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: Newsweek
January 24, 2011
Over at Esquire former Bush speechwriter David Frum has a sensible suggestion for President Obama: create an infrastructure bank to select and pay for transportation projects on the basis of merit instead of allowing meddlesome congressional earmarking. This would, theoretically, protect the obvious need for economically stimulative infrastructure investment from conservative complaints about wasteful, politically motivated spending. “I'd suggest we have seven directors of the bank,” writes Frum
Source: WaPo
January 24, 2011
MUNDUR, INDIA - For dozens of centuries, Hindu priests have performed an elaborate 12-day fire ritual, chanting hymns, making offerings to the sun god and praying for a world free of negative energy.
The tradition faded in modern times, and pious Hindus fear it could die out as young Indians embrace a Western lifestyle and a culture of lavish spending.
But in this rapidly modernizing country, new money is also reviving old traditions. A group of mostly urban professiona
Source: BBC News
January 25, 2011
People that have been to see last year's blockbuster The Social Network, could be forgiven for thinking that the rise of sites like Facebook started just a few years ago.
But to find the true origins of social networking you have to go further back than 2004.
In a side street in Berkeley California, the epicentre of the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s, I found what could well be the birthplace of the phenomenon.
Standing outside what was once a shop c
Source: BBC News
January 25, 2011
The composer Fryderyk Chopin, who was hounded by hallucinations during his relatively short life, probably had epilepsy, say Spanish researchers.
The Polish pianist died in 1849 at the age of 39 as a result of a lung disease which has recently been attributed to cystic fibrosis.
But the Spanish doctors say he probably also suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy.
They cite reports of disturbing visions which the composer experienced.
Letters writt
Source: BBC News
January 25, 2011
A tiny distant cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex has been discovered in China with only a single claw on each forelimb.
Linhenykus monodactylus weighed no more than a large parrot and was found in sediments between 84 and 75 million years old.
The dinosaur belongs to a sub-branch of the theropods, the dinosaur group which includes T.rex and Velociraptor, and which gave rise to modern birds.
Details are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: WSJ
January 22, 2011
'Sometimes I sarcastically, perhaps cynically, say that I'm glad that I received virtually all of my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people," writes Walter Williams in his new autobiography, "Up from the Projects." "By that I mean that I encountered back then a more honest assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Professors didn't hesitate to criticize me—sometimes to the point of saying, 'That's nonsense.'"
Mr. Willia
Source: Boston Globe
January 23, 2011
WASHINGTON — Stacked in a vault at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester, individually sealed and labeled, are 54 crates of records so closely guarded that even the library director is prohibited from taking a peek.
And yet, archivists contend, the trove contains some of the most important records of Cold War history: diaries, notes, phone logs, messages, trip files, and other documents from Robert F. Kennedy’s service as US attorney general, including de
Source: Fox News
January 23, 2011
The USS Iowa supported U.S. forces fighting the Japanese during World War II and helped tankers safely navigate the Persian Gulf in the Iran-Iraq War.
Though the ship has long since been out of service, its final battle is still being waged. Two California nonprofits — one in the San Francisco Bay area, the other in Los Angeles — are vying to host the decommissioned ship as a tourist attraction. The Navy is expected to make a decision within a few months.
Fights over su
Source: The Local (Germany)
January 19, 2011
Disgruntled employees in Germany who compare conditions at their workplace to the Third Reich can be justifiably fired, according to a Hessian labour court ruling published on Wednesday.
The court rejected an appeal by a 47-year-old company driver who sued his employer of 30 years after he was fired for doing just that....
Source: Guardian (UK)
January 23, 2011
Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to allow Israel to annex all but one of the settlements built in occupied East Jerusalem in the most far-reaching concessions ever made over the bitterly contested city. The offer was turned down by Israel's then foreign minister as inadequate.
Palestinian Authority leaders also privately discussed giving up part of the flashpoint Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, according to leaked documents. And they proposed a joint committee to take ov
Source: Navy Times
January 22, 2011
NEW YORK — For more than a century, tens of thousands worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, building some of the nation's most storied warships — sailing frigates, Civil War ironclads, gunboats, sloops and 20th-century warships and submarines. The yard's sprawling hospital treated soldiers from the 1860s through World War II.
