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: LAT
April 28, 2009
When a Senate Republican left his party in 2001, elevating the Democrats to majority status, one member of the GOP was especially vocal about his displeasure: Arlen Specter.
Specter said then- Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords' decision to become an independent was disruptive to the functioning of Congress. He proposed a rule forbidding party switches that had the effect of vaulting the minority to majority status in the middle of a congressional session.
"If somebody want
Source: AFP
May 3, 2009
Nearly everyone who could read the Hebrew verses carved into the walls of
Ezekiel's tomb left Iraq almost 60 years ago, but their memory is preserved in what is today a
revered Muslim shrine.
Between 1948 and 1951 nearly all of Iraq's 2,500-year-old Jewish community fled amid a region-wide
outbreak of nationalist violence, but today Iraq's Muslims and Christians still visit its most
important holy sites.
In the little town of Kifl, south of Baghdad, the shrine of Ezekiel -- the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 2, 2009
Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to save thousands of Jewish refugees during the Second World War, a new book has claimed, disputing the widely held view that America's wartime presdient was indifferent to the fate of Europe's Jews.
The book, "Refugees and Rescue," claims that Roosevelt developed plans in 1938 for the United States to fill its immigration quota with 27,000 Jews from Germany and Austria and to send others to British-held Palestine and friendly nations in Af
Source: NYT
May 2, 2009
WHAT is the chance that the current downturn will morph into another Great Depression? That question has been preoccupying people for months.
The popular mood has a huge impact on the economy, so it’s worth noting what many people seem to forget: Depression scares come and go. And by one authoritative measure, the current outbreak of concern has been surprisingly mild....
Source: NYT
May 2, 2009
Many American presidents have been lawyers, but almost none have come to office with Barack Obama’s knowledge of the Supreme Court. Before he was 30, he was editing articles by eminent legal scholars on the court’s decisions. Later, as a law professor, he led students through landmark cases from Plessy v. Ferguson to Bush v. Gore. (He sometimes shared his own copies, marked with emphatic underlines and notes in bold, all-caps script.)
Now Mr. Obama is preparing to select his first S
Source: Linda Greenhouse in the NYT
May 2, 2009
David H. Souter had no agenda 19 years ago when he took his seat on the Supreme Court, but he did have a goal: not to become a creature of Washington, a captive of the privileges and power that came with a job he was entitled to hold for the rest of his life. In this, no matter what else can be said about his tenure on the court, he succeeded brilliantly.
Just a few decades ago, this would hardly have been a singular accomplishment. Even the most distinguished Supreme Court justices
Source: NYT
April 30, 2009
For 30 years, Republicans have held as an article of faith that tax cuts spur the economy and generate more revenue. “Deficits don’t matter,” as former Vice President Dick Cheney said. Now President Obama is adapting Republican arguments to his own agenda — only substituting spending for tax cuts.
Call it the Democratic version of Reaganomics, the supply-side theory that replaced Republicans’ longtime belief in balanced budgets. As popularized by President Ronald Reagan, the theory
Source: NYT
May 2, 2009
After decades of dictatorship and disrepair, Iraq is celebrating its renewed sovereignty over the Babylon archaeological site — by fighting over the place, over its past and future and, of course, over its spoils.
Time long ago eroded the sun-dried bricks that shaped ancient Babylon, the city of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, where Daniel read the writing on the wall and Alexander the Great died.
Colonial archaeologists packed off its treasures to Europe a century ago. S
Source: NYT
May 2, 2009
In American politics, the symbolic and the concrete are seldom far apart. Consider the fanfare surrounding President Barack Obama’s 100th day in office.
On the surface it seemed a classic instance of what the historian Daniel Boorstin once described as a “pseudo-event,” an exercise in public relations masquerading as news. “The celebration is held, photographs are taken, the occasion is widely reported,” Mr. Boorstin wrote of such staged episodes.
The Obama administrat
Source: UPenn.edu
April 28, 2009
PUM II and Hapi-Men, two of the ancient Egyptian mummies on display at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, have had their share of medical scrutiny: PUM II was both x-rayed and autopsied in 1973, while Hapi-Men underwent an x-ray in 1980.
