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NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2006
ELECTION 2006:
Decide for yourself.
Kansas house candidates express opinions
Incumbent Tom Sloan (R-Lawrence), representative of the 45th District, is challenged by Jason Littlejohn, who is on the reform ballot. Sloan has 12 years of legislative experience, is the chairman of the House Higher Education Committee and a professional strategic planner. Littlejohn works for Westar Energy and operated on nuclear power plants while in the Navy. His radio show,"Lives in the Balance,"is on KCXL
BY ERIN CASTANEDA
The 45th district covers west Lawrence.
Higher Education
Higher Education Sloan: The Kansas Supreme Court decision on K-12 preoccupied legislature for the last three years. I hope we can devote more attention and money to undergraduate education in 2007.
Littlejohn: I want to allow parents money to send kids to their
school and institutions of their choice. I believe in vouchers. I grew up in an environment where we grew up with one principal. We had X number of people. It seems like now the number of people doing jobs has increased and a lot of extra people are being placed in school districts unnecessarily.
Deferred Maintenance
Sloan: I am the chairman of the House Higher Education Committee. Mine is the only one
that passed a bill to fund 2006 deferred maintenance. It's a major issue for me.
Littlejohn: I want to restructure tax systems. We may be able to find additional monies to raise teacher salaries and take care of infrastructure problems through other ways of accounting. I'm not against public schools, I'm against the environment that exists now.
Environment Sloan: First, I introduced and
Tunnel of op • pres • sion
passed a bill by which the state will rehabilitate the city's drinking water. I am working with the U.S. Corps of Engineers for bigger reservoirs. I am the leading advocate in legislature for wind energy and will continue to push for that.
Oppression can only survive through silence.
How long will you remain silent?
Littlejohn: One of the problems in the economy is that our government has been signing us on to trade agreements like NAFTA. College graduates are getting an education to get into a high tech field and whether it's computer science or engineering, we keep outsourcing our jobs. We are approaching 300 million people and the jobs are not there to support our graduating students. We have to turn things around and pull jobs back into our country.
October 23 & 24 Lewis Hall 6:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
Littlejohn: I work for Westar Energy at the bottom of the toten pole. I learned how to operate nuclear power plants in the Navy. I believe that a lot of the alternative energy prices are lower but we need to lower them on a large scale. One of the most cost-effective ways is to use nuclear power. People are generally concerned about nuclear waste. Only 2 percent of what comes out of a reactor is waste. The rest is recyclable. You have no air pollution and no groundwater contamination.
Sloan: I have supported incentives to invest in bioscience technology businesses. Investment comes from education that will help in the long term.
Healthcare
An interactive, multi-media experience that teaches about oppression.
For more information or to volunteer, call the Multicultural Resource Center 864-4350
Sloan: I am promoting telemedicine — I passed a law that connects all state hospitals on the Web with KU Med. I envision every Kansas home over the internet connected to a doctor's office. They can have a camera through the local computer. Patients could be examined at home by a physician in his/her office. Thereby saving everyone much time and effort. Persons living in their own homes could be contacted by health professionals and have their vital signs taken over the internet.
gas turbines. It produces power so much cheaper than coal or natural gas. The difference could pay for other alternatives such a solar power or wind power.
Economy
Littlejohn: I would like to see an advisory panel of medical professionals that could essentially tell their patients about other possible routes besides accepted FDA routes. I think the system is broken and
throwing money into it will not fix it.
Edited by Travis Robinett
I also suggest building pebble bed reactors. They look like billiard balls. It's an actual fuel that heats air, pumps the air around fuel elements, then the air gets really hot and expands. It works through
DOW JONES Investors confident about situation of economy
NEW YORK — The Dow Jones industrial average briefly swept past 12,000 for the first time Wednesday, extending its march into record territory as investors grow increasingly optimistic about corporate earnings and the economy. The blue chip average rose to a new closing high, but fell
just short of the 12,000 mark.
The index of 30 big-name stocks surpassed the milestone just after trading began, rising as high as 12,049.51, before pulling back as the market's initial wave of enthusiasm dissipated and investors cashed in some of their gains. The fact that the markets didn't barrel higher shows some healthy caution particularly given that many companies have yet to report third-quarter results.
It took the Dow 7 1/2 years to make the trip from 11,000, having been pummeled during that time by the dot-com bust, recession and the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks. That slow trek was a striking contrast with the Dow's sprint from 10,000 to 11,000 in just 24 trading days in the spring of 1999, during the heady days of the Internet boom.
Associated Press