Iowa offers free tuition for 5 student season ticket owners
Mitchell Schmidt
Iowa City Press-Citizen
10:54 p.m. CDT July 29, 2014


A handful of University of Iowa students will be getting much more than a gameday experience at Kinnick Stadium when they purchase their fall football tickets. Five lucky Hawkeyes also will receive two semesters of free tuition.

UI has pledged free tuition to five randomly selected, current in-state students who purchase a six-game or seven-game season ticket by Friday. Winners will receive free tuition — valued at about $8,000 — for the fall 2014 and spring 2015 semesters.

The goal of the generous giveaway is to draw enthusiastic student fans to Kinnick, said Lisa Pearson, director of marketing for the UI Athletics Department, and is the result of sluggish season ticket sales this year.

“The fans in the stadium really feed off the energy from students, so we’d like to have a full student section,” Pearson said Tuesday. “We’re trying to get as many students into the stadium as possible.”

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http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/education/university-of-iowa/2014/07/29/iowa-offers-free-tuition-student-season-ticket-owners/13348277/

University of Iowa Tuition Giveaway Gets OK
Any Student Now Eligible for Contest
By Vanessa Miller, The Gazette
Story Created: Aug 4, 2014 at 5:00 PM CDT
(Story Updated: Aug 4, 2014 at 6:11 PM CDT)


IOWA CITY, Iowa. -- A University of Iowa football season ticket promotion offering free tuition to five grand-prize winners has gotten approval to proceed after athletic department officials suspended it last week due to legal concerns.

The Johnson County Attorney’s Office and the State of Iowa’s Office of the Attorney General reviewed the program that will award five UI students $8,000 toward tuition and gave the go-ahead Monday — with one caveat.

Instead of the winners being chosen from those students who buy a seven-game or six-game season ticket package, students who choose not to buy a season ticket also can be entered into the contest by notifying the UI Athletics Department of their interest in being eligible for the drawing.

The original offer was suspended Wednesday after the state’s Department of Inspections and Appeals brought legal concerns about a purchase being required for the tuition giveaway. Officials were concerned the program qualified as a raffle, but didn’t follow state raffle regulations.

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http://www.kcrg.com/subject/news/university-of-iowa-tuition-giveaway-gets-ok-20140805#OVSjRC8HKysXBSCD.99

Arrest made after shots fired on pedestrian mall
Iowa City Press-Citizen
1:23 p.m. CDT July 27, 2014

One juvenile has been arrested and Iowa City Police are searching for another suspect after multiple shots were fired on the pedestrian mall early Sunday morning.

According to a media release from the Iowa City Police Department, at 1:36 a.m. officers on foot patrol heard the sound of gun shots on the pedestrian mall. Witnesses of the shooting described two suspects to the officers: The alleged shooters were described as two black males, one in a white t-shirt and the other wearing dark clothing. Witnesses told officers that the two suspects fled to the south of where the shots had been reported taking place, according to the release.

Police located a black juvenile two blocks to the south of the area of the shooting, according to the release. A loaded pistol was found in his possession and he admitted to firing multiple shots into the air while in the pedestrian mall. No injuries were reported from the incident.

According to the release, the juvenile suspect was charged with Reckless Use of a Firearm, a simple misdemeanor; Carrying Weapons, an aggravated misdemeanor; Going Armed with Intent, a Class D felony; and Intimidation with a Dangerous Weapon, a Class C Felony.

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http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2014/07/27/multiple-shots-iowa-city-pedestrian-mall-juvenile/13237817/

Stop Giving Airtime to Crackpots
By Phil Plait

In very welcome news, BBC journalists have been told to stop inviting crackpots on news shows in the name of balance.

Oh, I do so love this. It’s precisely the right thing to do, sorely needed and sorely overdue. In this specific case, back in 2012 the BBC was criticized for news shows inviting on people with fringe views, especially when the science being discussed was solidly understood.

Obviously, the topic most abused in this way was the reality of global warming. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention at all.

But more broadly, most TV news shows do this, especially when they are done with a talk show format. It’s all too easy for a news program or other venue with a biased ideological objective (cough cough Fox News cough Wall Street Journal cough) to bring on people who sound authoritative, but who are in fact simply cranks or contrarians with outlandish claims. This sort of bias sows doubt, which is far easier to do than to debunk it.


