Both McLaren–Mercedes drivers appear to be his major rivals for the new season as Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton made a double finishing 2nd and 3rd consequently, with Hamilton on his debut race.
Nick Heidfeld, driving for BMW Sauber, had a promising start and stayed with Kimi for the first part of the race, but his early first pit-stop pushed him back to the 4th place, while his Polish teammate Robert Kubica retired due to technical problems towards the end of the race.
Felipe Massa was penalized for the engine change after his previous engine failed during qualification, but showed a good pace and for the dying laps of the race pushed hard on Renault driver Giancarlo Fisicella. The few overtaking attempts were not successful enough and so Filipe saw the checkered flag behind Giancarlo on the six place.
The top 10 was closed by Renault rookie Heikki Kovalainen who made numerous driving errors in the closing stages of the race.
The 2007 Formula-1 season from now appears to be a highly competitive season after Michael Schumacher retired from the sport at the end of the 2006 season.
British actress Kara Tointon and her Russian dance partner Artem Chigvintsev have become the winners of the latest series of the BBC Television programme Strictly Come Dancing. The pair won the dancing show on Saturday, leaving British television presenter Matt Baker and his Kazakhstani dance partner Aliona Vilani in second place.
It’s just the most special thing that I’ve ever achieved.
Bookmakers had considered this dancing duo to be the most likely to win the series. Meanwhile, Australian actress Pamela Stephenson finished in third place along with her British dance partner, James Jordan. It was ultimately a public vote that determined the results.
Upon winning, Tointon proclaimed: “It’s just the most special thing that I’ve ever achieved.” In reference to Chigvintsev, she exclaimed: “I want to thank this man, he’s been absolutely wonderful.” Talking about the experience, she commented: “I’ve met the most fantastic friends in my life and this has been the most special experience for me.” Chigvintsev then declared to Tointon: “You’re amazing.” Baker described the dancing pair as “worthy winners, without any doubt”, saying: “If I was at home I’d be voting for you, too.”
Earlier in the final programme, Tointon and Chigvintsev had danced to the tune of Cry Me a River; the dance received the acclaim of the judges. “I would kill to be able to dance like that, I thought it was amazing,” Craig Revel Horwood exclaimed. Alesha Dixon commented: “I’m quite sad that that is the last dance we are going to see you do”. In reference to the pair, she added: “Together you are first class.” Bruno Tonioli remarked: “You danced to a level that we hardly ever see here. Whatever happens, this was incredible.”
Bruno Tonioli described Matt Baker as “very dashing and elegant”. Len Goodman believed that he was “an excellent ballroom dancer”. At one point, Palema Stephenson received a perfect score of 40 from the four judges for her Viennese Waltz. Tonioli branded the dance as “simply brilliant”. Revel Horwood used the word “remarkable” to describe that performance.
YBGLOB IT Solutions India explains important flash features.
by
Raybghrblog
Throughout our website you’ll find notes that tell you about important flash features, as well as issues to avoid. You’ll also find a liberal helping of tips that are designed to streamline your flash work flow. You’ll find insights and interesting tidbits about flash related subjects in the Did You Know sidebars. We have also included a generous helping of how to sidebars, in which you’ll find information on how to create elements for your flash movies. To help users who want to become familiar with the more advanced features of flash 8 professional, our website includes flash professional sidebars, which explain the expanded features and provide information on how to use them.
