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: Ronald Brownstein in the National Journal
August 18, 2008
The odds are surely against it, but as John McCain and Barack Obama near the conclusion of their vice presidential selection process, there's still some speculation that one, or both, might reach outside their party to pick their running mate. For Obama, the chatter has centered on retiring Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; for McCain, the rumors have focused on Sen. Joe Lieberman, the "Independent Democrat" from Connecticut, who has been McCain's shadow on the campaign trail. D
Source: Tehran Times
August 20, 2008
A team of Iranian archaeologists confirmed that the Sassanids used the ancient site of Bakhe-Nam as a permanent habitation.
The team led by Bayan Pirani was assigned by the Ilam Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Department (ICHTHD) to precisely demarcate the site, which is located in the southern city of Ilam in western Iran.
“In the course of their excavations, the team has unearthed the remains of slag, the ruins of kilns, and a number of shards dating back
Source: http://www.dw-world.de/dw
August 17, 2008
West Berlin's most famous landmark and a poignant reminder of the horrors of war is threatened by collapse. Now a range of people, including soccer players and former enemies, are trying to preserve it.
When the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was destroyed by a British bombing raid in World War II, all that remained was its gaping, ruined tower. Still, Berliners protested plans to demolish the blackened, badly shattered belfry, which rises almost 70 meters (230 feet) over the western part
Source: http://www.mnbiketrails.com
August 19, 2008
UPPER SIOUX AGENCY STATE PARK - A mother and daughter were taken into custody when they protested a historical re-enactment at the Upper Sioux Agency State Park on Saturday.
Dr. Angela Wilson of Granite Falls, who has a doctorate in Dakota history and studies and goes by her Dakota name Waziyata Win, and her daughter, Autumn Wilson who also goes by her Dakota name Winuna, were part of a counter event to protest the historical re-enactment of life at the Upper Sioux Agency in 1858. T
Source: Press Release--http://civilwarinteractive.com
August 20, 2008
Facing a lawsuit, the National Park Service announced Tuesday that it would abandon a controversial plan to build a theater expanding the visitor center on the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Late last month, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of retired battlefield superintendents and Park Service historians contending the plan violates both environmental and historic preservation laws.
In today’s announcement,
Source: World Science
August 19, 2008
Poor medical care didn’t kill George Washington, a new study concludes--his final illness was a hopeless situation.
The death of the U.S. founding father from a throat infection at 67 triggered an immediate and still-smoldering debate over whether doctors contributed to his demise, in particular through their copious blood extractions. Blood letting was standard medical practice then, though it was already questioned in some quarters.
The author of the new study [Michae
Source: History Today
August 19, 2008
The modernisation of the ancient pyramids at Giza has begun with the building of a high-tech security fence. The £14m project at the World Heritage Site includes CCTV, security alarms and sensors to alert guards about peddlers encroaching on the area and harassing tourists. The 12-mile fence is the first stage to update the last remaining ancient Wonder of the World; visitors will now arrive at the c.2575 BC site near Cairo through security gates with x-ray machines
Source: Powerline blog
August 18, 2008
Here’s a footnote to the Washington Post’s story which claimed that John McCain’s “focus on Georgia raise[d] questions of propriety.” These questions, as far as one could tell from the story, were raised solely by the Obama campaign. One of them had to do with McCain’s request that Senators Lieberman and Graham travel to Georgia to assess the situation.
In a letter in today’s Post, Richard Allen, a foreign policy adviser to Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign and Ronald Reagan’s 1968 camp
Source: UPI
August 19, 2008
Who did presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois choose as his running mate? Was it Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware or Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius? Or will it be some surprise dark horse?
The Conventional Wisdom states that a vice presidential pick really isn't that important. There's a lot of evidence to support that view: A bad CW pick, who either proves hapless or emba
Source: AP
August 19, 2008
Portwood Williams didn't know what kind of reception the children in his car would receive when they sat down at a segregated lunch counter in downtown Oklahoma City to order some soft drinks.
"I didn't care," Williams said Tuesday on the 50th anniversary of the peaceful sit-in, which lasted for days and inspired similar actions elsewhere, helping to propel the nation's civil rights movement.
