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: International Herald Tribune
Dec 23, 2008
More than 160 prominent writers, scholars and human rights advocates
outside mainland China have signed an open letter to President Hu Jintao
asking him to release a well-known intellectual who was detained earlier
this month. The letter was posted on the Internet on Tuesday.
The letter to Hu indicates that the case of Liu Xiaobo, the intellectual,
is quickly turning into the latest human rights cause célèbre in China and
could further embarrass the Communist Party at a time when Chi
Source: Juan Cole at his blog, Informed Comment
Dec 23, 2008
A team of biologists at Lebanese American University estimates that 1 in 17 persons around the Mediterranean carries genetic markers distinctive to the ancient Phoenician people who resided in what is now Lebanon. The Phoenicians spread out in a trade diaspora two millennia ago, establishing colonies from Spain to Cyprus. The team also found that one third of Lebanese have the markers for Phoenician descent, and that these are spread evenly through the population, among both Christians and Musli
Source: National Security Archive
Dec 23, 2008
Amidst a massive bombing campaign over North Vietnam, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon candidly shared their evident satisfaction at the “shock treatment” of American B 52s, according to a declassified transcript of their telephone conversation published for the first time today by the National Security Archive. “They dropped a million pounds of bombs,” Kissinger briefed Nixon. “A million pounds of bombs,” Nixon exclaimed. “Goddamn, that must have been a good strike.” The conversation, secretly
Source: AP
Dec 23, 2008
WASHINGTON –- In a gesture of forgiveness for an American considered a hero in Israel, President George W. Bush on Tuesday granted a pardon posthumously to a man who broke the law to supply aircraft to Jews fighting in Israel's 1948 war of independence.
Charles Winters was listed in a batch of 19 pardons and one commutation that Bush issued before leaving for Camp David to spend the holidays. No high-profile lawbreakers were on the list.
In the summer of 1948, Winters,
Source: AP
Dec 23, 2008
VATICAN CITY — Galileo Galilei is going from heretic to hero.
The Vatican is recasting the most famous victim of its Inquisition as a man of faith, just in time for the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope and the U.N.-designated International Year of Astronomy next year.
Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to the Italian astronomer and physicist Sunday, saying he and other scientists had helped the faithful better understand and "contemplate with gratitude the Lord
Source: FoxNews.com
Dec 23, 2008
The similarities between President-elect Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln will be on full display on Inauguration Day when Obama takes the oath of office using the same Bible used to swear in Lincoln.
Obama will be the first president sworn in using the Lincoln Bible since its initial use in 1861. The Bible is part of the collections of the Library of Congress.
"President-elect Obama is deeply honored that the Library of Congress has made the Lincoln Bible availabl
Source: BBC
Dec 23, 2008
An amateur British archaeologist has discovered almost 300 gold coins dating from the 7th Century at a dig just outside Jerusalem's Old City.
Birmingham woman Nadine Ross, 34, found the solid 24-carat coins under a large rock in a car park.
The coins date back to the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, before the Persians conquered Jerusalem.
Ms Ross is being feted for finding one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Je
Source: Independent
Dec 23, 2008
The last of the tea and toast has been taken, the waiters, caterers and cloakroom attendants have all gone home, and a part of the capital city's social history has closed. The Café Royal, where Winston Churchill waited anxiously to know his political future, and Oscar Wilde began the quarrel that ruined him, has served its final cream tea.
The last private party was held in a cellar on Saturday night...
Exceptionally, the closure of the Café Royal is not a story of the
Source: NYT
Dec 22, 2008
About 225 of the Tuskegee airmen have accepted an invitation to go to Washington for Barack Obama’s inauguration, but it is not clear if all will actually make it.
Some of the 225 have accepted on a “conditional” basis — they are waiting to see what kind of arrangements can be made for their transportation and lodging as well as ground logistics in Washington.
Source: US News & World Report
Dec 22, 2008
Presidential inaugurations are quadrennial moments of renewal. No matter how bitter and angry a campaign has been, Americans tend to stand back, focus on the good qualities of their newly elected leader, and give him a break for at least a while. That's why most new presidents get a honeymoon, however brief, from their critics, and why the first months of a new administration tend to be among the most productive.
