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)
October 8, 2008
UFOs exist and have been here since 1947, according to a British expert.
Editor of UFO Data Magazine Philip Mantle is set to unveil his findings at an international conference this month.
He investigated the site in Roswell, New Mexico where many people believe there was an alien crash landing. He analysed rock, earth and vegetation.
The area is surrounded by charred trees and bushes and a mysterious blue substance that dribbles down rocks.
US
Source: http://www.factcheck.org
October 6, 2008
On August 21, tabloids and news organizations picked up reports from the Italian edition of Vanity Fair about George Obama, Barack Obama's half brother, living in Nairobi, Kenya. The magazine said George was "earning less than a dollar a day."
The Daily Telegraph in London trumpeted the news with this line:
Daily Telegraph: Senator Barack Obama's long lost brother has been tracked down for the first time living in a shanty town in Kenya, reports claimed.
Stat
Source: Inside Higher Ed
October 7, 2008
The announcement starts off by calling the new policy of the American Anthropological Association “a groundbreaking move” that would provide “greater access for the global social science and anthropological communities to 86 years of classic, historic research articles.” The problem, critics say, is that the emphasis should have been on the word “historic,” because those 86 years worth of articles aren’t the most recent 86 years. Rather the association will apply its new policy for its flagship
Source: US News & World Report
October 6, 2008
Historian Robert Dallek sees some parallels to the failure of President Herbert Hoover to adequately address the economic meltdown of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Dallek points out that Hoover "couldn't let go of his ideology"—notably his belief that the markets would eventually correct themselves. That didn't happen, and Hoover became a figure of ridicule for generations. "In a crisis, you do need a strong and effective president," Dallek says. "And a president has t
Source: Press Release
October 6, 2008
Ever wonder what it would have been like to have attended the fall harvest feast of 1621? Now thanks to Plimoth Plantation, history is actually coming home for one lucky eBay auction winner this Thanksgiving! The famed non-for-profit, living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, dedicated to the indigenous Wampanoag and the colonial English of 17th Century Plimoth Colony, is putting two of its world-renown interpreters up for auction, for 10 days on eBay, beginning TODAY, at 16:21 pm, (4:2
Source: Reuters
October 7, 2008
A 1,000-year-old carved rock crystal ewer, one of only seven known surviving examples, fetched 3.2 million pounds ($5.6 million) at auction on Tuesday, Christie's said.
The ewer is the same one that came up for auction in Britain in January this year, when it was catalogued as a 19th century French claret jug and valued at 100-200 pounds.
In fact experts now believe it is an extremely rare ewer from the Fatimid dynasty which ruled parts of northern Africa and the Middle
Source: Independent (UK)
October 6, 2008
Jeanie and Isobel, who grew up on Pitcairn Island, were seven and nine years old when Brian Young, a neighbour, began assaulting them. He would call at the sisters' house and ask their mother's permission to take them off on his motorbike, supposedly to fetch firewood. Then he would drive them to an old hut in a remote part of the South Pacific island and rape them, one after the other.
The weekly attacks continued for two years, until Jeanie and Isobel's family moved to New Zealand
Source: The Star
October 7, 2008
HILL OF TARA, Ireland–It is a battle worthy of the old Irish legends, pitting history against modernity. But as a controversial highway creeps ever closer to the spiritual home of the early Celtic kings, it now appears both sides may lose.
For advocates of the twin ribbons of asphalt called the M3 now under construction north of the Irish capital, there is no choice but to live pragmatically with the roar of a commuter corridor in the shadow of the sacred Hill of Tara, because getti
Source: http://www.albanyherald.com
October 7, 2008
Only in Andersonville can one munch on a funnel cake while in the company of authentic Johnny Reb and Billy Yank lookalikes.
In a town known worldwide as the home of a Confederate prison whose very name wrought fear and trepidation to Union ranks, history buffs gathered Saturday to celebrate both the blue and the gray.
Harry Ross and Dennis Crenshaw are definitely two admirers of history.
