Texting is a distraction, but we never thought it could be deadly. Not in THIS magnitude at least.
MSNBC.com reports federal investigators said texting may have played a part in last Friday’s train collision.
It was suspected that the engineer may be texting during the incident. Two teenagers who befriended the engineer said they received a text message from the engineer minutes before the incident, according to MSNBC.
Kitty Higgins, a member of the National Transportation and Safety Board, said investigators will subpoena the engineer’s cell phone records to determine if he was texting at the time of the incident.
Twenty-five people were killed in the two-train collision in Los Angeles because the engineer operating the train ran a red light.
The train was running 42 mph and was carrying 220 passengers at the time of the accident.
Click here for the article on MSNBC.
A new regulation proposed by the Bush Administration will allow health-care officials to deny medical services to a patient if the service goes against their religious and moral values. Under state law, health-care officials are required to provide care to patients or refer them to another facility.
In a press release, Mike Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Sciences, said that the new regulation protects “the legal right of a healthcare professional to practice according to their conscience.”
However, opponents believe the new regulation prevents access to contraceptives, and infringes on a woman’s right to have an abortion.
If the rule passes after a 30-day comment period, it will apply to 584,000 hospitals and clinics across the country.
As reported on the Fox News Web site, video game developers Digital Praise are making a game similar to the juggernaut franchise “Guitar Hero” for the Christian music crowd.
Screenshots show the player will have to hit the notes on a guitar at the correct time. Sounds familiar right? Is it too familiar? “Guitar Hero” wasn’t the first rhythm game with guitars, but is certainly the most popular. So popular that many clones are starting to pop up.
Other games have capitalized on the success of the “Guitar Hero” series as it soars past $1 billion in retail sales in North America. Frets on Fire is an open-source computer game with the familiar look and feel and added features like creating song charts and where each note is placed. Then there’s Guitar Zero. It’s so similar to the original it seems that the only thing they changed was the “H” in hero. Now we can all be guitar zeros. And then there’s Accordion Hero. Enough said.
Tom Bean, president and CEO of Digital Praise told Fox News, “We’ve attempted to be careful and respect other people’s products and create games of a similar genre but solely created with our programs and programmers.”
A response from “Guitar Hero” developer Activision is forthcoming. Digital Praise has also made the “DancePraise” series, a “Dance Dance Revolution” type rhythm game where you won’t go to hell for dancing.
As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the new Democratic platform promises more money for financial aid and research.
The 2008 Democratic Platform says it will “make college affordable for all Americans” by creating an “American Opportunity Tax Credit.” The credit would provide $4,000, about 13.5 percent of TCU’s $29,600 tuition, towards a college education for students who participated in community service. The platform also suggested that the Fafsfa form be replaced with a simple check box on tax forms, allowing families to find out how much federal aid they qualified for sooner.
Democrats also vowed to “end the Bush Administration’s war on science,” lifting the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and double federal funding for “basic research.”
This week marks the first week for registration for the first wave of intramural sports at the recreation center:
Registration for Men’s, women’s and co-recreational softball lasts until 6 p.m. Tuesday. The season begins Sept. 7. Each team that registers must pay $35 to participate. Last season, 50 teams signed up and played within their particular division. Campus recreation invites all students out to participate and surpass last year’s number of teams. Each team requires 10 players on the softball field at once.
Team Tennis registration is going on currently, until 6 p.m. Sept. 9. Team Tennis will be played only on Mondays over at the Friedman Tennis Center. The cost is also $35 per team and the season begins Sept. 15. Anyone can participate in the according men’s, women’s or co-recreation teams. There will also be a mandatory captain’s meeting on Sept. 11 at 6 p.m. in the URC room 048.
Dodge Ball is the newest featured sport that campus recreation is making into a intramural league. Registration lasts until Sept. 9th. The games will be played in the Recreation Gym and must require six players on each team to participate. The games in the gym will begin on Sept. 14th. A captain’s meeting for dodge ball will be mandatory on Sept. 11 at 6:30 p.m. in the URC room 048.
Two radio-TV-film students leaped into the professional field this summer when they, among 13 other teens representing Dallas, created a film to compete in Samsung Mobile Fresh Films, a filmmaking program exclusively for teens.
