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Will Kathy Griffin replace Simon Cowell on Idol?

She may be out at CNN, but Kathy Griffin could soon be up for a new gig at FOX. The F-bomb lovin’ Griffin’s comical campaign to replace Simon Cowell on American Idol has prompted some very serious discussions among show’s producers, a new report claims. The Emmy-winning comedienne and reality personality has just enough edge to make her the perfect replacement for the tough-talkin’, T-shirt-wearing Cowell, sources say. However, now that another Emmy-winning funny gal – television’s Ellen DeGeneres — is already on board at Idol, casting Kathy would likely be too dicey.

”With Ellen [DeGeneres] on board, adding another woman — and a comic at that — just wouldn’t work,” a show insider reveals. ”However, if Ellen would ever leave, then everything would be up for grabs anyway, and Kathy might have a shot.”

People who are chronically sleep-deprived may think they’re caught up after a 10-hour night of sleep, but new research shows that although they’re near-normal when they awake, their ability to function deteriorates markedly as night falls…

Staying up for 24 hours straight is bad enough, but the study shows that if you do that on top of having gotten less than six hours of sleep a night for two to three weeks, your reaction times and abilities are 10 times worse than they would have been just pulling an all-nighter, says Daniel Cohen, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School and lead author of the study in Wednesday’s Science Translational Medicine…

Read more here

Yesterday, I noted that the Obama administration would likely be imposing a temporary tax on big bank leverage. While I found it an odd short-term policy, I explained that there is an argument for a leverage tax in the long run, in order to reduce banks’ incentive for taking more unprotected risk. But I also said that I’d prefer a simpler approach instead, where regulators just created more conservative leverage requirements. I wanted to be a little more specific.

As a matter of fact, I’m not against the idea of banks who engage in higher risk activities needing to set aside additional capital to cover potential losses in a failure event — I’m actually for it. I’m more against the idea that this should be a tax. I share commenter Claudius’ view as to why. First, he quotes my saying:

The tax revenues could sit in a sort of “just in case” fund, to be used in times of financial emergencies. Then, if another financial crisis hits, any costs borne by the government in cleaning up the mess could be covered by the fund.

And he responds:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Stop, my sides hurt! When has the Congress EVER allowed a pile of money to sit there ‘just in case’?!

I probably would have put it a little more diplomatically, but I think that point is right. Prime example: the Social Security fund. That’s how Congress treats money that has been “set aside.” In that case, Congress “borrows” from the Social Security fund. And then, through logic that only Washington can understand, pays itself interest on that money that it borrows from itself. So not only does it spend that money, but it incurs additional debt by spending that money.

The point is that neither Congress nor the Treasury should have control over an emergency fund like this. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a strong argument for such a fund existing. The idea that a sort of insurance fund could cover the costs when firms get into trouble isn’t a novel one. That’s literally the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s business. But it doesn’t collect its insurance premiums through a tax; it does so through an insurance premium on deposits.

So what I would ultimately suggest is a hybrid reform. First, you need some reasonable leverage limits put in place, but you have to allow banks to take some risk and use some leverage. Then, the higher a bank’s risk level within that framework, the more money that it should be required to pay into an insurance fund guarded by whoever turns out to be the soon-to-be-created non-bank resolution authority. That will probably be the FDIC. Given that it has a good track record of its deposit insurance fund remaining protected from the greedy clutches of Congress, I find no reason to believe another fund to pay for non-bank resolution would have a different fate.

Leverage may or may not be the right measure to evaluate the fees that banks should pay into that resolution fund. But I’d prefer broader criteria. One bank with 10x leverage could be riskier than another bank with 20x leverage, depending on how risky the assets are in its portfolio. So leverage alone isn’t enough to determine how costly resolution could ultimately be. As a result, I’d prefer a more rigorous, case-by-case approach to determine the how large assessments on these institutions should be to ensure taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill for their resolution, if necessary.

by David Gumpert

Much as I’ve long been taken with the romanticism of dairy
farming and the visions of grazing cows and nurturing fresh milk it conjures
up, I tune out when the talk turns to “the dairy industry.”

