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Monday, March 19, 2012Hawker, Canberra — Coming off a national championship win for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) men’s open team in mid-February, Australia men’s national softball team representatives Nick Norton and Adam Folkard are getting ready for more softball later this year, including the Australian club championships to be held in Brisbane in June.

Folkard and Norton have both won the World Championships and have each won a total of ten national championships with the ACT side. They are both named to the current men’s national team, which has roughly thirty players, and believe they are likely to survive the December cut down to eighteen players who will represent Australia at next year’s World Championship in Auckland, New Zealand.

The World Championship is one of the two most prestigious available to male softball players. The other is the International Softball Congress, an event Folkard and Norton have both competed at.

As national team representatives, there are a lot of expectations for them. In Australia, there is almost no financial support for the men’s game so they must cover most of their own costs, including travel to and from international competitions. According to Folkard’s father, these costs can be prohibitive. In one year, when Folkard was a representative on the men’s U18, U23 and Open team, it cost A$15,000 for travel and other expenses just for Folkard. When costs for bringing family members such as Folkard’s sisters to major international tournaments, the costs were even higher. Folkard, his father and Norton all joked this cost his father an investment property to allow Folkard to continue to compete at the highest level. Both Folkard and Norton currently work as tradesmen to support softball playing.

Beyond money, the national team requires players to be actively involved in wider softball community. Players must represent a club at the club championships in Brisbane if they want to retain a spot in the squad. Folkard plays for a Western Australian club and Norton plays for a Sydney based club, driving down from Canberra to play every Sunday during the season.

Folkard and Norton have both played softball at the highest level in the United States, where the men’s game is not yet fully professionalized but still presents more opportunities for players than are available at home. For several years, Folkard has gone to the United States for three-month stints, playing for teams in Chicago, Pennsylvania, and New York. One side he played was sponsored by Ernst and Young. Folkard currently plays for a Canadian side and has been trying to convince Norton, whom he has grown up playing softball with, to join him like Norton has done one previous season. According to Folkard, playing with a North American club has certain advantages. The clubs pay for his travel to and from Australia, and pay for Championship rings. When asked how North American clubs sign Australian players, he said they follow men’s softball in Australia and call up players to offer contracts. Australian men’s players gain additional exposure to potential clubs when they compete, with some sides approaching them during the North American season and seeking to contract them for the following season.

Both men would love the opportunity to play softball in the Olympics, but believe such an opportunity is unlikely. According to them, softball at the Olympics is a women’s game intrinsically linked to men’s baseball, and men’s softball is unlikely to ever be considered on the programme as a result.

Folkard and Norton both play for the same club in the ACT territory club competition. Their team has secured a grand final berth for the match in ten days. They are waiting to find out who they will play against based on a match this weekend. Both have previously won this competition.

Friday, June 8, 2007

On June 7, Mike Svonavec, the owner of the land in Somerset County, Pennsylvania where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001 has a US$10 million price tag for his property which is sought by the group, Families of Flight 93 and the United States National Park Service, (NPS) for building a memorial dedicated to those on the plane. Svonavec also placed a box on the crash site temporary memorial, where visitors can leave a “donation” to pay for his asking price for the land as well as the cost of providing security at the site.

The NPS has covered the donation box with a trash bag and told Svonavec in a letter to remove it by the end of Friday June 8, but Svonavec said that he will not remove the box.

“I have no intentions of removing the box from my property. My only plans are to try to cooperate with the Park Service with regard to the sale of the property,” said Svonavec.

Svonavec accused the NPS of trying to take over his property after they placed the bag over the box.

“It’s just unbelievable to my mind that that’s the direction they would take, taking control of the property like a guest would at your house,” added Svonavec.

“The bottom line is we feel the National Park Service can’t effectively carry out our mission without exercising the exclusive use and control of the site as provided for in our agreement with the property owners,” said Joanne Hanley who is the Superintendent of the memorial.

Although NPS tour guides are telling tourists and others who visit the memorial, they are shocked to learn that the money they donate is going to Svonavec and not the memorial. “They’re alarmed that they may have given their money to something that they didn’t want to give their money to,” said one of the 43 guides who volunteer at the memorial, Donna Glessner.

The land is currently under contract with the NPS and the memorial is allowed to be on the land according to an act of the United States Congress who in 2002 authorized the memorial to be placed on the land.

Currently, the U.S. National Park Service only owns approximately 60 acres of the land. PBS Coals Inc. owns 864 acres of the land and Svonavec owns 273 acres. The entire field is nearly 2,000 acres.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Across Easter weekend Wellington, New Zealand was host to Rock2Wgtn, an international two-day hard rock festival. Large crowds showed up at Westpac Stadium to see the various acts. The world has never seen an event of this kind before.

