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: Independent
August 29, 2008
The 2,000-year-old fishing boat of Galilee in which, the story goes, Jesus may have sailed, is one of the most precious ancient treasures in Israel.
The vessel, which draws thousands of tourists to a kibbutz in Ginosar, was discovered by chance in 1986 when the sea level dropped dramatically because of a severe drought.
"This year it is actually worse. I have been here 54 years and I have never seen the water so low, the situation so bad," said Haim Binstock,
Source: AP
August 29, 2008
A priceless gold wreath has been unearthed in an ancient city in northern Greece, buried with human bones in a large copper vase that workers initially took for a land mine.
The University of Thessaloniki said in a statement Friday that the "astonishing" discovery was made during its excavations this week in the ruins of ancient Aigai. The city was the first capital of ancient Macedonia, where King Philip II — father of Alexander the Great — was assassinated.
Source: AP
August 28, 2008
A small group of pagans pledged Thursday to hold a protest prayer among the ruined Acropolis temples, more than 1,500 years after Christians stamped out worship of the ancient Greek gods.
Group spokeswoman Doretta Peppa said the worshippers would pray Sunday to Athena _ goddess of wisdom and patron of ancient Athens _ to protect the 2,500-year-old site. Peppa said followers of the old religion object to the removal last year of hundreds of sculptural masterpieces from a tiny museum
Source: BBC
August 29, 2008
The settlements show an advanced level of planning.
A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated
towns, Science journal reports.
The Upper Xingu, in west Brazil, was once thought to be virgin forest, but
in fact shows traces of extensive human activity.
Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected
by road networks and arranged around large central plazas.
Source: AP
August 29, 2008
The largest collection of antique shipwrecks ever found in
Norway has been discovered under mud at the building site for a new
highway tunnel in Oslo, the project's lead archaeologist said Friday.
Jostein Gundersen said at least nine wooden boats, the largest being 17
meters (56 feet) long, were found well preserved nearly 400 years after
they sank at Bjoervika, an Oslo inlet near the new national opera house.
"For us, this is a sensation," he told The Associated Press."There has
Source: CNN
August 28, 2008
wo former generals accused of murdering a senator during Argentina's military dictatorship were sentenced to life in prison Thursday.
Antonio Bussi and Luciano Menendez were found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Sen. Guillermo Vargas Aignasse, who was last seen in public March 24, 1976, the day of a military coup.
The men, both in their 80s, showed no remorse during the trial, which took place in the interior city of San Miguel de Tucuman. They argued that they were
Source: Fox News
August 28, 2008
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An amateur historian and a newspaper publisher have filed a lawsuit against Lincoln County authorities they say are withholding public records about DNA evidence collected during an investigation into Billy the Kid's death in 1881.
As legend has it, the Kid, aka William Bonney, was shot by then-Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, but questions about his death persist with some claiming he lived to a ripe old age. They say Garrett shot the wrong ma
Source: Leonard Steinhorn at the HNN Blog, POTUS
August 29, 2008
Today, in introducing herself to American voters as Senator John McCain's vice presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin portrays herself as a reformer who pushed back against pork-barrel spending and the now notorious Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska. "I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress -- I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves."
Source: Independent
August 29, 2008
Internet mapping is wiping the rich geography and history of Britain off the map, Britain's most senior cartographer warned yesterday.
Churches, cathedrals, stately homes, battlefields, ancient woodlands, rivers, eccentric landmarks and many more features which make up the tapestry of the British landscape are not being represented in online maps, which focus on merely providing driving directions, said Mary Spence, President of the British Cartographical Society.
Source: Telegraph
August 29, 2008
Gladys Powers, who was 109, died in British Columbia in Canada earlier this month.
At 15, Mrs Powers lied about her age and joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, before moving to the RAF as a barracks waitress.
It is thought she was the last female veteran from any country to have served in the war, following the death last year of American Charlotte Winters. The Ministry of Defence has been unable to produce records of her service as British First World War files w
Source: Library of Congress
August 28, 2008
Read brief summaries of past Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
August 28, 2008
Sunday marks the 205th anniversary of the day Meriwether Lewis launched his boat from Pittsburgh, beginning a landmark journey that took him down the Ohio, up the Mississippi and Missouri and on to the Pacific. This morning, a state historical marker commemorating the event was unveiled near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
"On Aug. 31, 1803, Capt. Meriwether Lewis launched a 50-foot 'keeled boat' from Fort Fayette, 100 yards downriver. This marked the beginning of the
Source: HNN Staff
August 29, 2008
During his 42 minute long acceptance address Barack Obama never explicitly addressed questions some voters might have about his race. As the NYT has pointed out, no one at the convention did all week long.
His approach was sharply different than John Kennedy's in 1960. Kennedy, the first Catholic nominee of a major party, directly tried to reassure voters that his minority status would not affect how he governed and shouldn't affect whether people voted for or against him:
Source: NYT
August 29, 2008
Recollections from past Democratic conventions, from former presidential nominees, running mates, candidates and strategists. Help Wanted
By George McGovern
Close Calls
By Gary Hart
Maid Men
By Frank Mankiewicz
A Safe Harbor
By John Kerry
Prompter Wars
By Geraldine Ferraro
Cold Comfort
By Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
Speechless
By Ted Sorensen
Source: NYT
August 27, 2008
From the earliest days of his presidential campaign, those around Senator Barack Obama have heard the same mantra. He repeated it after he announced his candidacy and after debates, after victories and defeats.
“I need to get better,” he would say.
In the way Mr. Obama has trained himself for competition, he can sometimes seem as much athlete as politician. Even before he entered public life, he began honing not only his political skills, but also his mental and emotion
Source: USA Today
August 28, 2008
Barack Obama's decision to move his nomination acceptance speech from an indoor arena to an outdoor stadium may be a smart effort to tap the Kennedy mystique, open up the convention and generally stir things up.
But almost a half-century later, it remains unclear whether the precedent that helped inspire the move — John F. Kennedy's"New Frontier" convention acceptance speech at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960 — was itself a success, or even a good idea.
Those who were there and th
Source: NYT
August 28, 2008
Dezie Woods-Jones plans to stand Thursday night with her California
delegation in a stadium here and listen to Barack Obama, the first black
major-party presidential nominee in the nation's history, give his
acceptance speech. Woods-Jones, now in her 60s, is one of a tiny handful
of delegates who on the same day in 1963, Aug. 28, stood with hundreds of
thousands at the March on Washington and heard a young minister, the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., deliver his soaring"I Have a Dream" s
Source: CNN
August 28, 2008
Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28,1963, Martin Luther King Jr. shared his vision for a new America:
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal,' " he said before a crowd of hundreds of thousands.
King's dream for a land where his children would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content
Source: HNN Staff
August 28, 2008
This was the headline in the NY Post today, a reference to the edifice erected at Invesco Field for Barack Obama's acceptance address.
Coincidentally, today the folks who run James Madison's home dispatched an email to the media about"Mr. Madison's Temple"--a real
Source: Telegraph
August 28, 2008
Map-reading is a dying art because of the increasing reliance on the
internet and satellite navigation systems, the country's top cartographer
has warned.
Mary Spence, MBE, President of the British Cartographic Society, said the
ubiquitous sat nav in cars means people now concentrate only on going from
A to B without noticing where they are or how they got there.
As a result the whereabouts of the thousands of churches, ancient
woodlands, stately homes and eccentric landmarks
