene --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lAKlYTQVKY
Thank you Paula Ward for the heads up

Vintage Video of Joni Mitchell Performing in 1965 — Before She Was Even Named Joni Mitchell ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/vintage-video-of-joni-mitchell-performing-in-1965.html

Musopen (classical music resource open sharing site) --- https://www.musopen.org

The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America http://www.loc.gov/collection/songs-of-america/about-this-collection/

National Music Museum --- http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/

America’s Music --- http://americasmusic.tribecafilminstitute.org

Rock Music Timeline --- http://www.rockmusictimeline.com

Ethnomusicology Musical Instrument Collection --- http://content.lib.washington.edu/ethnomusicweb/index.html

Gershwin Music --- http://www.gershwin.com/

Nirvana’s Last Concert: Audio/ Video Recorded on March 1, 1994 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/nirvanas-last-concert-audio-video-recorded-on-march-1-1994.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

Women of Vision:  National Geographic Photographers On Assignment ---
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/women-of-vision-national-geographic-photographers-on-assignment-1422297484-slideshow/

Great Blizzard of 1888 Changes NYC ---
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/great-blizzard-of-1888-changes-nyc-1422231918-slideshow/

Historical images of New York City Subway (62 photos) ---
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/historical-images-of-new-york-city-subway-1421962140-slideshow/

The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/the-public-domain-project-makes-10000-film-clips-free-online.html

Whitney Museum Puts Online 21,000 Works of American Art, By 3,000 Artists ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/whitney-museum-puts-online-21000-works-of-american-art.htm

Read The Very First Comic Book: The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (1837) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/read-the-very-first-comic-book-the-adventures-of-obadiah-oldbuck-1837.html

NASA photographs of the Eagle Ford formation in South Texas ---
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/12/27/the-eagle-ford-shale-boom-from-space/ 
Thank you Fred Loxsom for the heads up.

Animal Facts: National Geographic ---
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/facts/

Photographer Makes Incredible Point By Shooting The Same Tree Every Day For A Year With An iPhone ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/that-tree-images-one-year-in-the-life-of-a-tree-2015-1

21 Jaw-Dropping Photos Of The US Coast Guard In Alaska
http://www.businessinsider.com/jaw-dropping-photos-of-us-coast-guard-alaska-2015-1

17 Photos Of Life On A US Navy Submarine ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/17-incredible-photos-of-life-on-a-us-navy-submarine-2015-1

Sixty Four Scenes From Saturn-incredible Flash Presentation of the Saturnian System ---
http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=2879&js=1

Live On: Mr.’s Japanese Neo-Pop (pop art) --- http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/liveon

Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective (pop art) ---  http://roy.artic.edu/

The Warhol: Time Capsule 21 --- http://www.warhol.org/tc21/main.html

Brooklyn Museum: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade --- http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/andy_warhol/index.php

Wolfsonian Museum: Collections (art nouveau and art deco) --- http://www.wolfsonian.org/explore/collections/browse

The Warhol: Heroes & Villains: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross --- http://www.warhol.org/exhibitions/2011/heroesandvillains/

Robert McCloskey Sketches for "Make Way for Ducklings" ---  http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157636871888613/with/10441859545/

America's First Illustrator: Alexander Anderson ---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=221

Genthe Collection (art history) --- http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/agc/

Shakespear of Arabia (Capt William Shakespear - an explorer and pioneering photographer, History of Saudi Arabia) ---
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-30796539
Thank you Scott Bonacker for the heads up.

18 Breathtaking Photos You Won't Believe Were Taken With An iPhone ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-iphone-photos-2014-12#

Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.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

Vladimir Nabokov Names the Greatest (and Most Overrated) Novels of the 20th Century ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/vladimir-nabokov-names-the-greatest-novels-of-the-20th-century.html

Hear Hemingway Read Hemingway, and Faulkner Read Faulkner (90 Minutes of Classic Audio) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/hear-hemingway-read-hemingway-and-faulkner-read-faulkner.html

Hear Charlton Heston Read Ernest Hemingway’s Classic Story, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/hear_charlton_heston_read_ernest_hemingways_classic_story_the_snows_of_kilimanjaro.html

Allen Ginsberg Sings the Poetry of William Blake (1970) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/allen-ginsberg-sings-the-poetry-of-william-blake-1970.html

Is Ralph Waldo Emerson an unworthy scholar?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/where-s-waldo_823370.html?nopager=1

Peanuts and the Quiet Pain of Childhood: How Charles Schulz Made an Art of Difficult Emotions ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/20/charles-schulz-peanuts-biography-david-michaelis/?mc_cid=03189789e8&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

William Blake’s Last Work: Illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy (1827) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/william-blakes-last-work-illustrations-for-dantes-divine-comedy-1827.html

Poetry Out Loud: Teaching Resources --- http://www.poetryoutloud.org/teaching-resources/

Download The Complete Audio Book Works of Edgar Allan Poe on His Birthday ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/download-the-complete-works-of-edgar-allan-poe-on-his-birthday.html

Download The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Macabre Stories as Free eBooks & Audio Books --- Click Here
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/3_2ZvPhZOCg/download-the-complete-works-of-edgar-allan-poe-macabre-stories-as-free-ebooks-audio-books.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe ---
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/still-mysterious-death-edgar-allan-poe-180952936/?no-ist

Leo Tolstoy’s Masochistic Diary: I Am Guilty of “Sloth,” “Cowardice” & “Sissiness” (1851) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/leo-tolstoys-masochistic-diary.html

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

Bob Jensen's threads on literature ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on January 29, 2015
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2015/TidbitsQuotations012915.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

How to Mislead With Statistics
Unemployment by Occupation 2014 ---
http://247wallst.com/investing/2015/01/16/unemployment-by-occupation-2014/

Jensen Comment
Here are a few reasons why unemployment statistics can be misleading:

• Workers often leave jobs voluntarily who virtually cannot be fired. For example federal and state civil service employees often leave to enter higher paying jobs in the private sector or to become full-time parents, but try firing a civil service employee who is performing terrible on the job or is a chronic absentee at work
   
• Workers who are vulnerable at early stages of employment often become locked into job security with seniority or tenure. Examples include K-12 teachers and college professors.
   
• Unemployment rates can be misleading indicators of job availability. For example, physical scientists may have low unemployment rates but a Ph.D. degree in a physical science discipline does not open many doors to a job as a full-time professor or scientist in general. There's an old joke about how many geologists can fit into a pickup truck. The answer is only two with their lawnmowers.
   
• Unemployment rates vary greatly with location. For example, employment as a welder is almost guaranteed for welders seeking work in oil fields and along pipeline construction, but try finding job as a welder in tens of thousands small rural towns in the USA.
   
• Employment varies with willingness to take on risks. For example, it's very common for some jobs to compensate on a sales commission basis with very little pay guarantees. This often leads to high unemployment rates in some jobs that are relatively easy to find because of compensation risks.

The bottom line is that unemployment rates can be very misleading when choosing an intended career. There are many, many more important criteria.

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

This is what the world looks like if you scale countries by population ---
http://www.vox.com/2015/1/27/7918377/population-cartogram

Note what happens to Canada.and Scandinavia.

"The Secret Keyboard Controls of YouTube," by David Pogue, Yahoo Tech, January 15, 2015 ---
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/the-secret-keyboard-controls-of-youtube-maybe-you-108153153539.html

Maybe you already know that tapping the space bar is your Play/Pause control for a YouTube video.

But lots of other keys are available to you, too. Check it out:

• J: Jumps back 10 seconds. Great if you didn’t catch the words.
• K: Play/Pause. (In case your space bar is broken.)
• L: Jumps forward 10 seconds. Great if the introduction is taking forever.
• M: Mute the audio.

(Isn’t it neat how those four keys are all clustered together under your right hand?)

• ←, → (arrow keys): Rewind, fast forward
• Home: Jumps to the beginning.
• End: Jumps to the end.

The number keys work, too. You can press 0, 1, 2, 3, and so on to jump to points in the video at those percentages in. 0 means “the beginning.” 1 means “10 percent of the way through.” 2 means “20 percent through,” and so on up to 9.

These keyboard shortcuts don’t work in full-screen mode, by the way (except M for mute and space for pause). Still, they’re great to know!

Quantitative Easing (QE) despite arguments to the contrary can boil down to simply printing money to pay government bills, a strategy that destroys interest payments on savings accounts and pension funds. Exhibit A is the way QE in the USA drove interest rates on CDs from over 5% to virtually zero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

Harvard's LARRY SUMMERS: 'There Is Every Reason To Expect QE Will Be Less Impactful In Europe' ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-summer-on-european-qe-2015-1

On Thursday, the European Central Bank is expected to announce a new quantitative easing program. 

