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: BBC
Feb 6, 2010
A pub clock dating back to the introduction of a tax on timepieces more than 200 years ago has sold at auction for £8,800.
The George III Act of Parliament clock, decorated with hunting scenes, was made around 1797 and was once on the wall of a tavern.
It was discovered in a house in Aberdeenshire, where it had been in the possession of a family for decades.
It was sold at Shapes auction house in Edinburgh.
Source: BBC
Feb 6, 2010
Scientists in China say they have discovered more than 3,000 dinosaur footprints, all facing the same way.
The footprints - thought to belong to at least six dinosaur types - were found in eastern Shandong province, state news agency Xinhua reports.
Experts believe the prints are more than 100 million years old and say they could represent a migration or a panicked attempt to escape predators.
Dinosaur fossils have been found at about 30 sites in the Zhuc
Source: Fox News
Feb 6, 2010
Five years after his death and 22 years after his presidency ended, President Reagan's leadership style and policies are still influencing the political debate in 2010.
President Obama echoed the iconic Republican, who wold have been 99 Saturday, in his State of the Union address last week.
Many tea party activists say Reagan and his mantra of cutting taxes are part of the inspiration behind the rallies that have gripped the country in the past year.
And m
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 6, 2010
Newly released documents from Margaret Thatcher's first year in office reveal her widespread distrust of the Establishment - especially the BBC - and her growing impatience with the Carter administration
"Would you accept the Republican nomination for President in 1980?" Margaret Thatcher was asked at a Foreign Policy Association lunch in New York on December 18, 1979.
The scribbled note, from an anonymous doting American, is just one of many documents relea
Source: New York Times
Feb 6, 2010
Lydia Csato Gasman, an art historian known for her groundbreaking scholarship on the work of Picasso, died on Jan. 15 in Charlottesville, Va. She was 84 and lived in Charlottesville.
Her death was confirmed by Larry Goedde, chairman of the McIntire Department of Art at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she taught for two decades.
Fluent in several languages and equipped with a formidable memory, Dr. Gasman redefined Picasso studies. Most scholars ha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 6, 2010
Adolf Hitler took a primitive form of Viagra when he tried to have sex with Eva Braun, a new book on the Fuhrer’s fragile health has claimed.
Based on long-dormant medical archives and formerly classified military documents, it claimed the dictator was so afraid of pills that most of his medication was injected.
The authors of the book, titled Was Hitler Ill?, claimed he took 82 different sorts of medication during his rule of Nazi Germany including the primitive “Viag
Source: Boston Globe
Feb 5, 2010
But on NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?’’ celebs with perfectly hued hair including Sarah Jessica Parker and Brooke Shields will be seeking their own genealogical roots. The new show, which premieres tonight at 8 on Channel 7, represents the reality-TV extension of the urge that Alex Haley stoked in the mid-1970s with “Roots’’ and that now flourishes on websites such as ancestry.com, genealogy.com, and myheritage.com. People remain driven to understand who they are in terms of where they came fr
Source: CNN
Feb 5, 2010
In a widely cited New York Times column, President Obama called Niebuhr his "favorite philosopher." But how precisely has Niebuhr's philosophy influenced Obama and his handling of everything from health care reform to fighting terrorists?
The answer may be seen by looking at Obama's first year in office, several scholars, and a relative of Niebuhr's, suggest.
At first, there seems to be little resemblance between the cool, cerebral Obama and the pugnacious Nie
Source: CNN
Feb 5, 2010
Social networking may be one of the biggest phenomenons of the 21st century, but for some denizens of the Web, it's a way to get in touch with the past.
Web sites like livinghistoryworldwide.com (with a membership of more than 5,700) and groups on Facebook allow people who enjoy past eras to connect with each other. But it goes beyond that: Some of them dress and live like they would decades, if not centuries, ago.
Step into Estelle Barada's living room in Providence,
Source: ArtDaily.org
Feb 5, 2010
More than a dozen dwelling, ritual and funerary sites, some of them more than 1,000 years old, were located inside shallow caves at Barranca de la Sinforosa (Sinforosa Gully), Chihuahua. According to preliminary studies, vestiges could correspond to Tubar people, an indigenous group that isolated in Tarahumara Mountain Range during Colonial times to avoid evangelization, and extinguished in late 19th century.
