Calcis

The Associated Press: Researcher says bigfoot just a rubber gorilla suit
ATLANTA AP — Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit. Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice — handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it — was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit.

The revelation comes just days after a much ballyhooed news conference was held in California to proclaim that the remains of the creature found in the North Georgia mountains was the legendary man-ape.

Steve Kulls, executive director of squatchdetective.com and host of Squatchdetective Radio, says in a posting on a Web site run by Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi that as the “evidence” was thawed, the claim began to unravel as a giant hoax.

First, the hair sample was burned and “melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair,” Kulls said in the posting.

The thawing process was sped up and the exposed head was found to be “unusually hollow in one small section.” An hour of thawing later and the feet were exposed — and they were found to be made of rubber.

Egypt: Septuplets’ mother hopes to hold them soon | ajc.com
CAIRO, Egypt — A day after giving birth to septuplets, a 27-year-old Egyptian woman said Sunday she’s only seen her babies on television and hopes to hold them and name them soon.

Ghazala Khamis was still hospitalized after giving birth a day earlier to four boys and three girls. She said she is “very anxious to see them” and to breast-feed at least some of them.

Commission, developer discuss bingo | GadsdenTimes.com | Gadsden Times | Gadsden, AL
The Etowah County Commission listened to a proposal Friday afternoon from CBS Supply of Mount Pleasant, S.C., regarding building a video bingo complex and entertainment center in Gadsden.

The commission adjourned to a closed session to hear the proposal.

County Chief Executive Officer Patrick Simms said the commission members, Sheriff Todd Entrekin and District Attorney Jimmie Harp were joined by several CBS affiliates during the 90-minute executive session.

Simms said Ferrell Patrick, a lobbyist from Montgomery; Greg Davis, a public relations executive from Tuscaloosa; John DeLeon, design manager of CBS Supply; Michael DeLeon, president of CBS; and Christie Knowles, a local attorney representing CBS, were all in attendance.

Simms said he could not release any information regarding the meeting but did say the CBS proposal and a proposal made by Coosa Entertainment Group LLC on Aug. 5 will be presented during a public hearing tentatively scheduled for Aug. 25.

Jackson Browne sues John McCain | Entertainment | Reuters
LOS ANGELES Reuters - Rock star Jackson Browne has sued U.S. presidential candidate John McCain for copyright infringement, accusing the presumptive Republican nominee of using the singer’s 1977 hit “Running on Empty” in a campaign ad without permission.

The suit, filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, also names the Republican National Committee and the Ohio Republican Party as defendants. It seeks a permanent injunction against further use of Browne’s music and at least $75,000 in damages.

Next ‘Harry Potter’ film to be delayed eight months - Los Angeles Times
Talk about a disappearing act: Harry Potter just vanished from the 2008 movie schedule.

Warner Bros. shocked fans around the globe Thursday when it announced that ” Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment in the massively successful film franchise about a young wizard and his friends, would not hit theaters in November as planned. The film will instead be delayed eight months and arrive on July 17, according to Alan Horn, Warner Bros. president and chief operating officer.

Jacksonville News - Candidates would like to see ‘green’ city
From the issue of healthy trees being cut down to the visual blight of clear cutting and concerns about the best way to harness useable, environmentally-friendly energy, “green” topics have been in the news a lot in recent years and have touched every town in the nation, including our small city of Jacksonville.

The city in recent months submitted a grant proposal to turn cooking oil into fuel for the city’s diesel-run vehicles, a tree ordinance is being readied for submission to the city council and the city is even looking into ways of using the methane gas given off by the wastewater treatment plant as an energy source.

National Briefing - Southwest - Texas - Teachers Can Carry Guns - Brief - NYTimes.com
A tiny Texas school district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings when classes begin this month, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements.

The name is Child, Julia Child | Daily Dish | Los Angeles Times
Since this week’s release of the list of celebrities who worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, the old saw about Julia Child being a spy has been resurrected once again. This has been around forever, but is always greeted as a revelation by newcomers to the world of Child.

There’s not much truth to it, depending on what you mean by the word “spy.” Julia was certainly not involved in any covert acts. In the first place, can you picture a 6-foot-2 woman with Julia’s voice operating undercover of all places, in China, where she was stationed? Furthermore, can you imagine an intelligence agency hiring a spy fresh out of college whose only work experience has been writing advertising copy for a department store?

Julia certainly did work for the OSS, but, she was always very quick to point out, in a clerical position. Of course, the conspiracy-minded reply, isn’t that just what a spy would say?

The Derrick
The Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons is the oldest, largest, and most widely known fraternal association in the world. Records reveal that Freemasonry was introduced in England in 926 A.D.

Freemasonry is directly descended from the association of operative masons, the cathedral builders of the Middle Ages, who traveled through Europe employing the secrets and skills of their crafts.