What Americans want in an inaugural address is a sense of vision and r
Source: Politico.com
Dec 22, 2008
Historian Julian Zelizer calls Vice President Dick Cheney the most influential vice president in history. Lanny Davis agrees with Joe Biden that Cheney was “the most dangerous.” To Grover Norquist, Cheney’s story is a “tragedy.”
To Steven G. Calabresi, the tragedy was the “Borking” of Cheney by his opponents. The nation should be thankful, said business executive Steve Steckler, that Cheney, not Biden, was “manning the tower walls” when the country was attacked on 9/11.
Source: AFP
Dec 22, 2008
Men significantly outnumbered women in the"out-of-Africa" migration some
60,000 years ago that eventually populated the rest of the world,
according to a new study.
Africa is known to be the cradle of human evolution, and recent studies
show that the peoples today inhabiting other continents originate from a
relatively small band of Homo sapiens sapiens who moved through the Near
East, into Europe and beyond some 50,000 and 70,000 years ago.
But until now no one had figured ou
Source: CNN
Dec 22, 2008
Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s biggest
mistake of the presidential campaign: not enough time with the media, the
Alaska governor said in an interview published Monday.
“The biggest mistake made was that I could have called more shots on this:
the opportunities that were not seized to speak to more Americans via
media,” she told Human Events.
“I was not allowed to do very many interviews, and the interviews that I
did were not necessarily those I wo
Source: NYT
Dec 22, 2008
FRANKFURT AN DER ODER, Germany — During the last days of World War II, this drab city in eastern Germany was almost completely destroyed as Soviet troops advanced toward Berlin.
It has been rebuilt, of course, and this year it boasts spectacular medieval stained-glass windows that have been returned after more than 60 years in exile in Russia.
Yet the 66-foot-tall windows — which date from the 14th century and depict scenes from the Old Testament in powerful images and
Source: BBC
Dec 22, 2008
In 1965 Japan asked the US to be ready to launch a nuclear attack on China
if war broke out between the Asian rivals, documents from the time
indicate.
The documents, declassified by Japan's foreign ministry, summarise talks
held during a visit to Washington by Japan's then prime minister, Eisaku
Sato.
Mr Sato won the Nobel peace prize in 1974 for his rejection of nuclear
weapons.
Japan is committed to pacifism under the terms of its post-war constitution.
It is
Source: http://www.times-standard.com
Dec 22, 2008
The discerning eye of a federal Bureau of Land Management employee and the
investigative skills of Patrick's Point State Park Ranger Greg Hall led to
the arrest of a Eureka man this week on suspicion of looting
archaeological items from an ancient tribal village site.
At the center of the investigation was a video the suspect created and
subsequently posted on YouTube showing him digging at the village site
within Patrick's Point State Park.
”It was a bragging video,” Hall sai
Source: CNN
Dec 22, 2008
Forty years ago this week, three men in a tiny spacecraft slipped their
earthly bonds and traveled where no one else had before, circling the moon
10 times and beaming back an iconic image of a blue-and-white Earth in the
distance, solitary but bound as one against the black vastness beyond.
The voyage of Apollo 8 from December 21-27, 1968, marked humans' first
venture to another heavenly body."We were flying to the moon for the first time," said Jim Lovell, one of
the three astro
Source: International Herald Tribune
Dec 22, 2008
The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, issued eight years ago this
month, was widely understood to work like that tape recorder in"Mission:
Impossible." It was meant to produce a president and then self-destruct."Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances," the majority
famously said,"for the problem of equal protection in election processes
generally presents many complexities."
That sentence, translated from high legal jargon into English, was
generally tak
Source: Reuters
Dec 22, 2008
Egyptian archaeologists have found the tombs of two court officials, in charge of music and pyramid building, in a 4,000 year old cemetery from the reign of Pharaoh Unas. The tombs were found buried in the sands south of Cairo and could shed light on the fifth and the sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom ....
Related Links
Egyptian archaeologists unveil pair of 4 mill
Source: Times (UK)
Dec 22, 2008
Sir Bernard Crick belonged to an endangered species. He was a public intellectual in the mould of the great socialist sages of the first half of the last century — Graham Wallas, G. D. H. Cole, R. H. Tawney and Harold Laski. He was a distinguished political theorist, with three important scholarly works to his credit, as well as one great one.
He also intervened incessantly in public debate, on matters ranging from parliamentary reform to the politics of divided societies. But his