Junior Brittney Dubose and freshman Sasha Hairford contributed to the 10-minute film named “Saturday” and are awaiting the results of the final vote-off against two other teams. Voting ends Wednesday.
Hairford said her experience confirmed her decision to declare a radio-TV-film major.
“It turned my life around,” she said. “It really secured my passion for film-making.”
The winning team will get a trip to Los Angeles, Apple laptops and a premiere at the American Film Institute’s AFI Fest.
The real Charlie Wilson will speak at this year’s annual Jim Wright Symposium.
The former U.S. congressman from Texas, and the subject of the Oscar-nominated movie, Charlie Wilson’s War, will speak about his participation in the CIA’s largest and most expensive covert operation during the Cold War.
Prior to the Wright Symposium, Wilson’s documentary “The True Story of Charlie Wilson” will be screened and followed by a discussion led by Ralph Carter, TCU political science professor and department chair, at the Palko building.
The documentary screening and discussions will be held Sept. 2 at the Palko building, room 130, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. and the Wright Symposium at the Brown-Lupton University Union Ballroom the next day at noon.
Admission for the Wright Symposium is by invitation only. For tickets of the documentary showing, visit TCU Extended Education. Tickets are $25.
Apple fans will no longer have to make the commute to Southlake for their latest toys.
The new Apple store will open 10 a.m. Saturday in the University Park Village, north of TCU on University Drive, right before Interstate 30.
As part of its grand opening, the store will give out Apple T-shirts to the first 1,000 visitors. There are also a a series of workshops planned.
The store is the fifth location in North Texas. Others include Highland Park, Plano and Dallas.
The state appeals court rejected an appeal Wednesday regarding the January 2004 robbery and slaying of a former TCU professor, the Associated Press reports.
Edward Lee Busby Jr., the man convicted of killing the 77-year-old Laura Lee Crane, was sent to death row.
Read more from the Skiff.
The Institute of Creation Research, whose proposal to teach a master’s program in creationist thought was rejected Thursday by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, has issued the following press release:
Dallas, April 25, 2008 – Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) Commissioner Raymund Paredes on Wednesday recommended that the Institute for Creation Research Graduate School (ICRGS) be denied a Certificate of Authority to grant degrees in the state. On Thursday, the Board voted unanimously to accept Paredes’ recommendation.
Paredes issued his recommendation, prepared in advance of Wednesday’s meeting, despite the approval of both the THECB Site Team, which evaluated the ICRGS in November 2007, and the THECB Advisory Committee that affirmed the Site Team’s approval in December 2007. He rejected both reports as “flawed” and instead convened a separate panel of scientists and science educators that advised him not to approve the ICRGS application. ICRGS scientists and faculty were not included in or allowed to respond to this panel.
On Thursday, Joe Stafford, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Affairs and Research, read into record a Texas Education Code statute about preventing public deception in the face of “fraudulent” or “substandard” college and university degrees. ICRGS representatives present at the meeting were not allowed to respond to this mischaracterization of the graduate program.
The manner in which the hearing was conducted was characterized by viewpoint discrimination. Prior to Wednesday’s consideration of the ICRGS application, THECB committee chairperson Lyn Bracewell Phillips allowed public testimony for 30 minutes on the ICRGS application. Several political activists, including Steven Schafersman—who had evidently not reviewed the ICRGS application materials—launched ad hominem attacks against the credibility and reputation of the ICRGS and its faculty.
Critics have sought to draw false associations between the ICRGS program and alleged attempts to introduce religion into taxpayer-funded public schools, even though the ICRGS is a private postgraduate institution seeking to train science educators for private schools.
Questions have surfaced concerning the treatment of the ICRGS application by THECB officials and whether Commissioner Paredes and his agency altered the normal process of application review because of external pressures based on ideological biases against the ICRGS.
Under Texas law, the ICRGS may appeal the decision of the Commission or seek other remedies as appropriate.
###
Lawrence E. Ford
Director of Communications
Institute for Creation Research
1806 Royal Lane
Dallas, Texas 75229
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