Early Sunday morning, April 19, they traveled to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, for yet another medical procedure, and the chance for researchers to find out more about these 2000-plus year old mu
Source: Military.com
April 30, 2009
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — Relic hunters are defined as those who search for something that is cherished for its age or historic interest. Therefore it’s no surprise that Quantico, a place full of history, has seen its fair share of treasure seekers.
There are Civil War-era campsites located on mainside and in the Officer Candidate School area, said John Haynes, an archaeologist here. “These sites have been identified as historically significant.”
Although there
Source: http://www.archaeology.org
May 1, 2009
An international team of scientists has studied the DNA of modern American Indian groups and has found genetic evidence that they are all descended from a single ancestral population. In addition, that population was isolated from the rest of Asia for thousands of years before moving into the New World. “While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral po
Source: Newsbusters (conservative media watchdog)
May 1, 2009
On Thursday, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart apologized for earlier in the week calling former President Harry Truman a war criminal.
As NewsBusters previously reported, Stewart during Tuesday's interview with Foundation for the Defense of Democracies' Clifford May said that Truman should have done an offshore warning of the atomic bomb in 1945 before dropping it on Hiroshima, and that not doing so was criminal.
Apparently, Stewart has rethought his position, and said the following on
Source: Times (of London)
May 2, 2009
by Charles Powell
Thirty years on from Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister, it is being suggested that we have come to the end of the Thatcher era. Don't believe it. Iron does not rust that easily.
There have been reversals of the direction that she set, with the partial nationalisation of banks and the increase in the higher rate of tax to 50 per cent...
The real story is not that the Thatcher era is over but that it continues unabated. Nineteen yea
Source: Media Matters (liberal media watchdog group)
April 29, 2009
Related Links
Response of Judith Klinghoffer
In recent days,
several media figures and outlets have falsely claimed that President Obama's
approval rating at this point in his presidency, according to Gallup, is lower than that
of most or all recent presidents. The falsehood is based on an apples-to-oranges
comparison between an April 20-21 Gallup
Source: Spiegel Online
May 1, 2009
Anyone who didn't know better would think they are in a typical Polish hamlet, where clean washing flutters in the wind, farmers on old tractors rumble by and lumbermen lug tree trunks. But Stara Kolonia Sobibór is not typical, nor will it ever be.
During World War II this was the site of the German extermination camp Sobibor, where 170,000 Jews, more than 34,000 of them Dutch, were systematically murdered. It is a difficult place to reach, deep in the forests of Poland's eastern b
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 2, 2009
The African San people have been found to be the most ancient race in the world in a huge genetic study.
The people, who have lived as hunter-gatherers for thousands of years, are the direct relations of early modern humans who migrated from the continent to spread their DNA throughout the world.
A study by the University of Pennsylvania has found all populations descended from just 14 ancient African populations.
Researchers discovered the genetic DNA of
Source: Bloomberg News
April 30, 2009
Egyptian authorities have recovered 454 ancient Egyptian artifacts, including pharaonic pottery and bronze coins, from the U.K.’s Myers Museum. They had been removed from the country more than 30 years ago.
The pieces have been returned to Egypt, the Cairo-based Culture Ministry said in a statement today, citing the country’s chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass. The Myers Museum is part of Eton College, in Windsor, west of London. No one at the museum was immediately available for comm
Source: The Times (UK)
May 2, 2009
A mysterious “Mexican suitcase” has been unpacked to reveal a treasure trove of classic photo-journalism taken in the 1930s by Robert Capa and two other pioneers.
The three cardboard boxes contain 126 rolls of 35mm film with about 4,300 images of the Spanish Civil War, most never seen before.
They were saved from wartime Europe and appeared in Mexico City half a century later among the effects of a former Mexican diplomat, before finding their way to New York.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 3, 2009
The body of a 37,000 year old baby mammoth found frozen in the artic tundra is starting to reveal new insights about the now extinct ice age beasts.
Clumps of brown hair still cling to the three foot tall body, hinting at the coarse coat that would have once covered the infant. Even her eylasahes are intact.
These extraordinary images show why scientists are so excited by the discovery of Lyuba – the most complete body of a woolly mammoth ever found
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