Thursday, April 5, 2012

In the opening round of the 2012 ANZ Championship this past weekend, the Southern Steel beat the Bay of Plenty Magic in Invercargill, New Zealand by a score of 49–47, while over in Brisbane, Australia, the defending champion Queensland Firebirds lost to the Melbourne Vixens by a score of 47–42. The wins by the Steel and the Vixens are considered by those who follow the netball league to be major upsets.

The Firebirds’ loss this past Sunday was their first in fifteen games extending back to last season. Last season’s championship is not a harbinger of success this season, as every season since the league was founded in 2008, the defending champions have failed to finish in the top four and attempt to repeat their title claim. Going into the game, the teams had played eight games against each other, splitting the record at 4 wins each. The Vixens’ win can be credited to several players including English national team player Geva Mentor, and returning Vixen stars Bianca Chatfield and Julie Corletto. The Firebirds’ loss involved poor shooting and bad passing. Firebird captain Laura Geitz’s quality play could not overcome other difficulties on the court for her team.

In the Magic versus Steel game, the teams were tied at 44–44 with five minutes left in the game. The local crowd were behind the Steel, and they finished the game ahead by two baskets. The Magic’s coach blames the loss partly on not preparing adequately to play against the Steel’s Donna Wilkins, who gave birth to her third child in January of this year. She also partly blames the loss on several errors. Jess Waitapu made her debut for the Magic because teammate Julianna Naoupu had health problems that impacted her ability to play.

On Sunday in Auckland, the favored LG Northern Mystics held on to defeat the Haier Central Pulse 51–47. Silver Ferns member Maria Tutaia was replaced by coach Debbie Fuller in favor of Grace Rasmussen, with Rasmussen making six out of seven shots to help put the game away for her team. The Mystics had six fewer shots than the visiting Pulse, but had a better shooting percentage which proved to be a decisive factor in the game.

In Perth on Monday, the West Coast Fever beat the Easiyo Canterbury Tactix by a score of 55–35. The Tactix were back home in Christchurch on Tuesday. The team’s captain Maree Bowden and coach Leigh Gibbs were disappointed in the team’s performance but believed there were some positives and room for improvement.

The West Coast Fever are the only Australian side in the competition to never have won the league’s championship, with their best ever finish being seventh in the ten-team competition. In September of last year, following the Australian victory at the Netball World Championships held in Singapore in July, the Fever signed Australian national team coach Norma Plummer as the club’s new coach. stuff.co.nz’s Chris Barclay believes this means the Fever have a chance of winning, especially following a pre-season that included two wins, a tie to the Firebirds and a single loss. She has sought to instill a greater sense of discipline in her players, not taking excuses for missing practices with the exception of Australian Diamond Susan Fuhrmann who is recovering from a chronic knee injury. She also sought to improve the Fever’s roster with the inclusion of England national netball team player Eboni Beckford-Chamber and former Swifts player Catherine Cox.

The Tactix are to play the Swifts at home this coming Monday in the second round. They have not beaten an Australian team since 2009. In the third round, the Tactix will play the Steel, in a game stuff.co.nz’s writer Matt Richens believes they can win.

In Adelaide this past Saturday, the Adelaide Thunderbirds beat the NSW Swifts by a score of 57–40.

Australian Diamond goal attack Sharelle McMahon has taken the season off from the Vixens as a result of pregnancy.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

George W. Bush, the president of the United States, yesterday marked the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.

In the East room of the White House, Mr. Bush made a speech to mark the occasion. Mr. Bush started the speech by discussing Mr. Jefferson. “We’re here tonight to commemorate the 265th birthday of Thomas Jefferson, here in a room where he once walked and in a home where he once lived,” he said.

“In this house, President Jefferson spread the word that liberty was the right of every individual,” continued Mr. Bush. “In this house, Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark off on the mission that helped make America a continental nation.”

Mr. Bush continued his speech by claiming that “with a single sentence, Thomas Jefferson changed the history of the world.” Bush continued, “After countless centuries when the powerful and the privileged governed as they pleased, Jefferson proclaimed as a self-evident truth that liberty was a right given to all people by an Almighty.”

Mr. Bush then said that the ideas of Jefferson were not quickly fulfilled. “Here in America, that truth was not fully realized in Jefferson’s own lifetime. As he observed the condition of slaves in America, Jefferson said, ‘I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just’ and ‘that his justice cannot sleep forever.’ Less than 40 years after his death, justice was awakened in America and a new era of freedom dawned.”

Mrs. Bush also made a speech. “Thomas Jefferson believed that education is the cornerstone of a free society, so it’s therefore little surprise that he viewed the founding of the University of Virginia as one of his top achievements,” she said.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

A New Jersey state senator has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn a federal law banning sports betting in 46 states.

State Sen. Raymond Lesniak, a Democrat representing portions of Union County, filed the suit Monday, arguing the 17-year-old law is unconstitutional because it treats four states differently than the other states.

Under the law, sports betting is prohibited in all states except Delaware, Oregon, Montana and Nevada, although only the latter two currently allow wagering.

“This federal law deprives the State of New Jersey of over $100 million of yearly revenues, as well as depriving our casinos, racetracks and Internet operators of over $500 million in gross income,” Lesniak said in a statement to the press.

The 39-page lawsuit is believed to be the first challenge to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. New Jersey missed a 1994 deadline that would have allowed it to join the other states when the law was implemented.

Atlantic City officials and their political allies have argued allowing sports betting would give all the states a new source of revenue needed in the face of a staggering recession.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was not involved with the lawsuit, but he said legalizing sports betting would help Atlantic City and said it was “worth pursuing”.