Our goal was to produce a website that provides you with a desktop reference for the most popular flash features, as well as to give you some real world examples of flash that you can use in your daily work. We sincerely hope that you’ll find the information in these pages helpful and entertaining. If we’ve done our job right, this copy will find a place near your computer and quickly become dog-eared from repeated readings. It’s a safe bet that you’re familiar with flash and its tremendous potential as a multimedia design tool. Most likely you want to learn how to animate in flash, save the animation, and put it up on the web or output to video or DVD. Perhaps you want to learn how to add interactivity to your flash movie so your viewers can press buttons and drag objects to trigger events. Or maybe you don’t quite know what you want to do with it yet and you want to take it for a test run to see what its capabilities are. Whoever you are and whatever your reasons are for visiting our website, one thing has to be true: You are probably anxious to get started and make a flash movie. Flash 8 is an application with multiple layers of complexity, so it’s not something you can easily master overnight. In addition to the drawing and animation capabilities of flash 8, the flash scripting language, Action Script, exists as an entirely different entity within the application. The flash 8 professional version of the application contains many advanced programming features, and for developers interested in programming, this would be their version of choice Action Script is a complex scripting language and it can take years for nonprogrammers to master. But don’t be discouraged; the good news is that even a beginner can jump right into flash and start making movies right away without any prior knowledge of Action Script. A beginner can even incorporate a simple script into his or her movies while still knowing very little about Action Script. So things are looking up already. By doing so, you can take a look under the flash 8 hood, kick the tries, and get a feel for how it drives before getting seriously engrossed in the application. You will experience the excitement of creating a flash movie that has motion and a script attached.
The Benet Academy Redwings boys basketball team defeated the Oswego High School Panthers 40–34 Saturday night at Benet’s historic Alumni Gym.
Located at Lisle, Illinois, United States, the gymnasium is home to Benet’s winning streak of 102 consecutive home games. The statewide record lasted from November 26, 1975 until January 24, 1987, when Naperville North High School defeated the Redwings 47–46. Benet also achieved 96 consecutive victories in the Western Suburban Catholic Conference at that time.
The school continued to use the facility, colloquially referred to as the “Old Gym” or the “Small Gym”, until the end of the 1994 season, when a newer athletic center was built on campus. It wasn’t until the late 1990’s when then-coach Marty Gaughan decided to play one game per year in the Alumni Gym to remind the school of its history. “There is just an electricity, and you feel it when you are in there,” said Gaughan, who coached the team from the 1989–1990 season to the 2007–2008 season.
This tradition continued until the 2006–2007 season, when the Redwings played against long-time rival St. Francis High School. Renovations prevented the gym from being used for athletic events over the past two seasons. This game was Benet coach Gene Heidkamp’s first opportunity to coach in the older gym. “So much history and winning has taken place there, which makes it so special. It is something the entire school community is excited about,” said Heidkamp.
Saturday’s game was played at the Alumni Gym at the request of Oswego assistant coach Jim Bagley. He wanted his son, senior forward Chris Bagley, to experience the same atmosphere he had as he played for Benet in the 1978–1979 season. Greg Kwiatkowski was also Jim Bagley’s teammate in Benet, and his son, Joe Kwiatkowski, was in the Panthers’ starting lineup as well. “Two of us who played at Benet together and now our son’s play on [Oswego] together and for them to have a chance to play where we played is going to be a great night and great experience,” said the senior Bagley.
Alumni Gym apparently still had its charm in the second half for the Redwings, whose 15–17 score at halftime worsened into an 11-point deficit in the third quarter. Benet fell behind with a score of 21–29 at the start of the fourth quarter. From that point, the Redwings’ defense began to kick in. Oswego could make only 2 of its 13 field goals in the third quarter. Benet’s offense also gained momentum as center Frank Kaminsky scored all of his 9 points in the fourth quarter. A shot by senior Mike Runger brought the score to 31–31, and two consecutive driving layups by David Sobolewski gave Benet the lead that would last for the rest of the game.
“We hit a dry spell there, but let’s give credit where credit is due. Defense wins games and they are the best defensive team we’ve faced all year,” said Oswego coach Kevin Schnable.
Benet’s Matt Parisi led his team with 15 points, and Sobolewski scored 12. Oswego’s Andrew Ziemnik also scored 12.
An Australian Senate inquiry into the abortion pill “RU486” has started public hearings in Melbourne. A controversial conscience vote on the issue to overturn laws which prohibit Australian women’s access to the drug, will be held in Federal parliament on February 9.
