Hey everyone, sorry for the radio silence, Spring Break and all that.

I’m going to update you on a few things that have been going on lately around our area, namely speaking events by Mark Steyn and Barak Obama. Much less famous than Obama, Mark Steyn is an author and commentator on world events. His blog, SteynOnline is home to book reviews, commentary on popular (and not so popular) culture, politics and world events in general. He is probably best known as the author of the book America Alone, and he was at Cal on March 14th as part of the Admiral Nimitz lecture series put on by the Naval ROTC (I believe, please correct me if i’m wrong, since it was two weeks ago I might not remember properly). His commentary that night concerned itself with the war in Iraq, America’s (and the West’s) place in global affairs, and the historical basis for the both.
Namely, that America has far and away the greatest military might of any other nation in the world (larger than the next 43 largest militaries combined), but we lack the will to use it. After 9-11, Steyn said we “belatedly found the will to use American power”, and that our hesitance in becoming a “bad guy” has actually made us weaker. When he references “us”, he means the West, or the “post 1945 global order” that espouses and enforces liberty, and encompasses “Western will, diplomatic muscle, intelligence, and civilizational confidence”, aka the lack of fear of promoting ones own culture.

On Iraq, Mr Steyn said that the left’s insistence on an exit strategy for the war is “the political equivalent to the kid in the back seat, saying ‘are we there yet’”. In his opinion (and my own), the best exit strategy is victory, and the fastest one is defeat. Which would you prefer?

Compare the physical muscle and hesitance of use of the US to North Korea, with it’s nuke-happy leader. He has the political will to exert his country, culture, and “values”, but hasn’t the physical, military strength to do it (say what you will about NK’s military, there is no danger of them getting very far). Another component of civilizational confidence, Steyn asserted, is demographics. The countries that are still having babies are those that are still growing. We all know what is happening in Japan, and most of Europe. Another factor that hampers exertion of American will and Western will in general, is that we train ourselves not to use it through education. Remember in an earlier post, where I referenced a Harvard student newspaper article about students helpless in the face of crime? Being taught to use our words, not to hit, to be “diverse” or “multicultural”, and being taught, more often than not, that the West is “Bad”. In our schools, we are taught all of this, which of course trains adults who will sacrifice their own culture, or like the Harvard student said, their personal safety, if they are not taught to respect it. Steyn called this “vitality”, or a survival instinct. I think we saw some of it after 9-11, but it’s been more dormant since then. Steyn said “multiculturalism is a unicultural phenomenon”, meaning you’d be hard pressed to find the kind of cultural acceptance the Western world promotes in a developing nation, like, say, China or North Korea. (caveat: diversity and multiculturalism are great in context. I’m talking at the expense of our own culture, here).

I loved this lecture, as I’ve been a fan of Steyn through his blog, and I converted my friend who had never heard of him before. However, you’d never guess by the audience. 145 Dwinelle was barely half full, and mostly of the different shades of ROTC students. For such a prominent and skilled speaker, I would have expected a bigger crowd.

On the other hand, Barak Obama drew a huge crowd (I can’t even estimate, as I was right in the middle of it) in Oakland city center on St Patrick’s day. The crowd was very diverse, and the speakers hammered this point relentlessly. Obama’s staff knew their demographic, and like the other carefully-worded points, took full advantage of this crowd.

We showed up around three, and took a spot in the grass in front of the City Hall building (I assume thats what it is, you know, the tall pretty one with the clock right in front of the Bart station). Luckily, my friend’s friend works for the campaign, so we got the coveted “blue” tickets, letting us be closer. However, as you can see from the photo, that was relative. Some aerial photos published on Drudge showed the massive crowd; even sitting on someone’s shoulders did not allow people where we were standing to actually see Obama. Music was playing, and it seemed almost like a 4th of july picnic. The music, like the speech, was geared towards the diverse audience, with “hyphy” rap, old school blues and oldies, Bob’s Dylan and Marley, etc. The first speaker was the Mayor of Oakland, proud to welcome the “most progressive congressional district”. He urged us to thank Barbara Lee for that honor of “having the audacity to see [our]self as a model for the entire U.S”.
Next up was an Iraq war veteran Greg someone, I couldn’t hear his last name. However, he was 180 degrees from what I expected, in that he mentioned the war only to set his time abroad as a frame of reference for the thing he missed the most, which was apparently the diversity of the bay area. The speakers, either by design or by co-incidence, didn’t mention anything about policy or any criticism.
Then Obama came out. He made some clever speech openers, anecdotes and the like, one about an Iowa or Illinois campaign rally when it was 8 degrees out (sorry, I can’t properly read my notes) where he was afraid that “no one would show up” (damn global warming). The bourgeoning crowd there suprised him, but not me. It was a clear display of his confidence and his support. Nothing breeds success more than talking about it, especially people braving cold and snow to support their local charismatic leader. Popularity and personality aside, onto issues.

