Face-off at Islamabad Mosque

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Since last Tuesday, following violent confrontations with Pakistan’s army, up to 1800 clerics and students are still holed up in Islamabad’s Red Mosque. Clashes began last week following mounting antagonism between the mosques hard-line leaders and the government lead by President Pervez Musharraf.

The mosque has been accused of enforcing its own Islamic law in the capital, notably the illegal detention of Chinese foreign nationals working in massage parlors.

20 people have been reported killed over the past six days, which have seen multiple gun battles and demolition of the mosques exterior walls. Currently, there seems little chance of a negotiated resolution. A delegation of Islamic leaders were refused access, and the mosques leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi has declared suicide a favourable option to surrender.

The mosques leaders follow the Hanafi school of thought, believing that the Koran is the authority by which justice should be metered. Historically the mosque has had close links with the Pakistan leadership, and members of the current administration have resisted calls for a crackdown on the mosques provocative behaviour.

The stand-off represents a decisive ideological challenge to the president who is walking a fine-line between Islamic extremists at home and foreign pressure to crack-down on militancy in the lawless tribal regions.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Face-off_at_Islamabad_Mosque&oldid=868671”

Court decision means Floyd Landis loses Tour de France title

Thursday, September 20, 2007

2006 Tour de France champion Floyd Landis will be stripped of his title after test results revealed, Friday, the cyclist used synthetic testosterone during the competition.

Landis may also face a two year ban, even though he has repeatedly denied using any performance-enhancing drugs.

The final option that would salvage Landis’ title is to file an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport. He has one month to file the appeal.

If Landis is not able to save his title, he will be the first person in over 105 years to lose the title because of a drug charge.

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart said, “Today’s ruling is a victory for all clean athletes and everyone who values fair and honest competition.”

Landis said, “This ruling is a blow to athletes and cyclists everywhere…For the Panel to find in favor of USADA when, with respect to so many issues, USADA did not manage to prove even the most basic parts of their case shows that this system is fundamentally flawed. I am innocent, and we proved I am innocent.”

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Court_decision_means_Floyd_Landis_loses_Tour_de_France_title&oldid=4577666”

How To Write A Family Reunion Invitation

By William U. Steinmetz

Crafting the best looking family reunion invitations can be both challenging and at the same time engaging. This is because there are a lot of things that can be placed in the card to make it the most eye catching invitation to be sent out to your family members.

For one, the pictures that you can use should be general in nature and they should be given careful selection since there might be family members who do not approve the image. Yes it might be fun to check on the images that you haven’t seen in ages but it is still important that you make the right choice in picking the right picture for your family reunion invitation.

The basics of writing a family reunion invitation are pretty simple. You just have to prepare the paper, the content of the invitation, the picture that would be used for the invitation and most importantly the overall design for the family reunion invitation.

While the other factors are pretty important, the design and the content speaks volumes about the invitation that you will be handing out to your relatives in the near future. So how exactly will you write a family reunion invitation and what are some of the key pointers that you should remember while drafting the invitation.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF0DJXMP9YY[/youtube]

Start writing an initial draft – Doing a draft will save you a lot of time in the future and it will also help you keep track of the important details.

Keep it Short and Simple – Avoid putting in too many words in your invitation. Remember that you are writing an invitation for your family members and not drafting a college level thesis nor are you submitting an investigational report on the economic crisis. It is better to keep everything simple because it also makes the invitation accessible for everybody in the family from kids who can already read and understand to the family elders who are already having a hard time reading.

Put depth in your content – Don’t just put random words in the invitation. Make every word count for your readers.

Describe things – Don’t just put digits and other stuff in the invitation without thinking what it would mean. Describing the event will give them a heads up on what they should expect when they arrive at the venue. Digits should also be kept at a minimum and as much as possible should only be limited to just the address and all the important things.

