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Wednesday, July 18, 2007
After a rare all-night session, the United States Senate voted today at 11 a.m. EST on the motion to invoke cloture of the Levin/Reed Amendment (S.Amdt. 2087) which would begin a pullout of United States troops from Iraq, but only 52 votes were cast in favor of the amendment and 47 were cast against it, falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the Republican filibuster of the measure.
Cots were brought in for the Senators to catch snatches of sleep during the long night, while some slept at their Washington, D.C. apartments for short periods of time. Pizza was brought in for senators to eat. Seven Democrats left the Senate floor to join a candlelight vigil held outside across the street from Congress.
Had the bill passed, troops would have left Iraq 120 days after the vote, and would have been out of the country by April of 2008.
Four Republican critics of the war — both of Maine’s senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, together with Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon — voted for the proposal. Collins’ was a surprise vote; although a critic, she has not been favorable toward the deadline approach. Joe Lieberman, the Independent Democrat senator from Connecticut, who caucuses with Democrats, voted with Republicans against the motion, as he has done with all Iraq war legislation this year.
Last night during the all-night senate debate, Democratic Majority Leader from Nevada, Harry Reid, asked that the Senate vote on the bill this morning. He later voted no on the motion in order to take advantage of Senate rules to reintroduce the measure.
After the motion failed, Reid proposed that the Senate look at a series of Iraq proposals, including the failed plan, and make them subject to a simple majority vote. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader from Kentucky objected, and Reid withdrew the legislation from the floor. The Senate then moved on to discussing student loans and grants.
Throughout the night, the Senators took turns speaking in front of a large sign printed “Let Us Vote”, speaking in favor of the amendment and against the Republicans for not allowing a simple majority vote. Republicans took turns decrying it, noting that Democrats did the same when they were the minority, and criticizing Democratic leaders.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Gay Talese wants to go to Iraq. “It so happens there is someone that’s working on such a thing right now for me,” the 75-year-old legendary journalist and author told David Shankbone. “Even if I was on Al-Jazeera with a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be pleading with those bastards! I’d say, ‘Go ahead. Make my day.'”
Few reporters will ever reach the stature of Talese. His 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, was not only cited by The Economist as the greatest profile of Sinatra ever written, but is considered the greatest of any celebrity profile ever written. In the 70th anniversary issue of Esquire in October 2003, the editors declared the piece the “Best Story Esquire Ever Published.”
Talese helped create and define a new style of literary reporting called New Journalism. Talese himself told National Public Radio he rejects this label (“The term new journalism became very fashionable on college campuses in the 1970s and some of its practitioners tended to be a little loose with the facts. And that’s where I wanted to part company.”)
He is not bothered by the Bancrofts selling The Wall Street Journal—”It’s not like we should lament the passing of some noble dynasty!”—to Rupert Murdoch, but he is bothered by how the press supported and sold the Iraq War to the American people. “The press in Washington got us into this war as much as the people that are controlling it,” said Talese. “They took information that was second-hand information, and they went along with it.” He wants to see the Washington press corp disbanded and sent around the country to get back in touch with the people it covers; that the press should not be so focused on–and in bed with–the federal government.
Augusten Burroughs once said that writers are experience junkies, and Talese fits the bill. Talese–who has been married to Nan Talese (she edited James Frey‘s Million Little Piece) for fifty years–can be found at baseball games in Cuba or the gay bars of Beijing, wanting to see humanity in all its experience.
Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with Gay Talese.
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Glen Stollery is a New Zealand website developer who created the site ScienTOMogy.info in mid 2005. The site, which is a parody of Tom Cruise and his involvement with the Church of Scientology, became the centre of controversy when it was served with a number of cease and desist orders initiated by the Church. On March 19, 2006, Glen issued a media release stating that his web hosting provider, YouTube, had removed videos of Tom Cruise which formed part of the site. The release suggested that YouTube had taken this action under external pressure from Cruise or Viacom.
Responding to a query by Wikinews reporters, YouTube stated “We have not received a DMCA notification letter from Viacom.” The Church of Scientology was offered the opportunity to respond to the claims made by Stollery during the interview. No reply was received.
This exclusive interview deals with these issues and others relating to the website. It was conducted with Glen via email between March 21 and April 3, 2006.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
United Kingdom blogger and cancer charity fundraiser Stephen Sutton has died today at the age of 19.