The Senate committee is considering a bill to remove ministerial control of the abortifacient drug Mifepristone – or RU486. Health Minister Tony Abbott says the issue of whether to allow women access to the drug “is one of principle.” Abbott, who is against abortion, insists he is the right person to control the drug’s use in Australia.
Besides its use internationally as an “abortion pill”, there may also be a small chance that it may help treat various other medical disorders including prostate cancer, breast cancer, and inoperable brain tumours amongst other conditions. Mifepristone is effectively banned in Australia, with Minister Abbott controlling whether it is made available.
The bill, sponsored by a group of female senators and MPs, would hand Mr Abbott’s powers over to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) – the body that controls all other pharmaceutical drugs in Australia. The bill seeks to have the TGA determine the drug’s availability and not the Health Minister.
Democrats Leader Lyn Allison, said she was “cautiously confident” the parliament will overturn the current arrangements when the conscience vote takes place. “Those who are in favour of the bill are saying this is a choice that ought to be available to women and that on the basis of the studies that have been done overseas it is at least as safe as surgical termination,” Senator Allison said.
Reproductive Choice Australia (RCA)say that medicine is placed at the whim of politics, saying that over 80% of Australians are pro-choice. A national survey found 87% of women aged 18 to 49 support a woman’s right to choose.
RU486 is available in much of western Europe and North America, but was effectively banned in Australia under laws initiated by now-retired pro-life senator Brian Harradine.
Christine Read, medical director of family planning group FPA Health, said Misoprostol, also known as Cytotec, is across the world to invoke contractions to expel the fetus after a woman had taken RU486. “It is used extensively in obstetrics and gynaecology for termination of pregnancy and to induce labour, so it’s used in the medical management of miscarriage,” Dr Read said.
Dr Sharman Stone, said yesterday the issue was not about Misoprostol, but rather that “the TGA should make the decision about any drugs – that is its job. Any other conversations about other drugs are simply irrelevant to this argument,” Dr Stone said.
Family First senator Steve Fielding says lifting a ban on RU486 would pave the way for do-it-yourself home abortions. “RU486 is different to other drugs in that it is an abortion drug which could see do-it-yourself home abortions,” he said in a statement. “The question is, should policy be made by bureaucrats or our elected leaders?
Senator Fielding claims Australians are worried about the high number of abortions in Australia, as reflected in submissions received by the Senate committee.
On Monday the committee will move to Sydney for a final day of hearings.
RuPaul: “There is a definite prejudice towards men who use femininity as part of their palette; their emotional palette, their physical palette.”photo: David Shankbone
Few artists ever penetrate the subconscious level of American culture the way RuPaul Andre Charles did with the 1993 album Supermodel of the World. It was groundbreaking not only because in the midst of the Grunge phenomenon did Charles have a dance hit on MTV, but because he did it as RuPaul, formerly known as Starbooty, a supermodel drag queen with a message: love everyone. A duet with Elton John, an endorsement deal with MAC cosmetics, an eponymous talk show on VH-1 and roles in film propelled RuPaul into the new millennium.
In July, RuPaul’s movie Starrbooty began playing at film festivals and it is set to be released on DVD October 31st. Wikinews reporter David Shankbone recently spoke with RuPaul by telephone in Los Angeles, where she is to appear on stage for DIVAS Simply Singing!, a benefit for HIV-AIDS.
DS: How are you doing?
RP: Everything is great. I just settled into my new hotel room in downtown Los Angeles. I have never stayed downtown, so I wanted to try it out. L.A. is one of those traditional big cities where nobody goes downtown, but they are trying to change that.
DS: How do you like Los Angeles?
RP: I love L.A. I’m from San Diego, and I lived here for six years. It took me four years to fall in love with it and then those last two years I had fallen head over heels in love with it. Where are you from?
DS: Me? I’m from all over. I have lived in 17 cities, six states and three countries.
