The researchers had a hunch he was there. ATOS pass Richard III’s skeleton as fit to work.
Joking aside, the discovery of Richard III’s body is fascinating and wonderful. Aside from Shakespeare’s brilliant play (which is evidently not as physically inaccurate as we have been told for years), and the question of who killed the Princes in the Tower, there is a romance about lost dynasties which appeals to a deep human yearning for a golden age when things were somehow better, and for “lost futures”. What might have been, had those evil Stanleys not turned on Richard at Bosworth and put their miserable Welsh accountant on the throne?
Richard is described in today’s newspapers as the last English King. The Plantagenets were of course Angevin. The last English King – indeed the only English King of all England – was Harold Godwinson. Now there’s a lost dynasty for you.
We now know that Richard’s “Claim of Right” was almost certainly true and Edward IV a bastard, as his father was nowhere near his mother for months around the purported conception. But the so-called Royal line is, I am quite sure, sprinkled with bastards and no line at all. Not to mention that George I was 39th in line to the throne when given it 300 years ago, but the first Protestant.
Monarchy is bollocks, and something we should have outgrown a long time ago. Nice to see that today’s Prince Harry retains the tradition of remorseless homicide though.
Leicester University deserve congratulations on a genuine achievement. I hope Richard can now be reburied as soon as possible – as a Catholic, which is what he was. He was a human being. The degradation and display of his fresh corpse were horrible; but there is a danger of repeating it with a po face and feigned serious intent.
Yes off they go. The lawyers must be queueing up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21401111
Earlier this week, Findus took its frozen beef lasagne off the shelves after some were found to have up to 100% horse meat in them.
Findus France has said it will file suit in the French courts, believing itself to be the victim of fraud.
:::
Mary
7 Feb, 2013 – 7:51 pm
I see a long protracted law case ensuing here with claims for damages, consequential losses, damage to reputation, from Findus against Comigel.
Some Findus beef lasagne was up to 100% horsemeat, says FSA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21375594#
In the term of calculated mix ups, the worst being Halal meat being mixed with pork, is there still such a term as Kosher food?
Have all meats been ‘interchanged’ without our knowledge? Are we testing for donkey meat? dog? cangaroo?
Just found out that for every test on food stuffs we do here, Germany does 15 tests, which puts the word ‘trust’ into perspective.
Having taken out school meals long before the BSE scandal, because of the cheap cuts our darlings got to help them learn, I was always sceptical of the FSA, then the Governments reaction to the BSE scandal. Looking at it today, we were right not to trust their assurances and a long established formula underpinning a very successful economy, then and now, goes as follows.
‘Trust is good, control is better’
Having no personal presence in abattoirs and food production companies has got us there and it needs reversing.
@ Exexpat (15h47) re the ‘Secret Justice Bill’ :
“Big activists Chris Hedges et al have got together in the US to fight this – who do we have here?”
Well, why don’t you volonteer, big boy? Get together with some of the Excellences of this blog (Villager, Jives, Fred, Arbed, Mary, Nevermind…) and start campaigning and fighting.
A wonderful opportunity to show that you’re not all just armchair warriors and internet heroes!
Off you go!
Some good shoe throwing action here as Bremer attended a meeting of the Henry Jackson Society last week. The significance of the act would have been lost on Bremer as only a Muslim would know it to be the greatest insult.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/10/265478.html
A reminder of what Bremer did to Iraq for his masters and the corruption that took place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Paul_Bremer
and who belongs to the fascist HJS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Paul_Bremer
How dare they use the facilities of our parliament for their gathering.
The only ‘mainstream’ version is this in the Mail but as could be expected nowhere else other than in blogs and news gathering sites.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276298/Shoe-Wars-II-Panic-Commons-protestor-hurls-pair-size-8s-American-diplomat-repeat-Bush-attack.html#axzz2KVjHJRzq
Arbed, at 2.13 pm. I get your point. As she is a pawn in this power game, I agree not unwitting, it could be she does not get her mail regarding Assange until the CIA have approved what her line has to be and they may not have done it by then. To my mind the big players are the legal firm of Borgström & Bodström, the CIA, the US government, UK govrenment, Swedish government and their advisers (Timbro and Prime PR). Whoever is to blame it is unacceptable and any proper diplomat would have answered the letter diplomatically. Would it surprise you if Marianne Ny’s mail concerning JA was passed to the US interested persons and leaked to the press before Ny actually saw it?