Catch Attention – While most invitations have a set standard of things that can be placed on the front of the invitation card, it wouldn’t hurt to look for creative things to place on your invitation. This not only grabs the attention of you’re relatives that might not be inclined to read the sent missive but it will also help the people who are already excited about the event.

These are only some things that you should really consider when writing your very own family reunion invitation. There are other things that might be applicable in this shortlist but there are still a lot of things that you can add.

About the Author: William U. Steinmetz enjoys writing for Targettossgames.com which sells bean bag toss and cornhole sets as well as a host of additional products.

Source: isnare.com

Permanent Link: isnare.com/?aid=761846&ca=Family+Concerns

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark gives birth to male child

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has given birth to a healthy baby boy at a Copenhagen hospital at approximately 1:57 am local time this morning, ending many months of waiting for the Royal Family, the Danish public and much of the world. The baby weighed in at 3.5 kilograms and 51 centimeters long.

The royal pregnancy was made public on 25 April 2005, and in that period, many Danes speculated the gender of the child. The Crown Princess had experienced contractions in mid-September. The royal couple has not announced his name, but it is likely to be Christian in line with Danish tradition. Since Christian II, who died in 1559, Danish kings have alternately carried the name Christian or Frederik.

The child will become heir apparent styled as HRH The Crown Prince when his parents ascend to the Danish throne as King Frederik X and Queen Mary.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Crown_Princess_Mary_of_Denmark_gives_birth_to_male_child&oldid=4535393”

Gunman kills self and hostage in Texas NASA building

Friday, April 20, 2007

Around 1:40 p.m. CDT, NASA employees reported that two shots were fired in the NASA Building 44 in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. A SWAT team later reported that Bill Phillips, a contract engineer with Jacobs Engineering, had killed David Beverly as well as himself, leaving a female hostage physically unharmed.

Phillips entered a conference room with gun drawn and ordered all but one person out. Phillips barricaded himself on the second floor of the two-story building, with David Beverly and another female hostage. The building was evacuated and police were summoned. NASA security, Houston police and a SWAT team were on the scene.

Houston news reported at 5:22 p.m. CDT that Bill Phillips, the gunman, and David Beverly, the hostage, were both dead. Police reported that the SWAT team heard one shot and decided to engage, but before they reached the room they heard another shot. When SWAT reached the scene, the male hostage was dead from a bullet to the chest, the gunman was dead from a bullet to the head, and the female hostage, Fran Cranshaw, was gagged and bound to a chair with duct tape, but was otherwise unharmed.

All NASA employees had first been warned to stay in their buildings but were later told by NASA they were free to go home if their working day was over. Mission Control locked its doors during this incident, as this is a standard procedure in such situations. No NASA Mission has been affected by this incident, according to NASA.

In the first press conference, police said that communication to the gunman had not yet been established, but that negotiators had already tried it two times unsuccessfully.

The motive of the hostage-taking, and whether the three people had any connection to each other, is currently under investigation.

The Houston Chronicle reports that last month Phillips had received one e-mail from his employer, Jacob engineering Inc., “describing problems with his work and offering suggestions on improvement.” Jacobs printed that e-mail on March 18, the same day he bought the 38-caliber gun that police suspect was used in the shooting.

Despite reassurances by Cranshaw and Beverly, Phillips would not believe that management was not going to fire him, according to Cranshaw. During the 3-hour standoff, Phillips used a dry-erase board in the room indicating he was tired of being called “stupid,” police said last Saturday.

Michael Sampson, the co-manager of the space agency’s Electronic Parts and Packaging Program, who had known Beverly for ten years, described him as friendly, peaceful person, with a positive attitude to his co-workers.

