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: The Daily Beast
Jul 15, 2009
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh raised eyebrows back in March when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that Dick Cheney ran a secret hit squad that he kept hidden from Congressional oversight.
"Congress has no oversight of it. It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on," Hersh said at the time. He added: "Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambas
Source: Telegraph
Jul 15, 2009
Neil Armstrong's historic moon landing will be shown in new light on Thursday when Nasa releases a previously unseen film of the first manned lunar excursion.
The recently discovered footage shows US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first men to land on the moon on board the Apollo 11 space shuttle.
The new film has been restored and digitally enhanced using state-of-the-art technology and will be much clearer and less grainy than previously released
Source: Politico.com
Jul 15, 2009
Was it the greatest speech of his presidency or political suicide?
Three decades on, the answer may well be both.
Thirty years ago Wednesday, President Jimmy Carter delivered a speech — “The Crisis of Confidence” — that became one of the most pilloried in modern American history.
It was an address in which he looked critically at himself and his own failures but also warned Americans in dire, near-apocalyptic terms about the potential consequences of the
Source: WSJ
Jul 15, 2009
The fight over school curriculum in Texas, recently focused on biology, has entered a new arena, with a brewing debate over how much faith belongs in American history classrooms.
The Texas Board of Education, which recently approved new science standards that made room for creationist critiques of evolution, is revising the state's social studies curriculum. In early recommendations from outside experts appointed by the board, a divide has opened over how central religious theology
Source: AP
Jul 14, 2009
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor testified at his war crimes trial Tuesday that the case against him was built on lies and misinformation, and he denied he had commanded and armed rebels who killed and tortured tens of thousands of civilians.
Taylor, the first African leader to stand trial for war crimes, is charged with 11 counts of murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers and terrorism during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war.
An es
Source: Media Matters (liberal media watchdog group)
Jul 14, 2009
On July 14, the
nation's five major newspapers reported Sen. Jeff Sessions' (R-AL) opening statement at the confirmation
hearing of Judge Sonia Sotoamyor without reporting in that day's print editions
that, in 1986, the Senate
Source: Discovery.com
Jul 14, 2009
Egyptian archaeologists digging near the Suez Canal have discovered the remains of what is believed to be the largest fortress in the eastern Delta, Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced.
Located at the site of Tell Dafna, between El-Manzala Lake and the Suez Canal, the remains reveal the foundation of a military town about 9 miles (15 kilometers) northeast of the city of western Qantara.
"The fortress covers an area of about 380 by 625 meters (1,247
Source: National Geographic
Jul 14, 2009
Many of the 33 mummies uncovered near Chiclayo, Peru, were those of girls—a rarity, experts say. Their throats slit, the girls were probably killed in a bid for agricultural fertility.
Research into 33 mummies discovered in Peru has revealed most of the bodies were girls, most likely sacrificed in the belief their deaths would bring fertility to the peoples farmlands.
Source: KOB.com
Jul 14, 2009
New Mexico officials held a ceremonial groundbreaking on Tuesday for a new state archaeology center. Fittingly, they used replicas of ancient digging sticks - used to plant seeds or dig holes - rather than shovels.
The $6.4 million center on the southwest edge of Santa Fe will provide a permanent home for an estimated 10 million artifacts in the state's collection. Currently, those items are scattered among storage sites in government buildings around town.
Source: NYT
Jul 14, 2009
As personal stories of terror and brutality fill the courtroom for the first time, even the defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, has at times dropped his hard mask and broken down in tears.
“I send my respects to the soul of your wife,” he told one witness, Bou Meng, whose wife died in the prison and whom Duch (pronounced DOIK) had come to know when he pulled him from a row of shackled prisoners and put him to work as a painter.
Bou Meng put his face in his hands. Duch,
Source: Fox News
Jul 14, 2009
Who knew?
A billboard proclaiming that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican has stirred a religious and political hornets' nest in Houston, where a church leader is trying to draw black voters into the Republican Party.
