Sports: Stanford evens CWS, 1 -1 • Page 3
Opinion: Contaminated • Page 5
THE BATTALIOl
forld
311
iticize
meric
y Audrey Woods
ASSOCIATED PRESS
'JDON — A sampling
opinion in
mny see the United State
irrogant superpower ia
i greater danger to
ban North Korea,
ident George W.
o impress 58 perceititl
questioned by
British Broadcasts
iroadcast Tuesday nigk
;aid they had a
■able or very m
iew of the Americt
nt. If the America
dents were remore:
re sample, the num
60 percent,
poll questioned 11,(
in May and June in
: Australia, Bra;
Canada, Franct,
;ia, Israel, Ji
South Korea ar
States. The poll u
ed by pollsters
1 in Britain and IPSOS
the United States. 1
J not estimate a
though 67 percentsaii
uldn’t want their
copy U.S. economic
, 67 percent
) U.S. gains in science
mology, and 56 perce
opportunities f
ment available to pc
le United States. For
aspired to U.S. freedo
ssion.
way the United Stae
ts power worried ma
questioned for the pro-
vVhat the World
ca.”
25 percent said UA
might was making tie
lafer place.
-one percent agreei
"ime Minister Ti
pinion that the Uni
a force for good in
id 55 disagreed,
five percent overall
rica is arrogant. Fort)
rcent said America
md 33 percent find!
ates antagonistic,
six percent said the
>tates was wrong K
Iraq. That
81 percent in
ercent in France, tw
oat led world opposi
e war. Overall, 37 per
the war was right -
it in Britain, 74 pet
e United States and7 l
i Israel.
Qaida terrorist organ;
s ranked more danger
the United States,!#
cans were judged to be
threat than Russis
ria and two member
Axis of Evil — h#
Korea.
i South Korea, where
ong the Demilitarized
high, 48 percent of
ts judged the United
oe a greater threat to
:e than the communist
to the north,
udio panel of
, former B
lember Clare ;
ier post to protest the
of Iraq, said |
America was
riant, full of anger-
t’s got to exercise its
over the world; I
s becoming a frigid-
rica.”
ercent of the poll
s said they had a fair-
or very positive vie"
:ed States, compared
rcent who had unfa-
ews. Those figures
mericans.
lid their own coud-
becoming more like
— 81 percent of
i agreed with that
as did 64 percent of
id 63 percent of
THE
Volume 109 • Issue 156 • 6 pages
Westhusin: Human clone probable in GenX
109 Years Serving Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Monday, June 23, 2003
By Megan Orton
THE BATTALION
The people of the current generation
II see a human cloned before their
lives end, said Dr. Mark Westhusin,
spoke Thursday as part of the lat
est installment of the Bush Museum
Issues Forum at the George Bush
Presidential Library Complex.
“When this happens, the world’s not
ing to fall, and it’s not going to come
to an end,” he said.
The forum on research and ethical
issues of cloning was led by Westhusin,
A&M associate professor of veterinary
medicine, along with Dr. Duane
KRAEMER
Kraemer, professor of
veterinary medicine.
Kraemer and
Westhusin were
involved in the effort of
cloning a cat at Texas
A&M In January 2002
deemed C.C. (short for
Copy Cat), almost six
years after the 1996 cloning of the
sheep, Dolly.
“One thing that does happen when a
significant historic event like Dolly’s
cloning occurs is it does raise the eye
brows of the world to start thinking
about the things they read about in
'Boys from Brazil,’ ‘Brave New World’
WESTHUSIN
and ‘Jurassic Park’ and
say ‘hey this stuff
might really happen,”’
Westhusin said.
He said cloning
sparks people’s interest
and creates forums in
society to discuss what
we are going to do with
the cloning technology.
Westhusin described the process of
cloning, which involves removing the
nucleus of a stem cell from the animal
to be cloned. After implanting the
nucleus into an oocyte cell, a process
of electrofusion breaks down the
membranes of the nucleus and oocyte
cell cytoplasm, healing with one
membrane and creating a new, fertil
ized egg with the DNA makeup iden
tical to the stem cell.
