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: Telegraph (UK)
December 9, 2008
Egyptologists have long believed that the huge statue on the bank of the Nile depicted an ancient pharoah's head on the body of a lion.
The 65ft high, 260ft long limestone sculpture was thought to have been built in the image of a great ruler, probably King Khafra, around 4,500 years ago.
But the geologist Colin Reader, who has studied the erosion patterns around the Sphinx in Giza, is now claiming that it was actually constructed several hundred earlier, well before th
Source: Rick Perlstein in Newsweek
December 6, 2008
It is Dec. 28, 1972, and President Richard Nixon and national-security
adviser Henry Kissinger are over the moon. B52s have just visited upon
North Vietnam the heaviest American bombing raids since World War
II—something, Nixon exults, that"pricked the boil, didn't it?" But what
thrills him most is how exquisitely the raids were timed—just before the
next week's newsmagazine deadlines:"They'll open up for this, don't
worry," he says confidently. They did.
The conversation can
Source: AP
December 6, 2008
Government investigators digging into the grim hidden history of mass political executions in South Korea have confirmed that dozens of children were among many thousands shot by their own government early in the Korean War.
The investigative Truth and Reconciliation Commission has thus far verified more than two dozen mass killings of leftists and supposed sympathizers, among at least 100,000 people estimated to have been hastily shot and dumped into makeshift trenches, abandoned m
Source: NYT
December 8, 2008
In 1945, after the atomic destruction of two Japanese cities, J. Robert Oppenheimer expressed foreboding about the spread of nuclear arms.
“They are not too hard to make,” he told his colleagues on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M. “They will be universal if people wish to make them universal.”
That sensibility, born where the atomic bomb itself was born, grew into a theory of technological inevitability. Because the laws of physics are universal, the theory wen
Source: NYT
December 9, 2008
Since 2000, the number of young children living in parts of Lower Manhattan has nearly doubled. The poverty rate declined in all but one New York City neighborhood. A majority of Bronx residents are Hispanic.
And the number of white people living in Harlem more than tripled, helping to drive up median household income there by nearly 20 percent — the fourth-highest jump in the city.
Those are some of the more striking trends revealed in new census figures that produce t
Source: Chicago Tribune
December 8, 2008
This is a story that won't go away.
Five weeks after the State of Hawaii vouched for the authenticity of President-elect Barack Obama's birth certificate, the controversy over allegations that Obama is not eligible to take office next month has reached the Supreme Court, which is expected to announce Monday whether it will consider the matter.
The fight is unusual because it thrives outside the so-called mainstream media, far beyond the oak-paneled offices of $700-an-hour lawyers a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 8, 2008
A senior al-Qaeda suspect has said he wants to confess to killing
thousands of people in the September 11 attacks in a move which could
speed up his execution.
In an abrupt reversal of previous attempts to defend themselves, Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants indicated to a judge in
Guantánamo Bay they want to plead guilty.
The move is being seen as an apparent attempt to push through their
prosecution and execution for multiple murder charges.
Their admi
Source: Slate (first published in 2006)
December 9, 2008
City government experts point to a political culture that's been in place for more than 100 years. This culture dates back to the late 19th century, when a gambling-house owner named Michael Cassius McDonald created the city's first political machine. Under machine-style rule, those in power would hand out contracts, jobs, and social services in exchange for political support.
Chicago's large immigrant population made it easier for political machines to grow in power. Poor ethnic co
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
December 9, 2008
On December 7, historian Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, submitted his resignation to the President, effective December 19, 2008. Professor Weinstein, who has Parkinson’s disease, cited health reasons for his decision. Deputy Archivist of the United States, Adrienne Thomas, will serve as Acting Archivist until a new Archivist is appointed. It is anticipated that Bush administration will not try
Source: FoxNews.com
December 9, 2008
Inside a once-secret detention center where political dissidents were
tortured and killed during Argentina's dictatorship 25 years ago, forensic
anthropologists have discovered a pit containing 10,000 bone fragments.
The first discovery of human remains inside a detention center confirms
the testimonies of hundreds of survivors who have said for years that
authorities tortured, killed and burned the bodies of political opponents,
they said Tuesday.
