April 28, 2007

Guns on campus - a really bad idea


Allowing students (and all state citizens) to have the "right" to carry weapons is a really stupid idea. A recent AP article discusses a current Utah law that allows citizens to bear arms and allows students to legally carry concealed weapons on campus in the name of "being prepared".

How stupid can you get? What can the legislators in Utah be thinking when they pass a law providing the means to have guns readily available in any volatile situation that comes along?

Yes, having a concealed weapon might let some individuals feel safer, and, yes, there is a possibility that the death toll might have been lower in the recent Virginia Tech massacre if students or teachers had been carrying firearms. But allowing students and all other citizens to carry weapons, concealed or otherwise, anywhere in society provides the opportunity for shootings to break out anytime a hostile situation arises and the toll could be far greater as deaths add up over time.

There are no easy answers to address seemingly random shooting incidents in our society but providing the means to have guns on hand at all times would greatly increase the risk of having more shootings on a smaller scale when so many situations occur where tempers flare and individuals try to take things into their own hands.
News and Observer
April 28, 2007
Brock Vergakis, The Associated Press

In Utah alone, law allows guns on campus

SALT LAKE CITY - Brent Tenney says he feels pretty safe when he goes to class at the University of Utah, but he takes no chances. He brings a loaded 9 mm semiautomatic with him every day.

"It's not that I run around scared all day long, but if something happens to me, I do want to be prepared," said the 24-year-old, who has a concealed-weapons permit and takes the handgun everywhere but church.

After the massacre at Virginia Tech that left 33 dead, some have suggested the carnage might have been lower if a student or professor with a gun had stepped in.

As states and colleges across the country review their gun policies in light of the tragedy, many in Utah are proud to have the nation's only state law that expressly allows the carrying of concealed weapons at public colleges. Read more...

April 27, 2007

Cheating with technology


While most students work hard for their grades cheating continues to be popular for some. An emerging problem with using iPods to cheat is causing some schools to ban digital players because of potential as another tool for cheating.


Read the following AP commentary...


Updated: 7:25 a.m. ET April 27, 2007

MERIDIAN, Idaho - Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious — students were writing the answers under the brim.

Then, schools started banning cell phones, realizing students could text message the answers to each other.

Now, schools across the country are targeting digital media players as a potential cheating device.

April 25, 2007

Meg Scott Phipps out, doesn't regret choices


You would think after being convicted for extortion, mail fraud and conspiracy that Meg Scott Phipps would leave prison with a more humble attitude than she appears to have. In a News and Observer commentary on her release, her remarks hint that she doesn't feel that her conviction was right and she stated "The only other regret I have is that I haven't been able to make the same speech that the Duke lacrosse young men got to make."

She "stopped short of saying she was unfairly targeted. But her words Monday differed greatly from a remark she made in 2003 after a jury found her guilty on state charges of perjury and obstruction of justice."

Serve on, Meg, while under house arrest... here's hoping your attitude won't get you sent back for the rest of the term.

News and Observer
April 24, 2007
Sarah Ovaska, Staff Writer

Phipps has few regrets after prison
Ex-ag commissioner to serve out sentence under house arrest

HAW RIVER - Meg Scott Phipps, the former North Carolina agriculture commissioner and fallen heir of a political dynasty, left prison Monday with no apologies for the scandal that put her away for more than three years.

Phipps, 51, walked out of a federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va., Monday morning and drove to Greensboro, where she visited her parole officer to pick up an ankle bracelet for the four months she'll spend under electronic house arrest. From Greensboro, she headed to her home in the Alamance County town of Haw River, where a barbecue dinner was planned with her husband, Robert, their two teenage children, her mother and her father, former North Carolina Gov. Bob Scott.

Phipps said she has no regrets other than missing out on her children's teenage years. She referred to the three Duke University lacrosse players who were exonerated earlier this month when N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper declared they were falsely accused of raping a woman at an off-campus party.