Arbed why indeed. Could it be that the CIA is still trusting its chances to divert democracy in Ecuador, just enough to get their puppet into the presidents seat and have Assange by decree?
he’ll be picked up and put on a plane, well, to Sweden? or would this be bypassed straight away for a direct flight to a US detention camp, maybe in return for some extra powers for the Wallenberg family on the board of the NYSE.
Ms Kahn’s missive is being well used by the media, what a silly Moo.
Do not expect to see or hear any ‘news’ tonight on BBC News channel until later on. There is an hour and half of promotion for the film industry, the ac-tors, the producers and the hangers on and there is a sea of umbrellas adverting EE the new sponsors of the BAFTAs. The red carpet is awash with the heavy rain.
‘New telecoms brand EE has begun leveraging its 2013 British Academy Film Awards rights with an initial focus on the EE Rising Star Award. EE is the title sponsor of the event, replacing sister brand Orange which had a long standing partnership with the event, and its rights include naming rights over the event, the ceremony and the rising star award.’
They have actually just broken off and broadcast a news bulletin. Horsemeat again followed by the theft of the people for their social care by the ConDems, except they do not put it quite like that.
I was thinking what the presenters at Covent Garden would do if Julian Assange were suddenly to appear on the red carpet. Their gush would cease.
@ Mary (17h16) on shoe throwing/Bremer/Henry Jackson Society :
“The significance of the action would have been lost on Bremer as only a Muslim would know it to be the greatest insult”
Rubbish, and patronising rubbish.
After that famous incident years ago when President George Bush and the Iraqi Prime Minister had a shoe thrown at them during their joint press conference – film of which went round the world – everyone knows the significance of shoe throwing for Muslims. And Paul Bremer certainly would.
La vita è bella, life is good!
Link for membership of the Henry Jackson Society should be
http://henryjacksonsociety.org/people/council-members/
@ Mary : I don’t know if the HJS is “fascist” but I do agree that its patrons and members include some pretty ghastly (and sinister) people.
That horrible Zionist woman Julie Burchill. was on Desert Island discs today.
Her favorite piece of music was the Israeli national anthem.Maybe Israel the most hated nation on the planet doesn’t seem to bad from her point of view.She being a pretty horrible person.
This might keep some here amused. I am not very good at it.
http://www.sockandawe.com/
….by the theft of the people for their social care by the ConDems….
s/be …. by the theft FROM the people for their social care by the ConDems….
viz
The Treasury is set to freeze the amount that people can inherit free of tax instead of increasing it in line with inflation.
The allowance will be frozen at £325,000 despite George Osborne, the Chancellor, just eight weeks ago saying that he would increase the amount in two years.
The rate will now not go up until at least 2019, according to The Sunday Times, meaning that thousands of families will be £95,000 worse off than if the allowance had risen.
The measures would see 5,000 more people paying inheritance tax and are expected to contribute about £1 billion over the next five years towards the cost of care home bills for the elderly
/..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/tax/9860430/Inheritance-stealth-tax-to-fund-care-for-the-elderly.html
The assets threshold has been raised. ‘Under those plans pensioners with savings of up to £123,000 are to receive state support with their care costs under Government plans.’ That is not costed in the article.
All very confusing for the pensioners I would say. There is mention of taking out insurance policies. Of course. That would be their remedy. A larger take for the ConDems’ pals in the insurance world.
She, Burchill, is repellent Dave. I think the Guardian had to expunge her piece on transgender people in the end as there was such an outcry. I did not see it. I believe she is an Independent throw out.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/18/julie-burchill-and-the-observer
All animals have these things which ‘live’ inside their cells which are a bit like bacteria, called Mitochrodria. They create all of the cells fuel, aerobically (employing oxygen), anerobically (w/o oxygen) or exceptionally (other ways) – depending on conditioning and stress. They can reproduce, dissolve themselves or move between cells. Their genetics are separate from their host and are not combined through sex, so they are passed exclusively through the maternal line (from our mothers).
This can make the maternal lineage maintain certain family traits, while the paternal has always 50/50 chance of changing, and it is what allows very distantly related animals to still be connected by genetic analysis.