RP: I miss the Atlanta that I lived in. That Atlanta is long gone. It’s like a childhood friend who underwent head to toe plastic surgery and who I don’t recognize anymore. It’s not that I don’t like it; I do like it. It’s just not the Atlanta that I grew up with. It looks different because it went through that boomtown phase and so it has been transient. What made Georgia Georgia to me is gone. The last time I stayed in a hotel there my room was overlooking a construction site, and I realized the building that was torn down was a building that I had seen get built. And it had been torn down to build a new building. It was something you don’t expect to see in your lifetime.
DS: What did that signify to you?
RP: What it showed me is that the mentality in Atlanta is that much of their history means nothing. For so many years they did a good job preserving. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a preservationist. It’s just an interesting observation.
DS: In 2004 when you released your third album, Red Hot, it received a good deal of play in the clubs and on dance radio, but very little press coverage. On your blog you discussed how you felt betrayed by the entertainment industry and, in particular, the gay press. What happened?
RP: Well, betrayed might be the wrong word. ‘Betrayed’ alludes to an idea that there was some kind of a promise made to me, and there never was. More so, I was disappointed. I don’t feel like it was a betrayal. Nobody promises anything in show business and you understand that from day one.
But, I don’t know what happened. It seemed I couldn’t get press on my album unless I was willing to play into the role that the mainstream press has assigned to gay people, which is as servants of straight ideals.
RP: Not court jesters, because that also plays into that mentality. We as humans find it easy to categorize people so that we know how to feel comfortable with them; so that we don’t feel threatened. If someone falls outside of that categorization, we feel threatened and we search our psyche to put them into a category that we feel comfortable with. The mainstream media and the gay press find it hard to accept me as…just…
DS: Everything you are?
RP: Everything that I am.
DS: It seems like years ago, and my recollection might be fuzzy, but it seems like I read a mainstream media piece that talked about how you wanted to break out of the RuPaul ‘character’ and be seen as more than just RuPaul.
RP: Well, RuPaul is my real name and that’s who I am and who I have always been. There’s the product RuPaul that I have sold in business. Does the product feel like it’s been put into a box? Could you be more clear? It’s a hard question to answer.
DS: That you wanted to be seen as more than just RuPaul the drag queen, but also for the man and versatile artist that you are.
RP: That’s not on target. What other people think of me is not my business. What I do is what I do. How people see me doesn’t change what I decide to do. I don’t choose projects so people don’t see me as one thing or another. I choose projects that excite me. I think the problem is that people refuse to understand what drag is outside of their own belief system. A friend of mine recently did the Oprah show about transgendered youth. It was obvious that we, as a culture, have a hard time trying to understand the difference between a drag queen, transsexual, and a transgender, yet we find it very easy to know the difference between the American baseball league and the National baseball league, when they are both so similar. We’ll learn the difference to that. One of my hobbies is to research and go underneath ideas to discover why certain ones stay in place while others do not. Like Adam and Eve, which is a flimsy fairytale story, yet it is something that people believe; what, exactly, keeps it in place?
DS: What keeps people from knowing the difference between what is real and important, and what is not?
RP: Our belief systems. If you are a Christian then your belief system doesn’t allow for transgender or any of those things, and you then are going to have a vested interest in not understanding that. Why? Because if one peg in your belief system doesn’t work or doesn’t fit, the whole thing will crumble. So some people won’t understand the difference between a transvestite and transsexual. They will not understand that no matter how hard you force them to because it will mean deconstructing their whole belief system. If they understand Adam and Eve is a parable or fairytale, they then have to rethink their entire belief system.
As to me being seen as whatever, I was more likely commenting on the phenomenon of our culture. I am creative, and I am all of those things you mention, and doing one thing out there and people seeing it, it doesn’t matter if people know all that about me or not.
DS: Recently I interviewed Natasha Khan of the band Bat for Lashes, and she is considered by many to be one of the real up-and-coming artists in music today. Her band was up for the Mercury Prize in England. When I asked her where she drew inspiration from, she mentioned what really got her recently was the 1960’s and 70’s psychedelic drag queen performance art, such as seen in Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, The Cockettes and Paris Is Burning. What do you think when you hear an artist in her twenties looking to that era of drag performance art for inspiration?
