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: Fox News
December 20, 2009
The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up more people than any other.
The inmate population has risen steadily since the early 1970s as states adopted get-tough policies that sent more people to prison and kept them there longer. But tight budgets now have states rethinking these policies and the costs that come with them.
"It's a reversal of a trend that's been going o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 20, 2009
A new book published in Germany says the murder of six million Jews in the Second World War was due to Hitler's belief that they "stole" victory from the country in the First World War.
"In his madness Hitler was convinced that the 'Jewish poison' had done the same thing to his beloved Germany in 1918 what the 'cancer poison' had done to his beloved mother in 1907," wrote historian and journalist Dr Joachim Riecker.
'November 9: How World War One L
Source: NYT
December 7, 2009
From Joseph Fourier to James Hansen, NOAA to I.P.C.C., and Kyoto to Copenhagen, a look at the history of climate study and diplomacy in the modern age of global warming.
Source: BBC
December 20, 2009
A Yorkshire nun who was jailed for trying to promote women's rights 400 years ago has been put on the road to sainthood by Pope Benedict.
Mary Ward, who was born in Ripon, founded an order of nuns in the 17th Century but it was rejected by the Pope and she was accused of heresy.
Pope Benedict has now approved a decree recognising her "heroic virtues", giving her the title "venerable".
Her cause will now go to the next stage in the proc
Source: BBC
December 20, 2009
The condition of the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber has deteriorated, it has been confirmed.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, who was jailed for life in 2001 for the 1988 bombing, was released from prison in August on compassionate grounds.
The Tripoli Medical Centre in Libya said a scan has shown that the prostate cancer from which Megrahi is suffering has spread throughout his body.
Source: AP
December 19, 2009
Polish police and border guards stepped up security checks at airports and border crossings Saturday as the search intensified for the infamous sign stolen from the Auschwitz death camp memorial.
The brazen overnight theft of one of the Holocaust's most chilling and notorious symbols early Friday sparked outrage from around the world, and Polish leaders declared recovering the 16-foot sign a top priority. The sign read "Arbeit Macht Frei" — work makes you free — a grim Naz
Source: The Sunday Times (UK)
December 20, 2009
The Lockerbie bomber had £1.8m ($2.9 million USD) in a Swiss bank account when he was convicted eight years ago, it has been revealed.
The Crown Office, Scotland’s equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service, has confirmed it refused to grant bail to Abdel Baset al-Megrahias recently as November last year because of concerns he might try to gain access to the money.
The existence of such a large sum in a personal accountcasts doubt on claims by the Libyan government tha
Source: The Economist
December 20, 2009
When the British government decided to split the Home Office into two separate ministries in 2007, various benefits and problems were expected. One consequence that no one foresaw was the discovery of a 200-year-old porn collection. On December 15th a ministerial delegation made its way to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum to hand over a smutty 40-page album turned up during the departmental move last year.
The etchings are the work of James Gillray, one of Britain's most fam
Source: The Economist
December 20, 2009
The birth of the cult of fine wine can be dated precisely. On April 10th 1663, Samuel Pepys, diarist and man-about-London, noted that he had enjoyed "a sort of French wine called Ho Bryan that hath a good and most particular taste that I never met with".
As Pepys was savouring his tipple, big economic shifts were under way. London was on the rise, starting to replace Amsterdam as the hub of world trade. Its merchants were growing in power, wealth and appetite—for, amongst
Source: The Economist
December 20, 2009
A shipwreck is a catastrophe for those involved, but for historians and archaeologists of future generations it is an opportunity. Wrecks offer glimpses not only of the nautical technology of the past but also of its economy, trade, culture and, sometimes, its warfare. Until recently, though, most of the 3m ships estimated to be lying on the seabed have been out of reach. Underwater archaeology has mainly been the preserve of scuba divers. That has limited the endeavour to waters less than 50 me
Source: The Economist
December 20, 2009
To examine the roots of religion, Nicholas Wade says, it is important to look at human beginnings. The customs of hunter-gatherer peoples who survived into modern times give an idea of religion's first forms: the ecstasy of dusk-to-dawn tribal dances, for example.
