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
August 14, 2007
The ancient Khmer city of Angkor in Cambodia was the largest preindustrial metropolis in the world, with a population near 1 million and an urban sprawl that stretched over an area similar to modern-day Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday.
The city's spread over an area of more than 115 square miles was made possible by a sophisticated technology for managing and harvesting water for use during the dry season -- including diverting a major river through the heart of the city.
Source: Catholic Review
August 13, 2007
A bust of the first Catholic Chief Justice of the United States may get booted from its prominent perch in front of Frederick’s City Hall if a group of civil rights activists gets its way.
Pointing to Chief Justice Roger Taney’s role in writing the controversial Dred Scott v. Sanford decision that declared blacks to be non-citizens and that made slavery legal in all territories, members of the Frederick chapter of the NAACP are calling on city leaders to take down the bust.
Source: http://abc.net.au
August 11, 2007
There is concern international privateers and relic hunters will seek to profit from what is believed to be the wreck of the warship HMAS Sydney.
A group of amateur researchers claim to have found the wreck off the coast of Western Australia, near Carnarvon.
The Sydney was sunk off the WA coast during World War II, killing the entire crew of 645.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 14, 2007
It was an iconic image that captured the wild excitement that greeted the end of the Second World War.
But the spontaneous moment of joy when a US sailor kissed a nurse in Time Square led to a bitter 60-year dispute over the identity of the amorous marine.
Over the years at least ten men have laid claim to be the one who planted the kiss on passing nurse Edith Shain on the VJ-day photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14, 1945 and made famous on the front cover of
Source: Time
August 13, 2007
Karl Rove is the most famous, and infamous, political strategist in American
history. There was a time when his range seemed so vast, his influence over
every aspect of the George W. Bush Administration so complete, that Democrats
and Republicans alike simply assumed that the hidden hand of Rove was behind
everything that happened in American politics — whether good or bad for the
President, the Republican Party or the conservative movement.
Source: AP
August 13, 2007
Artists, sculptors and photographers knew
Abraham Lincoln's face had a good side. Now it's
confirmed by science.
Laser scans of two life masks, made from plaster casts
of Lincoln's face, reveal the 16th president's unusual
degree of facial asymmetry, according to a new study.
The left side of Lincoln's face was much smaller than
the right, an aberration called cranial facial
microsomia. The defect joins a long list of ailments
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
August 13, 2007
Comprehensive data on U.S. military deaths from the Revolutionary War
and the War of 1812 through Operation Iraqi Freedom were presented in a
recently updated report from the Congressional Research Service.
"This report is written in response to numerous requests for war
casualty statistics and lists of war dead. It provides tables, compiled
by sources at the Department of Defense (DOD), indicating the number of
casualties among American military personnel serving in principal wars
and
Source: startribune.com
August 12, 2007
Louisa May Alcott is probably best known for her classic novel, "Little Women."
But it was the rash on her face in a 19th-century portrait that intrigued Dr. Ian Greaves of the University of Minnesota.
Greaves, a professor of environmental health, suspected that it held the key to a medical mystery. Now, he and a colleague think they've finally diagnosed the problem 119 years after Alcott's death.
In a scientific paper published this spring, Greaves and
Source: WaPo
August 12, 2007
The depiction of the Battle of Gettysburg's climactic moment has begun the final stages of its return. The circular oil painting survived 124 years of use and abuse. It has been restored in an $11.2 million, four-year conservation program and will be the showpiece of a new $7.5 million building at Gettysburg National Military Park.
Last week, a Great Falls-based firm, Olin Conservation Inc., assisted by a team of Polish cyclorama experts, raised the first of 14 sections of the paint
Source: Baltimore Sun
August 12, 2007
A decade ago, the list of the top 10 TV shows favored by African-American viewers and the list of top shows among all viewers shared only one program: Monday Night Football.
But this year, for the first time in a generation, the polls on shows favored by white and black audiences are strikingly similar, in agreement on eight of the top 10.
Never in the 20 years that the data from Nielsen Media Research has been systematically compared based on race has such a convergenc
Source: http://www.independent.ie
August 13, 2007
LEGAL action will be taken within a week to stop the excavation of a national monument site on the route of the controversial M3 motorway unless the Government orders all work to stop.