 

And according to a report from The Financial Times, Harvard professor Larry Summers is not convinced that the ECB's program will live up to the hype. 

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Summers said, "There is every reason to expect QE will be less impactful in Europe." QE programs in Japan and the US have had at least some success in reaching their goals, which in Japan was devaluing the yen and in the US was boosting economic growth. 

Summers said, however, that the risks of doing too little in Europe outweigh the risks of doing too much. Summers has been the leading voice behind the economic idea of "secular stagnation," or that certain of the world's economies will be unable to create enough demand to sustain their current or expected growth trends. 

According to the FT, Summers outlined three reasons why Europe's QE program might not be as impactful as those undertaken in the US:

• US QE came earlier when bond yields were higher and could be forced down by the policy.
• QE in the US was unexpected so gave the economy a jolt.
• US QE worked through the capital markets, but European credit is largely bank based, so cannot work so freely

The latest indications are that the program will see the ECB buy €50 billion per month in bonds in an effort to stave off deflation and kickstart the sputtering European economy.

Markets have expected that the ECB would launch a QE program for some time, and over the last few months the euro has weakened and European stocks have rallied in anticipation of this program. 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-summer-on-european-qe-2015-1#ixzz3PYlz8iDl
 

Question
What do meteorologists and financial analysts have in common?

Answer
Both groups of professionals are generally poor at communicating uncertainties in their expected values, especially consensus forecasts.

"How Meteorologists Botched The Blizzard Of 2015," by Harry Enten, Nate Silver's 5:38 Blog, January 27, 2015 ---
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/how-meteorologists-botched-the-blizzard-of-2015/

Jensen Comment
The blizzard was long delayed up in these mountains but when it finally hit about noon it hit with vengeance and is still raging six hours later. Fearing the drifts would get too deep for my tractor's snow blower I got rid of the first layer on my driveway when the snow was coming in horizontally rather than downward. Sugar Hill's snow plows come by every hour day and night in a blizzard like this.

I will have to clear my driveway all over again tomorrow morning. It's hard to tell how much snow fell in the first six hours but some of the drifts were higher than my knees. The good news is that the snow is very dry at zero degrees (F) such that we probably are not having any power outages up here like they are closer to the ocean. I actually thought it was going to be too cold to snow, but no such luck.

Nobody Grows Up Thinking: “I Want to be an Adjunct!” ---
https://spokeandhub.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/nobody-grows-up-thinking-i-want-to-be-an-adjunct/

Jensen Comment
It's a little like a kid growing up aspiring to be a farm hand --- one who does most of the hard work for the lowest pay. About all that can be said for it is that there's less stress by not losing sleep over how to pay the bills that keep the farm running. In the case of an adjunct there are no sleepless nights over having research paper submissions rejected.

"The $250 Econ 101 Textbook:  We economics professors are missing a chance to teach a cardinal lesson about the unchecked rise of prices," by Craig Richardson, The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/craig-richardson-the-250-econ-101-textbook-1421192341?tesla=y

I’ve been teaching economics for 25 years, and yet I’ve routinely missed a perfect opportunity to explain how markets fail to deliver efficient solutions. It isn’t just me. During our first day of class in introductory economics, thousands of economics professors begin with a key lesson: how to make better decisions by carefully weighing benefits and costs. Yet we professors are shockingly blind about what our students pay for the textbooks from which we teach these valuable lessons. Even on Amazon, the average price of a new copy of one of the best-selling economics textbooks, “Principles of Economics” by Greg Mankiw, can be more than $250 (and retail for a hardcover edition is about $360).

Think about it: For a student working at minimum wage, it would take him about 35 hours of work after taxes to afford this book. Not to pick on Mr. Mankiw, since he has written a fine book, but $250 for a new textbook? Really?

In 1982 I took principles of economics for the first time and I believe I paid about $20 for a wonderful textbook by Richard Lipsey and Peter Steiner, “Economics.” Minimum wage was $3.35 then so it took about six hours of work for me to pay for the book, which I did with cash earned over the summer. (The textbooks haven’t changed all that much, by the way.)

So what is going on? Since 1985, prices of all consumer goods have about doubled, but textbook prices have risen sixfold, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The reason is such an interesting one that it’s surprising it doesn’t find its way into the first chapter of every economics textbook. The cardinal lesson is that prices rise unchecked if the people who order the goods aren’t paying the prices.

Publishers routinely hide the suggested retail prices of their textbooks from the book cover and most of us never bother to ask what they cost. After all, we’re not paying for them, right? Instead, we’re swayed by the publisher offering us free examination copies, PowerPoints, lecture notes, quiz generators and so forth. Instead of engaging in cost-benefit analysis, we only pay attention to the benefits to us before ordering the outrageously expensive books that we ask our students to pay for.

There’s more to this story. During the past 30 years, there has been an explosion of student-loan debt. Students rarely pay for books out of pocket and instead roll it into their financial-aid package. So a $250 textbook is now being paid back over decades. It’s a bit like the prospective car owner who pays $400 for optional floor mats when it only adds a few dollars to her monthly payment, yet would never pay cash out of pocket for the same mats. The easy access to financial aid has meant there is no natural binding mechanism on price increases, since the pain of rapidly rising prices is scarcely felt by years of student-loan payments.

So here is the $250 economics textbook, a creature of government-subsidized student loans, professors who pay no attention to prices, and students who strive to push the costs down the road. It seems like a natural end of chapter one question, doesn’t it?

Mr. Richardson is a professor of economics at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina.

 

Jensen Comment
Today it's $293 for Mankiw's Principles of Economics text on Amazon. The Kindle edition is $242. Amazon will rent the electronic version for $88.
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Economics-N-Gregory-Mankiw/dp/0538453052/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421240873&sr=1-1&keywords=Greg+Mankiw
But I'm confused by used book pricing at the above site:

 

39 New from $59.94 129 Used from $25.84 1 Collectible from $89.98

 

Two out of four Amazon reviews of this textbook are not very good. The other two are quite good.
http://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/128516587X/ref=dp_ob_custreviews_bk_cm_cr_acr_img?showViewpoints=1

This is where college gang rapes should end up --- the police and the courts
Vanderbilt Football Trial: Alleged Rape Details Emerge ---
http://abcnews.go.com/US/vanderbilt-football-trial-alleged-rape-details-emerge/story?id=28268191

Vanderbilt Football Players Found Guilty of Rape ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/01/28/vanderbilt-football-players-found-guilty-rape

"Charges Are Dropped Against 5 Accused of Rape (and expelled) at William Paterson U.," by Charles Huckabee, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 30, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/charges-are-dropped-against-5-accused-of-rape-at-william-paterson-u/93085?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

2nd College Student Charged With Rape Sues - Columbia // Males Suing Private Universities, Others ---
http://www.prlog.org/12326547-2nd-college-student-charged-with-rape-sues-columbia-males-suing-private-universities-others.html

These Photos Show The Quick Death Of A Once-Beloved Mall Chain ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-closed-wet-seal-store-2015-1

"The Economics (and Nostalgia) of Dead Malls," by Nelson D. Schwartz, The New York Times, January 3, 2015 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/business/the-economics-and-nostalgia-of-dead-malls.html?_r=0

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Inside the gleaming mall here on the Sunday before Christmas, just one thing was missing: shoppers.

The upbeat music of “Jingle Bell Rock” bounced off the tiles, and the smell of teriyaki chicken drifted from the food court, but only a handful of stores were open at the sprawling enclosed shopping center. A few visitors walked down the long hallways and peered through locked metal gates into vacant spaces once home to retailers like H&M, Wet Seal and Kay Jewelers.

“It’s depressing,” Jill Kalata, 46, said as she tried on a few of the last sneakers for sale at the Athlete’s Foot, scheduled to close in a few weeks. “This place used to be packed. And Christmas, the lines were out the door. Now I’m surprised anything is still open.”

The Owings Mills Mall is poised to join a growing number of what real estate professionals, architects, urban planners and Internet enthusiasts term “dead malls.” Since 2010, more than two dozen enclosed shopping malls have been closed, and an additional 60 are on the brink, according to Green Street Advisors, which tracks the mall industry.

