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: Missourian
August 27, 2008
About 20 years ago, two men exploring 'Picture Cave' (east-central
Missouri, USA) found paintings on the rock walls and sent hand-drawn
reproductions to archaeologists Jim Duncan and Carol Diaz-Granados."These things are fake!" Duncan remembered thinking at the time. As it
turned out, the nature and location of the drawings contradicted
widely held beliefs about Mississippian culture. The figures on the
walls of the cave now provide crucial details of the prehistoric
timeline o
Source: Science News Daily
August 29, 2008
The Bible refers to ancient Israel as the “land flowing with milk and
honey,” so it’s fitting that one of its towns milked honey for all it was
worth. Scientists have unearthed the remains of a large-scale beekeeping
operation at a nearly 3,000-year-old Israeli site, which dates to the time
of biblical accounts of King David and King Solomon.
Excavations in northern Israel at a huge earthen mound called Tel Rehov
revealed the Iron Age settlement. From 2005 to 2007, workers at Tel Reh
Source: International Herald Tribune
August 31, 2008
It's decline time again in America, like every 20 years or so.
Last time round, in 1988, the doomsayers got everything right - except the
name of the country. For it was the Soviet Union which collapsed while the
United States went on to savor its"unipolar moment." This time it is a
consumptive greenback, shrinking credit, soaring gas and two wars with no
V-Day in sight in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Now let's look across the Atlantic where Europe used to strike Americans
as one huge
Source: Observer
August 31, 2008
Italy has agreed to pay Libya £2.75bn in compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country, which ended in 1943. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi signed a memorandum pledging a compensation package involving construction projects, student grants and pensions for Libyan soldiers who served with the Italians during the Second World War.
'It is a material and emotional recognition of the mistakes that our country has done to yours during
Source: International Herald Tribune
August 31, 2008
Last year, a Russian teachers' manual described Josef Stalin as an "effective manager." Now, a new teachers' manual says the Soviet dictator acted rationally in conducting a campaign of terror to ensure the country's modernization.
The new manual, "A History of Russia, 1900-1945," is part of a series of educational material that the authors say will help promote patriotism in young people. Critics have taken exception to excerpts that they say are attempts to whi
Source: BBC
September 1, 2008
Doris Gibson, who 58 years ago founded Peru's leading news magazine, has died at the age of 98. Her strength of character and determination helped the magazine withstand military dictatorships and repressive governments, as Dan Collyns reports.
She began with 10,000 soles (£2,066), which her uncle had given her, and a typewriter in a single room.
The magazine was going to be called Caras y Caretas - faces and masks - but as Peru was under a military dictatorship at th
Source: NYT
August 30, 2008
Each day, weather permitting, hundreds of South Koreans sail to this cluster of nearly uninhabitable islets and outcroppings, seven seasick hours from the Korean mainland.
The waves are so unpredictable that only a little more than half of the visitors can land. When they do, it is for a 20-minute stay to snap photos from a wharf, the largest flat surface on this 46-acre collection of two main islets and dozens of other specks of land.
The rest of the visitors must con
Source: BBC
September 1, 2008
An inquiry into Australia's worst naval disaster is to begin hearing evidence from former war veterans.
Some 645 sailors died when HMAS Sydney was lost in a battle with a German cruiser off Western Australia in 1941.
HMAS Sydney was regarded as the pride of the Australian navy and defence officials say the investigation is "important unfinished business".
The inquiry will be run by Sir Terence Cole, who presided over a hearing into Australia's
Source: Telegraph
September 1, 2008
Professor Robert Connolly, who is working with the Egyptian authorities to analyse the young king's remains and those of the two stillborn children, is due to present his findings at the Pharmacy and Medicine in Ancient Egypt Conference at the University of Manchester today.
He will say that despite their different sizes, the two foetuses would have made more sense as a single pregnancy for Tutankhamun's wife Ankhesenamun.
The smaller foetus is five months in gestationa
Source: Observer
August 31, 2008
Sixty thousand years ago, a small group of African men and women took to the Red Sea in tiny boats and crossed the Mandab Strait to Asia. Their journey - of less than 20 miles - marked the moment Homo sapiens left its home continent.
