King Richard III Identified

 

The skull of the skeleton found under a parking lot in Leicester, England, that researchers now say is that of King Richard III

 

You can see the curvature of the spine. He was known as the hunchbacked king ( A form of scoliosis..)

 

The bones are laid out in the lab just as they laid in the grave

 

  

 

The search for the long-vilified English King Richard III, who died in battle in 1485 and whose image as a nasty tyrant was immortalized by William Shakespeare, appears to have ended.
 

In a dramatic Monday morning press conference, researchers from England's University of Leicester announced they had identified "beyond all reasonable doubt" Richard III's skeletal remains. The remains had been unearthed last August by an archaeological team from beneath a parking lot where the friary that reportedly held Richard III's body once stood.

For nearly 40 minutes on Monday, a team of scientists and historians reported the results of detailed medical, historical, genealogical, and genetic studies conducted after archaeologists discovered a skeleton that they believed to be Richard III.

Turi King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester, and Kevin Schürer, a genealogist at the school, turned up the most compelling evidence. By poring over historical records and documents, Schürer conclusively identified two of Richard III's living descendants: Michael Ibsen, a furniture maker in London, England, and a second individual who now wishes to remain anonymous.
King took DNA samples from the two descendants and compared them to a sample of ancient DNA obtained from the skeleton from the friary. "There is a DNA match," King told reporters, "so the DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III."

Richard III died at age 32 of injuries he sustained at the Battle of Bosworth in August 1485, and the new evidence fits closely with these records. University of Leicester osteologist Jo Appleby showed two gruesome head injuries that Richard received in his last moments—one likely inflicted from behind by an assailant bearing a halberd, a medieval weapon consisting of an axe blade topped with a spike. In addition, Appleby found several other wounds that she described as "humiliation injuries," likely inflicted on Richard's dead body.

Historical accounts suggest that Richard's enemies stripped his body after the battle and threw his corpse over a horse "and this," says Appeleby, "would have left his body exposed to [humiliation] injuries."
The osteologist's studies also revealed that Richard was a man of slight build who suffered from a medical condition known as idiopathic adolescent scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that developed after ten years of age and that may have brought back pain to the future king. This emerging scientific picture of Richard fits with a description of the king written by John Rous, a medieval English historian, in the late 15th century. According to Rous, Richard III "was slight in body and weak in strength."

The King's enduring image as a cruel despot was cemented by Shakespeare, who portrayed him as a glowering monster so repugnant "that dogs bark at me as I halt by them."
In Shakespeare's famous play, the hunchbacked king claws his way to the throne and methodically murders most of his immediate family—his wife, older brother, and two young nephews—until he suffers defeat and death on the battlefield at the hands of a young Tudor hero, Henry VII.

Thanx to National Geographic

 

 

Charities race to cash in on penny's demise

Some Canadian charities profit from penny drives, while others worry

 

Charities are hoping to get some of the $60 million in pennies still out there.

The end of the Canadian penny has been a boon to several charities, but is leaving others worried about what will happen to their coin jars. First, the good news. Free The Children, an international charity based in Toronto, has already rounded up 70 million pennies during its nationwide penny drive. By the charity’s math, that’s enough to provide 28,000 people in developing countries with clean drinking water for life.

“The 70 million pennies collected so far show just how enthusiastically Canada’s youth have taken this campaign to heart," said Free The Children founder Craig Kielburger in a release.

Other charities are hoping for similar results. Tim Hortons is running a penny drive for its children’s foundation as an extension of its ongoing coin jar program. The coffee company’s website says coin boxes already bring in about $1 million in pennies each year.

 

Ronald McDonald House is another charity that turns loose change into tidy profits. Spokeswoman Roxanna Kassam Kara says she’s hoping Canadians will donate more nickels, dimes and quarters as pennies disappear.

And it’s not just big charities that are looking for pennies. In Winnipeg, Villa Rosa, a residence for prenatal and postnatal care for young women or new mothers in need, has started its own penny drive.

