From outer space to your back yard!

Don't pack your bags just yet................., BUT!

Kepler planet-hunting telescope's new discoveries unveiled today. (Watch NASA news conference LIVE starting noon ET.)

NASA is causing a buzz after hinting that scientists may have discovered a planet very similar to Earth using the Kepler Space Telescope.
The U.S. space agency is holding a news teleconference at noon today to share the latest results from Kepler, it announced in a media advisory. It will be streamed live on CBCNews.ca.
"Exoplanets, especially small Earth-size worlds, belonged within the realm of science fiction just 21 years ago," the advisory said. "Today, and thousands of discoveries later, astronomers are on the cusp of finding something people have dreamed about for thousands of years — another Earth."

'Today, and thousands of discoveries later, astronomers are on the cusp of finding something people have dreamed about for thousands of years - another Earth,' NASA said in a media advisory. (NASA) 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/kepler-planet-hunting-telescope-s-new-discoveries-unveiled-today-1.3164690?cmp=rss 

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SPEAKING ABOUT OUTER SPACE:

The word "Earth" is just another name for "dirt." The proper name for our planet is "Terra," the moon is "Luna," and our sun is "Sol, or Solaris." 

Legally we are Terrans who live in the Solarian System! 

(Don't even know what the postal code would be bunky !)

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I just wrote a letter and when I went to send it my automatic spell check suggested I change "Dundas St." to "Dudes St."
Wrong!

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Well folks, today we have a two-for-one awards day:

(NEWSER) – A Florida toll collector has lost his job of almost 30 years after putting his own money in the till to make up for a customer who hadn't paid enough.Vladislav "Sam" Samsonov, 77, (our "Winner of the Day") was known for giving lollipops to kids and dog bones to dogs, says he was just balancing the register by a few bucks after undercharging a trailer driver last week—which he did occasionally when drivers were short. "In my eyes there was no crime committed, I just helped somebody out," he says. "I'd put the six dollars in, I got the six dollars back the next day."
BUT, the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority, (our "Asshole of the Day") which had reprimanded Samsonov about this before, reacted by reducing his work to two days a week instead of five.
He turned the offer down: "If I can't be trusted for five days, how can I be trusted for two days?" he says.

Read more: http://www.640wgst.com/articles/weird-news-104673/toll-collector-fired-for-paying-customers-13783121#ixzz3gim7GWxk

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Here's a headline your oft confused reporter found rather strange:

"18th century village discovered underneath Montreal interchange!"

Apparently Montreal cops are attempting to find out why villagers from the 18th century are living under this bridge, but so far have had no success in evicting them!

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More gruesome news about the Franklin expedition kids!

(NEWSER) – Scientists have learned that a group of British Navy ship men stranded in the Canadian Arctic in the mid-1840s didn't just cut the flesh off their fellow crewmen's bones to survive, they also cracked those bones to suck out the marrow.

Reporting in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, anthropologists at the University of Alberta examined more than 35 bones from the ill-fated Franklin expedition, which left no survivors, and found marks consistent with "end-stage" cannibalism, whereby people break and boil bones for marrow fat. As the researchers explain, "Survival cannibalism generally follows a sequence in which meat is initially cut from an intact corpse, but if further calories are required successively greater effort is put into corpse processing." (Yummy)

http://www.1035kissfm.com/articles/weird-news-104673/stranded-explorers-became-more-than-cannibals-13786196



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I don't know if you will find this interesting or not, but in my book "A Brief History of Western Religion" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1499513178) I stated that all evidence pointed to the fact that the Qur'an, just like the Bible, was not written down until many, many years after the death of both Jesus and Mohammed.

BUT!

Scientists think they may have new evidence about the Qur'an:

A 1,500-year-old parchment could be one of the oldest known copies of the Quran, possibly dating back to a time that overlapped with the life of the Prophet Muhammad, according to researchers who recently dated the manuscript fragments.
The text underwent radiocarbon dating, which measured the age of the find's organic materials. Researchers at the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, found that the leaves of parchment date back to A.D. 568 and A.D. 645. "The radiocarbon dating has delivered an exciting result, which contributes significantly to our understanding of the earliest written copies of the Quran," Susan Worrall, director of special collections at the University of Birmingham, said in a statement. [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds]
The Prophet Muhammad is thought to have lived between A.D. 570 and A.D. 632, and according to Muslim tradition, he received the revelations that make up the Quran between A.D. 610 and A.D. 632. The divine message was not written at that time, though. "Instead, the revelations were preserved in the 'memories of men,'" said David Thomas and Nadir Dinshaw, both religious professors at the University of Birmingham. Although most of the divine revelations received by the Prophet Muhammad were committed to memory, parts were written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels, the researchers said. "Caliph Abu Bakr, the first leader of the Muslim community after Muhammad, ordered the collection of all Quranic material in the form of a book," Thomas and Dinshaw said.

 http://www.livescience.com/51638-quran-manuscript-oldest-known-copy.html

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SPEAKING OF RELIGION: As the many regular regular readers of this blog know, your humble reporter is not especially religious, and certainly not enamored by the three mainstream faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

BUT, it still gets my blood boiling when somebody sends me one of those letters from Nigeria that starts with the phrase: "Dearest One in Christ!"

