Suspended wide receiver Chris Rainey took the first step on the way to rejoining No. 7 Florida on Monday, accepting a deferred prosecution agreement from the state attorney.

Rainey’s third-degree felony stalking charge was reduced to a misdemeanor, and the lesser charge will be dropped if he stays out of trouble, pays a $50 fine, undergoes counseling and either performs 10 hours of community service or donates $100 to charity.

Rainey’s legal troubles began Sept. 14 when he sent a text message to an ex-girlfriend that read, partially, “Time to Die [expletive].”

State attorney Bill Cervone said in a statement that probable cause supported the felony charge but the fact that Rainey was never in position to act on his threat made the crime a misdemeanor.

“The victim has, in fact, essentially stated that she was more annoyed than threatened and that she did not want an arrest or prosecution, only the resolution of an immediate problem,” Cervone said.

The victim released an accompanying statement encouraging others to take a stand against violence but explaining her case as blown out of proportion. She also chastised the case’s handling by the media.

“We felt this was a private, personal matter and did not want it to become the media frenzy that it has become,” the victim said. “The lack of sensitivity to our privacy has been disturbing, and we ask that our privacy be respected moving forward. We are in full support of the decision made by the state attorney.”

Rainey still has a few hurdles to clear before he gets back on the field. UF coach Urban Meyer said the redshirt junior will not be with the Gators this weekend against No. 1 Alabama.

“He’s not part of the team,” Meyer said.

Meyer expects Demps back: Meyer said running back Jeff Demps is wearing a protective boot after injuring his left foot against Kentucky. Demps had hurt the same foot a week earlier at Tennessee, and Meyer said an X-ray of his leading rusher showed a sprain.

“I took a deep breath on the sideline when they said they were going to get it scanned, but it came back negative (for a fracture),” Meyer said. “I think we are     going to have Demps,” he added.

Burton picks up SEC honors: Trey Burton’s performance in The Swamp against Kentucky on Saturday was bound to earn him some accolades.

On Monday, Burton was named SEC Freshman of the Week for his six-touchdown night, a school-record performance that left Meyer praising his multi-talented newcomer.

“I think the important thing with a guy like Trey is that his football IQ is off the charts,” Meyer said. “You say, ‘Trey, I want you to do this,’ and he does it. It might sound easy, but in the heat of a battle and in practice learning so many things, that’s hard for a young player.”

Burton said he spent most of his time since the game at home rather than soaking in his newfound celebrity, but his fans found him anyway.

“I can’t add any more friends on Facebook,” Burton said. “For some reason, they have a limit.”

The Large Hadron Collider, located at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, according to CERN’s official website.

Last Friday, David Gross, director and holder of the Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, spoke about the potential impact the LHC could have on the field of physics in his lecture title “The Coming Revolution in Fundamental Physics.”

The LHC will provide incite into a theory that the weak and strong nuclear forces, electromagnetic force and gravity will become equal in strength at a certain, very high, energy level, according to Gross.

“A very important clue which we hold on to with dear life is that the forces are going to be unified,” Gross said. “[That] they actually are all the same strength and naturally fit together at very high energy.”

But even if the unification theory is correct, the LHC will not provide concrete evidence of its existence because it cannot generate enough power to unify the forces, according to Gross. “Energy scale unification is many many orders of magnitude shorter distance, higher energy than where we do observation. The LHC takes us a little bit to higher energy but still a long way away from here [the energy scale unification].”

But even with the energy scale unification out of reach, Gross has hopes the LHC will give some concrete answers.

“We hope to discover something very monumental at the LHC and that’s called ‘Supersymmetry,'” Gross said. “A new and different kind of symmetry which some of us believe will be shortly discovered in Geneva.”

Supersymmetry is a theory that says for every type of one particle (a boson) there is a particle of the same mass and internal quantum numbers (a fermion) that spins a different way, according to Gross.

Supersymmetry may be the key to reconciling quantum mechanics and general relativity, according to Hitoshi Murayama, the newly appointed Director of the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at University of Tokyo.

Peter Palmer, a UConn Alumni graduating with a Physics degree, said that he was skeptical that the LHC will deliver on all the questions scientists are saying it will solve.