Obama was convinced that we’ll be “a little poorer, and a little meaner” than the generation before us if we don’t “stand up”. His once-through hit healthcare, education, energy reform, global warming, the economy, and of course, the war. Let’s start where he did.

“We know what to do” was his refrain. On healthcare, we know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Obama’s desire to make preventative medicine and care for chronic illness more accessible sounds great, but his claim of “universal healthcare by the end of [his] first term” doesn’t. He also suggested e-billing to reduce price errors, but I’d rather see e-prescriptions to end mis-medication due to inability to read doctor’s handwriting.

In education, I was happy Obama mentioned the need to meet the world’s abilities in math and science. However, he claimed the current system is making it “harder to go to college”. I have serious beef with that. It’s harder to go to college because more students are enrolled than ever before. It’s competitive, which is good. Also, college is NOT a right. If I have to pay for it, it’s not a right. If I have to compete and earn my place, its not a right. No one expects citizens to earn their free speech or their right to a fair trial. (End of personal tangent). Obama also pushed early childhood education and criticised “no child left behind”, at which the crowd went wild. Two instances in his speech prompted this much applause, and the other was the war. I told you, he knew his audience well, there were a lot of students there. The crowd continued to cheer while he called for more teacher pay and “flexibility”, (no mention of accountability). Again, he said, we know what to do.

The energy crisis was blamed on the lack of an “energy strategy”. Compare to the Mark Steyn commentary above on “exit strategy”, just for kicks. He also said, to my suprise, “Oil money helps arabs oppress their own people”. Obama continued with the typical end-the-generation-of-gasses, find-alternatives-to-fossil-fuels bit, etc, and advised us not to melt the polar ice caps anymore.

On the economy, Obama suggested the great wealth of today is not “evenly spread”, and that “only some benefit”, and the usual about how the cost of living and wages don’t meet. Some statistics should clear this up quickly, but it appealed to the audience. He was very careful never to fault individuals or the general populace with any of these issues. They were all blamed on corporations and Washington. He suggested wireless should be implemented in every major city to give everyone access to the internet, but I don’t see how that helps if you can’t afford a computer. He also said we should “give unions a fair shot” which is more than redundant, as unions dominate not only local economies, but local politics, as see in the Schwarzenegger campaign. (Teachers union all but bankrupting themselves, getting water poured on me by union-member protesters at Schwarzenegger events, etc).

And of course, none of his plan can be implemented until the US is out of “the war that should have never been authorized”. The lack of war commentary at first was clearly to allow full impact of his statements, which was clear as the crowd went crazy and didn’t let up the entire time he talked about the war. Obama is proud to have been against the war since the beginning, saying we are now less safe, and our safety and power in the world are diminished. I take issue with his stance on this, a stance which focuses only on the lives lost and not on what has been gained, or the mission in general. He repeated that our troops were “in harms way”, which is why we should bring them home. This is a misnomer: yes the troops are in a dangerous place, but they are not IN danger. They ARE the danger to the terrorists, and they are on the offensive almost all the time. However, this is my knowledge based on research and personal testimonies of friends over in Iraq, not the sources that Obama’s writers probably want to emphasize. However, Obama also wants to improve resources for veterans, which is great, but the fact that he meets with Dick Durbin every Thursday to discuss it over coffee doesn’t give me much confidence in what he’ll accomplish. He is also right that the Iraqi government should stand up, but they aren’t ready to, just yet. Obama is also sponsoring a bill to withdraw starting May 1st, which I naturally don’t support, but he suprised me again when he said we should withdraw because “we have business in Afghanistan and Iran”.

Throughout all of this, Obama was very careful to lay the blame in high places. His criticism of poor policy and bureaucracy was aimed politicos in Washington “consumed by cynicism and pettiness”, who are “out of touch”, despite the fact that their decisions “aren’t smoke”. This is an important strategy, in order to avoid making enemies and appeal to the majority.

