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: WaPo
September 21, 2008
With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaching in 2011, Prince William County officials and historians have begun meeting to determine how the war should be commemorated.
The county played a key role in the war's early stages, hosting the first major battle -- the First Battle of Bull Run, or First Battle of Manassas -- at what is now Manassas National Battlefield Park. Although that event and other large battles in Prince William are more well known, there are other, small
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 23, 2008
A 650 million-year-old reef that predates and dwarfs the Great Barrier Reef has been discovered by scientists who believe it may hold ancient fossils that give an insight into the earliest and most primitive forms of life.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 23, 2008
Brazilian former model and ballerina has described her week-long affair with John McCain when he docked in Rio de Janeiro as a young sailor in 1957.
Maria Gracinda Teixeira, 77, described the Republican presidential nominee as romantic and a "good kisser".
In a 1999 autobiography, Faith of My Fathers, Mr McCain fondly related his whirlwind passion for the beautiful Brazilian, but did not reveal her name.
"We danced on the terrace overlooking
Source: FoxNews.com
September 23, 2008
Burma's longest-serving political prisoner, who was freed Tuesday after 19 years behind bars, vows to continue pressing for freedom from the junta's 46 years of military rule.
Win Tin, 78, a journalist-turned-activist who helped found Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party in 1988, was one of at least seven political prisoners released, according to Amnesty International. There are still an estimated 2,100 political prisoners held in Burma, the rights group said.
Source: AP
September 23, 2008
Vice presidential candidate Joe Biden says today's leaders should take a lesson from the history books and follow fellow Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to a financial crisis.
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened,"' Barack Obama's running mate recently told the "CBS Evening News.Except, Republican Herbert Hoover was in o
Source: BBC
September 23, 2008
In London's historic "Inns of Court", barristers practise law in the shadow of the distinctive medieval Temple Church. But does English law really owe a debt to Muslim law?
For some scholars, a historical connection to Islam is a "missing link" that explains why English common law is so different from classical Roman legal systems that hold sway across much of the rest of Europe.
It's a controversial idea. Common law has inspired legal systems across
Source: LiveScience
September 22, 2008
When early humans mastered the use of fire, their immediate rewards were warmth, light, and protection from nocturnal predators.
Investigators have assumed that our ancestors also quickly realized the advantages of flame-cooked food — easy chewing and digestion — though clear evidence has been hard to find. A new study bolsters that idea, showing that we share our fondness for cooked grub with our wild cousins, the great apes.
Source: Newsletter of the American Revolution Round Table of New York
September 22, 2008
It seems fitting that this fall we are celebrating perhaps the most important anniversary on the Revolutionary calendar. Two hundred and twenty five years ago, on September 3, 1783, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and John Adams went to the Hotel D’Yorke in Paris and signed the Treaty of Paris with the British diplomat, David Hartley. The document formally and finally ended eight years of warfare with Great Britain and established the United States of America as a nation.
The treaty als
Source: http://www.newsline.com.pk
September 23, 2008
Swat – a land of pristine beauty, a prime tourist destination, a celebrated seat of learning, music and melody through the ages and the centre of the glorious Gandhara civilisation – is lost to war.
Known as 'Udyana' (garden) in the Hindu scriptures, the valley has turned into a hotbed of violence since Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand cleric-turned-Taliban commander, started propagating extremist religious messages through an illegal FM radio station in July 2006, and the Ta
Source: http://www.thestate.com
September 23, 2008
Three years ago, an elderly Italian man pulled his van into a South Florida park to sell some rare, 2,500-year-old emeralds plundered from a South American tomb. But Ugo Bagnato, an archaeologist, didn't know his potential customer was a federal agent.
Bagnato flashed the green gems, which were as large as dominoes, and explained to the immigration and customs agent that he had bribed South American authorities and used fake paperwork to smuggle the highly illegal goods into the Uni
Source: Times (UK)
September 24, 2008
The anguish of a First World War soldier who was forced to fight despite being a conscientious objector has come to light after seven letters he wrote home were found in a dusty cupboard.
