This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: NYT
December 11, 2008
Amid accusations of widespread corruption, an empty seat in the United States Senate awaits a new occupant from Illinois, where the governor is not trusted to make the choice.
That was the story in 1927, when the Senate ultimately denied a seat to Frank L. Smith because of questions surrounding his appointment by Gov. Len Small. But it all sounds familiar today as yet another sordid tale is added to a long and colorful history of the intense machinations that come when the prize is
Source: http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com
December 10, 2008
On December 5, just two days before the anniversary of the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor, President Bush used powers granted by the Antiquities Act
to designate the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The
new Monument incorporates a diverse array of nine sites across three
States, including five sites in Hawaii related to the battle of Pearl
Harbor, three sites in Alaska related to battles in the Aleutian Islands,
and one site in California related to the exclusion and i
Source: BBC
December 9, 2008
Disagreements have arisen at the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia over
whether more people should be investigated.
The UN-appointed prosecutor asked judges to intervene after he and his
Cambodian counterpart were unable to move forward. [The UN prosecutor wants more people investigated.]
It is the first time that international and Cambodian officials have had a
public disagreement since the tribunal started two years ago.
The court is looking into the deaths of some two mill
Source: BBC
December 8, 2008
The government of Turkmenistan is to amend the country's national anthem
to remove repeated references to the late president, Saparmurat Niyazov.
The anthem refers four times to Turkmenbashi - a name meaning Father of
all Turkmen - that was used by Mr Niyazov before his death in 2006.
It also refers to the state as a" creation of the great Turkmenbashi."
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
December 11, 2008
With deadly accuracy and at speeds of up to 700mph, it could have pinpointed Nazi targets and wreaked havoc on Britain.
At least, that is what German scientists believed as they plotted this weapon of terror...
The glider would be released from a larger aircraft. Guided by a Luftwaffe pilot inside, the dart would dive towards the ground carrying its 1,000kg bomb.
At the last moment, the pilot would release the bomb and inflate a huge balloon attached to the
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
December 8, 2008
Little did the world realize 40 years ago that a San Francisco stage was featuring the first public glimpse of an invention that would revolutionize not only our daily lives but also our ability to solve the world's problems.
An audience of about 1,000 people had witnessed the premiere of the personal computer.
The Dec. 9, 1968, unveiling of the primitive device with a mouse and interactive screen -- in a now-legendary demonstration by its inventor, Douglas Engelbart of
Source: Politico.com
December 10, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama says he plans to use all three of his names when he takes the oath of office in January, giving voice to a name that was was rarely used during the campaign except by critics.
In his first post-election newspaper interview, with reporters from the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, Obama was asked: “Do you anticipate being sworn in as Barack Obama or Barack Hussein Obama?"
He replied: “I think the tradition is that they use all th
Source: AFP
December 8, 2008
Fragments of bricks, engraved with cuneiform characters thousands of years old, lie mixed with the rubble and sandbags left by the US military on the ancient site of Babylon in Iraq.
In this place, one of the cradles of civilisation, US troops in 2003-2004 built embankments, dug ditches and spread gravel to hold the fuel reservoirs needed to supply the heliport of Camp Alpha.
Today, archaeologists say a year of terracing work and 18 months of military presence,
Source: LAT
December 9, 2008
A two-page memo that has been sent to Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials offers a guide for discussing Bush's eight-year tenure during their public speeches.
Titled "Speech Topper on the Bush Record," the talking points state that Bush "kept the American people safe" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lifted the economy after 2001 through tax cuts, curbed AIDS in Africa and maintained "the honor and the dignity of his office."
Source: BBC
December 10, 2008
The United Nations says more than six million people have been living as
refugees for more than five years.
More than 90,000 of those are Serbs, who fled Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Croatia during the Balkan wars in the 1990s and now live in the same
squalid camps they were originally placed in.
The BBC's Imogen Foulkes says these refugees are in limbo - unable either
to return home or begin a new life.