RP: The first thing I think of when I hear that is that young kids are always looking for the ‘rock and roll’ answer to give. It’s very clever to give that answer. She’s asked that a lot: “Where do you get your inspiration?” And what she gave you is the best sound bite she could; it’s a really a good sound bite. I don’t know about Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, but I know about The Cockettes and Paris Is Burning. What I think about when I hear that is there are all these art school kids and when they get an understanding of how the press works, and how your sound bite will affect the interview, they go for the best.
DS: You think her answer was contrived?
RP: I think all answers are really contrived. Everything is contrived; the whole world is an illusion. Coming up and seeing kids dressed in Goth or hip hop clothes, when you go beneath all that, you have to ask: what is that really? You understand they are affected, pretentious. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s how we see things. I love Paris Is Burning.
RP: Absolutely. It’s not good, I don’t like it, and it makes me want to enjoy this moment a lot more and be very appreciative. Like when I’m on a hike in a canyon and it smells good and there aren’t bombs dropping.
DS: Do you think there is a lot of apathy in the culture?
RP: There’s apathy, and there’s a lot of anti-depressants and that probably lends a big contribution to the apathy. We have iPods and GPS systems and all these things to distract us.
DS: Do you ever work the current political culture into your art?
RP: No, I don’t. Every time I bat my eyelashes it’s a political statement. The drag I come from has always been a critique of our society, so the act is defiant in and of itself in a patriarchal society such as ours. It’s an act of treason.
DS: What do you think of young performance artists working in drag today?
RP: I don’t know of any. I don’t know of any. Because the gay culture is obsessed with everything straight and femininity has been under attack for so many years, there aren’t any up and coming drag artists. Gay culture isn’t paying attention to it, and straight people don’t either. There aren’t any drag clubs to go to in New York. I see more drag clubs in Los Angeles than in New York, which is so odd because L.A. has never been about club culture.
DS: Michael Musto told me something that was opposite of what you said. He said he felt that the younger gays, the ones who are up-and-coming, are over the body fascism and more willing to embrace their feminine sides.
RP: I think they are redefining what femininity is, but I still think there is a lot of negativity associated with true femininity. Do boys wear eyeliner and dress in skinny jeans now? Yes, they do. But it’s still a heavily patriarchal culture and you never see two men in Star magazine, or the Queer Eye guys at a premiere, the way you see Ellen and her girlfriend—where they are all, ‘Oh, look how cute’—without a negative connotation to it. There is a definite prejudice towards men who use femininity as part of their palette; their emotional palette, their physical palette. Is that changing? It’s changing in ways that don’t advance the cause of femininity. I’m not talking frilly-laced pink things or Hello Kitty stuff. I’m talking about goddess energy, intuition and feelings. That is still under attack, and it has gotten worse. That’s why you wouldn’t get someone covering the RuPaul album, or why they say people aren’t tuning into the Katie Couric show. Sure, they can say ‘Oh, RuPaul’s album sucks’ and ‘Katie Couric is awful’; but that’s not really true. It’s about what our culture finds important, and what’s important are things that support patriarchal power. The only feminine thing supported in this struggle is Pamela Anderson and Jessica Simpson, things that support our patriarchal culture.
Part of the Coronation Street set, including the Rovers Return Inn, on 18 December 2005. Image: Allan Lee.
Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of British soap opera Coronation Street’s broadcast. The programme, which was created by Tony Warren and developed by Granada Television — now branded on-air as ITV Studios — in Manchester, England, was first broadcast on December 9, 1960 on ITV. The original commission was just 13 episodes. Nearly 7,500 episodes later, Coronation Street still broadcasts on ITV1.
At least one episode of the programme was broadcast every night between December 6 and December 10; on Thursday, the 50th anniversary was celebrated with a live episode. The major storyline of the week, entitled “Four Funerals and a Wedding”, started with a tram crash on Monday, shortly after a gas explosion in a new nearby bar called The Joinery damaged railway tracks.