There are some questions about the
ethics associated with cloning,
Kraemer said, and one of the ways to
evaluate the ethics is to look at the risk-
benefit ratio.
“The problem with this,” he said, “is
that some people’s risks are other peo
ple’s benefits.”
One example of this is the use of
animal cloning to develop knowledge
that can be used for human cloning.
Some people are pleased with that, and
some people are afraid of that.”
Benefits of cloning include higher
quality and less expensive food and
fiber, gain of valuable technological
information and increasing basic
knowledge. This knowledge can be
used to investigate overcoming human
and animal disease, reducing aging and
increasing productivity.
Questions of ethics arose over issues
such as the destroying of embryos to
produce stem cells, abnormal offspring
when producing clones and diversion
of resources.
“Some people say that you should
be spending the money on studying
cancer rather than producing clones.
See Cloning on page 2
Ag wins $ 1 million
in lottery payout
By Rob Munson
THE BATTALION
Sunny skies and a cool mil-
n is the only forecast for for
mer Texas A&M student Dan
Brounoff these days.
Brounoff, class of 1999 and a
37-year-old San Antonio mete
orologist, won $1 million in a
Texas Lottery scratch-off game
ie5.
“After the roller coaster ride
my life has taken the past year,
especially the past few
weeks, winning $1 million with
simple scratch of a ticket is
what I needed,” Brounoff
I. “I have been playing this
klOgame the past month, and I
Atdwon $500 in Georgia on one
of its instant games, but I've
never won anything like this.”
The San Antonio weather-
in had been working for The
Weather Channel Radio
Network in Atlanta until
February.
News 9 San Antonio, a new
24-hour news station, hired
Brounoff, and he moved back to
Texas where he could be closer
his 79-year-old mother Ruth
Dallas. His pregnant wife
Stefani stayed in Atlanta until
their house could be sold.
As Stefani’s pregnancy pro
gressed, Brounoff said he
moved her to Houston on May 3
lobe closer to him.
Everything seemed to be
going perfectly until Stefani
went into labor early while
Brounoff was packing up their
former home in Atlanta.
His mother-in-law came to
Atlanta to help pack, but also
brought a piece of bittersweet
news.
“She said I was a dad,”
Brounoff said. “I felt helpless,
because I was 800 miles away
and there was nothing I
could do.”
Their son Logan was deliv
ered prematurely by caesarean
section in Houston and weighed
less than five pounds.
Brounoff came back to
Houston to be with his wife only
to learn that his mother had suf
fered a mild heart attack two
days after Logan was bom.
“My mom got to see pictures
of Logan, and I was starting to
feel better about everything,” he
said.
Then his brother called and
told Brounoff he needed to
come to Dallas immediately.
Brounoff went to Dallas to be
with his mother, he said.
She died with Brounoff at her
bedside the next day.
After his mother’s funeral,
Brounoff returned to Houston
to be with Stefani and their
infant son.
Doctors monitored Logan
See Lottery on page 2
On the Express again
After waiting for more than four hours in line at Barnes & Noble
on Friday night, Pamela Rios, 14, and Humberto Rios, 11, eager
ly shelled out $17.99 for "Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix," the latest and longest installment of the seven-part
JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION
series. The new book was already a bestseller before it Friday, and
Barnes & Noble sold more than 500 copies after the book went
on sale at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. A second shipment is expected to
arrive early this week.
Scholarship given in memory of Kerlee
By Karen Yancey
THE BATTALION
The Department of Mechanical
Engineering awarded the first two scholar
ships of the new Tim Kerlee Jr. Memorial
Endowed scholarship fund to two incoming
freshman in April.
Anne Dallman and David Hicks, both
mechanical engineering majors, will receive
$1,000. The fund was established in memo
ry of Kerlee, who died in the 1999 Aggie
Bonfire Collapse. Eleven other students died
in the collapse.
Dr. Dennis O’Neal, interim department
head of mechanical engineering, said the
department’s faculty started the scholarship
fund shortly after the Bonfire collapse. The
previous department head asked permission
from Timothy Sr. and Janice Kerlee, Tim’s
parents, to establish the fund in memory of
their son.
