Seniors’ last stand
Free football tickets The DI is giving away two pairs of tickets TODAY to Saturday’s football game against Purdue. Like us on Facebook and the winners will be randomly chosen from the page’s recent likes.
Friday November 16, 2012
Illini face Boilermakers in final home game of season SECTION C
The Daily Illini www.DailyIllini.com
The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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Vol. 142 Issue 60
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FREE
RSO gives away free cigarettes on Quad BY CARINA LEE STAFF WRITER
Students who feel their right to choose is being violated by the upcoming campuswide smoking ban gave passers-by their own choice on the Quad on Thursday: Apple, donut or cigarette? Members of the RSO Young Americans for Liberty held the demonstration to start a conversation about individual rights. Dan Humbrecht, YAL president and sophomore in Engineering, said the event was hosted to gain support for ending the smoking ban. “We are trying to get awareness and to get people talking about the smoking ban,” Humbrecht said. “Our club is based off of individual rights, and because of that, we don’t believe that it’s the University’s place to dictate what sort of lifestyle you are living.” The University announced last month that the campus would go smoke-free next year. The ban is an extension of the current rule requiring that smokers be 25 feet away from public buildings and prohibiting smoking indoors.
See SMOKING, Page 3A
MICHAEL BOJDA THE DAILY ILLINI
The UIUC Chapter of Young Americans for Liberty handed out free cigarettes for smokers and free apples and donuts for nonsmokers on the Quad late Thursday afternoon. The group feels that the efforts of the administration to completely ban smoking on campus are a serious infringement on the rights of the student body.
Blue Waters will receive feedback from researchers BY AUSTIN KEATING STAFF WRITER
A Blue Waters test run that began Nov. 6 is providing staff with critical feedback on the system’s operation, a National Center for Supercomputing Applications spokeswoman said. The test run, called “friendly-user” mode, gives researchers the opportunity to use the supercomputer to test the system and work on their research, said NCSA spokeswoman Trish Barker. This is the next step toward receiving approval from the National Science Foundation and the system’s eventual operation. “It’s mutually beneficial because they get access to the supercomputer, and we get a lot of feedback from them on how well the supercomputer is running,” Barker said. The process is referred to as acceptance testing. Greg Bauer, Blue Waters advanced user support program manager, said the friendly-user period allows Blue Waters staff to test the system’s operation. “The friendly-user period provides a way for the researchers to run their applications on the machine and lets us test different aspects of the machine,” Bauer said. “We put the machine through its paces and make sure we’re not missing something before finishing.” According to the NCSA website, several research groups are participating in the friendly-user period, including University professors Klaus Schulten, Bob Wilhelmson and Don Wuebbles. The system is also going through additional testing called availability testing, Bauer said. “(Availability testing) is a period of time during the acceptance tests where the machine has to provide a certain amount of useful work,” he said. “A certain success rate for jobs has to be achieved.” According to Bauer, there are over 500 tests conducted by the NCSA in the acceptance stage. But due to time constraints, the Blue Waters team has to intersperse these tests during the friendly-user period. “When all of the testing is completed, and we have demonstrated to the NSF that the supercomputer is ready, then we will go into full production status,” Barker said. Full production status is expected to be reached in early 2013, and Barker said they expect operations to last for about five years.
Austin can be reached at akkeati2@dailyillini.com.
“It’s mutually beneficial because they get access to the supercomputer, and we get a lot of feedback from them on how well the supercomputer is running.” TRISH BARKER, spokeswoman for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
INSIDE
Ten Ill. counties oppose ban on concealed guns
Ten referendums support concealed-carry law Voters in 10 Illinois counties approved nonbinding referendums supporting the right to carry concealed firearms in last week’s election. Illinois is the only state that bans concealed carry. Stephenson
BY EMMA WEISSMANN
Rock Island
STAFF WRITER
Henry Mercer Warren
Champaign
McDonough Schuyler Adams
Bond
Randolph
Source: County clerks from the 10 counties
EUNIE KIM Design Editor
Hoping to push state legislators to act, 10 Illinois counties passed a referendum showing support for a concealed carry law in last week’s election. The voters who support concealed carry are hoping to get lawmakers talking about the issue in the coming months. Illinois is currently the only state that does not legally allow the concealed carry of a fi rearm . Valinda Rowe , spokesperson for IllinoisCarry, an online organization dedicated to passing concealed carry laws in Illinois, said voters in the 10 counties collected signatures and then approached their county boards to ask for the referendum to be placed on the ballot. Colleen Daley, executive director for the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said she was “not surprised” to hear that the referendums passed but does not think any new laws will come out of it. “These are counties that have overwhelmingly supported concealed carry as have their state legislators,” Daley said. “I think it gets the same individuals who are already in support of it riled up, but I don’t think it gets any new legislators engaged on this issue
White House takes down Chief petition
... I don’t think it opens their eyes.” Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten said no one approached Champaign’s election authority about placing a referendum on last week’s ballot. There was interest in January 2011, when an Illinois House bill, the Family and Personal Protection Act , was fi led. Since then, however, the bill has not made it out of the chamber and has been in committee for the past seven months. It was this bill, Rowe said, that sparked the interest of the 10 counties. At the University, the Illinois Student Senate passed a resolution in March 2011 that would ban concealed weapons on the University campus if the proposed bill were to pass. The resolution passed 18-9. Christopher Dayton , student senator and senior in LAS, was one of the student senators who voted to pass the resolution. Dayton, who is a Revolutionary War, Civil War and World War II re-enactor, is a gun owner in his home state of New York. He said he believes concealed carry should be legal in certain contexts but not on a University campus.
See CONCEAL CARRY, Page 3A
‘I have the right to know’
BY ILYA GUREVIC STAFF WRITER
An online White House petition to bring back Chief Illiniwek collected more than 3,000 signatures before moderators took it down Wednesday. The petition, started by Matthew Wilkins, junior in LAS, was originally posted Tuesday. “When we lost the Chief, we lost a part of us,” he said. Wilkins said he had wanted “to make a petition that’s kind of outlandish and worthwhile.” The next day, however, Wilkins received an email from the moderator of the website stating that the petition had been taken down. “The email wasn’t very descriptive. (It said) the petition didn’t really meet the goals of the website,” Wilkins said. According to the email, the petition was “outside the scope of the We the People” project, a website that hosts petitions to the White House.
See PETITION, Page 3A
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More inside: Turn the Page 3A to learn more
about this movement.
CLAIRE EVERETT THE DAILY ILLINI
A mural created by local artist Kyra Gunther was featured at Food and Water Watch’s “Let Me Decide” campaign event outside of Big Grove Tavern on Thursday as part of its initiative to get genetically engineered foods labeled.
Po l i c e 2 A | Co r r e c t i o n 2 A | H o r o s c o p e s 2 A | O p i n i o n s 4 A | Le t t e r 4 A | C r o s s w o r d 5 A | Co m i c s 5 A | S p o r t s 1 B | C l a s s i f i e d s 3 B - 4 B | S u d o k u 3 B