An Honorable Mention
It seems someone had a hard time coming up with something original that described being honest.
Their goal was an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing.
However, the wording in a draft by students at the University of Texas at San Antonio appears to match another school’s code - without proper attribution.
The student currently in charge of the honor code project said it was an oversight, but cheating experts say it illustrates a sloppiness among Internet-era students who don’t know how to cite sources properly and think of their computers as cut-and-paste machines.
Heck, everyone knows if you read something you found on Google, that doesn’t make it real, right?
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You Can’t Sell Something Nobody Wants
If there’s no market for your service, why would people want it?
Bank of America (BAC.N) is considering scrapping the sale of its equities prime brokerage unit after receiving lukewarm interest from potential bidders, the Financial Times reported on its Website on Sunday.
Citing people close to the situation, the newspaper said no final decision on the prime brokerage unit, which has been up for sale for more than three months, had been made.
Competition for the prime brokerage unit, which is believed to have had revenue of more than $180 million last year, weakened this month after JPMorgan Chase’s & Co’s (JPM.N) cut-price acquisition of Bear Stearns Cos Inc (BSC.N), the FT said.
This is much like taking the for sale sign out of the window of your 1975 Pinto. Was anyone really interested in purchasing it anyway?
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Sphere: Related ContentHow Drunk Can You Get?
You have to be pretty damned drunk for this happen.
William M. Bowen woke up after a night of drinking with friends and realized he was inside a commercial trash-collection truck full of waste.
The driver had just emptied a commercial trash bin into his truck and was about to activate its compactor when he heard Bowen screaming.
“He looked up and this gentleman was standing out the top of our truck,” said Larry Green, market safety supervisor for the Rumpke waste disposal company. Green said the only thing Bowen said to the driver was that he was cold.
“This gentleman was extremely intoxicated,” he said.
I don’t know what’s worse, waking up in the trash can or not remembering how in the hell you got in there in the first place. I guess he’s lucky they hadn’t activated the compactor yet huh?
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Sphere: Related ContentFilling The Gaps In Regulation
As an independent conservative, I am usually against any plan that gives the government more power. But for some reason, this plan just makes sense.
Upcoming Treasury Department proposals to make the Federal Reserve the chief regulator of U.S. financial markets and give it sweeping new powers won praise on Saturday from the central bank and the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is expected to unveil a blueprint on Monday for fixing gaps in the U.S. financial market regulatory structure that have been exposed by the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.
Lax regulation has been widely blamed for permitting a flood of inadequately documented loans to be made during the boom years of a U.S. housing market that has since soured and now threatens to drag the economy into a deep recession.
If the mortgage industry had regulated itself and brokers had denied people loans that they knew they couldn’t afford, maybe something like this wouldn’t have to be done. I think this is one exception where the government needs to step in and make sure crap like this doesn’t happen again in the future.
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The Optimist Outlook Amazes Me
More news on the economic front.
Consumers turned in the weakest spending performance in 17 months in February, while their confidence dropped to the lowest level in 16 years, raising further fears of a recession.
The Commerce Department said Friday that consumer spending edged up by just 0.1 percent last month, the poorest showing since September 2006. And if the effects of inflation are removed, spending was flat in February, the third consecutive month of sluggish activity.
I keep hearing some people saying we are already in a recession, and others saying “not yet”. Who says we are in one, or will be in one? I know we all need to be realists, but shouldn’t we be a bit more optimistic about things?
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Don’t Squeeze The Water Company
How ridiculous is this? Did he really think they would take toilet paper as payment?
A man disputing his water bill is not being allowed to pay with a check written on toilet paper. Ron Borgna, who is disputing the $2,509.66 bill, wrote a check on floral print, two-ply toilet paper Wednesday.
The disagreement began in September 2006 when Borgna received a $422.90 water bill. Borgna claims he was overbilled. With additional charges, penalties and late fees that bill has grown.
Binghamton city officials refused to accept the check. After a short argument, Borgna was escorted out of the building, the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin reported.
