IC News 8-15-05

LOCAL NEWS

PHANTASM TO REMAIN OPEN - OWNERS LOCATED, SELLING OWNERSHIP TO NEW MANAGEMENT YET AGAIN - NORTHWEST -- Police say that they have been contacted and informed that current owners of The Phantasm, Aki Oshii and Louis Delacourt, have merely been on hiatus due to the stress of suddenly managing the club without long term partner and former owner Sean Brennan.

Oshii and Delacourt have decided that they are happier performing than managing and have signed over ownership of the club to a management partnership between Eriond Tekenduis, a former associate of the owners prior to Brennan; Chiana Rayne, daughter of the Hungarian Ambassador and Washington Post correspondent, and acquaintance of Delacourt's; and Jaymes Lovier, an Abercrombie & Fitch model from Texas who is also Oshii's sometimes escort and housemate.

The club remains dark until the transition can be completed and a new performance schedule established. Auditions for new acts will be held in two weeks, time and place to be announced.

D.C. Airspace May Be Restricted for Good
By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The government wants permanently to restrict a wide swath of airspace over the Washington area and make it a crime if a private pilot knowingly enters a zone that extends from Maryland to Virginia.
Pilots have strayed hundreds of times since the government temporarily restricted airspace over the capital just before the start of the Iraq war in 2003. In many cases, fighter jets, which are prepared to shoot down a plane, have escorted an errant plane to an airport.
The current restrictions went into effect in February 2003, when the FAA expanded the zone over Washington before the war in Iraq. Similar limits were imposed after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The restricted airspace includes an outer ring that has a radius of about 30 miles to 45 miles and an altitude of 18,000 feet.
The zone extends east beyond Baltimore, west beyond Dulles International Airport in Virginia, north to Gaithersburg, Md., and about 30 miles south of Washington. A plane that flies into this zone must file a flight plan, emit a special signal so air traffic controllers can follow it and maintain radio contact with the ground.
An inner ring extends about 15 miles from the Washington Monument. Most flights are prohibited from flying into this area.
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which represents private pilots, opposes the FAA plan. The group says the outer ring is unnecessary because so many precautions have been taken since Sept. 11. Measures include improved radar coverage, anti-aircraft missiles and a system that uses lasers to warn pilots away from the restricted airspace.
"No general aviation aircraft has ever been used in a terrorist attack," the association's president, Phil Boyer, said in a statement. He said the government has not any violation of the outer ring restriction that was terrorist-related.
The FAA proposal would allow the government to impose criminal penalties — fines and up to a year in prison — on anyone who knowingly or willingly enters the outer zone. People have 90 days to comment on the proposal.
 

POLICE NEWS

STRANGE PILLAR OF LIGHT STRIKES STREET NEAR OCCULT SHOP - NORTHWEST -- DCPD responded to a call last week of a pillar of hot white light shining down onto the pavement in the 2700 block of Utah Street, right up the block from the well-known curio shop, "The Magic Box." Reports claim a man was running down the street and ran into the light and vanished, but these reports are unconfirmed. No one in the shop or neighboring buildings has further information on the nature of the light or the missing man.

Shinzui Subsidiary Experiences Terrorist Attack - LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA -- Shinzui Corporation of Japan (NIKKEI: SHIN), new owners of Pentex (NYSE: PTX) subsidiary Magadon Pharmaceuticals, reported that one of the first issues they had to deal with in acquiring several new Assets is addressing the highly lax security measures of some facilities, not the least of which was a Magadon lab in Ashburn, Virginia, in an industrial park near MCI and Nextel Headquarters.

Sources say that Magadon security was breeched a couple of weeks ago, but for Homeland Security reasons it was kept out of the media until more information could be determined without undue attention being called to the break-in, that might tip off the perpetrators, who are still at large. Guards claim it was a pack of wild dogs, but the company is claiming heavy casualties of security staff, as well as compromised computer and burglar systems, which point to human assailants. There was also use of guns and other weaponry, which also indicates human attackers, not wildlife.

Magadon is engaged in a joint venture with Developmental Neogenetics Amalgamated of Bethesda, MD, to study and counter the effects of an unnamed but serious genetic mutation discovered last decade. The labs attacked contained patients with the disorder as well as a medical team attempting to find a cure.