In the 17th Century, when cathedral building was on the decline, many guilds of stone masons, known as “Operative Masons,” or “Free Masons,” started to accept as members those who were not members of the Masons’ craft, calling them “Speculative Masons” or “Accepted Masons.”

It was from these groups, comprised mostly of “Adopted or Accepted Masons,” that “Symbolic Masonry”, or Freemasonry, as it is known today, had its beginning.

Today, there are more than 160 grand lodges in the world with a membership of more than 4.2 million. There are 51 grand lodges in the U.S. with about two million members.

Masonic documents and pamphlets state that “Freemasonry teaches high moral ethical standards and family values. Masons come from all religious beliefs which are based on the belief in one God. They are men bonded by friendship and brotherly in service to mankind.”

Julia Child Spied for the American Government During World War II
The queen of French cuisine Julia Child spied for the American government when the Nazis were rising to power, according to records the National Archives released Thursday.

Child, along with 35,000 others including soldiers, actors, lawyers, professors, athletes and reporters, worked for the Office of Strategic Services OSS, a precursor to the CIA, established by President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II.

The OSS spy ring studied military plans, created propaganda, infiltrated enemy ranks and stirred resistance among foreign troops, according to 750,000 pages the National Archives released, Fox News reported.

In the Sahara, Stone Age Graves From Greener Days - NYTimes.com
When Paul C. Sereno went hunting dinosaur bones in the Sahara, his career took a sharp turn from paleontology to archaeology. The expedition found what has proved to be the largest known graveyard of Stone Age people who lived there when the desert was green.

Court: violating copyleft = copyright infringement
A federal appeals court has overruled a lower court ruling that, if sustained, would have severely hampered the enforceability of free software licenses. The lower court had found that redistributing software in violation of the terms of a free software license could constitute a breach of contract, but was not copyright infringement. The difference matters because copyright law affords much stronger remedies against infringement than does contract law. If allowed to stand, the decision could have neutered popular copyleft licenses such as the GPL and Creative Commons licenses. The district court decision was overturned on Wednesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The copyright holder in the case is Robert Jacobsen, the lead developer of the Java Model Railroad Interface, a software package used by model railroad enthusiasts. A firm called Kamind Associates downloaded parts of Jacobsen’s project, stripped out the copyright notice and other identifying information, and began redistributing the modified version without Jacobsen’s approval.

JMRI was released under version 1.0 of the Artistic License, which is also widely used in the Perl community. While not not technically a copyleft license, it gives users broad freedom to use, modify, and redistribute the JMRI software provided that certain conditions are met. Jacobsen argued that Kamind’s failure to comply with the terms of the license deprived it of any permission to redistribute the software and made it guilty of copyright infringement. The District Court for the Northern District of California disagreed, holding that the Artistic License granted an “intentionally broad” license to the JMRI software, and that violations of the license terms should be viewed as mere breaches of contract rather than copyright infringement.

Unions Seek Probe of Wal-Mart Over Election Law - WSJ.com
Prominent labor groups are seeking an investigation into whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. violated federal election laws by telling employees that electing Democrats would lead to passage of legislation making it easier to unionize companies.

In a letter to be delivered as early as Thursday, the labor groups are asking the Federal Election Commission to determine whether the company “made prohibited corporate expenditures” by organizing meetings across the country to warn employees that a Democratic president would back legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which the company opposes. The groups say such statements amount to advocating the defeat of Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the November election.

Companies aren’t permitted under federal election law to expressly advocate to hourly employees the election or defeat of specific candidates. The complaint cites as its source an Aug. 1 front-page article in The Wall Street Journal that reported the Bentonville, Ark., retailer held meetings with thousands of store managers and department supervisors across the country to discuss the legislation.

Jacksonville News - City opens new senior center
After years of waiting and enduring the decaying facilities of the old Jacksonville Recreation Center and then the cramped quarters of two rooms in the community center, Jacksonville’s senior citizens have a new place of their own.

On Aug. 10, the Jacksonville Senior Center officially opened its doors. There is plenty of office space for Carter Jones, the program’s director, and a large meeting room with partitions in the middle, allowing it to be split in half if needed.

Jones is already working on the expanded list of programs he hopes to offer in the new space and is looking forward to recommendations from the public.

Hunters claim to have nabbed Bigfoot, Internet goes nuts | The Social - CNET News.com
A couple of hunters in northern Georgia the state, not the country claim to have found a carcass of the legendary creature known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch, if you prefer.

The two hunters teamed up with a fellow named Tom Biscardi, head of a group called Searching for Bigfoot; they plan to hold a press conference on Friday in Palo Alto, Calif., to show off DNA evidence and photos–but not the body itself. That’s apparently being kept under wraps. Yeah, right.

Biscardi’s Web site, searchingforbigfoot.com,