Tuesday, August 29, 2006

A man named George Schultz in Parksville, British Columbia is selling the boat from old TV series Gilligan’s Island at the cost of $99,000. The cruiser, originally cost about $290,000 in the 1960s.

“There have been a couple of modifications, so it doesn’t look exactly like the original,” said Shultz, a boat broker who’s selling the 36-foot Wheeler Express Cruiser for fellow Parksdale resident Scotty Taylor. “But it’s still the original boat.”

Originally, the boat’s name was The Blue Jacket.

“Just for the show, for a stage name, it was called the S.S. Minnow,” Shultz said. The name was a reference to Newton Minnow, once chairman of the FCC.

“He just liked the boat, he wanted to restore it, it was a nice looking boat, a wooden boat, a classic and he likes classic boats,” said Shultz. “The hole in the hull was actually the least of the repairs – the interior needed a lot more work”.

Someone later stole the plaque on the boat, but the 46-year-old boat still has the round life preserver with S.S. Minnow emblazoned on it and the skipper’s chair.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) has urged the Australian government to increase funding for community broadcasters. CBAA is asking for an extra $AU14 million for “vital community broadcasting services.”

According to CBAA President Deborah Welch, community television is the training ground for the Australian media industry.

“It is the launching pad for the career of thousands of Australian musicians. It is an incredible source of local news, music and culture targeted specifically to local communities and produced by members of the community themselves,” Ms Welch said in a statement.

Stations broadcast a range of programs from religious programing, to car shows and sporting events. Several state based sporting leagues broadcast on community television stations. C31 Melbourne broadcasts an association football show called The Victoria Football Show; Queensland Community Television broadcasts AFL Queensland State League matches; and C31 Adelaide broadcasts Indoor Cricket & Netball and South Australian National Football League matches.

According to the CBAA, the primary income sources for community television stations are sponsorship announcements and community donations.

“The CBBA is calling on the Federal Government to commit $14 million in new funding for content production, infrastructure, training and sector co-ordination and planning,” Ms Walch says. “With $10.4 billion being spent on ‘strengthening the economy’ this is highly targeted $14 million will assist in skills development and employment pathways for many volunteers involved in local stations as well as strengthening local communities ability to sustain themselves in tough times.”

Australian Greens communications spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlum says, “[The] government should always be looking at ways to bring communities together, through sharing information and building partnerships.”

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Spanish police believe they are close to capturing Aribert Heim, the 91-year-old known as “Dr. Death”. Dr. Heim, described by The Times as “the most wanted Nazi still believed to be alive”, is thought to be living in the town of Palafrugell in the Costa Brava area of Spain.

Heim worked as a doctor in a number of Nazi Germany concentration camps (Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald) carrying out a series of experiments on the camp’s Jewish inmates. His experiments reportedly included operating on a patient without anaesthetic to see how much pain a human being could endure, and injecting petrol into the bloodstream, then timing how long it took for the victim to die. Hundreds of people are believed to have died as a result of these experiments.

The Times reports that Heim led a normal civilian life after the end of the Second World War, but fled Germany in 1962, when the authorities were about to issue a warrant for his arrest. Nazi hunters, including researchers from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have been looking for him ever since. The center’s founder, Simon Wiesenthal, was himself active in pursuing Heim prior to his death last month.

German police received a tip six weeks ago by an Israeli citizen who met a man in Ibiza with characteristics similar to Heim. The police acknowledged the information was helpful. Other evidence pointing the trail to Palafrugell involve banking transfers and tax filings.

Friday, November 25, 2005

In Friday’s National Hockey League contest between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Boston Bruins at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. Peter Forsberg almost netted his first “hat trick” in a Flyers uniform. At one point during the game, he had been given credit for three goals, however an official review took his first goal away, and officially he scored his eighth goal of the season at 13:06 in the second period with assists from Simon Gagne and former Hartford Whaler Sami Kapanen.

To date, there have been 24 hat tricks (3 or more goals in one game) in this NHL season.

Forsberg, a 32 year old native of Sweden, recently joined the Flyers for the 2005-2006 season after spending the NHL lockout season with Modo, Sweden.

The Flyers ended up winning the game 5-3, adding yet another loss to an already disappointing Bruins season.