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http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/07/07/crackpottery_bbc_journalists_told_to_stop_interviewing_science_deniers.html

Given that integral(sec(x), dx) = ln( abs( sec(x) + tan(x) ) ) + C

One finds

integral(sec(x), dx, {0, Pi/6}) = ln( abs( sec(Pi/6) + tan(Pi/6) ) ) - ln( abs( sec(0) + tan(0) ) )

sec(0) = 1
tan(0) = 0

integral(sec(x), dx, {0, Pi/6}) = ln( abs( sec(Pi/6) + tan(Pi/6) ) ) - ln( abs( 1 + 0 ) )

abs( 1 + 0 ) = 1

integral(sec(x), dx, {0, Pi/6}) = ln( abs( sec(Pi/6) + tan(Pi/6) ) ) - ln( 1 )

ln( 1 ) = 0

integral(sec(x), dx, {0, Pi/6}) = ln( abs( sec(Pi/6) + tan(Pi/6) ) ) - 0

sec(Pi/6) = 1/( cos(Pi/6) ) = 2 /((3)^(1/2))
tan(Pi/6) = 1/((3)^(1/2))

integral(sec(x), dx, {0, Pi/6}) = ln( abs( sec(Pi/6) + tan(Pi/6) ) ) = ln( abs( (2/((3)^(1/2))) + (1/((3)^(1/2))) ) )

integral(sec(x), dx, {0, Pi/6}) = ln ( ((3)^(1/2)) ) = ln( (3)^(1/2) ) * 1

Since ln( (3)^(1/2) ) * 1 = ln( (3)^(1/2) ) * ((k)^64) implies 1 = k^64 or k^64 = 1, one must find the sixty-fourth roots of unity.

The sixty-fourth roots of unity are the elements of the set {e^((2*Pi*i*n)/64)} with n being an element of the set {0, 1, 2, 3, ..., 63}.

Euler's formula states that e^(i*m) = cos(m) + i*sin(m). If n = 16, (2*Pi*i*16)/64 = i*Pi/2 and m = Pi/2.

cos(Pi/2) = 0 and sin(Pi/2) = 1, so e^((2*Pi*i*16)/64) = 0 + i*1 = i.

Thus, the solution in the video corresponds to the 17th of the sixty-fourth roots of unity -i.e., the one that has the value n = 16.

June 12, 2014
ISIS Must Not (Be Allowed to) Achieve Victory
What is happening in Iraq is a catastrophe for the world community. New strategic partnerships must be considered.
by Ines Pohl


It is difficult to say which was the greater mistake: the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 or the withdrawal of 2011 - a withdrawal from a country whose government order appeared to lay in total disarray after, during and in spite of the eight-year American occupation?

In the final analysis, it is idle to argue whether President Bush is more responsible for the current situation than President Obama who ordered the final military withdrawal three years ago. What now counts - and what must be of the greatest concern - are the reports that reach us: hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing before the apparently inexorably advancing ISIS militias, a radical Islamic terrorist organization which is so brutal that even Al Qaeda declines to cooperate with it.

One city after the other take the terrorists in without any noteworthy resistance from the Iraqi army. On the contrary, it (the Iraqi army) surrenders and leaves behind the most modern undamaged American weapons of war: this further strengthens the mob's (ISIS's) military striking power.

What is happening here is not only a catastrophe for the people of the region but a catastrophe for all people who believe in democracy (original word: Demokraten) - indeed, the world community. This catastrophe is also the result of western military interventions that simply do not lead to the transfer of freedom and democracy, but instead to the disintegration of countries.

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http://www.taz.de/Kommentar-Entwicklung-im-Irak/!140266/

A eulogy to the NHS: What happened to the world my generation built?
In 1926, Harry Leslie Smith's sister died of TB in a workhouse infirmary, too poor for proper medical care. In 1948, the creation of the NHS put a stop to all that. In an extract from his new book, Harry's Last Stand, he describes his despair at the coalition's dismantling of the welfare state

Harry Leslie Smith
The Guardian, Wednesday 4 June 2014 14.03 EDT

...

As I convalesced, I was gobsmacked at the great consequences of free health care and the potential it offered to improve our society. It was a transformational shift in how we as a country viewed our fellow citizens. The creation of the NHS made us understand that we were in truth our brother's keeper, and that taxation benefits everyone through maintaining not just our roads and sewers but the health of our children, workers and elderly.

To me, the introduction of free health care was the first brick laid on the road to the social welfare state. So it has always been difficult for me to listen to politicians, proud possessors of health insurance and shares in private health care companies, when they talk about how the health service that we fought so hard to build must change. The coalition government's Health and Social Care Act will create a two-tier health care system. This act will see the NHS stripped down like a derelict house is by criminals for copper wiring.

Ukip has even proposed that A&E patients should have the right to buy their way to the front of the queue, while in Merseyside a private for-profit cancer clinic has set up shop under the NHS umbrella. Where will all of this end? What will be given the greatest priority in a new health care system that sends every service, from blood work to chemotherapy, out to the lowest bid tender?

It ends where I began my life – in a Britain that believed health care depended on your social status. So if you were rich and insured you received timely medical treatment, while the rest of the country got the drippings. One-fifth of the lords who voted in the controversial act – which provides a gateway to privatise our health care system – were found to have connections to private health care companies. If that doesn't make you angry, nothing will.

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/04/coalition-attacks-nhs-return-britain-age-workhouse