Shinzui is also having to contend with allegations that their newly acquired companies paid kickbacks to Senators in exchange for support on key bills on the Hill that supported big business measures from which they benefited financially. Former Senator Campbell is already under indictment in relation to some environmental reforms and regulatory matters he pushed through, that aided Magadon and other Pentex subsidiaries. Campbell, as well as Shinzui, intend to rigorously defend these allegations.

Nextel Exec's Actress Wife Missing After Car Wreck in Western Fairfax County -- Dulles, VA -- Fairfax County police responded to a call from Nextel EVP Jonathan Seaverson that his wife, upcoming actress and model Naomi Silverthorn (Seaverson), was believed to be the driver of his vehicle in a severe car crash along a desolate stretch of Old Ox Road near Dulles Airport last week.

Seaverson's BMW was found totaled, but he was not notified until the plates and VIN plate could be located on the mangled wreck. By this time, the driver had been transported by EMT's and a positive ID could not be made that night. Seaverson was not aware of whether or not his wife had his car, and had reported her missing after she had not come home or kept any of her appointments for a day and a half, without cause.

Authorities need to locate the driver to determine whether the accident is the cause of her being missing. Seaverson is working with local authorities now to determine where the driver has been admitted.

If anyone has information on the whereabouts of Naomi Seaverson, please notify Fairfax County police at (703) 691-2300.

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS:

GOSSIP COLUMN

While Katherine Whittier is on assignment covering hard news, the Gossip Section is on hiatus.

PERSONALS

More Than I Could Ask For!
The last night of the Southwest Believers’ Convention was one of those awesome moments with God. Brother Kenneth started prophesying, then Billye Brim, and then the “trumpet started to blow” (by Phil Driscoll). Then Brother Jerry got up to give a word. During all this, the Lord started telling me to make a list of the things I need right now, and add it up. Billye felt led to ask if we could take up another offering. I had given $20 in the first offering, but I gave $520 in the second offering, because I needed $52,000. I believed and thanked God for my hundredfold return. One week later, I received a Federal Express envelope. Enclosed were papers from a property I once owned. The buyer wanted to pay off his loan early. The pay-off amount, after tithe, came to $53,603.62. Glory to God! He gave me more than I asked for.

Every day I pray for KCM and I’m so glad I am a Partner with you. Your ministry, teachings and love continually bless me. -- Gerry Dale K., Dallas, Texas
 

Inventor Kurzweil Aiming to Live Forever
Famed Inventor and Computer Scientist Ray Kurzweil Primes Himself for Forever
By JAY LINDSAY Associated Press Writer
WELLESLEY, Mass. Feb 12, 2005 — Ray Kurzweil doesn't tailgate. A man who plans to live forever doesn't take chances with his health on the highway, or anywhere else.
As part of his daily routine, Kurzweil ingests 250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea. He also periodically tracks 40 to 50 fitness indicators, down to his "tactile sensitivity." Adjustments are made as needed. "I do actually fine-tune my programming," he said.
The famed inventor and computer scientist is serious about his health because if it fails him he might not live long enough to see humanity achieve immortality, a seismic development he predicts in his new book is no more than 20 years away.
It's a blink of an eye in history, but long enough for the 56-year-old Kurzweil to pay close heed to his fitness. He urges others to do the same in "Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever."
The book is partly a health guide so people can live to benefit from a coming explosion in technology he predicts will make infinite life spans possible.
Kurzweil writes of millions of blood cell-sized robots, which he calls "nanobots," that will keep us forever young by swarming through the body, repairing bones, muscles, arteries and brain cells. Improvements to our genetic coding will be downloaded via the Internet. We won't even
need a heart.
The claims are fantastic, but Kurzweil is no crank. He's a recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT prize, which is billed as a sort of Academy Award for inventors, and he won the 1999 National Medal of Technology Award. He has written on the emergence of intelligent machines in
publications ranging from Wired to Time magazine. The Christian Science Monitor has called him a "modern Edison." He was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002. Perhaps the MIT graduate's most famous inventions is the first reading machine for the blind that could read any typeface.
During a recent interview in his company offices, Kurzweil sipped green tea and spoke of humanity's coming immortality as if it's as good as done. He sees human intelligence not only conquering its biological limits, including death, but completely mastering the natural world.
 