Perhaps all the defenders of Ecuadorian democracy might wish to do something about this
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR28/001/2013/en/50c5b975-f153-472c-8674-fe3ae3ac452e/amr280012013en.pdf
especially given their day to day contact with the Ecuadorian authorities? Or is the freedom to protest peacefully conditional on what you are protesting against in a democracy?
And after that they may wish to something about this reprted in the 2012 Amnesty International Report on Ecuador
“In July, a judge ordered three directors and a former columnist of the newspaper El Universo to pay President Correa US$40 million in damages and sentenced them to three years’ imprisonment for criminal defamation. President Correa brought a criminal complaint against the four men in March, a month after an article was published referring to him as a “dictator” and suggesting that he might face criminal prosecution over the September 2010 disturbances when the armed forces rescued him from a hospital in Quito. He had sought refuge there from police officers protesting against proposed cuts in their pay and benefits. An appeal against the sentence imposed on the directors and columnist was pending in the National Court of Justice at the end of the year.”
Of course you could just take the rather convenient line that Amnesty are just CIA stooges – and that these poor people are in rather less peril than the blessed Julian. Julian could even publicise their cases on his RT programme – during an interview with Correa would be nice.
Rose
10 Feb, 2013 – 11:47 am
Hi Rose you’re very welcome.
And just in case you haven’t heard the orchestra version, the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IrWyZ0KZuk
Stay well and happy!
Guano – By design I am hybrid and Sushi appeals to me in the sense of union. Majalis is good when those enlightened minds look forward to a higher more rewarding existence without the lament and the grief of remembrance from derelict teaching. I believe only fools need parades, wreaths and poppies in memorial; it is only consciousness acting on knowledge that can move minds to connect, unite and begin to celebrate life rather than death.
Some here and in other places beat that sentient drum and achieve by doing rather than saying. Similarly folk, people, souls such as Laila Al-Marayati provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinian children and their families in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon.
http://www.levantinecenter.org/levantine-review/articles/childrens-advocate-laila-al-marayati
https://www.kinderusa.org/
It is only intention that transforms the conversation around dreams from fear and doubt, to hope and possibility, followed by action and results.
Resident Dissident, President Correa actually did an interview with Julian Assange on Russia Today. You should have seen it! He explained about the right-wing CIA-sponsored press aimed at overthrowing the legitimate government and while he was at it kicked out the US military base in Ecuador with a quip that they could keep their base if he could have a military base in Miami. I thought it was classic!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvUwC5JTAJY
Mary questioned Suzanne Nossel’s credentials as Executive Director of Amnesty when she was first appointed. Now she’s gone perhaps the new Executive Director will not be so biased!
@Habba
“Resident Dissident was pleased to call you the Virgin Mary” To be honest what I was trying to say was that she held the equivalent of the Virgin Mary position within the cult of Assange. Although agnostic who finds it difficult to buy a lot of the symbolism within religion, I hold all the major world religions in much higher esteem than that cult.
George Orwell may have compared the Bolsheviks to pigs – but to be honest in the case of many of them the comparision was entirely unfair to pigs, which are on the whole quite pleasant animals (a view shared by Winston Churchill) and I think that Orwell even kept a few himself.
I must say that recent events have just shown that the cult is even nastier with it apostates than I thought.
“Or is the freedom to protest peacefully conditional on what you are protesting against in a democracy?”
Looks a lot like it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/08/iraq-war-compensation-police-detention
John Goss
Genuine question – did Assange callenge Correa on any of the identified human rights abuses within Ecuador?
I don’t mind the press or anyone else seeking the overthrow of any democratic government – it is the means that they wish to employ to do so that is of relevance. Censoring stories that you disagree with, rather than arguing why they are wrong, isn’t what should happen in a democracy. Or perhaps, you take a different view when it comes to freedom of the press?
As you might guess I don’t regard Mary questioning someones credentials as evidence of bias or a lack of a genuine concern for human rights. And that is being very polite.
Kiefer, I thought i was the only one, apart from my class mates subjected to read that book. Its interesting how the blogosphere expands ones horizons. I’m glad you did enjoy it though.