Relatives describe Phillips as a loner who always kept to himself. He had lost his father in 2003, but had decided not to return to his hometown in Tennessee. Smith, a cousin of Phillips, remarked that in the Christmas card he had received from him last year, Phillips said that he was feeling lonely and without family, but nothing in the card suggested anything so tragic.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Gunman_kills_self_and_hostage_in_Texas_NASA_building&oldid=568779”

Wall Waterproofing Methods

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By Allison Ryan

If waterproofing is to be applied, it should, of course, be done before back filling. There are various methods used, depending largely upon local conditions. While applying a coating to a wall, it is well to put it on the outside.

Water is thus prevented from entering the wall, and water pressure tends to force the coating into tighter contact. If the water proofing is required for a bathroom, perhaps around a bathtub or other bathroom fixture, the technique is a bit more complex.

This may consist of a half-inch coating of Portland cement mortar (mixed in the proportion of 1 sack of Portland cement to 2 cubic feet of clean, well-graded sand, plus finely divided materials, such as hydrated lime or diatomaceous silica), or a plastic cement applied to the interior surface of the wall with a trowel.

For bathroom remodeling, the walls surrounding the steam shower or steam room should be thoroughly scraped and cleaned with sharp edged instruments and a wire brush and then dampened before the mortar is applied.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nn33wkOiJQ[/youtube]

It is best to cover the surface with a bituminous coating if worse conditions than mere dampness exist. This may consist of a simple coating of coal-tar pitch or asphalt, or may be a built-up covering of alternate layers of the bituminous material and tar paper.

These coatings are often used alone on new walls or in cases where the walls are in such good condition that they do not require the plaster coat. If walls are rough, however, like brick, stone, or concrete block, they usually require a plaster coat before being waterproofed.

In applying cold bituminous coatings, first apply a priming coat of the same bitumen thinned with gasoline or with kerosene to the consistency of paint. This mixture is applied cold with a mop or large brush and is intended to soak into the pores and provide a good bond for the top coating.

The ordinary bituminous coatings are usually applied hot and swabbed on with a roofing mop to a thickness of at least one-eighth inch. Several coats may be applied if necessary, and dull spots, which indicate absorption, should be touched up until a uniform shiny appearance is produced.

There have been recent developments in the application of such materials, one of which is the use of compressed air to “shoot” the material upon the surface in much the same manner as that employed in paint spraying.

Bituminous layers, or membranes, are similar to ordinary bituminous coatings, except that they are much thicker and consist of alternate layers of bituminous material and tar paper. The membranes should be used in extremely wet conditions or where there is water pressure against the walls from a spring or other source. The number of layers to be applied depends on the conditions to be overcome.

More coatings may be needed to protect the walls of a steam room and a steam sauna, but for a dry sauna (or infrared) you really won’t need much at all.

About the Author: Allison Ryan is a marketing writer from San Diego, CA. She specializes in do-it-yourself home improvement; from

sauna

installation to what kind of

steam shower

would be best for your bathroom upgrade. For a selection of bathroom and home improvement options, check out

mybath.biz/

.

Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

isnare.com/?aid=363074&ca=Home+Management

Augusten Burroughs on addiction, writing, his family and his new book

Friday, October 12, 2007

I had an unofficial phone call from Gay Talese last Tuesday. He had just flown back from Colombia and he was cranky. “I’m happy to do an interview with you,” he said, “but what the hell could you ask me that’s not already out there? Have you even bothered to look?!”

“Jeez, Mr. Talese, lots of things,” was my response. I lied. The truth is that when I call people to interview them, I do not have a set of preconceived questions. My agenda is to talk to them and gain a sense of who they are; to flesh them out as humans. To find out what they think about the world around them at that moment. With Gay Talese I had little interest in talking about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and with Augusten Burroughs I had little interest in discussing Running with Scissors. I want to know what they think about things outside of the boxes people have placed them in.

With a memoirist like Burroughs, even this is a challenge. What parts of his life he has not written about himself, other interviewers have strip-mined. When we met for dinner at Lavagna in the East Village, I explained to Augusten this issue. I suggested we make the interview more of a conversation to see if that would be more interesting. “Instead of you in the catbird seat,” I said, “let’s just talk.”