"Some of our young moms who come in don't have all the supplies they need to get them through their pregnancy and day-to-day living," says executive director Kathy Strachan.

Fewer coins, less profit

The pennies will help pay for the small stuff, like deodorant and body lotion — "the kinds of things that a lot of people just take for granted but we don't have a budget line for," Strachan says.

Some charities, however, are concerned that having fewer coins in circulation will hurt their fundraising efforts.

Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind, which trains dogs for the visually impaired, uses life-sized coin collectors in the shape of golden retrievers and Labradors to collect coins at shops across the country. The organization raises about $300,000 in coins every year — a large portion of which is pennies, says spokesman Steve Doucette.

“This year might be OK, but going forward it may hurt us,” Doucette says.

On the plus side, there are still a lot of pennies out there. The Royal Canadian Mint estimates it will recover six billion pennies as the coin is phased out, meaning there’s $60 million or more out there for charities to chase.

Penny for your tweets

In Ottawa, Steve St. Pierre has launched a Twitter account, @CDN_penny, that started as sarcasm but quickly spun out into a strong advocate for charities. St. Pierre uses his tweets, and the hashtag #showyourroll, to encourage people to donate their pennies to the charity of their choice.

"If I've done anything to bring the penny back to the forefront of people's minds and just doing something for a good cause, then I think that's pretty awesome," St. Pierre told CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning.

 

American Sniper Author Chris Kyle Shot

 

Kyle was described as the deadliest sniper in the United States

 

Iraq veteran and ex-US Navy seal Chris Kyle, known as the deadliest sniper in US history, has been shot dead on a Texas shooting range. His body was found at Rough Creek Lodge range on Saturday with that of another man. A suspect was arrested.

Mr Kyle, 38, wrote the 2012 bestseller American Sniper, about the psychology of a sniper, in which he said that he had killed more than 250 people. He served four tours of duty in Iraq and was decorated for bravery.

The gunman opened fire at about 15:30 local time then fled in a pick-up truck belonging to one of the victims, local media reported. Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant said the motive for the killings was unclear, and was unable to explain how the two men were shot. But he said a 25-year-old suspect was detained five hours later more than 70 miles (110 km) from the scene.

Quote:

"It is a weird feeling, seeing an actual dead body... knowing that you're the one that caused it now to no longer move”

Chris Kyle

Scott McEwen, who co-authored the book with Kyle, said: "It just comes as a shock and it's staggering to think that after all Chris has been through, that this is how he meets his end, because there are so many ways he could have been killed."
 
Mr Kyle, a former cowboy, is regarded as the most prolific sniper the US has ever seen. Official Pentagon figures say he killed 160 people, but he estimated the total was 255.

According to army intelligence, he was nicknamed "The Devil" by Iraqi insurgents, who put a $20,000 bounty on his head. He appeared to show little remorse for his victims.
"Every person I killed, I strongly believe they were bad," he said in an interview a year ago.

"When I do go face God there is going to be lots of things I will have to account for but killing any of those people is not one of them."

It could be a revenge killing. In fact it would be surprising if it were something else. You live by the gun, chances are, you die by the gun.

Alien Planet

 

 

 

 

 



Gun Control Debate

 

 

The recent tempest of controversy surrounding gun control may be a debate or a debacle, depending on your point of view. A gentleman, who shall remain anonymous, has chosen the path of rational thinking, reason and sanity. Hopefully, he represents a large segment of the American People;  the ones who have given it some earnest reflection. The following thoughts are his:

 

The gun control debate has become front and center since the massacre in Newtown, Conn.Americans have seen too many of these types of tragedies over the past decade. We have become numb to it all.

We seem to have decided that this is the "new norm" for this country. But it doesn't have to be.This is a great country, and we are a great people who have done great things in the world. The tragedy in Newtown has seared the collective consciousness of this nation and the world. The mass killing of 20 innocents, 20 babies, 20 young souls is beyond belief for all of us. The nation is grieving today. But the nation has seen this picture all too many times in the past.

