Calcis

Jacksonville News – Hampton Inn plans approved
The site plan for the Hampton Inn soon to be built on the southern end of Jacksonville was approved by the city’s planning commission at its regular meeting May 20.

The hotel will hold 80 rooms and have a conference center, solarium and outdoor courtyard that can be used together to hold meetings of groups up to 250 people.

“There is an area where they are not utilizing the entire lot on the south end. They are actually accommodating one of our citizens with his existing garden,” said Lynn Causey, city planner for Jacksonville.

To the west of the hotel, the developers plan to leave as many trees as possible as a screen between the building and Pheasant Run Apartments. A six-foot-high security fence is also planned for that part of the property.

The hotel plans to have wireless Internet access available to all guests and will have a business center available for guests as well.

Texas Loses Court Ruling Over Taking of Children – NYTimes.com
HOUSTON — Bringing polygamist families closer to regaining custody of their children, a divided Supreme Court of Texas agreed Thursday that the state had illegally seized 468 girls and boys from a West Texas ranch last month on unproven grounds of physical and sexual abuse.

State officials said they would move swiftly to return the children.

The decision upholding a ruling of the Third Court of Appeals last week directed a state judge to revoke the custody order taking the children from the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado.

But it gave no timetable for their return and said that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services could still seek authority to protect any of the children in individual cases.

Belgian Newspapers Sue Google For Copyright Damages — Google — InformationWeek
Newspapers in Belgium want Google NSDQ: GOOG to pay for copyright infringements since a Belgian court ruled that the search engine violated copyrights by reprinting headlines and sentences on Google News.

Members of the Belgian press are seeking about $77 million in damages for use of the material. Google launched its news page service in Belgium in 2006. Soon after, papers there sued the company to stop it from linking to their articles.
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Interesting view about copyright issues!

What do you think?

– Cathy
weavercat@gmail.com

NASA To Launch Disneys Buzz Lightyear On Space Shuttle – Education News Story – WKMG Orlando
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA will launch the Disney character Buzz Lightyear aboard space shuttle Discovery on May 31 in a mission to excite students about science, math and space travel.

IMAGES: Buzz Lightyear To Fly On Shuttle

During the STS-124 mission, the 12-inch-tall action figure will partner with astronauts to deliver daily blog journals from space and launch a series of educational games and online sessions related to the mission.

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Talk about strange events…Will “Buzz” be a paying visitor/tourist, or an employee?

– Cathy

weavercat@gmail.com

Nepal raises national flag in palace | Top News | Reuters
KATHMANDU Reuters – Nepali authorities raised the national flag at the palace of dethroned King Gyanendra on Thursday, hours after stone-throwing demonstrators clashed with police and tried to storm inside.

More than 25 people were injured when police beat the crowd back with bamboo sticks but protesters continued to shout anti-king slogans.

“Gyanendra, thief, leave the palace” they shouted.

Earlier on Thursday, the royal flag was lowered from Nepals palace as the Himalayan nation celebrated its first day as a republic following the abolition of its 239-year-old Hindu monarchy.

A special assembly elected in April voted to abolish the monarch and gave Gyanendra a fortnight to vacate the sprawling pink palace in Kathmandu. His palace will be turned into a museum.

St. Clair Times – Its block party time
In just under three short weeks, historic downtown Pell City will roll out its welcome mat to residents from all areas as the Greater Pell City Chamber of Commerce presents its Eighth Annual Hometown Block Party.

People of all ages will gather to walk the streets amid a wide variety of vendors while being treated to the enticing aromas of food wafting through the air.

Strategically placed stages will provide a haven for families to stop for a bit and listen to strains of music including rock, gospel, country, Motown and more.

A Kids Corner will feature children’s games and rides in a carnival atmosphere making this an event with something for every age group.

Best of all, supporters say, admission is free.

Jacksonville News – Area deaths
DUNAWAY

Funeral services for Dr. William Preston Dunaway, 71, were at 2 p.m. Thursday, May 22, at First Presbyterian Church. Rev. Dr. Kenneth B. McKenzie III and Rev. Dr. Bob Ford officiated. K.L. Brown Funeral Home and Cremation Center directed.

Dr. Dunaway died May 19 at Jacksonville Medical Center.

Survivors include his wife, Carolyn Bennett Dunaway, of Jacksonville; a son and daughter-in-law, Robert and Cora Dunaway of Jacksonville; a sister and brother-in-law, Helen and Dwight Morgan of Moulton; three brothers and sisters-in-law, Bob and Marilyn Dunaway and Jack and Judy Dunaway of Oxford and Jim and Rita Dunaway of Saks and several nieces and nephews.

Pallbearers were two nephews and nephews-in- law.

His parents Robert Johnson Dunaway and Zylpa Preston Dunaway preceded him in death.

Dr. Dunaway was retired from Jacksonville State University as Full Professor Emeritus. He designed and constructed the JSU. Computer Lab for teachers.

He was a member of the Alabama Council for Computer Education and served as chairman of the board of Jacksonville Housing Authority.

Dr. Dunaway served on the Boy Scouts of America Board of Directors and was a captain in the U.S. Army, 1959-60. Dr. Dunaway enjoyed landscaping, gardening, reading, church and civic activities.

Memorial donations can be made to American Heart Association, 1449 Medical Park Drive, Birmingham 35213.

Jacksonville News – Williams honored for service
Jacksonville native Roy L. Williams, an 18-year veteran reporter for The Birmingham News, has been honored for his community service contributions in the metro Birmingham area.

The Birmingham Business Resource Center, an agency that provides loans and assistance to small and minority businesses, presented Williams, 43, with one of its Directors Awards recently during its 11th annual Small Business Reception “Jazz on the Roof” event at the Innovation Depot in Birmingham.

