Friday, February 8, 2008

The United States House of Representatives has passed the bipartisan US$152 billion economic stimulus package that gives one-time rebates to United States citizens, US$600 for individuals or US$1,200 for couples plus US$300 for each child. US$300 checks would be sent to people on low-income including retirees on Social Security which was not included in the original bill backed by President George W. Bush. The plan would begin to decrease rebates for citizens with taxable incomes of US$75,000 for individuals and US$150,000 for couples. The checks would go out to more than a 130 million Americans according to Treasury secretary Henry Paulson.

The House overwhelmingly approved the more broad Senate amended bill which included the low-income portion mentioned above along with provisions that would keep illegal aliens from receiving a rebate check. Despite some opposition from some Congressmen, such as John B. T. Campbell III of California’s 48th congressional district, the plan passed overwhelmingly 380–34.

Campbell called the plan “wealth redistribution” and noted it did not have safeguards to prevent illegals from receiving these rebates and also claimed that stimulus plan would increase the deficit more and noted the cause of the looming recession was because of “credit problems.”

The United States Senate voted hours earlier on the bill which passed in the Senate, 81–16. after having to shed some incentives included by Senate Democrats which caused the bill to fail. Some of the incentives that were left out of the plan in a compromise to gain Republican support were demands for benefits for long-term unemployed workers and stipulation that would allow low-income citizens to pay off heating bills and let home builders pay off losses off the current year against previous tax years.

President Bush approved of the package, noting in a statement, “This plan is robust, broad-based, timely, and it will be effective, this bill will help to stimulate consumer spending and accelerate needed business investment.”

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, May 15, 2007

Shortly after 5:00 pm EDT on Monday, a northbound R6 SEPTA Regional Rail train collided with a northbound R5 train in the Center City section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The collision occurred underground past Philadelphia’s Market East Station, near 9th and Vine Streets. About 30 to 40 people on board the two trains suffered minor injuries, most of whom were riding in the front of the R6 train, however no serious or life-threatening injuries were reported.

The R6 train, heading towards Norristown, Pennsylvania, departed Suburban Station at 4:44 pm, and arrived at Market East Station at 4:50 pm. The R5 train, heading towards Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was running late and traveling right behind it was the R6. Shortly after the R5 departed from Market East Station, the train deployed its air brakes in the tunnel, and then collided with the R6. Although the collision occurred at only around 10 mph (16 km/h), the impact was great enough to toss passengers out of their seats. One rider claimed, “All of the sudden, there was a real hard jerk, and the train just came to a complete stop. It felt like we hit something hard. But I was all right.”

After the collision, the R5 train was unloaded, and its 17 injured victims were taken to Jefferson University, Hahnemann University, and University of Pennsylvania hospitals. After backing up to Market East Station to unload its passengers, the R6 later proceeded to the Temple University station to unload those who were injured, after officials realized it would be easier to unload at the above-ground station. Police officers from the Philadelphia Police Department, SEPTA, and Temple University, rushed to the Temple University train station upon the train’s arrival to help transport injured victims to the nearby Temple University Hospital. Firefighters and paramedics arrived at the station to assist the victims as well, transporting some of them off the train on stretchers.

Uninjured passengers on the R6 train were transported by bus from Market East to Temple University, where they boarded an arriving R6 express train, which immediately switched to local service. Following the collision, all trains passing through Market East Station were affected by delays of at least 20 minutes or more. The out-of-service R6 train remained on one of the two outbound tracks at Temple University station, causing all incoming trains from Center City to queue behind one another on a single track, causing great delays for arriving trains at that station as well.

Paramedics remained on the scene for two hours, and the accident scene was finally cleaned up by 7:00 pm EDT. By 8:00 pm EDT, Regional Rail trains were running back on schedule after encountering delays of up to one hour.

Authorities do not know the cause of the accident, however it is presumed to be a human error by one of the train’s engineers. According to a SEPTA official, “Trains are never under any circumstances supposed to be close enough to make contact so we take that very seriously and will be investigating that very seriously.” Investigations on the accident have begun by both local and federal officials, and the first meeting on this incident will be held by SEPTA on Wednesday.

Friday, April 7, 2006

Accra —The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT introduced the Semacode technology and the Semapedia application to a segment of the Ghanaian public in a presentation delivered by Guido Sohne, Developer-In-Residence at the Centre and Chief Software Architect of CoreNett Ltd, a Ghanaian electronic transaction processing company.

Introduced for the first time in Africa, Semapedia is a way of associating Internet sites with physical barcodes that can be read by cameraphones, enabling one to look up information about physical objects quickly and easily.

Monday, November 15, 2021

Mako Komuro and her husband, Kei Komuro, travelled to New York yesterday to start a new life together outside of the Japanese Royal Family. Their relationship had been heavily criticized by members of the public in Japan due to its unconventional nature and breaking social norms for the nation. The couple arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport to much media attention and under heavy security.

Mako Komuro, a former princess and niece of the Japanese emperor, gave up her title in order to marry Kei Komuro, her college sweetheart. While Japan is generally modern in many ways, the status of women and family values are still rooted in feudal practices; Japanese royalty are forbidden from marrying “commoners”.

New York was chosen because Kei has a job at a New York law firm, though he has yet to pass the New York bar exam. According to the Associated Press, this fact was used by Japanese media to discredit and attack him, despite it being common place to not pass a bar exam on the first attempt. Comparisons have been drawn by The Straits Times between scrutiny that they have suffered and that of the Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex of the British royal family.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Bramalea-Gore-Malton-Springdale Member of Provincial Parliament Dr. Kuldip S. Kular invites “everyone” to his community barbecque.

The event lasts from 1 until 4 pm in the northwest corner of Chinguasousy Park, at 9050 Bramalea Road in Brampton. The BBQ is free.

Kular was elected into office in 2003, having come to Campbellton, New Brunswick in 1974 to set up a family medical practice.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, an organic meatpacking company based in Arkansas City, Kansas, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for what the company claims is threats by the USDA that it would face prosecution if it proceeds with plans to test nearly 100% of its beef for Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease or BSE.

The USDA position is that allowing any meatpacking company to test every cow would undermine the agency’s official position, a position that holds to random testing as a scientifically adequate measure to assure safety. It also claims that 100% testing does not ensure food safety because the disease is difficult to detect in younger animals.

The USDA currently tests about 1% of cattle slaughtered in the U.S. The USDA’s objection is believed to be the result of pressure from larger meatpacking operations. In 2004, the president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association told the Washington Post that “If testing is allowed at Creekstone, we think it would become the international standard and the domestic standard, too.” Creekstone Farms says tests cost about $20 per animal, increasing the cost of beef by about 10 cents per pound.