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: BBC
Sep 9, 2008
A dark-haired handsome cameraman is seen standing on a diving board filming a diver from behind as he jumps.
In other shots he is shown carrying a rubber boat next to an empty pool that he used to film the swimming competition and patiently fitting a small camera in a rowing boat seat.
These are just some pictures of the 1936 Berlin Olympics uncovered for the first time, providing a rare glimpse into how Olympia, the film depicting the Games, was made.
T
Source: BBC
Sep 9, 2008
North Korea is celebrating its 60th anniversary with reports of a large military parade in Pyongyang.
Reclusive leader Kim Jong-il was expected to attend, and his appearance was set to be closely watched because of speculation about his health.
However, a report from the Japanese news agency Kyodo said he failed to make an appearance.
The anniversary comes amid an impasse in international efforts to urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme.
Source: BBC
Sep 9, 2008
A bid to save Britain's computing heritage has been given a $100,000 (£57,000) boost by a joint donation from US hi-tech firms IBM and PGP.
The donation will help curate and restore exhibits at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, Bucks.
The two firms said they hoped the money would kick-start further donations from the technology industry to make up an estimated £7m needed to run the museum.
Exhibits include Colossus, thought by many to b
Source: Times
Sep 9, 2008
A series of fossilised forests the size of small cities have provided prehistoric evidence of how tropical rainforests are destroyed by global warming.
The fossil remains represent the first rainforests grown on the planet and their demise more than 300million years ago “points to the future” of the modern-day Amazon.
Six petrified forests, dating from 303.9 million to 309 million years ago, have been discovered in coalmines in the United States. Because they straddle
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 9, 2008
Google has taken another step towards its stated goal of indexing the world’s information by scanning newspaper archives and making them searchable on the internet.
The company that leads the way in cataloguing online information has been stepping up efforts to digitise material created before the advent of the internet. Google Books has been gradually scanning millions of books from publishers and libraries, making the text as easily searchable as that of a website.
Source: Telegraph
Sep 9, 2008
The combative right-wing mayor of Rome refused to condemn fascism as evil, while the country's defence minister paid homage to fascist troops who fought with the Nazis in resisting the Anglo-American landings of World War II.
The minister, Ignazio La Russa, was speaking at an event marking the 65th anniversary of Rome's resistance to Nazi occupation in 1943 and the role played by anti-fascist partisans.
But he also recalled the "Nembo" parachute division from
Source: National Geographic News
Sep 8, 2008
Live fast, die young—this is how our closest relatives the Neanderthals were traditionally thought to progress through life.
But a new study of Neanderthal skeletons suggests the species grew quickly but reached sexual maturity later than so-called modern humans—and quite possibly survived to a ripe old age.
The study also suggests that Neanderthals had a harder time of child bearing and possibly child raising. As a result, modern humans may have simply outbred their he
Source: WaPo
Sep 8, 2008
For tourists, the new memorial to 184 people who died at the Pentagon in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is not especially convenient. Nor is it ideal from a security perspective to have 24-hour public access right outside the U.S. military's nerve center.
But there is little dispute that the new memorial, which opens to the public Thursday, was built right where it should have been: at the spot where American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the west wall of the Pentagon.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Sep 8, 2008
Sarah Palin's unexpected burst onto the national scene has piqued sudden interest in Alaska, but few people know that Northern California and the 49th state have been tied together in hundreds of ways in a relationship going back nearly 200 years.
For much of that time, Alaska, having few people and no industry, was virtually an economic colony of San Francisco.
There was also a literary connection: Alaska and the north country launched the career of Jack London, the author w
Source: AP
Sep 8, 2008
DOTHAN, Alabama: Larry Blumberg is looking for a few good Jews to move to
his heavily Christian corner of the U.S. South.
Blumberg is chairman of the Blumberg Family Relocation Fund, which is
offering Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate to Dothan, an
overwhelmingly Christian town of 58,000 that calls itself the Peanut
Capital of the World. Get involved at Temple Emanu-El and stay at least
five years, the group's leaders say, and the money doesn't have to be
repaid.