We have grieved for the students of Columbine, the students of Virginia Tech, the patrons of the Aurora theater, the young children of Newtown, and sadly the daily carnage that we see on the streets of major cities across this country everyday. It is a sad commentary on where we are as a nation with respect to guns and violence. Yes, Americans have the right to purchase and own firearms, but most Americans believe there should be some limits on certain types of guns and gun accessories.

The United States of America is an armed camp. There are more guns in America than there are people. Guns are a way of life in America, and that will never change. People like to collect guns; they like to do target practice; they love to hunt; and they want to protect their homes. But the idea that there should not be any regulations or any discussion of regulations on guns is bordering on lunacy and extremism.

Mature individuals should be able to talk about this issue without some of us going into fits of rage about the government confiscation of firearms. That is crazy talk. That is fringe rhetoric that should be taken for what it is — an attempt to stir up fear and anxiety among the uninformed and the gullible. There is common ground to be explored on this sensitive and emotional issue for many Americans.

We as a nation should be willing to deal with reasonable and common sense gun control measures that do not impede the ability of any law abiding citizen to purchase or own a firearm. The truth is that any law-abiding American who wants to purchase and own a firearm, should be able to do so.

But that is not what this debate is about. This debate is about whether anybody should have the right to own assault-style weapons with the capability of mowing down scores of innocents like the young children of Newtown. This debate is not about taking anybody's gun or restricting any law-abiding citizen from having a gun.

This debate is about common-sense solutions to help curb the gun violence that is so prevalent in our country, and the utter recalcitrance of the pro-gun lobby that constantly gins up the fear among those who are uniformed and are used as pawns for the profiteering of gun manufacturers.

The question for all of us should be, why is there even a discussion of whether anyone should be able to buy "cop-killer bullets" and armor-piercing bullets? The answer to that question is a resounding no. Anybody with common sense knows that these types of armaments should not be in the hands of anyone who is not in law enforcement or the military.

It is hard to believe that a civilized nation cannot find the resolve or the courage to tell weak-kneed politicians, who are feeding at the trough of the gun lobby, that there are common sense measures that a majority of Americans believe can be enacted without infringing on anybody's constitutional right to own a firearm; such as, universal background checks, closing gun show loopholes, sharing information among law-enforcement agencies, and a focus on mental health care — just to name a few.

Think of the lives that could be saved if we worked together to achieve these small changes.

Here are some numbers that we should all think about and remember — 20 (the number of young children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary); 6 (the ages of the young children who were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary); and 1( the grade of the children who were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary); 900 ( the number of people killed by guns since the Sandy Hook massacre); 85 ( the number of children killed since the Sandy Hook massacre); and finally, 30,000 ( the number of Americans killed by a gun every year).

These numbers are why we should all listen to the words of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who herself was the victim of gun violence, when she recently said in an interview — "Enough. Enough."

Just an insight on how most of us feel about guns . We are not all bad , only a few , the ones you hear about , we will win in the end .


Stand By Me

 

 

 



Al Gore...The Future





Al Gore, after eight years of reading and thinking, has produced a guide for the politically perplexed that will surely endure. This is a needed book. From political policy and economics to science and the most thorny ethical issues, Gore has stated the human condition and the issues we face forthrightly, fearlessly, and in easily understood language—and has said what must be done.

