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: MSNBC
Jan 29, 2009
The desire to contact intelligent life on other planets is much older than the UFO craze and the SETI movement. Several 19th century scientists contemplated how we might communicate with possible Martians and Venusians.
These early proposals - which predate by 150 years the first extraterrestrial message that was sent in 1974 - were based on visual signals, as the invention of radio was still decades away.
In fact, as history shows, ideas for interplanetary communicatio
Source: http://www.globalpost.com
Jan 29, 2009
Jan. 30 is the 61st anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi. As that date approaches, the reputation of the Mahatma, or “great soul”, has seen better days.
Sure, when a British magazine publishes a cartoon of the emaciated and bespectacled figure getting pummeled by a muscle man India erupts in outrage. And when a Bollywood hero embraces nonviolent resistance in a slapstick masala movie the youth are suddenly fired with enthusiasm for candlelit marches. But in the s
Source: AP
Jan 29, 2009
Once Europe's most forbidding coast, this sparkling stretch of the Ionian Sea is slowly revealing lost treasures that date back 2,500 years and shipwrecks from ancient times.
Over the past two summers, a research ship carrying U. S. and Albanian experts has combed the waters off southern Albania, using scanning equipment and submersible robots to seek ancient wrecks. In what organizers say is the first archeological survey of Albania's seabed, at least five sites were located, whic
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Jan 29, 2009
Lynne Brindley, the chief executive of the British Library, is worried about whether we’re saving enough—not enough money, but enough of the digital evidence of our times. In an essay in Sunday’s Observer, Ms. Brindley worries that whole chunks of national memory are being lost and that “historians and citizens of the future will find a black hole in the knowledge base of the 21st century.”
Source: NYT
Jan 29, 2009
A resolution congratulating Barack Obama on his election as
president was rejected by a committee of the Arkansas House
of Representatives after lawmakers objected to language in
the measure that referred to the United States as"a nation
founded by slave owners." Eight of the 11 members of the
panel, the State Agencies Committee, who opposed the
resolution were Republicans, and one Republican joined five
Democrats in supporting it. Two Democrats abstained.
Opponents said the measure inac
Source: BBC
Jan 29, 2009
Investigators in Poland say there is no evidence to back up theories that the country's wartime leader, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, was murdered.
The general died when his plane crashed off Gibraltar in 1943, but some of the details of the crash remain unclear.
This has fuelled some people's belief that he may have been killed by the Soviet Union or Britain.
Two months ago, the Polish authorities exhumed the general's body in a bid to clear up the myster
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 29, 2009
Germany is contemplating a bill that will pardon Nazi-era "traitors" executed by military courts during the Second World War.
Among the most high-profile cases is that of Private First Class Johann Lukaschitz from Vienna, who was sentenced to death at the age of 24 for "failing to report a planned act of treason" – a secret cell of malcontents in his unit.
The verdicts against men like Lukaschitz were never repealed. Around 30,000 deserters, conscien
Source: Foxnews
Jan 29, 2009
William Stone was laid to rest in Oxfordshire, England, Thursday watched by hundreds of people who gathered to salute the last veteran to have fought for Britain in both world wars.
The Royal Navy serviceman was one of four veterans from the First World War who lived long enough to see last year’s 90th anniversary of the 1918 armistice.
Stone, who was born on September 23, 1900, laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in November. Inside St. Leonard’s Church in Watlington, Michae
Source: Independent (UK)
Jan 29, 2009
Whether it is carrying armour-clad knights into battle, hauling iron ploughs through fields of thick English mud, greasing the wheels of the Industrial Revolution or dragging artillery guns during both world wars, shire horses have played a pivotal role in Britain's history for 1,000 years.
But many of the country's finest draught breeds could be extinct within a generation following a dramatic drop in the number of people willing to breed them, experts predict.
The Rar
Source: BBC
Jan 29, 2009
The 7th Earl of Lucan vanished in 1974 after the murder of his children's nanny at the family's London home.
His body has never been found and the disappearance remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of recent times.
