Arts 9 'X' trilogy ends
on sour note
Sports 13 Hopes for repeat
dashed as softball
falls in Knoxville
One-hundred-sixteen years ofedorndfreedom
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Summer Weekly
www.michigandaily.com Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXVI, No. 120 ©2006 The Michigan Daily
Governing gas:
2.92i legislation's role
Gov. Granholm petitions President
Bush for a cap on oil profits; DeVos
and skeptics doubt its impact
By Marlem Qamruzzaman
Daily Staff Reporter
Despite gas prices hovering close to $3 a gallon,
most students on campus have not been deterred
from filling up.
"Gas is like bread and milk," LSA junior Garrison
Paige said. "People still need to get to work and school. I
don't have a reason yet to change my habits."
Recognizing that Michigan residents are dependent
on oil, Gov. Jennifer Granholm has developed solu-
tions to ease the economic burden high gas prices are
imposing on the state.
Granholm's main solution to curb gas prices is
encouraging a cap on oil company profits. She also
signed a bill May 3 that penalizes gas-station owners
who price gouge by altering pumps to dispense less fuel
than indicated on the gauge.
Although some University students are ambivalent,
272,858 Michigan residents signed Granholm's online
petition to prompt President George W. Bush to put a cap
on oil profits.
Gov. Granholm created the petition in response to
oilmakers earning record prices because gas prices may
be regulated on the federal level.
"Paying nearly $3 per gallon while oil companies enjoy
$10 billion in tax breaks and rake in billions more in profits
is just plain wrong" the governor said in a statement.
The governor sent her month-long petition to the
White House Thursday.
"I think it's important to communicate to President
Bush the problems we're having at the state level," said
State Senator Liz Brater (D-Ann Arbor), who has backed
much of the governor's gas legislation.
As the 2006 gubernatorial election quickly
approaches, Granholm faces competition and criti-
cism from Republican candidate Dick DeVos, who
has proposed his own ideas for helping Michigan
residents handle the costs of gas.
"The petition that you send to Washington does not
make one bit of difference," DeVos's Communications
Director JohnTruscott said."It's a publicity stunt. There's
no meat behind it."
Some students were also doubtful about the petition.
"It looks good at face value" said Engineering senior
See GAS, Page 2
Bush: honor dead
by fighting terror
On Memorial Day, anti- white marble amphitheater.
"Here in the presence of veterans they
war groups bring the spirit fought with and loved ones whose pictures
of Arlington to Ann Arbor they carried, the fallen give silent witness
to the price of liberty and our nation honors
them this day and every day" he said.
From Staff and Wire Reports The nation can best honor the dead by
"defeating the terrorists, ... and by laying
President Bush, delivering a Memo- the foundation for a generation of peace,"
rial Day speech surrounded by the graves of Bush said.
thousands of military dead, said yesterday The president spoke after laying a
that the United States must continue fighting wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
the war on terror in the name of those who He ventured across the Potomac River
have already given their life to the cause. on a sun-splashed Memorial Day just
"The best way to pay respect is to value a short time after signing into law a
why a sacrifice was made," Bush said, quot- bill that restricts protests at military
ing from a letter that Lt. Mark Dooley wrote funerals.
to his parents before he was killed last Sep-. At the White House, Bush signed the
tember in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act,
Noting that some 270 fighting men and passed by Congress largely in response
women of the nearly 2,500 who have fallen to the activities of a Kansas church group
since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are that has staged protests at military funer-
buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Bush als around the country, claiming the deaths
-said, "We have seen the costs in the war on symbolized God's anger at U.S. tolerance
terror that we fight today." of homosexuals.
"I am in awe of the men and women The new law bars protests within 300
who sacrifice for the freedom of the feet of the entrance of a national cem-
United States of America," Bush said, etery and within 150 feet of a road into the
drawing a long standing ovation from cemetery. This restriction applies an hour
troops, families of the fallen and others before until an hour after a funeral. Those
gathered at the cemetery's 5,000-seat See MEMORIAL, Page 2
Ypsilanti resident Kelly Benson looks over the crosses bearing a photo, name and biographical information of
the 87 Michigan soldiers killed in combat in Iraq. The Veterans for Peace (Chapter 93), in collaboration with
two other national anti-war organizations, planted the crosses as part of the "Arlington Michigan" memorial In
Hanover Square on Monday.