Not only do I find this invocation of Jesus to support a scam disgusting ......., I would go so far as to say it's "sacrilegious!"

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OK boys and girls, since we have had a lot of press lately about that woman who was pulled over by the cops down in the states for a traffic violation and later died in jail, we are going to print this article about what to do if YOU get stopped!

By Laura Wright, CBC News

 (Rules differ widely between U.S., Canada.)

 

 Sandra Bland was 28 years old when she was found dead in a 

Texas jail cell on Monday. She'd been arrested three days earlier, 

after being pulled over for a traffic violation. (Facebook) 

Some high-profile, controversial incidents have brought the issue of police traffic stops to light recently, including the deaths of Jermaine Carby in Brampton, Ont., and Sandra Bland in Texas.
Police shot Carby after a traffic stop, while Bland was found dead in her cell three days after being detained after a traffic stop in Texas.

• Sandra Bland dashcam arrest video released by Texas police
• What are your rights if stopped on the street by police?
• SIU clears Peel officer in 2014 traffic stop shooting of Jermaine Carby

So, what rules apply when police make traffic stops?
First, here are the basics:

• Driving is considered a privilege, not a right, meaning police have wide discretion on the roads.
• Police can pull you over for no reason. "They can stop you and you don't have to have done anything wrong," says Toronto criminal defence lawyer Ryan Handlarski.
• You must pull over if an officer wants you to.
• You must give police your licence, registration and insurance information.
• You must answer a police officer's questions. Handlarski says this differs from street checks, or 'carding', where a person stopped by the police does not have to answer their questions or give identification.
• In Canada, passengers do not have to give police their identification. Police can, however, ask passengers questions. In the U.S., police can legally demand information from passengers, too.
• Police can't search your car without arresting you first, or without a warrant. This also differs wildly from our southern counterparts. In the U.S., police can search your car if they have reason to believe it contains evidence of a crime. U.S. police can even take your car apart. "When they say search your car, that means everything — including pulling the fenders off, pulling the gas tank out," says Scott Greenfield, a New York-based criminal defence lawyer.
• You must obey any lawful command a police officer gives you. 

So what do you do if you're pulled over?

It's sometimes difficult to know what to do if you get pulled over by a police officer, especially if you feel you've been pulled over for no reason. One main thing to keep in mind is that traffic stops are considered risky for police.
"They don't know if they've stopped a mass murderer or a little old lady, so consequently, they will be on guard," says Greenfield.
Some general advice:

1. Comply now, fight later​

Greenfield says you should ask yourself: do you want to get home for dinner, or do you want to fight for your rights?

'You will not win a fight with a cop on the side of the road.'- Scott Greenfield, New York-based criminal defence lawyer

He says it's better to comply with a police officer and, if needed, to file a grievance later.
"You will not win a fight with a cop on the side of the road."
Greenfield describes the "good guy curve": he says most people don't understand how to interact with police, while criminals understand very well.
"Normal people think they're perfectly fine exercising their constitutional rights and engaging with police as equals. But police will tell them 'You're a criminal in my eyes'".

2. Be polite, calm

Jermaine Carby, 33, was fatally shot on Sept. 25, 2014, after being pulled over in Brampton, Ont. A Peel officer has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the case.

Greenfield advises people to keep their hands on the wheel and to not make sudden movements.  Handlarski says to be polite and calm if you are pulled over, even though you can legally talk back at or swear at a police officer.
"But I don't think that's good advice," he says.

3. Think twice about consenting to a search

Greenfield says people should not consent to a search under any circumstance. He says if you consent, you will have no defence if police find something illegal. If police search without your consent, you have more grounds to defend yourself later.

4. Canadians in the U.S. — beware

Canadians must obey U.S. driving laws. If pulled over and arrested, the consequences could range from burdensome to disastrous.
"You're far from home … There's no one to bail you out. If you have to appear in court, that could take months if not years. You will have to be there or there will be a warrant for your arrest," says Greenfield.
But both Handlarski and Greenfield caution that no advice can ever guarantee safety.
"People who read simplistic instructions of how to survive a traffic stop often find themselves in deep trouble because the advice doesn't cover a minor twist that escalates into a tragedy," says Greenfield.
Black Lives Matter Toronto organizer Sandy Hudson says she often hears about police stopping black drivers.
She says it's difficult to give anyone advice in these situations.
"I want people to be able to cite their rights and stand up for themselves, but I'm not confident that this will always be the best thing to do."
She says it's difficult to gauge safety because there are too many factors at play in any given traffic stop.
Handlarkski said there are unfortunately misfits and bullies in the police force.

"It makes it very difficult for people in particular in areas that are lower income and more racialized," says Handlarski.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/traffic-stops-what-should-you-do-when-police-pull-you-over-1.3163854?cmp=rss