Bonhams has been instructed by Lady Lucan to sell the 19th Century desk, used at her former home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street, at a sale on 11 March.
Guy Savill, head of Bonhams' fine furniture department, said: "Because of its asso
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 29, 2009
Anger boiled over yesterday at the publication of a government-commissioned report into how to heal the wounds of Northern Ireland.
Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, two former churchmen invited 18 months ago to come up with a plan, had not even begun to speak before the ballroom of the Europa Hotel in Belfast — once reputed to be the world’s most-bombed hotel — was seething with the bad blood that sparked and sustained nearly 40 years of terrorism, causing more than 3,700 deaths.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 28, 2009
A secret agent who trained members of the French Resistance behind enemy lines was told he had "no business" in France when he met General de Gaulle, newly released files disclose.
Peter Lake was parachuted into the Dordogne on the night of April 9 1944 to train members of the Resistance in sabotage and guerilla warfare in preparation for D Day.
After the landings he led a daring operation to blow up the main railway line between Perigueux and Coutras.
Source: University of Liverpool (UK)
Jan 28, 2009
A researcher at the University of Liverpool has produced the first modern, comprehensive handbook on Manx Gaelic a language thought to have died out in the mid 19th Century.
As records detailing the grammatical construction of the language are rare, expert Jennifer Kewley Draskau, at the University’s Centre for Manx Studies, used texts dating back to the 15th Century as well as unstructured, informal conversations between fluent native speakers on the Isle on Man. She also studied t
Source: Boston Globe
Jan 28, 2009
It remains one of the stranger episodes in the annals of congressional-FBI relations: In the winter of 1975, US Representative Robert F. Drinan was touring the FBI headquarters when he broke away and opened a drawer to find a set of index cards under his name.
A three-month battle ensued between the Massachusetts Democrat and the federal law enforcement agency over access to the file. When Drinan finally got a redacted copy of his own record, he pronounced it garbage, filled with ne
Source: Yahoo News
Jan 28, 2009
Oetzi, the 5,000-year old man whose frozen body was discovered in a glacier in the Alps in 1991, may have been attacked not once but twice in his final few days, German researchers said on Wednesday.
It was known that Oetzi, the oldest ice mummy ever found, was shot in the back with an arrow but scientists at Munich's LMU university have now concluded that he may have survived this, if only for a few minutes or hours at most.
And in addition to his being whacked with a
Source: BBC
Jan 28, 2009
A Sudanese man has been jailed for 17 years for passing on sensitive files about a Darfur war crimes suspect to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Mohammed Alsary Ibrahim was convicted of spying, criminal conspiracy and passing on confidential military documents about a Sudanese minister.
Mr Ibrahim, who denied the charges, is the first person in Sudan to be prosecuted for helping the ICC.
The ICC prosecutor has accused President Omar al-Bashir of r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 28, 2009
Astronaut Neil Armstrong walking on the moon is the most memorable television first, according to a survey of 3,000 people.
More than half chose the moment in 1969 when man first walked on the moon as their most memorable television world first.
Among the other events which left their mark on viewers was the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president, nominated by 37.5 per cent of people questioned.
Third most memorable was the assassi
Source: NYT
Jan 28, 2009
The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jan 28, 2009
At a gathering at Berlin's landmark Potsdamer Platz, the city's Senate representative Richard Meng said 2009 is a "year of remembrance," as well as a "year of respect for the people who contributed to the peaceful fall of the Wall."
Throughout the year, exhibitions, talks and guided walks will remind people of the huge changes Berlin has undergone.
The highlight of the year will be a weekend of celebrations and a huge series of domino stones, set to
Source: NYT
Jan 28, 2009
A day after President Obama struck a conciliatory tone toward Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged America on Wednesday to apologize for its actions toward his country over the past 60 years and said it was unclear whether the new administration was merely shifting tactics or wanted real change.
But he did not explicitly rebuff Mr. Obama’s gesture. “We are waiting patiently,” he said, referring to the policies of the new administration. “We will listen to the statements closely