“They will find some answers but might not be to problems they were trying to solve,” Gross said. “We are always looking deeper into matter and I don’t see that we are at the bottom yet. CERN has taken a step but it is not yet to that to that provable position yet.”

A football program the caliber of Ohio State expects a trip to the national championship game nearly every year.

Coming off a victory in the Rose Bowl, being picked to win the Big Ten once again and holding the No. 2 ranking in the Associated Press and Coaches’ polls make those expectations as realistic as ever this season.

With all the hype surrounding the Buckeyes, some fans are ready to book their tickets to Tempe, Ariz., for the title game. Though the team is in a favorable position, there are some reasons fans might prefer to hold off on calling their travel agents.

1. Special teams problems

Any discussion of the Buckeyes’ shortcomings must include special teams play. The problem goes back to the end of the 2009 season when big returns by Iowa and Oregon allowed them to remain in games that OSU could have put away.

It appeared to worsen this season when Miami returned a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns in a game that the Buckeye offense and defense thoroughly dominated.

“Can you win typically if that happens? No,” coach Jim Tressel said. “They know we’ve got to get better at that.”

Short, low kickoffs have resulted in only four touchbacks this season, three of which came against Eastern Michigan. The problem has been compounded by the team’s missed lane assignments, Tressel said.

Special teams are usually a point of pride for a Tressel-coached team, and he is pulling out all the stops by using starters on coverage teams.

2. Lack of secondary depth

Injuries to starting cornerbacks Chimdi Chekwa and Devon Torrence and second-stringers Travis Howard and Nate Oliver have forced them to miss time. Starting safety C.J. Barnett suffered a season-ending injury in the opener.

The injuries have placed inexperienced players in significant roles.

“Younger guys are coming in (with) a lot of things going through their mind,” safety Jermale Hines said. “We’ve just got to try to talk to them and slow them down as the game goes on.”

The inexperience of the backups was exposed to a degree against Eastern Michigan. The Eagles, winless since Nov. 28, 2008, had five pass plays of 20 yards or more against the Buckeyes.

“When a guy comes out there for the first time and hasn’t been playing with the same people, sometimes those situations occur,” safety Tyler Moeller said.

3. Lack of offensive balance

Championship-caliber teams usually feature a balance of run and pass on offense. So far this season, the Buckeyes have been pass-happy.

Over the last three games, Brandon Saine and Dan Herron, the team’s top two tailbacks, have averaged just 72 yards on the ground combined. Against Miami, the only BCS conference opponent OSU has played, the pair averaged just 2.8 yards per carry.

Tressel attributed the problem more to the opponent’s game plan than to his team’s deficiencies.

“There are some times when they can bring one more guy, and it’s going to be harder” to run, he said.

Past evidence suggests this concern might take care of itself. Through two games last year, the team averaged just 3.5 yards per carry but finished the season at 4.5 yards per rush.

4. Big Ten road schedule

Six of Tressel’s nine career Big Ten losses have come on the road.

This season, the Buckeyes face both Iowa and Wisconsin, the teams picked to finish second and third, respectively, in the conference, away from home.

With Iowa dropping an out-of-conference game to Arizona, Wisconsin might be the most serious threat remaining on OSU’s schedule. Tressel is 3-2 against the Badgers, his worst record against any conference opponent.

The coach is aware of his challenge.

“It’s going to be a physical next couple of months,” Tressel said. “Now we’ll find out how good we are.”

5. Three undefeated BCS teams

Though ranked No. 2, an undefeated season does not ensure the Buckeyes a trip to the title game.

An undefeated Boise State team, ranked No. 3, might not jump OSU in the rankings because of strength of schedule. But if No. 1 Alabama and another BCS conference team also have perfect records, being left out of the championship game becomes a real possibility.

That situation becomes more likely if the third team is from the Big 12, a conference with a championship game. If, for example, Nebraska and Oklahoma go undefeated and meet in their conference’s title game, it’s possible that the Buckeyes would be jumped in the polls by the winner.

Regardless, Tressel is not concerned with impressing the voters.

“We’ve always said that if we could be successful in our league … that we’ll have enough style,” he said, “and you’ll see where you land.”

President Barack Obama told college students on Monday not to set their life goals any lower despite a challenging economy, and urged the college-aged population that catapulted him to victory in 2008 to support Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.

