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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Buffalo, New York —The proposed Elmwood Village Hotel got the final approval it needed from the city of Buffalo’s Planning Board this morning.

In a unanimous vote, the Board approved most of the design and site plan of the hotel.

The Elmwood Village Hotel is a proposed hotel by Savarino Construction Services Corporation and is designed by architect Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group. It is to be placed on the corner of Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo and will require the demolition of at least five properties (1109-1121 Elmwood).

Despite the fact that today’s meeting was not a “public hearing”, several citizens lashed out at the Board after the approval.

“Thanks for destroying Buffalo,” said one man.

“[I am] disgusted. Because they did not allow the community to speak, it is the bastardization of the concepts of justice and democracy, and that’s what happened [today],” said Clarence Carnahan, a local business owner and concerned citizen, to Wikinews. He also referred to some board members as “immoral pigs.”

“[I feel] frustration because no one could speak. I was going to address the displacement of all the shops that are there and that they should be grand-fathered into the new space. We did not get to say that. [I am disappointed] that they are endorsing this enormous monstrosity.” said Nancy Pollina, co-owner of Don Apparel with Patty Morris at 1119 Elmwood.

Although the Board approved the hotel proposal, Savarino Construction must still go before the board to approve things such as signage and lighting. The Planning Board meets again on April 11, 2006 at 8:00a.m., but it is unknown if the hotel proposal will be on the agenda.

Pano Georgiadis, owner of Pano’s Restaurant at 1081 Elmwood and owner of 605 Forest Avenue in Buffalo, threatened to sue Savarino Construction at a public meeting on March 15, 2006 saying, “if you try to get a variance to change the code, I will sue you. This is my home, number one. If you go against city code, and you try to do the most rooms with a minimal amount of parking, again, I will sue you.”

Today, Georgiadis confirmed to Wikinews that he is “definitely” suing, but that his “situation is different” as compared to others looking into legal action. “This is my property. They did it [changed the code] without my approval.”

Last week, the Common Council voted and approved the rezoning of all five properties including 605 Forest.

Some are also considering taking the case to the New York State Supreme Court to “seek an injunction”and would go “pro se, meaning I am going to present the case myself,” said Carnahan.

Despite the approvals by the Common Council and Planning Board, organizers schedulaed another protest for Saturday April 1, 2006 at 2:00p.m. on the proposed site at Forest and Elmwood.

“We are not going to go down without a fight. We are going to go kicking and screaming,” said Pollina.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Football legend Sir Bobby Charlton has launched a new campaign he calls “There Must be a Better Way” to find a faster method to clear anti-personnel landmines. The initiative which comes under his “Laureus Sport for Good Foundation” and involves physicists, mathematicians and electronic engineers from the University of Manchester and Lancaster University. In addition the Mines Advisory Group, a mine clearance charity, and the security systems company Rapiscan are involved.

Charlton first became interested in the problem of clearing anti-personnel landmines while visiting Bosnia on a Laureus funded Spirit of Soccer camp. He was appalled by the injuries he saw, especially to children, caused by abandoned anti-personnel mines. Later his visited Cambodia where there are estimated to be four to six million mines. Charlton was told it would take 100 years to clear the mines.

On the way back to Manchester, passing through airport metal detectors, he thought that surely there must be a better way to detect landmines than the laborious method he had seen using only a metal detector and a bayonet. As the mines are made mainly of plastic and have only a small amount of metal every piece of metal including shrapnel must be investigated to see if it is a mine.

He contacted Rapiscan and through them the University of Manchester to see if there was anyone who could help. The University has a number of scientists and engineers with relevant experience, including a project EMBody to develop the next generation walk through metal detector, in collaboration with Rapiscan and Manchester Airport, and work on a scanning metal detector used to image steel reinforcing bars in concrete.

On June 12th a demonstration was arranged at a disused quarry where Sir Bobby and the Professors of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Physics were shown the power of explosives. This included a demonstration where an explosive charge of about 50g of high explosive, about the same amount as a medium sized landmine, was placed under a sand-filled Wellington boot. The charge was detonated with a resounding bang that echoed around the quarry. The boot was projected tens of metres in the air. And when examined the toe had been cut off and the rubber shredded. The shock wave from the explosives thumped the chests of the scientists even at a safe distance. One commented that there was no chance of using delicate instrumentation anywhere near a possible explosion and they had to seek simple solutions.

“Last time I saw a boot fly through the air like that it was against Bolton” said Charlton, but there was a sombre but excited mood as the scientists headed back to the University, buzzing with ideas.

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

The United States’ third-largest airline operator, Delta Air Lines, will cut 1,000 jobs due to a planned service reduction at their Cincinnati hub. The carrier also announced they will sell 11 of their Boeing 767-200 planes to an air-cargo company, ABX Air Inc., since they are the least fuel-efficient aircraft in the fleet.

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport lost 9 destinations, but the carrier said there would be no inconvenience to passengers. Delta will fly to 20 new “business destinations” from Atlanta and Salt Lake City, instead. Also 41 international connections are to be maintained or expanded.