Premature obituaries for the shopping mall have been appearing since the late 1990s, but the reality today is more nuanced, reflecting broader trends remaking the American economy. With income inequality continuing to widen, high-end malls are thriving, even as stolid retail chains like Sears, Kmart and J. C. Penney falter, taking the middle- and working-class malls they anchored with them.

“It is very much a haves and have-nots situation,” said D. J. Busch, a senior analyst at Green Street. Affluent Americans “will keep going to Short Hills Mall in New Jersey or other properties aimed at the top 5 or 10 percent of consumers. But there’s been very little income growth in the belly of the economy.”

At Owings Mills, J. C. Penney and Macy’s are hanging on, but other midtier emporiums like Sears, Lord & Taylor, and the regional department store chain Boscov’s have all come and gone as anchors.

Having opened in 1986 with a renovation in 1998, Owings Mills is young for a dying mall. And while its locale may have contributed to its demise, other forces played a crucial role, too, like changing shopping habits and demographics, experts say.

“I have no doubt some malls will survive, but major segments of our society have gotten sick of them,” said Mark Hinshaw, a Seattle architect, urban planner and author.

One factor many shoppers blame for the decline of malls — online shopping — is having only a small effect, experts say. Less than 10 percent of retail sales take place online, and those sales tend to hit big-box stores harder, rather than the fashion chains and other specialty retailers in enclosed malls.

Instead, the fundamental problem for malls is a glut of stores in many parts of the country, the result of a long boom in building retail space of all kinds.

“We are extremely over-retailed,” said Christopher Zahas, a real estate economist and urban planner in Portland, Ore. “Filling a million square feet is a tall order.” Continue reading the main story

Like beached whales, dead malls draw fascination as well as dismay. There is a popular website devoted to the phenomenon — deadmalls.com — and it has also become something of a cultural meme, with one particularly spooky scene in the movie “Gone Girl” set in a dead mall.

“Everybody has memories from childhood of going to the mall,” said Jack Thomas, 26, one of three partners who run the site in their spare time. “Nobody ever thinks a mall is going to up and die.”

Well aware of the cultural dimensions, as well as the economic stakes, the industry is trying to turn around public perception of these monuments to America’s favorite pastime: shopping.

In August, the International Council of Shopping Centers, a trade group based in New York for the shopping center industry, including mall owners, hired the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller “to put the real story out there and stop the negativity around the idea that the mall isn’t going to exist in the next few years,” said Jesse Tron, communications director for the trade group.

While it is true that many thriving malls will continue to flourish in the years ahead, it is not clear what the industry can do to prevent more and more malls from falling on hard times.

About 80 percent of the country’s 1,200 malls are considered healthy, reporting vacancy rates of 10 percent or less. But that compares with 94 percent in 2006, according to CoStar Group, a leading provider of data for the real estate industry.

Nearly 15 percent are 10 to 40 percent vacant, up from 5 percent in 2006. And 3.4 percent — representing more than 30 million square feet — are more than 40 percent empty, a threshold that signals the beginning of what Mr. Busch of Green Street calls “the death spiral.”

Industry executives freely admit that the mall business has undergone a profound bifurcation since the recession.

Continued in article

Another Example (following on the heels of the phony Rolling Stone magazine article on UVA rape) of Unprofessional Journalism

"'The Atlantic' Revises Article on CUNY," Inside Higher Ed,  January 16, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/01/16/atlantic-revises-article-cuny

Bob Jensen's threads on liberal bias of the media and academe ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias

"Former UNC Student-Athletes Detail Fake 'Paper Classes' (for nearly 20 years) In New Lawsuit Against School And NCAA," by Peter Jacobs, Business Insider, January 23, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/lawsuit-against-unc-over-paper-classes-2015-1 

Two former University of North Carolina Chapel Hill student-athletes filed a lawsuit Thursday against their former school and the NCAA — the organization that governs college sports — claiming they were deprived of a "meaningful education."

The lawsuit — first reported by The Washington Post — follows a scathing investigative report released last October, detailing a decades-long academic scandal that predominantly affected UNC student-athletes.

The scandal centers around so-called "paper classes" — which typically never met and only required a final paper — that were offered through the African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM) department. These classes were explicity utilized by members of both UNC academic and athletic departments to help athletes achieve a minimum GPA to maintain their NCAA eligibility, according to former Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein's report.

The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit are former UNC basketball player Rashanda McCants and former UNC football player Devon Ramsay. Their lawyers are asking the court to certify the case as a class action.

"This case arises out of the NCAA and UNC's abject failure to safeguard and provide a meaningful education to scholarship athletes who agreed to attend UNC — and take the field — in exchange for academically sound instruction," McCants and Ramsay's complaint states.

UNC and the NCAA did not fulfill their promise to scholarship athletes of a quality education and "breached their duties to student-athletes in spectacular fashion," according to the lawsuit. Rather, the lawsuit states:

UNC offered dozens of sham "paper classes" that were designed not to educate but rather to maintain UNC’s student-athletes' academic eligibility—i.e., to keep them on the field. And over time these paper classes calcified into a "shadow curriculum" in which no course attendance was required and no faculty were involved.

The former student-athletes' complaint also details how these classes first started.

Former AFAM department administrator Deborah Crowder began the "paper classes" around 1989, under the supervision of AFAM chair Julius Nyang'oro, according to the lawsuit. When the classes started, Crowder "initiated a series of independent studies courses and invited enrollment from student-athletes" and, even though she was not a member of the UNC faculty, supervised and graded students' academic work, the lawsuit claims.

During much of the Class Period, Crowder managed these paper classes from beginning to end, but she provided the students with no actual instruction. She registered the selected students for the classes; she assigned them their paper topics; she received their completed papers at the end of the semester; she graded the papers; and she recorded the students' final class grades on the grade rolls.

When Crowder graded the papers, she typically awarded As or high Bs—even when she did not read the papers. Rather, she would typically read the introduction and conclusion and check to make sure the papers were of appropriate length.

The procedure somewhat changed in the late 1990s, according to the lawsuit, as Crowder began to register the classes as lecture courses, rather than independent studies. However, this did not seem to affect the enrolled students.

"Despite their lecture designation on the course schedule, these classes continued to operate in the same fashion," according to the lawsuit. "There was no class attendance or student interaction with anyone other than Crowder, and Crowder continued to grade the papers."

While these fake classes have been well documented at UNC, Hausfeld LLP partner Sathya Gosselin, one of the lawyers representing the former UNC student-athletes, told Business Insider that he frequently hears from athletes concerned about the quality of their education.

"I wish I could tell you that the experiences of a UNC student athletes are not common across many schools, but I hear monthly from student athletes and their families with concerns about the integrity of the education they receive," Gosselin told Business Insider. "Its high time that the powers that be in college sports be held accountable for the promises they make to student-athletes about their education."

Plantiff and former UNC basketball player Rashanda McCants released the following statement to Business Insider Friday:

I want to call on all athletes to stand with me and Devon Ramsay. We must stand strong so that we can be seen as more than just mere athletes. We are humans; we have voices; and, although we all love our school, we also love ourselves and the dignity we built within our own right. My intention is for people to know that I did everything that was asked of me, on the court and off the court. But the university and the NCAA failed to keep their promise to me and other college athletes, and in turn we seek justice. With this said, I hope and pray my fellow athletes stand with me and Devon in this effort to hold the powers that be accountable.

In a statement sent to Business Insider, NCAA chief legal officer Donald Remy said, "We have not yet been notified of the lawsuit filed in a North Carolina court today. Because we have not seen the filing, we have no comment."

Adams State University --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_State_University

"Adams State U. Changes Policies in Response to ‘Chronicle’ Investigation," by Andy Thomason, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 15, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/adams-state-u-changes-policies-in-response-to-chronicle-investigation/92341?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Adams State University has frozen enrollment in its print-based correspondence courses in response to an investigation by The Chronicle detailing how a former coach helped athletes across the country cheat to become eligible to compete, according to a statement on the university’s website. Adams State has also commissioned an outside review of its student-verification process and canceled a mathematics course mentioned in the Chronicle article.

The article states that the former coach, identified only as “Mr. White,” helped multiple students at Adams State cheat by impersonating them online and completing work for them. In recent years, Adams State has enacted policies to step up the security of the classes. Adams State’s president, David P. Svaldi, said in the statement that the new review would “help us further assure academic integrity.”