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I remember when he worked with the JSU Chanticleer…congratulations Roy!

– Cathy
weavercat@gmail.com

“Glory ” – from Image Comics

Now have a good selection of “Glory” and other comics from Image Comics.

If you are curious, check for “bluespringsbazaar”

on eBay.com

I may be adding a few more example of the cover art, soon.

Just wanted to try out the ‘gallery’ function through WordPress…I think I like it.

– Cathy A

weavercat@gmail.com

Texas justice: Court says state acted illegally against FLDS – Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/23/2008 08:24:15 PM MDT

The ruling by a Texas appeals court that the states child protection services had unsufficient grounds to seize hundreds of children from the FLDS compound in Eldorado is a welcome and timely check on the illegal application of state power against an entire religious community.
The well-reasoned conclusion of the Third Court of Appeals simply stated what had become obvious and increasingly disturbing: The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, acting only on long-held suspicions and an anonymous phone call that proved bogus, had wrongly taken custody of some 460 children, including breast-feeding infants, after an April 3 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch.
In essence, heres what the court said: You cant grab peoples kids and put them in foster care unless you first prove that each one is in imminent danger. And even if, for example, you have proof that an underage girl has been forced into marriage with an adult male, you cant then claim that every other child is likewise endangered and place them in state custody.
Thats Texas law, the court said, and FPS didnt follow it. Nor did a district judge, who refused to return the children to their parents, even though the state hadnt proven its claim of systemic child abuse within the FLDS compound.

BigChurch Means Big Money For Penthouse Media Group
Were not the first to notice and double-take. Penthouse Media Group Inc.s ownership of a Christian dating website called BigChurch.com has been mentioned by a few publications, but usually as an ironic side note. Understandable. Its kind of a heavy yes, quite loaded subject. However, PMGI CEO Marc Bell tells WebProNews, in an exclusive interview, its just business.

Editors Note: Politics and now business make strange bedfellows, so to speak. From Penthouses perspective, business is business and they shouldnt exclude based on personal value systems. The other side of that is less, well, amoral in its approach. What do you think? Is this exploiting the faithful or just business as usual? Let us know in the comments.

Warning!

I do have spring cleaning for this website in progress.

Should pages, images or other elements stop working properly; or you get error pages when you click on a link — contact me.

In hopes of having less clutter on the site, I am backing-up everything from this site; and will be removing subdomians that get little or NO traffic. This should not cause major trouble, but some of the pages in these folders may have links in locations I am not aware of.

Please, be patient. Calcis.net will be better after a little “cleaning and tune-up”.

– Cathy Ann Abernathy
weavercat@gmail.com

Curse And Revenge Of The Mummy Invented By Victorian Writers
A British academic has traced the origins of the mysterious curse of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian pharaoh who died 3,380 years ago. And the London-based scholars investigation has revealed that King Tuts curse had its genesis not in ancient Egypt but in early 19th-century England.

After years of detective work by the Open University Egyptologist Dominic Montserrat, the trail of the mummys curse has finally led back to the imagination of a young English author in the 1820s and a bizarre theatrical “striptease show in which Egyptian mummies were unwrapped in public.

The show took place near Londons Piccadilly Circus in 1821 and seems to have inspired a little-known 25-year-old novelist called Jane Loudon Webb to write an early science-fiction book calledThe Mummy.

Set in the 22nd century, the novel featured an angry, vengeful mummy who came back to life and threatened to strangle the books hero, a young scholar called Edric. This was followed in 1828 by an anonymous English childrens book The Fruits of Enterprize in which mummies were set alight and used by intrepid explorers as torches to illuminate the interior of a mysterious Egyptian pyramid. Not surprisingly, the mummies were portrayed as looking particularly vengeful.

eBay to Use PayPal Only?
After negative publicity about an eBay plan to require users in Australia to use PayPal-only, its online payment system, rumors about a similar policy in the U.S. were met with a forceful denial from the company.

Editors Note: Interesting move on eBays part to launch a likely-to-be-unpopular floater into the smallish Australian market. They say theyre not going PayPal-only in the US or anywhere else for that matter, which makes a test run in one market a bit of a head-scratcher. Theres a lot to make of this, we think, so make it in the comments section.

E Online
Someone has beaten Indy to the punch.

A treasured crystal skull believed to be about 500 years old has vanished from its perch at Kindred Spirits, a New Age store in Claremont, Calif., that had been displaying the artifact in a non-Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull-related fashion for several months.

The stores owner, Persis Newland, reported the missing skull to police about two weeks ago but, despite the cops and the readily available tarot cards, no one has managed to crack the case yet.

Considering the close-knit, easygoing vibe of the customers she would call regulars, Newland figures the theft must be related to the megahyped Indiana Jones film, whose plot is inspired in part by an ancient Mayan legend concerning 13 crystal skulls that, all together, have the power to save the Earth.

The skull resting on the altar in Kindred Spirits crystal-reading classroom wasnt that old, of course, but, despite the fact that most of the similar skulls in existence today cant be traced further back than the 1860s, some firmly believe in its palliative powers—at least within the confines of the store.

“He was on an altar, and he just enjoyed being here,” employee Kristen Nestor told the Associated Press.

But while the action in the fourth Indy film has been kept tightly under wraps, the idea of an avid fan going a little overboard doesnt sound too far-fetched.

“Someone must have thought about it in that term, connected with the movie or something,” Newland said. “I have no idea why someone would take that and not the other things that are equally valuable on the altar.”

Or, its one down and 12 to go for someone hoping to get ahead in life.