The changes took place due to the difficult financial situation of the company, which suffered $10 billion in losses since 2001, and warned that they would file for bankruptcy if unsuccessful in lowering costs.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

On October 14, 2008, Canadians will be heading to the polls for the federal election. Christian Heritage Party candidate Jerome Dondo, CGA is standing for election in the riding of Brandon—Souris.

Self-employed since 2000, Dondo works as a finance consultant with First Nation reserves, and provides accounting services to small business clients. From 1993-1998, he worked in the accounts department of Transport Canada. He volunteered as a pastor for Pentecostal Faith Temple in Cat Lake, Ontario, and is currently on the Parent’s Advisory Committee of Ecole Gilbert Rosset, St-Claude, Manitoba.

Wikinews contacted Jerome, to talk about the issues facing Canadians, and what they and their party would do to address them. Wikinews is in the process of contacting every candidate, in every riding across the country, no matter their political stripe. All interviews are conducted over e-mail, and interviews are published unedited, allowing candidates to impart their full message to our readers, uninterrupted.

Merv Tweed is the Conservative Party incumbent in the riding. Along with Dondo, challengers include M.J. Willard (Liberal), John Bouché (NDP), Dave Barnes (Green), and Lisa Gallagher (Communist).

For more information, visit the campaign’s official website, listed below.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, July 8, 2013.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

North Korea’s 007, a currently very popular short movie by some Chinese netizens, mocks Kim Jong Il and his secret agent buying Hennessy XO wine from Chinese black market.

As of 3:27 AM, January 20, 2007, China Standard Time, the movie has been watched 1,993,567 times on a single site (6rooms.com) and received 1620 comments.

The talks between the North Koreans are in English; the talks between the agent and the Chinese are in Chinese (now featuring English subtitles). The story part situated in China is as follows:

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The agent first went to a grocery where he didn’t find XO, then to a wine store which sells XO, but he complained about the price being much more expensive than the price quoted on the Internet. His accent surprised a girl who recognized his North Korean identity and the saleswoman rejected his buying due to “resulting UN security council penalty.” The agent left the store and a white-coated fat man (a black market wine seller) and a black-coated man followed.

The agent checked in at a hotel and received 3 phone calls; one from his commander urging him forward on the mission, one from a whore offering “special service” (to whom the agent replied with “Yes, I need, I need a bottle of XO!”), and one from the fat man asking him to go to a disco bar for XO trading. He went to the bar and watched the fat man dancing to “We Were Forced to Be Gangs” (the music is Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”). The fat man found the agent’s money was fake (which the agent explained was because North Korea wanted to “ease the pressure that the hostile West put on China for currency appreciation”) and a fight ensued. The fat man was defeated and said “Your country is not based on honesty” while the agent said in his mind, “No honesty for your revisionist country.”

The agent is about to cross the China-North Korea border and the black-coated man caught up and defeated him by breaking his “Kim Jong Il medal” (which is a devastating psychological strike to North Koreans). The black-coated man revealed himself to be George W. Bush and some Chinese bystanders questioned him on why he hung Saddam (“One Saddam is down but a million Saddams will be up!”) and drove him away. The curious Chinese bystanders accidentally broke the agent’s XO which resulted in another devastating episode. The white-coated fat man reappeared and said he saw the whole event and was impressed by the agent and gave away another bottle of XO to him.

The agent returned to North Korea and presented the XO to Kim Jong Il (on their way to Kim’s residence their eyes were covered in order not to “give the Americans a chance to pinpoint Kim’s precise location”). Kim immediately died because the wine was faked and poisonous.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Viktor Schreckengost, the father of industrial design and creator of the Jazz Bowl, an iconic piece of Jazz Age art designed for Eleanor Roosevelt during his association with Cowan Pottery died yesterday. He was 101.

Schreckengost was born on June 26, 1906 in Sebring, Ohio, United States.

Schreckengost’s peers included the far more famous designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes.

In 2000, the Cleveland Museum of Art curated the first ever retrospective of Schreckengost’s work. Stunning in scope, the exhibition included sculpture, pottery, dinnerware, drawings, and paintings.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Academy Award winning actor and political activist Sean Penn has just thrown his support in the 2008 US Presidential election behind Dennis Kucinich.

In a San Francisco speech described by his PR people as “a blistering indictment of political leaders and an impassioned endorsement of Presidential proportions,” Penn threw his support behind the lesser known Democratic candidate.

The Kucinich campaign did not vet the speech.

Other recent celebrity endorsements in the race include Oprah Winfrey for Barack Obama, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling for John McCain, Harry Belafonte endorsed John Edwards, and both 50 Cent and Barbra Streisand behind Hillary Clinton. Chuck Norris has backed Mike Huckabee in a high profile, comedic endorsement ad.

Penn first became politically active in October 2002, when he spent $56,000 on a full-page ad in the Washington Post, asking President George W. Bush to end “a cycle of violence”. He visited Iraq briefly in December of that year, Iran in 2005 as a journalist, and met with Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez for two hours in 2007.

Penn went to New Orleans to “aid rescue workers” after Hurricane Katrina; many questioned how much of a liability an untrained worker, especially when his boat sprang a leak, would be. One website commented “just showed up with his entourage and a personal photographer with the apparent intent of just wandering around looking for a good photo op.”