We struck an instant rapport. What set out to be an hour and half interview over dinner had turned into four hours of discussion about our lives similarly lived. I removed half of the interview: the half that focused on me.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s conversation with writer Augusten Burroughs.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Augusten_Burroughs_on_addiction,_writing,_his_family_and_his_new_book&oldid=3157224”

Calls for corporate tax reform in Australia goes unheeded

Friday, May 12, 2006

Peter Costello’s budget announcement has led to rejoicing for small businesses, but the lack of joy for those pushing for radical corporate taxation reform has led to many businesses asking “what about us?”

Personal taxation and small business have been the big winners after this year’s federal budget. Although dampened by the twin economic threats of rising interest rates and petrol prices, there should be a reasonable amount of real income savings for both low and high income earners, with those receiving Medicare, or a superannuation benefit, privy to an even lower level of taxation (0% for those on super benefits).

Small business also has benefited from the Howard government’s 11th annual budget, with them receiving a higher level of reducing depreciation, leading to a higher level of deductions in the years following the uptake of new technology or other capital. They are also privy to a AU$435 million dollar tax cut to compensate for their changing accounting requirements under the government’s new AIFRS reporting standards, as well as increasing the uptake of both the small business tax relief scheme and CGT (Capital Gains tax) Concessions.

The budget was not a complete loss for big business however, as superannuation laws have been tweaked to streamline contribution and payment rules previously impeding those with multitudes of staff.

But this is not enough, says Big 4 accounting firm Ernst & Young. In their newly published paper “Taxation of Investment in Australia: the need for ongoing reform”. In it they lead the charge for a greater streamlining and organization of the corporate tax system in Australia, submitting that it will lead to reductions in “disincentives to work save and invest in Australia [as well as improving] the international competitiveness of Australian businesses.” This follows from a recent report brought out by Mr. Costello himself about the need for tax reform in Australia.

A budget night Mr. Costello was notably coy about any future reform of corporate tax in Australia. He alluded to the report by his ministers but kept from outlining the government’s plan precisely.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Calls_for_corporate_tax_reform_in_Australia_goes_unheeded&oldid=565549”

New web search engine uses only user-generated results

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Jatalla.com, a new search engine, provides search engine results pages that are derived strictly from user-generated submissions. The relevance ranking procedure relies upon “lexivotes”, which consist of two parts: (1) a word or phrase (similar to a folksonomic tag, but potentially much longer than a traditional tag) and (2) at least one URL. When a user submits a search query, all lexivotes that exactly match the search query are counted, and results are ranked according to number of votes.

Such an approach, which appears to be the first of its kind for this application, differs from the approach of traditional search engines, which rely upon web crawlers to gather content and then analyze this content using one or more algorithms. Jatalla’s lexivote system also differs from traditional ranking mechanisms, such as those of the search engine leader Google, which rank relevance according to sites that link to a given web page.

The Jatalla page for Frequently Asked Questions states, “When you perform a search on Jatalla.com, you are interviewing the entire world of Web users, and only those opinions matching your query — character-for-character — are counted in generating search results…If you believe (as do we!) that humans are still smarter than computers, you have come to the right place.”

The beta launch for the search engine is expected in July.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=New_web_search_engine_uses_only_user-generated_results&oldid=566100”

Dvd Disc Repair, Scratched Dv Ds And Unfinalized Dv Ds Tips And Tricks.}

DVD Disc Repair, Scratched DVDs and Unfinalized DVDs Tips and Tricks.

by

Lance CarrSimple procedures to handle unsuccessfully finalized DVDs, damaged DVDs or DVDs that have not been burned correctly by a video camcorder or recorder and has some corrupt data.

It is a good idea for you to first consider other possible causes of what appear to be DVD errors such as a dirty disc surface, a dirty lens in the DVD reader or other software and hardware related problems.

