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: Wall Street Journal
November 14, 2008
WASHINGTON -- For much of its history, the government's most-secretive intelligence agency sought to conceal its very existence.
So it was a surprise last year when university researchers persuaded the National Security Agency to hand over a top-secret, 1,000-page account of its Cold War spying.
George Washington University plans to release the report today, giving historians a rare look inside the agency that gathers intelligence through eavesdropping. But one thing ap
Source: Deutsche Welle
November 14, 2008
Officials at Charite's Medical History Museum said they are unsure how the human remains made it into their anthropological collection, but added they would work with Australian scientists to determine where the skulls will be sent from Berlin.
Ian Kemish, Australia's ambassador to Germany, said Thursday, Nov. 14, that the move comes from "an impulse for reconciliation."
Apart from scant notes made over a century ago in the museum's archives and on the skulls
Source: MSNBC
November 13, 2008
A team of experts assembled by the Discovery Channel has recreated the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Using modern blood spatter analysis, new artificial human body surrogates, and 3-D computer simulations, the team determined that the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository was the most likely origin of the shot that killed the 35th president of the United States.
"The question we were trying to answer is, given the spatter evidence in a vehicle, and knowing
Source: Washington Post
November 14, 2008
In 1762, the Huntsberry family settled the land along Redbud Run, outside Winchester, with a deed from Lord Fairfax. Eight generations later, Bob Huntsberry spent his summers there as a child, finding rusted Minie balls that had been fired from the muskets of Civil War soldiers. He grew up steeped in elders' stories of the day, late in the summer of 1864, when Union Gen. Philip Sheridan and 39,000 troops came marching in.
Now, Huntsberry, 80, has reached a $3.35 million deal with Ci
Source: NYT
November 13, 2008
ISTANBUL — After nearly a century of looking serious, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, has started to smile.
Ataturk — a war-hero-turned-statesman who defended Turkey during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire — is the subject of what is perhaps the world’s longest personality cult.
His portrait hangs in every tea shop, government office and classroom. Insulting his memory is a crime under Turkish law. And every Nov. 10, Turkey observes a moment o
Source: FoxNews.com
November 13, 2008
Obama has a host of relatives in exotic locations from Hawaii to Kenya, and during his run for the American presidency he discovered that he had an aunt living in Boston.
Now he is being claimed by not one but as many as 8,000 Beduin tribesmen in northern Israel.
Although the spokesman for the lost tribe of Obama has yet to reveal the documentary evidence that he says he possesses to support his claim, people are flocking from across the region to pay their respects to
Source: NPR
November 13, 2008
In the days following Barack Obama's historic election as America's 44th — and first black — president, expressions of congratulations and joy have filled the pages of newspapers in Europe. But mixed in with the glad tidings have been inappropriate, insensitive and downright racist remarks from politicians and journalists.
In Germany, Poland, Italy and other countries, statements about Obama's skin color by public figures have caused an international stir.
Who knows if
Source: FoxNews.com
November 13, 2008
Talk about an apprentice. By the time he turns 60 Friday, Prince Charles will have spent 56 years waiting to become king.
That's put him in quite a bind. The longest-waiting heir in British history only ascends to the throne when his beloved mother dies or decides to step down.
Queen Elizabeth II was hosting a birthday party for her son Thursday at Buckingham Palace. The Philharmonia Orchestra, of which the prince is patron, is due to play for invited members of the ext
Source: AP
November 13, 2008
Senate Democrats on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees last week told the White House to preserve all records produced by the Bush administration and expressed "particular concerns" whether Vice President Dick Cheney's office will comply with the law.
"We believe it is vital the presidential and vice presidential documents belonging to the American people be preserved, including those related to key national security decisions in which the (office of the vice
Source: Times (UK)
November 12, 2008
Most people know something of the events in 1714 when the British government instituted a prize for the discovery of a successful way to find longitude at sea. The aim was to reduce the heavy toll of shipwrecks caused by the crude navigational method of dead reckoning. Dava Sobel gave new life to this episode in her bestselling book, Longitude: The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time (1995), which inspired the widely viewed television programme Lost
Source: AP
November 13, 2008
Archaeologists in central Syria have unearthed the remnants of an 8th century church, an antiquities official said Thursday.