The TaraWatch campaign said that unless Environment Minister John Gormley stopped excavations by next Tuesday it would seek a High Court injunction on the basis that the works were illegal and contrary to EU law.
Source: thisisexeter.com
August 9, 2007
A devon archaeologist believes he has found the Lost City of Apollo.Dennis Price, who shot to prominence after finding a missing altar stone from Stonehenge, is the man behind what could be an amazing discovery.
Mr Price, a father-of-two who lives in Broadclyst, has undertaken years of research on the stone circle.
With the help of language experts from Exeter University, Mr Price has translated the early works of the Greek mariner Pytheas of Massilia, who was one of th
Source: AP
August 10, 2007
Archaeologists believe they've found artifacts from the last ice age in Alexandria.
The discovery came at a site that's being excavated for a memorial to freed slaves. While searching for the graves of about 1,800 former slaves buried there in the late 1860s, archaeologists found what they believe is a stone tool that's about 13,000 years old.
Source: BBC
August 11, 2007
Bronze Age Irishmen were as fond of their beer as their 21st century counterparts, it has been claimed.
Two archaeologists have put forward a theory that one of the most common ancient monuments seen around Ireland may have been used for brewing ale.
Fulacht fiadh - horseshoe shaped grass covered mounds - are conventionally thought of as ancient cooking spots.
But the archaeologists from Galway believe they could have been the country's earliest breweries.
Source: BBC
August 12, 2007
An ancient forest of cypress trees, estimated to be eight million years old, has been discovered in Hungary. Archaeologists found the 16 preserved trunks in an open cast coal mine in the north-eastern city of Bukkabrany.
The specimens were preserved intact while most of the forest turned to coal thanks to a casing of sand, which was perhaps the result of a sandstorm.
It is hoped the trees may offer experts a valuable insight into Earth's climate eight million years ago.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 12, 2007
A German farmer is refusing to allow British families to recover the remains of crew members of a Lancaster bomber shot down during the Second World War - unless they pay him 7,500 Euros.
The families of the crew are furious at the farmer's demands and are refusing to pay. They say that the farmer, Horst Bender, must not be allowed to make a profit from allowing them to give their dead relatives a proper burial with full military honours.
One relative described his dema
Source: Reuters
August 13, 2007
Archaelogists have discovered a more
than 2,000-year-old Etruscan tomb perfectly preserved
in the hills of Tuscany with a treasure trove of
artifacts inside, including urns that hold the remains
of about 30 people.
The tomb, in the Tuscan town of Civitella Paganico,
probably dates from between the 1st and 3rd centuries
B.C., when Etruscan power was in decline, Andrea
Marcocci, who led digging at the site, told Reuters.
"It's quite rare to find a tomb intact like this,"
said M
Source: AP
August 13, 2007
Speaking loudly and carrying on like
Theodore Roosevelt. It's a rare part of the 2008
presidential campaign rhetoric that crosses party
lines.
Democrats and Republicans alike are frequently
invoking the words of the nation's 26th president and
renowned political maverick as they project a
take-no-prisoners image in a time of protracted war
and continuing terrorist threats.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney managed to
mention Roosevelt, a GOP chief executive before he led
Source: Edwin Black at thecuttingedgenews.com
August 13, 2007
Although officials of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have steadfastly insisted that the secret records at the International Tracing Service located at Bad Arolsen are technically not ready for the Internet, both Red Cross and senior Bad Arolsen officials deny this. Indeed, Red Cross and senior Bad Arolsen officials confirm that most of their 42 million records could be made Internet ready within three-to-four months. Moreover, the Red Cross reveals, the idea of Internet access direc
Source: Reuters
August 12, 2007
Texas will almost certainly hit the grim total of 400 executions this month, far ahead of any other state, testament to the influence of the state's conservative evangelical Christians and its cultural mix of Old South and Wild West.
"In Texas you have all the elements lined up. Public support, a governor that supports it and supportive courts," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
"If any of those things are he
