We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
John Bredehoft ponders the question in his post, A steering wheel desk – where do you draw the line between personal and corporate responsibility?
Under discussion is a portable desk you can set up while in the driver’s seat. The illustration at Amazon makes it clear it fits over the bottom of the wheel and would make turning impossible even if you could handle dumping everything on your lap.
2-11 – Wall Street Journal – French, Malians Retake Gao After Assault by Militants
Militants attacked the city of Gao. After an apparent running gun battle, the French and Malian troops chased the rebels out of town.
2-15 – Wall Street Journal – French Lessons in Mali
Let’s see if I can put this in one sentence.
The Tuareg in northern Mali (MNLA) will cooperate with the French against the jihadists but continue to have long-running grievances with the Malian government and army thus won’t cooperate with them, so to get out of the country France needs to negotiate a political deal between the government and MNLA.
Am I close? I’m not sure
2-16 – New York Times – In Mali, the Peril of Guerrilla War Looms
The jihadists/rebels/militants have reportedly blended in with the locals at villages near Goa. They can hide in plain sight. Looks like they may wait for an opportunity to strike back.
I don’t do humor, unless there is a good economic point to be made. I just about fell out of my chair on this one.
Here is the start of the economist’s talk with his soon-to-be-former-sweetheart: Continue reading “An economist decides to break up with his girlfriend after a quantitative cost-benefit analysis of the relationship”
Some of the news of the last week –
2-2 – The Guardian – Inside Gao where Arab jihadis took bloody sharia retribution on Mali’s black Africans
More stories are surfacing of the brutality of the occupation. In addition, the punishments appear to have been dispensed on an ethnic basis: Continue reading “Mali update – 2-10-13 – The ‘fun’ part is over while the war has just begun”
(Cross-posted from my other blog, Attestation Update.)
“Tragedy of Fraud – The Ripple Effects from Fraud and the Wages Earned” describes the tragic consequences from fraud.
There are ripple effects that spread out to harm innocent bystanders. The perpetrator draws a wide range of well-deserved wages that will be paid in full.
The book looks at two fraud incidents to learn what happens after a fraud is discovered. One took place in a local megachurch and the other in the mayor’s office of a small city.
The book closes with a discussion of the fraud triangle. That’s the idea that three components need to be present for a fraud to take place – opportunity, motivation, and rationalization. There are steps an organization can take to reduce those factors.
You can find the book at Amazon here.
This book is a compilation of blogs posts that have been previously published at Nonprofit Update and Attestation Update. The posts have been edited slightly and reorganized for easier reading.
Major sections of the book:
Continue reading ““Tragedy of Fraud” e-book now available at Amazon”
Updates from the last week. Don’t know how long I’ll keep posting these summaries, since they are a bit off-topic for my blog. For the moment, plan to continue them a little longer.
1-29 – Wall Street Journal – French and Malian Forces Retake Timbuktu.
The militants (that’s the WSJ style definition) left Timbuktu before the troops arrived, which allowed the French forces to retake the city without a battle. There are now 3,500 French troops on the ground.
That quote in the title of this post is one of the great lines from the winning video in the Fayetteville State University video competition last year. The topic was supply and demand.
The video is “Whatever You Like” from a team of students at Fayetteville State University.
Check this out:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=PLjiT5tt-WVpry7lKtSQjOJ_rjC1_pgeOL&v=BO2cimsoBa0]
Continue reading “Rap to explain “Demand meets supply at the equilibrium price””
(Cross posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)
Tragedy of Fraud – The Ripple Effects from Fraud and the Wages Earned will be released soon in Kindle format. This is a compilation of blog posts about the damage caused by fraud. It will also discuss the fraud triangle.
The sections of the book are:
Continue reading “‘Tragedy of Fraud’ in e-book format – soon to be released”
Events are moving fast in Mali. Here is my brief summary, in roughly chronological order.
First, The Conflict in Mali is an interactive map from the Wall Street Journal. It has a very useful map, another tab with a list & background of the key players, and a timeline. Good resource to check. Locating the cities helps to understand the context.
I’ve been scratching my head about the French requests for heavy transport and in-flight refueling assistance from the U.S. Looks to this simple observer like they cannot project a force of 2,500 troops. It is a good start to have ability to lift the troops into a hotspot. That is only the start.
Just making a totally wild guess, the food, fuel, water, and parts needed to sustain such a force for one day probably weights more than the troops on the ground. And that is without ammo, explosives, jet fuel, and bombs. Further, 2,500 is not a particularly large force.
If you are interested in what’s happening across northern Africa, especially Mali, here are two articles with more in-depth reporting than you will see anywhere else.
Adam Garfinkle in American Interest:
The articles in one sentence: the situation in Mali is vastly, phenomenally more complicated that you realized with implications going far beyond Mali that you hadn’t thought about.
Mentioned back in November that a number of restaurants and hotels are thinking of cutting their staff back to 29 hours or less to avoid the upcoming requirement to provide full-scale health care to staff working 30 hours or more.
The Wall Street Journal reports in their article Health Law Pinches Colleges (behind paywall) that colleges are moving in this direction as well.
Several colleges mentioned are reducing the class load for adjunct professors so they will be working below the 30 hour cutoff this year. That means the colleges won’t have to either provide health care or pay a penalty.
Just a short recap of the last few days.
The U.S. has started flying supplies into Mali on behalf of the French forces (Reuters – U.S. beings transporting French troops, equipment to Mali). There are reportedly two flights a day to Bamako, the capital.
Continue reading “Mail update – U.S. starts supply flights, French forces retake city”
The space frontier is open.
Popular Mechanics reports in The 4 Spaceships Vying to Send Crews to the ISS just what their title says.
There are four companies developing lift capacity:
(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)
I am pleased to report that my firm received a pass rating on the peer review which was performed in November 2012.
Continue reading “Ulvog CPA firm receives “Pass” rating in Peer Review”
Via Meadia points to a great background article in the blog, “Africa is a Country.” Their post is France in Mali: the End of the Fairytale. Lots of good info to help understand what is happening there.
Mr. Mead introduces the post’s author this way:
Gregory Mann, a West African historian, Columbia University professor, and reporter for the blog Africa Is A Country, has been covering Mali for some time now, and in his latest piece he gives us the informed perspective that is often missing in the accounts of mainstream reporters, who are only now scrambling to catch up to a complicated story:
The article explains the context of the fighting over the last week or so. A few highlights (for me at least):
Continue reading “Superb background article on fighting in Mali”