Sutton, himself a cancer sufferer, gained media attention in the UK for his fundraising activities for Teenage Cancer Trust, which have raised more than £3.3 million (US$5.5 million or €4 million) for the charity. Sutton’s original goal was £10,000 (US$16,800 or €12,200) for the charity. His mother said he died in his sleep during the early hours of this morning.
| Stephen Sutton was the most inspiring person I’ve ever met and touched more lives than he will ever know | ||
Sutton’s mother broke the news in a post on ‘Stephen’s story’, the Facebook page launched in January 2013 in which Sutton documented events in his life. “My heart is bursting with pride but breaking with pain for my courageous, selfless, inspirational son”, she wrote. “The ongoing support and outpouring of love for Stephen will help greatly at this difficult time, in the same way as it helped Stephen throughout his journey. We all know he will never be forgotten, his spirit will live on, in all that he achieved and shared with so many.” Previous posts on the Facebook page spoke of Sutton’s deteriorating condition. Yesterday a post on the same Facebook page said: “Unfortunately in the last 24 hours Stephen’s condition has deteriorated to where he can no longer communicate through this page himself. Unfortunately the breathlessness which had him re-admitted to hospital is due to the regrowth of tumours which are blocking his airways, and not just due to infection as we had all been hoping.” However, the update also said he was “comfortable and stable”.
Sutton, from the town of Burntwood in the West Midlands of England, was told he was suffering from a metastatic colorectal cancer at the age of 15. On a JustGiving page, Sutton explained why he was raising money for his chosen charity. “Teenage Cancer Trust have helped me hugely throughout my own cancer battle and helped shape who I am and my positive attitude today”, he said. “They offer hope and a sense of community to young people with cancer like myself, and directly help face associated pragmatic and emotional issues.” His fundraising efforts received widespread media attention, part of which was due to a thumbs up image of himself he posted on the Facebook page in April, which he then believed would be his last. Sutton’s campaign received numerous celebrity endorsements, including from Stephen Fry, Russell Brand and Simon Cowell. Comedian Jason Manford also arranged comedy gigs to assist with Sutton’s campaign.
On Twitter today, the Teenage Cancer Trust said: “We are humbled and hugely grateful for what Stephen achieved and continues to achieve for us.” British Prime Minister tweeted: “His spirit, bravery and fundraising for cancer research were all an inspiration.” Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband said on the social networking site: “His bravery & determination to live life to the full was an inspiration to us all.” Jason Manford paid his own tribute to Sutton. “Stephen Sutton was the most inspiring person I’ve ever met and touched more lives than he will ever know”, he said. “He was an incredibly positive young man and a credit to his family, to Burntwood and to humanity itself. The reason we took to him so passionately was because he was better than us, he did something that none of us could even imagine doing. In his darkest hour he selflessly dedicated his final moments to raising millions of pounds for teenagers with cancer. Some of Stephen’s words will stay with me and others forever and they are words to live by — ‘life isn’t measured in time, it’s measured in achievements’.”
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Several reports indicate that the ousted fugitive ex-Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, is to again become involved in the country’s politics. He is scheduled to give another phone-in address from abroad on December 14 to supporters at the national Suphachalasai Stadium.
People’s Power Party (PPP) MP, and spokesman for the pro-government “Truth Today” roadshow Jatuporn Promphan said, “Thaksin will no longer wait to be attacked, he will fight back by all means, particularly with an eye-for-an-eye strategy, from now on. Thaksin now believes that the only way for him to survive and to live is to fight for his name”.
Currently in exile and facing a two year jail term should he return to Thailand, Thaksin informed lawyers from his current residence in Dubai that he would not appeal the conviction for corruption in the Ratchadapisek land deal. While lawyers claim to have prepared the needed paperwork to challenge the conviction, the deadline to do so is today.
| Thaksin will no longer wait to be attacked, he will fight back by all means, particularly with an eye-for-an-eye strategy | ||
According to the Bangkok Post, a return to politics by the ex-PM has caused some concern among PPP government members over the divisions this could cause within the country. Thaksin still enjoys a great deal of support from the rural poor in the country’s North-East where the populist policies of his now-outlawed Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party helped win a majority. His most vocal critics, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have now occupied Government House in Bangkok for over three months.