Bob Jensen's threads on when faculty help students cheat are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#RebeccaHoward

Careers in Logistics ---
http://academic.rcc.edu/logisticsmanagement/PDF/Careers In Logistics by CSCMP.pdf

European Criminal Lenience Encourages Repeat Crimes

"Copenhagen copper crooks hit rail commuters," Reuters, January 28, 2015 ---
http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2015/01/28/copenhagen-copper-crooks-hit-rail-commuters-n1949330

Commuters in the Danish capital faced widespread disruptions on the train network caused by the third theft in a week of copper cables from the tracks.

Thieves got away with 200 meters of the cable from a track in southern Copenhagen on Tuesday night, closing two of seven main train lines and delaying journeys on the others.

Around 350,000 passengers use the network daily, and track operator Rail Net Denmark said it was not sure it would be able to open up the two lines in time for Wednesday's evening rush hour. The cables are a vital part of the electrical system that powers the trains.

"Since Friday, there have been a number of thefts, some of which have brought great inconvenience to passengers," Rail Net Denmark said in a statement. "The thefts are due to the cost of the copper in the cables that can be sold as scrap."

Cable thieves could be jailed for up to six years under Danish law but no one has been yet convicted despite 173 such incidents in 2014. Rail Net Denmark, responsible for 2,323 km (1,443 miles) of track, tried using GPS tags to prevent theft but the thieves simply removed them.

The track operator says it is in touch with scrap dealers around the country, who insist they do not trade in the cables.

Jensen Comment
The leniency that disturbs me a lot is both Canada's and Europe's lenience on murder (only a few years in jail) and sexual assaults including abuse of children ---
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-canadas-sex-assault-laws-violate-rape-victims/article14705289/?page=all

Purportedly India is also weak on prosecution of crimes of sexual assault.

Are there sentences of life without the possibility of parole in Canada or Europe or India?

"Kierkegaard on Boredom, Why Cat Listicles Fail to Answer the Soul's Cry, and the Only True Cure for Existential Emptiness," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, January 14, 2015 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/14/kierkegaard-boredom-idleness-either-or/

Internet of Things --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things

From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on January 28, 2015

FTC seeks to restrict Internet of Things ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ftc-seeks-to-restrict-internet-of-things-data-1422415942
Internet-connected wearables, cars, door locks, thermostats and such are all the rage in Silicon Valley. But those devices can come with security and privacy holes that leave consumers exposed, regulators warn. The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that businesses should build security into devices, rather than as an afterthought, and also recommended that they take measures to keep unauthorized users from accessing personal information stored on a network, limit the data collected and discard it after a time. Consumers should also be informed of which information is collected and why, and they should have the opportunity to opt out, the FTC said.

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

Authors Who Lie and Cheat (mainly for money but sometimes for political or religious causes)
"A North Korean Gulag Survivor Admits He Lied In His Best-Selling Book," by Jack Kim and Sohee Kim, Reuters via Business Insider, January 18, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-north-korean-gulag-survivor-admits-he-lied-in-his-best-selling-book-2015-1

"‘Boy Who Came Back From Heaven’ actually didn’t; books recalled," by Ron Charles, The Washington Post, January 16, 2015 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/01/15/boy-who-came-back-from-heaven-going-back-to-publisher/?hpid=z5

Tyndale House, a major Christian publisher, has announced that it will stop selling “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey.

The best-selling book, first published in 2010, purports to describe what Alex experienced while he lay in a coma after a car accident when he was 6 years old. The coma lasted two months, and his injuries left him paralyzed, but the subsequent spiritual memoir – with its assuring description of “miracles, angels, and life beyond This World” – became part of a popular genre of “heavenly tourism.”

Earlier this week, Alex recanted his testimony about the afterlife. In an open letter to Christian bookstores posted on the Pulpit and Pen Web site, Alex states flatly: “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.”

Referring to the injuries that continue to make it difficult for him to express himself, Alex writes, “Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short. … I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.”

Thursday evening, Todd Starowitz, public relations director of Tyndale House, told The Washington Post: “Tyndale has decided to take the book and related ancillary products out of print.”

On Friday, Tyndale released this statement: “We are saddened to learn that Alex Malarkey, co-author of ‘The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven,’ is now saying that he made up the story of dying and going to heaven. Given this information, we are taking the book out of print.”

But there is considerable disagreement about when Alex first recanted his testimony and objected to the book, which has reportedly sold more than 1 million copies.

Last April, Alex’s mother, Beth Malarkey, posted a statement on her own blog decrying the memoir and its promotion: “It is both puzzling and painful to watch the book ‘The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven’ not only continue to sell, but to continue, for the most part, to not be questioned.” She goes on to say that the book is not “Biblically sound” and that her son’s objections to it were ignored and repressed. She also notes that Alex “has not received monies from the book nor have a majority of his needs been funded by it.”

Continued in article

"The Retraction War:  Scientists seek demigod status, journals want blockbuster results, and retractions are on the rise: is science broken?" by Jill Neimark, Aeon, 2014 ---
http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/are-retraction-wars-a-sign-that-science-is-broken/
We assuredly need tests for new knowledge versus new fictions.

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

Alan M. Dershowitz --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz

Jensen Comment
In 1971-72 I spent a year with Alan in a think tank alongside the Stanford University campus. It would be misleading to say that we became close. Alan was away quite often with his other commitments. I would describe him more as a highly confident and shrewd pit bull than legal theorist. He's is very good at legal research and usually wins in high profile cases like that of defending OJ Simpson and the other celebrities noted in the link above. I think he enjoys litigation without particular regard to what side he must defend. In this respect he's truly a lawyer at heart.  He takes pride in achieving acquittal for the guilty when he can defeat the prosecution's case.

As a long-time Harvard Law School professor he was a pit bull in the arena most of the time rather than a spectator. I don't know how he managed his duties at Harvard with all the cases he's been involved in over decades. He's now retired from Harvard but not from the litigation arena.

The article below is timely given the recent revisions of controversial sexual assault policies in colleges and universities across the USA.

"A Nightmare of False Accusation That Could Happen to You:  If you are called a criminal in a lawsuit to which you aren’t a party, you may have no legal recourse to defend yourself," by Alan M. Dershowitz, The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/alan-m-dershowitz-a-nightmare-of-false-accusation-that-could-happen-to-you-1421280860?tesla=y

Imagine the following situation: You’re a 76-year-old man, happily married for nearly 30 years, with three children and two grandchildren. You’ve recently retired after 50 years of teaching at Harvard Law School. You have an unblemished personal record, though your legal and political views are controversial. You wake up on the day before New Year’s Eve to learn that two lawyers have filed a legal document that, in passing, asserts that 15 years ago you had sex on numerous occasions and in numerous locations with an underage female.

The accusation doesn’t mention the alleged victim’s name—she’s referred to as Jane Doe #3, and the court document includes no affidavit by her. But her name doesn’t really matter, because you have never had sex with anyone other than your wife during the relevant time period. The accusations against you are totally false, and you can prove it.

Well, that is my situation: I’m the one who has been falsely accused. But let’s continue to imagine it was you:

Your first instinct is to call your lawyer and have him file a denial to the court in which the accusation was made. But your lawyer informs you that you can’t do that because you’re not a party to the lawsuit (against the United States government seeking to vacate the plea bargain your client struck seven years earlier) and have no standing to file any papers.

Not to worry, you imagine, because the lawyers who accused you of these heinous crimes will certainly have to prove them in court, which they will be unable to do, because they’re not true.

No, your lawyer tells you. They didn’t ask for a hearing or any other opportunity to prove the truth of what they alleged. So the accusation will remain on the public record without anyone having to prove it or you having any opportunity to disprove it.

Well, at least you can sue for defamation the two lawyers and the woman who made the false charges. No, you can’t, your lawyer tells you. They leveled the accusation in a court document, which protects them against the defamation lawsuit as a result of the so-called litigation privilege.

How did the accusation get from a court filing in an obscure courthouse in Florida to the first page of many newspapers and the first item on many television broadcasts? Obviously, it was leaked; who is going to be checking court filings the day before New Year’s Eve? But the mere leak of a publicly filed court document cannot lead to a legal claim, your lawyer tells you.

You can’t just let the false story spread without responding. Moreover, you have documentary proof that you could not have been in the places and at the time Jane Doe #3 said she had sex with you. Can you at least respond in the media? Not without some risk of being sued for defamation, your lawyer tells you.

You have no choice but to take that risk, so you make your denials and counteraccusations on live television. You challenge the two lawyers who filed the court document to repeat the false charges in the media, so you can sue them. They remain silent. You challenge the woman, now 31-years-old, to bring rape charges against you and you offer to waive any statute of limitations, because the filing of a false rape charge is itself a serious crime—though it is rarely prosecuted. She doesn’t accept your challenge.