That subject stimulates
images of commodity trading, price controls, feed lots, and perhaps most
onerous—a rigged system akin to slavery in which the owners of small dairies
nearly always lose. They have been losing for so many years the number of farms with dairy cows fell an astounding 88 percent, from 648,000 to 75,000 between 1960 and 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports.

Those who control the dairy industry—the Dean Foods and
other huge processors, along with so-called “dairy cooperatives”—don’t see a problem in all this since they continue to make big profits as “the industry” consolidates. They definitely don’t
want to hear about opportunities for entrepreneurship and economic growth for dairy farms, such as in the emerging opportunity coming via growing demand for raw milk. Demand so strong it’s enabled California
dairy Organic Pastures Dairy Co. to grow from an apple grower into the largest raw dairy in the
country over the last seven years, with a reported 60,000 customers and fat profits reaped from fetching up
to $17 a gallon for milk. Dozens of other smaller raw dairies in Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and Michigan are thriving from similar growing demand, and a marketplace that
rewards them with between $7 and $10 a gallon, versus about $1 a gallon for
milk sold to Dean Foods and the dairy cooperatives.

So when the U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary Tom
Vilsack announced a few days ago the appointment of 17 members of a new Dairy
Industry Advisory Committee to tell him how to deal with the dairy crisis, at first I tuned out. It sounded to me like more of the same—government officials talking sympathetically to the poor dairy farmers standing around hat-in-hand, while behind the scenes the same government officials continue tilting the system to benefit Dean Foods and other processors. Pathetic stuff, something like rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic.

Then I was listening to a New Hampshire Public Radio program Monday morning
about, none other than “the dairy dilemma” and what to do about it. One of the guests on
the call-in panel discussion was Deborah Erb, a New Hampshire dairy farmer
appointed to serve on the committee for the next two years. She was on the program together
with an official of a dairy cooperative, and the head of a Republican think
tank.

I decided to call in and see what Deborah might have to say about my
idea to put state agriculture departments to work educating interested owners
of smaller dairies on the fine art of producing safe and nutritious raw milk,
as a way to fulfill their mandates to promote agriculture. Ag departments in a
number of states like New York and Wisconsin spend much of their time harassing
small dairies that seek to escape economic servitude by selling raw milk,
rather than cooperating with them to help them succeed.

As I waited about 45 minutes for my turn to speak, I
listened to the discussion about the dairy industry’s dilemma, and tried hard
not to tune out. It was just so pathetic.

They talked about how more than 100 New England Dairy farms
went out of business last year, which is possibly as many as 10 percent of the region’s 1,600 to
1,800 remaining dairies. Someone mentioned that perhaps 30 percent of every consumer dollar spent on dairy products goes to the farmer, versus 50 percent in the 1960s, and nearly 100 percent at the turn of last century.

The panelists also talked about how the federal government
appropriated more than $300 million last year to artificially raise dairy
prices paid to farmers, and how that amounted to three-and-a-half cents a gallon of milk, or
maybe $6,000-$7,000 per dairy. “If you lost $60,000 or $70,000 last year, it
helped,” one of the guests said hopefully. All I could think is that the dairy farmers
need to find a Goldman Sachs big shot to get at some of those billions the government sent to the nation’s biggest banks last year.

But my ears perked up when Deborah Erb was asked about the
new USDA dairy advisory committee. “I hope to think outside the box,” she
stated. Now there’s the seeds of change we can believe in.

Finally, my turn as a caller came. I identified myself as the
author of the new book, The Raw Milk Revolution, and briefly described
my idea of encouraging small dairies to exploit the fast-growing raw
milk market. Then I asked Deborah whether she would bring this idea up to the
new committee.

