THE DAILY COLLEGIAN I ir i I) sii Collegian Elie ~l nth Niurphv J_[lll~l Ili (lu 1 Kdsc\ Thompson Ru~r~r, ~~- .ii~r~t~tc~ About the Collegian: The Caiiy C,, aid The ',.',..eek,. C(..2;gi,Tlr are pub nonprofit cor a t,oard of nr; co•!i;:,osed of 5tu ,....„--,1!.,... and profes- rack State JJenis,trite and HO !1 r an solicit • t' - le , n Dur u ig seines t'' , second .s rrical, ~ ~ H..,,, . 1,h Friday. ,- ,;s,:es a! - a (.I!stribtrced by m ulii; Q'ter Penn State campuses and individual =SEE Complaints: edi -- 'DLOI.IiO be ? t , 61 , .-rt I t Chß editor. ' „1.-rtsing ""i , t- • id be pre , er , , , J 'Pip r•p,[ , t:ss plan Who we are The Daily Collegian's ed!lo iiternillec t- D : i:or,. vHt! • ItPl ? ;,geS are not neLess - , 'ho',9 of The Dai,.. Cc.. ..5.,4[, - -.0. CoOegian IBIENIMI State ~rs~ty. Collegian ;=[lne or The Daily lei,ted ienorat? cotpo nom Penn C - Itt , • 1,, Siatl-. Collegian Board t Thy 0 NiemoH , cs,t- Je:ina Ekdahl. Bill Landp , Lp, - ;heth Mut [l', Edgar Ronnson. Heat!lv , t,L:rnt!zien Jared Slonker. SIIH,an. Alex - -L , •, , ,0 - I'),P,' , tt and Letters We v,ant. our com ments on our coverage. editonal oncisions and the Penn State wmmunity. • E-mail cohegia ,, itttPisipsu edu ■ Online psucoHeglan.com • Postal mail/In person 123 S. Btlrm, , \,es St. Urti , .ersit.y Park. PA 16801 Letters should be about 200 voids. Student letters should include class year. major and campus. Letters from alumni should include year of graduation. All writers should provide their address and phone number for verification. Letters should be signed by no more than two peo ple. Members of organiza tions must include their titles if the topic they write about is connected with the aim of their groups. The Colle,pan reserves the right to edit letters. The Call-gian cannot guaran i i iublication of all let ters it receives. Letters chosen also run on The Daily Collegian Online and may be selected for publi cation in The Weekly Colle gian. All letters become property of Collegian Inc. Confiscation unfair punishment Bicycles started disap pearing around campus this week without much of a heads up to the univer sity's bike-riding popula tion. Penn State Transporta tion Services has started to confiscate unregistered bicycles around campus, but did not issue a public warning, instead leaving tickets on unregistered bikes around campus. To simply confiscate a bike, with the promise of cutting bike locks with no compensation for it in return, is unfair to the stu dents who use them to get around. Transportation Services has threatened a confisca tion before but has never actually gone through with it, meaning most students simply don't register or renew their bike tags. r ..zi-viro 41 e, W i _ivv , . V 4" - - nt4 WNS S q i bgVIU 11 6 SIPCV4 i- vivet.C(Al D 1 114- , I t i :o o4t.°?:. -Ad DleV "v , • 0,04, , , • 4,4114 .-. --- :---‘ 7/ - 1--- , /-- -.',-7h4)723.r0 '-, ( --N-- ~" -. T I --' .-. ---,---';---'--- C . ' ----- - ---:-.) - ..-- IA 111111' ~~ ` - r_ ‘ ,\. \I \ Obama let oil spill opportunity pass by By Andrew Metcalf WHEN the Deepwater offshore oil platform sunk more than two months ago, I was saddened, but not particu larly surprised. Oil-related acci dents happen fairly often because of the incredible amount of drilling it MY OPINION requires In the weeks following the oil spill, many public figures mostly Republican blamed President Barack Obama for not responding quickly enough to the accident. But, I think their anger is misdirected. Obama's fault lies not in his direct response to the accident Sad as it may be, the federal government is truly powerless to combat a gushing pipe deep underwater and has always been. Nothing Obama could have done in his short tenure would have made the govern ment better prepared to deal with this spill, and he certainly hasn't had the time or the fund ing to negotiate the purchase of deepwater drilling repair equip ment since. He has successfully estab lished a massive $2O billion fund from BP to settle claims, though, and has ordered them to pay for many other projects involving the cleanup. He also If a student were to reg ister a bike, however, it would have to be done in person, as the Transporta tion Services website, where bikes can also be registered, still doesn't work as of press time. Should a bike be taken, it will be held at Lion Sur plus for 90 days before being auctioned off. Confiscating bikes especially in the summer when the number of stu dents is way down seems like an extremely harsh penalty for the ✓ minor issue of an unregis tered bike. While there is an over population problem with bikes on campus, hacking locks and tossing bikes into a storage unit isn't the answer. The university should invest in more bike racks to cut down on the >r" - r - i ; - - ./ , "Obama opted to wait. He may have been pulling the correct strings from the inside, but he didn't communicate this to the public, and he certainly . didn't call people to action." declared a six-month moratori um on deepwater oil drilling --- an obvious but necessary step. Obama's fault is wasted opportunity. He could have har nessed early anger from this disaster and combined it with momentum from West Virginia's coal mining accident a few weeks prior to call for an end to dependence on dirty fossil fuels. He could have really hammered on the idea these accidents are a result of our demand for these resources, and the only real way to solve this problem is to signif icantly and quickly reduce our consumption, be it through taxes, incentives or regulation. Instead, Obama opted to wait. He may have been pulling the correct strings from the inside, but he didn't communicate this to the public, and he certainly didn't call people to action. Obama has always been a cau tious president and sometimes avoiding knee-jerk reactions can work in his favor. In this case, however, he lost the opportunity to make a signif icant call for political action, and, worse, he gave the Republicans a platform which to criticize him from. The sad part is, Obama could have used this opportunity to piling up of bikes. Granted, there are advantages to registering bicycles. It does give the university a means of cal culatingthe number of students using bikes, which in turn could result in the purchase of more racks. But the main purpose for registration, it seems, is to locate missing or stolen bikes. But how practical can it really be for a university employee to wander around cam pus, scanning tags on every bike until the miss ing bike is recovered? Instead of confiscating a student's possible lone means of transportation, Transportation Services should really focus on finding ways to fix the problem, not subvert it to deep storage. 