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: National Geographic News
December 3, 2008
Modern humans may have evolved more than 80,000 years earlier than
previously thought, according to a new study of sophisticated stone tools
found in Ethiopia.
The tools were uncovered in the 1970s at the archaeological site of
Gademotta, in the Ethiopian Rift Valley. But it was not until this year
that new dating techniques revealed the tools to be far older than the
oldest known Homo sapien bones, which are around 195,000 years old.
Using argon-argon dating—a technique that
Source: Politico.com
December 3, 2008
Former President Bill Clinton says he is open to the possibility of a role in the Obama administration but said he otherwise plans to be deferential to both the president and Clinton's wife, the soon-to-be secretary of state.
Clinton could be named as a sort of super-ambassador on a specific issue like India, or on a broad topic like restoring goodwill for the United States abroad. He was deferential to President George W. Bush, accepting assignments on hurricane and tsunami relief
Source: USA Today
December 4, 2008
The [Obama] family says they expect Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, to leave her native Chicago early next year and move to Washington to help care for their two daughters — a job she held throughout the presidential campaign.
"If somebody's going to be with these kids other than their parents, it better be me," she told The Boston Globe.
It isn't clear whether Robinson will move into the White House; neither she nor Michelle Obama would comment....
Source: Time
December 4, 2008
Most political experts expect the Minnesota election to be decided in the courts or even in the state senate. In short, it's a mess. But it's not that unusual. A look back at some similarly close — and even closer — races provides some lessons on where things might go in the Minnesota contest, the only remaining undecided 2008 Senate race. (Republican Saxby Chambliss thumped Democratic challenger Jim Martin in a Dec. 2 runoff.)
The closest Senate race in history — for an open New Ha
Source: AFP
December 4, 2008
Americans will Friday toast the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition, a dry spell that began in 1920 when a constitutional amendment outlawed alcohol throughout the United States.
The nationwide ban on the manufacture, sale, transportation, import and export of intoxicating beverages was brought into law by conservatives for moral and health reasons, and repealed in 1933 on economic grounds.
But to this day, pockets of Prohibition exist in the United States, with
Source: NYT Editorial
December 4, 2008
Congressional investigators recently outlined 13 issues for President-elect Barack Obama to focus on without delay. Most are obvious, such as military readiness, homeland security, financial regulation and Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The 2010 census also made it onto the urgent 13. It deserves to be there.
As with any huge undertaking, the census requires years of planning, but preparations have been systematically sidetracked during the Bush years. The most plausible explanatio
Source: NYT
December 3, 2008
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said Wednesday that he saw no need for President Bush to issue blanket pardons of officials involved in some of the administration’s most controversial counterterrorism policies.
Mr. Mukasey told reporters that there was “absolutely no evidence” that anyone involved in developing the policies “did so for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful.”
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 3, 2008
As a photograph it looks fairly unremarkable - a tortoise nibbles at the grass in front of a Boer War prisoner and guard.
But the pictures helps to mark the reptile as the oldest animal on the planet.
Jonathan, the tortoise, is believed to be 176-years-old and was about 70 at the time the black and white picture was taken.
He was photographed during the Boer War around 1900, and his life has spanned eight British monarchs from George IV to Elizabeth II, and 50 pr
Source: AP
December 2, 2008
Friedrich zu Solms-Baruth was swept up by the Gestapo the day after a failed 1944 bombing attempt on Hitler and thrown into the secret police's notorious Prinz Albrecht Strasse prison in downtown Berlin.
Unlike scores of others connected with the Kreisau Circle of plotters who were executed, the German aristocrat was eventually released — but not before he had signed away ownership of his family's estates on the order of Gestapo and SS chief Heinrich Himmler.
Now, some 60 yea
Source: FoxNews.com
December 4, 2008
He was a charming man, someone who was only ever nice to me, a great boss
to work for," Rosa Mitterer, 91, told the Mail of the murderous dictator."You can say what you like, but he was a good man to us."
Mitterer, who worked at Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat alongside her
sister Anni before the start of World War II, said she only knew him as a
kind employer.
