ip The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

T i a l c a yMonday, March 2, 2009 - 7A

Rare snowstorm blasts East Coast 'U' lands LGBT

Storm could drop
more than a foot of
snow in New York
and New England
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - A
potent March snowstorm blan-
keted much of the Southeast with
snow yesterday before barreling
toward the Northeast, where offi-
cials prepared .snowplows and
road-salt for a wintery assault.
The icy blast threatened to drop
up to a foot of snow in the Philadel-
phia area, 13 inches in New York
and 15 inches across southern New
England late Sunday.
Thousands of New York City
sanitation workers prepared to salt
city streets, and airlines preemp-
tively canceled flights Sunday at
the region's major airports.
The Pennsylvania Department
of Transportation planned to
attack the snow in the Philadelphia
area with 400 trucks and 77,000
tons of stockpiled salt, assistant
press secretary Gene Blaum said.
In Georgia, the snowfall ren-
dered roads treacherous and
delayed flights, while in Alabama,
more than 210 churches in the cen-
tral part of the Bible Belt state had
to cancel morning services.
Vonda Braswell of Alabaster,

Ala. was throwingwsnswblls inher
front yard instead of putting on her
Sunday best. "I think you can wor-
ship in this it's so rare," she said.
Up to 7 inches of snow was
expected through Monday morn-
ing in areas of Maryland, north-
ern. Virginia and Washington,
D.C., where Mayor Adrian Fenty
declared a snow emergency.
In Virginia, nearly 10,000 cus-
tomers of two power companies
lost electric power Sunday night
after the storm blew in.
Maryland has already spent
more than $40 million respond-
ing to pad weather in what's been
a colder-than-usual winter, Gov.
Martin O'Malley said Sunday. Any
money spent on digging out from
the rare March storm will further
burden a state that's facinga $2 bil-
lion budget shortfall.
"I don't like snow," O'Malley
said.
In New York, Mayor Michael
Bloomberg announced more than
1,300 sanitation workers stood
ready to spread salt and plow
streets.
"It's the first of March, which
as you know is the month that we
say comes in like a lion and out like
a lamb," he said. "It's pretty clear
that the lions are getting ready to
roar."
As Wayne Letson drove through
Alabama toward Florida on Sun-


conference in 2011

JOEY IVANSCO/AP
Todd Warren walks to his car in the snow that hit Atlanta on Sunday.
day, the Michigan resident fret- winter weather. The last time it
ted about sharing the roads with snowed in Alabama was more than
Southerners unaccustomed to a year ago, in January 2008.

Despite stimulus spending, states money
problems could last beyond the recession

From Page1A
community wants to talk about the
interconnectedness of systems of
oppression. The theme of the 2011
conference will be "Justice or Just
Us."
"We will be talking about people
at the intersection of their identi-
ties as LGBT and something else,
as a person of color, as a person of
limited ability, as a person who's
an international student," he said.
"We're looking to really ramp the
conversation up."
In an .effort to create this dia-
logue between identities, organiz-
ers hope to include the University's
LGBT scholars and other Univer-
sity groups like the Program on
Intergroup Relations and the Gins-
berg Center.
Though the conference aims to
create a network of LGBT students
in the Midwest, the conference's
organizers stress that everyone is
encouraged to attend.
"We're going to try to push to get
as many U of M students there as
possible to really show as much sup-
port for the conference as possible,"
said LSA sophomore Chris Arm-
strong, co-chair of the Michigan
Student Assembly's LGBT Commis-
sion, who is helping to organize the
conference. "We're going to try to
make it as accessible to all different
types of people who are interested
ins LGBT issues."
Javier said he thinks the Univer-
sity has the resources to hold a con-
ference that varies positively from,
WISHLIST
From Page 1A
The remaining projects that
Greden highly prioritized include
the weatherization of low-income
housing, phase two of the upgrade
of the Ann Arbor Municipal Center,
phase two of the Fifth Street and
Division Street greening project
and a project to convert all of the
city's street lights to LED lights.
Greden believes that the city has
a decent chance of being funded for
phase two of the Fifth andDivision
Street project, a $3 million project
to add bike lanes and LED street
lights to the area and re-brick the
roads in Kerrytown.
However, Greden was not as con-
fident about the other three proj-
ects' chances.
Although Greden said the city's
low-income housing desperate-
ly needs better insulation to cut
down on utility bills, other Michi-
gan communities have low income
housing that is considered worse

