Brian Gongol
Mike Ditka says the NFL and the players' union are abusing former players by failing to support them when they become disabled by their play-related injuries. It seems odd that it takes a guy like Ditka to bring this to the fore; isn't it reasonably obvious that some players will be seriously injured over the course of a normal career? With so much money flowing into professional sports, it seems like ongoing support of retired players would be a natural thing for a players' union to handle.
Two sets of sextuplets were born in the last 24 hours. Talk about statistically improbable: Sextuplets normally only occur once every 4.7 billion births. Yet today we have one set in Phoenix and another set in Minneapolis.
The U of I is interviewing two candidates now for the job of university president: Philip Furmanski of Rutgers University and Mark Becker of the University of South Carolina. It looks like two other individuals have just been announced, too.
How is it possible that taxes in Iowa have gone from a total of $5 billion two years ago to $6 billion now...and we've run a deficit of $300 million for each of those three years? Iowa's state auditor David Vaudt may be the only state official taking our state's budget problem seriously. For all the incessant talk among politicians about doing things "for the children", the way we're burdening them with billions of dollars in state debt is unconscionable.
An interesting idea: The new wireless Amber Alerts. I have mixed feelings on the use of text messages to distribute emergency information; they're cheap and seem like an efficient way to get the word out in a hurry, but the inherent limitations to text messaging can make the idea sound more promising than the reality.
If you're a Windows user, don't forget to get the "Patch Tuesday" update tomorrow. You might also want to try out the new Safari web browser for Windows. It's free, so if you don't like it, you didn't lose anything by trying. No matter what kind of computer you're using, Google's plans to digitize 10 million books stored away in the libraries of the Big Ten could change the way you look at old books.
Keywords in this show:
Amber Alerts •
Auditor of State •
books •
debt •
digital libraries •
Ditka, Mike •
emergency communications •
football players •
Google •
Iowa state budget •
NFL •
retirement •
Safari •
sextuplets •
taxes •
text messages •
unions •
University of Iowa •
Vaudt, David •
Windows