Nine dwelling sites, 2 ceremonial and 2 of funerary character were found i
Source: AFP
Feb 5, 2010
The father of evolution Charles Darwin was a direct descendant of the Cro-Magnon people, whose entry into Europe 30,000 years ago heralded the demise of Neanderthals, scientists revealed in Australia Thursday.
Darwin, who hypothesised that all humans evolved from common ancestors in his seminal 1859 work "On the Origin of Species", came from Haplogroup R1b, one of the most common European male lineages, said genealogist Spencer Wells.
Director of the Genograph
Source: BBC
Feb 5, 2010
He is Scotland's national poet, but his popularity extends beyond the shores of Ayrshire.
Few places have more of an ear for Burns than Northern Ireland, which has one of the largest collections of his works outside of Scotland in a Belfast library.
The Linenhall Library's Burns Collection was amassed by Andrew Gibson in the last decades of the 19th century. From Ayrshire himself, he was a governor of the library and it bought his collection in 1901 with £1,000 raised
Source: BBC
Feb 5, 2010
A Rwandan politician who stirred up controversy with comments on the genocide recently has been attacked by a group of men at a government office.
About 10 men set upon Victoire Ingabire and her driver as they waited for papers to register their party for next year's election.
She escaped unharmed but her driver was said to have serious injuries.
Ms Ingabire, a Hutu, was criticised last month for highlighting crimes against Hutus during the 1994 genocide.
Source: BBC
Feb 5, 2010
The leader of Plaid Cymru's MPs has said he has a memo showing Tony Blair and George Bush struck a secret deal to invade Iraq a year before the 2003 war.
Elfyn Llwyd told the BBC's Straight Talk he had written to Iraq Inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot to say he would be prepared to hand the document over.
He said the memo, which is marked "Top Secret and Confidential" contradicted statements made by Mr Blair.
Mr Blair previously told the inquiry he
Source: BBC
Feb 5, 2010
Nelson Mandela has celebrated the 20th anniversary of his release from prison with a special dinner, inviting ex-wife Winnie and one of his former jailers.
Mr Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president, was freed from Robben Island jail on 11 February 1990 after a prison sentence of 27 years.
Mr Mandela has said he developed a friendship with warder Christo Brand that cemented his views of humanity. Mr Mandela's daughter, Zindzi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 5, 2010
An online Shakespeare game based on Romeo and Juliet has become an internet hit, drawing in 22 million players worldwide.
"Romeo wherefore art thou" sees web users take on the role of one of Shakespeare's most famous characters, as he collects flowers for Juliet.
Initially commissioned by Shakespeare Country tourist site, the game has become a surprise hit with a third of the amount of the UK's population said to have played it.
The aim is to c
Source: Fox News
Feb 5, 2010
Republicans aren't the only ones opposed to a civilian trial for Sept. 11 conspirator Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his alleged four accomplices.
Attorney General Eric Holder's decision not to use a military commission to bring them to justice has driven a wedge between him and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, whose opposition is grounded in politics, according to the New Yorker.
Emanuel feared that a fight over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could alienate key Republicans
Source: AP
Feb 5, 2010
Latvia sold a deserted town built around a Soviet-era radar station to a Russian investor who bid $3.1 million at an unusual auction Friday, officials said.
The town formerly known as Skrunda-1 housed about 5,000 people during the Cold War but was abandoned over a decade ago after the Russian military withdrew from Latvia following the Soviet collapse.
A representative of a Russian investor won the bidding contest in Latvia's capital, Riga, with an offer of $3.1 million
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb 5, 2010
While many graduates of American colleges cannot answer basic civics questions, a higher education does make their opinions more liberal on controversial social issues, according to a new report issued on Friday by an academic think tank....
"The Shaping of the American Mind," the fourth report from the institute on civic literacy, will be formally released on Wednesday.
Richard A. Brake, a co-author of the report, said he and his colleagues had sought to see
Source: ProPublica.org
Feb 5, 2010
...It’s official, recession hounds: The 26 states with insolvent unemployment insurance trust funds have now borrowed more than was borrowed during 1981 and 1982, the last time there was a severe recession in the U.S., and oft-used benchmark for when things are Officially Really Bad.
According to this long-buried CBO document (PDF) [2], in March 1983, total outstanding state loans were 13.7 billion, a figure that includes borrowing during 1981 and 1982 and the first quarter of 1983
