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: Jordan Times
Nov 13, 2008
AMMAN - The government on Wednesday rejected as baseless rumours it intends to permanently close down two key Christian sites in the eastern town of Rihab.
Community leaders in the town have been threatening to step up a protest they started after the archaeologist who discovered what is said to be the oldest cave church in the world was removed from his post as director of the former Rihab Archaeological and Research Centre, which is now called the Rihab Archaeological Project.
Source: Tehran Times
Nov 13, 2008
They said more than 100 jars were discovered at a Phoenician site in the southern coastal city of Tire. Phoenicians are known to have thrived from 1500 B.C. to 300 B.C and they were also headquartered in the coastal area of present-day Syria.
“The big jars are like individual tombs. The smaller jars are left empty, but symbolically represent that a soul is stored in them,” Ali Badawi, the archaeologist in charge in Tire, told Reuters Wednesday.
Badawi and a Spanish te
Source: Times (UK)
Nov 12, 2008
Most people know something of the events in 1714 when the British government instituted a prize for the discovery of a successful way to find longitude at sea. The aim was to reduce the heavy toll of shipwrecks caused by the crude navigational method of dead reckoning. Dava Sobel gave new life to this episode in her bestselling book, Longitude: The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time (1995), which inspired the widely viewed television programme Lost
Source: NYT
Nov 12, 2008
When a Congressional committee subpoenaed Harry S. Truman in 1953, nearly a year after he left office, he made a startling claim: Even though he was no longer president, the Constitution still empowered him to block subpoenas.
“If the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the presidency is to have any validity at all, it must be equally applicable to a president after his term of office has expired,” Truman wrote to the committee.
Congress backed dow
Source: http://politicalticker
Nov 12, 2008
Republican Paul Broun is sorry for calling President-elect Barack Obama a 'Marxist' and comparing him to Adolph Hitler, the Georgia Congressman said Tuesday.
"I regret putting it that way," he told WGAC radio in Augusta, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that."
In an interview with the Associated Press earlier this week, Broun admitted to calling the future commander-in-chief a 'Marxist' a
Source: CNN
Nov 12, 2008
Cyanide was being bought and shipped to the Rev. Jim Jones' jungle compound in South America for at least two years before 909 Americans died there at the command of their cult leader, CNN has learned.
Sources in Guyana said the Jonestown camp began obtaining shipments of cyanide -- about a quarter to a half-pound of the deadly poison each month -- as early as 1976, well before most of Jones' followers made the move there.
CNN's Soledad O'Brien tells the story of the l
Source: AP
Nov 12, 2008
Couples chatted, children played and joggers hustled past gardens on an unseasonably warm November day at Cheesman Park.
Few knew that the grounds in the center of Denver were once the final resting place for at least 4,200 of the city's earliest residents, according to historical records.
That past literally came up again last week when a construction crew building a parking garage at the nearby Denver Botanic Gardens unearthed two rows of caskets.
Source: Editor & Publisher
Nov 12, 2008
Many conservative pundits and Republican officeholders on the national stage have reacted to the election of Barack Obama as a promising step forward in the history of race relations and democracy in the U.S. But gaining much less coverage from the national media are local reactions that are far less accepting and positive.
Away from the spotlight, many local newspapers around the country have covered recent incidents of racially-motivated reactions to last week’s election, from fla
Source: http://www.armytimes.com
Nov 12, 2008
After 63 years, former Army Cpl. J.D. Elliott of Texarkana, who served in Europe during World War II, has received his Bronze Star.
Last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs finally sent the 82-year-old Elliot his citation in the mail.
“Back in April of this year, my parents received a letter from the VA,” said Brenda Pearcy, Elliott’s daughter.
