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 23, 2009
Reporting from London - The parishioners at St. Savior's come from various backgrounds: Afro-Caribbean countries, Eastern European nations, Britain itself. But it may be that all roads are leading them to Rome.
The East London church is Anglican in name but Roman Catholic in spirit and worship, with the "smells and bells" of traditional Roman Catholic liturgy. Father David Waller sticks to the Vatican's line on doctrines such as transubstantiation -- the transformation of
Source: BBC
Oct 23, 2009
The wreck of a British naval submarine lost for more than 90 years has been found in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Estonia.
HMS E18 - with its complement of three officers and 28 ratings - went out on patrol in May 1916 and was never seen again.
The submarine was one of a handful sent to the Baltic during World War I by Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to disrupt German shipments of iron ore from Sweden and support the Russian navy.
E1
Source: Politico
Oct 23, 2009
It was a place where nervous freshmen learned about the past half-century in the Senate, where historic legislative deals were cut, where personal friendships were made and where his dogs roamed freely.
Outside the office now, a handful of staffers come and go. The placard out front that once bore his name is gone; the only sign that he was there is the seal of the commonwealth of Massachusetts that still hangs on the tall wooden door.
Room 317 in the Russell Senate Of
Source: WSJ
Oct 23, 2009
TOKYO -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates cautioned Japan this week against letting a fact-finding mission into decades-old secret nuclear-weapons agreements affect relations between the two countries, according to an official familiar with the matter.
In a meeting with Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa on Wednesday, Mr. Gates said Japan also should avoid letting the probe hurt the U.S.'s antinuclear-proliferation efforts, the official said. Mr. Kitazawa said the governm
Source: WSJ
Oct 23, 2009
The feathered creature called archaeopteryx, easily the world's most famous fossil remains, had been considered the first bird since Charles Darwin's day. When researchers put its celebrity bones under the microscope recently, though, they discovered that this icon of evolution might not have been a bird at all.
An examination of its bone cells revealed for the first time that the 150-million-year-old creature had the slow growth rate of a dinosaur, not a bird, an international rese
Source: Science Daily
Oct 22, 2009
A new study coauthored by Ian Kuijt, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, describes recent excavations in Jordan that reveal evidence of the world's oldest know granaries. The appearance of the granaries represents a critical evolutionary shift in the relationship between people and plant foods.
Anthropologists consider food storage to be a vital component in the economic and social package that comprises the Neolithic period, contributing to plant do
Source: Edmonton Sun/OpEdNews.com
Oct 22, 2009
MONTREAL — As George W. Bush joked with a business crowd inside a historic hotel ballroom Thursday, hundreds of people outside the room cheered while he was being burned in effigy.
Police in riot gear and others on horseback held back a crowd of hundreds, including several people who tossed shoes at the Queen Elizabeth hotel in a demonstration of disdain for the man speaking inside...
... Ironically, this anti-war protest took place outside the same hotel where the ulti
Source: CNN
Oct 22, 2009
After dialing back his attacks on President Obama's foreign policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney says the administration has damaged U.S. ties with key allies, dangerously wavered in Afghanistan, undermined progress in Iraq and sabotaged the Bush administration's national security legacy.
In a hard-hitting, wide-ranging speech Wednesday for a conservative gathering, Cheney targeted the administration's decision-making process on how to proceed in Afghanistan, saying Obama has f
Source: Seattle Times
Oct 22, 2009
A glass beer bottle with a faded label that says "brewed in Walla Walla." Two children's marbles. A 1938 Buick Roadmaster hubcap. Heavy white ceramic shaving mugs.
And more beer bottles - lots and lots of beer bottles.
That's just a sampling of the items that have been unearthed from pits at Hanford where trash generated by the tens of thousands of workers who came to the nuclear reservation during World War II was buried.
Archaeologists are sorti
Source: Bloomberg.com
Oct 22, 2009
The British Museum, which is facing demands from Iran to lend an ancient artifact, will send a member of staff to the country to discuss details of a loan.
In an Oct. 12 letter, the museum’s director Neil MacGregor wrote to Hamid Baqaei -- vice president in charge of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization -- that the museum hoped to lend Iran the Cyrus Cylinder once details had been worked out, British Museum Head of Press Hannah Boulton said today.