O’Neal said when he met the Kerlees two
years ago, Janice was receiving royalties
from the sale of her book and wanted to
donate some of the money to the scholarship.
Her book, “The Chance to Say Goodbye”
tells the story of the Kerlees’ experience dur
ing the three day period after the Bonfire col
lapse when they flew to College Station from
Tennessee to be with their son during his
final hours.
The scholarship is intended to go to
mechanical engineering majors who are in
their first semester at A&M. To qualify for
the scholarship, applicants must have a good
academic record and experience in leader
ship, O’Neal said.
O’Neal said that when the fund was being
established the goal was to award one schol
arship, but that contributions from former
students and corporations they work for
allow the department to award two.
“You have to have a minimum of
$20,000-$25,000 to endow that level of
scholarship,” he said. “ The fund is still open.
We are only limited by the amount of funds
in the endowment.”
The Kerlees were unavailable for
comment.
Commons circle parking,
loading zone reopened
Perry signs 20 bills into law on deadline day
2003 Texas Legislative Session
Bills passed in the 2003 regular
legislative session and signed
into law or vetoed by Gov.
Rick Perry
11,320
Signed
148
Vetoed
□ 14
Approved
withought
governor's signature
TOTAL; 1,382 bHI» pa sated
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
SOURCE: TEXAS GOVERNOR'S OFFICE
AUSTIN (AP) — Cleaner skies over Texas
and help for consumers to prevent identify
theft were among the intended benefits under
bills signed into law Sunday by Gov. Rick
Perry.
Perry signed 20 more bills into law
Sunday, the deadline for a signature or veto.
He also could allow bills to become law with
out his signature. The $117 billion state budg
et, the only legislation lawmakers are required
to pass every two years, was the top priority.
Perry also signed legislation to help the
state pay for the Texas Emissions Reductions
Plan, a program approved during the 2001 leg
islative session that targets diesel emissions.
The program is considered essential to
cleaning up the air over the
Houston/Galveston and Dallas/Fort Worth
regions and lawmakers were under pressure to
find the money. The bill increases the vehicle
title transfer fee Texans pay when they buy
new cars.
The current fee of $13 will go up to as
much as $33 for some parts of Texas.
It also calls for surcharges on on- and off
road diesel vehicles and equipment.
The identity theft bill allows consumers
to place a freeze on their credit file and pro
vides for the confidentiality of Social
Security numbers.
Identity theft often involves a person using
someone else’s information — such as a
Social Security number — to open bogus
credit accounts, often leaving the victims fac
ing bill collectors and trying to clear their
name with credit agencies.
More than 14,000 Texans filed complaints
with the Federal Trade Commission last year
saying their identities were stolen.
By Lindsay Broomes
THE BATTALION
The circular driveway locat
ed at the main entrance of the
Southside Commons area has
been opened to students for
short-term loading and unload
ing purposes, according to
Transportation Services.
Along with the project to open
the driveway. Transportation
Services will open additional
handicapped spots on the
Southside for easier access.
“(This project) has also made
the handicap parking more read
ily accessible and available
without having to pay the hourly
garage fee,” said June
Broughton, communications
coordinator for Transportation
Services. “Service delivery
vehicles benefit from this
improvement as well.”
The initial proposed cost
totaled more than $500,000,
she said.
“We abandoned our plans to
implement any costly
changes.The current modifica
tions are expected to cost less
than $60,000,” Broughton said.
Southside residents said they
welcome the changes.
“The costs are well worth it.
The convenience of this
improvement will greatly bene
fit the incoming students as well
as others using the commons
Initial cost: $500,006
Will cost: . than
$60,000
Allows for short term
loading and unloading
Allows for the opening
of more handicapped
spaces
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
JOSHUA HOBSON • THE BATTALION
SOURCE: TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
area,” said sophomore engineer
ing major Brent Faulk.
Broughton said the opening
of the new handicapped spots
will help with parking access on
the Southside.
“Prior to the garage construc
tion, there was an endless stream
of traffic traveling down
Lubbock and Lamar streets as
through traffic poured into the
See Commons on page 2