Day one featured three theatrical acts. Finnish band Lordi, known for their monster costumes, opened the night. They were followed by the US shock rocker Alice Cooper, whose themed set included the horror theatrics regularly associated with him and a hanging stunt he recently restarted after a gallows collapse nearly killed him two decades ago. The night was headlined by the distinctively costumed band KISS, complete with their famed black-and-white makeup.

The first major act on the stage on day two was the American hard rock/glam metal band Poison. After Poison, British act Whitesnake took to the stage and performed their set to the crowd. British-born American rocker Ozzy Osbourne, who, as well as a solo career, fronts the world-famous Black Sabbath, was the second night’s headline act.

The festival’s entertainment did not stop at the six main acts. There was also support performances from three New Zealand bands – The Symphony of Screams, The Valves and Sonic Altar. Their sets were accompanied by a special effects package from award-winning studio Weta Workshops, who are known for their work on movies such as The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. This came in the form of ‘Drusila the Dragon’, which rose up to a height of six foot and wigspan and moved for the audience, shining lasers from its eyes and breathing red smoke. Flame Fire Productions were hired to put on a fire show featuring several dancers alongside the performers. Also performing were six local guitarists and a group of ‘zombie‘ cheerleaders.

Despite the crowds that flocked to the event, however, it has recently become apparent that financial trouble has hit the festival. Although figures remain to be confirmed, an estimated NZ$750,000 has been lost.

Wikinews secured an exclusive interview with Phil Sprey of Capital C Concerts, who organised the festival. The entire interview is now available below.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Following a new report into the loss of a Nimrod jet belonging to the UK’s Royal Air Force over Afghanistan the family of one of the victims is seeking a criminal prosecution. Sergeant Ben Knight, aged 25, was among the fourteen killed when Nimrod XV230 crashed in 2006.

Knight’s parents have applied via their lawyers Smithfield Partners to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider evidence contained in a report by Charles Haddon-Cave QC, who is due to appear before the House of Commons next month. The Loss Of RAF Nimrod XV230, A Failure Of Leadership, Culture And Priorities stated that the accident was preventable and that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) made spending cuts a priority over safety. A 2005 review into Nimrod safety was “riddled with errors,” the report found.

Smithfield Partners have also written to the Health and Safety Executive, asking for the MoD to be investigated for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The letter was addressed directly to deputy chief executive Kevin Myres.

XV230 had shortly completed air-to-air refueling on September 2, 2006, when it was destroyed by an explosion. “We had a 25-year-old healthy son, who used to play squash and, to put it bluntly, he ended up as a plastic bag full of bits,” said Graham Knight. “That is something which is very hard to cope with.”

The Knights met Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell in London yesterday. Rammell said he was unable to comment on possible legal action against individuals, but promised to provide answers to other questions posed by the Knights and other families. The Crown Prosecution Service has promised consider the matter, and the Health and Safety Executive said it could not comment this early on in developments. The latest report names five people in the MoD, three with BAE Systems and two with defence company QinetiQ, as responsible.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales spoke at the Harvard Law School tonight with a presentation titled “Wikipedia and the Digital Divide.” Projected on a screen behind Wales was a running list — in real time — of edits to the German and English Wikipedias. Over the course of the hour, the list showed changes to topics like “Time Travel,” “Dante Alighieri” and, in German, “The Maronite Patriarchs of Antioch.”

Wales started with a summary of Wikipedia’s goals; the bulk of the time was given over to questions from audience members. Approximately 65 people listened to Wales’ remarks. According to a hands-up poll that Wales conducted at the start of the event, about half of those present had edited Wikipedia before. Six of those counted themselves as “Wikipedians,” a title Wales suggested than anyone who’s edited the Wikipedia even once should consider.

Before the event, Samuel Klein demonstrated the program, RCBirds, that created the running list behind Wales. RCBirds plays a bird call in response to each edit made to Wikipedia. Wikipedians edit constantly; one attendee found the frequency of bird calls distracting and asked Klein to turn down the volume on the program.

Wales ran through some quick statistics about Wikipedia:

• Wikipedias exist in roughly 200 languages, but most of those are dormant.
• The five largest, in order, are: English, German, Japanese, French, and (“You’ll never guess,” said Wales) Swedish. One attendee suggested, to general assent, that there was little else to do during long, dark winter nights.
• Over 20 languages have more than 10,000 articles.
• Over 50 languages have more than 1000 articles.

Though the Chinese Wikipedia has over 25,000 articles, according to Wales, the Hindi and Arabic versions are smaller than Wales would like. Referring to those two editions, Wales said that Wikipedia is, “not so strong where we really need to be.” Wales added later that the Chinese government has blocked access to the Wikipedia twice; once during the approach to an anniversary of Tiannamen Square, and once for no discernible reason. “We could make a big deal out of being blocked,” said Wales, “but we’d just score points with the western media, and it wouldn’t get us any closer to our goal.”