And then, sure enough, the lawyers who made the false accusation— Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell —sue you for defaming them—though they claim you can’t sue them for falsely accusing you of a crime.

Welcome to the Kafkaesque world of American justice. But Kafka was writing fiction when he described the ordeal faced by Josef K in his famous novel, “The Trial.” What I have described is real. It is happening to me right now. And if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

I now stand accused of crimes I did not commit, by an unnamed woman who I don’t know and never met. I am also being sued for defaming my accusers. I still have no opportunity to respond in court to the false charges, though I am now seeking to intervene in the lawsuit in which the accusation was filed. I have submitted a sworn statement denying the accusations with great specificity. The court has not yet decided whether to accept my motion.

I feel like a victim of a drive-by shooting or the object of scribbled graffiti on the wall of a bathroom stall. I may never have the opportunity to prove my innocence, or to have my accusers prove the false charges, in any court of law. But because I am relatively well known—a double-edge sword in these situations—I can at least fight back in the court of public opinion, though at the very high cost—in legal fees, loss of insurance coverage and the possibility of a large monetary judgment against me.

Imagine the same thing happening to a person who did not have the resources to fight back.

There is a gaping hole in our legal system that allows lawyers to bring irrelevant accusations against innocent nonparties in court papers that insulate them from any consequences, and to deny the falsely accused any opportunity to respond.

The law must be changed to shatter this hall of mirrors I face and others might. There must be consequences for those who file accusations with no offer to prove them and no legal responsibility if they are categorically—and disprovably—false.

I will not rest until this gaping hole is filled with reasonable safeguards, so that what is happening to me can never happen to another innocent person.

Mr. Dershowitz is a professor of law emeritus at Harvard Law School and the author of “Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel’s Just War Against Hamas” ( Rosetta Books, 2014).

The Quill Pen Isn't What it Used to Be by a Long Shot:  Software That Turns Data into a Narrative Story
"Robot Journalist Finds New Work on Wall Street:  Software that turns data into written text could help us make sense of a coming tsunami of data," by Tom Simonite, MIT's Technology Review, January 9, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/533976/robot-journalist-finds-new-work-on-wall-street/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150114

Software that was first put to work writing news reports has now found another career option: drafting reports for financial giants and U.S. intelligence agencies.

The writing software, called Quill, was developed by Narrative Science, a Chicago company set up in 2010 to commercialize technology developed at Northwestern University that turns numerical data into a written story. It wasn’t long before Quill was being used to report on baseball games for TV and online sports outlets, and company earnings statements for clients such as Forbes.

Quill’s early career success generated headlines of its own, and the software was seen by some as evidence that intelligent software might displace human workers. Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel says that the publicity, even if some of it was negative, was a blessing. “A lot of people felt threatened by what we were doing, and we got a lot of coverage,” he says. “It led to a lot of inquiries from all different industries and to the evolution to a different business.”

Narrative Science is now renting out Quill’s writing skills to financial customers such as T. Rowe Price, Credit Suisse, and USAA to write up more in-depth, lengthy reports on the performance of mutual funds that are then distributed to investors or regulators.

“It goes from the job of a small army of people over weeks to just a few seconds,” says Frankel. “We do 10- to 15-page documents for some financial clients.”

An investment from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment division, led the company to work from multiple U.S. intelligence agencies. Asked about that work, Frankel says only that “The communication challenges of the U.S. intelligence community are very similar to those of our other customers.” Altogether, Quill now churns out millions of words per day.

The software’s output can be impressive for software, but it can’t write without some numerical data for inspiration. It performs statistical analysis on that data, looking for significant events or trends, and it draws on knowledge about key concepts such as bankruptcy, profit, and revenue, and how such concepts are related.

The following paragraph, from an investment report, shows that Quill can write passable text for such a document, but it can still feel as if it were written by a computer.

“The energy sector was the main contributor to relative performance, led by stock selection in energy equipment and services companies. In terms of individual contributors, a position in energy equipment and services company Oceaneering International was the largest contributor to returns. Stock selection also contributed to relative results in the health care sector. Positioning in health care equipment and supplies industry helped most.”

Quill is programmed with rules of writing that it uses to structure sentences, paragraphs, and pages, says Kristian Hammond, a computer science professor at Northwestern University and chief scientist at Narrative Science. “We know how to introduce an idea, how not to repeat ourselves, how to get shorter,” he says.

Companies can also tune Quill’s style and use of language based on what they need it to write. It can accentuate the positive in marketing copy, or go for exhaustive detail in a regulatory filing, for example.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
One problem of with financial data versus scientific data is that financial data possibly has much higher variation in quality and standardization. For example, the FASB cannot even define concepts of "earnings" and derivations from earnings measures like P/E ratios. This makes comparisons of one company's "net earnings" over multiple years dubious. Even more dubious are comparisons of "net earnings," eps, and P/E ratios of different companies doubtful no matter how good the Quill software is for generating narratives out of financial data.

Net earnings and EBITDA cannot be defined since the FASB and IASB elected to give the balance sheet priority over the income statement in financial reporting ---
"The Asset-Liability Approach: Primacy does not mean Priority," by Robert Bloomfield, FASRI Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative, October 6, 2009 ---
http://www.fasri.net/index.php/2009/10/the-asset-liability-approach-primacy-does-not-mean-priority/

Similar problems arise with variations in quality and standardization of components of balance sheets. For example, measures of cash might be relatively accurate in terms of error variations, whereas variations in goodwill and other intangibles is subject to high error variations.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory or lack thereof ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm

How to mislead with statistics
The Cost of Living in Nations Around the World ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cost-of-living-worldwide-2015-1

Highest Cost of Living Nations

1. Switzerland

2. Norway

3. Venezuela

4. Iceland

5. Denmark

6. Australia

7. New Zealand

8. Singapore

9. Kuwait

10. United Kingdom

11. Ireland

12. Luxenbourg

13. Finland

14. France

15. Belgium

 

The lowest cost of living nations are also ranked in this study, but I would not want to live in any of those nations.

Jensen Comment
You have to go to Movehub site for details on how the cost of living index is calculated ---
http://www.movehub.com/blog/living-costs-world-map

Any CPI index is controversial. It's not clear that it's very comparable between all these nations.

The low cost of living nations are poverty nations where most of the people barely stay alive in spite of a low cost of living.

Some of the high cost of living nations are rich oil producing nations like Norway, Venezuela, and Kuwait. Some have very high taxes with benefits redistributions like Denmark and New Zealand. Note that "free health care" is not really free. Even the lower income people are taxed somewhat for the their national health plans. Most nations do not have as many poor people on totally free medical and medicine health plans that the USA provides with Medicaid.

My impression is that some things we take for granted in the USA are luxuries in the highest cost of living nations. For example, it's not uncommon for middle class families in the USA to have homes with over 2,000 square feet. Such large homes are luxuries in all the 15 nations ranked above. Energy is relatively cheap in the USA in terms of electricity, heating oil, and gasoline compared to most of the high cost of living nations ranked above.

Health plans are difficult to compare between nations. For example, most on national health plans will provide organ, knee, and hip replacements but the waiting times may stretch into years. But those national health plans may also provide nursing care for the elderly that's not covered by Medicare in the USA.

Some of the high cost of living nations provide free or nearly free college education. But free college is not universal and may be limited to 25% or fewer of the college-age prospects. I don't think any nation provides free college education to everybody such as is now being proposed by President Obama.

My general impression is that most tourists would tend to agree that the the top 15 nations ranked above are indeed very expensive tourism destinations. But  some of the low cost of living nations are also expensive tourism destinations when there are high safety and kidnapping risks such as in Pakistan.

16 Paradoxes That Will Make Your Head Explode --- http://www.businessinsider.com/craziest-paradoxes-in-history-2015-1

Jensen Comment
Some are much more controversial than others.

Wall Street banks slash FIFTY THOUSAND jobs and reduce bonuses and expenses as profits continue to dry up ---
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2916330/Wall-Street-banks-slash-FIFTY-THOUSAND-jobs-reduce-bonuses-expenses-profits-opportunities-continue-dry-up.html

"A Champion of Law Informed by Economics," by Henry G. Manne, The Wall Street Journal, January 19, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/henry-manne-a-champion-of-law-informed-by-economics-1421713154?tesla=y

. . .

Currently, the SEC sees its job as regulating the entire market for information. This is madness. It starts at the supply side with accounting rules that began life as managerial tools and tries to make them into a valuation scheme. It finishes on the demand side by restricting insider trading, which merely shifts the identity of the people who may trade first on undisclosed information.