I’m so proud and gobsmacked at how brilliant it looked. It was like seeing it for the first time. I’m stunned and amazed.
At its peak, Thursday’s one-hour live episode received ratings of approximately 14.9 million viewers — the highest total for the show for over six years. Within the sixty scenes, the storylines included character Fiz Stape prematurely giving birth to a baby girl, who was given the name Hope. Peter Barlow lay on his hospital bed as he attempted to say his wedding vows to Leanne Battersby; he subsequently flatlined. Molly Dobbs admitted her affair with Kevin Webster to Sally Webster — Kevin’s wife — before dying as a result of her injuries. There were virtually no mistakes made in the episode. Phil Collinson, the producer, expressed his approval for the episode. “I’m so proud and gobsmacked at how brilliant it looked,” he commented. “It was like seeing it for the first time. I’m stunned and amazed.”
Part of the exterior set of Coronation Street, including the Corner Shop, in October 2007.Image: Jordan 1972.
Ken Barlow is the only remaining character from the first episode, always portrayed by William Roache. Coronation Street now has its own version of encyclopedia website Wikipedia called Corriepedia, which was launched on May 21, 2008.
Because of this anniversary, numerous special programmes were also broadcast. The first ever episode of Coronation Street was repeated on Monday. On Wednesday-Thursday night Coronation Street: 50 Years, 50 Moments revealed the results of a poll to determine the fifty best Coronation Street moments. A humourous scene featuring character Blanche Hunt at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting topped the poll. Hunt, portrayed by the late Maggie Jones, was also revealed as the most popular character, according to a study by UK magazine Inside Soap. Second-place moment was a storyline involving serial killer Richard Hillman. Brian Capron, who portrayed Hillman, commented “Funnily enough because it’s all come back it seems to have done me a lot of good. It’s kind of an iconic storyline that I was involved in. There were some wonderful blackly humourous lines and the gloves, that slight pantomime element. You could love to hate him. They gave me so many great lines.”
Friday also saw the ITV1 broadcast of one-off game show, Coronation Street: The Big 50, a part-entertainment programme. Hosted by Paul O’Grady, it featured various members of the Coronation Street cast as contestants, split into three teams: “Weatherfield Lads”, “Pint Pullers”, and “Rovers Regulars” plus a fourth team of celebrity fans, or “Superfans”. The “Rovers Regulars” were to become the victors.
Talese at home: “You must have a human spirit unmatched since Billy Graham made his first speech! I mean you have to have a real conscience, social conscience, to care [about the Iraq war]. Where are the protests coming out of the Ivy League or the University of Alabama? They’re not there because there’s no conscription. There should be conscription. There should be a draft. There should be. Everybody should serve.”photo: David Shankbone
Gay Talese wants to go to Iraq. “It so happens there is someone that’s working on such a thing right now for me,” the 75-year-old legendary journalist and author told David Shankbone. “Even if I was on Al-Jazeera with a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be pleading with those bastards! I’d say, ‘Go ahead. Make my day.'”
Few reporters will ever reach the stature of Talese. His 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, was not only cited by The Economist as the greatest profile of Sinatra ever written, but is considered the greatest of any celebrity profile ever written. In the 70th anniversary issue of Esquire in October 2003, the editors declared the piece the “Best Story Esquire Ever Published.”
Talese helped create and define a new style of literary reporting called New Journalism. Talese himself told National Public Radio he rejects this label (“The term new journalism became very fashionable on college campuses in the 1970s and some of its practitioners tended to be a little loose with the facts. And that’s where I wanted to part company.”)
He is not bothered by the Bancrofts selling The Wall Street Journal—”It’s not like we should lament the passing of some noble dynasty!”—to Rupert Murdoch, but he is bothered by how the press supported and sold the Iraq War to the American people. “The press in Washington got us into this war as much as the people that are controlling it,” said Talese. “They took information that was second-hand information, and they went along with it.” He wants to see the Washington press corp disbanded and sent around the country to get back in touch with the people it covers; that the press should not be so focused on–and in bed with–the federal government.
