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Thursday, March 30, 2006

Charlie Sheen, appearing on cable television news network station CNN on March 24, questioned the credibility of the theory that 19 hijackers caused all of the destruction to the World Trade Center.

Sheen said; “It seems to me like, you know, 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75 percent of their targets, that feels like a conspiracy theory… I am an American citizen that loves my country…. People want the truth. They want the truth. And what’s been offered to us resembles nothing of the sort.“

In recounting his reaction on the day of the event, Sheen said,”I was up early and we were gonna do a pre-shoot on Spin City, the show I used to do. I was watching the news and the north tower was burning. There was a feeling, it just didn’t look like any commercial jetliner I’ve flown on any time in my life and then when the buildings came down later on that day I said to my brother, ‘Call me insane but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition?’”

Writer Marc Jacobson, of the New York magazine, who co-appeared with Sheen on the same program said in response: “Well, I think he’s doing a reasonable rendition of what other people that believe in this stuff say. And when he says he has his facts straight, I mean, I think the facts are in question. I mean, I think, just because you know what it says on all of these different Web sites doesn’t mean that that’s necessarily the fact. That’s the reason why the United States government, with their endless amounts of resources, let us down by not doing the proper work on the 9/11 Commission. That’s a real problem. Well, you know, but, I mean, it’s just one of those kind of things where you do this work and nobody really cares, but then Charlie Sheen is interested, so then everybody is interested, and that’s fine. You know, obviously, this material needs to be looked at again, because there’s been a lot of problems with the 9/11 Commission report. People feel it’s not adequate. Most of the people who had lost people during that time feel it’s not adequate. And it’s just I think we’re living in a truth vacuum, in a sense, that any time there’s a truth vacuum, these ideas — because people are smart. They put two and two together. Sometimes they get five; sometimes they get 12, but sometimes they get 11, like 9/11, but sometimes they get four. And the thing is that, if you have a situation where the so-called facts are covered up and aggressively covered up, then you’re going to get these conspiracy theories.” One website is claiming that Google had been censoring out any news articles relating to Sheen and 9/11 from it’s search engine.

Regarding the plane that hit the Pentagon, Sheen also has questions: “Just show us how this particular plane pulled off these maneuvers… It is up to us to reveal the truth. It is up to us because we owe it to the families, we owe it to the victims, we owe it to everyone’s life who was drastically altered, horrifically, that day and forever. We owe it to them to uncover what happened.”

Some supporters of Sheen’s theories have complained about the lack of mainstream media coverage. They point to CNN’s recent cancellation of Ed Asner’s interview on Showbiz Tonight, where he was expected to support Sheen’s position, as an example of the “media blackout”.

Marina Hyde of The Guardian proposed a theory of her own with regard to Sheen: “Frankly, with dentistry as expensive as yours, you simply can’t afford to let The Man stamp his jackboot down on your face, and so it is that when faced with the inquiry ‘did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?’, you find yourself thinking: ‘God, I mean… do any of us? Like, he had to have people, you know? At least an agent and a publicist.'”

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Former world champion boxer Anthony Mundine has beaten long-time rival Danny Green on a unanimous points decision in a non-title World Boxing Association (WBA) super middleweight bout. Mundine, an ex-rugby league star promoted the much-anticipated fight that attracted around 40,000 spectators and a national record for a pay-per-view television event.

“Who’s the man, who’s the man?” Mundine asked the crowd after the fight. Western Australia’s Danny Green (the “Machine”) was defeated after 12 rounds at the Sydney Football Stadium by “the Man” Mundine. Mundine has improved his overall record to 26 wins and three losses. His victory sets up a world title bout against Denmark’s Mikkel Kessler.

After the bout Mundine praised his opponent’s tenacity: “I just wanna’ thank Danny for a great fight… I was starting to get loose man, Danny was starting to put a lot of pressure on me, he’s got a good long jab, I had to evade that,” said Mundine. “I utilized my speed to catch him and it paid dividends. I was looking for the knockout, I caught him with a few great shots, [and] he can take a great punch. He put up a good performance. He come around, he come prepared – I was the better man tonight Dan, thank you very much. We can do it again maybe, soon.”

Green agreed that Mundine fought the better fight. “He just beat me fair and square. I have no excuses at all, I trained unbelievable, my preparation was great… Anthony was the better man tonight,” said Green.

The WBA fight consolidated six years of taunts and hyperbole to settle a long-running feud between the men and their supporters. According to media reports the battle was personal from the outset with Mundine’s mother Lyn yelling at her son from ringside to “Knock him out Choc, shut him up my baby”.

Sports media commentators reported that the pace remained hectic in the first four rounds as Mundine stood firm and used his jab as Green mixed his trademark “power punches.” As the fight wore on, Mundine appeared in greater control and in better condition. However, Mundine did end up on the canvas in the seventh round, after being pushed through the ropes by Green.

Throughout the fight, Green’s power punches “missed, missed and missed again”. In the final “ferocious” round, Mundine rocked Green with a combination to the head, taunting Green to “Come on.” Green attempted plenty of combinations, but Mundine’s speed caused problems. After 12 rounds, Judge Pinit Prayadsab from Thailand gave the fight to Mundine 118-11, South Korean Michael Lee scored it 116-113 and Australian Derek Milham had it 118-112.

