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: Skymania News
July 19, 2009
The world is celebrating the amazing journey that Apollo 11 made to the Moon 40 years ago. But few realise that an early bid to reach the Moon was launched from England, way back in the 17th century. Incredible as it may seem, one of the greatest scientific minds of the time, Dr John Wilkins, a founder of the Royal Society, was planning his own lunar mission four centuries ago around the time of the English Civil War.
It wasn't hot air either. Inspired by the great voyages of discov
Source: NYT
July 18, 2009
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the Democratic chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, are indisputably inside guys. Neither man is exactly overflowing with charisma, but they have used their decades in Congress to learn precisely how to pull the legislative levers, making them formidable powers in the Senate and House.
Both are now at crucial junctures. Mr. McConnell, 67, is the leader of a deplete
Source: NYT
July 17, 2009
In the 1990 movie “Green Card,” Gerard Depardieu’s character is deported because he cannot recall, under questioning by immigration agents, the type of skin cream his American-born wife likes. In real life, dread of such encounters has prodded many aspiring immigrants to prep for their interviews with elaborate “study aids,” particularly if they were adopting new identities.
Few of these crib sheets survived. “You were supposed to throw the cheat sheet overboard,” noted Nancy Shader
Source: NYT
July 18, 2009
It has been a remarkably tumultuous year here as Alaska celebrates its 50th anniversary of statehood. Sure, Ms. Palin roared out of sub-Arctic obscurity, but there was more: state lawmakers went to prison for corruption and then, in some cases, got out; a sitting United States senator was found guilty of a felony, at least temporarily; the ultimate measure of government stability here, the price of oil, went into freefall, then rose again.
“Will things return to normal?” said Scott
Source: BBC
July 18, 2009
A copy of the Magna Carta, that was on loan to the US, has been returned to Lincoln for a new exhibition.
The document, one of four signed copies of the 1215 charter of rights, has been on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.
It has now gone on show at the prison building in Lincoln Castle.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 16, 2009
German prosecutors have launched an inquiry into whether a garden gnome with its right arm raised in a Hitler salute in a Nuremberg art gallery breaks the law.
Salutes and Nazi symbols have been illegal in Germany since the Second World War but investigators may decide the figure is in fact ridiculing the Third Reich.
The gnome was produced by German-born Ottmar Hoerl, the president of the Academy for Fine Arts in Nuremberg.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 18, 2009
The crew of a US frigate made history on Saturday by becoming the first foreign ship to take part in the ceremony of the 'Constable's Dues' at the Tower of London.
The ceremony recreates a tradition dating back to the 14th century, where ships docking near the Tower would have to give the Constable part of their cargo as a form of tax.
This has since evolved into a ceremonial handover of what is usually an empty barrel of wine.
Source: Foxnews
July 18, 2009
Vice President Dick Cheney has long been a target of Democrats for his role in developing and implementing the Bush White House's anti-terror policies, and Democratic legislators soon may get a chance to hold his feet to the fire over a secret proposal for a CIA hit squad.
Some congressional analysts, however, warn that if Democrats try to put Cheney on the hot seat, they risk blowback because of Americans' apparent ambivalence about Cheney's take-no-prisoners approach to fighting t
Source: AP
July 16, 2009
A collection of slavery records newly available over the Internet may help thousands of people trace their families back to Africa through St. Croix, a former slave-trading hub in the Caribbean.
The records, which went online Thursday at ancestry.com, already have helped Susan Samuel of Houston discover the story of an ancestor who was freed after persuading officials that she had been illegally sold into slavery.
"Even though she came from a very horrible situati
Source: NYT
July 16, 2009
For half a century, a dark tunnel of crumbling concrete encased more
than three miles of a placid stream bisecting this bustling city.
The waterway had been a centerpiece of Seoul since a king of the
Choson Dynasty selected the new capital 600 years ago, enticed by the
graceful meandering of the stream and its 23 tributaries. But in the
industrial era after the Korean War, the stream, by then a rank open
sewer, was entombed by pavement and forgotten beneath a lacework of
elevated ex
Source: BBC
July 18, 2009
Mr Allingham served with the Royal Naval Air Service in WWI, later transferring to the Royal Air Force at the time of its creation.
Last month, Mr Allingham, born in 1896, became the world's oldest man.
The Queen said he was "one of the generation who sacrificed so much for us all".
Source: Foxnews
July 17, 2009
Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Tex., chairman of the committee, announced the investigation in a statement Friday, saying the inquiry "will focus on the core issue of how the congressional intelligence committees and Congress are kept fully and currently informed."
The committee will determine whether the CIA violated the National Security Act, which requires, with rare exceptions, that Congress be informed of covert activities.
But the top Republican on the House
Source: BBC
July 17, 2009
One of the few 20th Century eastern European thinkers to gain international renown, he spent almost half of his life in exile from his native country.
He argued that the cruelties of Stalinism were not an aberration, but the logical conclusion of Marxism.
MPs in Warsaw observed a minute's silence to remember his contribution to a free and democratic Poland.
Source: BBC
July 16, 2009
Members of a United Nations inquiry into the assassination of former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto have arrived in Pakistan.
Led by Chile's ambassador to the UN, Heraldo Munoz, the team includes a former Indonesian attorney general and a former senior Irish police officer.
During the visit, the commissioners are scheduled to meet Ms Bhutto's widower, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, and other senior officials.
The commission is scheduled to submit its
Source: AP
July 17, 2009
The event is one of only two that will feature the entire Apollo 11 crew -- the other is a lecture at the Smithsonian Institution Sunday night.
The event is one of only two that will feature the entire Apollo 11 crew. The other is a lecture at the Smithsonian Institution Sunday night.
Two of the crew members, Neil Armstrong who took the first step on the moon, and command module pilot Michael Collins, do not make many public appearances. The second man on the moon, Buzz
Source: The Times (UK)
July 18, 2009
For four decades it has sat in bleak isolation on the lunar surface, unseen to the human eye and gathering dust. Now, in new photographs released by Nasa, the remainder of the spacecraft that carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the final leg of their voyage to the Moon can be seen for the first time, right where they left it.
The image is part of a series of photographs shot by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an unmanned satellite launched from Florida last month as part of
Source: AP
July 16, 2009
A navigational chart used by Apollo 11 astronauts has become the unexpected star of an auction in New York City marking the 40th anniversary of man's first lunar landing.
Bonhams New York said that the lunar surface star chart sold Thursday for an astronomical $218,000. The tool, with a 9-inch (23-centimeter) diameter, had been expected to bring in $70,000 to $90,000.
Source: AP
July 17, 2009
Smithsonian Institution space curator Roger Launius, a former NASA chief historian, said the loss of the original video "doesn't surprise me that much."
Source: Business Week
July 16, 2009
In late January of 2001, in the depths of the dot-com crash, a San Francisco startup called Pyra Labs ran out of money. Its staff departed. The co-founder of the company, a young Nebraskan named Evan Williams, decided to make a go of it alone. He scraped together $40,000 in new funding and moved Pyra's servers into his apartment. This permitted the company's 100,000 registered customers (and counting) to keep using Pyra's service, Blogger, to publish their online journals, or blogs.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 17, 2009
Eleven of the 1009 people surveyed thought Buzz Lightyear was the first person on the Moon.
The Toy Story film character was named alongside Louis Armstrong. Eight of those taking part thought the late jazz musician made the first moon walk.
Not quite three quarters correctly answered that Neil Armstrong took the first step onto the Moon.
Eleven per cent of people polled thought the Apollo programme was a recent as the 1980s, with just 68 per cent knowing that the firs