If insider trading were legal and used to replace or supplement stock options, there would be no “tragedies” of employees being left high and dry with options way out of the money. There would be no loss of reward when an innovation merely resulted in a reduction of an expected loss. There would be no unearned gain because a company’s stock appreciated in line with a market or industry rise. And there would be no peculiar problems of accounting since such trading would be entirely extraneous to the company’s accounts.

From “Regulation ‘In Terrorem,’ ” Nov. 22, 2004:

Since [New York Attorney General Eliot] Spitzer wins his cases in the media, where business is now all but defenseless, the best hope is for the American business community to develop its own public voice. The free-market scholarship needed for this purpose is available, though it is rarely availed of in these fights. Too often the corporate defenders conclude, out of ignorance to be sure, that the opposition really has the better case.

But make no mistake: Eliot Spitzer represents, wittingly or not, an attack on the entire corporate free-enterprise system. Clearly we need new or invigorated institutions to defend industries and companies publicly when they come under unwarranted or disproportionate attack. Responsible leaders of the business community should make it a high priority to develop these capabilities before more harm is done.

From “ Milton Friedman Was Right,” Nov. 26, 2006:

Now I realize (I should have known) he was absolutely correct about the significance of proposals for socially responsible corporate behavior, whether they emanated from within or outside the corporation. These proposals reflect, as well as anything else happening today, the inability of many commentators to distinguish between private and public property—in other words, between a free enterprise system and socialism. Somehow large-scale business success, usually resulting in a publicly held company, seems mysteriously to transform the nature of numerous individuals’ private investments into assets affected with a public interest. And once these corporate behemoths are “affected with a public interest,” they must either be regulated by the state or they must act as though they are owned by the public, and are therefore inferentially a part of the state. This attitude is reflected not merely by corporate activists, but by many “modern” corporate managers.

From “The ‘Corporate Democracy’ Oxymoron,” Jan. 2, 2007:

They’re back! Every 20 or 30 years shareholder democracy ideas come back in vogue, and their time seems to have arrived again—with a vengeance. . . .

There is absolutely nothing new in any of this discussion. The real world has not changed in any significant way, and our knowledge of corporate governance has not been revolutionized by some intellectual breakthrough. Furthermore, the provenance of the “corporate democracy” oxymoron has long been understood. The idea results from the inappropriate conflation of political ideals with market institutions. Its persistence can only be attributed to the intelligentsia’s far greater comfort and familiarity with political models and events than with knowledge and appreciation of how markets function.

From the Scout Report on January 16, 2015

Yahoo! News Digest --- https://mobile.yahoo.com/newsdigest/ 

Yahoo! News Digest, which won the Apple Design Award in 2014, is a simple, user-friendly, and visually pleasing news app that provides a “definitive summary” of the day’s events, once in the morning and then again in the evening. Yahoo! chooses headlines based on a combination of input from algorithms and editors, and sends a push notification when the digest is ready for viewing. Available for iOS 7.0+ and Android 4.0+, readers may select to receive the Digest by text or email.

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Hopscotch (kids programming) --- http://www.gethopscotch.com/ 

Looking for a way to get your students engaged with and excited about computer programming? Hopscotch, designed for iPhone and iPad (iOS 7.0+), allows kids to program their own games, stories, and animations - minus the complicated coding languages that usually accompany such an endeavor. Hopscotch won the 2014 Children’s Technology Review Award for Best Educational Technology and receives glowing reviews from users

---

Obama Proposes Free Community College for All
Obama, in Tennessee, Begins Selling His Community College Tuition Plan
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/us/obama-announces-plan-to-pay-for-community-college.html?src=recg

Federal Promise Unveiled
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/12/obama-joined-republicans-unveiling-free-community-college-plan

The Genius of Obama’s Two-Year College Proposal
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/the-genius-of-obamas-two-year-college-proposal/384429/

President Obama’s community college proposal doesn’t make the grade
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-obamas-community-college-proposal-doesnt-make-the-grade/2015/01/11/86d75de2-9851-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html

College the New High School?
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/college-new-high-school?intcid=mod-yml

FACT SHEET - White House Unveils America’s College Promise Proposal:
Tuition Free Community College for Responsible Students
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-white-house-unveils-america-s-college-promise-proposal-tuitio

From the Scout Report on January 23, 2015

Soundcloud --- https://soundcloud.com 

Soundcloud is a popular audio distribution platform. Musicians can upload their music and music lovers can listen for free. With content creators uploading about 12 hours of audio every minute, there is almost no genre that can't be located through a simple search. Soundcloud is also available as an app for Android (4.2.2+)

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Odrive --- http://www.odrive.com 

Odrive is a Dropbox-style interface that allows users to access online photos, documents, and social media platforms from one convenient location. It also integrates with Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive, Gmail, Microsoft OneDrive, and other applications so that you can have access to all your data without logging in and out of various apps and services. The program is easily downloadable to your computer.

---

Obama Delivers 2015 State of the Union Address
In State of the Union, Obama Sets an Ambitious Agenda
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/us/state-of-the-union-obama-ambitious-agenda-to-help-middle-class.html?_r=0

Obama: 'The shadow of crisis has passed'
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/20/obama-state-of-the-union-republican-senate-mitch-mcconnell/22040331/

State of the Union 2015 fact check
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/2015-state-of-the-union-fact-check-114422.html

Ernst Focuses on GOP Priorities in State of the Union Response
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2015-state-of-the-union/ernst-focuses-gop-priorities-state-union-response-n289951

A Brief History of the State of the Union
http://mentalfloss.com/article/29811/brief-history-state-union

President Obama's State of the Union Address - Remarks As Prepared for
Delivery
https://medium.com/@WhiteHouse/president-obamas-state-of-the-union-address-remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-55f9825449b2

Education and Learning Tutorials

Lynda.com charges users between $250 to $375 a year to access content hosted on the platform ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynda_Weinman#Lynda.com

"Lynda.com Announces $186 Million Investment," Inside Higher Ed,  January 15, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/01/15/lyndacom-announces-186-million-investment

The online learning platform Lynda.com has set an early tone for the ed-tech venture capital and equity market in 2015 with a $186 million investment. The private equity company TPG Capital led the investment, while firms Accel Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and Spectrum Equity -- as well as some of Lynda.com's earlier investors -- also participated. Lynda.com charges users between $250 to $375 a year to access content hosted on the platform, and will use the investment for acquisitions and growth, the company said in a press release.

Lynda.com has became a huge learning site with over 500 instructors --- http://www.lynda.com/

Jensen Comment
Because of the high price for each student (in addition to textbook prices) I would look first to see if there are good free tutorials for what you need such as in the tens of thousands of tutorials in hundreds of learning channels now on YouTube, the thousands of free tutorials at the Khan Academy, and the hundreds of thousands of free learning tutorials linked at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Khan Academy --- https://www.khanacademy.org

Also see the free learning materials, video tutorials, and even complete MOOC courses listed at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Google Is Offering Free Coding Lessons To Women And Minorities ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-free-coding-lessons-to-women-2014-6#ixzz35qMerq6C

Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance, economics, and statistics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Warning:
Free textbooks are usually not updated often if at all. This is more problematic in some disciplines (e.g., accounting and tax rule changes) than other disciplines like mathematics, statistics, and languages

Zooniverse (science projects) --- https://www.zooniverse.org

Serendip Studio: Hands-on (ecology) Activities for Teaching Biology --- http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/waldron/

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

Fee-Based Distance Education Alternatives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/CrossBorder.htm

Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

NASA photographs of the Eagle Ford formation in South Texas ---
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/12/27/the-eagle-ford-shale-boom-from-space/ 
Thank you Fred Loxsom for the heads up.