He ended with the obligatory reference to Selma, and made his campaign an clear allusion to the civil rights struggle. This went along with the themes of inclusion, not blaming the common folk, etc, although I would not go so far as to equate the two. The crowd seemed satisfied, and dispersed to an extremely crowded bart.

My overall opinion was a feeling of being largel unsuprised by the message, with small but rather radical suprises in what he said about Iran, etc. Obama definetly has the charisma and appeal that Hillary and Edwards sorely lack, and he certainly knows his audience, at least in the bay area. It was nice to hear the opposition, but I’m still glad I’m a conservative.

If you want something to listen to while you are lounging around, check out Alex Marlow’s new podcast. He interviews Kyle Tibbitts about his internship in the White House during the last election. They also speculate about something that is getting closer all the time, 2008 Presidential race.

I try to avoid speculation about nominations this early, but few people share my restraint. Who do you support and like in either side for President in ’08?

I am putting up these two pictures because they have facebook profiles here and here.

If you have a minute spring break, I would like to remind you the latest issue of the Patriot is online.

If you can’t get federal student aid because you did drugs, don’t worry. The ASUC has a scholarship for you.

Rohit Joy talks about National Condom Day while Megan Sego examines diversity in the case of the Berkeley Chinese Scholars and Students Association. She explains how the October Moon Festival can lead to diversity training.

If you like the TV show 24, check out Aditya Kashyap’s article on the show.

Andrew also has a recap of CRP here.

UPDATE: Beetle has gotten and posted the official ballot.

Today was the candidates’ meeting for ASUC office. I had to skip two different things to be there. I told people I was going to a meeting run by the most unorganized group of people I knew, the ASUC. This statement was validated when I ran into a friend on my way there. She said the meeting was pushed back an hour. I suppose I could check the website next time for late breaking news, but that was never updated.

With the exception of turning in the Party Filing Forms and the executive candidates, the party chairs, and the independents picking numbers from a box to randomize ballot positions everything was basic stuff. These are the rules and we will enforce them kind of stuff. I feel bad for the two people who came to represent the university. While some of the questions asked of them were good, others were the same question about chalking rephrased. However they kindly repeated the same thing over and over and told the students they did not assign censures.

I also like the fact that the most recent bylaws available online are from August 2006. I believe they have been revised since then. If they have not been revised, we can thank the Senate for doing nothing, even after the chaos of the summer and promises to clarify the rules.

The ballot order and numbers have been assigned, so there should be many facebook groups up by now. Beetle already put the executive slates for the major parties online. When I get the official ballot I will post it, unless Beetle beats me to it by a large amount of time. If anyone wants to donate to the Get Chris a Laptop Fund I will liveblog the next candidate meeting. If you don’t want to get me a laptop you can buy me a video camera and I will broadcast important things like the game of Twister SQUELCH! started during the meeting. Until then you will have to settle for hasty shots from my camera.

On a side note I am posting because I promised a friend I would. I also want to give this friend props, he predicted Ilana would be running for President early last fall.

As I was doing my laundry today I saw an editorial from the San Francisco Bay Guardian. It was in support of eliminating the collection of fare from passengers on the Muni, the San Francisco Municipal Railway.

From the Guardian:

For more than 30 years, San Francisco activists have been promoting the idea of a special tax district downtown, with revenue going directly to Muni. It’s got political and economic logic: a significant amount of Muni’s operational budget goes to ferrying workers to office buildings in the Financial District, and since those buildings tend to be vastly undertaxed (thanks to Proposition 13), the city ought to levy a special fee every year to help underwrite transportation.

They even admit they are targeting business owners to pay for something mostly used by another group.

The money would come from those most able to pay — building owners and the (typically) large, wealthy businesses that rent downtown. The benefits would go to the (typically) less-wealthy people who ride the buses every day.

The San Francisco Chronicle covers Mayor Newsom’s ideas here.

In a different article the Chronicle has weighted in with some good information:

Every major American public transit system that has tried a fare-free program quickly abandoned the initiative due to a rise in crime and rowdiness aboard buses and a mounting burden of funding operating costs — issues that may influence San Francisco officials considering elimination of Muni fares.

They then document the different cities that tired free transit before abandoning it. The article also points out some successes of fare free structures, like the city of Commerce and the big island of Hawaii. I recommend a full reading of the article.

