Category: Business/Technology

Should Gov. Scott Walker focus on cutting state spending ? rather than raising taxes ? to balance Wisconsin?s $3 billion-plus shortfall? The state?s fiscal house is in trouble. That is undeniable. Suggestions to balance the books through large-scale cuts to the university, however, are misguided. Every dollar spent on the UW returns $21 into the state?s economy, according the 2010 NorthStar Economic Impact Study of UW-Madison.

If UW-Madison is looking for ways to save money by becoming more effective and efficient, should it be relying on a consulting firm that has a history of accounting errors?

Campus Connection reported Tuesday that UW-Madison is moving forward with plans to hire the Huron Consulting Group to study if the university is truly a lean and mean educating machine — or whether in can find savings by streamlining certain aspects of its operation. But a few readers pointed out Huron?s past is littered with questionable decisions and legal woes.

Watching the crowds before the Super Bowl and major away games for the Packers and Badgers, I note a significant indicator: Most of those people live there. Many of these vital, prosperous people have left Wisconsin and emigrated to lands of economic and personal opportunity. UW-Madison has thwarted much of the exodus through UW Research Park and other vital activities, but Madison has done nothing.

The concern over texting while driving, emphasized in recent Opinion page articles, is being addressed by Scott Tibbitts, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. Scott is president of Katasi, a company formed from a team of entrepreneurs to solve the texting problem. This company has developed a small device that can be installed in a car that notifies the cell phone carriers that a particular cell phone is being used by a driver of the vehicle.

In a forum Thursday night between the candidates for Dane County?s top job, economic development was what everyone was talking about. The five candidates in attendance talked about how to protect vital social services, hold the line on taxes, stimulate the economy and produce more jobs. Candidate Zach Brandon said the county needs to grow its economy and create the right jobs ? not just jobs for people who make $100,000 a year or are UW graduates. “Leadership doesn?t mean waiting to see what (Gov.) Scott Walker does.”

With budget cuts likely for county and university services throughout the next several years, the candidates for the highest office in Dane County have a wide range of opinions on how the county should interact with the University of Wisconsin.

Nasser Abufarha was sipping coffee at a Madison (Wis.) café called Michelangelo?s a few years back when it dawned on him how he might help struggling olive growers in his native Palestine. If the crowd could derive virtuous pleasure from mugs of “fair trade” organic coffee, they might be convinced of the superiority of organic oil pressed from West Bank olives.

Abufarha, a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, wrapped up his dissertation on suicide bombers and headed home to the West Bank. The olive farming industry there was in a shambles. Yields were low due to poor soil treatment, and farmers were barely breaking even?leading many to abandon their fields and migrate to Palestinian cities, where unemployment hovered around 40 percent.

It?s been three years since the Madison City Council passed an ordinance intended to gradually reduce the number of downtown bars and liquor stores and therefore crime, but while crime has indeed dropped, neither proponents nor opponents of the ordinance are able to definitely say why.

AquaMost, a Madison company with a new type of water purification system developed through UW-Madison research, has obtained $1 million from investors, including Wisconsin Investment Partners, Madison, and the Golden Angels Network, Milwaukee.

Greyhound Express will begin service at the University of Wisconsin?s Memorial Union at 800 Langdon Street starting Monday, Jan. 17. The new bus stop provides passengers a more centralized location for departures and arrivals. Greyhound Express provides direct service to six Midwest cities.

Whenever I?m sad or sick I still want my mom. Over the years I?ve often wondered if this need for mom will dissipate as I grow older. Yet it hasn?t, and I?m convinced that on some level we all go on wanting our mothers in times of need for our entire lives, no matter how far away we live and no matter how different we are. In search of a change in my life, my dog Yoda and I embarked on our road trip over 2 months ago. The road has brought me tears, lessons, exciting new experiences, new friends, adventures I never imagined possible, and, just in time for Thanksgiving, it brought me Mom.

Mentioned: Babcock ice cream, Babcock Dairy Plant and Memorial Union

Madison and a coalition of community partners have far surpassed a clean energy goal of reducing carbon emissions city wide by 100,000 tons over four years, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz announced Wednesday. The coalition, known as MPower, includes Madison Gas & Electric, UW-Madison, Sustain Dane, UW-Extension and others, and documented eliminating 324,443 metric tons of carbon monoxide since the initiative was launched in 2007, Cieslewicz said in a statement.