Borgna says he is appealing the judgment against him in small claims court.
Come on now, everyone knows a check is no good without the proper watermark.
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Man Says He’s Pregnant, I Say He’s A Woman
Say what? If this man, who used to be a woman, had a sex change but opted only for chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy, did he really have a sex change? I don’t think so.
An Oregon man is five months pregnant, according to a national magazine.
Thomas Beatie, who used to be a woman, appeared in the most recent issue of The Advocate, a magazine for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender readers, Portland, Ore., television station KPTV reported.
Beatie wrote the article, which includes a picture of him while he was 22 weeks pregnant. According to the story, he went through a sex change, but decided only to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy.
Beatie was able to keep the reproductive organs he was born with. The article said he stopped getting the injections and was able to get pregnant.
Beatie, who lives in Bend, wrote he was once pregnant with triplets, but the pregnancy was life-threatening and he lost the fetuses. Now, Beatie said he and his wife, Nancy, are expecting a little girl in July.
Personally, I believe, if he still has all of his female reproductive organs, he is, in fact, a she. No matter which sex he identifies with.
I wish him and his wife nothing but the best. I bet he’s happy he didn’t have any work done to create an “organ”. That might have ended up being a bit painful during childbirth.
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The Total Keeps Rising
I have heard a lot of estimates when it comes to the total cost of the subprime mortgage fiasco. If this is the amount they are willing to admit, how much more will be lost “on the books” that they won’t ever reveal, else people would know how truly bad things are?
Wall Street banks, brokerages and hedge funds may report $460 billion in credit losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, or almost four times the amount already disclosed, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Profits will continue to wane, other analysts said.
“There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it is still rather dim,” Goldman analysts including New York-based Andrew Tilton said in a note to investors today. They estimated that residential mortgage losses will account for half the total, and commercial mortgages as much as 20 percent.
While I support the government backed “bailout” of Bear Stearns, I think things are working a bit backwards. The investors of Bear Stearns, the ones who just a year ago held stock that was valued at almost $170 per share, have lost fortunes with the collapse of the company. After the “bailout”, new investors grabbed as many shares as they could, somewhere above the $2 range. Since JPMorgan increased their bid, those investors (who bought so low) will be making a 500% (roughly), while the long term investors who placed their faith in the company and held their ground to support it, still lose their asses.
I know “that’s business”. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck for them. How much longer will it be until we see stories of people jumping out windows because they lost everything they owned? Think it won’t happen again? Keep dreaming.
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Sphere: Related ContentIt’s A Sirius Merger Question
Finally. I thought yesterday would never come.
The U.S. Justice Department on Monday approved the proposed $4.22 billion purchase of XM Satellite Radio (XMSR.O) by Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI.O) after concluding a combined XM-Sirius would not harm consumers.
The deal still needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which is expected to follow the Justice Department’s lead.
The deal, announced in February 2007, would combine the only two providers of satellite radio in the United States.
Does this mean I will rush out and sign up for satellite radio again? Nope. Nothing they do will make me want satellite radio again. Sure, it’s nice to have sometimes, but it’s not something I will be willing to pay for again any time soon.
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Sphere: Related ContentBoy Saves Grandmother Choking On Jell-O
What a brave little boy! He saved his grandmother from choking to death!
A 5-year-old Atlantic City boy saved his grandmother from choking, using a trick he learned in school. The Press of Atlantic City reported that Shirldine Stewart, 56, was watching television and eating Jell-O when her grandson A’Zir Spence came downstairs to ask her a question.
When she turned to look at him a piece of food got lodged in her throat.
After she couldn’t remove the food herself, her grandson asked her whether she was choking. Then the boy suggested she raise her hands over her head.
When she did, the food popped out.
The boy says he learned the trick at school. His grandmother calls him her little hero.
Then again, I’ve never heard of someone choking on Jell-O before. Should I give them all the benefit of the doubt and presume there was something big enough to choke on inside the Jell-O?
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