"I remember so clearly the first day I spoke to him in the kitchen,"
Mitterer told the Daily Mail."I said I was Anni's
Source: Juan Cole at his blog, Informed Comment
December 4, 2008
Persepolis was the magnificent capital of ancient Iran, when that country ruled most of the civilized world, from Egypt to Central Asia and from Greece to Northern India. (Yes, some of the later pharaohs were vassals of Iran!)
Source: http://www.onenewsnow.com
December 4, 2008
A constitutional scholar says the new Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, DC, is an extremely biased and historically inaccurate exhibit that "twists and distorts" the Constitution.
The new $621 billion Capitol Visitor Center features an exhibition hall that is dominated by a very large marble wall called "The Wall of Aspirations." Dr. Matthew Spalding of The Heritage Foundation says the exhibit is not about the Constitution's limits on powers delegated to the
Source: Times (UK)
December 5, 2008
On a bitterly cold winter night 30 years ago, an electrician from Beijing Zoo took the step that would cost him decades of freedom and create China's most defiant prisoner of conscience.
Wei Jingsheng was 28, invigorated by the tide of optimism and unprecedented freedom of expression that followed the death of Chairman Mao in 1976, but angry at signals that Deng Xiaoping wanted public discussion to end. He made his way to the focus of the debate, a brick wall dubbed “Democracy Wall”, bes
Source: Times (UK)
December 5, 2008
The medieval reconquest of Spain from the Moors left a genetic legacy that can be detected today in the DNA of men from the Iberian Peninsula, scientists have discovered.
A high proportion of Spanish and Portuguese males have a genetic profile indicative of North African or Jewish ancestry, according to research that sheds light on the region’s history. As many as one in five has a Y chromosome of apparently Jewish origin, while one in ten has a Y chromosome showing a North African
Source: BBC
December 4, 2008
The body of first Afghan President Mohammad Daud Khan has been identified
three decades after he was killed in a Communist coup, officials say.
The discovery was made by members of a government-appointed commission
during excavation at a military base outside the capital, Kabul.
Daud Khan overthrew the last king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, in 1973.
His death five years later ushered in a decade of Soviet occupation
followed by the rise of the Taleban.
Source: CNN
December 4, 2008
[This week: Richard Holbrooke.]
Richard Holbrooke first visited Bosnia in 1992 as a private citizen.
Three years later, he would become one of the most influential U.S. figures working to end a war that had introduced a new euphemism for genocide: ethnic cleansing.
Holbrooke, who had worked as a diplomat, journalist and investment banker, was intrigued, disgusted and challenged by what he saw in the early days of the war in Bosnia.
A month bef
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
December 4, 2008
The grandson of a German aristocrat who was forced by the Gestapo to sign away ownership of his family's estates has launched a legal battle for millions of euro in compensation.
Friedrich zu Solms-Baruth was swept up by the Gestapo the day after a failed 1944 bombing attempt on Hitler and thrown into the secret police's notorious Prinz Albrecht Strasse prison in Berlin.
Unlike scores of others connected with the Kreisau Circle of plotters who were executed, the Germa
Source: BBC
December 4, 2008
The discovery was made by members of a government-appointed commission during excavation at a military base outside the capital, Kabul.
Daud Khan overthrew the last king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, in 1973.
His death five years later ushered in a decade of Soviet occupation followed by the rise of the Taleban.
The former president is to be given a special funeral ceremony by the government.
Teeth moulds
A spokesman for the Min
Source: BBC
December 4, 2008
In 1572, a"new star" appeared in the sky which stunned astronomers and
exploded ancient theories of the universe.
Now the supernova recorded by Tycho Brahe has been glimpsed again, by Max
Planck Institute scientists.
They used telescopes in Hawaii and Spain to capture faint light echoes of
the original explosion, reflected by interstellar dust.
This"fossil imprint" of Tycho's famous supernova is reported in Nature.
The study will help solve a 400-year-old mystery o
Source: CNN
December 3, 2008
The photograph became an icon of the Great Depression: a migrant mother
with her children burying their faces in her shoulder. Katherine McIntosh
was 4 years old when the photo was snapped. She said it brought shame --
and determination -- to her family."I wanted to make sure I never lived like that again," says McIntosh, who
turns 77 on Saturday."We all worked hard and we all had good jobs and we
all stayed with it. When we got a home, we stayed with it."
McIntosh is the girl to
