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: Politico
September 27, 2009
In his new book based on a series of interviews with Bill Clinton, Taylor Branch provides a remarkable account of a conversation between Clinton and Al Gore late in 2000, after Gore’s presidential campaign had finally ended in perhaps the most painful defeat imaginable.
Clinton told Gore, Branch writes, that he was disappointed that he wasn’t used more in the campaign’s final days and that Gore had not developed any overarching theme. Gore countered that Clinton had never personall
Source: BBC
September 26, 2009
A group of elderly South Koreans has made a rare journey across the heavily fortified border to visit long-lost relatives in the communist North.
Two hundred families were chosen to take part in the reunions after more than half a century of separation since the Korean civil war.
The two Koreas began reunions in 2000, but the programme was suspended two years ago because of political tension. The resumption is being seen as
Source: BBC
September 27, 2009
An essay written by Sir Paul McCartney as a 10-year-old has been found after lying undiscovered in Liverpool's Central Library for more than 50 years.
Years before the Beatles received their MBEs, he beat hundreds of other school children to win a prize for his 1953 essay marking the Queen's coronation.
In 2013, the library will display the essay - found in a scrapbook - to mark the 60th anniversary of the coronation.
Source: WSJ
September 26, 2009
DETROIT -- On a grassy lot on a quiet block on a graceful boulevard stands the answer to a perplexing question: Why does the typical house in Detroit sell for $7,100?
The brick-and-stucco home at 1626 W. Boston Blvd. has watched almost a century of Detroit's ups and downs, through industrial brilliance and racial discord, economic decline and financial collapse. Its owners have played a part in it all. There was the engineer whose innovation elevated auto makers into kings; the teac
Source: Yahoo News
September 26, 2009
PRAGUE – Pope Benedict XVI sought to reach out to the heavily secular people of the Czech Republic on Saturday, decrying the "wounds" left by atheistic communism and urging them to rediscover their Christian roots.
As he began a three-day pilgrimage coinciding with the fall of communism in this central European country 20 years ago, Benedict said Christianity has an "irreplaceable role" to play in their lives.
The Czech Republic is one of the most se
Source: NYT
September 26, 2009
HONOLULU (AP) — The Army is allowing the resignation of the first commissioned officer to be court-martialed for refusing to go to Iraq, his lawyer said late Friday.
The officer, First Lt. Ehren Watada, will be granted a discharge on Oct. 2, “under other-than-honorable conditions,” said the lawyer, Kenneth Kagan.
Lieutenant Watada told The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “The actual outcome is different from the outcome that I envisioned in the first place, but I am grateful of
Source: Physorg.com
September 19, 2009
Which genes make us uniquely human? Scientists are looking at DNA in old bones to find out. The focus now is not so much on our own species, Homo sapiens. Instead, scientists are probing DNA in well-preserved pieces of bone from our closest extinct relative, the Neanderthal.
Homo neanderthalensis nearly made it through two Ice Ages in Europe, only to disappear roughly 30,000 years ago. That’s about 15,000 years after our own ancestors arrived and settled the continent. For m
Source: EurekAlert
September 24, 2009
Today's Scandinavians are not descended from the people who came to Scandinavia at the conclusion of the last ice age but, apparently, from a population that arrived later, concurrently with the introduction of agriculture. This is one conclusion of a new study straddling the borderline between genetics and archaeology, which involved Swedish researchers and which has now been published in the journal Current Biology.
"The hunter-gatherers who inhabited Scandinavia more than 4,
Source: Daily Mirror
September 21, 2009
An archaeological site more than 3330 years old has been found in the Udaranchamadama area in Embilipitiya, by a group of local archaeologists.
The site had been discovered by Professor Raj Somadeva and his team while excavating an area belonging to the Sri Jayabodharama temple in Udaranchamadama.
The ruins of a cemetery had been found earlier in the Pahalaranchamadama school premises and this team believed that traces of the village that used the cemetery could be disc
Source: The Hinde
September 20, 2009
CHENNAI: A big dolmen with four petroglyphs that portray men with tridents and a wheel with spokes has been found at Kollur, near Tirukoilur, 35 km from Villupuram in Tamil Nadu.