A Syrian-Polish archaeological team recently discovered the church in the ancient city of Palmyra, said Walid al-Assaad, the head of the Palmyra Antiquities and Museums Department. He did not say specifically when the church was discovered or the exact date the church was built.
He said the church is the fourth and largest discovered so far in Pa
Source: WaPo
November 13, 2008
Army Sgt. Cornelius H. Charlton was two months shy of his 22nd birthday when his platoon tried to take a hill near Chipo-Ri, South Korea. The platoon leader was wounded, so Charlton took command.
He rallied his men, who had suffered heavy casualties, and led the next assault, only to be pushed back again. Despite a severe chest wound, he refused medical attention and led another charge. He alone eliminated the remaining enemy emplacement, though he had been hit again by a grenade. H
Source: NYT
November 12, 2008
When a Congressional committee subpoenaed Harry S. Truman in 1953, nearly a year after he left office, he made a startling claim: Even though he was no longer president, the Constitution still empowered him to block subpoenas.
“If the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the presidency is to have any validity at all, it must be equally applicable to a president after his term of office has expired,” Truman wrote to the committee.
Congress backed dow
Source: NYT
November 13, 2008
TimesMachine can take you back to any issue from Volume 1, Number 1 of The New-York Daily Times, on September 18, 1851, through The New York Times of December 30, 1922. Choose a date in history and flip electronically through the pages, displayed with their original look and feel.
Source: Times (of London)
November 13, 2008
He has a host of relatives in exotic locations from Hawaii to Kenya, and during his run for the American presidency he discovered that he had an aunt living in Boston.
Now Barack Obama is being claimed by not one but as many as 8,000 Beduin tribesmen in northern Israel.
Although the spokesman for the lost tribe of Obama has yet to reveal the documentary evidence that he says he possesses to support his claim, people are flocking from across the region to pay their respe
Source: BBC
November 11, 2008
One man took his two grandsons on a personal journey to the Western Front, for a history lesson they are unlikely to forget.
Before coming here from their home in Somerset, James White and his younger brother Simon weren't sure when the Great War happened.
They didn't know what the Armistice was about - and they didn't understand why we wear poppies.
Now, their bright white trainers are caked in mud as they step gingerly through the trenches at a military m
Source: Jordan Times
November 13, 2008
AMMAN - The government on Wednesday rejected as baseless rumours it intends to permanently close down two key Christian sites in the eastern town of Rihab.
Community leaders in the town have been threatening to step up a protest they started after the archaeologist who discovered what is said to be the oldest cave church in the world was removed from his post as director of the former Rihab Archaeological and Research Centre, which is now called the Rihab Archaeological Project.
Source: Times (UK)
November 12, 2008
The glory that was Rome is to rise again.
Visitors will once more be able to visit the Colosseum and the Forum of Rome as they were in A.D. 320, this time on a computer screen in 3D.
The rendering of the ancient city in Google Earth lets viewers stand in the center of the Colosseum, trace the footsteps of the gladiators in the Ludus Magnus and fly under the Arch of Constantine.
The computer model, a collection of more than 6,700 buildings, depicts Rome in t
Source: Tehran Times
November 13, 2008
They said more than 100 jars were discovered at a Phoenician site in the southern coastal city of Tire. Phoenicians are known to have thrived from 1500 B.C. to 300 B.C and they were also headquartered in the coastal area of present-day Syria.
“The big jars are like individual tombs. The smaller jars are left empty, but symbolically represent that a soul is stored in them,” Ali Badawi, the archaeologist in charge in Tire, told Reuters Wednesday.
Badawi and a Spanish te
Source: ThinkProgress (liberal website)
November 20, 2008
A new cartoon by syndicated cartoonist Gordon Campbell hits Gen. Colin Powell for endorsing Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). The cartoon shows a picture of Revolutionary War general Benedict Arnold — who infamously committed one of U.S. history’s greatest acts of treason — in blackface, followed by the line: “Benedict Powell…Race Patriot."
Politicker reports Campbell also stated that Powell “wishes to see someone who looks like himself in the White House.” Similarly, Rush Limbaugh is