Friday, January 20, 2006

A recently created Danish clothing company is selling on the internet T-shirts in order to support the clandestine radio station of the Colombian guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the graphical workshop of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In fact the money will be used by these groups to carry on their terrorist activities. FARC activities include kidnappings, masacres, bombs, extortions and the drug trade.

Fighters and Lovers is selling the T-shirts at 170 DKK (US$27.6), from which 35 DKK (US$5.7) are to be destinated to support both armed groups.

Anna Duever, Fighters and Lovers PR chief, said to Spanish news agency EFE that their objective is to “defend freedom and social justice, which is FARC and PFLP are fighting for”. Duever believes the fact the FARC has been included by the EU in its terrorist group list is a “political game”. “We pay our taxes in Denmark, and that money is used for financing the troops our government has sent to Iraq. That’s terrorism. Besides, in Colombia there’s a regime oppressing population and torturing and killing its people”, she said.

Colombian Foreign Affairs Minister, Carolina Barco, said to local media that “financing terrorist groups is unacceptable and goes against all the international norms. Yesterday [Tuesday 19] our ambassador contacted the Danish government, we sent a protest note and have demanded an explanation.”

A year ago, a Danish NGO named Oprør (“Rebelion”) stated it had donated money to the Colombian guerrilla. A new antiterrorism law in Denmark may punish it.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

The US-based Cessna Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of Textron Inc., is expected to statically display seven of its aircraft and a mock-up of its latest business jet large cabin concept at the 47th International Paris Air Show, dubbed the LCC.

The seven aircraft expected to be on display are the Citation CJ2+, Citation Encore+, Citation XLS, and Citation Sovereign business jets, a Grand Caravan, a 206 Stationair, and a 172 Skyhawk single engine piston aircraft.

Cessna Chairman, President and CEO Jack Pelton said of the exhibit, “There is so much synergy now with other companies under the Textron corporate banner – companies like Bell Helicopter and Textron Systems – that we felt it made sense for us to return as an exhibitor to the Paris Air Show… We are particularly excited to have our large cabin mockup as the highlight of our exhibit.”

Cessna originally announced plans for a new large model of business jet for the Citation range at last year’s annual National Business Aviation Association meeting, and the idea has been in development since, culminating in the new large cabin concept design. The mock-up at the Paris Air Show includes a large galley, seating for nine passengers, a toilet and a dummy flight deck.

Cessna claim the new design, which outsizes their previous large cabin and long-range business jets, would “set a new standard for performance, cabin comfort, passenger amenities and environmental friendliness,” if launched.

Cessna refuse to release details such as exact internal design specifications and manufacturers of avionics and engines unless the new model actually enters production. Cessna Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing Roger Whyte told reporters that preliminary wind tunnel testing had “fully met… expectations” and that they had “received extremely positive reaction to the performance parameters as well the cabin design of the proposed aircraft from our customer base”, although he warned that there are still a number of processes to be completed before Cessna actually decide whether or not to launch the new model.

Friday, May 9, 2008

South African president Thabo Mbeki has arrived in Harare today to talk with Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe about the upcoming presidential run-off election. This comes amid claims that violence has risen in the country over the last few days.

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights claim there has been a “dramatic escalation in incidents of organised violence and torture” after the recent elections with “more than 900” documented as injured. The organization said in a statement that “the level of brutality and callousness exhibited by the perpetrators is unprecedented and the vicious and cowardly attacks by so-called war veterans on women, children and the elderly shames the memory of all true heroes of the liberation struggle”.

Mr. Mbeki is acting as a mediator for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and may have discussed elections and the recent crackdown on opposition by the Mugabe government, which has included the arrest of Davison Maruziva, editor of free newspaper The Standard, 22 deaths, the displacement of 40,000 opposition farming families and such a casualty influx into Harare hospitals that they are worried that plaster of Paris bandage supplies will soon be “exhausted”.

Talks between the two leaders at State House lasted for more than three hours before Mbeki left for the South African embassy in Harare.

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the largest opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), plans to announce whether he will stand for the run-off election in the South African city of Pretoria, where he is currently residing, tomorrow at 9:00 UTC.