Williams, now 93, was one of several chaperones who drove a group of
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 20, 2008
Records of staff at a Jacobean mansion in Essex in the late 19th century have disclosed that many carried on working long after most of their social class would have died.
One lodge keeper was still manning the entrance gates to Audley End at the age of 71, while a housekeeper who was doing the rounds into her sixties survived until she was 81.
The average life expectancy in England and Wales was just 41 for men and 44 for women at the time, and was even less for those
Source: Independent (UK)
August 20, 2008
A campaign to save Bletchley Park, the legendary site where code-breakers toiled in secret to hasten the defeat of the Nazis and end the Second World War, is launched by The Independent today.
A coalition of public figures, politicians and veterans bound up in its history is supporting the campaign to save the park, which is maintained by a charitable trust.
Large parts of the park are in a state of advanced decay, with its iconic wooden huts – in which the elite recrui
Source: AP
August 19, 2008
Pakistan: Pervez Musharraf dominated Pakistan after taking
power in a high-altitude coup nearly nine years ago and led a reluctant
Islamic nation into the U.S.-led war on terror — a step that earned him
plaudits in the West but hatred at home.
Although Musharraf's decision to side with Washington after the Sept. 11
attacks helped rescue Pakistan from the status of a pariah nation, it was
followed by an explosion in Islamic militancy at home. Combined with his
fumbled efforts to stay
Source: Fox News
August 18, 2008
FORT WORTH, Texas — Twice a day, just a few miles from downtown, Texas
longhorn cattle _ icons of the Old West _ mosey down a street, hooves
clicking on the brick pavement and heads bobbing under the weight of
intimidating horns that stretch nearly 7 feet from tip to tip.
Tourists visiting the nation's 17th-largest city line the sidewalks and
gleefully snap pictures as a few cowboys on horses herd about 15 of the
animals down the block, onto a side street and back into their large p
Source: AP
August 18, 2008
An 18-year-old Harold Mattern welcomed the idea of
clearing forest trails and building bridges and dams as a member of
President Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps.
It was the Great Depression. Many in his home state of Connecticut were
desperate for employment, hoping to earn enough to feed their families.
"My father was out of work so I was eligible. I was single and I was out
of school and all, and unemployed," said Mattern, now 93."It was good
physical work, good hard wo
Source: CNN
August 19, 2008
As a young man, Barack Obama idolized the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
"Reading about people not that much older than me who had gone to jail and suffered beatings in order to liberate a people," he said, "I thought there's something powerful about that."
Fellow Harvard University student Kenneth Mack remembered walking around the Harvard Law campus with his friend, who was constantly quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
&quo
Source: Tehran Times
August 19, 2008
Bigfoot remains as elusive as ever. Results from tests on genetic material from alleged remains of one of the mythical half-ape and half-human creatures, made public at a news conference on Friday held after the claimed discovery swept the Internet, failed to prove its existence.
Its spread was fueled by a photograph of a hairy heap, bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy full-body gorilla costume, stuffed into a container resembling a refrigerator.
One of the two sa
Source: Tehran Times
August 19, 2008
A team of archaeologists working at the Sarab-e Mort site has recently discovered the ruins of a manor house dating back to the Parthian era.
Located near the city of Gilan-e Gharb in Iran’s western province of Kermanshah, the site is being threatened by a dam construction project.
The manor consists of sections for official ceremonies, administration, and private residence, team director Yusef Moradi told the Persian service of CHN on Monday.
Moradi des
Source: Times
August 18, 2008
German politicians are dismayed about the desecration of a monument to tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted under the Nazis that was opened less than three months ago in Berlin.
Police said they were looking for the perpetrators who attacked the monument, a large grey cube in the Tiergarten park in Central Berlin, at the weekend.
The vandals smashed a window through which viewers could see a picture of two men kissing and ripped down fencing. Police said it was
Source: Independent
August 19, 2008
The Children's authors Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl have been named as the nation's best-loved writers – over Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, according to a poll of 2,000 people.
The creator of the Famous Five books topped the poll, followed by Dahl and the Harry Potter author J K Rowling. Austen, the author of enduring favourites such as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma, is fourth in the nationwide survey of readers.
She is followed by S