I was surprised at how knowledgeable she was about the
subject. “Today’s milk supply is a lot cleaner than it once was,” she volunteered.
One potential problem with raw milk, she said, was that it doesn’t travel real
well. “As people get further from the farm, (raw milk) becomes problematic … ” Ah,
but then she returned to her “box.” “I certainly am open to thinking outside
the box.”

Did that represent a commitment to give raw milk a hearing
before the new committee? Unfortunately, I was cut off before I had a chance to
follow up.

But even “thinking outside the box”—forget about real
action—would be progress among the dairy industry crowd that will be advising
the USDA secretary. Slight progress, perhaps, since we’re not talking about an end to the servitude that marks the smaller dairy farmer’s current economic role. No, slaves need to fight for their freedom, and it’s not clear that a new USDA advisory committee is prepared to take on that role.

Related Links:

Johnny, Can You Spell Salmonella?

Getting at the roots of unsustainable U.S. ag policy

CAFOs: ‘Above the Law’ like Steven Seagal?

Identification of gases responsible for the odour of human flatus and evaluation of a device purported to reduce this odour.

“BACKGROUND/AIMS: While the social significance of flatus derives mainly from its odour, previous studies have focused on the non-odoriferous components of rectal gas. The aims of the present study were to determine the role of sulphur-containing gases in flatus odour and test the efficacy of a device purported to reduce this odour. METHODS: Flatus was quantitatively collected via rectal tube from 16 healthy subjects who ingested pinto beans and lactulose to enhance flatus output. The concentrations of sulphur-containing gases in each passage were correlated with odour intensity assessed by two judges. Odour intensity was also determined after treatment of flatus samples with zinc acetate, which binds sulphydryl compounds (hydrogen sulphide and methanethiol), or activated charcoal. Utilising gastight Mylar pantaloons, the ability of a charcoal lined cushion to adsorb sulphur-containing gases instilled at the anus of eight subjects was assessed. RESULTS: The main sulphur-containing flatus component was hydrogen sulphide (1.06 (0.2) mumol/l), followed by methanethiol (0.21 (0.04) mumol/l) and dimethyl sulphide (0.08 (0.01) mumol/l) (means (SEM)). Malodour significantly correlated with hydrogen sulphide concentration (p < or = 0.001). Zinc acetate reduced sulphur gas content but did not totally eliminate odour, while activated charcoal removed virtually all odour. The cushion absorbed more than 90% of the sulphur gases. CONCLUSION: Sulphur-containing gases are the major, but not the only, malodorous components of human flatus. The charcoal lined cushion effectively limits the escape of these sulphur-containing gases into the environment.”

We close with one more quote from To the Royal Academy of Farting:

What Comfort can the Vortices of Descartes give to a Man who has Whirlwinds in his Bowels! The Knowledge of Newton’s mutual Attraction of the Particles of Matter, can it afford Ease to him who is racked by their mutual Repulsion, and the cruel Distensions it occasions? The Pleasure arising to a few Philosophers, from seeing, a few Times in their Life, the Threads of Light untwisted, and separated by the Newtonian Prism into seven Colours, can it be compared with the Ease and Comfort every Man living might feel seven times a Day, by discharging freely the Wind from his Bowels? Especially if it be converted into a Perfume: For the Pleasures of one Sense being little inferior to those of another, instead of pleasing the Sight he might delight the Smell of those about him, & make Numbers happy, which to a benevolent Mind must afford infinite Satisfaction. The generous Soul, who now endeavours to find out whether the Friends he entertains like best Claret or Burgundy, Champagne or Madeira, would then enquire also whether they chose Musk or Lilly, Rose or Bergamot, and provide accordingly.

Thanks to Tusi for today’s ROFL!

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Asparagus, urine, farts, and Benjamin Franklin (Part I)
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: It’s like a Brita filter for your butt

Grants of up to $10,000 are available for private landholders in the Peel Harvey region who opt to conserve bushland on their property.

