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: http://www.newscientist.com
March 2, 2008
The looting of Iraq's cultural treasures made headlines around the world in the wake of the invasion by the US and its allies in
March 2003. Now the extent of the harm to archaeological sites in southern Iraq has been quantified, thanks to commercial
satellite images.
Modern-day Iraq contains relics from some of the world's oldest cities and is often referred to as the" cradle of civilisation".
Anecdotal reports and helicopter flyovers suggested the looting of artifacts has been wide
Source: Romenesko (media column)
February 29, 2008
Jean Cochran's NPR report about President Bush going to Africa to visit the "dark continent" brought in angry e-mails and photo calls. "I almost drove off the side of the road to start a protest!!!" wrote one listener. Cochran's reaction: "I had no idea the term would be found offensive. I will concede antiquated but I was unaware it was 'racist and irredeemable,' as one person put it." She apologized, which brought in more complaints about political correctness.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
March 7, 2008
For millennia, great and not-so-great leaders have celebrated themselves in monuments. The ziggurats of Mesopotamia, the pyramids, the Forbidden City, the Louvre, and Monticello all convey their builders' legacies, as did the many lavish palaces of Saddam Hussein.
Modern U.S. presidents have only their presidential libraries. Now that the George W. Bush era is almost over, the world needs a place to archive the legacy of the 43rd president. That place will be Southern Methodist Univ
Source: NewsHour (PBS)
February 26, 2008
A new study on religion in the United States released Tuesday found that more than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhood and a growing number of people are unaffiliated. Analysts examine the role of faith in America.
MARGARET WARNER: Americans' sense of religious affiliation is surprisingly fluid, a broad new study has found.
Among the findings in a survey of 35,000 Americans by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 44 percent of Ameri
Source: Seattle Times
March 3, 2008
GOLD BEACH, ORE. | It was the amber luminescent glow of an egg-shaped object in the winter sun that grabbed Loretta LeGuee's attention on the beach she had combed for years.
Experts say it almost certainly is a chunk of beeswax from a Spanish trading vessel that sank off the coast more than 300 years ago.
The wax has been turning up on Oregon's north coast in the Nehalem and Manzanita areas for centuries. A find this far south is rare.
Source: AFP
February 29, 2008
SIDON, Lebanon (AFP) - "Sidon's mountain" bears no resemblance to the green mountains of Lebanon. It is rather an immense landfill that dumps its trash into the Mediterranean, polluting the coast of the ancient Phoenician port city.
The dump is just a few metres (yards) away from the tourist sites of the southern city of Sidon -- its crusader sea castle, ancient vaulted souk and Phoenician temple.
The 30-year-old "mountain of filth" has steadily grow
Source: AP
March 3, 2008
One LED if by land, and two if by sea? The Old North Church, a beacon for Paul Revere's famous warning of the movement of British forces, and a symbol of the American Revolution, has gone high-tech with the installation of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.
The energy-efficient lights illuminate ceiling vaults inside the church, whose steeple was used to display two lanterns as a signal about British troop movements on April 18, 1775 — the night described in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'
Source: Discovery News
February 27, 2008
A Neanderthal-eat-Neanderthal world may have spread a mad cow-like disease that weakened and reduced populations of the large Eurasian human, thereby contributing to its extinction, according to a new theory based on cannibalism that took place in more recent history.
Aside from illustrating that consumption of one's own species isn't exactly a healthy way to eat, the new theoretical model could resolve the longstanding mystery as to what caused Neanderthals, which emerged around 25
Source: http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk
February 29, 2008
Archaeologists from Durham University will be returning to a London borough site where a 19th century historian once found flint tools and animal bones.
This time, however, the latest sonic drilling equipment will be used to take samples from the earth, for the ongoing Ancient Human Occupation of Britain II project (AHOB).
Initial drillings were carried out at Holmscroft Open Space in September 2007 by the archaeologists, who are looking at human occupation of the count
Source: Times (UK)
March 3, 2008
Seamus Heaney has given warning that modern Ireland is in danger of losing its unique spiritual values to the brashly secular economy-driven values of the “Celtic Tiger”.
