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: Prague Post
Jul 30, 2008
Archives reveal that the U.S. expected an invasion of Czechoslovakia, but failed to act
Newly opened US State department archives show that in 1968 the Lyndon B. Johnson government was expecting Warsaw Pact forces to invade Czechoslovakia, but chose to do nothing about it, Mladá fronta Dnes wrote on Thursday, citing Vít Pohanka, the Czech Radio correspondent in Washington.
The documents show that, previous to Prague Spring, in 1967, the American government was more in
Source: History Today
Jul 30, 2008
Extracts from the diaries of George Orwell will be made available online for the first time. The Orwell Prize for political writing will publish extracts from his diaries from 1938-1942, beginning on August 9th, 70 years after his first entry. The diaries cover daily life in England, Europe and Morocco as well as the impending world war. One entry from Gibraltar on September 7th, 1938 reads: ‘At least 3,000 refu
Source: http://www.propublica.org
Jul 30, 2008
The non-partisan Congressional Research Service last week published a study (PDF) calculating the cost of every major U.S. war,"from the American Revolution through current conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere." (The numbers are all in 2008 dollars.) The study was first flagged -- and posted online -- by Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientist
Source: McClatchy
Jul 30, 2008
Many undecided voters have a common concern when they size up Barack Obama: his inexperience.
"I have nothing against Obama. I just think John McCain has more experience," said Steve Viernacki, an Ashley, Pa., restaurant owner.
Experts say that such worries are overblown.
"Experience matters, but its importance is terribly overstated," said historian Robert Dallek, the author of recent books about Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.
Source: http://www.gettysburgtimes.com
Jul 30, 2008
Federal investigators from the Government Accountability Office have concluded their probe of fundraising at Gettysburg National Military Park, but the agency is still reviewing other National Parks around the country.
The GAO, based in Washington D.C. and governed by Congress, intends to release a report detailing its study – on the National Park Service's acceptance of donations – by March 2009.
"Gettysburg was just one of the many sites that we're visiting over
Source: AP
Jul 30, 2008
The funeral of a former Nazi concentration camp commander was used to celebrate his crimes, a Jewish human rights group said Tuesday and urged Croatia's president to investigate.
Dinko Sakic's funeral was an "outrageous display of unrepentant racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia," the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israeli branch director, Efraim Zuroff, said in a letter addressed to President Stipe Mesic and faxed to The Associated Press.
Sakic died at age 87 on J
Source: AP
Jul 30, 2008
Police divers checking a report of human remains
off a Puerto Rican beach may have made an archaeological discovery: bones
and possible artifacts from a colonial-era ship, officials in the U.S.
island territory said Wednesday.
The divers found a cannon, pieces of a ship, human bones, a sword and a
medal engraved with the name Isabel II, said Sgt. Angel Rivera Rodriguez,
a spokesman for Puerto Rico's police department.
Source: WaPo
Jul 30, 2008
The blue pickup was rolling through the remote tribal regions of Afghanistan when masked men suddenly jumped up from the side of the road, guns blazing.
The ABC news crew inside the truck scrambled to avoid bullets. The men surrounded the truck, weapons drawn, yelling questions and demanding papers. Security is always increased, the crew was told, "when Mr. bin Laden is going to be present."
Correspondent John Miller was about to interview the man who would be
Source: WaPo
Jul 30, 2008
The National Museum of American History, closed for almost 2 years, will reopen Nov. 21, officials announced this morning. The museum closed for renovations in September 2006.
Brent D. Glass, the museum's director, led a hard-hat tour of the newly designed space for the Star-Spangled Banner flag, one of the icon holdings of the museum.
In the area, officials showed the table that will hold the artifact at a slight angle. An abstract flag will mark the entrance to the ga
Source: AP
Jul 30, 2008
MEXICO CITY: Mexican authorities say about 700 artifacts from a private
collection seized in Germany are Mexican and should be returned.
Archaeological experts have examined photographs of artifacts linked to
Costa Rican collector Leonardo Augustus Patterson. They say about half the
collection of masks, jewelry and statues seized in April are genuine
pre-Hispanic artifacts.
Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said Tuesday that
the pieces were illegally ex
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 30, 2008
The secrets of the worlds oldest calculating machine are revealed today,
showing that it had dials to mark the timing of eclipses and the Olympic
games.
Ever since the spectacular bronze device was salvaged from a shipwreck
after its discovery in 1900 many have speculated about the uses of the
mechanical calculator which was constructed long before the birth of
Christ and was one of the wonders of the ancient world.
The dictionary sized crumbly lump containing corroded fragmen
Source: http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester
Jul 30, 2008
WASHINGTON TWP. A team of archaeologists has been surveying the area
beside Egg Harbor Road for the last few months as part of a roadway
improvement study and has uncovered the remains of a 19th century
settlement known as Creesville.
"The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and the New Jersey
Department of Transportation are sponsoring the study," said Senior
Archaeologist Barbara Chi Hsiao Silber of the McCormick Taylor Engineering
and Planning firm in Mount Laurel."As par
Source: WaPo
Jul 30, 2008
They are the everyday items of daily life, tossed off or abandoned by people long gone to their graves, that 300 years later have become the stuff of history.
A button, a bottle, a toothbrush and 300,000 other ordinary relics from colonial-era plantation life on the banks of the Potomac are now historical artifacts, to be examined, admired and cataloged by those who take stock of bygone days.
The items are coming home to the place where they were discovered more than tw
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 30, 2008
Religions thrived to protect our ancestors against the ravages of disease, according to a radical new evolutionary theory of the genesis of faith.
Prof Richard Dawkins the atheist and sceptic, has condemned religion as a "virus of the mind" but it seems that people became religious for good reason - actually to avoid infection by viruses and other diseases - according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences.
Dr C
Source: Dana Milbank in the WaPo
Jul 30, 2008
As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama's biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris.
Some say the supremely confident Obama -- nearly 100 days from the election, he pronounces that "the odds of us winning are very good" -- has become a president-in-waiting. But in truth, he doesn't need to wait: He has already amassed the trappings of the office, without those pesky decisions.
Source: NYT
Jul 30, 2008
The young law professor stood apart in too many ways to count. At a school where economic analysis was all the rage, he taught rights, race and gender. Other junior faculty dreamed of tenured positions; he turned them down. While most colleagues published by the pound, he never completed a single work of legal scholarship.
At a formal institution, Barack Obama was a loose presence, joking with students about their romantic prospects, using first names, referring to case law one mome
Source: AP
Jul 29, 2008
A letter detailing the mood after Harry S. Truman was
elected U.S. president — lost in the postal system for nearly 60 years —
recently turned up in the mailbox of a Kansas woman.
Xan Wedel found the letter, postmarked Nov. 11, 1948, in her mailbox
Friday, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. The envelope was stamped with"Return to sender" and"Found in supposedly empty mailbox," the newspaper
said.
The letter was addressed to a Ruth Willisten in Rockfall, Connecticut, but
it n
Source: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com
Jul 29, 2008
Graduation from Watsonville High School was just a few weeks away in April 1942 when Jiro Sugidono was interned at the Salinas fairgrounds in the midst of anti-Japanese hysteria after Pearl Harbor.
He and his family were living in horse stables when the school principal made the trip to Salinas to hand out diplomas at the detention center. Sugidono, who was born and raised in Watsonville and attended Radcliff, Linscott and E.A. Hall schools, would wait 50 years to participate in a g
Source: CNN
Jul 29, 2008
One of the Marines shown in a famous World War II photograph raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima was posthumously awarded a certificate of U.S. citizenship on Tuesday.
Sgt. Michael Strank, who was born in Czechoslovakia and came to the United States when he was 3, derived U.S. citizenship when his father was naturalized in 1935. However, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently discovered that Strank never was given citizenship papers.
At a ceremony Tuesday at t
Source: Press Release--National Association of Scholars
Jul 29, 2008
The National Association of Scholars has announced the opening of its “Argus project,” an initiative that calls for volunteers to help keep watch over American colleges and universities.
The project is named for the creature in Greek mythology whose body was covered with eyes. “Like Argus, who always had his eyes open, the NAS needs to have a steady, open-eyed watch on colleges around the country,” said Ashley Thorne, NAS director of communications. “To do that, we are asking volunt