Obama took four questions from student journalists in the conference call that touched on student loans, the economy, health care and public school affordability.

“Don’t let anybody tell you that somehow your dreams are going to be constrained going forward,” Obama said, arguing that citizens of the Great Depression rebounded to make the nation’s economy stronger than ever. “Right now we’re going through a tough time but I have no doubt that you guys are going to be successful.”

The president opened by saying that the country had “fallen behind” the rest of the world in education. One goal, which Obama introduced in the 2009 State of the Union address, is to reclaim America’s position as the country with the highest proportion of college graduates by making college more affordable, strengthening community colleges and improving graduation rates.

“It’s up to students to finish, but we can help remove some barriers, especially those who are earning degrees while working or raising families,” Obama said, adding that the post-9/11 G.I. bill and health care legislation that keeps students on their parents’ health care plans until they turn 26 are keys to college affordability.

When asked how to combat the rising costs to attend public schools, the president remarked that some institutions seem to be too concerned about building the nicest athletic facilities and food courts instead of focusing on education.

“You’re not going to a university to join a spa; you’re going there to learn so that you can have a fulfilling career,” Obama said. “And if all the amenities of a public university start jacking up the cost of tuition significantly, that’s a problem.”

The president acknowledged that many who voted for him may feel that the change he promised is not happening fast enough. Obama said that as he has battled Republicans to get his legislative programs passed “some of the excitement and enthusiasm started to drain away.”

“Change is always hard in this country. It doesn’t happen overnight. You take two steps forward, you take one step back,” he said. “This is a big, complicated democracy. It’s contentious. It’s not always fun and games.”

On that note, Obama tried to rally younger voters for the midterm elections in November that many are predicting will be rough for Democrats.

“You can’t suddenly just check in once every 10 years or so, on an exciting presidential election, and then not pay attention during big midterm elections where we’ve got a real big choice between Democrats and Republicans,” he said.

Boston U. freshman Meagan Bernatchez, who supported Obama in 2008 even though she wasn’t old enough to vote, said it was unlikely that college students would be as enthusiastic in this election.

“I think it’s really hard to rally people for something that’s less well-known,” she said.

Bernatchez said many Americans have been too quick to judge the president.

“In his campaign he ran on ‘change everything’ and there’s no way you can possibly live up to that,” she said

Liza Townsend, also a BU freshman, agreed Obama deserves more time.

“You can’t judge his progress until he’s had his full term,” she said. “He came in at kind of a hard time.”

The Big Ten is finished with expansion – for now.

In an exclusive interview with The Lantern earlier this month, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said the conference would only consider adding schools that contacted the league, not vice versa.

“We’re done with it,” Smith said. “We’re finished. The only thing that would cause us to look at it further is if someone contacted us. So, we’re not going to go out and say we’re thinking about expansion.”

Although the Big Ten won’t aggressively pursue potential additions, Smith said he expects other universities to seek inclusion into the conference.

“We think there are some schools that are going to try to talk to some conferences,” he said. “But we’re not actively out looking at expansion. After our October meetings, that’s going to be the last we talk about it.”

In October 2009, the league announced its intentions to explore expansion during a 12- to 18-month period. Nebraska left the Big 12 to join the Big Ten on June 12, 2010.

Smith said the league will continue to operate under its original timeline, and once details about scheduling and the conference-title game are hammered out in next week’s meetings, expansion will be a topic of the past.

That is, unless another school wants in.

The right schools could add to the quality of the Big Ten Network, which Smith said has driven the conference’s pursuit of expansion. According to a report by the Associated Press earlier this month, the network turned a 30 percent profit last year.

“The growth of the Big Ten Network was significantly faster than any of us projected,” Smith said. “It’s highly profitable, beyond what we thought at this particular time. We knew it was going to be successful. … But with that growth you have to sit back and say, ‘OK, how do we continue that growth? What things can we add to it?'”

With the advent of 3-D TV and incessant improvements being made to high-definition quality, the TV market has emerged as college football’s most lucrative outlet. Smith said athletic directors and presidents are channeling their efforts toward maximizing TV’s role in their respective conferences.

Adding a 12th team allowed the Big Ten to institute a conference championship game beginning next year, a national spectacle that should generate about $15 million to $20 million, Smith said.

