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: LA Times
Oct 26, 2009
We always imagined how this might end: GeoCities would finally take down all of the animated "under construction" signs, and we'd hear one last Midi file to the tune of horns playing taps.
Instead, GeoCities will probably go down with a whimper today.
Time is up for Yahoo Inc.'s scheduled closing of perhaps the most significant virtual museum in recent history. Years ago a central meeting place for a massive chunk of American Web surfers, GeoCities will lock i
Source: Secrecy News
Oct 26, 2009
The records of several noteworthy congressional hearings that were held in the past two years have been published in the last few weeks, including these:“A Report Card on Homeland Security Information Sharing,” House Homeland Security Committee, September 24, 2008.“Turning Spy Satellites on the Homeland: The Privacy and Civil Liberties Implications of t
Source: The Nation
Oct 26, 2009
AMMAN // Jordan and Israel mark 15 years of peace today, but ties between both countries are cooler than ever.
Since the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netenyahu took office in May, Jordan has been left further disappointed with its neighbour.
“Our relation is getting colder,” King Abdullah told Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper this month. “Let’s remember that the peace treaty was signed as part of a process to achieve comprehensive peace. And the full potent
Source: Boston.com
Oct 26, 2009
Native American rituals and beliefs have emerged as a surprising last-minute obstacle to federal approval of the nation’s first offshore wind farm, threatening to significantly delay the Cape Wind project.
Two Massachusetts tribes say the 130 proposed wind turbines in Nantucket Sound would disturb their spiritual sun greetings and submerged ancestral burying grounds.
The Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes - with help from the main opposition group to Cape Wind - are
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 26, 2009
n a written statement to mark her 75th birthday, she said that Obama’s speech in Prague in April had shown a “strong determination to eliminate nuclear weapons”, and had contributed to his winning the Nobel peace prize earlier this month.
“The horror of nuclear weapons lies, in addition to the magnitude of the destruction, in the enormity and misery of the effects of radiation which continue to afflict the victims long afterwards,” she said.
Japan is the only country t
Source: BBC
Oct 26, 2009
More than half of adults in a survey of 10 countries thought school science lessons should teach evolutionary theories alongside creationism.
Among those who knew of Darwinism, on average 53% felt other possible perspectives should also be taught.
The figure was 68% in Argentina, in the poll for the British Council, which promotes educational opportunities.
In Great Britain 60% felt this way. In Egypt, 27% said such theories should not be in science lesso
Source: WSJ
Oct 26, 2009
A new study found that rates of marriage outside the faith were sharply curbed among young Jews who have taken "birthright" trips to Israel, a development that could hearten Jewish leaders worried about assimilation.
Fears of shrinkage among the American Jewish population heightened after studies in the early 1990s showed that more than 50% of Jews were marrying non-Jews, potentially making it more difficult to pass the religion on to offspring. Most estimates of America's
Source: BBC
Oct 26, 2009
A rare Jacobean manuscript of a play about women's liberation, which was found in a trunk at a castle, is expected to fetch £90,000 at auction.
The unknown play by Lord Edward Herbert was found during a valuation by auctioneers Bonhams at Powis Castle in Welshpool, Powys.
It is believed the play was to have been performed before James I and his court in 1618, but it was cancelled.
The manuscript of the play, called The Amazon, includes crossings out.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 26, 2009
The archives of Sir Hardy Amies, who dressed the Queen for almost 40 years, are to be opened to the public to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The exhibition will contain material including previously unseen photographs of the Royal Family, sketches, and letters from such clients as Baroness Thatcher and Sir Cecil Beaton, the photographer.
It will also contain unseen drawings of Princess Elizabeth in the year before she was crowned Queen, and sketches of his c
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 26, 2009
Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, was accused by a judge of obstructing the start of his genocide trial at the Hague after he boycotted the hearing.
Karadzic, the political leader during Bosnia's 1992-95 war which left at least 100,000 dead and became notorious in history because of the Srebenica massacre and siege of Sarajevo, refused to attend because he said he needs more time to prepare.
Noting the absence, Mr Kwon adjourned the hearing until Tuesday
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 26, 2009
Stuart Henderson, a former head of the Lockerbie investigation, has said authorities wanted to speak to eight other potential suspects in connection with the bombing but they were never interviewed.