Source: BBC
December 10, 2008
Supreme Court judges in Brazil are debating how to proceed with a key
indigenous land rights ruling after one justice asked for more time.
The court has been asked to rule on whether a reservation in the Amazonian
state of Roraima can remain a single unbroken territory.
Indian leaders in Brazil say the case could set a crucial precedent for
the protection of their ancestral lands.
But rice farmers say they could be forced to leave the area.
Source: http://io9.com
December 9, 2008
If ancient homo sapiens got it on with their Neanderthal cousins, there were no children to show for it. Researchers studying Neanderthal DNA have sequenced half of the Neanderthal genome, and shoot down the theory that European humans interbred with the now-extinct species. And the team says the genome has other things to teach us about Neanderthal life, including their sexual proclivities.
The research team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthology presented their fin
Source: BBC
December 8, 2008
World leaders are failing to tackle human rights abuses around the globe,
Amnesty International says.
In an annual report, the group says people are still being tortured or
ill-treated in at least 81 countries.
In at least 54 states they face unfair trial and cannot speak freely in at
least 77 nations, the group adds.
It says world leaders should apologise for 60 years of human rights
failures since the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in
1948.
Source: BBC
December 9, 2008
The UN Human Rights Declaration has stood up remarkably well to the test
of the 60 years since it was agreed in Paris on 10 December 1948.
Its main strength lies in its simplicity.
In a preamble and 30 articles, none of them very long, it lists the rights
to which each individual is entitled. It is also wide-ranging, emphasising
rights to education and health as well as to freedom and protection.
It has echoes of and in some cases directly lifts from earlier human
rights
Source: NYT
December 9, 2008
When the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black force of elite pilots, emerged from combat in World War II, they faced as much discrimination as they had before the war. It was not until six decades later that their valor was recognized and they received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor Congress can give.
Now, the roughly 330 pilots and members of the ground crew who are left from about 16,000 who served are receiving another honor that has surpassed their dreams: Th
Source: Newsweek
December 6, 2008
Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly bett
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 10, 2008
Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, strongly criticised the [1707] Act of Settlement, adding to pressure inside the Government for the law to be changed or scrapped.
Mr Straw, the Justice Secretary, earlier this year signalled that ministers are looking at abolishing the 307-year-old Act of Settlement because it is "antiquated" and discriminates against non-Protestants.
Repealing or amending the act could also pave the way for a first-born daughter of Prince W
Source: LAT
December 1, 2008
The non-Jewish diplomat in France saved tens of thousands during the
Holocaust and spent a year as a Nazi captive.
Gilberto Bosques Saldívar has never been the subject of a major motion
picture by Steven Spielberg. American history books seldom, if ever,
mention his name, and he does not have his own Wikipedia page, in Spanish
or English.
But the former Mexican diplomat, stationed in France during World War II,
helped save as many as 40,000 Jews and other refugees from Nazi
p
Source: Justin Lahart blog at the WSJ
December 5, 2008
Friday’s dismal November jobs report brings the old joke to mind: A recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours. The truth is that there is no good rule of thumb for a depression, like the two quarters of consecutive GDP declines that many people use for a recession. And unlike recessions, which are semi-officially declared by the National Bureau of Economic Research’s business cycle dating committee, there’s no arbiter to say that an economy has fallen so hard it’s in a depression. In the old days, what we now call recessions used to be called depressions. The word recession only came into common use after the Great Depression, in order to distinguish garden-variety downturns from that epic crash. Sort of like the World Meteorological Association retiring a devastating hurricane’s name. That said, with the economy in the midst of what may be its worst downturn in the postwar period, it is worth thinking about what it would take to dust off the “depression” moniker.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 9, 2008
Ever since Albert Einstein came up with his general theory of relativity, black holes has been central to our knowledge of the Universe.
Now experts say they have shown that the theoretical phenomenon, whose gravitational pull is thought to hold galaxies together, exist "beyond any reasonable doubt".
The team of scientists spent 16 years studying the existence of a super massive black hole thought to be at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