The Wetland Watch project, run by WWF-Australia, offers grants to landholders for fencing, weed control and native revegetation. Applications for the next round of grants are being accepted now.

“The Peel Harvey region is recognised internationally as home to a remarkable range of species and habitats that are found nowhere else in the world,” said Brett Brenchley, WWF-Australia Project Co- ordinator for Wetland Watch.

“Very little of this extraordinary region has been set aside in protected areas. Without the help of private landholders we could lose key Peel Harvey habitats – including internationally recognised Ramsar listed wetlands – and many exceptionally rare species of plants and animals that live there.”

Gillian Turner, who lives on two hectares in Stakehill, has already received her grant to restore the bushland and spray against veldt grass – a highly invasive weed – over the entire property.

As part of the process she has had a range of experts visit her property to see what kind of plant and animal species were found there. The visits have opened her eyes to rich biodiversity on her land.

“I knew I had a wonderful patch of bush but I was fighting a losing battle with weeds until the Wetland Watch team visited,” said Gillian.

“In the near future the team will set up camera traps to see if we can capture on film which animals visit our land at night.”

For a property to be considered for a Wetland Watch grant it must be close to a Ramsar wetland, have bushland in good condition or be in close proximity to bushland in good condition.

For more details about Wetland Watch grants contact WWF-Australia Project Co-ordinator for Wetland Watch Brett Brenchley on 9550 3284.

Brett and landholder Gillian Turner are available for interviews.

More Information

Alvin Stone, WWF-Australia. Ph: 8202 1259. Mbl: 0410 221 068. Email: [email protected]

Nearly 200 submissions to the Montara Commission of Inquiry have been made public overnight, revealing regulatory breaches, missing safety equipment and a grossly inadequate response to the environmental impacts of one of Australia’s biggest oil spills.

"The submissions on the Montara oil spill and fire make sobering reading," said Dr Gilly Llewellyn, WWF-Australia’s Director of Conservation.

"They cast a long shadow of doubt over the safety of PTTEP’s operations in sensitive marine environments off our Northwest coast."

Submissions by the oil companies involved in the incident, PTTEP and Atlas Drilling, demonstrate that a critical piece of safety equipment, a Pressure Containment Corrosion Cap, was reported as being in place when in fact it was not even installed in the Montara H1 Well responsible for the disaster.

The Commonwealth Department of Environment’s submission also reveals that PTTEP did not submit an Oil Spill Contingency Plan – a condition attached to its environmental approval – until months after it had drilled five wells on the Montara platform in January 2009, clearly putting it in breach of compliance with DEWHA requirements.

Dr Llewellyn, who led WWF’s research expedition to the oil spill, says these revelations show failures in both operational practice and in the regulatory and compliance arrangements of the oil and gas industry.

"Montara should have been recognised as a high-risk situation. There have been more than one and a half thousand wells drilled in Australian waters. How many more of them are missing critical accident prevention devices or have insufficient safeguards in place? How can we be sure there are not more ‘accidents waiting to happen’ sitting among our most fragile and vulnerable reefs and wildlife?" said Dr Llewellyn.

WWF is calling on the Inquiry to urgently order an audit of all existing wells to assure they are complying with regulations designed to protect worker safety and the environment.

"This isn’t just a case of one sloppy operator slipping through the cracks. Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has said he will do whatever it takes to make sure another uncontrolled leak doesn’t happen. If he means what he says, we urgently need to know how many more dodgy or dangerous operators are out there," said Dr Llewellyn.

The conservation organisation’s own submission makes clear the chronic misunderstanding of the marine environment by the operator of the Montara well, PTTEP.

"According to PTTEP’s assessment, this area wasn’t environmentally important, and operations were unlikely to have any effect on marine wildlife," said Dr Llewellyn. "Our research in the area affected by the oil spill shows conclusively the opposite is true.

