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: Seattle Times
November 26, 2007
Crumbling asphalt roads and docks still mark where the town of Umatilla once stood, but even deeper are the remnants of the 2,500-year-old tribal village of matalam.
Almost nothing has been done with the 70-acre Umatilla town site, found within 800 acres owned by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The city was moved to its current site in the mid-1960s to make way for the Columbia River to rise behind the John Day Dam.
Now the city of Umatilla and the Confederat
Source: Discovery News
November 28, 2007
Infected rams and donkeys were the earliest bioweapons, according to a new study which dates the use of biological warfare back more than 3,300 years.
According to a review published in the Journal of Medical Hypotheses, two ancient populations, the Arzawans and the Hittites, engaged "in mutual use of contaminated animals" during the 1320-1318 B.C. Anatolian war.
"The animals were carriers of Francisella tularensis, the causative agent of tularemia,"
Source: Russia Today
November 28, 2007
A large settlement dating back to the first century BC has been found in the Russian republic of North Ossetia. But since the archaeological site is in a valley next to a hydroplant under construction, there's a race to unlock its secrets, before it's flooded.
Most of the 60 people working at the site in the Zaramag Valley are amateurs with professionals guiding them.
Every day they antique jewellery, tools, weapons and crockery that once belonged to the ancient tribe o
Source: http://mathaba.net
November 30, 2007
Chinese archaeologists said Thursday they have discovered the remains of an ancient city in eastern Zhejiang Province, which could better prove the long history of Chinese civilization.
The relic was found near Mojiao Mountain between Liangzhu and Pingyao townships in Yuhang District of the provincial capital Hangzhou, said Bao Xianlun, director of Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Heritage Bureau.
Based on the remains, experts estimate the ancient city covered an area of a
Source: Columbus Dispatch
December 1, 2007
On the site beside the Scioto River, the archaeologists had found fire pits dating to about 550 B.C., shards of pottery, even traces of an ancient building.
This week, Ryan Weller and his team found something more: a human skeleton, buried on the riverbank by his or her loved ones as long as 2,500 years ago.
What's more, the skeleton might have company.
The archaeologists methodically scraping away the centuries at the Columbus Southerly Wastewater Treatmen
Source: AP
November 29, 2007
A wall mentioned in the Bible's Book of Nehemiah and long sought by archaeologists apparently has been found, an Israeli archaeologist says.
A team of archaeologists discovered the wall in Jerusalem's ancient City of David during a rescue attempt on a tower that was in danger of collapse, said Eilat Mazar, head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research and educational institute, and leader of the dig.
Artifacts including pottery sh
Source: Boston Globe
December 1, 2007
With Hanukkah beginning Tuesday night, Jews can look forward to the annual rituals of menorah-lighting, blessings, gift-giving - and gambling.
In some Jewish homes, not only do children risk a stash of chocolate or goodies spinning the dreidel, but their parents play kvitlech, similar to blackjack. According to Dwayne Carpenter, Boston College scholar and a man who enjoys an occasional hand of blackjack and poker, Hanukkah card-playing was a traditional cover for Torah study, which
Source: Dallas Morning News
November 30, 2007
Invaluable pieces of Texas' history have been lost, perhaps forever.
The Dallas Historical Society learned this week that 21 objects are missing from its permanent collection, including a Mexican president's brass dress spurs recovered after the Texas Revolution in 1836 and the Bible and family history of the Beemans, among the original settlers of Dallas.
Source: WSJ
December 1, 2007
Two decades ago, Mr. Gorbachev was reshaping the world. He opened up the Soviet system, helping to free the nations of Eastern Europe and end the Cold War.
Other titans of the age -- Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher -- left the world stage with honor. Mr. Gorbachev, 60 years old when he stepped down as Soviet president in 1991, plunged into a political purgatory.
In the West, though lionized for destroying communism, he was also seen as having capitulated to the America
Source: AP
December 2, 2007
A single manuscript page from a love story written by Napoleon Bonaparte sold at auction in France on Sunday for $35,400, an auction house said.
The item up for sale was the first page of the final draft of Napoleon's 1795 short novel "Clisson and Eugenie," said the Osenat auction house, based in Fontainebleau outside Paris.