State officials,
economists warn
federal aid won't fix
tax shortfalls
(AP) - Even after $135 billion
in federal aid gets spent, many
states will be staring down bud-
getary black holes unless they ini-
tiate dramatic spending cuts or tax
increases, or both.
In the short-term, the massive
stimulus will help balance bud-
gets and keep key services, such as
Medicaid, going. But economists
agree the money will not quickly

eradicate high unemployment, low
consumer spending or distress in
the housing market. - the triple
threats behind a nationwide tax-
collection shortfall thatis expected
to drag on even after the economy
begins to rebound.
Without higher taxes, bigger
cuts to government services - or
yet more federal funding - states
face budget gaps that could reach
$120 billion nationwide in their
2011 budgets, according to an ana-
lyst at the Rockefeller Institute, a
think tank in Albany, N.Y. James
Diffley, managing director of Glob-
al Insight's U.S. Regional Services
Group, says it's unlikely budget
gaps will close before 2013.

"States' budget problems lag the
economy," Diffley said. "What we
see in budgets will get worse for at
least another year."
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke last week told Congress
that the recession might end this
year if the government is able to
prop up the shaky banking system.
States simply are not taking in
enough money to cover expenses
that are rising with the recession.
So far, neither the spending cuts
nor the tax and fee increases being
discussed appear large enough to
address the impending revenue
shortfall, economists said.
Spending increases were easier
to cover in flush times earlier this

decade, whentax collectionsjumped
40 percent over five years. Then
the bubble burst. Inflated housing
wealth collapsed, consumers hun-
kered down,businesses slashed jobs
and tax collections plunged. '
Sales and income taxes can pro-
vide around two-thirds of tax rev-
enue. Other revenue streams, like
the real estate fund transfer tax,
continue to take hits, too, as the
housing marketscrapes bottom.
States' combined deficits have
'already climbed to around $50 bil-
lion in their 2009 budgets and are
expected to grow in the following
budget cycle, leaving governors
and lawmakers with more painful
choices.

I

CONTRACT
From Page 1A
reason the University chose not to
renew the contract.
"The committee found that the
company had not respected the
employees' right to association and

had not adhered to the company's
own standards of conduct," she
wrote in an e-mail. "TheUniversi-
ty decided not to renew the Russell
license based on the advisory com-
mittee's recommendation."
At the tims, Russell Corp. denied
allegations that it closed its Hon-
duras plants because workers tried

to unionize. The company said it
was forced to close the facilities
because of economic consider-
ations, not because of employee's
efforts to unionize.
The New York Times reported on
Feb. 24 that officials from Russell
Corp. issued a report addressing the,
workers' rights concerns in which

they wrote: "We acknowledge that
management mistakes were made
that led to a failure to adhere" to
"standards on freedom of associa-
tion." The Associated Press reported
that, among others, Columbia, Cor-
nell, Georgetown, Purdue, Rutgers
and Wisconsin have all announced
they will also cut ties with Russell.

past ones.
"I really think that the energy
and the community surrounding
the LGBTQ and ally community
here is unparalleled," he said. "I
strongly feel like our community
communicates really well with
each other, that we have a great
set of allies all across the Uni-
versity that can really make the
conference feel so much more dif-
ferent."
Although the conference is two
years away, organizers are already
in the beginning stages of plan-
ning.
"2011 seems like so far away, but
we have to get the jump on planning
something really great," Sean Col-
lins, an LSA sophomore who helped
with the University's bid said in a
press release.
The February 2011 conference
in Ann Arbor will coincide with
the 40th anniversary of the Spec-
trum Center, which organizers say
makes holding the conference even
more exciting.
"It definitely does make it a lot
more special, and we're going to
really push the importance of the
Spectrum Center," Armstrong said.
"We're definitely going to adver-
tise and sort of show off how great
Michigan is with LGBT issues."
Some past speakers at the con-
ference include comedian Marga-
ret Cho, activist Angela Davis and
openly gay Iraq war veteran Eric
Alva.
The 2010 conference will be held
next Feruary at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison.
off. Greden believes this will likely
be funded first.
Andeventhoughthecity'sdesign
to "re-skin" the municipal build-
ing would make it more energy
efficient, Greden said he feels that
its $12 million price tag will be too
high to receive funding.
Finally, Greden said that he was
unsure as to whether the city's esti-
mated $3.8milllionprojecttoconvert
all streetlights to LED lights would
be fundedby the stimulus package.
Greden believes that the city will
eventually follow through with its
Fifth and Division St. and LED light
projects, even if they're not funded
by the stimulus package, because
they would make the city more
environmentally friendly would
save money.
Because the governor's office
hasn't finished writing the funding
package's regulations for the state
and local levels, city officials aren't
exactly sure how and when Ann
Arbor will see the funds.
City officials do know, however,
that the money granted to the city
will only go to designated projects.
BUSES
From Page lA
time to help him and his friends
access the information more read-
ily.
He realized, however, that
Magic Bus lacked a way to access
its information from the street,
where Wolchok said it would be
most useful.
Wolchok said he already had
most of the work done in the form
of.coding he used for his previous
applications.
"I had this code sitting around,"
he said, "and itoccurred to me that
I could do it in a couple hours."
Since he launched the service,