Let's Talk Science --- http://www.letstalkscience.ca

Science in the Classroom http://www.scienceintheclassroom.org

Animal Facts: National Geographic --- http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/facts/

Zooniverse (science projects) --- https://www.zooniverse.org

Serendip Studio: Hands-on (ecology) Activities for Teaching Biology --- http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/waldron/

MAKE Magazine (do it yourself) --- http://www.makezine.com

U.S. Energy --- http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=US

Great Lakes Fuel Cell Education Partnership --- http://www.fuelcelleducation.org/renewable-energy/grade

National Climatic Data Center: Global Analysis - Annual 2014 --- http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13

The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/the-public-domain-project-makes-10000-film-clips-free-online.html

From the Scout Report on January 23, 2015

Obama Delivers 2015 State of the Union Address
In State of the Union, Obama Sets an Ambitious Agenda
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/us/state-of-the-union-obama-ambitious-agenda-to-help-middle-class.html?_r=0

Obama: 'The shadow of crisis has passed'
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/20/obama-state-of-the-union-republican-senate-mitch-mcconnell/22040331/

State of the Union 2015 fact check
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/2015-state-of-the-union-fact-check-114422.html

Ernst Focuses on GOP Priorities in State of the Union Response
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2015-state-of-the-union/ernst-focuses-gop-priorities-state-union-response-n289951

A Brief History of the State of the Union
http://mentalfloss.com/article/29811/brief-history-state-union

President Obama's State of the Union Address - Remarks As Prepared for
Delivery
https://medium.com/@WhiteHouse/president-obamas-state-of-the-union-address-remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-55f9825449b2

Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine tutorials are at ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Social Science and Economics Tutorials

The Untold History of Women in Science and Technology --- http://www.whitehouse.gov/women-in-stem

My Next Move (career change helpers) --- http://www.mynextmove.org/
For example feed in the word "accountant" 

Carol Dweck: The power of believing that you can improve ---
http://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve

U.S. Energy --- http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=US

Great Lakes Fuel Cell Education Partnership --- http://www.fuelcelleducation.org/renewable-energy/grade

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development --- http://www.oecd.org/

CIA’s Clandestine Services Histories of Civil Air Transport
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/historical-collection-publications/clandestine-services-histories-of-civil-air-transport/index.html

Veterans' Service Records --- http://www.archives.gov/veterans/

The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/the-public-domain-project-makes-10000-film-clips-free-online.html

From the Scout Report on January 16, 2015

Obama Proposes Free Community College for All
Obama, in Tennessee, Begins Selling His Community College Tuition Plan
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/us/obama-announces-plan-to-pay-for-community-college.html?src=recg

Federal Promise Unveiled
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/12/obama-joined-republicans-unveiling-free-community-college-plan

The Genius of Obama’s Two-Year College Proposal
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/the-genius-of-obamas-two-year-college-proposal/384429/

President Obama’s community college proposal doesn’t make the grade
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-obamas-community-college-proposal-doesnt-make-the-grade/2015/01/11/86d75de2-9851-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html

College the New High School?
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/college-new-high-school?intcid=mod-yml

FACT SHEET - White House Unveils America’s College Promise Proposal:
Tuition Free Community College for Responsible Students
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-white-house-unveils-america-s-college-promise-proposal-tuitio

Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Law and Legal Studies

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Math Tutorials

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

History Tutorials

Open Culture --- http://www.openculture.com/

Boston Children's Museum Collections --- http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/exhibits-programs/collection

Know More (about the world) ---  http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/

The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/the-public-domain-project-makes-10000-film-clips-free-online.html

Whitney Museum Puts Online 21,000 Works of American Art, By 3,000 Artists ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/whitney-museum-puts-online-21000-works-of-american-art.html

The Untold History of Women in Science and Technology --- http://www.whitehouse.gov/women-in-stem

Women's History Matters --- http://www.montanawomenshistory.org

Leo Tolstoy’s Masochistic Diary: I Am Guilty of “Sloth,” “Cowardice” & “Sissiness” (1851) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/leo-tolstoys-masochistic-diary.html

Tween Tribune (science history) ---  http://www.tweentribune.com/

Is Ralph Waldo Emerson an unworthy scholar?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/where-s-waldo_823370.html?nopager=1

Brooklyn Waterfront History --- http://www.brooklynwaterfronthistory.org

Brooklyn Revealed --- http://www.brooklynrevealed.com

Read The Very First Comic Book: The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (1837) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/read-the-very-first-comic-book-the-adventures-of-obadiah-oldbuck-1837.html

Veterans' Service Records --- http://www.archives.gov/veterans/

"Inside Stalin's Head A biography offers fresh insights on one of history's bloodiest dictators.," by Norman Naimark, Reason Magazine, January 2015 ---
http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/17/inside-stalins-head

. . .

Yet given Stalin's enormous importance to the history of the 20th century, it is remarkable how little we understand about his personality and motives. He left no memoirs and kept no diaries. His letters to his comrades, such as the telegraphic communications he sent to Moscow from his summer headquarters in Sochi, rarely have the color or tone of intimate notes. Those around him maintained no records of his conversations or ruminations. Memoirs of close comrades and acolytes, such as Viacheslav Molotov or Anastas Mikoyan, were not published until long after Stalin's death. The same goes for the scattered reminiscences of a variety of family members, chauffeurs, cooks, and security guards.

He was an inveterate editor, so we do have his frequent markings on political articles and essays and notations on manuscripts and books. We hear him "speak" in lengthy and detailed official protocols of the Central Committee or Politburo meetings that were made available to researchers after the fall of the Soviet Union. But these reveal more about his signature political repartee-hard hitting, to the point, caustic, self-deprecating-than about his inner world. Historians also face the same problem that his contemporaries did in trying to understand him: Stalin was a consummate dissembler. He frequently assumed poses, played roles, and concealed his real thoughts. He plotted and schemed and had a supremely tactical mind.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on war history ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#War

Buddhism 101: A Short Introductory Lecture ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/buddhism-101-a-short-introductory-lecture-by-jorge-luis-borges.html

Live On: Mr.’s Japanese Neo-Pop (pop art) --- http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/liveon

Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective (pop art) ---  http://roy.artic.edu/

The Warhol: Time Capsule 21 --- http://www.warhol.org/tc21/main.html

Brooklyn Museum: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade --- http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/andy_warhol/index.php

Wolfsonian Museum: Collections (art nouveau and art deco) --- http://www.wolfsonian.org/explore/collections/browse

The Warhol: Heroes & Villains: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross --- http://www.warhol.org/exhibitions/2011/heroesandvillains/

Robert McCloskey Sketches for "Make Way for Ducklings" ---  http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157636871888613/with/10441859545/

William Blake’s Last Work: Illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy (1827) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/william-blakes-last-work-illustrations-for-dantes-divine-comedy-1827.html

America's First Illustrator: Alexander Anderson ---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=221

Genthe Collection (art history) --- http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/agc/

U.S. Energy --- http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=US

Vladimir Nabokov Names the Greatest (and Most Overrated) Novels of the 20th Century ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/vladimir-nabokov-names-the-greatest-novels-of-the-20th-century.html

Mapping the Republic of Letters (17th and 18th Century Letters) --- http://republicofletters.stanford.edu

CIA’s Clandestine Services Histories of Civil Air Transport
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/historical-collection-publications/clandestine-services-histories-of-civil-air-transport/index.html

Shakespear of Arabia (Capt William Shakespear - an explorer and pioneering photographer, History of Saudi Arabia) ---
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-30796539
Thank you Scott Bonacker for the heads up.

The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/the-public-domain-project-makes-10000-film-clips-free-online.html

Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm  

Language Tutorials

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Music Tutorials

Musopen (classical music resource open sharing site) --- https://www.musopen.org

The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America http://www.loc.gov/collection/songs-of-america/about-this-collection/

National Music Museum --- http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/

Evolution of Dance --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

America’s Music --- http://americasmusic.tribecafilminstitute.org

Rock Music Timeline --- http://www.rockmusictimeline.com

Grateful Dead Archive Online --- http://www.gdao.org/

Ethnomusicology Musical Instrument Collection --- http://content.lib.washington.edu/ethnomusicweb/index.html

Gershwin Music --- http://www.gershwin.com/

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

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

Writing Tutorials

Why Do We Hate Cliché?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/books/review/why-do-we-hate-clich.html?_r=0

I can't teach someone to write, but I can teach someone to rewrite.
John Casey
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/master-class_821848.html?nopager=1#

Willa Cather was against teaching college students how to write creatively, instead of how to write “clear and correct English” ---
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/one-writer-s-message_822395.html?nopager=1

Cab Calloway’s “Hepster Dictionary,” A 1939 Glossary of the Lingo (the “Jive”) of the Harlem Renaissance ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/cab-calloways-hepster-dictionary.html

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

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

January 16, 2015

• Survey: More Americans Getting Needed Health Care
• U.S. Birth Rate Continues Decline, CDC Reports
• CDC: Flu Vaccine Not Very Effective This Season
• 1 in 5 Adults With Epilepsy Also Has ADHD Symptoms
• At Least 40 Mistakenly Given Unsterile IV Fluid
• Alaska Health Premiums Are Triple Those In Phoenix
• Lupus Death Rates Vary by Race, Ethnicity: Study
• Unhealthy Insulin Levels May Up Breast Cancer Risk
• Saliva Test Shows Promise in Lung Cancer Detection
• Neck Artery Stents May Not Be Worthwhile