Australian newspapers report that the appreciative crowd included corporate CEOs, former world heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, bikie gangs, peroxide blondes and rugby league players. Referee Terry O’Connor described the event as a fight Australia can be proud of. “They both gave their all, it was a great fight.” He described the atmosphere at Aussie Stadium as “fantastic” “It was the greatest fight I have refereed, it was brilliant,” O’Connor said.

The “Man v Machine” event fight, promoted by Mundine’s Boxa International and the “Green Machine” promoters is believed to have beeen the “biggest boxing match in Australian history”, grossing an estimated $20 million. Each boxer is reported to be earning a seven-figure sum, while spectators have paid up to A$1000 for a seat at the bout. Foxtel reported record sales for their exclusive pay-per-view event, claiming that subscriptions outsold the Lennox Lewis v Mike Tyson heavyweight bout. Heavy betting ensued with one punter laying a $500,000 bet on Mundine to take the honours.

Of his upcoming bout with Denmark’s Mikkel Kessler, Mundine said: “It was a close fight last time. I think he’s the best fighter out there, but I’ve shown I can match it with him. I’m ready.”

Monday, September 5, 2005

Feel free to use the Wikimedia sites to solve our Wikinews crossword. Please do not fill it out online as it would spoil it for other people; print it out and fill it in at your own leisure!

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Friday, July 23, 2021

With five active cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19, South Australia begun a one-week lockdown on Monday. Announcing the lockdown, state Premier Steven Marshall declared “we have no alternative but to impose some fairly heavy and immediate restrictions”.

The first case out of South Australia’s active cases was presented to Modbury Hospital on Sunday night, having returned from Argentina earlier this month. The fifth, which Premier Marshall noted as “far more worrying”, visited The Greek on Halifax restaurant at the same time as someone who was later confirmed to be carrying the virus. Chief Public Health Officer for the state Nicola Spurrier said “if anyone has been at The Greek on Halifax they need to get into quarantine and get tested”.

In accordance with new regulations, there are only five reasons for South Australians to leave home: essential work, shopping for essential goods such as food, exercise, but only with people from the same household and within 2.5 kilometers (2 mi) of home, medical reasons (which includes testing and vaccination against the coronavirus, but excludes elective and cosmetic surgery), and caregiving.

Schools have closed for all but children of essential workers, with online learning having begun on Thursday. Face masks are also be mandated for those who leave home. ABC News reported that “support for businesses is expected to be announced…”, with all non-essential retail required to close under the new regulations.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Venezuela’s government has opened a granite processing plant in the state of Bolívar, with the intention of providing about 25% of the granite required nationwide.

Ricardo Menéndez, vice president of the Productive Economic Area, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has yearned for the creation of this project to empower Venezuelan construction. Granito Bolívar is reportedly the most modern Venezuelan granite plant, not consuming community water or electricity, and is also the largest, with a daily capacity to supply enough material for use in construction of about 820 houses.

Menéndez said, “These granite blocks are the natural resources of our country, are the wealth we have as a country and often [some] simply decided to remove this richness from our country and take them to other countries” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?Esos bloques de granito son la riquezas naturales de nuestro país, son las riquezas que tenemos como patria y que muchas veces sencillamente esas riquezas decidieron sacarlas de nuestro territorio nacional y llevarlas a otros países}.

According to Menéndez, with the help of a state plan, Venezuela intends to exploit its 40,000 million cubic meters or more of granite reserves, generating a set of factories. “[T]he central theme is that these plants, all these factories, are for the construction of socialism; that means using our potential, develop the value chain within the country and of course that yields benefits from the point of view of the production system’s organization…. [Granito] Bolívar is not only the vision that historically we had of exposing richness, but the industries, basic industries we have, that level of our workers in the basic industries and in addition the development of the potential we have in the state” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?el tema central es que estas plantas todas estas fábricas son para la construcción del socialismo, eso significa utilizar nuestras potencialidades, dessarrollar la cadena de valor dentro del país y por supuesto que eso genere beneficios desde el punto de vista de la organización del sistema productivo … Bolívar no solamente es la visión que históricamente se tuvo de exponer las riquezas, sino que son las empresas, las empresas básicas que tenemos, ese nivel de nuestros trabajadores de la empresas básicas y adicionalmente el desarrollo del potencial que tenemos en el estado}.

For the construction of the plant, supplied by 23 quarries, the government of Bolívar provided about 30 million bolívares (US$4.7 million) and the national government €2.3 million (US$3 million). Bolívar reportedly has reserves of about 40,000 million tons of red, black, pink and white granite, sufficient for domestic demand for 200 years.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

File:Bbcr2electricpromslogo.jpg

The BBC have announced they are to axe annual music festival Electric Proms from their schedule for financial reasons. The festival first took place in October 2006. The 2011 event will not go ahead, with last year’s festival being the last.

Bob Shennan, controller of BBC Radio 2, said he was “disappointed” with the decision to cancel the festival. He said “In the current climate, we are faced with making difficult decisions, including how best to deliver high-quality live music programming throughout the year in light of continuing efficiency savings. I feel that Radio 2 can achieve the same impact of the Electric Proms in an alternative, more cost-effective way. I’m disappointed that the lifetime of Electric Proms has come to an end, but very proud of its fantastically rewarding run of creating new moments in music for the past five years.”

During the festival’s five year run it has featured performances from stars such as Elton John, Neil Diamond, and Shirley Bassey.

The decision to axe the festival comes at a time when the BBC are planning a 20% savings cut. Last week BBC director general Mark Thompson announced 650 job losses after dropping five languages from the BBC World Service.