"The only other regret I have is that I haven't been able to make the same speech that the Duke lacrosse young men got to make," she said. Read more...


April 22, 2007

Adoptees need to know parents


Adoptees have the right to know who their birth parents are and learn about family history just like the rest of society.

Under current North Carolina law records of adopted children are sealed and birth certificates are reprinted to list parents of the adopted. This makes it nearly impossible for adopted children, even after becoming adults, to learn who their natural parents are or learn about family medical history and genealogical records.

It's time to change the law and allow records to be seen by adoptees so they can understand their past and find needed information vital to good health care. Current law sealing adoption records make it difficult to know biological and medical information readily available to other persons and do not stop adopted children from turning away from adoptive parents and the law does not serve the best interests of the adoptees.

News and Observer
April 22, 2004
J. Andrew Curliss, Staff Writer

Adoptees seek open records

David Vaughan has a medical condition -- "I get the shakes," he says -- and the doctors would like to make a better diagnosis: They want to know his family's medical history.

Vaughan, 36, can't provide it.

Adopted as an infant in the early 1970s and reared in Raleigh, he knows nothing of his birth parents or his biological background.

Under North Carolina law, the state keeps secret the original birth certificates of adoptees, including Vaughan's, sealing off the names of birth parents and the locations of the births. New certificates are printed to show only adoptive parents and where they lived at the time of adoption. Read more...

April 18, 2007

Going against the trend to reduce health coverage


This is what benefits should be like...

One of the most stressful issues with employees and retirees alike these days is the trend for American companies to reduce benefits and move away from making employees feel like they are part of the business.

Many companies have already eliminated company paid health insurance or forced employees (and retirees) to pick up much of the cost of health programs. This trend has left a large part of our population with no health coverage and many are left to do without or use most of their savings for high medical fees when services are needed.

Read what one North Carolina company is doing to help it's employees and make sure they have needed coverage....
News and Observer
April 18, 2007
Anne Krishnan, Staff Writer

Insurer's workers get rare perks
Paying lower-paid employees' health-care premiums is good for business, Redwoods says

Executives at The Redwoods Group always thought that the Morrisville insurance company's compensation and benefits were fairly generous.

The company paid 80 percent of health insurance premiums for employees and their families. A couple of years ago, it raised its minimum salary to $25,000 a year.

Then last month, CEO Kevin Trapani learned that children in three of his employees' families were on Medicaid. Read more...

April 16, 2007

Nuclear power in North Carolina


The debate goes on regarding whether to use more nuclear generated power or coal generation. But another concern is emerging about how to keep nuclear plants safe as spent fuel accumulates.

A News and Observer publication discusses an "emerging issue" regarding accumulation of radioactive waste at the Shearon Harris plant in southern Wake County...
News and Observer
April 15, 2007
John Murawski, Staff Writer

Nuclear foes see danger in waste
Harris plant starts relicensing process

The Shearon Harris nuclear plant has long drawn scrutiny over the safety of atomic power. But safety concerns are shifting to an emerging issue: the buildup of radioactive waste at the site in volumes never anticipated when the plant began operating 20 years ago.

Longtime nuclear critics plan to highlight the nuclear waste quandary during a two-year safety review as Progress Energy seeks to extend the Shearon Harris operating license into the middle of the century. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold the first public meeting on the Shearon Harris relicensing on Wednesday in Apex.

The nuclear waste issue is gaining momentum nationwide amid growing concerns that nuclear plants are potential targets for terrorism and sabotage. With no long-term solution in sight for disposing of nuclear waste, many nuclear plants are storing three times as much waste as the temporary pools were originally expected to hold. Unlike the nuclear reactors themselves, the storage sites usually are not heavily fortified against attack. Read more...

