philrealtor.com

Friday, February 6, 2009

United States swimmer Michael Phelps has been banned from competition and his training stipend revoked for three months by USA Swimming after Phelps was photographed smoking from a glass pipe, often used for smoking cannabis. The picture was published last Sunday by British tabloid News of the World.

USA Swimming, which is the governing body of swimming in the United States, however said that no “anti-doping” rules had been violated.

“This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero,” it stated. “Michael has voluntarily accepted this reprimand and has committed to earn back our trust.”

The suspension will end in time for Phelps to train for the US Championships, which are to be held on the 7th of July.

Phelps has also lost sponsor Kellogg, who said that it would not renew its deal with the swimmer next month.

Phelps won a record eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing last year, and has since become one of the world’s most famous athletes.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Online organisations around the world are today testing Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) — a new system of Internet addresses hoped to resolve the issue of the present system being at capacity. World IPv6 Day is checking everything works as planned.

The current IPv4 standard was set up in the 1980s; it gives everything on the Internet a twelve-digit address and allows for 4.3 billion combinations. With these exhausted, IPv6 is designed to increase the limit 340 undecillion — that’s 340 trillion trillion trillion.

Major websites including services run by Google, Facebook, and Yahoo! are taking part in the test, switching their content to use the new system. Facebook predicts 99.97% of users to be unaffected and Google anticipates 99.5% will not encounter problems. The remainder may encounter slow page loading.

Fiji and Australia are among the first countries to have business-hours web traffic during the test. Internet Society of Australia President Tony Hill claims more than 100 global companies are involved.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Approximately 100 scientists and students will take part in the Verification of Rotation in Tornadoes Expermiment VORTEX2 project in May to study tornadoes in the central United States along Tornado Alley.

One of the unique features of VORTEX2 is that it is mobile, with no fixed base. The large armada will operate from the Dakotas down to Texas, operating in a different area every day as the weather dictates. The project will run between May 10 to June 13, repeating again in 2010 from 1 May until 15 June. 40 research vehicles will use mobile radar, deployable arrays of instruments called Sticknets and Podnets to measure around and inside tornadoes, ten instrumented vehicles, 4 balloon launching vehicles, unmanned aircraft, and other instruments to surround tornadoes and the supercell thunderstorms that form them.

“We have a strong focus on trying to figure out why storms tornado when they do. VORTEX1 made a significant difference. But now we have a lot more technology to make real-time predictions, which can increase warning times.” Louis Wicker, National Severe Storms Laboratory research meteorologist said, “Data collected from V2 will help researchers understand how tornadoes form and how the large-scale environment of thunderstorms is related to tornado formation.”

The US$11.9 million project, will help to determine why and how tornadoes initially form and how tornadoes are related to supercell thunderstorms.

Stephan Nelson, National Science Foundation (NSF) program director for physical and dynamic meteorology, whose program is providing the bulk of funding for VORTEX2, said “An important finding from the original VORTEX experiment was that tornadoes happen on smaller time and space scales than scientists had thought. New advances from Vortex2 will allow for a more detailed sampling of a storm’s wind, temperature and moisture environment, and lead to a better understanding of why tornadoes form – and how they can be more accurately predicted,”

Researchers from Finland, Bureau of Meteorology in Australia, Environment Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS), ten universities across the US, and the NOAA Storm Prediction Center will take part in the project.

Already in 2009, there have been nine fatalities caused from tornadoes in the US alone.

The VORTEX1 project took place between 1994 and 1995, and was the largest tornado study to date, collecting valuable data that enhanced scientific understanding of tornadoes and tornadogenesis.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Natural Balance Pet Foods has recalled some of its wet and dry food for cats and dogs after several owners said that their pets were becoming sick. The company urges owners to stop feeding their pets the food immediately.

The brands recalled include Venison & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food and Venison & Green Pea Dry Cat Food.

Last month, Menu Foods recalled all of its 60 million products of dry and wet dog and cat food after pets began to fall ill and in some cases died of kidney failure.

“Natural Balance, Pacoima, CA, is issuing a voluntary nationwide recall for all of its Venison dog products and the dry Venison cat food only, regardless of date codes. The recalled products include Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, Venison and Brown Rice dog treats, and Venison and Green Pea dry cat food. Recent laboratory results show that the products contain melamine. We believe the source of the melamine is a rice protein concentrate. Natural Balance has confirmed this morning that some production batches of these products may contain melamine,” said a press released issued by Natural Balance.

The FDA states that the “investigation remains open and active, and the agency continues to follow leads to get closer to the root cause of the problem and to ensure that all contaminated product is removed from the market.”

“The source of the melamine appears to be a rice protein concentrate, which was recently added to the dry venison formulas. Natural Balance does not use wheat gluten, which was associated with the previous melamine contamination,” said the press release.

Bags, cans and zip lock bags of the food are expected to be the most affected.

“The products are packaged in bags, cans and zip lock treat bags and sold in pet specialty stores and PetCo nationally. No other Natural Balance products are involved in this voluntary recall as none of our other formulas include the rice protein concentrate,” added the press release.

The company states that the food, Venison & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food and Venison & Green Pea Dry Cat Food, are the only brands affected by the recall.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Jared Foster, a transfer quarterback with the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) Rebels football team, was arrested yesterday in Oxford, Mississippi and charged with selling steroids.

Rebels head coach Houston Nutt said that Foster will not be allowed to remain with the team.

Foster was arrested for alcohol possession by a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in 2006 while a star player for Madison Central High School in Madison, Mississippi. Prosecutors agreed then not to try the case on the conditions that Foster help police in a steroid investigation and stay out of trouble.

Friday, May 26, 2006

In February of 2006, the Savarino Services Construction Corp. proposed the construction of a seven million dollar hotel on Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo, New York. In order for the hotel to be built, at least five properties containing businesses and residents would have to be destroyed. It was not certain whether the properties were owned by Savarino or by the landlord Hans Mobius. The hotel was designed by Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group, and is planned to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group.

Elmwood Avenue is known by the community as a popular shopping center, and Nancy Pollina of Don Apparel (who is “utterly against” the construction) claims it’s the only reason why students from Buffalo State College leave campus. Additionally, Michael Faust of Mondo Video said he did not want to “get kicked out of here [his video store property].”

In 1995, a Walgreens was proposed to be built on the same land, but Walgreens later withdrew its request for a variance because of pressure from the community. More recently, Pano Georgiadis tried to get the rights to demolish the Atwater House next to his restaurant on Elmwood Avenue, but was denied a permit due to the property’s historical value. He has since been an opponent to the hotel construction.

In the process of debating the hotel, it was thought that a hotel had previously existed on the proposed site, however; research done at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society had shown that no hotel had previously existed on the site.

Friday, September 26, 2008

On October 14, 2008, Canadians will be heading to the polls for the federal election. New Democratic Party candidate Michael McMahon is standing for election in the riding of Prince Edward—Hastings. McMahon moved to Windsor in 1951, getting a degree in education, teaching locally and in Papua New Guinea. He served as Branch President of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), served on multiple of their major committees, and recently retired from the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board.

Wikinews contacted Michael McMahon, 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.

Since being redefined in 2003, the riding includes the County of Prince Edward and the County of Hastings (except the City of Quinte West). Conservative Party member Daryl Kramp currently represents the riding, after beating a Liberal in 2004. Ken Cole of the Liberals and Alan Coxwell of the Greens are also running in the riding.

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