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: NYT
November 18, 2006
As part of its special issue evaluating 300 technology-based products, Wired Test, published by Wired, lists “10 Gadgets That Changed the World.”
There are two things that are intriguing about the compilation by Christopher Null. First, instead of just listing a generic product like a television, which was the oldest device ranked, the magazine names a specific version (the RCA Model 630TS) that either defined the category or caused it to catch on. It lists when the device became al
Source: NYT
November 18, 2006
resident Bush, visiting a country that forced the United States into a humiliating withdrawal three decades ago, declared Friday that Vietnam’s transition to a modern, growing economy gave him hope about what could be rebuilt from the ruins of Iraq. But he added that the lesson he drew from the bitter American experience here was that “we’ll succeed unless we quit.”...
Carefully avoiding any direct mention of how the Vietnam War ended for the United States, Mr. Bush instead focused
Source: Times Online (UK)
November 17, 2006
BERLIN-TEMPELHOF, Hitler’s favourite airport, may be rescued from closure by Ronald Lauder, one of the world’s most influential philanthropists for Jewish causes.
The extraordinary design of the Tempelhof complex — the terminal has huge cathedral-like ceilings — prompted Norman Foster, the British architect, to call it the “mother of all airports”.
Its future is in doubt because the cash-strapped Berlin city government wants to close it next year and move all flights
Source: PHDiva (Blog)
November 17, 2006
Donny George gave a lecture at the British Museum this evening. He was introduced by Neil MacGregor, and the news is that he will be moving from Damascus to Stony Brook University, New York. Elizabeth Stone, who has done a great deal of work on Iraqi archaeology, teaches there, and will help him continue his work.
Source: International Herald Tribune
November 17, 2006
The Associated Press was recently given extensive access to the largest archive of Nazi prison camp records, which has been closed for 50 years, on condition that names of the victims remain protected. This is the first in a series of reports.
BAD AROLSEN, Germany (AP) — The 21-year-old Russian sat before a clerk of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate's office, describing the furnaces at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where he had been a prisoner until a few weeks previously.
Source: BBC
November 17, 2006
The Natural History Museum in London is to return the remains of 18 aboriginal people to the Australian Government.
The remains include the skull of an aboriginal person thought to have been illegally exported to Britain in 1913.
The rest comprise the remains of 17 aboriginal people from Tasmania, which will be returned after a three-month period of data collection.
Museum director Dr Michael Dixon said the move was "a commonsense one" but ac
Source: Independent (UK)
November 16, 2006
Can young people learn anything new by visiting Auschwitz in a world where TV is full of documentaries about history's definitive atrocity, where Holocaust literature is everywhere, and where the curriculum groans under the weight of Nazi Germany and its crimes?
Gordon Brown and the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) certainly think so. The Chancellor of the Exchequer recently received an award from the trust for his personal commitment to Holocaust education in the UK. >From Feb
Source: AP
November 16, 2006
Mexican archeologists say they have found signs that the tomb of an Aztec emperor could lie beneath a recently excavated stone monolith showing a fearsome, blood-drinking god.
It would be the first burial site ever found of a leader of the 1427-1521 Aztec empire, said archaeologist Eduardo Matos, who leads the excavation project at the Templo Mayor ruins around Mexico City's main square.
"We think this could be a gravestone covering the place where this ruler wa
Source: AP
November 16, 2006
Parliament's lower house approved legislation Thursday requiring schools to instill patriotism in Japan's children.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the New Komeito, want to revise Japan's post-World War II education law to boost patriotism among the young. With the bloc dominating both legislative chambers, Thursday's passage makes the bill's amendment almost certain.
The revision, a centerpiece of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conservativ
Source: AP
November 16, 2006
A once-secret program that enabled thousands of U.S. military pilots to practice dogfighting against Soviet-designed MiG fighter jets was detailed Thursday by the Air Force as part of the first public acknowledgment of the program's existence.
The classified air combat training program ran from 1977 to 1988 at the Tonopah Test Range in remote desert scrubland near Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base.