Gore starts with six drivers of change, which together make the world fundamentally different from the way it was even a few decades ago:
• Ever-increasing economic globalization has led to the emergence of what he labels “Earth Inc.”—an integrated holistic entity with a new and different relationship to capital, labor, consumer markets, and national governments than in the past.
• The worldwide digital communications, Internet, and computer revolutions have led to the emergence of “the Global Mind,” which links the thoughts and feelings of billions of people and connects intelligent machines, robots, ubiquitous sensors, and databases.
• The balance of global political, economic, and military power is shifting more profoundly than at any time in the last five hundred years—from a U.S.-centered system to one with multiple emerging centers of power, from nation-states to private actors, and from political systems to markets.
• A deeply flawed economic compass is leading us to unsustainable growth in consumption, pollution flows, and depletion of the planet’s strategic resources of topsoil, freshwater, and living species.
• Genomic, biotechnology, neuroscience, and life sciences revolutions are radically transforming the fields of medicine, agriculture, and molecular science—and are putting control of evolution in human hands.
• There has been a radical disruption of the relationship between human beings and the earth’s ecosystems, along with the beginning of a revolutionary transformation of energy systems, agriculture, transportation, and construction worldwide.

"We find ourselves in a period of rapid, simultaneous and exponential change, unlike anything the world has ever seen before," writes Gore in a piece on HuffPo. "Trying to make sense of our new reality is a daunting challenge. The future holds both great opportunities to be taken advantage of and profound challenges to address. More so than ever before, humanity needs to unite around the principles of sustainability and democracy. We all have an important role to play in reclaiming control of our destiny."

Applying a mix of history, science and common experience, Gore has produced an  intelligent analysis of the global condition. The peaking of global conventional oil production that occurred some 30 or more years ago, the risks to fresh water supplies posed by fracking, the rapid ongoing evolution of cyber-warfare, the dangers and potential benefits of biotechnology and the possibility of genetic engineering of human brains are only a few of the facts, likely developments and possibilities that the former vice-president explores.

Some themes stand out as being especially salient. Unlike those pious nay sayers, Gore recognizes the increase of human numbers as one of the world's largest challenges. "During the last century alone, we quadrupled the human population. By way of perspective, it took 200,000 years for our species to reach the one billion mark, yet we have added that many people in just the first thirteen years of this century." With unchecked population growth and worldwide industrialization, humankind has embarked on "an unplanned experiment with the planet".

Despite the incessant machinations of climate deniers, there is no scientific basis for doubt as to the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Some who accept the evidence suggest that rather than attempting to halt the activities that result in global warming we should adapt to the process as it goes along; but in Gore's view, muddling through is not an option. "Our world is at stake. Not the planet itself; it would survive quite nicely without human civilization, albeit in an altered state."

Gore believes this nemesis can be avoided as long as America can find the inner resources to renew its standing in the world. "The best chance for success in shaping a positive future and avoiding catastrophe," he writes, "is the re-establishment of a transcendent capacity for global leadership by the United States." He seems confident that the paralyzing divisions of recent years can be overcome, and events do seem to be moving in that direction. Having faced down the right and avoided the fiscal cliff, Obama might prevail again over the raising of the debt ceiling. In that case, American government will be reinvigorated, although politics would still be more deeply polarized than in any other major state. The emergence of China as a heavyweight world leader might work against the US encouraging global unification.

This isn't just a question of economics. Gore believes a planetary civilization is emerging, but the idea that the spread of global markets and worldwide communications works to dissolve cultural barriers is merely an ideological assumption. One of the more striking developments of the past years has been the re-assertion by Chinese and Russian leaders of the distinct separateness of their cultures. Of course this is partly an attempt to salvage the authoritarian systems over which these leaders currently preside. But the re-assertion of differences is more than a dubious political stratagem. Far from economic liberalization promoting universalism, the result may be a revival of old divisions.

Despite all that he writes of the forces that are altering the world, Gore seems to believe that history will continue on much the same trajectory that it has followed since the storming of the Bastille and the American founding. Here the contrast with China's leaders is striking. Seeing history in terms of dynasties and epochs, China's rulers attach no special significance to the revolutions of the past few centuries. It is an attitude that time may well vindicate. But even these devotees of the long view may learn from Gore's book.  His view of our journey is a lot to take in and process; it's food for thought and discussion.