I don’t like this fare free public transit idea. The costs are merely being shifted from one group of people to another. The riders who use the buses and trains should pay for them.

Aside from the problems mentioned in the article, a fare free system will be less responsive to the riders’ concerns. If riders are dissatisfied now they can carpool or take other forms of transportation. With set funding in the fare free system the riders will lose this recourse. There will be no incentive for improvement in the system and the service will decline. People will end up paying for the buses even if they are terrible and refuse to ride them.

My Experience
Right now I am paying for transit services I don’t want to. As part of my University fees I am required to pay $58.50 a semester for unlimited AC Transit rides. I can only remember using the bus once this semester. One of my friends has not even picked up his bus stickers for the past year because he never uses the bus. We make a choice to not use the bus; why do we have to pay for it?

After the words on CalSERVE the other day, it is time to look at the controlling party of ASUC affairs, Student Action.

They currently control 12 of the 20 senate seats and the four partisan executive offices. If they gain 2 seats this election they will hold a supermajority and effectively control everything the ASUC does.

There are two things that can stop or slow them down. The first is good competition. If CalSERVE runs a strong slate of many (7+) senate candidates and there are good independent and minor party candidates SA could drop below 10 seats.

The second thing that could stop SA is the history of their own misdeeds. I firmly believe if students knew what happened after the elections of last year and then the attempted payment of $22,000 SA’s fortunes would drop like a rock. (Summary of summer here and $22,000 with lots of commentaryhere.)

Student Action’s history of omissions of truth are ongoing. Two good examples are DONE! fliers I saw on Monday.

$10 RSF Membership Fee

Every student has to pay $40 for the RSF per semester regardless of whether or not they use it. If a student wants to be granted the privilege of using the RSF they must pay an additional $10 for a total of $50. This is the favorite flier of both me and Beetle.

Greek Philanthropy Fund

The Greek Philanthropy Fund has been around. It was in place two years ago at least. I don’t know the history of its creation, but it was not when I was a student here.

I thought, maybe they increased the size of the fund. So I went to the ASUC website. (Note: last year there was a flier that said something about webcasting senate meetings. I have never seen, nor heard of anyone viewing such a webcast. This was claimed as DONE! a year ago.) I could go on a tangent about the ASUC website, but I will let you see for yourself. I went to the Documentation tab and found a budget, for 2005-2006. Luckily, I had saved on my computer the 06-07 budget from when I saw it almost a year ago. After some searching I found the 06-07 budget online under student organizations. Through this neglect to remove the old budget, you too can discover something I did. The Greek Philanthropy Fund DECREASED this past year.

Who needs accomplishments when you can put out meaningless crap like that?

Candidates
Student Action’s executive candidates have not been officially announced, so I can’t say anything about them. Some rumors have been seen on Beetle Beat, which I would judge as more fact then fiction. I don’t think Ilana Nankin has made announcements in my classes three times because she likes speaking in front of big lecture halls.

Chances for Change
I have talked to people who are confident Student Action will win again this year. They might be right. If Igor’s campaign last year could not topple SA’s undistinguished external affairs candidate and the slate backing him then who can? The other anomaly last year was the collapse of CalSERVE. They ran no executive candidates and fewer senate candidates then the previous year.

There is a lot of anti-SA sentiment. However, I know people who are burned out. They have worked for years to make the ASUC more accountable and better for students. They have campaigned for candidates and issues they knew were right. They also lost. Students picked flash and party name over personal dedication and experience. Good people I know are giving up, with their hopes shattered by an uninformed student body.

Go out and campaign for your candidate or cause. When the votes are counted and you are only a few short of victory, you will think of every flier you could have put up or every person you were not more forceful about talking to.

Today I saw the first DONE! flyer of the year. CalSERVE starting flyering last Monday so the ASUC elections are in the paper phase. Since they put up flyers first, today I will say a few words on CalSERVE.

The flyers they have put up so far are simply to get their name out there. They say 5 weeks until Real Student Power.

They are setting themselves up as the not Student Action party. Which is better then their pointless ideological statements from last year including gender neutral restrooms and a “womyn’s right to chose.”

On Friday there was a crowd of people chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, CalSERVE is good to go!” I don’t think anyone who did not already know what CalSERVE was got excited or interested in asking questions about them.