'NUYITIE WORRIED FACET OUR PLAN WILL PELP PREVENT ANOMIER COLLAPSE. D advance his platform and keep Democrats from losing seats in the fall. He could have passed a bill that would have left him a pow erful legacy. Environinental protection typ ically polls higher than health care reform, and some Republicans have historically shown a great interest in partici pating in energy reform. People are still angry about the oil spill, but their vigor has been diminished. The Republicans have managed to reframe comprehensive energy reform as a job killer, and have even had some success in fram ing Obama's moratorium on drilling as a bad idea an impressive publicity stunt given how much damage the spill has done. Now, it looks like the only thing we're going to get out of this disaster is a necessary but obvious lift on the liability cap for accidents such as these and maybe a few watered down clean energy incentives. What a shame. Andrew Metcalf is a senior majoring in computer science and is the Collegian's Thursday columnist. His e mail address is admsl29@psu.edu. THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2010 I 3 Vuvuzelas don't make nolke, only echoes external sounds For the sake of accuracy, I must saYtfiat vuvuzelas do not amplify sound, which Was debated in the July 9 point-counterpoint. They are passive resonators, and they do not have their own energy source. The only energy to produce the sound is supplied externally by the person blowing into the vuvuzela. Alexey Kovalev Penn State electrical engineering professor Raised tuition not reflecting changes in U.S. inflation rate After reading "Tuition rise pricing out students, - the question is what does Penn State do with the money it receives? The 2010 national inflation rate is about 2 per cent. In 2009 it was negative. Shouldn't trustees limit tuition raises to no more than the national inflation rate? How much goes to subsidizing athletics? That is a big issue at other campuses. The UC Berkeley facul ty says that no tuition money should go to intercollegiate athletics. Only full disclo sure of the athletics budget will produce full and fair discussion. But tuition raises of 6 percent are way out of line. Apparently students, parents and alumni should ask the Pennsylvania Legislature to set the limit because university administration and trustees are unwilling to do so. Footblog Cohesion has been a constant theme for the Penn State offensive line this off season. So to come together as a unit on the field, the offensive linemen have spent time together off the field. During the summer between preseason and spring practice left tackle Quinn Barham said the line has been training Tuesday Thursday and Saturday morn ings. The unit is awake at five to six o'clock in the morning running and doing drills. Eating meals, studying the Bible and conversing via their Blackberry phones are some other activ ities the linemen partake in together, but they have also been taking lessons together boxing lessons that is. Barham said a boxing coach has been working with both the offensive and defensive linemen, though it isn't the first year the non-contact lessons have occurred. The footwork and handwork in boxing helps the o-line improve its block ing, and Barham thinks it's been benefi cial so far. "We work on balance and working on straight lines," Barham said, - just getting a nice center of gravity and base. Boxing is very similar to offensive line." Think waking up for that noon kickoff was tough? The real die-hards of college football will be exposed with ESPN announcing Game Day will now air from 9 a.m to noon Saturdays in the fall. However, the first hour airs on ESPNU before switching over to ESPN during the same 10 a.m. to noon time slot as in previous years. Also, ESPN announced Erin Andrews will join Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard. Game Day has yet to release its schedule, but Penn State quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno indicated Tuscaloosa, Ala. is a serious contender for the Sept. 11 game between Alabama and Penn State after bumping into Corso at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona, Fla., this summer. At last Friday's Lift for Life, a Penn State football event initiated to raise money for kidney cancer, Daily Collegian football reporter Andrew J. Cassavell was able to catch up with former Penn State defensive tackle Jared Odrick. Now a member of the Miami Dolphins after being selected with the 28th pick in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft, Odrick took some time to answer a few questions. Here is an excerpt from that interview, an answer to a question about the difference between college and NFL football. Odrick: "We didn't put full pads on yet, but a difference that I've noticed already is that when we practice with no pads, it's like a full speed practice up here. We're not taking anybody down or tackling but you're definitely gonna get double teams. You're definitely gonna get blocked. Jake Long's not taking any days off. So it's definitely a full speed practice with no pads. There's going to be at least one change in the 2010 Penn State football media guide from last year. No longer can Penn State pump up its claim as hav ing the largest football stadium in the country. Michigan tugged that title back with its announcement the bulk of its stadium renovations will be complete by its Sept. 4 opener against Connecticut, allowing for capacity to reach 109,901. Beaver Stadium holds 107,282. The next time Penn State visits Ann Arbor, which is unknown given the scheduling flux the Big Ten is about to be in, fans may see widened aisles and seats, as well as handrailing in aisles. I'll save you the public relations statement released by Michigan. As you might have guessed, everyone is excited. Read more from the football blog Footblog and the rest of The Daily Collegian's blogs at psucol legian.com/blogs. Jay Beckerman Penn State parent Phoenixville, Pa.
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