"I guess the mouse is out of the pocket," said Gail Peck,
Source: Newsweek
November 20, 2006
George Herbert Walker Bush is a proud father; tears easily come to his eyes when he thinks of his children, all of them, and there is gracious deference in his tone when he talks about the son he calls, with emphasis, "The President." He is not given to boasting about or bragging on his family; he still hears his mother's voice warning him to avoid "the Great I Am," but several times over the past few years the 41st president has mentioned to visitors that the 43rd president
Source: Newsweek
November 17, 2006
Judging by the comments of White House aides, Vietnam is just another stop on President Bush’s Asian tour. Except that it isn’t just another country hosting an international summit. It’s the war that Bush avoided by serving in the Texas Air National Guard. And it’s the analogy he wants to avoid when it comes to his own war in Iraq.
As Air Force One flew over the country where 58,000 American troops lost their lives, his press secretary insisted that there was no historical prism for
Source: International Herald Tribune
November 17, 2006
Britain's Natural History Museum said Friday that it will return the remains of 17 Tasmanians and the skull of an Australian Aborigine to the Australian government.The museum's trustees announced the decision to return the remains by March a day after an independent panel presented an ethics review and guidelines for dealing with future claims.
The Australian government had filed a formal request in November 2005 on behalf of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center for
Source: NYT
November 17, 2006
During the presidential campaign in 2000, George W. Bush, who served out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard, was asked whether he ever considered volunteering to fight when he graduated from Yale in 1968.
“Did I think about going to the Army post and saying ‘Send me to Vietnam?’ ” Mr. Bush asked, describing his own outlook in 1968. “Not really. I wanted to fly, and that was the adventure I was seeking.”
Thirty-eight years later, at age 60, Mr. Bush finally
Source: NYT
November 16, 2006
... “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl” by Timothy Egan was the surprise winner of the top prize for nonfiction.
In the book, Mr. Egan, a former New York Times reporter who remains a frequent contributor to the newspaper, gives an account of the dust storms that descended on the Great Plains during the Depression.
“Abraham Lincoln said we cannot escape history, but this history of the Dust Bowl nearly escaped us,” M
Source: Christian Science Monitor
November 16, 2006
To gain American citizenship, immigrants must be able to answer such questions as: What was the 49th state added to our Union? What color are the stars on our flag? And who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?
Sound trivial? The US government thinks so, and plans to roll out a new pilot test this winter.
It will continue to be an oral test, conducted in English, and will have 10 questions. Six correct answers will earn a passing grade. But the content, which is tightly under
Source: AP
November 16, 2006
France's Defense Ministry said Thursday there was no immediate impact from Turkey's announced suspension of military ties in a dispute over the mass killing of Armenians in the early 20th century.
Turkey's land forces commander, Gen. Ilker Basbug, announced the cut Wednesday amid a debate over whether 1915 killings of Armenians constitutes genocide. France's lower house of parliament has passed a bill outlawing denials that genocide occurred, angering Turkey.
Defense Mi
Source: Times Online (UK)
November 16, 2006
RUSSIA took a step closer to rehabilitating its Royal Family yesterday after prosecutors were ordered to review the murder of Tsar Nicholas II.
A court in Moscow granted an appeal by a descendant of the Romanov dynasty against a refusal to declare the Royal Family victims of political repression.
Tverskoi district court ordered the Prosecutor General’s Office to reconsider the case, ruling that its rejection of an application to exonerate the Tsar was illegal. The app
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 16, 2006
The image of Stone Age man as a heartless brute will have to be revised after the discovery of an ancient grave where babies had been carefully buried and ritually decorated.
Although childhood mortality may well have been high more than 20 millennia ago, the use of red ochre, as well as the grave gifts — a chain of ivory beads — shows that babies were even then considered full members of society.
Source: Independent Institute
November 16, 2006
An obscure short play by George Bernard Shaw directly influenced the handling of Britain's abdication crisis, research shows.
The playlet, written 70 years ago, is said to have been brought to the attention of Edward VIII by Winston Churchill who suggested the King emulate the actions of the Shaw's fictitious monarch.
In Shaw's drama The King, the Constitution and the Lady, a king takes on the twin establishments of church and polity to marry his twice-divorced America