George Bush Releases Revised Republican Bible
WASHINGTON, DC (AP) — US President George W. Bush has elaborated on his cosmology and his new theory of “intelligent design” which is basically a rehashed version of Old Testament creationism. Bush has rewritten many passages of the Bible to reflect his beliefs, and the White House has just released the official Republican Party version of the Bible.
Here is a sample of the first part of the revised version of Genesis:
“Once there were no stars, no moon, no sun, and not even any Rich People, and not even an Earth! There was not even any twinkle of light. All was dark, and it was so, so cold you could almost feel it, except there was nothing to feel either. Because nothing was out there. All was empty space and it was so empty and lonely that there was not one thing that could bump into another thing. So empty that not even any sound could be heard, not even a whisper. Because no one was out there except the Great God RepublicaYaweh who was very, very rich. And that’s when it all began a long, really long, long time ago...."
Next time you see a star twinkle in the night, stop and think about this: God put a twinkle in the dark so we would remember how very important it is to obey Him just like the stars do.
 

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Big Ben's Silence Baffles Engineers
By THOMAS WAGNER
LONDON (AP) - Big Ben, the landmark London clock renowned for its accuracy and chimes, stopped ticking for 90 minutes, an engineer said Saturday.
Officials do not know why the 147-year-old clock on the banks of the River Thames stopped at 10:07 p.m. Friday. It resumed keeping time, but stalled again at 10:20 p.m. and remained still for about 90 minutes before starting up again, a spokeswoman for the House of Commons said on condition of anonymity, citing government policy.
There has been speculation a recent spell of hot weather may have been to blame. Temperatures in London reached 90 Saturday, and forecasters called it England's hottest day in May since 1953.
Big Ben, which is operated by the Palace of Westminster, survived attacks by German Luftwaffe bombers during World War II, continuing to mark the time to within 1 1/2 seconds of Greenwich Mean Time.
However, the clock has experienced occasional problems.
In 1962, snow caused the clock to ring in the New Year 10 minutes late. In 1976, the clock stopped when a piece of its machinery broke. Big Ben also stopped on April 30, 1997, and once more three weeks later.
Big Ben is actually the clock's 13-ton bell, which was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the British commissioner of works at the time the clock was built.
The official name for the Gothic tower holding Big Ben is St. Stephen's Tower. Standing 315 feet tall, it was completed in 1858 after an 1834 fire destroyed most of the Palace of Westminster.
 

Doctors Separate Legs of 'mermaid' Baby, Term Risky Surgery a 'true Success'
LIMA, Peru (AP) - Doctors fully separated the fused legs of a baby girl known as Peru's "mermaid" early Wednesday, calling the delicate procedure a "true success." Doctors performing the 4 1/2 hour surgery had planned to begin repairing the birth defect only up to the child's knees, but the procedure exceeded the expectations of the medical team.
Milagros' legs had been fused together from her thighs to her ankles when she was born.
"This surgical intervention has been a true success," Rubio said.
Hours before the surgery, Milagros, whose name means "miracles," giggled and played on her hospital bed while Rubio, leader of a team of 11 surgeons performing the operation, looked on.
Milagros was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or "mermaid syndrome," which occurs in one out of every 70,000 births.
There are only three known cases of children with the affliction alive in the world today, according to Rubio.
The surgery was televised live and was watched by the child's parents.
Milagros' father, Ricardo Cerron, 24, broke into tears as Rubio made the first incision at the start of the surgery late Tuesday. The baby's mother, Sara Arauco, 20, put her hand to her mouth. A nurse standing behind her chair put her hands on Arauco's shoulders.
But later, as the surgery progressed, Arauco said her prayers had been answered.
"Yes, this is a miracle," she told The Associated Press. "I know, even though I am a sinner, God has paid attention to me, maybe not for my sake, but for my daughter's."
Milagros weighs 14.75 pounds and measures 25 inches long, about the size and weight of a normal 6-month-old.
Rubio said Milagros had suffered frequent urinary infections because her urinary tract, anus and genitals end in the same opening, almost like a "sewer."
Rubio said Milagros would need up to 15 years of corrective surgeries to reconstruct and repair her sexual, digestive and other internal organs.