In a lament for a lost Ireland, the Nobel laureate said that the Celtic Tiger — the catchphrase that has come to stand for modern Ireland’s economic success — was attacking the ancient symbol of Ireland: the harp.
The focus of this battle between two visions of Ireland is Tara, an ancient site sacred t
Source: Times of India
March 2, 2008
An ancient human burial site, estimated to be 3,000 years old, was unearthed at Drugdhamna on Nagpur-Amravati road by the department of ancient Indian history, culture and archaeology, Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj Nagpur University, recently.
The department head Pradeep Meshram told TOI that recently the department received information about the existence of some old structures on Nagpur-Amravati road. Later, a team comprising Pradeep Meshram, Kelellu Ismail, Priyadarshi Khobragade
Source: Times of India
February 28, 2008
A latest research on a tombstone dating back to ninth century has shed light on the probability of Christianity having been popular among the Chinese during the Tang Dynasty.
The incomplete damaged eight-surface tombstone with scriptures of the Jingjiao or Nestorian Church and pictures of crosses were unearthed in Luoyang City in central Henan province in 2006, Luo Zhao, a religious teacher from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said.
"To be exact, the Christian
Source: Deborah Lipstadt at her blog
March 1, 2008
In the morning's Boston Globe David Mehegan has a follow-up story to the"Hiding with Wolves" Holocaust hoax. What jumped out at me in the article was the glee with which the lawyer for the co-author, who joined in the suit against the publisher, reported that he was about to sell the publisher's house.Le
Source: Deborah Lipstadt at her blog
March 3, 2008
This morning's Le Soir, a Belgian newspaper which has been following the Misha hoax story pretty carefully, carries a stunning story on this ever more sordid story.According to the article, her father, Robert DeWa
Source: Maya Schenwar at the website of truthout.org
March 1, 2008
Thirty-seven years ago, in the midst of a bitter-cold Michigan winter, 109 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Howard Johnson Motel auditorium in Detroit to tell their stories. For three days, they told of ransacking undefended villages, attacking civilians, mutilating bodies, torturing Viet Cong suspects, burning houses, destroying Vietnamese property and livestock and killing innocent children. At the conference, entitled Winter Soldier, the veterans accepted responsibility and mourned for their ac
Source: Todd Spivak in the Houston Press
February 28, 2008
[I]n 2002, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans on the national and local levels led to a Democratic sweep of nearly every lever of Illinois state government. For the first time in 26 years, Illinois Democrats controlled the governor's office as well as both legislative chambers.
The white, race-baiting, hard-right Republican Illinois Senate Majority Leader James "Pate" Philip was replaced by Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American kno
Source: NYT
March 2, 2008
In fighting for a crucial victory in the Texas contest, the Clintons are drawing from a deep network of friendships that was formed 36 years ago, when they were in their mid-20s, not yet married and working around the clock as volunteers for Mr. McGovern’s campaign.
Source: NYT
March 2, 2008
In “Russia’s Capitalist Revolution” (Peterson Institute, $26.95), Anders Aslund, a Russia analyst (and a former colleague of Mr. Trenin’s), argues that zero credit should go to Russia’s most popular politician, Mr. Putin. On the contrary, Mr. Aslund, who is from Sweden and based in Washington, insists that Russia’s economic breakthrough should be credited to Anatoly B. Chubais, who oversaw the government’s privatization program in the 1990s, when the country lost about 40 percent of its gross do
Source: NYT
March 2, 2008
Immigration has a fantastically complicated political history in the United States. It has produced enough populist anger to elect Know Nothing mayors of Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and San Francisco, all in the 1850s and, more recently, to help Lou Dobbs reinvent his television career and become a best-selling author. But when national politicians have tried to seize on such anger, they have usually failed — and failed quickly. “While immigration has always roiled large sections of the el
Source: ABC News
February 29, 2008
The family of a Texas-born investment banker who has told reporters he may be the love child of President John F. Kennedy says his claims "are unequivocally false and have been fabricated."
Jack Worthington II told newspapers in Canada, Vanity Fair magazine and ABC News that his mother advised him four years ago that his father was the former president.
His mother, Evelyn Worthington, a former Texas school teacher who lives in Houston, "has never met John