Legalizing sports betting in New Jersey could bring the state more than $50 million in annual tax revenue, according to officials from the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consultant for the electronic gaming industry, which joined Lesniak as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

“This is about more than revenue,” said Joe Brennan Jr., chairman of Interactive Media Entertainment. “It’s about jobs and economic activity.”According to 1999 study, $380 billion in illegal sports betting occurs in the state each year.

New Jersey, in particular, is facing a difficult budget season, and the Atlantic City casinos are in what the Associated Press called a “financial meltdown”. Eleven of the city’s casinos suffered their biggest revenue decline in 30 years last month.

Delaware is reported to be considering regulating sports betting, which New Jersey backers of the lawsuit said adds a sense of urgency to the issue.

“We cannot afford to be naive about illegal sports betting,” New Jersey State Sen. Jeff Van Drew said in a statement to the press. “It’s happening right now, and is funding other criminal enterprises which are far more dangerous.”

The New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, the Thoroughbred Breeders Association of New Jersey and the Standardbred Breeders & Owners Association of New Jersey were also listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The United States House of Representatives has passed The Affordable Health Care for America Act or HR 3962, a bill which would ensure that 95–96% of US citizens receive affordable health care.

HR 3962 was passed with 220 yeas and 215 nays. Democrats in the house needed at least 218 votes to pass the bill. 39 Democrats voted against the bill, which contained the Stupak amendment. This amendment curtailed women’s abortion rights. One Republican, Representative Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted for the bill.

The US Senate has drafted their own health care bill, S. 1679. It is not yet known when the Senate will vote on their version of the bill, but in the end both versions must be merged into one with both the House and Senate voting again.

The health care program associated with HR 3962 is estimated to cost over US$1 trillion over ten years, according to the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who states that it will result in “[…] not one dime added to the deficit.”

US President Barack Obama says that he is “confident” that the Senate will be able to come to an agreement and pass a completed bill. Obama added that he hopes to sign a “comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year.”

Monday, March 20, 2006

Fears of contaminated bone and skin grafts are being felt by unsuspecting patients following the revelation that funeral homes may have been looting corpses.

Janet Evans of Marion, Ohio was told by her surgeon, “The bone grafts you got might have been contaminated”. She reacted with shock, “I was flabbergasted because I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I didn’t know I got a bone graft until I got this call. I just thought they put in screws and rods.”

The body of Alistair Cooke, the former host of Masterpiece Theatre, was supposedly looted along with more than 1,000 others, according to two law enforcement officials close to the case. The tissue taken was typically skin, bone and tendon, which was then sold for use in procedures such as dental implants and hip replacements. According to authorities, millions of dollars were made by selling the body parts to companies for use in operations done at hospitals and clinics in the United States and Canada.

A New Jersey company, Biomedical Tissue Services, has reportedly been taking body parts from funeral homes across Brooklyn, New York. According to ABC News, they set up rooms like a “surgical suite.” After they took the bones, they replaced them with PVC pipe. This was purportedly done by stealth, without approval of the deceased person or the next of kin. 1,077 bodies were involved, say prosecutors.

Investagators say a former dentist, Michael Mastromarino, is behind the operation. Biomedical was considered one of the “hottest procurement companies in the country,” raking in close to $5 million. Eventually, people became worried: “Can the donors be trusted?” A tissue processing company called LifeCell answered no, and issued a recall on all their tissue.

Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge, said, “To know his bones were sold was one thing, but to see him standing truncated before me is another entirely.” Now thousands of people around the country are receiving letters warning that they should be tested for infectious diseases like HIV or hepatitis. On February 23, the Brooklyn District Attorney indicted Mastromarino and three others. They are charged with 122 felony counts, including forgery and bodysnatching.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

The director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization is calling for more investment in agriculture in the developing world to tackle the problem of food insecurity. Jacques Diouf told Parliamentarians attending the 121st Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union that more than one billion people are going hungry because of under-investment in agriculture during the past two decades.

A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program finds most of the more than one billion hungry people in the world live in developing countries. It says no region is immune and hunger is expected to increase everywhere, even in the developed world.

Jacques Diouf, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, says 30 countries were in a situation of grave food crisis, requiring emergency assistance. He says 20 of them are in Africa and 10 in Asia and the Near East. “The events of the last three years, triggered by soaring food prices and followed by the financial and economic turmoil, have demonstrated how fragile our global food system is. This year’s increase in hunger is not the result of poor harvests or a shortfall in supplies, but rather is caused by the economic crisis which has reduced the incomes and job opportunities for the poor,” he said.

Diouf says under-investment in agriculture and rural development is one of the root causes of the recent global food crisis and the difficulties encountered by the majority of developing countries in dealing with it effectively.

“If people go hungry today it is not because the world is not producing enough food but because it is not produced in the countries where 70 percent of the world’s poor live and whose livelihoods depend on farming activities. The challenge is not only to ensure food security for the one billion hungry people today, which is certainly an enormous task, but also to be able to feed a world population that is expected to reach 9.1 billion in 2050,” he said. He has urged nations to increase food production by 70 percent by 2050, and remarked that “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

The FAO chief says studies show GDP growth originating in agriculture is at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as GDP growth originating in other sectors of the economy. He says the solution to food insecurity lies in boosting agricultural production and productivity in poor countries where food shortages are chronic.

Diouf says production has to be increased in the most needy areas, by the most needy people. These are smallholder farmers in rural households.

He says investment in agriculture in developing countries would amount to $44 billion in official development assistance a year. He says the returns from that investment in tackling world hunger would be enormous.