“As television changes, and all the mediums change for communication, the conferences have to shift in order to maximize revenue opportunities off of them,” Smith said. “When you get down to it, it’s about more inventory, more games, so that you can provide the television carrier with more product.”

It’s official. Hollywood has finally run out of animals to capitalize on.

They’re really scraping the barrel with this “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.” Owls aren’t necessarily the most heroic of the animal kingdom, let alone the most interesting.

Despite the beast of choice, the ads for this film show a grand level of mastery in animation. Nobody’s here to examine its graphics, though. What we’re here to do is ask that burning question: Is it a good movie?

Can “Legends” succeed on its own merits, defining itself as a proper film without the 3D gimmick? Does the extra dimension make it tolerable? Well, never fear, fellow moviegoers. I have the answer to these questions. No.

No, it’s not original, and no, it is not tolerable.

“Legend of the Guardians” is a tale woven within the mythic culture of a medieval owl kingdom. Soren, a barn owlet with a courageous heart, is kidnapped with his brother Kludd and taken to Saint Aegolius Academy of evil owldom. Among the brainwashed ranks of The Pure Ones (a classically sinister and equally dull enemy troupe), Soren befriends an Elf Owl named Gylfie, and together they escape the ranks of orphaned laborer owls. They have no choice but to abandon the reluctant Kludd, who’s already taken by illusions of false grandeur as a warrior for the wicked Queen Nyra.

With me so far? It turns out that The Pure Ones are led by a dictator villain named Metalbeak, whose sole purpose is to –you guessed it — reign over all of owldom. The fate of their world rests on Soren, with a little help from the legendary guardians of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.

This film was in desperate need of a prologue. I was disoriented geographically and culturally throughout the entire movie, and the ongoing list of otherworldly character names didn’t help the lopsidedness. The various owl demographics created a riddle of confusing action sequences, where you’re left to guess which owl is which. It’s difficult to find a familiar face among a cast of birds that all pretty much look alike.

“Legend” is a masterpiece in animation, and the filmmakers make an impressive effort to ensure you are aware of this. Their acknowledgment of fine detail via slow- motion graphics becomes tiresome and overwhelmingly distracting. As rewarding as it is to notice every dilation of the pupil and flick of the tongue, the bombardment of slow-motion sequences counter-intuitively causes extreme overexposure and desensitization to the visual trick.

Layering this misused element with poor editing, awkward sense of timing, predictable script and clunky plot results in a cinema dud, and an oddly executed mishmash of a kid’s movie. Themes of fellowship, family and fable are all overpowered by the fantasy environment, which emphasizes laughable parallels between the “Legends” plot and other medieval cinema lore (i.e. “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “King Arthur” and “The Lord of the Rings”).

“Legend of the Guardians” is a forgettable addition to Hollywood’s animated film collection, and more aptly serves as a gaudy 3D advertisement than a movie worthy of mention.

Grade: C+

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States government of orchestrating and/or backing the Sept. 11 attacks in order to boost the economy and patriotism, the entire world stared in shock — not just at the ludicrous nature of the remarks, but also the complete lack of dignity and common courtesy for where he was located — New York City.

Ahmadinejad could not have picked a more offensive avenue to deliver his remarks, as it was during his speech at the recent United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.

The remarks come after Obama has made repeated efforts to reach out to the Tehran regime.

Obama has repeatedly offered diplomatic relations to Iran, as long as the country opens its doors to the United Nations’ nuclear inspectors to inspect its nuclear facilities.

Iran has refused, despite saying all of its nuclear facilities are used only for energy.

The remarks also came at a time when the majority of diplomats were making speeches about world poverty, the importance of the Israel-Palestinian peace talks and the world economy.

His remarks, far from the norm at the assembly, were not meant to be constructive in any way.

They were merely hurtful and inflamed Middle Eastern sentiment against America.

Ahmadinejad voiced his comments in a series of “theories” and recommended the United Nations form an investigative panel to examine the facts of the case and investigate the American government.

According to the New York Times, he has used similar tactics in the past when questioning the validity of the Holocaust.

The majority of his speech lacked any factual basis, like the theory that the United States started the attacks as a way to boost the economy (especially since the economy plunged after the attacks).

