Thursday, March 31, 2016

Businessman Rocky De La Fuente took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

The 61-year-old De La Fuente resides in San Diego, California, grew up in Tijuana, and owns multiple businesses and properties throughout the world. Since getting his start in the automobile industry, De La Fuente has branched out into the banking and real estate markets. Despite not having held or sought political office previously, he has been involved in politics, serving as the first-ever Hispanic superdelegate to the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

De La Fuente entered the 2016 presidential race last October largely due to his dissatisfaction with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. He argues he is a more accomplished businessman than Trump, and attacks Trump as “a clown,” “a joke,” “dangerous,” and “in the same category as Hitler.” Nevertheless, De La Fuente’s business background begets comparisons with Trump. The Alaskan Midnight Sun blog described him as the Democrats’ “own Donald Trump.”

While receiving only minimal media coverage, he has campaigned actively, and according to the latest Federal Election Commission filing, loaned almost US$ 4 million of his own money to the campaign. He has qualified for 48 primary and caucus ballots, but has not yet obtained any delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Thus far, according to the count at The Green Papers, De La Fuente has received 35,406 votes, or 0.23% of the total votes cast. He leads among the many lesser-known candidates but trails both Senator Bernie Sanders who has received nearly 6.5 million votes and front-runner Hillary Clinton who has just shy of 9 million votes.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, De La Fuente discusses his personal background, his positions on political issues, his current campaign for president, and his political future.

Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley West (Ward 25). Three candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include John Blair, Robertson Boyle, Tony Dickins, Cliff Jenkins (incumbent), and Peter Kapsalis.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The available information about the phosphorous cloud following the railway accident in the Ukraine last Monday is becoming more and more cryptic.

The political involvement of most media and other factors are causing contradictions among official sources that are making press work extremely hard. Moreover, no one is permitted to enter the accident location. The site of the accident was closed to visitors following the injury of three TV journalists who got too close.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

A Delta Air Lines passenger jet skidded off the runway at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport in snowy weather on Thursday, causing a shutdown of the airport, according to officials. The jetliner was carrying 127 passengers and five crew.

The MD-88, operating as flight 1086, was flying in from Atlanta when it lost control after landing. There were a few minor injuries while the passengers were evacuated. The plane was significantly damaged and the airport was shut down. One of the runways reopened around 2 p.m., although an earlier Federal Aviation Administration statement had put reopening at 6:59 p.m.

The city fire department said five out of at least 28 passengers with minor injuries were hospitalized.

Pat Foye, executive director of the port authority, said the plane was two thirds of the way along the 7,000-foot runway when it began a leftward skid that nearly sent it into the water.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent an investigator for the flight data recorders. Delta stated they would work with authorities to investigate.

Monday, September 12, 2005

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is being criticized for misallocation of personnel in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA representatives said they requested volunteers from fire departments around the U.S., to handle its community relations campaign. However, a document FEMA sent to local fire departments asked for firefighters with very specific skills and who were capable of working in “austere conditions”. Fire departments around the nation responded by sending crews to the FEMA staging ground in Atlanta. Some of these crews were unaware that they were only going to be used for public relations work. Others, however, merely hoped that FEMA would allocate them to rescue and damage control operations once it saw their qualifications.

The firefighter’s objections are particularly poignant as one of FEMA public relations training seminars coincided with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin plea for firefighters on national television, to relieve his own exhausted crews. It is unclear if FEMA’s request for firefighters prevented any municipalities from responding to Mayor Nagin’s request.

Some firefighters have objected to their use as FEMA public relations officers because their municipalities must bear the cost of their salaries, as well as endure reduced firefighting capacity. FEMA has stated that it sought to use firefighters to avoid background checks required of federal employees.

Firefighters began receiving their assignments Monday, September 5th. Among these was a crew of 50 assigned to tour the devastated areas with President Bush and the press.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged.

Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.

Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.

Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Rev. Mary Magdalen (Rachel Bevilacqua) of the Church of the SubGenius, a postmodern or parody religion, lost custody of her child in February of 2006, seemingly due to her involvement with the church. Church members are touting the judge’s response to her involvement with the church together with his decision as religious discrimination, and the ACLU is examining the situation.

Judge James Punch (Orleans County) allegedly denied custody of the child her son out of anger, after seeing videos of Rev. Magdalen in a bondage “dress” and papier maché goat’s head at the church’s X-Day celebration and performance art piece. Judge Punch repeatedly asked, “Why a goat? What’s so significant about a goat’s head?” When Rev. Magdalen replied, “I just thought the word ‘goat’ was funny,” the court then pressed her to explain how her actions were funny, finally concluding with the statement, “Obviously there’s nothing funny in those pictures.”

According to Rev. Magdalen, the judge reportedly lost his temper and shouted at her, calling her a “pervert,” “mentally ill,” “lying,” and a participant in “sex orgies.” Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.

Judge Punch ordered that Rev. Magdalen is to have absolutely no further contact with her son, not even in writing, after February 3, 2006. On March 9th, the judge issued a verbal order stating that Rev. Magdalen was to cease all communication on the Internet regarding her son, thereby preventing her from posting transcripts of the actual court proceedings (however, a transcript of her own testimony was made available on March 26th).

Rev. Magdalen has been a major figure in the Church of the SubGenius since 1997 when she and her son moved to Dallas, Texas to be with her fiancé Rev . Jesus (Steve Bevilacqua) and help keep the for-profit church afloat. The church members traditionally consider the for-profit arm to have “religious significance”, due in part to the church’s intentional parody of Scientology and New Age religions, and the church declares itself to be “the only religion that is proud to pay its taxes.” The Bevilacquas relocated to Columbus in 2004.

Religions or deities engaging in satire, such as the Church of the SubGenius, Discordianism, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, have become significantly more widespread through the internet. However, the Church of the SubGenius is relatively old, dating to 1979, and gained much of its current popularity through its published books, including the Book of the SubGenius, and its Hour of Slack radio program. Discordianism is even older, dating to 1958 or 1959, and has strongly influenced modern non-satirical neopagan religions. Such religions are now generally termed “postmodern” instead of “parody”, as their followers frequently insist the religion is as real and valid as any other religion, but often accept the postmodernist critique of religious metanarratives.

Rev. Magdalen’s case has been profiled on a number of popular blogs and Internet sites, including Boing Boing and Fark.

Following the word of this case being spread on the Internet, Judge Punch recused himself without comment. The case is being re-assigned to another judge, and Rev. Magdalen will return to court next month.