Source: LiveScience
Sep 8, 2008
A new study has found that Neanderthal brains grew at much the same rate
as modern human brains do, knocking down the idea that they grew faster in
a style considered more primitive.
The recent discoveries of two very young Neanderthal skeletons, as well
analysis of a little-studied infant Neanderthal skeleton, allowed the
researchers to trace how quickly the species' skulls grew.
The results showed a greater similarity than expected between modern
humans and Neanderthals, a h
Source: AP
Sep 8, 2008
BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT, N.M. (AP) — Inside the dark, cliffside cave
last occupied by the people of Frijoles Canyon some 500 years ago is
evidence of more recent human activity: graffiti proclaiming"2008" and"I
love you" carved into a wall."Oh, man," art conservator Larry Humetewa muttered as he bent to inspect
the damage in the" cavate," a large, cave-live room.
Vandalism is just one of many threats to the fragile archaeological sites
that are the heart of national parks and
Source: Chicago Tribune
Sep 8, 2008
Though the two women had never met, they soon were trading names, each taking stock of whom the other knew in Chicago's Jewish community.
Before long, they learned their paths had almost crossed once before—six decades ago in the Jewish ghetto of Shanghai. It turns out they were neighbors, one at 83 Wayside Rd., the other at 91, and they had some mutual friends too....
Both women were among the Jews who found a haven in Shanghai during World War II. Sephardic Jews had l
Source: NYT
Sep 8, 2008
CAIRO — Seven years later, it remains conventional wisdom here that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda could not have been solely responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that the United States and Israel had to have been involved in their planning, if not their execution, too.
This is not the conclusion of a scientific survey, but it is what routinely comes up in conversations around the region — in a shopping mall in Dubai, in a park in Algiers, in a cafe in Riyadh and all ove
Source: WaPo
Sep 8, 2008
Months before the Bush administration ends, historians and open-government advocates are concerned that Vice President Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming U.S. policy for the past 7 1/2 years.
In a preemptive move, several of them have agreed to join the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in asking a federal judge to declare that Cheney's rec
Source: History Today
Sep 8, 2008
The UN’s cultural and scientific agency has asked Britain to report on seven of its world heritage sites by February. Unesco could place the sites, including the Tower of London and Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, on its ‘at risk’ register if its concerns are not tackled. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, as well as introducing a new heritage protection bill, addressed spoints raised by Unesco during its annual meeting in July in Quebec. Its concerns include the rerouting of a road at Stonehe
Source: LAT
Sep 8, 2008
Historians and open-government advocates are concerned that Vice President Dick Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming U.S. policy for the last 7 1/2 years.In a preemptive move, several of them have agreed to join the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in asking a federal judge to declare that Cheney's records are covered by the Presiden
Source: Ottawa Citizen
Sep 8, 2008
Hockey historians are celebrating the discovery of a document hailed as a missing link in the early evolution of the sport. Two Swedish researchers have unearthed the second-oldest written reference to hockey being played on ice, a vintage description of an 1839 game contested on a frozen river in southern Ontario near Niagara Falls.The latest find comes from a British army officer's memoir of his years in what was then the colony of Upper Canada.
"During t
Source: WaPo
Sep 8, 2008
The great edifice that is the United States Constitution has always had eccentricities, wobbly parts, some joists held together with duct tape. From one edge juts a curious protrusion, an architectural afterthought. It is called the vice presidency.
The Framers didn't know what to do with the backup executive. He was conjured very late in the summer of 1787, as the Constitutional Convention was winding down. He had no power at all, initially -- he was just a body, a seat-warmer, rea
Source: Telegraph
Sep 8, 2008
Scientists have discovered that even after more than 40 years, people can still vividly recall where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the Fab Four’s music.
They say it shows that music is one of the most powerful triggers of memory, and Beatles music in particular is more than mere “auditory cheesecake”.
The online research was the biggest ever survey into the links between memory and music, and scientists believe its findings will be replicate