"The area is home to whales, dolphins, turtles, sea snakes, fish and birds. Despite this, the wildlife monitoring response is a joke. Long-term monitoring of effects of the toxic contamination has not yet started, and appears not to have been happening during the critical period when there was oil and dispersants in the water.

"When it comes to wildlife monitoring, the response from PTTEP is unacceptable. We simply cannot afford another Montara. Out of sight should never mean out of mind."

More information

Jonathon Larkin, WWF Media Officer, 02 8202 1216, 0410 221 410, [email protected]

We hear a lot of buzz about how technology is responsible for anti-social behavior or ADD, or that mobile phones cause cancer, etc. With so much negative press out there, it’s actually heartening to see cellular tech actually do some good.

Case in point: After the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, a Canadian woman stuck under a pile of rubble hailed her own rescue by texting the Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa. The agency – which was roughly 3,000 miles away! — immediately contacted Canadian diplomats in Haiti, who launched a search for the trapped earthquake victim. Luckily, when they finally managed to locate her, she was still alive.

As for why she chose to text instead of call — well, that’s kind of a mystery. But if I’m ever trapped under rubble, with a voice probably silenced by a throat full of dust and dirt, I’d definitely want multiple ways of sending for help too.

This makes me wonder about touchscreen-only devices. In a calamity, how rugged are they? (It’s not likely she could’ve texted on a virtual keyboard with a shattered display, right?) While I’m not ready to give up my iPhone yet, having a secondary little clamshell with a hardware QWERTY is starting to sound like a good idea. (LG Lotus Elite, anyone?)

Via: ABC, PhoneArena, Gizmodo

T. Boone Pickens is employing one of the less admirable forms of investment strategy — twist politics to benefit one’s investments.

Nevertheless, natural gas investors can at least find solace in the fact that for the time being his efforts are on their side.

He’s rolling out a huge pro-natural gas media campaign:

NewsOK: A House bill co-authored by U.S. Reps. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, and John Sullivan, R-Tulsa, now has 127 co-sponsors from both parties, Pickens said. That bill would give federal tax incentives for making and buying natural gas vehicles; tax breaks would also be available for service stations to add natural gas pumps. A similar bill is being sponsored in the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

A new Pickens television commercial framing the nation’s oil imports as a national security threat and urging people to contact Congress in support of the bills will begin running nationwide on cable channels this week. Then the ad will run for about three weeks only in the Washington area.

Millions spent

Pickens on Wednesday declined to say what he was paying for the new media push, but said he had spent more than $60 million so far promoting the Pickens Plan, which was launched in 2008. He said he wants the focus of natural gas use for vehicles to be on the 8 million heavy-duty trucks and buses in the United States, saying conversion could be done quickly and have a huge effect on reducing foreign oil imports.

After bruising fights in Congress over health care and other issues, Pickens said, “members need a positive, nonpartisan, pro-America program” to support.

Read more here >

While a bit cynical towards T. Boone’s methods, the author does own shares in the natural gas company Chesapeake Energy.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• EIA: No Salvation For Natural Gas Investors In 2010
• Natural Gas Bid Prices Double In Pennsylvania Auction
• Ken Salazar Threatens To Dropkick The Natural Gas Revolution

UPDATE: Loiseau has made contact with his family. His uncle and grandparents are alive, though he did find out that another relative perished in the rubble.

Former UFC fighter David Loiseau has not been able to contact his Haitian family members since Tuesday’s devastating earthquake. He says that his uncle and grandparents have both not answered their phones. They don’t have computers, so they can’t send messages through Twitter or Facebook, as some other Haitians have been doing.

“It’s a nightmare,” Loiseau told Sherdog.com late Wednesday night. “I haven’t been able to speak to them, so I don’t know if any of them are safe. When I call, their phones don’t even ring.”

Though he lives in Canada, Loiseau was born in Haiti and often visited there. Loiseau wants to fly down to the poor, island country to help with relief efforts as soon as possible.

