Do You Mean I Can't Become A Doctor In Six Months?

Reports are circulating that the many for-profit colleges are under fire since a former employee has blown the whistle on the business for exaggerating the success of its students and their job placement. Ya think? You mean you can't get a masters degree in three months? You can't become a nurse in six weeks? Heavens!

Although this has been obvious to me for some time, evidently the government and various media have suddenly discovered this phenomenon. Additionally these "colleges" offer financing, many times provided or backed by the government, for the hard of understanding and financially challenged. And we wonder why the outstanding college loans are a trillion dollars.

Jason Sobek says he left his job as admissions supervisor at the nation's second-largest operator of for-profit colleges - the Education Management Corp., or EDMC - on good terms. But after he quit, Sobek filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against this provider of post-secondary education, alleging its marketing materials deceived prospective students by falsely inflating job placement statistics at its many campuses around the country.

Sobek told ABC News, "They manipulated the job placement rates by counting students working in a job that they did not need the degree for. In my opinion, it's a wretched fraud."

Before he left EDMC, Sobek downloaded a trove of data and documents, which, he alleges, support his claims. EDMC is a publicly traded for-profit corporation that operates such colleges as the Art Institutes, Brown Mackie College, Argosy University and South University Online. The schools offer degrees that range from a master's of design to nursing

Sobek pointed to how EDMC claims other students were placed in jobs related to their degrees, such as a fashion marketing graduate, an accounting major and a business graduate. He says the EDMC data he provided show the fashion marketing student was actually selling shoes at a Converse outlet store, while the accounting graduate was working at McDonald's as a cashier.

As for the related job the business graduate was counted as receiving after graduation, Sobek says the data reveal he was actually working as a janitor.

EDMC declined an interview with ABC News but says in a statement, "We believe that the claims raised [by Jason Sobek] are wholly without merit."

Uh-0h: You may have noticed a deafening silence as it seems the music site that I was using for the journal has closed its proverbial doors. I am in the process of trying to find a suitable replacement. In the meantime, please hum to yourself as you browse.....

The News As I See It: A decorated war hero has an affair with his own sexy biographer, who thinks the spy master is stepping out on her with a second girlfriend. So she sends an email from a secret account saying back and the second hottie freaks out and contacts her "friend."

Her friend, an FBI agent, launches an investigation, but gets pulled off the case because he sexed her a shirtless photo. The spy master protege, also a general, has sent thousands of e-mails to the second woman. This isn't just a love triangle, folks. It's a love pentagon.

This Date In History: 1789; The first national Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. was proclaimed by President George Washington. 1922; Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon became the first to enter the tomb of King Tutankhamen (Tut) since it was sealed in 1323 B.C.

1940; The Nazis began to force Warsaw's Jews to live in a walled ghetto. 1950 China entered the Korean War. 1975; Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, was found guilty of trying to assassinate President Ford.

1998; Tony Blair became the first British prime minister to speak to the Irish parliament. 2000; Katherine Harris certified George W. Bush the winner in Florida's presidential balloting.

Picture Of The Day: Rest in peace Mr. Hagman.

Printable Things I Never Told You: 1) Ah...the thrill of watching kicking, blocking, tackling and running. But enough about Black Friday. 2) Refrain from being smug, young people. One day, you too will wake up and not recognize anyone on the cover of People magazine. 3) I talk to myself. I have to because sometimes I need expert advice. 4) I think that Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman Shultz' particular gene pools may have been one of those above ground ones. 5) Too much business. Not enough monkey.....and that's five !

Today's Horoscope: Sagittarius - November 26th: Strive to reaches a personal goal this week and the future should look rosier to you. Your spine is going to feel a tingling sensation later this day and you're not going to be able to attribute it to anything specific. My guess is that is that it's because of that person you were ogling at the mall, but that's just me.....

Birthdays: My pals Lyn and Sunny - Happy Birthdays ladies ! 19XX, Eugene Ionesco, French playwright 1909, Charles Schulz cartoonist 1922.

The AREA 51 Retirement Home Bar And Grill: A preacher was telling his congregation that anything they could think of, old or new, was discussed somewhere in the Bible and that the entirety of the human experience could be found there. After the service, he was approached by a woman who said, "Preacher, I don't believe the Bible mentions PMS."

The preacher replied that he was sure it must be there somewhere and that he would look for it. The following week after service, the preacher called the woman aside and showed her a passage which read....."and Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way to Bethlehem."

Three prospective church goers attend a meeting with the clergy of a local church and ask to become members. The three, an older couple, a middle age couple and a young newlywed couple are told that to become members it is required that they abstain from sex for two full weeks and then return.

Two weeks pass and all three return and the clergyman asks each couple if they have fulfilled the requirement laid out at the first meeting. The elderly gentleman says that they have and are ready to join the church. The middle age couple advise that the first week was okay but during the second week the husband had to sleep on the couch. Nonetheless, they made it and are ready to join the church.

The newlyweds hang their heads and the husband says, "Well, father, my wife was bending over taking something from the freezer the day after our meeting and I couldn't stop myself. I took her right on the spot." The clergyman to the young couple, "I'm sorry, but you are forbidden from coming back to this church." The husband says, "I figured that. We can't go back to the grocery store either."
 

The Hits Just Keep On Coming: My thanks to my pal Linda in Washington State for her contribution to today's stories.

Returning home from work, a blonde was shocked to find her house ransacked and burglarized. She telephoned the police at once and reported the crime. The police dispatcher broadcast the call on the radio, and a K-9 unit, patrolling nearby, was the first to respond.

As the K-9 officer approached the house with his dog on a leash, the blonde ran out on the porch, shuddered at the sight of the cop and his dog, then sat down on the steps. Putting her face in her hands, she moaned, "I come home to find all my possessions stolen. I call the police for help, and what do they do? They send me a blind policeman!"

A farmer got pulled over by a state trooper for speeding, and the trooper started to lecture the farmer about his speed and, in general, began to throw his weight around to try to make the farmer uncomfortable. Finally, the trooper got around to writing out the ticket, and as he was doing that he kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around his head.

The farmer said, "Having some problems with circle flies there, are ya?" The trooper stopped writing the ticket and said, "Well yeah, if that's what they are. I never heard of circle flies." So the farmer says, "Well, circle flies are common on farms. See, they're called circle flies because they're almost always found circling around the back end of a horse."

The trooper says, "Oh," and goes back to writing the ticket. Then after a minute he stops and says, "Hey… wait a minute, are you trying to call me a horse's ass?" The farmer says, "Oh no, Officer. I have too much respect for law enforcement and police officers to even think about calling you a horse's ass."

The trooper says, "Well, that's a good thing," and goes back to writing the ticket. After a long pause, the farmer says, "Hard to fool them flies though."

All Hostess Bakery plants were shut down. The Company was split up. The State Department hired all the Twinkies, the Secret Service hired all the HoHos, the generals are sleeping with the Cupcakes and the voters sent all the Ding Dongs to Congress.

That's it for today, my little armadillos. Remember, you're still playing with a full deck. You just shuffle slower these days. That's it for now. More on Wednesday.

Stay Tuned !