Source: NYT
Oct 22, 2009
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. brought his 11-year-old granddaughter, Finnegan, with him for his three-day trip through Eastern Europe and gave her some first-hand lessons in modern diplomacy and Cold War history.
Finnegan and her mother, Kathleen Biden, the wife of the vice president’s son, Hunter, have spent much of the last couple days touring museums, memorials and historic sites in Warsaw, Bucharest and now Prague. They have also been at some of the vice president’s offici
Source: CNET News
Oct 22, 2009
Upon the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city of Berlin has launched a remarkable “living” online memorial: the Berlin Twitter Wall.
Using the hashtag #fotw, people can share their thoughts on the Fall of the Berlin Wall and tell the world “which walls still have to come down to make our world a better place.” The Web site scrolls messages along a backdrop of the East Side Gallery, a famous stretch of the wall still standing and painted with murals. By clicki
Source: NYT
Oct 22, 2009
BUCHAREST, Romania — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. used a visit to Romania on Thursday to hail Eastern Europe on all that has been accomplished in the 20 years since the Iron Curtain fell and to challenge the countries of the region to serve as models for other emerging democracies.
In a speech at the restored Central University Library, where a raging fire set during Romania’s 1989 revolution destroyed 500,000 books, Mr. Biden paid tribute to “freedom’s young defenders” who w
Source: Pew Research Center
Oct 22, 2009
The belief that the press should keep political leaders from doing things that should not be done often depends on who those political leaders are, or more specifically, which party controls the White House. Currently, in the midst of the Obama administration, two-thirds of Republicans (65%) support the so-called "watchdog role" for the press, compared with 55% of Democrats. But last year, while Bush was still in office, only 44% of Republicans felt it was good that press criticism kee
Source: Secrecy News
Oct 22, 2009
“Over time, the Supreme Court has become more diverse in some ways and more homogeneous in others,” a recent Congressional Research Service report (pdf) observed.“When first constituted, and throughout most of its history, no women or minorities served on the Court… The religious affiliations of the Court’s members also have changed over time. For almost the first 50 years of the Court, all Justices were affiliated with protestant C
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 22, 2009
He is one of the world’s most feted critics of communism, but the Czech-born novelist Milan Kundera is now facing a battle to save his reputation after he was accused of denouncing a Western spy to the secret police during his student days.
Documents unearthed by Czech academics purport to show that in 1950 Mr Kundera, the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, told the Communist authorities where they could find Miroslav Dvoracek, a dissident who had fled Czechoslovakia but s
Source: AP
Oct 22, 2009
Archaeologists on Wednesday unveiled the remains of an ancient auditorium where scholars, politicians and poets held debates and lectures, a site discovered during excavations of a bustling downtown piazza in preparation for a new subway line.
The partially dug complex, dating back to the 2nd century A.D., is believed to have been funded by Emperor Hadrian as a school to promote liberal arts and culture.
Known as the "Athenaeum" and named after the city of Ath
Source: AFP
Oct 22, 2009
An aviation museum inthe US state of Ohio that believed it was displaying a hair sample from famed flyer Amelia Earhart made an unfortunate discovery, after DNA analysis revealed it to be a piece of thread.
Museum officials said they had confidence in the artifact, having been recovered by a maid at the White House after Earhart -- a friend of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt -- stayed there shortly before her final flight.
The museum had lent a small sample of the "ha
Source: AP
Oct 22, 2009
Local officials say eight graves of Muslim soldiers who died for France in World War II have been desecrated in a village cemetery.
Maurice Duhamel, mayor of Montjoie-Saint-Martin, says he is filing suit after Nazi symbols were discovered Wednesday on the eight graves of Muslim soldiers in France's 2nd Armored Division.
Last week, the French Council for the Muslim Faith complained that those responsible for the desecration in December of some 500 Muslim soldiers' graves
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 22, 2009
The Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic will boycott the start of his genocide trial next week, his lawyer said.
The trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague starts on Monday. Karadzic faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in Bosnia's 1992-95 war that claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.
But Karadzic, 64, said he had not had time to complete his defence preparations