Augusten Burroughs once said that writers are experience junkies, and Talese fits the bill. Talese–who has been married to Nan Talese (she edited James Frey‘s Million Little Piece) for fifty years–can be found at baseball games in Cuba or the gay bars of Beijing, wanting to see humanity in all its experience.
Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with Gay Talese.
Fitness model Andre Barnett of Poughkeepsie, New York won the presidential nomination of the Reform Party of the United States at its national convention in Philadelphia last weekend. Consultant Kenneth Cross was selected as his running mate.
Barnett, who founded the company WiseDome, became a fitness model after suffering an injury in a 2000 helicopter incident while serving in the U.S. Army. He participated in last January’s Wikinews Reform Party USA presidential candidates forum, along with then-candidates former Savannah State football coach Robby Wells and Earth Intelligence Network CEO Robert David Steele.
Both Wells and Steele withdrew long before the convention as did others who later announced their candidacies, notably former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer and former Council of Economic Advisers Senior Economist Laurence Kotlikoff. As Wikinews reported in June, historian Darcy Richardson also sought the nomination, but he tells Wikinews that he did not attend the convention and withdrew from the race in July, “once it became clear the party wasn’t going to qualify for the ballot in Arkansas, New Jersey and a few of the other relatively easy states.”
Two other candidates — Cross, who later won the vice presidential nomination, and Dow Chemical worker Edward Chlapowski — attended the convention, where they debated Barnett before the delegate vote.
In his acceptance speech, Barnett referred to the Reform Party as “the microcosm of America”, and proclaimed that as the party’s nominee, he would not focus on social issues that “[belong] outside of politics”, but instead would center his campaign on the economy, defense, and education.
The Reform Party currently has ballot access in four states: Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kansas; but in June, the disaffiliated Kansas Reform Party chose to nominate 2008 Constitution Party presidential nominee Chuck Baldwin.
A fatal accident inquiry concluded three patients who underwent keyhole surgery to remove their gall bladders died as a result of mistakes during, and after, the operations. Agnes Nicol, George Johnstone, and Andrew Ritchie died within a three-month period in 2006 whilst in the care of NHS Lanarkshire in Scotland.
Mistakes in one patient’s care were not discovered until a transfer to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (pictured from file).
Later expanded to look at all three deaths, the inquiry initially established to look into the case of Nicol, 50, who received surgery in late 2005. A surgeon at Wishaw General Hospital mistakenly cut her bile duct and her right hepatic artery. Whilst suturing her portal vein, her liver was left with 20% of its normal blood supply; the errors were not discovered until her transfer to liver specialists at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary.
By then, her liver was seriously damaged. She developed septicaemia, dying from multiple organ failure in March 2006.
Johnstone, 54, underwent the same procedure at Monklands District General Hospital on May 9, 2006. A consultant surgeon accidentally damaged, possibly severing, his bile duct. He died two days later in intensive care from the combined effects of multiple organ failure and a heart ailment.
Ritchie, 62, died in intensive care a week after an operation in June 2006. He died from intra abdominal haemorrhage caused by errors during the surgery.
Different surgeons were involved each time and the inquiry, under Sheriff Robert Dickson, found no evidence of poor training or inadequate experience. Dickson noted that in each case there was lack of action on a “growing body of evidence that there was something fundamentally wrong with the patient” and surgeons failed to contemplate their own actions as potentially responsible. He agreed with two professors that it may have been possible to save their lives “had the post-operative care been to the standard which they expected, and had there been a proper management plan which staff could have worked to” and noted that all the patients suffered from a lack of adequate medical notes being available after their surgery. He described the care as having “clear faults”.
NHS Lanarkshire has issued an apology, saying they “did fall below the high standards of care we aim to maintain in these cases and this has been extremely distressing for the patients’ families. We would like to take this opportunity to apologise to them.” The health board added improvements had been made regarding “these types of cases” as well as with document management.