The motive for our ancestors' African exodus is not known, though scientists suspect food shortages, triggered by climate change, were involved. However, its impact cannot be overestimated. Two thousand generations later, descendants of these African em
Source: Observer
August 31, 2008
Secret files made public today reveal how an Etonian fascist sympathiser was used by the British government in an ill-fated attempt to explore the possibility of a peace deal with Germany during the Second World War. Memos written by the security service, MI5, and released by the National Archives, show James Lonsdale-Bryans, who was known to hold extreme right wing views, was given Foreign Office clearance to make secret trips to Italy.
One file states that in 1940 Lonsdale-Bryans
Source: Observer
August 31, 2008
Stratford has Shakespeare. Blenheim boasts Churchill. And Dickens boosts the coffers of Broadstairs. But when it comes to fame by association, nowhere, it seems, can surpass a small seaside town in Scotland.
For Helensburgh has 'Heroes' - 75 of them at the last count, and rising. Residents believe it is the most talented town in Britain and are looking to create a Hollywood-style 'Walk of Fame' to shout it from their elegant Victorian rooftops.
The Glasgow town, on the
Source: Telegraph
August 31, 2008
Archeologists have uncovered the remains of what they believe to be a 20ft fence designed to screen Stonehenge from the view of unworthy Stone Age Britons.
The wooden construction extended nearly two miles across Salisbury Plain more than 5,000 years ago, and would have served to shield the sacred site from the prying eyes of ordinary lower-class locals.
Trenches have been dug around the monument, tracing the course of the fence which meanders around the stone circle.
Source: CNN
August 28, 2008
Hosting a Republican National Convention is old hat to Minnesota.
Now 103 years old, Minnesota's Capitol is the third in Minnesota's 150 years of statehood.
Really, really old.
Across the Mississippi River from present-day Minneapolis skyscrapers once stood an exhibition hall where Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison for a second term as president in 1892. Harrison met defeat to Democrat Grover Cleveland, and the Industrial Exposition Building met the w
Source: http://nationalparkstraveler.com
August 30, 2008
Remember the good old days, when you could enter a national park and there
was no cost to hike a trail, tour a museum, or enjoy nature? Well, those
days seemingly are fleeting. In a move likely to disappoint many, the
folks at Gettysburg National Military Park are thinking of charging a fee
to access their museum.
Growth of fees in national parks is not new, only disappointing. Do you
remember this Traveler post from June 2007?
How much would you pay to hike a trail in Shen
Source: Michael Levy at the Britannica Blog
August 30, 2008
In a lively debate at the American Political Science Association convention in Boston today, an esteemed group of political scientists gathered to forecast the 2008 presidential election. The consensus: advantage Barack Obama.Using various forecasting models with variables that included GDP growth, presidential approval, fiscal policy, the leading economic indicators (LEI), and primary results in New Hampshire as
Source: WaPo
August 30, 2008
It's different now, isn't it?
John McCain has chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, and the election that had been presented as old vs. new suddenly feels like new vs. new:
Whichever ticket wins, America is now guaranteed "a historic first" in the White House.
On Inauguration Day 2009, the symbol finally will catch up to the statistical reality of this democracy.
White men historically have been the power demographic. Th
Source: LAT
August 30, 2008
The country, most of it anyway, got its first glimpse Friday of Sarah Heath Palin, John McCain's selection as his running mate, and the reaction was nearly universal:
Who?
Palin is breathtakingly unlike any other vice presidential pick in American history -- a gun-toting, mooseburger-eating former Miss Wasilla, an Alaska governor whose parents nearly missed her national unveiling because they were out hunting caribou.
The first woman to grace a Republican t
Source: AP
August 23, 2008
Frail and zealously shielded from a prying media, the 85-year-old woman Obama affectionately calls "Toot" won't be in Denver when he takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention. But as the Illinois senator becomes the first black man to accept a major party's presidential nomination, friends and family will be looking for glimpses of the white woman who had as much to do with shaping his character as anyone.
Madelyn Lee Payne was born in October 1922 in the tiny
Source: http://www.theartnewspaper.com
August 28, 2008
The leading archaeologist in Iraq says that sites are no longer being targeted by professional looters. The Art Newspaper spoke by telephone with Dr Abbas al-Husseini, who took over from Dr Donny George as chairman of the state board of antiquities in 2006. A year ago he was removed, because of internal politics, and he is currently working as a professor at Al Qadisiyah University and supervising excavations.
Speaking from Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, Dr al-Husseini told us that alt