Loiseau is not the only athlete who is having trouble finding his family. Basketball player Samuel Dalembert, football players Pierre Garcon and Elvis Dumervil and boxer Andre Berto are all desperately trying to find family members in Haiti. Berto, who represented Haiti in the 2004 Olympics, already knows that he lost some family members in the earthquake.

As Loiseau, Berto and the others wait for word on their friends and family, they ask that we help out by donating as much money as possible.

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to get the message out,” [Loiseau] said. “I beg you to donate as much as you can. It’s a real catastrophe what’s going on in Haiti and any penny will help. Every time a plane flies in with supplies and assistance, it costs money. That’s what the money is for. Just give. Haiti is a very poor country and they need our help.”

Make a donation to the Red Cross here. You can also donate $10 by text messaging the word "Haiti" to 90999.

Filed under: Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store

I’ve become a big fan of game developer Capy (formerly Capybara) in the past few months — their releases of Critter Crunch on iPhone [iTunes link] and Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes on the DS have won me over quickly. But I’m not sure I agree completely with their co-founder, Nathan Vella, about what he says in this Gamasutra interview. His opinion is that the push towards the 99 cent price on the App Store is “the single most frustrating and terrible thing about App Store pricing.” He says the dollar price point is stifling, and he praises developers like Canabalt’s Adam Saltsman for sticking with a higher price point even when their games are simple.

I do agree with Vella on one thing: no developer should sell an app for less than it is worth, and dropping to 99 cents to increase sales doesn’t work anyway. But certainly there’s a place for 99 cent apps on the store, and I know personally that a 99 cent price point will open me up to try apps I’m not sure about, especially apps that I might be interested in but that don’t offer a free trial. Clive Downie of ngmoco says as much later in the article: it’s about the balance between providing choice for your customer and supporting yourself as a developer.

In the end, Vella knows what he’s doing: he doesn’t say that 99 cents is always the wrong price, but that you should always stick to your guns and ask your customers to pay the right price. If a game is worth $4.99, or $6.99, or even $9.99, developers will find that customers who care about the quality are willing to pay for it.

[via IGN]

TUAWDevelopers on avoiding the 99 cent App Store price originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week we analyzed how the Web is transforming personal finance. Today we’ll take a broader look at the world of online finance, from personal to small business tools. To get an understanding of the online finance space, we spoke to the founder and CEO of one of the most promising startups in online finance, Rod Drury from Xero. Rod told us that he sees four types of markets in online finance: 1) Personal Finance (e.g. Mint, Wesabe, Yodlee); 2)
Small Business Accounting (e.g. Xero, Kashflow); 3)
Cloud ERP (e.g. Netsuite, Salesforce); and 4)
ERP (e.g. Microsoft, Oracle).

That segmentation makes sense to us, to let’s look now at how the online finance market is shaping up.

Sponsor

Editor’s note: This story is part of ReadWriteWeb’s Online Finance series, a weekly, three-month long look at how the Internet has transformed finance. Up until April 15, the deadline for U.S. readers to file their taxes, we’ll be looking at how finance software has evolved, analyzing top web tools and posting video of our conversations with the people who are shaping online finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati.

In our overview of Personal Finance, we explained how free tools like Mint, moneyStrands and Wesabe are making it easy for consumers to monitor their income and expenditure. The current market leader in personal finance is Mint, which was acquired by Intuit in October 2009. Today Mint has more than 1.7 million registered users, about 700,000 of them active every month.

The online small business accounting market is less well formed at this time, which means there are opportunities for startups. Particularly as for years now small business owners have had to suffer relatively expensive and complex desktop software – such as MYOB, Intuit QuickBooks and Microsoft Office Accounting.

Internet DNA

In an August 2008 article, we wrote that many of the small business accounting software incumbents were struggling to make the transition to online accounting. That was one reason why leading financial software firm Intuit acquired Mint, to import some Internet DNA. Just months later and Intuit is already planning to phase out Quicken Online and replace it with Mint.