This is the second time I have seen Van led a group of people through Sproul.

The Slate

CalSERVE announced their executive slate very early, almost a month ago. They picked up on the experience factor and are running three senators for the executive offices. The fact CS is even running executives is an improvement over last year. Since three of the executives are senators they had campaign goals from last year. I have linked to their earlier platforms and given a quick summary of their three main points from last year.

When you read think of two questions: Has s/he accomplished this? Is this something the ASUC should be doing?

President: Van Nguyen
Word on the street is Van is smart. However Van “Repeal Prop 209” Nguyen did not repeal the proposition. For better or worse, he is the only one on the slate I am facebook friends with.

Platform from last year:
Access to Higher Education
Freeze student fees and increase funding of recruitment and retention centers.

Student Empowerment: Providing a Space for Student Activism
More students and people of color on city commissions, forums on 209, and a sweatfree UC.

Campus Climate: Fighting for Diversity
Ensure there is a vice chancellor of Diversity and create a safe space for Asian and Pacific Islander students.

Executive VP: Taylor Allbright
For an aspiring vice president and current senator she has a surprisingly private facebook profile. Taylor definitely knows the senate from being a senator and also lobbying extensively before that. I have been to senate meetings a couple of times this year. Every time I have been there to support or oppose a bill on ideological grounds Taylor has strongly championed the opposing side. (The SA should not get $22,000 bill was an issue of common sense we were both on the same side of.)

From last year:
Empowerment through community
Create a safe space for the forty women’s issue groups on campus to build a community.

A campus free of violence
Provide more resources to prevent violence and give support to survivors.

Systemwide Justice
Respecting human rights by ending the contract with Coca-Cola, a sweat-free UC, and a living wage for UC employees.

External Affairs VP: Daniel Montes
I don’t know anything about him. Like Taylor he is one of those private facebook profile people. Outside of his profile but still on facebook I learned he is CalSERVE’s issues coordinator and like Caro below is in two groups supporting Barack Obama. He is majoring in Ethnic Studies and Public Policy. He did have an editorial in the Daily Cal which was unimpressive.

Academic Affairs VP: Carolina Jauregui
She is a senator and from Southern California; otherwise I don’t know anything about her. Facebook says she is doing Peace and Conflict Studies and Public Policy.

Her three campaign issues last year:
Academic Environment for All
Push the drop deadline for classes back beyond the fifth week.

Health Services for Women and Queer Community
Get the Tang Center to provide more services for people.

Faculty, Staff, and Student Diversity
Push for a diverse population at Cal at all levels, including forums on higher education. Also a “real” Multicultural Center needs to be implemented.

Before you decide who to vote for be sure to check out the opposition. Student Action has not officially announced who they will run but Beetle has rumors. If the SA website is updated before the slate is officially announced fear not; I have saved many files.

The Campaign

It will be interesting to see how CS runs their campaign this year. They practically collapsed last year running no executive candidates and less senators then normal. They were only holding signs on campus for a day or two compared to the two weeks of SA saturating campus with their people and materials.

If CalSERVE wants to do well in the election they need a two-fold strategy. First they have to capitalize on anti-SA sentiment. They need to remind students and educate them about the events of the summer where SA decided it was too important to follow the constitution. This involves things like fliers with $22,000 on them. Second, they have to talk about the qualifications and achievements of the people they will be running. It is not enough to say they are different; they have to put their ideas and strengths out there.

Tomorrow we will have a look at the other large party, Student Action. They have a DONE! flyer you are going to love.

We beat UCLA today in the quarterfinals of the Pac-10 tournament.

I’d just like to point out that the previous winner of a Cal-UCLA game in the Pac-10 tournament went on to finish second in the NCAA tourney.

At around 8:20 this morning I went to the third floor of Le Conte Hall. When I got there about 15 students were sitting on the floor waiting for 9:00. As time progressed the line I was in got longer, stretching from 368 east down the hallway all the way to the door to Old Le Conte. Among the 50 people I could see there was a GSI for Physics H7B holding office hours in one of the lines. What would bring all these people here this early in the morning? Why would I ditch my 8 AM class for the first time this semester?

Stephen Hawking

He is possibly the greatest living theoretical physicist. Hawking definitely has the best publicity of any physicist I know. He is also coming to campus next week.