The letter stated the VA had researched World War II servicemen’s records and found out that in some units,
Source: AP
Nov 12, 2008
BABYLON, Iraq: It was one of the world's first great cities, a place where astronomers mapped the stars millennia ago and kings created an early code of law and planted what became known as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Yet little remains of the ancient capital, as seen during a trip here last month on one of the few permits issued by the Iraqi government since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 ousted Saddam Hussein. The site has the aura of a theme park touched by the ambition of Sad
Source: WaPo
Nov 12, 2008
It was just a few quiet words, coming after an hour of ringing speeches, songs and other public tributes to U.S. war veterans -- especially women -- at the annual Veterans Day ceremony yesterday in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
But when Barbara Lilly, 62, a former American Red Cross worker in Vietnam, hugged Army Sgt. Danielle Modglin, 26, who was standing on crutches from an injury she had received this summer in Iraq, her brief greeting seemed especially eloquent.
Source: Times (UK)
Nov 12, 2008
The glory that was Rome is to rise again.
Visitors will once more be able to visit the Colosseum and the Forum of Rome as they were in A.D. 320, this time on a computer screen in 3D.
The rendering of the ancient city in Google Earth lets viewers stand in the center of the Colosseum, trace the footsteps of the gladiators in the Ludus Magnus and fly under the Arch of Constantine.
The computer model, a collection of more than 6,700 buildings, depicts Rome in t
Source: Deutsche Welle
Nov 12, 2008
A German association has started burying in a Czech cemetery the remains of 5,500 German soldiers and civilians killed during World War II. The remains were discovered over the last 10 years.
Fritz Kirchmeier, spokesman for the German war graves authority VDK, said 330 soldiers would be buried on Wednesday, Nov. 12, in the cemetery in the western Czech town of Cheb.
The rest, including 450 civilians, would be buried over the next two or three weeks, he added.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 11, 2008
• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball
• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili
• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini
• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father
• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed
• He has read every Harry Potter book...
Source: AP
Nov 11, 2008
Places that presidents call home often become major tourist attractions, from estates at Mount Vernon and Monticello, to Hodgenville, Ky., where Abe Lincoln's log cabin once stood, to Bill Clinton's boyhood home in Hope, Ark.
So what's the equivalent of Barack Obama's log cabin? Probably a 10th-floor apartment in Honolulu where he lived with his mother and grandparents. But to see all the places connected to Obama's life story, you'd have to visit three countries, six time zones and
Source: BBC
Nov 11, 2008
Three of the four surviving British veterans of World War I have helped mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the conflict.
Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, represented the RAF, Army and Royal Navy respectively at a ceremony at London's Cenotaph.
They led the country in observing two minutes' silence from 1100 GMT.
Among other Armistice Day events across Europe, Prince Charles laid a wreath at a battle site in France.
Source: BBC
Nov 11, 2008
One man took his two grandsons on a personal journey to the Western Front, for a history lesson they are unlikely to forget.
Before coming here from their home in Somerset, James White and his younger brother Simon weren't sure when the Great War happened.
They didn't know what the Armistice was about - and they didn't understand why we wear poppies.
Now, their bright white trainers are caked in mud as they step gingerly through the trenches at a military m
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 11, 2008
A church has vanished from the Russian village where it stood for almost 200 years, the local diocese said.
The Church of Christ's Resurrection, in the central Russian village of Komarovo, was built in 1809 but in early October someone took it away brick by brick, Father Vitaly a spokesman for the local Russian Orthodox Church, claimed.
"We have sent a letter to local prosecutors," he said. "Who exactly did this, the investigation will show."
Source: KOMO
Nov 11, 2008
BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- The diary of a local corporal killed in Iraq sent his mother on a painful but inspiring journey.
The 37 pages helped the mother of Jonathan Santos walk through her son's final days and ultimately led her to an unexpected discovery.
"My brother went off to Vietnam," said Doris Santos, "but he came home. So (I thought) Jonathan would come home. I thought he'd come home."
But he never did. On Oct. 15, 2004, an improvise
Source: Bloomberg News
Nov 11, 2008
Archaeologists digging near the world's oldest step-pyramid of Saqqara, the main burial site of ancient royal Egyptians before the pyramids of Giza, said today that they have discovered what may be the tomb of the mother of a sixth dynasty Pharaoh called Teti.
The pyramid was discovered about two months ago on a site that has been under excavation for 20 years, said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Little remains except the base of the struct