The page had been part of a private French family collection. The identity of the buyer was not disclosed.
The novel, never
Source: NYT Magazine
December 2, 2007
The elusive nature of the world’s most famous brand, not to say the curious road to its definition, will be illuminated next week as never before when the Library of Congress unveils an addition to its permanent collection nicknamed “America’s baptismal document.” The document in question, a four-and-a-half-foot-by-eight-foot map, will be receiving national-treasure treatment more appropriate to a Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster. After all, in its 200-year history, the library has never waited lon
Source: NYT
December 2, 2007
The filibuster may be well established in the popular consciousness — think of long-winded senators speechifying for days. But because modern Senate rules allow lawmakers to avoid the spectacle of pontificating by merely threatening the act, filibusters and the efforts to overcome them are being used more frequently, and on more issues, than at any other point in history.
So far in this first year of the 110th Congress, there have been 72 motions to stop filibusters, most on the Ira
Source: NYT
December 1, 2007
After years of tough talk and high-profile court cases to force the return of archaeological artifacts, Italian cultural officials and American museum directors this week seemed intent on charting a new course.
It was not simply that Italian officials expressed relief to be recouping rare treasures after signing accords over the last two years with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. As the two si
Source: NYT
November 30, 2007
A month after the Army said it made a mistake when it court-martialed Samuel Snow and 27 other black soldiers in World War II, the Pentagon has cut Mr. Snow a check for back pay, money withheld while he served a year in prison on a rioting conviction.
The check was for $725. No interest. No adjustment for inflation.
Mr. Snow, now 83, says $725 is not nearly enough for the anguish he endured as part of what was possibly the largest Army court-martial of the war. He has n
Source: NYT
December 1, 2007
Ever since the Nobel prize winner James D. Watson asserted six weeks ago that Africans have innately lower intelligence, fervid debates about race, genes and I.Q. have sprung up on the Web, in publications and in conference rooms.
But in recent days, along with long-simmering arguments over evidence, have come others about whether the topic is even worth studying, or whether it can be discussed openly without spurring charges of racism.
“It’s a subject that almost dare
Source: AP
December 1, 2007
Scientists hoping to study the ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man are protesting efforts that they say could block them from examining one of the oldest and most complete set of bones ever found in North America.
For the third time in four years, the scientists oppose a Senate bill that would allow federally recognized tribes to claim ancient remains even if they can't prove a link to a current tribe.
They also are contesting draft regulations issued by the Bush ad
Source: AP
November 30, 2007
Pope Benedict XVI rebuked modern-day atheism for bringing untold cruelty and suffering to a world seeking justice, exhorting Roman Catholics to embrace instead the Christian message of hope.
"We must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world is not in our power," Benedict wrote in the second encyclical of his papacy. "Only God is able to do this."
The pope also critically questioned modern Christianity, saying its focus on
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
November 30, 2007
The President's Daily Brief (PDB), a highly classified intelligence
report prepared daily for the President of the United States,"is the
quintessential predecisional, deliberative document," the Central
Intelligence Agency argued recently in court, claiming that virtually
nothing about it can be made public even after several decades have
passed.
But a 1970 memorandum disclosed this week at the Nixon Library sets
aside any such reticence and provides a detailed look at the
preparati
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
November 30, 2007
The Central Intelligence Agency anticipates declining productivity in
its declassification program, according to a newly disclosed
declassification plan.
Between 1995 and 2006, CIA reviewed nearly 97 million pages of 25 year
old documents and released 30 million pages, the Agency reported. But
that level of activity is unlikely to be sustained.
"Resource constraints limit our ability to implement the detailed --
and expensive -- review intrinsic to a redaction strategy [in which
in
Source: NYT
November 30, 2007
A little boy running from the people who killed his mother, brother and sister is lost for months in a dark forest in Eastern Europe. He survives on wild berries and ties himself to trees to escape the howling wolves. Frozen and starving, he happens upon a hut that holds out the promise of food and warmth, but as with the hut in “Hansel and Gretel,” the promise is cruelly deceptive, and again he narrowly escapes death. Eventually he is rescued by soldiers. But they are dangerous, too, and he mus
