fuzhong.org

Friday, May 11, 2007

At least two Kentucky Fried Chicken [KFC] restaurants, operated by G & H Restaurant Specialties, have closed in Buffalo, New York “for remodeling,” according to signs placed on the front doors of at least one location on Elmwood Avenue and Bryant Street in Buffalo. The other KFC is located on East Delavan Avenue, also in the City of Buffalo.

Despite the claim of closing for remodeling, the Erie County Health Department says that several health code violations were found at both locations. The most recent violation was logged by the health department in March at the Elmwood location for failing to keep food stored at correct temperatures. Violations were also cited for failing to keep cooking supplies and equipment sanitary and for not supplying hot water to the bathroom for employees.

G & H Restaurant Specialties has not released a statement regarding the violations, but the corporate offices in Louisville, Kentucky for KFC said, “our franchisee has finalized a plan for some structural repairs… The units will be temporarily closed while these building maintenance issues are addressed. [They will be] re-opened as soon as the repairs are complete.”

The health department also gave violations out to the East Delevan store for failing to maintain a clean floor throughout the restaurant and for not stopping food from becoming contaminated. Several rat traps were also found inside the storage cooler and around the kitchen area, but the establishment was “not free of rodents,” said Commissioner of the Erie County Health Department, Dr. Anthony Billittier.

Billittier also said that caulking and traps were seen on the outside of the East Delevan restaurant, which was an attempt to keep the rats out. “It shows that they’re trying to take care of a problem. But it also shows that they have a problem.”

As of Thursday, May 10, 2007, the Elmwood KFC has yet to reopen. It is not known if the East Delevan location opened today or not.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Torture proliferates American headlines today: whether its use is defensible in certain contexts and the morality of the practice. Wikinews reporter David Shankbone was curious about torture in American popular culture. This is the first of a two part series examining the BDSM business. This interview focuses on the owners of a dungeon, what they charge, what the clients are like and how they handle their needs.

When Shankbone rings the bell of “HC & Co.” he has no idea what to expect. A BDSM (Bondage Discipline Sadism Masochism) dungeon is a legal enterprise in New York City, and there are more than a few businesses that cater to a clientèle that wants an enema, a spanking, to be dressed like a baby or to wear women’s clothing. Shankbone went to find out what these businesses are like, who runs them, who works at them, and who frequents them. He spent three hours one night in what is considered one of the more upscale establishments in Manhattan, Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, where according to The Village Voice, “you can take your girlfriend or wife, and have them treated with respect—unless they hope to be treated with something other than respect!”

When Shankbone arrived on the sixth floor of a midtown office building, the elevator opened up to a hallway where a smiling Rebecca greeted him. She is a beautiful forty-ish Long Island mother of three who is dressed in smart black pants and a black turtleneck that reaches up to her blond-streaked hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail. “Are you David Shankbone? We’re so excited to meet you!” she says, and leads him down the hall to a living room area with a sofa, a television playing an action-thriller, an open supply cabinet stocked with enema kits, and her husband Bill sitting at the computer trying to find where the re-release of Blade Runner is playing at the local theater. “I don’t like that movie,” says Rebecca.

Perhaps the most poignant moment came at the end of the night when Shankbone was waiting to be escorted out (to avoid running into a client). Rebecca came into the room and sat on the sofa. “You know, a lot of people out there would like to see me burn for what I do,” she says. Rebecca is a woman who has faced challenges in her life, and dealt with them the best she could given her circumstances. She sees herself as providing a service to people who have needs, no matter how debauched the outside world deems them. They sat talking mutual challenges they have faced and politics (she’s supporting Hillary); Rebecca reflected upon the irony that many of the people who supported the torture at Abu Ghraib would want her closed down. It was in this conversation that Shankbone saw that humanity can be found anywhere, including in places that appear on the surface to cater to the inhumanity some people in our society feel towards themselves, or others.

“The best way to describe it,” says Bill, “is if you had a kink, and you had a wife and you had two kids, and every time you had sex with your wife it just didn’t hit the nail on the head. What would you do about it? How would you handle it? You might go through life feeling unfulfilled. Or you might say, ‘No, my kink is I really need to dress in women’s clothing.’ We’re that outlet. We’re not the evil devil out here, plucking people off the street, keeping them chained up for days on end.”

Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Bill & Rebecca, owners of Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, a BDSM dungeon.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Access to the Russian-language Wikipedia is disabled across almost all its pages today, due to the Russian parliament, the Duma, debating amendments to the law “About information” which may lead to censorship of Runet through blacklisting and filtering of internet sites.

The proposed bill aims to creating a blacklist of internet sites alleged to host child pornography, drug related material, extremist material and other content illegal in the country. It also proposed several other changes in the law, including holding providers of telecommunication services liable for failing to protect children.

Critics, including Google, Yahoo, search engine Yandex and social networking site Vkontakte noted that as-written the legislation contained many technical faults likely to negatively impact legitimate internet use. In protest, the Russian Wikipedia community decided upon a near-total blackout of contents on July 10. The blackout banner includes the text: “Imagine a world without free knowledge”, and summarises the details of the bill. Readers are warned that articles, such as Suicide, may be considered “harmful” due to ambiguity in the proposed legislation, risking a block of the entire website by Russia-based Internet providers.