Now, more than four decades after the largest-scale shutdown of any military facility in U.S. history, the Navy Yard is coming to life again.
Today, t
Source: The Local (Germany)
January 21, 2011
German researchers have shed light on life during the Iron Age after examining the ancient remains of a woman found in a bog in what is now Lower Saxony. The body dates back to the pre-Roman era, more than 2,600 years ago.
A team of experts presented their findings on Thursday in Hannover, including facial simulations of the bog woman dubbed “Moora.” Archaeologists first began studying the find six years ago, according to news magazine Der Spiegel.
Experts from the Univ
Source: Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh)
January 23, 2011
Almost all families have complaints about a crazy relative, but William Patrick Hitler had more to talk about than most.
"It is quite possible," he said in 1940, that his Uncle Adolf, the fuhrer -- or leader -- of Germany, was no longer sane.
"There is a thin line between genius and insanity," William Patrick said in an interview with a Pittsburgh Press reporter. "And it is quite possible that sometime in 1938, Hitler completely lost his perspec
Source: New Scientist
January 21, 2011
Can we be sure which mummy was the daddy? When a state-of-the-art DNA analysis of Tutankhamun and other ancient Egyptian royals was published last year, its authors hailed it as "the final word" on the pharaoh's family tree. But others are now voicing doubts.
The analysis of 11 royal mummies dating from around 1300 BC was carried out by an Egyptian team led by Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass. The project was overseen by two foreign consultants, Albert Zink of the E
Source: KHON2 (Hawaii)
January 21, 2011
Here at home and abroad, people are also mourning the death of World War II Veteran Barney Hajiro -- a decorated war hero who was America's oldest living medal of honor recipient.
Private Hajiro died early yesterday morning at the Maunalani nursing home at the age of 94.
His son, Glenn remembers his father as a shy person who never wanted recognition for serving his country.
In 2000, President Clinton awarded Barney Hajiro with the military's highest award,
Source: Discovery News
January 20, 2011
King Tutankhamun’s tomb will not be closed in the near future, Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Discovery News.
Many reports in the past two weeks announced the closure of this tourist magnet by the end of this year.
Although suffering from the wear and tear caused by hordes of sweaty visitors drawn in by the elaborate murals and the boy king’s mummy, which is kept in a climate-controlled glass case, the burial won’t close its doors so
Source: Deutsche Welle (Germany)
January 21, 2011
Jewish organizations have come together in a project to identify and commemorate those buried in Holocaust mass graves across Eastern Europe. Germany's Foreign Ministry has donated 300,000 euros to the project.
International Jewish organizations have come together in an effort to commemorate hundreds of thousands of unnamed Holocaust victims.
Meeting in Berlin on Friday, the organizations announced that they have begun to identify, protect and memorialize thousand
Source: AP
January 24, 2011
Jack LaLanne was prodding Americans to get off their couches and into the gym decades before it was cool. And he was still pumping iron and pushing fruits and vegetables decades past most Americans' retirement age.
The fitness fanatic ate well and exercised -- and made it his mission to make sure everyone did the same -- right up to the end at age 96, friends and family said.
LaLanne died Sunday at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast, longtime agent Rick
Source: CNN
January 23, 2011
A 1963 Pontiac ambulance that supposedly carried the body of President John F. Kennedy after his assassination was sold at a Scottsdale, Ariz., auction Saturday night for $132,000.
The price would have probably been much higher except that the ambulance's authenticity had been cast into question before the sale, said McKeel Hagerty, president of collector car insurer Hagerty Insurance.
Some experts and bloggers had cast doubts on the authenticity of the vehicle and whe
Source: CNN
January 24, 2011
An anonymous flight attendant recently posted an open letter "to the flying public" on the Internet:
"We're sorry we have no pillows. We're sorry we're out of blankets. We're sorry the airplane is too cold. We're sorry the airplane is too hot. We're sorry the overhead bins are full.... We're sorry that's not the seat you wanted. We're sorry there's a restless toddler/overweight/offensive-smelling passenger seated next to you.... We're sorry that guy makes you uncomfor
