No Dane Casino, a grassroots organization formed by Madison lawyer David Relles, held an open forum Jan. 6 urging Dane County residents to vote
o"" to the expansion of DeJope Casino, 4002 Evan Acres Rd., on the referendum Feb. 17.
""We need to do it. The people of Dane County need to make an informed decision,"" Relles said.
Tom Gray, executive director of the National Coalition against Gambling Expansion, spoke at No Dane Casino's first organizational meeting and the public forum.
Gray said he was against the expansion of the casino because of potential increases in gambling addiction, bankruptcy and crime in Dane County.
Lisa Pugh, spokesperson for the Coalition for Fair Indian Gaming and Revenue Sharing Agreements, said the $91 million generated from the expansion in the next three years would aid the human services and public safety portions of the state budget.
""What a scam! What a scam!"" Gray said, referring to claims the money generated from the casino would benefit Wisconsin.
""If you look at all the studies on how gambling affects things socially ... for society, it's a bad deal,"" Relles said.
No Dane Casino plans to hold informational meetings about the casino expansion until Feb. 17.
-Maureen Backman
After a seven-month flight, the robotic rover Spirit landed inside a Martian crater Jan. 3.
The chemical analyses being conducted should help answer key questions, including the possibility there was once life on Mars, the role of water and whether Mars is tectonically active like earth, UW-Madison scientists say.
""These will be the most accurate chemical analyses that have ever been made on samples on the planet of Mars,"" said John Valley, a UW-Madison professor of geology and geophysics.
Valley has worked on Martian meteorites for seven years and he said he hopes there someday will be samples returned from Mars to aid in future research at UW-Madison.
""I regard this sort of experiment as a first step towards a Mars sample return,"" he said.
Two recent surveys indicate UW-Madison is among the top 10 universities in the country for amount of royalties received by inventions created by university researchers and is second among U.S. universities for conferring doctoral degrees, according to a recent press release.
A survey published by the Association of University Technology Managers found UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation rank seventh in gross license income in 2002 from inventions.
WARF's Director of Licensing Bryan Renk estimates more than $1 billion in products based on UW-Madison research were sold in 2003.
Additionally, a survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center found only the University of California at Berkeley grants more doctoral degrees than UW-Madison. According to the survey, UW-Madison granted 649 doctoral degrees in all fields in 2002.
Wisconsin reached the highest number of traffic fatalities in 2003 since 1981, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
The 838 deaths last year numbered 33 more than in 2002 and WisDOT reported the number of fatalities in 2004 already looks grim.
By the end of the first week of 2004 there were already 21 traffic- related deaths, 18 of which occurred New Year's weekend, Jan. 1 through 4. This number marks another fatality high in the past 20 years.
President Bush unveiled his plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 Wednesday night, saying he would use this mission as a step to manning future trips to Mars, according to CNN.com.
This plan shifts the country's focus away from the international space station and space shuttle to the creation of a new space vehicle that would be ready to fly with a crew in 10 years and return humans to the moon in 16 years.
Bush's plan would cost $12 billion over the next five years. One billion dollars would come from an increased NASA budget, with $11 billion coming from the existing $86 billion budget. White House officials say the NASA budget will remain 1 percent of the federal budget.
Critics of the proposal say the money would be spent more wisely on domestic programs, and some members of Congress wondered if there would be enough funding to achieve Bush's goals.