Donald McNair was a member of the Plymouth Brethren who registered as a conscientious objector when conscription was introduced in 1916. As a member of the Exclusive Brethren, a branch of the Plymouth Brethren, McNair avoided the temptations of society. He never went to the cinema or theatre, neve
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 24, 2008
Three academics and a computer assistant have died after working in the same building.
The one-time laboratory at Manchester University was used by Ernest Rutherford at the turn of the last century.
He is known to have begun a series of experiments using radioactive material in 1906.
Officials from the Health and Safety Executive have now ordered a review to determine whether former lecturers, students and ancillary staff were contaminated by traces of rado
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 23, 2008
Fifty-eight of the rings were made for Nelson's friends, relatives and pallbearers after his death aboard HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805.
The sale price was some 50 per cent higher than the pre-sale estimate.
The George III gold and enamel rings were made by John Salter, a jeweller of the Strand in London, and distributed by the executors of his will. Three examples are held in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
It was one o
Source: Guardian (UK)
September 23, 2008
When a man has so many medals that they already fill his chest, another may not mean so much. But Harry Patch, the last known surviving British soldier of the 3 million who served on the western front during the first world war, yesterday graciously accepted one more, the knighthood of the Order of Leopold, as Belgium's tribute for his services and those of all his dead colleagues.
Patch, who has just passed his 110th birthday, served with the 7th Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry u
Source: Tehran Times
September 24, 2008
Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) is searching for more documents to enable the country to win the court case against the University of Chicago on the matter of the Achaemenid tablets.
CHTHO’s Judicial Office has set up a team of experts to look for the documents at the archives of Iran’s Customs Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and former prime ministerial office -- present Presidential Office, the office director Omid Ghanami told CHN on M
Source: AP
September 23, 2008
Greece has finally taken possession of a chunk of the Elgin Marbles, and now holds renewed hopes of regaining the rest.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Tuesday presented Greek authorities with a small piece of sculpture from the Parthenon kept in a museum in Palermo, Sicily, for the past 200 years.
The 2,500-year-old marble fragment was one of the works Scottish diplomat Lord Elgin removed from the ancient Acropolis in the early 19th century.
Elgin
Source: NYT
September 21, 2008
As the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, John Kerry sometimes used 50 words to make a point when 25 would do. And he had a knack for foot-in-mouth verbiage, most famously when he declared, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” But there was one word he was very careful not to utter.
During the first presidential debate, when the moderator, Jim Lehrer, noted that Mr. Kerry had repeatedly accused President Bush “essentially of lying” about his Ira
Source: NYT
September 22, 2008
The proportion of New York City residents who are white and non-Hispanic rose slightly last year, reversing more than a half-century of so-called white flight from the city, according to census figures released on Tuesday.
The share of non-Hispanic whites in the city had been shrinking since at least 1940. As the overall population grew, their ranks declined by 361,000 in the 1990s alone. Since 2000, though, their number has increased by more than 100,000. Half of that increase was
Source: Guardian (UK)
September 19, 2008
Taro Aso, who is likely to be installed as Japan's new prime minister next week, today refused to acknowledge the use of hundreds of allied prisoners of war by his family's coal mining business during the second world war.
Aso, a former foreign minister who is widely expected to be elected leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic party [LDP] on Monday, would not comment directly on Aso Mining's use of an estimated 10,000 Korean forced labourers and 300 allied POWs at its Yoshikuma pi
Source: Guardian (UK)
September 23, 2008
Crews excavating the site of the World Trade Centre for the foundations of a skyscraper have uncovered features carved into the bedrock by glaciers about 20,000 years ago, including a 12-metre deep pothole. Exposing the rock was critical, said Anthony Pontecorvo, a structural engineer. "You want to make sure you're not perching something on a ledge." Cheryl Moss, senior geologist with the consulting engineers, said: "There are areas in local parks that have small vertical potholes