Ross, who Saturday was wearing the gray uniform and gold stars of famed Con
Source: CNN
October 7, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama's campaign Monday tried to draw a parallel between Sen. John McCain's involvement in the nearly 2-decade-old "Keating Five" scandal and the current economic crisis.
The Obama campaign released a 13-minute documentary called "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis."
In the documentary, the narrator says that "the Keating Five involved all the things that have brought the modern crisis" and that
Source: CNN
October 7, 2008
On Oct. 6, Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists." She was referring to Obama's occasional association with Bill Ayers, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor who co-founded the militant group, the Weathermen. Palin was not the first to mention the Obama-Ayers connection. The Obama campaign regularly points out that Ayers committed his crimes when Obama was only eight.
The Weathermen formed as a radical offshoo
Source: AP
October 7, 2008
Sarah Palin's promise for a new era of government openness as the reform governor of Alaska started to crack even before Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign built a wall of protectiveness around her.
Palin was elected nearly two years ago with splashy moves like publishing the state spending checkbook online. She kept a campaign pledge to allow the public to view online communications between state officials and potential bidders on a major gas pipeline, a contrast to her pred
Source: AP
October 7, 2008
BOSTON -- Five Massachusetts men became the first divers to reach the wreck of a 19th-century steamship that sank in one of the most destructive storms in New England history, and say they saw an array of artifacts like dishes and mugs but no human remains.
The Portland, known as the "Titanic of New England," sank off the Massachusetts coast Nov. 26, 1898, after it sailed from Boston, taking more than 190 people with it.
The recreational divers spoke this week
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 6, 2008
The Spanish government is to formally recognise individual victims of the Spanish Civil War and ensuing dictatorship of General Francisco Franco and is ready to award compensation to the families of those who were killed in the struggle for democracy.
The cabinet of Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero announced plans to strengthen legislation designed to "right the wrongs" of the past and heal wounds that still exist in Spain more than seventy years after the start of a conflict
Source: FoxNews.com
October 6, 2008
A lawsuit involving the three surviving children of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King is threatening to derail a $1.4 million deal for a book on their mother.
The New York-based Penguin Group agreed to pay $1.2 million plus royalties to King Inc., which controls the civil rights icon's intellectual property. The publisher would pay another $200,000 to the Rev. Barbara Reynolds, who taped conversations with Mrs. King before she died in January 2006.
This wee
Source: CNN
October 6, 2008
Evel Knievel never denied his scrapes with the law -- the late motorcycle daredevil often reveled in them. But even he objected to a 1970s FBI investigation of whether he was involved in a string of beatings.
According to documents, the federal government came close to charging Knievel, who in turn threatened to sue the FBI for alleging he was connected to a crime syndicate.
Neither followed through.
Knievel, who died last November in Clearwater, Florida, r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 6, 2008
Oxford and Cambridge universities will allow students to download lectures directly onto their iPods.
The ancient institutions said they were making lectures, short films and interviews available on iTunes for the first time.
It follows similar moves by University College London and the Open University, which became the first institutions to make educational resources available this year.
Oxford said more than 150 hours of free audio and video podcasts has
Source: MSNBC
October 5, 2008
A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru's Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.
Nicola Masini and Rosa Lasaponara of Italy's National Research Council (CNR) discovered the pyramid by analyzing images from the satellite Quickbird, which they used to penetrate the Peruvian soil.
The researchers investigated a test area along the river Nazca.
Source: NYT
October 6, 2008
In the midst of a financial crisis, a towering figure of American business steps forward with his reputation and financial resources for public good and personal gain.
Their times and personalities are vastly different, of course. But J. Pierpont Morgan's role in the Panic of 1907 has its echo in Warren Buffett's actions during the current financial troubles.
"What Buffett is doing is similar in ways to what Morgan did in 1907," said Richard Sylla, an economis
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 5, 2008
It may have taken Michelangelo four long years to paint his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but his earliest predecessors spent considerably longer perfecting their own masterpieces.
By comparing the ratio of uranium to thorium in the thin layers on top of the cave art, researchers were able to calculate the age of the paintings
Scientists have discovered that prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete.
Rather than being cre