Wolchok has been testing it; tin-
kering with the code and gather-
ing feedback from friends. As of
Saturday, he said, only about 20
unique users had used the pro-
gram, but now he thinks it's ready
for more traffic.
According to Wolchok, what
makes UmBus really useful is that
it's available to any text message-
enabled cell phone, not just those
with Internet access.
On the Magic Bus website,
"technically inclined" users are
encouraged to find new ways of
taking advantage of the technol-
ogy.
AOSS and EECS Prof. Chris
Ruf, who oversaw the Magic Bus
project, said Wolchok's service
certainly wasn't the first of its
kind.
"A bunch of those type of appli-
cations have been developed
by students during, the last few
years," he said.
"We haven't decided whether
to make them available to people
or have some kind of repository
where we could put these appli-
cations people have developed
and then other people could use
them," he said. "The problem is
we haven't developed them, so we
aren't doing any quality control
on them."
A guide to the SMSBus com-
mands can be found at mbusre-
loaded.com/smshelp.

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For Tuesday, March 3, 2009 materials to do a decent job. Get rid of
ARIES clutter.
(March 21 to April 19) SCORPIO
Continue to work behind the scenes or (Oct. 23 to Nov. 21)
work alone. Stay under the radar. Get Romance, love atTairs, playful times
extra rest if you can. Now is the time to with children, vacations and anything
prepare for your new year, which will having to do with the arts and entertain-
begin with your birthday. ment world will delight you during the
TAURUS next few weeks. You want to play!
(April 20to May 20) SAGITTARIUS
It's a popular time for you! Enjoy (Nov. 22 to Dec. 21)
schmoozing with others. Join clubs, Focus on home, family and domestic
groups and organizations. Discuss your issues now. It's a good time to start to
dreams and goals for the future with oth- plan home repairs.
ers to hear what they have to say. CAPRICORN,
GEMINI (Dec. 22 to Jan. 19)
(May 21to June 20) Short trips, discussions with neigh-
The Sun at high noon in your chart bors, relatives and siblings plus
now acts'like a spotlight on you. This is increased reading, writing and studying
why bosses, parents, teachers and VIPs keep you busy! Just accept this busy,
notice you more than usual. (This also upbeat tempo.
includes the police.) AQUARIUS
CANCER (Jan. 20 to Feb. 18)
(June 21to July 22) You're full of moneymaking ideas.
In the next week or so, try to do sote- Some of you are thinking about ways to
thing different. Go someplace you've make money on the side or to change
never been to before. Seek out adven- jobs.
ture. Learn something new. You need a PISCES
change of scenery! (Feb. 19 to March 20)
LEO Do what you want to please yourself
(July 23 to Aug. 22) because this is your turn to recharge your
Take care of bills, taxes and debt. Just batteries for the rest of the year. It's
because you like to spend money doesn't entirely OK if yoU putyourself first now.
mean you can't stay out of debt. YOU BORN TODAY You know what
VIRGO you want and you go after it. Plus, you
(Aug. 23 to Sept. 22) do your homework and you're prepared.
Partners and close friends continue to You have a wonderful imagination, and
be the major focus. This is your chance once you have your vision intact, you
to learn more about how you relate to work steadily toward achieving it. You
others. Make the most of this opportu- often work behind the scenes because
oity. you value your privacy. Your year ahead
LIBRA might be one of the nost powerful years
(Sept. 23 to-Oct. 22) of your life. Dream big!
Because you're gung-ho to get better Birthdate of: Alexander Graham Bell,
organized in your life, do something inventor; Tyler Florence, TV chef; Julie
about this. Give yourself the tools and Bowen, actress. ,
"tur

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WOKING! $100, patches, &
ed intervention. Make 3
cluding a brain scan.
705.

y 2009 King Features Syndicate. Inc.


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