Part of a new program, On the Same Page, the College of Letters & Science encourages incoming freshman to read good books. They sent a copy of Hawking’s A Briefer History of Time to incoming freshman. I wish they had this kind of program when I was a freshman, but knowing my luck I probably would have been unexcited by the author they found.

While the talk in Zellerbach is sold out, Hawking is giving a special talk about his life in physics just for Physics and Astronomy majors and faculty. I learned about this last night from the Physics majors email list.

There are three points I want to make:
1) Students who are truly interested in a field are out there and just need to be given opportunities.
2) Declaring your major has benefits. You get to do stuff open only to majors and get emails about work opportunities and internships.
3) Physics is awesome!

Here’s an interesting article I read from the blog A Western Heart called “America - the country”. The author, an Aussie, took a vacation to the States and had some interesting observations and some compliments for our fine homeland.

America is a funny place, when we were in New York we stopped for a bite at Grand Central Station, I observed a couple of bums walking around the place. At first I felt sorry for them and made a mental note to give one of them a few dollars, after we finished our meals we had some left over Mexican something or other so we offered it to one of the passing bums. To my surprise the fellow asked what it was before taking it, he then opened it up and ate a bit of it before discarding it and moving on to the next table. Wow, in America beggars can be choosers. Needless to say I chose not to part with my hard-earned dollars

That should be familiar to many of us in Berkeley, as at least I am often asked not even for money but to “spare some pot”. Matthew K, the author, comments on the massive sizes of our burgers and trucks, laments our driving ability, and marvels at America’s sheer size. But my favorite bit, and the one I think is the most relevant and most easily overlooked today is this:

What I got from America, to sum it up in one word, is that it’s YOU. Make of America what you will, you can make something of yourself or you can stuff it all up. No one is going to come running after you to wipe your ass and hold your hand, you are responsible for you. The working life in America seems a bit harsh to me who gets a certain amount of annual leave and entitlements, but then America didn’t get to Number One by piggy backing off someone else and whinging and carping about what my country owes me.

It’s nice to know there are people in the world who aren’t pissed off at us. Things like this help me to forget being told the rest of the world hates me by the nice anarchists on Sproul.

The group Stop Berkeley BP is making a fuss. They held a teach-in on Monday night and a demonstration yesterday outside California Hall ( Daily Cal). Before anyone gives the two people who were arrested yesterday accolades for all their bravery and dedication to their cause there is something you should know. The rally Thursday was originally scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed due to the rain. I thought saving us from corporate greed and protecting the third world were more important then a little water, but I must have my priorities wrong.

Last year the naked protest went on despite some rain.

I would have pictures of yesterday’s event but I only heard about the rescheduling after the demonstration had gone forward.

I mentioned the original $500 million deal when it was announced a month ago. For more about the anti-deal movement check out their stopberkeley-BP.org or join the facebook group.

I don’t see why people are opposed to this deal. We are researching a renewable alternative to oil and getting a huge amount of money to conduct cutting edge research at our university. What is wrong with either of those?

According to the website:

Students and the public had almost no say in the
biggest corporate deal in UC history

They were sloppy in summarizing this as a point. If there was no faculty input into the decision, then there is a legitimate concern. However, students are not the people to ask. Professors are in touch with the latest research in their field and they should be the ones to talk to administration officials and review deals. They have Ph.D.s for a reason. The public is even less informed about the complexities of cutting edge scientific research. If the taxpayers of California do not like this, they are more then welcome to write to the university, but their opinion on this as a scientific endeavor carries no weight.

Serious concerns exist about whether
biofuels are sustainable or not. An oil company shouldn’t decide - we should.

The merits of biofuels are still under debate. The best way to test them would be to conduct research which is what BP is spending all this money on. This research is even being done at a public university not the labs of BP.

UC Berkeley’s research agenda belongs to us, not to
for-profit corporations. Corporations should not own the school’s work.

If the University or the public can come up with half a billion to do this research on their own, go for it. Until that happens, we should accept help and funding from companies even if they do *gasp* want to make money.

I have one question for the people against the Berkeley BP deal. How are we supposed to deal with our dependence on oil if the university can’t accept a deal like this? We can’t research biofuels because they could cause more problems then they solve and we can’t take money from a corporation because they want to make a profit. I would like some solutions to be floated.

If people want to oppose this deal that is there choice, but I don’t want to hear these same people bitching about our lack of renewable energy or our status as a research university.