April 9, 2007

Flex space popular again

Flex space, buildings designed to be used for offices, storage or light manufacturing, is becoming popular again due to rising costs of prime rental space. Flex space lost popularity late in 2003 after much of the current supply was built and is now becoming attractive again.
News and Observer
April 9, 2007
Jack Hagel, Staff Writer

Flex space back in the race
Slowdown since '03 ending; vacancy rate at 5-year low

Surging office rents are causing more investors and developers to return to a somewhat forgotten frontier: the flex market.

Just ask Adam M. Lutz. His Farmington Hills, Mich., firm is the latest to bet that flex space -- property that can be used for offices, warehouses or light manufacturing -- is ready for a rebound in the Triangle. Read more...

April 7, 2007

Free tuition for the favored - more on unethical practices


In 2003 a tuition grant clause was slipped into the state budget favoring certain students by granting free tuition at UNC campuses for graduates of the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics, the prestigious state boarding school in Durham. The provision was slipped in during budget planning by a Senator chairing the appropriations committee.

Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, is the driving force behind the tuition grant. She used her influence as chairwoman of an appropriations committee to insert the grant into the budget.

The provision is unfair to the state's other high-achieving high school graduates. This is yet another example of unethical practices in the legislative process that representatives use to slip in bills favoring selected groups and is both unethical and a conflict of interest. Read the entire news release...
News and Observer
April 6, 2007
Jane Stancill and Lynn Bonner, Staff Writers

Free tuition facing scrutiny
Law's origins, premise under fire

DURHAM - For the third time, opponents are lining up against a law that grants free tuition at UNC campuses for graduates of the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics, the prestigious state boarding school in Durham.

This time, the deal may get the scrutiny that opponents say it deserves. A bipartisan bill in the state House seeks to repeal a law that has granted free tuition to 577 students since 2004 at a cost of nearly $1.9 million. Once fully phased in, it will cost taxpayers more than $2.7 million. Read more...

April 5, 2007

Raleigh listed as top spot for business

Raleigh has been listed by Forbes magazine as the top spot in the US for doing business and advancing a career. Durham is listed as number seven.

News and Observer
April 5, 2007
Business editorial

Raleigh is the top place in the nation to do business and advance a career while Durham is close behind at No. 7, according to Forbes magazine.

In it's annual Top Ten Places for Business and Careers list, Forbes notes that Raleigh and Durham, like much of the Southeast, boast strong job growth and low business costs. North Carolina and Tennessee are the only states to count two cities on the list.

Last year’s No. 1 spot, Albuquerque, N.M., fell to sixth place due to slower household-income growth. Still, most economies in the West outperformed their peers in the Northeast and Midwest, but have seen a dramatic increase in living costs. Criteria for rankings include job and income growth, business and living costs, education of the workforce, migration trends, and quality-of-life issues such as crime rates and cultural opportunities.

April 4, 2007

UnitedHealthcare puts more NC clients at disadvantage

UnitedHealth care again makes it harder for thousands of North Carolina clients to get to doctors so it can improve its profit margin. As many as 100,000 clients of UnitedHealthcare will no longer be able to use doctors at Wake Radiology in addition to losing access to WakeMed hospitals.

UHC recently broke off negotiations with WakeMed in a dispute over how much would be paid for medical charges leaving clients struggling to find other resources for hospital services. The insurance company claims WakeMed charges too much and refused to agree to new contract terms. Now the carrier is dropping more problems on its clients while again claiming Wake Radiology also charges too much.

Unfortunately all this big business squabbling leaves customers struggling, many with no alternatives, while UHC goes on its merry way. A news report in the News and Observer gives more details on what the insurer is doing...
News and Observer
April 4, 2007
Anne Krishnan, Staff Writer

Insurer to end another contract
United will drop Wake Radiology

UnitedHealthcare has split with another large Wake County health-care provider, a move the insurer says will allow it to lower premiums for local employers and workers.

United plans to terminate its contract with Wake Radiology May 1. But even as that change threatens to disrupt care for thousands of local patients, officials with the insurer have re-opened negotiations with WakeMed, which United terminated March 1 amid a dispute over rates. Read more...