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: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 11, 2008
The hand written missive to first wife Mileva Maric accuses her of not passing on his letters to his children and deals with her complaints that he was not paying enough towards his family's upkeep.
The letter, in German, is dated 12th December 1914, but the couple were not divorced until Valentine's Day 1919.
The theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner famed for his theory of relativity married Mileva Maric on 6th January 1903.
They had three child
Source: AP
Dec 11, 2008
Authorities say a hoard of 4,500-year-old copper weapons recovered off a northern beach is the largest of its kind ever found in Greece.
A Culture Ministry statement says the discovery includes at least 110 ax and hammer heads, but several more should be extracted from compacted masses of corroded metal.
Source: http://www.terradaily.com
Dec 11, 2008
The decline of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.
Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D.
Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingl
Source: AP
Dec 11, 2008
Germany's highest criminal court turned over to Munich prosecutors on Thursday the case against a retired Ohio auto worker accused of serving as a Nazi death camp guard, paving the way for his possible extradition from the United States for trial.
Munich prosecutors will now decide whether there is enough evidence of John Demjanjuk's alleged involvement in the deaths of 29,000 Jews at Sobibor camp to charge him and request that he be returned to Germany for trial, spokesman Anton Wi
Source: NYT
Dec 11, 2008
Amid accusations of widespread corruption, an empty seat in the United States Senate awaits a new occupant from Illinois, where the governor is not trusted to make the choice.
That was the story in 1927, when the Senate ultimately denied a seat to Frank L. Smith because of questions surrounding his appointment by Gov. Len Small. But it all sounds familiar today as yet another sordid tale is added to a long and colorful history of the intense machinations that come when the prize is
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Dec 11, 2008
On December 11, in a letter to Walmart President and CEO Lee Scott, 253 historians from throughout the country urged the retail giant to reconsider plans to build a 138,000 square-foot supercenter immediately adjacent to the Wilderness Battlefield in Orange County, VA. A formal application for the project was filed on December 5, 2008.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Dec 11, 2008
With deadly accuracy and at speeds of up to 700mph, it could have pinpointed Nazi targets and wreaked havoc on Britain.
At least, that is what German scientists believed as they plotted this weapon of terror...
The glider would be released from a larger aircraft. Guided by a Luftwaffe pilot inside, the dart would dive towards the ground carrying its 1,000kg bomb.
At the last moment, the pilot would release the bomb and inflate a huge balloon attached to the
Source: Center for Public Integrity
Dec 10, 2008
As the Bush administration comes to an end, the federal government is not functioning as it should. Just how bad is this government dysfunction? In an effort to answer that question, the Center for Public Integrity embarked on Broken Government, an examination of the worst systematic failures of the executive branch over the past eight years.
Broken Government documents more than 125 examples of government breakdown in areas as diverse as education, energy, the environment, justice
Source: AP
Dec 10, 2008
President George W. Bush bestowed Presidential Citizen Medals on a figure from the Watergate scandal, the librarian of Congress and the actor known as Lieutenant Dan in the 1994 Academy Award-winning movie "Forrest Gump."
In total, the president recognized 23 individuals and one posthumously on Wednesday with the second highest honor for a civilian, second only to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The awards were conferred in the Oval Office in a private ceremony.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Dec 10, 2008
A deluge that swept the Land of Israel more than 7,000 years ago, submerging six Neolithic villages opposite the Carmel Mountains, is the origin of the biblical flood of Noah, a British marine archeologist said Tuesday.
The new theory about the source of the great flood detailed in the Book of Genesis comes amid continuing controversy among scholars over whether the inundation of the Black Sea more than seven millennia ago was the biblical flood.
In the theory posited b
Source: MSNBC
Dec 10, 2008
George Washington showed a keen awareness of political symbolism back in 1789 when he was preparing for his first inauguration.
"The cloth and buttons which accompanied your favor of the 30th ... really do credit to the manufacturers of this country," Washington said in a letter to Acting Secretary of War Henry Knox. The letter was displayed at a news conference today at the National Archives.
Archives historian Marvin Pinkert said Washington had made a conscious de
Source: USA Today
Dec 10, 2008
The government's spending surge to ease the financial crisis and a worsening recession is increasing the federal share of the nation's economic activity close to $1 out of every $4, the highest level since World War II, an analysis of current and projected payments shows.
Emergency rescue plans for financial institutions and increased benefits for needy individuals are mounting, as Congress considers President-elect Barack Obama's call for a massive public works program that could e
Source: International Herald Tribune
Dec 10, 2008
China marked international Human Rights Day on Wednesday with newspaper
editorials and television commentaries hailing the country's"unremitting
efforts" and"nonstop progress" in promoting free speech and individual
rights.
It was also a busy day for public security officials, who were dispatched
to quell a protest of about 40 people who rallied outside the gated
headquarters of the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. After calling for free
elections and demanding a crackdown on corruption
Source: http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com
Dec 10, 2008
On December 5, just two days before the anniversary of the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor, President Bush used powers granted by the Antiquities Act
to designate the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The
new Monument incorporates a diverse array of nine sites across three
States, including five sites in Hawaii related to the battle of Pearl
Harbor, three sites in Alaska related to battles in the Aleutian Islands,
and one site in California related to the exclusion and i
Source: Politico.com
Dec 10, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama says he plans to use all three of his names when he takes the oath of office in January, giving voice to a name that was was rarely used during the campaign except by critics.
In his first post-election newspaper interview, with reporters from the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, Obama was asked: “Do you anticipate being sworn in as Barack Obama or Barack Hussein Obama?"
He replied: “I think the tradition is that they use all th
Source: BBC
Dec 10, 2008
The United Nations says more than six million people have been living as
refugees for more than five years.
More than 90,000 of those are Serbs, who fled Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Croatia during the Balkan wars in the 1990s and now live in the same
squalid camps they were originally placed in.
The BBC's Imogen Foulkes says these refugees are in limbo - unable either
to return home or begin a new life.
Source: BBC
Dec 10, 2008
Supreme Court judges in Brazil are debating how to proceed with a key
indigenous land rights ruling after one justice asked for more time.
The court has been asked to rule on whether a reservation in the Amazonian
state of Roraima can remain a single unbroken territory.
Indian leaders in Brazil say the case could set a crucial precedent for
the protection of their ancestral lands.
But rice farmers say they could be forced to leave the area.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 10, 2008
Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, strongly criticised the [1707] Act of Settlement, adding to pressure inside the Government for the law to be changed or scrapped.
Mr Straw, the Justice Secretary, earlier this year signalled that ministers are looking at abolishing the 307-year-old Act of Settlement because it is "antiquated" and discriminates against non-Protestants.
Repealing or amending the act could also pave the way for a first-born daughter of Prince W
Source: Nate Silver at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com
Dec 10, 2008
Contrary to much reporting -- including some of our own - the U.S. Senate probably lacks the Constitutional authority to refuse to seat an appointment made by indicated Governor Rod Blagojevich. As a law school friend writes:
FYI. If the Supreme Court took the case, It isn't clear that the Senate has the Constitutional authority to refuse to seat a senator who has been validly appointed under the Constitution.
Art I Section 5 says that"Each House shall be the Judge of the
Source: BBC
Dec 9, 2008
Disagreements have arisen at the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia over
whether more people should be investigated.
The UN-appointed prosecutor asked judges to intervene after he and his
Cambodian counterpart were unable to move forward. [The UN prosecutor wants more people investigated.]
It is the first time that international and Cambodian officials have had a
public disagreement since the tribunal started two years ago.
The court is looking into the deaths of some two mill