The close association of the ruling PPP with the former premier has given them their own set of problems. The party is actively contesting a case in the country’s supreme court that could see it dissolved. The case centres around allegations of vote buying and the party’s former deputy leader, Yongyuth Tiyapairat, stands accused of paying village heads for votes. The PPP disputes that this was a party action as opposed to the independent actions of Yongyuth and the other accused. A ruling on the fraud from last December’s election is expected soon.
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Critics of the government claim that it is simply a front for the ex-PM and his dissolved party. The yellow-shirted PAD protesters at Government House assert that current Prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law, is merely a proxy for the controversial ex-leader.
Prosecution of Thaksin on other charges, which he maintains are politically motivated, continues; the supreme court is expected to hold a hearing next month on accusations that he is ‘unusually rich’. This relates to the sale of the family’s stake in Shin Corporation to Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singapore government. Assets worth 76 billion baht (US$ 2.2 billion) are currently frozen over this issue. The ex-PM escaped impeachment over the tax-free sale of Shin in February 2006. Thai media reports that an amicable divorce of Thaksin and his wife Pojaman in Hong Kong will have no bearing on the case or asset seizure. Despite the split last week neither can return to Thailand without facing imprisonment; Potjam was earlier successfully prosecuted and given a three year sentence.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
This year’s Leisure Taiwan trade show (a.k.a Taiwan Sport Recreation and Leisure Show) started yesterday, with 131 companies participating including sports media companies such as ESPN and VideoLand Television, businesses selling sports equipment and fitness clubs.
There were also a variety of sports being played in the arena built for the trade show. The events included a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, free style shooting, and bicycle test-riding. In addition, conferences discussed issues related to sports and physical education.
A major topic in the trade show was energy-efficiency and, as a result, bicycles and similar sports equipment were being heavily promoted.
Next Tuesday, companies from the electronics industry plan to promote their industry at “2008 Digital E-Park.” In previous years, organizations from the electronics industry have showcased their products at Leisure Taiwan instead of at the Digital E-Park, so this move has reduced the number of markets covered by Leisure Taiwan.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
A recent study by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) shows that the oil and gas industry are creating earthquakes. New information from the Midwest region of the United States points out that these man-made earthquakes are happening more frequently than expected. While more frequent earthquakes are less of a problem for regions like the Midwest, a geology professor from the University of Southern Indiana, Dr. Paul K. Doss, believes the disposal of wastewater from the hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) process used in extracting oil and gas has the possibility to pose potential problems for groundwater.
“We are taking this fluid that has a whole host of chemicals in it that are useful for fracking and putting it back into the Earth,” Doss said. “From a purely seismic perspective these are not big earthquakes that are going to cause damage or initiate, as far as we know, any larger kinds of earthquakes activity for Midwest. [The issue] is a water quality issue in terms of the ground water resources that we use.”
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique used by the oil and gas industries which inject highly pressurized water down into the Earth’s crust to break rock and extract natural gas. Most of the fluids used for fracking are proprietary, so information about what chemicals are used in the various fluids are unknown to the public and to create a competitive edge.
Last Monday four researchers from the University of New Brunswick released an editorial that sheds light on the potential risks that the current wastewater disposal system could have on the province’s water resources. The researchers share the concern that Dr. Doss has and have come out to say that they believe fracking should be stopped in the province until there is an environmentally safe way to dispose the waste wastewater.
“If groundwater becomes contaminated, it takes years to decades to try to clean up an aquifer system,” University of New Brunswick professor Tom Al said.
While the USGS group which conducted the study says it is unclear how the earthquake rates may be related to oil and gas production, they’ve made the correlation between the disposal of wastewater used in fracking and the recent upsurge in earthquakes. Because of the recent information surfacing that shows this connection between the disposal process and earthquakes, individual states in the United States are now passing laws regarding disposal wells.
| The problem is that we have never, as a human society, engineered a hole to go four miles down in the Earth’s crust that we have complete confidence that it won’t leak. | ||
“The problem is that we have never, as a human society, engineered a hole to go four miles down in the Earth’s crust that we have complete confidence that it won’t leak,” Doss said. “A perfect case-in-point is the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010, that oil was being drilled at 18,000 feet but leaked at the surface. And that’s the concern because there’s no assurance that some of these unknown chemical cocktails won’t escape before it gets down to where they are trying to get rid of them.”