Mr Henderson, a former detective chief superintendent with Lothian and Borders Police, led the Lockerbie Incident Control Centre from 1988 until 1992.
He contends that a list of people in Libya, all believed to be male, were identified by police investigating the bombing,
Source: AP
Oct 26, 2009
Radovan Karadzic boycotted the opening day of his war crimes trial Monday and sent no lawyer to defend himself, forcing judges to abruptly adjourn the hearing. Judges then vowed that the former Bosnian Serb leader's trial would begin Tuesday with or without him.
The decision enraged survivors who had traveled by bus from Bosnia to see Karadzic finally face justice. A small group briefly refused to leave the courtroom after the adjournment and one woman threatened a hunger strike.
Source: AP
Oct 26, 2009
The company that has exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic is planning a possible expedition to the world's most famous shipwreck in 2010.
The first expedition to the North Atlantic wreck site since 2004 is revealed in a filing by RMS Titanic Inc. in U.S. District Court, where four days of hearings are scheduled to begin Monday on the company's claim for a salvage award.
The 5,900 pieces of china, ship fittings and personal belongings are valued in excess of $110 mill
Source: AP
Oct 26, 2009
Fidel Castro's younger sister says she collaborated with the CIA in 1964 following the Cuban revolution.
Juanita Castro, 76, told Univision's WLTV-23 station late Sunday she initially supported her brother's 1959 overthrow of the Batista dictatorship but quickly became disillusioned by the revolution's vast number of executions and rampant expropriation of private property.
Her home became a sanctuary for anti-Communists before she fled the island in 1964. In the TV int
Source: Fredericksburg.com
Oct 25, 2009
WHEN IT COMES to history, nobody beats Virginia. Other claimants to No. 1 are mere pretenders, given Virginia's long-term impact on the nation's development.
This is the Cradle of Presidents; the home of Jamestown; the site of the Confederate capital and four of the Civil War's bloodiest battles, as well as the surrender at Appomattox. This space is far too small to enumerate the commonwealth's historic contributions.
Given the ongoing efforts to preserve so many aspect
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Oct 25, 2009
There are institutions that are merely proud of their famous graduates, and then there's Eureka College and Ronald W. Reagan.
The former U.S. president's alma mater, a small liberal-arts college in central Illinois, has a Reagan society, a Reagan museum, and a Reagan Physical Education Center. An annotated map on the college's Web site notes where Mr. Reagan gave his first public speech (the Chapel, 1928) and where he competed on the swim team (Pritchard Hall).
Next mon
Source: Trinidad News
Oct 25, 2009
AN archaeological team has found more evidence on a site at St John's Road, South Oropouche, that people lived there 7,000 years ago.
The site is as old as that of the famed Banwari Man, whose remains were found in San Francique, Penal, 40 years ago.
The two sites are about five kilometres apart.
It means that the site, among the oldest in the Caribbean, may see a rewriting of secondary school history.
Proof of the antiquity of the St John's Ro
Source: The Bulletin
Oct 25, 2009
JERUSALEM – The offices of Yad Vashem, the Israeli agency that memorializes the six million Jews murdered by their Nazis and their allies, received an extraordinary and even infuriating proposal recently. The grandson of Rudolf Hoess, the notorious commander of the Auschwitz death camp, offered to sell some of his grandfather’s personal effects to the museum.
The letter to the museum, which was sent several months ago and entitled “Rare objects, Auschwitz, Commander Hoess,” was shor
Source: Rapid City Journal
Oct 25, 2009
A jewel of United States history quietly resides in the bowels of a nondescript building at the University of South Dakota.
The South Dakota Oral History Center isn't widely known outside of academia, but the center, located in a basement, contains eyewitness accounts of history that, in many cases, have remained undisturbed for decades.
"We sit on a very valuable collection here _ probably one of the most valuable in North America," said Edward Valandra, chai
Source: NYT
Oct 25, 2009
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — On a Saturday night 40 football seasons ago, just before kickoff of the penultimate game in his career, Coach Jake Gaither of Florida A&M strode toward midfield of Tampa Stadium. There he extended his hand to the opposing coach, Fran Curci of the University of Tampa, and they strained to speak above the din of a capacity crowd.
“Jake, this is bigger than I thought it would be,” Coach Curci recently recalled saying.
“Not me,” Coach Gaither respond