Wales described the organization behind the Wikipedia as an “International Red Cross of information,” able — and impelled — to work in a neutral fashion with governments and NGOs. When asked about reaching out to the UN, however, he said that he had been warned by a Dutch minister that large bureaucracies tend to be comfortable working with other large bureaucracies; the Wikipedia employs only Wales and thousands of volunteers.

Wales cited three factors that correlate with Wikipedia growth:

• Economic wealth
• Degree of penetration of internet
• the number of people who speak English

On the topic of the Hindi Wikipedia, Wales attributed the lack of growth to the prevalence of English keyboards. He said that when he has asked Hindi Wikipedia contributors what made the task difficult for them, they said that they were, “not used to typing Hindi.”

“I don’t know how to help with that,” Wales said. He hoped that the situation would improve.

At this point in the talk, Wales opened the floor to questions.

Friday, February 3, 2006

Computer security experts warn that a malicious computer worm, dubbed “Kama Sutra,” is set to wreak havoc this Friday, February 3rd on Microsoft Windows computers worldwide. Kama Sutra is designed to destroy files that end in .doc, .zip and .pdf.

The Kama Sutra worm has been spreading through cyberspace since January 16, packaged in emails with subject headings such as: “give me a kiss” and “crazy illegal sex.”

When users click an email attachment, their PCs become infected with destructive, self-replicating software. The worm affects Microsoft Windows operating systems and is programmed to go to work on the third of every month, overwriting or corrupting Microsoft files and others such as Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

“This one can damage your office files, your Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and your PowerPoint presentations,” Tino Klironomos, a computer retailer, said. “(The files will be) all gone, history.”

Computer security company LURHQ reports that there may be hundreds of thousands of machines already infected with the worm, which also goes by the monikers “BlackWorm,” “CME-24,” “Blackmal,” “Mywife.E” and “Nyxem.”

To prevent the worm, Windows users should arm themselves with anti-virus software. People can also protect their PC with up-to-date anti-virus gear and firewall protection. Free anti-virus tools are available from many anti-virus organisations. These tools can detect and remove the Kama Sutra worm from an infected machine.

Experts say: “Make sure your virus definitions are up to date. Besides being careful about opening email messages and attachments, users should back up their most valuable computer files on an external device such as a CD, zip drive or DVD.”

Steve Bass at PC World says: “Stop worrying. If you update your virus program signatures regularly, and do a weekly AV scan, I don’t think you have much to worry about…”

Other advice is not to open any messages with the subject headers “crazy, illegal sex”, “give me a kiss” and “hot movie.”

The worm will not affect machines running on non-Windows operating systems such as Mac OS X or GNU/Linux.

Many security systems reported a very small amount of vandalism, even though the threats were very high.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism issued a statement Friday praising comments made Wednesday by Malaysian politician Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan on conversion to Islam. Malaysian Consultative Council president Datuk A. Vaithilingam said that Ong’s views are shared by Malaysians from all religious faiths in the country.

“Conversion to Islam should not be abused as a means to evade one’s legal obligations to one’s family. A person’s conversion to another religion should not cause pain and suffering for other members of the family,” said Vaithilingam. He asked state and federal government authorities to take necessary steps to fix loopholes in the law, so that Malaysians could freely practice religion in the country.

Ong is the current Minister of Housing and Local Government in the Malaysian cabinet, and also serves as the secretary-general of the {{w|Malaysian Chinese Association]] (MCA) and Perak MCA chairman. In his Wednesday statement, he said that individuals who convert to Islam through the marriage process should be permitted to renounce the religion if they leave the marriage. Ong also stated that the religion of a minor child with one Muslim parent should be determined by both parents, or remain the same until the child turns 18.

Ong said that issues involving divorce, custody of children and inheritance in matters of constitutional rights of non-Muslims had increased dramatically in the last three years. Ong emphasized the importance of civil law as related to non-Muslims in the country, as opposed to that of Syariah (Sharia), Islamic religious law.

“Non-Muslims are not to be subjected to any form of Syariah laws and for any disputes or overlapping areas involving the jurisdiction of civil and Syariah courts, civil laws must prevail. […] We urge the Government to be transparent in this process,” said Ong.

Ong’s comments were made as part of an 11-page motion of thanks on the royal address. His motion was seconded by Bintulu Minister of Parliament Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing. Ong also spoke about the corruption, education, crime and security and the economy in his two-hour speech.

Of the 27 million people in Malaysia, 60 percent are Muslim Malaysian Malays, 25 percent are Chinese and mainly Buddhists or Christians, and 7.8 percent are ethnic Indians and mainly Hindus.