It was said in the study released by the New Brunswick University professors that if fracking wastewater would contaminate groundwater, that current conventional water treatment would not be sufficient enough to remove the high concentration of chemicals used in fracking. The researchers did find that the wastewater could be recycled, can also be disposed of at proper sites or even pumped further underground into saline aquifers.
The New Brunswick professors have come to the conclusion that current fracking methods used by companies, which use the water, should be replaced with carbon dioxide or liquefied propane gas.
“You eliminate all the water-related issues that we’re raising, and that people have raised in general across North America,” Al said.
In New Brunswick liquefied propane gas has been used successfully in fracking some wells, but according to water specialist with the province’s Natural Resources Department Annie Daigle, it may not be the go-to solution for New Brunswick due its geological makeup.
“It has been used successfully by Corridor Resources here in New Brunswick for lower volume hydraulic fracturing operations, but it is still a fairly new technology,” Daigle said.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working with U.S. states to come up with guidelines to manage seismic risks due to wastewater. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA is the organization that also deals with the policies for wells.
Oil wells, which are under regulation, pump out salt water known as brine, and after brine is pumped out of the ground it’s disposed of by being pumped back into the ground. The difference between pumping brine and the high pressurized fracking fluid back in the ground is the volume that it is disposed of.
“Brine has never caused this kind of earthquake activity,” Doss said. “[The whole oil and gas industry] has developed around the removal of natural gas by fracking techniques and has outpaced regulatory development. The regulation is tied to the ‘the run-of-the-mill’ disposal of waste, in other words the rush to produce this gas has occurred before regulatory agencies have had the opportunity to respond.”
According to the USGS study, the increase in injecting wastewater into the ground may explain the sixfold increase of earthquakes in the central part of the United States from 2000 – 2011. USGS researchers also found that in decades prior to 2000 seismic events that happened in the midsection of the U.S. averaged 21 annually, in 2009 it spiked to 50 and in 2011 seismic events hit 134.
“The incredible volumes and intense disposal of fracking fluids in concentrated areas is what’s new,” Doss said. “There is not a body of regulation in place to manage the how these fluids are disposed of.”
The study by the USGS was presented at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America on April 18, 2012.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Jack Diesing Sr., former chairman of the College World Series has died at the age of 92. His son announced the cause of death as complications from Parkinson’s disease. Diesing was chairman of the series from 1963 until 2002.
Diesing helped the tournament become one of the most successful college events in the United States. He became chairman in 1963 after his boss at Brandies department store died and passed on his duties to Diesing, one of which was the chairman role.
Before taking the role the series had only made a profit in five of its fourteen years. Under Diesing’s leadership the series never made a loss. During his time as chairman he also negotiated a long term contract with the NCAA and lengthened the series from 5 to 10 games.
Diesing’s son, Jack Diesing Jr., released a statement on his fathers death saying “My dad will be missed by a lot of people, but he won’t be forgotten”. He continued to say that his goals were to make “Omaha a better community” and to secure the “CWS to mantain its legacy”.
At the time of his death Diesing was still chairman emeritus of College World Series of Omaha Inc., a non-profit organization that helped with the coordination of the series.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Daily Star, a tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom, has paid an undisclosed amount of libel damages to Ozzy Osbourne stemming from an inaccurate representation of his appearance at the Brit Awards.
Osbourne, famous for both his solo rock career and fronting the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, was hosting the show alongside wife Sharon and children Jack and Kelly. In an ensuing Star article titled “Ozzy Freak Show”, the 59-year old was portrayed as suffering from health problems that rendered his ability to host the show questionable.
The article claimed that he had collapsed twice before the show began, prompting the show’s organisers to enter emergency talks debating whether Osbourne was fit to continue as planned or instead should be withdrawn and hospitalised. It also reported that the singer had used an electric buggy to move around behind the scenes and had been designated a place to sit in case he felt tired. All of these allegations were found to be false.
At the settlement in London’s High Court, at which the Osbournes were not present, Kate Wilson, representing Express Newspapers, apologised for the article and accepted that it should never have been published. Express Newspapers owns the Daily Star.
Osbourne says that the money will go to his wife’s charity, the Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program.