Resident Dissident,
No, I’ll just take the line that you haven’t researched this incident very well, and are quoting selectively to boot. Ecuador doesn’t have the same legal system we do – there’s no libel law, for example, so the standard procedure over there – that is, available to any citizen seeking redress for defamation – is to do exactly what Correa did in the El Universo case, pursue a criminal case in the courts. The ‘libel’ was very serious, btw, El Universo had accused him of crimes against humanity by ordering troops to fire at the crowds, without ANY evidence that such an occurrence had in fact taken place. A week after the court reached its $40 million and three years in prison for the El Universo editors Correa pardoned them. They nevertheless left for the United States and are claiming refugee status there.
He did! Showed footage of the actual event – Correa was kidnapped and held hostage by the police officers as part of an attempted coup (Sept 2010, I think), but released when crowds showed up demanding their president back. The background to it all was that Correa had found out that the US embassy in Quito was directly paying a large proportion (more than two-thirds, I think) of police salaries. He put a stop to this and raised the the standard wage for a police officer but the proportion previously paid by the US embassy was so great most did not notice they’d been given a wage rise and thought they’d taken a cut. After Correa’s intervention, suddenly and mysteriously – no, I won’t use the C.I.A. word, I’ll just say ‘mysteriously’ – the Ecuadorian police decided to stage a coup.
Why do you think Correa threw the US Ambassador out of the country shortly afterwards?
Resident Dissident, 7.44pm
“did Assange callenge Correa on any of the identified human rights abuses within Ecuador?”
Yes, he did. And also on indigenous rights vs Correa’s push to get more oil contracts up and running.
Perhaps you should watch the episode link John Goss has given you? Also, there’s a link to the transcript of the full unedited interview further back in this thread. Not often that broadcasters release transcripts for the unedited versions of interviews rather than just how it ended up on screen. That’s one of the things I particularly appreciated about Assange’s The World Tomorrow series – it made a refreshing change to be allowed to see exactly which editing decisions had been taken in the process.
@Fred and Thatcrab, thanks for your replies regarding whether Richard lll’s DNA would be spread too widely to be conclusive proof of anything.
I didn’t explain my point very well. My point is that nearly everybody who had children in the 13th century will have millions of descendants who carry their DNA today, through both the male and female lines. The genealogists tracked down a 21st century descendant of Richard lll and linked him to the DNA of that skeleton. I’m suggesting that they could just as easily linked him to almost any 13th century skeleton they could lay their hands on.
I’m still not putting it very well so I’ve just Googled “who am I a descendant of” and found this site which says
http://sandwalk.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/are-you-descedant-of-charlemagne.html
OK, Charlemagne lived 1200 rather than 600 years ago, but you take my point.
Arbed
The account given by Amnesty would appear to be entirely accurate. In a democracy polticians get defamed all the time – if you think that the reaction of Correa is one that encourages freedom of the press, I think that you have little understanding of the concept. I can just imagine how you would howl if St Julian were to be fined $40m for receiving stolen property from the US Goverment and given 3 years in prison – even if Obama were subsequently to pardon him. No wonder the editors concerned are now refugees.
If there was genuinely a coup against Correa – then I have no problems with that being dealt with. But you are yet again seeking to apply an ends justifies the means argument – rather than judging each behaviour on its merits.
To be honest I think I would rather trust Amnesty to get information on the ground than Team Assange. Did Assange challenge Correa on his governments human rights record or just give him a platform to challenge the behaviour of other. I for one believe that all governments need to be held to account.
Well said Arbed. I put the link to the Assange/Correa interview at 7.34 p.m.
Resident Dissident, first of all, the human rights abuses were largely before Correa came to power. His changes in that respect is why his people (apart from those who supported the abuses – the right-wing press he got he sent packing).
“Censoring stories that you disagree with, rather than arguing why they are wrong, isn’t what should happen in a democracy. Or perhaps, you take a different view when it comes to freedom of the press?”
I’m always happy to answer a serious question. The first sentence is right, censoring stories you don’t agree with is wrong. Not publishing them is even worse. And yes I do take a different view when it comes to so-called freedom of the press. If it was really free the western press would have published stories about Irmeli Krans, Anna Ardin, Claes Borgström, Thomas Bodström and Sven Olof Petersson, especially over rendition and torture. Instead we had to get them published in the emergent press. Do you live in England? Are you getting your news from mainstream media.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2012/12/19/how-sweden-collaborated-with-cia-on-renditions-and-framing-of-assange/
Despite not having access to mainstream media outlets ourselves the above article has had nearly 2000 shares on Facebook alone. Why do you think MSM does not want that kind of publicity?