10 Reasons Dinosaurs Make Bad Pets

10 Reasons Dinosaurs Make Bad Pets It seems that everyone these days is keeping dinosaurs as pets, what with supermodels tugging tiny Microraptors on leashes and pro football players adopting full-grown Utahraptors as team mascots. But before you fill out the paperwork at your local dinosaur shelter, here are some things you may want to consider. (Dont agree? See 10 Reasons Dinosaurs Make Good Pets.) 1. Pet dinosaurs are expensive to feed. If you dont happen to have a Cycad Hut or Ginkgo Emporium in your neighborhood, you might find it difficult to scrounge up sufficient vegetable grub for your pet Apatosaurus (and your neighbors probably wont appreciate him eating the tops of their shrubs). And do you know how many cute, fuzzy mice, rabbits and Labrador Retrievers the average Deinonychus goes through every day? 2. Its virtually impossible to teach a dinosaur tricks. Believe me, its easier to train your cat to clean your windows than to teach the average dinosaur to sit, fetch or heel. Your pet Ankylosaurus will probably just sit there on the floor and stare at you dolefully, while your teenaged Spinosaurus eats the drapes from the top down. (With a little persistence, though, you might be able to teach a purebred Troodon to roll over.) 3. Dinosaurs create a lot of poop. Unless you live smack in the middle of a turnip farm, you may have a hard time disposing of the hundreds of pounds of poop the average Triceratops generates every day. Flushing it down the toilet isnt an option, and neither is using it for insulation in your attic. Some pet owners have experimented with creating kiln-dried dinosaur-poop furniture, with mixed results. 4. No veterinarian will want to de-claw your dinosaur. For liability reasons, most municipalities require you to trim the claws of any raptors, tyrannosaurs or allosaurs residing in your household. Good luck getting a vet to do thisand, if you do miraculously find someone willing to take on this task, even better luck stuffing your Gigantoraptor into your Honda Odyseey  and shlepping it to the clinic. 5. Your pet dinosaur will want to sleep in your bed. In the wild, dinosaurs are accustomed to hunkering down in rotting foliage, urine-soaked sand dunes and ash pits strewn with rotting carcasses. Thats why the average Styracosaurus will insist not only on sharing your mattress, but layering on every freshly washed duvet cover in the house and using your pillows as antler cozies. 6. Dinosaurs arent very good with children... As much as kids love dinosaurs, its unfair to expect the average Ceratosaurus to reciprocate that affection, especially since a well-fed five-year-old can supply a weeks worth of calories. Teenagers will have a slightly easier time of it; in any case, theyll put up more of a fight before being swallowed head-first. 7. ...or with other dinosaurs, for that matter. So youre looking forward to hauling your pet Majungatholus over the local dinosaur park and meeting that cute chick with the Archaeopteryx  popping out of her handbag. Well, bad news: the only thing dinosaurs hate more than children is other dinosaurs. Take your pet to the dog run instead, then sit back and watch the fun. 8. Dinosaur pet-sitters are hard to come by. Isnt it cute when your neighbors eight-year-old daughter drops by to pet your kitty, feed it kibble and scoop out the litterbox? Well, she might think twice about doing the same for your pet Therizinosaurus, especially given the mysterious disappearance of the last six pet-sitters you hired to do the job. 9. Most cities have very strict dinosaur leash laws. Unless you live in Seattle (for some reason, Seattle is very liberal about these kinds of things) you cant just saddle up your pet Centrosaurus and take it out onto the sidewalk. Flout the rules, and your municipalitys animal-control squad will gladly tug your pal over to the nearest dinosaur shelter, assuming they arent eaten first. 10. Pet dinosaurs take up a lot of room. As a general rule of thumb, the American Purebred Dinosaur Association (APDA) recommends at least 10 square feet of living space per pound of dinosaur. Thats not much of a problem for a 25-pound Dilophosaurus puppy, but it could be a deal breaker if you plan to adopt a full-grown Argentinosaurus, which will require its own aircraft hangar.