Later in the day, the popular blogging platform LiveJournal issued a statement similarly opposed to the legislation: “[…Livejournal] considers the introduction of any restrictions on freedom of expression and information in the Internet to be unacceptable.”

The announcement by the Russian Wikimedia community states:

In January, the English-language Wikipedia ran a similar ‘blackout protest’ for 24 hours, protesting US anti-piracy laws the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). That action resulted in those laws being reconsidered. An earlier blackout, in October last year, saw the Italian Wikipedia community successfully oppose other Internet censorship legislation.

Speaking to Wikinews in January, the Wikimedia Foundation’s chief executive, Sue Gardner, explained “[t]he Wikimedia movement does not have a lot of experience with advocacy, and probably mistakes will get made. At this time the Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t have any plans to develop policy governing protests or advocacy work. But, I think it probably does make sense for the Foundation to create venues for these discussions”.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

A New Zealand woman who lay down between railway tracks and had a freight train run over her is “incredibly lucky”, sustaining only minor injuries, according to Sue Foley, spokeswoman for the railway company, Toll Holdings.

The driver saw the woman lying in between the tracks while the train was travelling at about 20 km/h. Despite the slow speed of the train, the driver was unable to stop the train before it ran over the woman. “By the time he stopped the train and walked back down the line, she popped out from under the third wagon,” said Mike Lawton, acting sergeant for Feilding police.

The woman was flown to Palmerston North Hospital after complaining about sore elbows and shoulders and receiving minor injuries.

The driver of the train has been offered counselling while he has been taken off driving duties.

Police and the train operator would not comment on why the woman was lying between the tracks.

Aviation articles by Wikinewsie Iain Macdonald.

This Category ‘sub-page’ will display up to 500 articles which one of the project’s contributors has written on a specific topic.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Detectives from New South Wales have successfully extradited a 30-year-old woman and 23-year-old man from Western Australia wanted in connection with a double murder in the Sydney suburb of Granville on March 29, 2006.

The victims of the murders were 26-year-old Bassam Chami, who died at the scene, and 25-year-old Ibrahim Assad, who died following surgery at Westmead Hospital.

Following the shootings, NSW Police setup a strike force, called Lasswade to investigate the murders.

The woman was arrested by detectives of the Major Crime Squad in Western Australia at 9 p.m. AEST last Tuesday. She was found and arrested at a motel in Victoria Park, Perth.

Shortly after the woman’s arrest, the man was arrested by the Tactical Response Group as he exited a unit in East Victoria Park.

On Wednesday, four members of Strike Force Lasswade flew to Perth and was successful in applying to have the pair extradited to NSW to face questioning and charges. The pair arrived in Sydney on Saturday night.

Once in NSW, police took the pair to Surry Hills police station where they were questioned and subsequently charged. The man was charged with one count of murder and another of attempted murder. The woman was charged with two counts of being an accessory to murder.

Both suspects were refused bail and are due to appear in court on Monday.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a stock market index used to gauge the performance of American stock exchanges, fell 344.65 at the close of trading Thursday.

The exact reason for the drop is unknown, with different news agencies pointing to different causes. The New York Times cites a rise in unemployment numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor and a fall in retail sales released by several large corporations.

According to the Associated Press, the number of people claiming weekly unemployment benefits rose 15,000 last week to 444,000, which, according to The New York Times is near a five-year high.

“This morning’s employment numbers continue to indicate that the labor sector remains soft at best and looks to continue to shed jobs throughout the remainder of the year,” Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at Merk Investments, said in a statement to The New York Times.

One major corporation that posted a gain in sales was Wal-Mart, with a 3 percent boost, which resulted in a one penny loss in their stock. Fellow retailer Target posted a sales loss. Shares of energy companies ExxonMobil and Chevron fell by 1.5 and 3 percent, respectively.

The other two major American stock indices fell too. The S&P 500 fell 2.99 percent while the Nasdaq composite index fell 3.20 percent. The Dow’s 344.65-point fall left the index at 11,188.23, a 2.99 percent decrease from the close of trading Wednesday.

According to The New York Times, the drop is the largest since June of this year, but an expected announcement Friday of August unemployment data could cause the index to rise.

The New York Times and the Associated Press both report that the number of jobs in the service sector rose in August according to research done by the Institute for Supply Management. This is the first rise in the number of jobs in several months.

CNNMoney.com points to the rise in the price of Treasury bonds as a reaction to data released Wednesday that the American economy would continue to be slow in 2009.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

A federal court in New York, New York ruled Monday that American financier Bernard Madoff can remain free on a US$10 million bond. Madoff faces charges of securities fraud in case that may reveal losses as large as US$50 billion. He was originally arrested on December 11, 2008.

Federal prosecutors had argued that Madoff had violated terms of his bail by mailing valuables to relatives from his Manhattan apartment, where he is under house arrest.

Judge Ronald L. Ellis ruled that, “The government fails to provide sufficient evidence that any potential future dissemination of Madoff’s assets would rise to the level of an economic harm.”

The judge, however, did say that “it is appropriate that his ability to transfer property be restricted as completely as possible.” Madoff will be required to submit a complete inventory of items in his apartment.

A Wall Street adviser, Madoff was arrested and charged by the FBI last December with a single count of securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud. He allegedly told senior employees of his firm on December 10, that his business “is all just one big lie” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme [since at least 2005].”