The discovery was made by K.T. Gandhirajan, who specialises in art history, when he led a team to that area. Petroglyphs are engravings made with a tool. What is special about the latest find is that while two men have been shown having tridents in their hands, a third is brandishing unidentified weapons. U
Source: Today's Zaman
September 25, 2009
A 5,000-year-old Venus figure has been found as part of an excavation being carried out in Chttp://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-187938-101-5000-year-old-venus-figure-found-in-canakkale.htmlanakkale's Ezine district.
The excavation began in the field three weeks ago in cooperation with Germany's University of Tübingen. Assistant Professor Rüstem Aslan, who is vice head of the excavation, told the Anatolia news agency that the aim of the dig is to find settlements outside Troy from
Source: The Evening Telegraph
September 25, 2009
A FUNDING crisis has put the future of one Peterborough's major heritage attractions in jeopardy.
Flag Fen Archaeology Park, one of Europe's most important Bronze Age sites, may not be able to reopen after its winter break because of cash flow problems.
It is believed the Bronze Age Centre and Archaeology Park, at The Droveway, off Northey Road, will need tens of thousands of pounds if it is to reopen next year, after it closes for its winter break in November.
F
Source: Yahoo News
September 24, 2009
PARIS (AFP) – French archaeologists have discovered the oldest known place of worship dedicated to the dugong, or sea cow, on an island just north of Dubai, two research centres said Thursday.
The sanctuary believed to date back to 3,500 to 3,200 years BC was discovered on Akab island in the United Arab Emirates, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Dubai.
The French archaeological mission in the Emirates and the Umm al-Quwain museum there said in the specialist magazine A
Source: northdevon.co.uk
September 24, 2009
MORE than 2,200 previously unknown archaeological sites have been discovered on Exmoor.
And significant new information has been added to a further 800 sites, thanks to painstaking research over the last two years.
Two archaeologists from Exmoor National Park Authority looked through more than 12,000 aerial photographs as part of the Exmoor National Mapping Programme.
The time consuming exercise was designed to help build up a more detailed picture of Exmoo
Source: AP
September 26, 2009
This fall, retired Harvard librarian Sylvia McDowell and the nonprofit wing of the cemetery are combing through historic funeral documents, gathering oral histories, and searching old maps to locate the Wilsons and other African Americans of Boston's past. McDowell and the Forest Hills Educational Trust say these people reflect New England's often overlooked ties to black history.
This is no small task: researchers are looking through records of more than 100,000 people buried throu
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 26, 2009
An official history textbook used by thousands of GCSE pupils contains embarrassing errors, including the assertion that the United States won the race to the moon in 1979.
The new book, written by examiners, also tells pupils that John F Kennedy was president of America in 1960.
Entitled History: The Making of the Modern World, the textbook for a new Edexcel GCSE history exam, the inaccuracies have been slammed by historians and teachers.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 25, 2009
Susan Atkins, one of the leading members of Charles Manson’s murderous cult, has died in jail at the age of 61.
Atkins was imprisoned in 1971 for her part in eight murders by the cult including the most notorious killing of actress Sharon Tate.
She had been suffering from brain cancer which had caused her to be paralysis and the amputation of one of her legs.
Three weeks ago she was wheeled into a parole hearing but prison officials rejected her request
Source: BBC
September 25, 2009
After almost a century on the sea bed a priceless World War One relic has finally been restored and put on display.
The ten-ton deck gun from the SS Laurentic was raised from the sea last year by a team of divers from Downings in County Donegal.
They have now restored the weapon and put it on show at the local pier.
The gun was one of eight guns on the Laurentic and the second to be recovered from the sea bed. The divers spent t
Source: BBC
September 26, 2009
People who rescued three RAF officers from a burning plane when it crashed-landed in a Bristol park during World War II have been honoured.
Relatives of those who risked their lives to save the crew of the Wellington bomber were at the service in St Andrews Park.
The crash, on 30 April 1941, was kept secret for national security reasons.
The memorial service, at 1230 BST, marked the first official acknowledgement of what happened.
Source: BBC
September 26, 2009
Sitting on the floor, with her suitcase in front of her, 100-year-old Kim Yu-jung is preparing for a remarkable journey.
Surrounded by four of her children, the youngest of them now in his late 50s, she is packing some winter clothes for the colder weather in the North.
The family is one of a small number given a rare chance to meet their long-lost relatives from the other side of the border that cuts this peninsula, and the lives of its people, in half.