January 17, 2015

• Many Who Drink Also Take Prescription Medications: Study
• The New Device to Treat Obesity: Is It for You?
• Health Highlights: Jan. 16, 2015
• Vitamin D Linked to Lower Colorectal Cancer Risk
• Life Satisfaction and Bone Health in Older Women
• Neural Tube Defects, Like Spina Bifida, Declining
• Limited Insurance Choices Frustrate Some in CA
• Survey: More Americans Getting Needed Health Care
• U.S. Birth Rate Continues Decline, CDC Reports
• Flu Cases Down Slightly

January 19, 2015

• Many Who Drink Also Take Prescription Medications: Study
• Vitamin D Linked to Lower Colorectal Cancer Risk
• Life Satisfaction and Bone Health in Older Women
• The New Device to Treat Obesity: Is It for You?
• Health Highlights: Jan. 16, 2015
• At Least 40 Mistakenly Given Unsterile IV Fluid
• Unhealthy Insulin Levels May Up Breast Cancer Risk
• U.S. Birth Rate Continues Decline, CDC Reports
• Lupus Death Rates Vary by Race, Ethnicity: Study
• Neural Tube Defects, Like Spina Bifida, Declining

January 20, 2015

January 21, 2015

• Could Fish Nutrients Shield Fetus From Mercury?
• Tax Preparers Brace To Give Bad Health Law News
• Early Study: Stem Cells May Reverse MS Disability
• Fertility Treatments and Children's Health
• Pneumonia Raises Heart Disease Risk for Years
• Use of Male IVF Procedure Doubled in Past Decade
• Can Coffee Protect You From Melanoma?
• Measles at Disneyland: What You Should Know
• Ulcer Bacteria Tied to Lower MS Risk in Women
• Study Rates Migraine Medications

January 22, 2015

• Tax Preparers Brace To Give Bad Health Law News
• Could Fish Nutrients Shield Fetus From Mercury?
• Can Coffee Protect You From Melanoma?
• Fertility Treatments and Children's Health
• Measles at Disneyland: What You Should Know
• Pneumonia Raises Heart Disease Risk for Years
• Ulcer Bacteria Tied to Lower MS Risk in Women
• Use of Male IVF Procedure Doubled in Past Decade
• Researchers Rethink Inner-City Asthma Theory
• Study Rates Migraine Medications

January 23, 2015

• Antibiotics, Traveler's Diarrhea and Superbugs
• Many Women of This Age Take Narcotic Painkillers
• Study: 'Video Feedback' May Help Curb Autism
• 'The Pill:' Higher Risk for Rare Brain Cancer
• Insuring Undocumented Immigrants in California
• High Levels of Formaldehyde in E-Cig Vapor
• Tax Preparers Brace To Give Bad Health Law News
• Sleep Position Tied to Death Risk for Epileptics
• Leaks in Brain May Contribute to Dementia
• Could Fish Nutrients Shield Fetus From Mercury?

January 24, 2015

• Viruses May Play Role in Crohn's Disease, Colitis
• Eczema Linked to Other Health Problems
• Timely Decisions Ordered On CA Medicaid Coverage
• Measles at Disneyland: What You Should Know
• The Flu Remains Widespread in Much of the U.S.
• Many U.S. Girls Aren't Getting HPV Vaccine: Study
• Ebola Vaccine Sent to W. Africa for Testing
• Insuring Undocumented Immigrants in California
• 'The Pill:' Higher Risk for Rare Brain Cancer
• Ebola 'Turning Point' as Cases Decline: WHO

January 26, 2015

• Viruses May Play Role in Crohn's Disease, Colitis
• Eczema Linked to Other Health Problems
• Timely Decisions Ordered On CA Medicaid Coverage
• Measles at Disneyland: What You Should Know
• The Flu Remains Widespread in Much of the U.S.
• Many U.S. Girls Aren't Getting HPV Vaccine: Study
• Ebola Vaccine Sent to W. Africa for Testing
• Insuring Undocumented Immigrants in California
• 'The Pill:' Higher Risk for Rare Brain Cancer
• Ebola 'Turning Point' as Cases Decline: WHO

January 27, 2015

• Many Breast Cancer Patients Lack Info on Disease
• FDA OKs First Generic Version of Heartburn Drug
• Thyroid Trouble May Harm Women's Fertility: Study
• Use of These Meds Tied to Higher Odds for Dementia
• Menu Calorie Counts May Mean Healthier Kids' Meals
• High Cholesterol in Middle Age, Heart Risk Later?
• Genes May Not Explain Autism That Runs in Families
• Insomnia Linked to High Blood Pressure in Study
• U.K. Nurse Recovers From Ebola
• Pediatricians' Group Opposes Legal Marijuana

January 28, 2015

• If Court Strikes Subsidies, Most Want Them Back
• IN Medicaid Expansion May Tempt Other States
• Weight Changes Tied to Older Women's Fracture Risk
• Seniors May Keep Falls a Secret
• Soda Habit May Prompt Early Puberty in Girls, Study Suggests
• Officials: Ebola Threat Diminishing in W. Africa
• Prostate Cancer Patients Who Smoke Fare Worse
• Daily Drinking May Raise Risk of Liver Cirrhosis
• 'Long Life' Gene Might Make Some Smarter, Too: Study
• Heart Surgery Transfusions May Up Pneumonia Risk

"Environment, more than genetics, shapes immune system," by Emily Conover, Science Magazine, January 15, 2015 ---
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/01/environment-more-genetics-shapes-immune-system?rss=1

A Bit of Humor

Rumor has it that the New England patriots had to issue all new and smaller jock straps for the Super Bowl.
Bob Jensen
I know, but it's the best I could come up with on short notice.

The 25 Funniest SNL Cast Members Of All Time ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-snl-cast-members-2015-1

Pasadena Conference on Aging Part 2 (humor) ---
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LR2qZ0A8vic?rel=0

23 Clever License Plates That Slipped by the DMV
http://www.odometer.com/lifestyle/5787/29-clever-license-plates-that-slipped-past-the-dmv#slide/0

"The Silly—and Sobering—History of MLA Job Ads," by Sydni Dunn, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 14, 2015 ---
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/869-the-silly-and-sobering-history-of-mla-job-ads?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en 

Forwarded by Gene and Joan

I pointed to two old drunks across the bar from us and told my friend Bob, "That'll be us in ten years."

He turned to me and said, "That's a mirror, you idiot."

Great Female Comebacks forwarded by Paula

Man: "So, wanna go back to my place ?"
Woman: "Well, I don't know. Will two people fit under a rock?"

Man: "Your place or mine?"
Woman: "Both. You go to yours and I'll go to mine."

Man: "I'd like to call you. What's your number?"
Woman: "It's in the phone book."
Man: "But I don't know your name."
Woman: "That's in the phone book too."

Man: "So what do you do for a living?"
Woman: "I'm a female impersonator."

Man: "What sign were you born under?"
Woman: "No Parking." Or  (“Stop”) my daughter Dawn used it!

Man: "Hey, baby, what's your sign?"
Woman: "Do not Enter"

Man: "How do you like your eggs in the morning?"
Woman: "Unfertilized!"

Man: "Hey, come on, admit it. We're both here at this bar for the same reason"
Woman: "Yeah! Let's pick up some chicks!"
Man: "I know how to please a woman."
Woman: "Then please leave me alone."

Man: "I want to give myself to you."
Woman: "Sorry, I don't accept cheap gifts."

Man: "I can tell that you want me."
Woman: "Ohhhh. You're so right. I want you to leave."

Man: "If I could see you naked, I'd die happy:
Woman: "Yeah, but if I saw you naked, I'd probably die laughing."

Man: "Hey cutie, how 'bout you and me hitting the hot spots?"
Woman: "Sorry, I don't date outside my species."

Man: "Your body is like a temple."
Woman: "Sorry, there are no services today."

Man: "I'd go through anything for you."
Woman: "Good! Let's start with your bank account."

Man: "I would go to the end of the world for you.
Woman: "Yes, but would you stay there?

Tidbits Archives --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

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

Update in 2014
20-Year Sugar Hill Master Plan --- http://www.nccouncil.org/images/NCC/file/wrkgdraftfeb142014.pdf

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

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

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

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.

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