The jumbo-sized roadside ad made its contentious claim for about a week -- until a local black activist charged that the sign unjustly politicized King's legacy and was hurting his community by telling a "blatant lie."
Source: CNN
Jul 14, 2009
Sonia Sotomayor spent her first week at Princeton University obsessing over the sound of a cricket. Growing up in New York City, her only notion of this insect was Jiminy from "Pinocchio." She tore her dorm room apart looking for the critter every night.
Finally, her then-boyfriend and future husband visited and explained that the cricket was outside the room, where she had been holed up most of that week in 1972.
"This was all new to me: we didn't have t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 14, 2009
The overnight steamboat, a majestic feature of the Mississippi since before the days of Mark Twain, has been forced off the river by the current recession after nearly two centuries of continuous service on the river.
This year, there are no river boats offering Mississippi cruises that come with night cabins and last more than a few hours.
It was in 1811 that the New Orleans, the first steamboat in western waters, was piloted down the Mississippi. For nearly two centur
Source: Salt Lake Trib
Jul 14, 2009
In yet another twist in the widening crackdown on illegal artifact trafficking, a 44-year-old Blanding man has been charged with threatening to beat up the undercover informant in the case with a baseball bat.
Charles Denton Armstrong, shackled and guided by U.S. marshals, appeared before a federal magistrate Monday on the felony retaliation charge.
Armstrong allegedly told a federal agent that he didn't want to kill the undercover operative, he just "wanted to hur
Source: Canada.com
Jul 14, 2009
Archeological sites closer to the U.S. border appear more likely to be looted as Americans face stricter penalties for such crimes back home, says an unpublished report for Canadian Heritage.
Researchers with the Snuneymuxw First Nation said last month that they were holding off on going public about artifacts they've uncovered, fearing that thieves would get to the archeological site before work was complete.
The 2001 report Research on Looting of Canada's Archeologica
Source: National Geographic
Jul 14, 2009
After nearly 30 years in the field, archaeologist Leonardo López Luján may be on the verge of the discovery of a lifetime: the only known tomb of an Aztec king.
An air of excitement has been thickening around Mexico's Templo Mayor (Great Temple) since 2006, when excavations near the temple revealed a stone monolith with a carving of an Aztec goddess.
Recently the anticipation intensified with the discovery of a richly decorated canine skeleton near a sealed entrance.
Source: Ansa
Jul 14, 2009
The world's largest haul of ancient coins has been restored and will be put on view to the public shortly.
The 108,000 Roman coins were found by chance in Libya in 1981 but were in such poor condition that it has been impossible to adequately restore them until recently.
Now Italy's Institute for Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage (ITABC) has acquired the means to do it, using instruments such as the DPAA (Deep Proton Activation Analysis), a non-invasive analysin
Source: Littleabout.com
Jul 14, 2009
A team of experts has discovered a six-kilometer-long lava cave system on Easter Island thought to have been used as a refuge by the islands inhabitants during the 16th century.
According to a report in The Santiago Times, the team confirmed that it is the largest cave on the island and the 11th-largest in the world in terms of area
Source: CNN
Jul 14, 2009
Ben Steele hated the young man as soon as he saw him.
The man's almond-shaped eyes, dark hair and olive skin -- Steele had seen those Asian facial features before.
He saw that face when he watched Japanese soldiers behead sick men begging for water, run over stumbling prisoners with tanks and split his comrades' skulls with rifle butts.
"Men died like flies," Steele says. "I thought for a while I would never make it."
Steele
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jul 14, 2009
Horst Koehler Tuesday became the first German president to take part in the annual military parade to mark the Bastille Day celebrations in France. A day earlier, more than 300 cars were set on fire in riots in Paris.
Along with Koehler, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was invited as a special guest for the annual military parade in Paris.
The parade is one of the grand occasions in the French calendar and marks the storming of the Bastille fortress in 1789, tradit