Mr Wade is convinced that a Darwinian approach offers the key to understanding religion. In other words, he sides with those who think man's propensity for religion has some adaptive function. According to this view, faith
Source: The Economist
December 20, 2009
Nicolas Sarkozy has often dwelt on the need for the French to know their history. He has required teachers to read out a letter written by a 17-year-old Communist resistance fighter to his mother just before his execution. He has proposed that every final-year primary pupil remember a child killed in the Holocaust. He has studded his speeches with references to" crusades and cathedrals, human rights and the revolution", saying that"there cannot be a nation if there is not a common history."
Source: BBC History Magazine
December 20, 2009
Christmas is approaching; people are giving themselves over to wild excess, while misanthropes moan. They wail that Christmas has become a festival of excess, an orgy of licentiousness, a celebration of gluttony.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of the history of the midwinter festival now known as Christmas will know that, ever since humans became capable of sharing a common culture, they have let their hair down and partied at the time of year when the days are shortest.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 31, 2069
Five years after the Boxing Day tsunami, Aceh's people are still recovering
Keri's smalls hands are clasped tightly together, as she concentrates on remembering the day that a giant tsunami swept her out of her family's home in Banda Aceh, North Sumatra, tearing first her father from her grasp, then her pregnant sister and finally her mother. She was nine years old then.
She cannot remember what happened after the foul water, thick with bodies and other horrors, closed
Source: Reuters
December 31, 2069
An Australian hospital ship torpedoed by the Japanese during World War Two with the loss of 268 lives has been located in waters off the coast of the northern state of Queensland, the government said on Sunday.
The loss of the Centaur in 1943 while sailing to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea was one of Australia's great wartime disasters. Survivors and their relatives have long pressed for the wreck to be found, fearing salvagers would reach it first.
The government ev
Source: National Parks Traveler
December 31, 2069
Editor’s note: It’s been said that to know where you’re heading, you have to know how you got to your current location. And yet, even when you do know that, it can be hard to move forward with what you’ve learned. For 20+ years Todd Wilkinson has been following land-management decisions in and around Yellowstone National Park. In this essay, he looks back to a seminal moment from 1989 and points out what has, and hasn’t, been learned by those involved in managing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosyste
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 19, 2009
Silvio Berlusconi has been seen to have more in common with Benito Mussolini than anybody had supposed after the violent attack he endured last week.
It had already been a terrible year for the Italian prime minister. Castigated by the Roman Catholic Church for his dalliances with showgirls, sued for divorce, accused of sleeping with a prostitute and facing two corruption trials, the last 12 months of personal and political pitfalls were capped last weekend when he was struck in th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 19, 2009
The Vatican is on collision course with the Jewish world after Pope Benedict XVI moved his controversial wartime predecessor, Pius XII, farther along the path to sainthood.
The unexpected move came months after Pope Benedict found himself at the centre of huge controversy when he rehabilitated a British bishop who has consistently denied the severity and scope of the Holocaust.
The German-born pontiff risks worsening relations with Jewish groups after declaring Pius &q
Source: NYT
December 18, 2009
A former director of the Secret Service said Friday that the F.B.I. had engaged in an “abuse of power” by trying to pressure him to “give us the president” during the investigation of President Bill Clinton’s interactions with Monica Lewinsky a decade ago.
The official, Lewis C. Merletti, who headed the former president’s protective detail and later became the agency’s director, said in an interview that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had grilled him just days before Mr. Clinto
Source: LA Times
December 18, 2009
The animatronic president is set to debut after getting a high-tech update. But scholars say his speech, unchanged from when it appeared decades ago, is not like the real thing.
It looks like Abraham Lincoln. It moves like Abraham Lincoln. And it quotes Abraham Lincoln. But historians say it still doesn't sound like Abraham Lincoln.
After a four-year absence, Walt Disney Co. pulls the curtain back today on a new high-tech version of Lincoln for its "Great Moments w