The Auditor and Fraud Essay Example

The Auditor and Fraud Essay Example The Auditor and Fraud Essay The Auditor and Fraud Essay EXPLAIN THE RESPECTIVE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF MANAGEMENT AND AUDITORS IN THE PREVENTION AND DETECTION OF FRAUD. The primary responsibility for fraud detection lies with management. This arises due to a contractual duty of care. Directors are able to discharge their duty toward prevention and detection of fraud and error in many ways, for example: * Complying with the Combined Code on Corporate Governance * Developing a code of conduct, monitoring compliance and taking action against breaches * Emphasising a strong commitment to fraud prevention. This involves establishing a culture of honesty and ethical behaviour within the organisation with clearly communicated policies. * Establishing an internal audit function * Having an audit committee The role of the auditor is with assessing the effectiveness of the internal controls. Auditors should appraise the risk of misstatements due to errors and fraud. The role of the auditor in the detection of fraud is appraised within case law, for example: Re Kingston Cotton Mill (1896) – An auditor â€Å"is a watchdog not a bloodhound†. According to Melville (2007), this judgement set the tone for the audit profession for a century. Auditors were to be passive checkers rather than be proactive in searching out errors, misstatements and fraud. This statement may no longer have the force it once did in the light of ISA 240 The Auditor’s Responsibility to Consider Fraud in an Audit of Financial Statements. Auditor’s are now expected to recognise at least the possibility that fraud may exist and, consequently, adopt an attitude of professional scepticism in their approach to audit work. Re Thomas Gerrard Son (1968) highlighted the negligence of auditor in overlooking fraudulent activities committed by directors. Auditors relied on stock certificates given to them by the managing director, a person who they trusted. This was supported by the decision in Re Kingston Cotton Mill whereby an auditor is ‘justified in believing tried servants of the company in whom confidence is placed by the company’. It was held that their responsibility was to investigate the matter fully once their suspicions had been aroused. If they had done so, the fraud would have been revealed. This is supported by the content of ISA 240 which requires auditors to follow up anomalies. Once suspicions have been aroused, tests designed specifically and uniquely to detect and establish the extent of fraud will be performed. Auditor’s should plan and conduct their audit tests to limit the possibility that material fraud and irregularities go undetected. Certain assets such as cash are more susceptible to fraud than others and audit planning should take account of this. Tests are mainly carried out due to the need to assess whether a matter is material before reporting it. If the matte proves to be material, it should be first reported to management (unless management are implicated in the fraudulent activity themselves). Auditors cannot guarantee the detection of all frauds and errors because they are not able to spend the time searching for frauds as they only analyse a sample. A guarantee cannot be made as auditors provide an opinion. IDENTIFY AND DISCUSS BOTH THE ORGANISATIONAL AND PERSONAL FACTORS WHICH MIGHT CONTRIBUTE TO AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE FRAUD IS MORE LIKELY TO OCCUR. The integrity of the individual and whether they seem to have a strong sense of ethics. Although a difficult characteristic to assess, the behaviour of individuals and their opinions on issues may provide important evidence to assist the auditors in assessing this characteristic. Personal integrity may well be a key if not the most important factor in keeping a person from committing fraud. There are many cases in which individuals with severe financial or personal pressures and the opportunity to engage in fraudulent activity do not do so because they have a strong personal moral code. Some fraud investigators believe that a strong moral code can prevent individuals from using rationalisations to justify illicit behaviour. Typical rationalisations include: I am only borrowing the money and will pay it back Nobody will get hurt (perception of fraud as â€Å"victimless† crime The company treats me unfairly and owes me Its only temporary until my financial position improves Everybody’s at it!! The extent to which individuals appear to be motivated by greed. Again, a difficult characteristic to assess but the individual’s concern with money and consumer goods may provide some clues about this. If someone starts turning up to work in a brand new Ferrari, they may have won the lottery, or benefited from the demise of a loving relative, or they could be up to no good!! The degree of loyalty exhibited by an individual. If the individual has been with one firm a long time, this may indicate a certain level of satisfaction with their employment and perhaps reduce the likelihood of them committing fraud. You should, however, also be aware that experienced employees, because they are trusted, might have a greater opportunity to commit fraud. Ernst Young Survey (2000) found that nearly half of the employees who defrauded their firms had been employed for over five years. Also bear in mind that opportunities to commit fraud can arise when an employee reaches a level of trust in an organisation or when internal controls are weak or nonexistent. Then the employee if he or she is so motivated will perceive that there is an opportunity to commit fraud, conceal it, and attempt to avoid detection and punishment Also, recent research undertaken by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that in order to make it to the top ranks of corporate management you of course have to be very self-assured, but this can turn into overconfidence which can lead you to â€Å"cross the line† and commit fraud. For example, a senior manager believes that his firm is experiencing only a bad quarter or patch of bad luck. He believes it is in the best interests of everyone involved – management, employees, customers, creditors and shareholders to cover up the problem in the short term so that these constituents do not misinterpret the current poor performance as a sign of the future. In addition, he is convinced that down the road the company will make up for the current period of poor performance. It is the optimistic executive or overconfident executive who is more likely to have these beliefs. May stretch the rules a little or engage in earnings management ploys, but what if things don’t turn around as expected? Then he has to make up for the prior period and that requires continuing fraudulent behaviour. There appears to be a belief that overly optimistic executives can turn their firms around before fraudulent behaviour catches up with them, at least according to the US research. Jordan (2002) as cited in Quirke (2008) reaffirms this attitude by quoting a communist era Czech axiom â€Å"If you do not steal from the state, you rob your family† Antonio Birritella; â€Å"All these funds from the EU were seen as a gift to the Mafia, easy pickings†