"This scientifically confirms t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 9, 2008
Astronomers have calculated that Christmas should be in June, by charting
the appearance of the 'Christmas star' which the Bible says led the three
Wise Men to Jesus.
They found that a bright star which appeared over Bethlehem 2,000 years
ago pinpointed the date of Christ's birth as June 17 rather than December
25.
The researchers claim the 'Christmas star' was most likely a magnificent
conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter, which were so close together
they would have
Source: National Geographic News
December 5, 2008
Some pre-Hispanic cultures in South America had elaborate celebrations at
their cemeteries, complete with feasting and drinking grounds much like
modern barbecue pits, according to a new archaeological study.
Excavations of 12th- and-13th-century burial mounds in the highlands of
Brazil and Argentina revealed numerous earthen ovens. The finds suggest
that the graves were also sites of regular festivals held to commemorate
the death of the community's chief."After they buried an im
Source: http://www.cais-soas.com
December 8, 2008
Iranian archaeological teams working at the reservoir area of the
Khoda-Afarin Dam have recently discovered a burial site of a Kurgan
warrior during their rescue excavations.
A bull statuette, a number of ancient weapons, dishes, and bronze
artefacts have also been found in the warrior’s grave, Archaeological
Research Centre of Iran (ARCI) Director Mohammad-Hassan Fazeli Nashli told
the Persian service of CHN on Sunday.
“According to the archaeologists, the warrior enjoyed a s
Source: http://www.newswise.com
December 9, 2008
Interpretations of a now defunct form of Spanish writing, in combination
with a joint U.S.-Cuban archaeological effort, are granting researchers
insight into the Cuban people who Christopher Columbus encountered on his
first voyage to the “New World.”
During the two previous summers, an archaeological effort in eastern Cuba
has recovered several thousand pottery and stone artifacts from the site
of a former large native village, El Chorro de Maita. The effort is co-led
by The Univer
Source: National Geographic News
December 9, 2008
Several stone sculptures recently found in central Mexico point to a
previously unknown culture that likely built a mysterious pyramid in the
region, archaeologists say.
Archaeologists first found the objects about 15 years ago in the valley of
Tulancingo, a major canyon that drops off into Mexico's Gulf Coast.
Most of the 41 artifacts"do not fit into any of the known cultures of the
Valley of Tulancingo, or the highlands of central Mexico," said Carlos
Hernández, an archaeolo
Source: AP
December 8, 2008
The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth. The court did not comment on its order Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election.
Donofrio says that since Obama had dual nationality at birth — his mother was American and his Kenyan father at the time was a British subject — he can
Source: AP
December 8, 2008
The spread of information on the Internet has given the world a new tool to forestall conflicts, Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio said Sunday.
In his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, the 68-year-old Frenchman said an earlier introduction of information technology could even have prevented World War II.
"Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have pre
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 9, 2008
US President George W Bush has said that the Bible is"probably not"
literally true and that a belief that God created the world is compatible
with the theory of evolution."I think you can have both," Mr Bush, who leaves office January 20, told
ABC television, adding"You're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm
just a simple president."
But"evolution is an interesting subject. I happen to believe that
evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life," said the president,
an o
Source: National Security Archive
December 8, 2008
Previously secret Soviet documentation shows that Mikhail Gorbachev was prepared for rapid arms control progress leading towards nuclear abolition at the time of his last official meeting with President Reagan, at Governor's Island, New York in December 1988; but President-elect George H. W. Bush, who also attended the meeting, said "he would need a little time to review the issues" and lost at least a year of dramatic arms reductions that were possible had there been a more forthcomin
Source: Scientific American
December 1, 2008
More than five and a half years into the Iraq War, the condition of archaeological sites and
antiquities in Iraq remains a frustrating and contentious topic among archaeologists and art
historians. Two surveys in the past year—one in northern Iraq in May, the other in the south in
June—have persuaded some that the ongoing damage is far less extensive than most observers had
believed. Yet with more than 10,000 registered sites and numerous other mounds of earth that may
still conceal uncatal
