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Florida ballot recount has its day in court
■The state's high court was
considering what effect recounts could
have on the Electoral College vote.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE. Fla.— Florida
Supreme Court justices seemed anx
ious to find a way out of the state’s pres
idential election jam Monday that
would let disputed manual recounts
continue - as long as the delay wouldn’t
jeopardize the state in the Electoral
College vote.
The central questions hanging over
the state election - should ballots be
recounted? How? For how long? - land
ed in Florida’s high court nearly two
weeks after the Nov. 7 vote.
There was no word on when a ruling
might be expected, but some of the jus
tices showed a sense of urgency to
answer the questions, which are of
paramount importance to Democrat A1
Gore and Republican George W. Bush.
At a nationally televised hearing
that ran nearly two and one-half hours,
the chief judge of the court, Charles T.
Wells, repeatedly pressed both sides to
predict how continued recounts would
affect the Dec. 18 Electoral College vote.
“Tell me when Florida’s electoral
vote would be in jeopardy,” Wells said to
Bush lawyer Michael Carvin, a question
he had earlier asked of Paul Hancock,
lawyer for the state’s Democratic attor
ney general.
Both sides said they were intent on
having Florida’s vote counted - no need
to note their disagreement on how they
wanted that vote to come out.
The hearing dealt only glancingly
with major issues that both sides have
been fighting about so hard in other
courts and in public statements.
But oral arguments in an appeals
court are rarely a comprehensive guide
to justices’ thinking. In this case the
court is being asked to rule whether the
manual recounts requested by
Democrats should continue, how the
counts should be done and whether
those results should be included in the
final state tally. '
After the hearing, Gore advisers said
privately they were pleased by the tone
of the justices' questions and the fact
that recounts could continue at least for
now.
The Republican legal team
expressed private concerns about what
Please see RECOUNT on 3
University Police
Oft Brian Peters
teaches women
how to fend off
possible attack
ers inadass
called Rape
Aggression
Defense.Two
officers taught
theRADdass
Mondays in the
Harper
Schramm-Smith
Residence Hall
food service
building.
bteven senoer/UN
Women learn to strike back at attackers
■ Police use the course to show
women howto defend themselves
against potential rapists.
BY JOSH FUNK
“No! No! No!” the dozen women
responded to an instructor’s com
mands while they dropped into a
defensive position.
The circle of women stood with
their feet spread apart, their weak arm
held vertically in front of their face to
deflect imaginary blows and their
strong arm ready to strike from the
hip.
The group is one of two RAD -
Rape Aggression Defense - classes
being taught by University Police for
the first time this fall to teach women
the confidence, judgment and skills
needed to avoid or repel an attacker.
The University Police are offering
the classes to faculty, staff and stu
dents free of charge.
The nine-hour course starts with
basic crime prevention instruction
and moves to a series of escapes and
attacks women can use to get away
from an attacker, said Brian Peters,
one of the University Police’s two
RAD-trained instructors.
“We really spend a lot of time
defeating myths about women’s abili
ty to defend themselves,” Peters said.
At the course’s culmination, the
women will have a chance to fend off a
real attacker in the form of a heavily
padded Peters.
The women who have taken the
course all semester said that it helped
improve their confidence.
“It's good to know that if I ever got
into a situation, I could defend
myself,” said freshman general studies
major Nikki Schmid. “I feel much
more comfortable, especially at
night.”
The other RAD instructor,
Christine Clancy, who is a University
Police dispatcher, said she enjoys see
ing the women in the class learn to
defend themselves.
Please see DEFENSE on 3
Anti-416
battle
not over
BY VERONICA DAEHN
TWo weeks ago, junior political science major
Angela Clements told opponents of Initiative 416 that
despite its passage, their fight wasn't oven
And this week, lawyers at the American Civil
Liberties Union Nebraska are planning their next
attack.
Nearly 70 percent of Nebraskans voted in favor of
the Defense of Marriage Act, the amendment that
would ban gay and lesbian marriages, domestic part
nerships and civil unions in the state.
Clements and others have been fighting since July
to educate Nebraska voters on the dangers of the
amendment
Tim Butz, executive director of the ACLU
Nebraska, said a panel had been created to begin
researching the litigation.
Panel members are identifying potential plaintiffs
and researching the information they have been pro
viding, he said.
The amendment violates the Equal Protection
Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Butz said. That will be
the group’s main charge in its lawsuit
Butz said he may be ready to file a petition by
January but said he didn’t want to rush things.
“We’re preparing a case that’s solid and submit
ting it to the court,” Butz said. “But we’re not being
held to an artificial, premature filing.”
When the petition is approved by the ACLU
Nebraska Board of Directors, it will be filed and even
tually heard before a federal court judge.
Because the lawsuit will be challenging the state
constitution, it must be heard in a federal court, he
said. Butz said he had been receiving letters and e
mail from cpncemed Nebraskans since the Nov. 7
election. These potential plaintiffs will be contacted
in a couple of weeks.
Linda Richenberg, president of Nebraska
Advocates for Justice and Equality, the group that
formed the Vote No on DOMA committee, said her
organization would be the primary client in the case.
Potential plaintiffs have been contacting
Richenberg’s office, which acts as a liaison between
concerned Nebraskans and ACLU Nebraska.
Most of the phone calls have come from gay fam
ilies concerned about the amendment’s effect on
power-of-attomey agreements and medical plans.
“A lot of people are very, very concerned at this
point,” Richenberg said.
But her agency has offered encouragement
“The possibility of action lets them know it’s not
an issue that will go dormant” she said.
Quantum leap for computing
■ UNL electrical engineering professors
research quantum mechanics, which could help
the military solve encrypted messages.
BY SHARON KOLBET
Quantum dots promise to pave the way for a new
world in technology.
As minuscule entities that are 10,000 times
smaller than the width of a human hair, quantum
dots have properties which make them the ideal
building blocks for a new quantum computing sys
tem.
Unlike traditional computers that rely on classi
cal physics, the new generation of computers would
operate under the strange and fascinating laws of
quantum mechanics.
“With quantum mechanics it is possible for an
entity to coexist in two different states at the same
time,” said electrical engineering professor Supriyo
Bandyopadhyay.
The ability to be in two different places simulta
neously is known as quantum parallelism.
“The concept of a parallel existence is difficult to
explain,” Bandyopadhyay. “It appears very strange
and mystical.”
Bandyopadhyay holds a patent on a process that
creates an extremely well-ordered array of ultra
small structures on the surface of aluminum.
Referring to an aluminum wafer the size of a postage
stamp, Bandyopadhyay explained that the small
metal chip contained more than 1 trillion quantum
dots.
In 1997, the U.S. Army Research Office picked
Bandyopadhyay’s work as one of the four most
notable achievements in nanoscience, which is sci
ence that focuses on very small structures.
As a major supporter of quantum dot research,
the U.S. military has a vested interest in a quantum
computer’s potential to solve encrypted messages.
“A complicated code might take 10 to 100 years
to solve with a classical computer but a quantum
computer could crack the code in a matter of sec
onds,” Bandyopadhyay said.
Another quantum dot project that receives mili
tary funding involves University of Nebraska
Lincoln professors Paul Snyder, Sina Balkir, Ned
Ianno, Frazer Williams and Bandyopadhyay.
This specialized group is hard at work on the cre
ation of special military “bees.” These man-made,
Please see QUANTUM on 3
Sharon Kolbet/DN
Electrical engineering professor Supriyo Bandyopadhyay hoick a specially processed aluminum wafer containing more titan 1 tril
lion quantum dots. Bandyopadhyay specializes in quantum dot electronics.
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