Just as Mint came out of the web 2.0 world to re-shape the Personal Finance market, it will likely be a web-based company that does the same to the small business accounting market. It may end up being Xero, a completely online accounting service which was founded in July 2006. Xero hails from New Zealand, but is aiming for global success. Full disclosure, ReadWriteWeb uses Xero to manage its accounts. We’ve found the integration with online banking systems to be impressive, the design slick, and functionality such as multi currencies useful. Perhaps most importantly, Xero has the support of many accountancy firms.

Playing in Multiple Markets

According to Xero founder Rod Drury, another trend in the online finance space to watch is that "each vendor might play in the adjacent market as it’s good exposure." We’ve seen this happening for years with the likes of Intuit and Microsoft. But now even the small players, such as Xero, are doing it. Drury says that for his firm, doing personal finance "creates a great opportunity to talk to banking partners and enables us better access to banking web services." He added, "it’s a useful marketing tool, though the primary monetization is upsell to the business product."

We’ll discuss Cloud ERP products in a separate post, so for now please tell us your thoughts on personal and small business online finance tools. Which products do you use, whether for personal finance use or your business?

Image credit: An&

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Philanthropic Studies at IUPUI seeks a tenure-track Assistant/Associate Professor in the area of Philanthropic Studies beginning August 1, 2010. A Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies or an allied field is required. Experience in teaching in higher education and a record of research in philanthropic or nonprofit studies is preferred. Candidates are expected to teach in the undergraduate and graduate programs, advise students, conduct research in the field, and provide service to the program and school as expected of any faculty member.

IUPUI is the home of the Center on Philanthropy, a part of the School of Liberal Arts, and it also collaborates closely with the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. The faculty is made up of more than 50 active faculty members from 21 disciplines that teach and conduct research in the fields of philanthropic and nonprofit studies. Philanthropic Studies offers a traditional-format Ph.D. program and an MA in regular and executive formats.  Recently, an undergraduate BA degree in Philanthropic Studies was approved.

IUPUI is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution M/F/D. The School of Liberal Arts has endorsed efforts to increase the diversity of its ranks, and accordingly, candidates from under-represented groups in the school are encouraged to apply. Philanthropic Studies is particularly interested in and values candidates who have experience working with students from diverse backgrounds, and a demonstrated commitment to improving access and the conditions in higher education for under-represented students.

The review of applications will begin on February 15, 2010 and the search will remain open until the position is filed.

The Israeli army has launched a boycott campaign against supermodel Bar Refaeli, 24, and the products she promotes, after the stunner asked to be listed as a foreign resident to pay less tax, Tel Aviv newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported on Thursday.

Bar promotes lingerie and other top products in her native land, but that won’t be the case much longer if armed forces human resources director Avi Zamir has his way.

“I can’t take on Bar Refaeli, but you can,” Zamir told an audience of Israeli students this week, urging them not to purchase products from companies Bar promotes. “At the end of the day, she is the one who has to look at herself in the mirror. We are a society that has an army, and Bar Refaeli doesn’t have to participate in ads for Fox and, if she advertises Fox, then you shouldn’t buy their products.”

Refaeli, who is reported to have recently rekindled a romance with Hollywood modelizer Leonardo DiCaprio, stirred army anger when she got an exemption from military service by getting married in 2007. She divorced a short time later.

Not that we haven’t heard this before, but Spanish driver Fernando Alonso told the media that Ferrari will definitely be his last team in Formula One. This may be the same words that Kimi Raikkonen used to spell back when he moved to Maranello from McLaren Mercedes, but now Alonso made it very clear that he means it.

This will 100 per cent be my last team. I want to finish my career with a good taste in the mouth, said Alonso during a media conference at the Wroom event in the Madonna di Camp… (read more)