Monday, December 1, 2008 - The Daily Cardinal

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KIDMAN AND JACKMAN HEAT IT UP IN OUTBACK The plot doesn’t inspire, but the scenery and leading couple’s chemistry make the grade University of Wisconsin-Madison

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dailycardinal.com

Monday, December 1, 2008

Crime ranking puts city below others in the state By Abby Sears THE DAILY CARDINAL

Although recent crimes in the downtown area have made Madison residents wary about safety, a new crime-ranking survey reveals that Wisconsin’s capital might be in better shape than many other cities in the state and nation.

“Madison’s been pretty good at beating the challenge [of crime] in the past.” Joel DeSpain public information officer Madison Police Department

The CQ Press, a group that publishes an annual analysis of nationwide city crime rankings, put Madison at the No. 263 spot on its 2008-’09 list—the lowest among other cities in Wisconsin included in the survey. Milwaukee came in at No. 25, Racine at No.

160, Green Bay at No. 225 and Kenosha at No. 249. On a national scale, New Orleans had the highest crime ranking in the survey, while Ramapo, N.Y., a suburb of New York City, came in last. The rankings are compiled from city crime statistics, including incidents of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor-vehicle theft. According to a CQ Press news release, the group dubbed results of the survey as the “safest” and “dangerous” cities in past years, but decided those adjectives were better used to describe perception of safety within the communities and decided to stick with a simple ranking of the data. For many Madison residents, the perception of safety in the downtown area has been compromised after a string of recent violent robberies and several homicides within the last year. Madison Police Department crime page 3

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KYLE BURSAW/THE DAILY CARDINAL

UW System announces money-saving measures By Megan Orear THE DAILY CARDINAL

W. KYLE GRADINGER/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Leonard J. Taylor, a former defensive back for the Badgers, was arrested Friday for placing threatening phone calls to the UW Athletic Department.

Former Badger football player arrested for threatening Athletic Dept. employee A former Badger football player was arrested Friday for placing threatening phone calls to the UW Athletic Department. Leonard J. Taylor, 32, was arrested in Indianapolis, Ind., by the city’s police department in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin Police Department. According to UWPD, it was reported that Taylor made threatening phone calls to a UW Athletic Department employee sometime within the past week. UWPD officials said the phone calls were made outside the Madison com-

munity, most likely from Indiana. Taylor played for the Badgers from 1995 to 1998 and continued on to play for the professional Madison Mad Dogs indoor football team. Prior to his arrest, signs had been placed on campus buildings that banned Taylor from all Athletic Department buildings. Taylor was in the custody of the Indianapolis Police Department over the weekend, where he will stay until he is extradited to Wisconsin. According to UWPD, the extradition proceedings will begin this week.

With Wisconsin facing a $5.4 billion budget deficit, the UW System will be forced to economize, and university officials announced last week measures to save money and cut spending. One of these measures will be to shrink UW faculty and staff pay raises, according to UW System President Kevin Reilly. The UW System Board of Regents implemented a plan in 2006 to raise UW System salaries, which are about 10 percent lower than those at competing universities, to the level of their peers, but Reilly said in a statement these pay raises will be cut by more than half.

The UW System faces problems with faculty retention due to the pay disparity, but Reilly said the budget shortfall calls for the university to handle its finances responsibly in order to raise tuition as little as possible. “For now, we must demonstrate that our public university is sensitive to the public’s dire financial situation,” Reilly said. Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters and Science, said cutting back on pay increases could put the UW System even further behind in faculty retention. “This is a difficult financial situation that any colleges and universities around the country are facing right now,” Sandefur said.

As another step to save money, Reilly also proposed implementing a three-year degree plan at UW System schools. According to a statement, the three-year plan would involve students using online classes, summer courses and Advanced Placement tests to decrease their college costs. “In that scenario, both the university and the student save money,” Reilly said. UW System Spokesperson David Giroux said details of the proposed program are still up in the air, but officials are formally looking into that model. He said many motivated UW uw system page 3

Astronomy students discover galaxy behind Milky Way disk By Erin Banco THE DAILY CARDINAL

A group of UW-Madison astronomers used the largest radio telescope in the world this semester to discover a small galaxy behind the disk of the Milky Way. Snezana Stanimirovic, a UWMadison assistant astronomy professor, conducted the study of the galaxy in a class titled “Experiencing Astronomical Observations” with six UW-Madison students: Nick Ballering, Lucas Hunt, Ryan Birdsall, Adam Beardsley, Lars Bryan and Andrew Wilson. Stanimirovic said the students based their study off a published paper, which suggested that the newly discovered galaxies behind

the Milky Way are visible to infrared observations. “The most rewarding part of the project was seeing [the students] getting an idea of how the scientific process works. They got the idea, obtained observations and conducted data processing,” she said. The students studied one particular galaxy and measured its velocity, distance from Earth, rate at which it spins and hydrogen content. They determined the galaxy moves at a rotational speed of 70 kilometers per second. According to Stanimirovic, the dust and gas surrounding the Milky Way disk usually makes it difficult to observe galaxies in what is known as the Zone of Avoidance. The telescope,

which lies in the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, helped the students get a clearer view of the galaxy. “[Directors of the observatory] were really very nice in getting us a little bit of observing time to get some educational experience for the course,” Stanimirovic said. Participants conducted the observations by logging onto the telescope’s server from a computer on campus. Stanimirovic said the researchers plan to write a paper on their results but need more observation time to confirm the measurements before publishing them. “They are very important observations,” she said. “[The results] will be very useful for scientists studying galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance.”

“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”


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