According to the New York Times, Ahmadinejad’s “comments prompted at least 33 delegations to walk out, including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, all 27 members of the European Union and the union’s representative.”

To those nations who supported the United States in this malicious attack on American character, we thank you.

Thank you for demonstrating to the entire world that outrageous comments like this are not only unacceptable, but also unbelievable.

This lesson was most important after Ahmadinejad stated the majority of American people and other nations believe the American government was behind the attacks.

Hopefully, the fact that so many delegates were brave enough to walk out during the speech was a clear indication to Ahmadinejad that his beliefs are not commonplace. Ahmadinejad’s comments were hurtful, not only to American citizens and those directly affected by the Sept. 11 attacks, but it also damaged relations between the West and the Middle East.

Obama, as well as other government leaders, made it clear that respect was necessary in dealing with the Middle East after the near-Quran burning escapade in September.

And while some (a minority) of American citizens may have disrespected Islam and the Middle East, American government officials and the vast majority of the American public, both secular and Christian, made a national plea for tolerance and understanding.

Ahmadinejad, in his non-factually based comments, is not leading his people in a plea for tolerance or understanding, but exactly the opposite.

He is leading the way for anti-American and anti-West sentiment.

Ahmadinejad disregarded caution, ignoring common diplomatic traditions and courtesy, the already volatile situation in the Middle East and Obama’s request for better Iranian-American relations in a deplorable stab at American character and culture.

Ahmadinejad could not have proven his immaturity and lack of political savvy in a more perfect way.

Today, worries about inflation are justifiably widespread. In the past, there was a check in place to prevent inflation from spiraling out of control: sound money. Unlike the Federal Reserve Notes used in our daily transactions today, which are actually nothing but pieces of paper, sound money is backed by a commodity, usually gold. The advantages of sound money over fiat paper money are numerous.

Simply stated, gold is highly valued by people – paper is not. The more Federal Reserve Notes in circulation, the less each individual note is worth. Inevitably, in order to finance the government’s ever-growing welfare state and its increasing interventions overseas, the Fed will be forced to print more money. How does this impact you? As the Fed prints more money, you will be able to buy less and less with a one-dollar bill until you won’t be able to buy anything. As the French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire noted, “Paper money always returns to its intrinsic value – zero.”

Although the value of gold can decrease, gold will never be worth zero. As long as people continue to regard gold as an extremely valuable metal, a gold-backed currency will always have some intrinsic value.

A gold standard means each dollar bill would be backed by gold. Thus, our currency would be worth more than it is today, and the purchasing power of a dollar bill would be higher than it is today. People would afford more goods and our country’s overall standard of living would improve considerably.

Furthermore, a gold standard would restore the American ideal of limited government by providing a check on inflation. As Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman note in “The Case for Gold,” there is a fixed amount of gold in the world; consequently, only so much money could be printed. Unless politicians wanted to commit political suicide by raising taxes, unconstitutional government programs would inevitably have to end. For instance, there would be no money to fund unnecessary wars that weaken our national defense. Likewise, entitlement programs and corporate welfare programs that unjustly punish the judicious and reward the irresponsible would have to end.

If the United States adopted sound money, the term “dollar” would be defined as a fixed quantity of gold. Suppose a dollar was defined as five grams of gold. This would mean that one could go to a bank and exchange a one-dollar bill for five grams of gold, or vice-versa. The beauty of this is that the definition of a dollar would be fixed, and people would have a much more accurate idea of where they stand for the long term.

No longer would the corporate moneyed interests be able to change the definition of the dollar whenever they pleased. No longer would parents have to worry about whether the money they are saving for their children’s college education would hold its value for when they need it. No longer would a college student saving to pay off his or her student loans have to worry about the possibility of his or her money becoming worthless, leaving him or her unable to pay the loans. Opponents of a gold standard argue that a fixed definition of the dollar would not allow for the creation of enough money to accommodate population growth. This argument is nonsense because it accepts population growth without confronting it.

According to the UN, there are almost seven billion people in the world today. By 2050, the world population is expected to be over nine billion. This is unsustainable. Overpopulation is a very real environmental crisis. We need a monetary system that forces people to live within their means by having fewer children, not a system that allows the population to spiral out of control. If we had a gold standard, people would be forced to have fewer children. Without a doubt, we must return to the gold standard.