Prior to embarking on any of the following you need to eliminate all possible causes for having trouble with a DVD.

Check to see your DVD burner has the latest firmware by going to the manufacturer’s website. Check to see if the media (brand and type) is compatible with your DVD burner/reader. Once you are certain that you have an unsuccessfully finalized DVD or a corrupt DVD you can get started.

Scratched DVD Disks.

A simple visual inspection of the surface of the disc will tell you straight away whether your first problem is physical damage to the disc. If you can see a scratch or scratches on the surface then this may need to be addressed first.

I say “may” because personally I use good DVD software to check to see if the disc will copy before I embark on any other course of action. Good quality DVD software can read through a lot of surface errors because of its superior algorithms so I always take the lazy route and see if I can simply make a new copy.

Now failing that you could go online and buy some expensive DVD scratch repair kit. Or you could do as I do and go to your local hardware store or even your own garage! All you will need is a bottle of any neutral colored (clear) car polishing product.

Turtlewax happens to be the one I use.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Hvc-HdRk8[/youtube]

Take a VERY soft cloth (NOT paper towel), apply a little polish to the surface of the disc and GENTLY (remember, it’s not a car!) rub the disc. Use straight strokes from the centre of the disc to the outer edge and continue to do this until you can see the scratch either disappear or reduce noticeably.

Then, using the same motion and fresh cloth buff the disc back to its original shine. If you are still unsuccessful repeat the process until you can be certain, again by visual inspection, that the problem is now not coming from a damaged disc surface.

DVD Disc Data Repair/Recovery

The software you can use for this is Nero 9.

Put the problem disc in the DVD drive of your computer then

1. Select a straight DVD to DVD copy. Nero 9 will now try to read the contents of the disc and, if it can, write the contents to a folder on your hard drive. It is as simple as that. It is either going to work or not! If it does do it then the copy you now have on your hard drive will be fully repaired and you can then burn a new copy.

2. Failing the above you next alternative depends on whether you have a data DVD or a video DVD. So lets go with the video DVD first.

Again using Nero 9 open the Nero Recode module and select to recode an entire DVD. Load the problem DVD and allow Recode to detect it and import. The reason we are going with Recode is that it is a separate module and has a different way of approaching DVDs.

We are going to trick Recode into recoding the video DVD without actually recoding! Recode’s real purpose is to reduce the bit rate of video files on a DVD so that you can fit more on to a single disc.

In this case we are going to tell Recode to “recode” at exactly the same rate as the original so that it will just make a perfect copy.

Hopefully, in doing that, the algorithms within Recode will correct the faulty DVD video information and…Voila! New corrected disc!

Now failing that we have another shot!

3. Still with Nero 9 we can go to a new feature of Nero called RescueAgent.

This is a long overdue addition to DVD suites and kudos to Nero for adding it.

Simply load the disc, video or data, it doesn’t matter. Get RescueAgent to scan the disc and it will tell you what is recoverable. Follow the onscreen prompts and it will extract what it can automatically.

Unfinalized discs.

If at all possible try to get the original device used to create the disc to finalize it.

If you have been left with an otherwise perfectly good disc, but unfinalized, do the following.

This requires Nero 9.

Place the unfinalized disc into the computer DVD tray. Open Nero 9 StartSmart.

Click “create and edit” at the top of the screen.

Click “author, edit and capture video.” NeroVision 5 will start.

Click on the disk tools drop down menu then click “finalize disk.”

In the option box that appears choose “no menus” and let it run.

Hopefully you now have a fully finalized disc that is readable.

Lance is not very good at writing about himself in the third person. He is an ex-patriot Australian living in Taiwan running a business consulting company. His grasp of the Chinese language ranges from poor to laughable and in most circumstances his actual use of the Chinese language results in laughter.

DVD Repair TipsDVD Disc Repair

Article Source:

eArticlesOnline.com}