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: Fairfax Media
Jan 10, 2008
A small fishing village established 2900 years ago in Tonga has been confirmed as the first settlement in Polynesia.
Using pottery shards, archaeologist David Burley says they have confirmed Nukuleka, just east of Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, is Polynesia's birthplace.
The confirmation comes as something of a blow for Samoa which has advertised itself for decades as the "cradle of Polynesia".
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Jan 10, 2008
Nine years ago, an array of American Indians, environmentalists, preservationists, New Age spiritualists, diviners, even Cub Scouts rose up to save the Miami Circle, a 2,000-year-old artifact that many embraced as America's own Stonehenge.
But today, the Circle — a series of loaf-shaped holes chiseled into the limestone bedrock at the mouth of the Miami River — is interred beneath bags of sand and gravel, laid over the formation in 2003 to protect it from the elements, and now will
Source: MSNBC
Jan 10, 2008
Lead in your lipstick? Mercury in your mascara? Recent headlines about harmful ingredients hiding in beauty products are enough to make even the vainest among us want to go back to the good old days of rubbing strawberries on our lips to make them red.
But women (and men) have plastered a lot more than berry juice onto their skin in the never-ending quest to look hot (or extremely pallid, as was usually the case back in the day). Some beauty products of yesteryear contained high con
Source: Pamela Charshee in the Baltimore Sun
Jan 10, 2008
What is the price of history?
It's impossible to figure. But we are nagged by that question with news of the impending sale of the President Street station - the sale of Baltimore's Civil War history.
Baltimore is rich in historical structures (it's the "Monumental City," right?) and studded with an array of heritage venues that other cities should envy over their potential for tourism development. Why, in a town steeped in history going back to Colonial times
Source: AFP
Jan 10, 2008
Eyebrows were raised in the House of Commons on Thursday when a motion calling for the Church of England to be disestablished was listed with the number 666, symbol of the AntiChrist.
"This number is supposed to be the mark of the Devil. It looks as though God or the Devil have been moving in mysterious ways," said Bob Russell, a Liberal Democrat MP among those proposing the motion for debate.
"What is even stranger is that this motion was tabled last nig
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 10, 2008
The Church of England has signalled that it is prepared to see the abolition of blasphemy offences after the Government announced a review of the ancient law.
The moves follow a cross-party move by MPs to sweep away legal protections for the Anglican faith, first disclosed in The Daily Telegraph this week....
The principle of blasphemy laws dates back to ancient times, but the present common law offence of "blasphemous libel" is based on 19th century court rul
Source: UPI
Jan 9, 2008
Newly declassified U.S. documents show there were inaccuracies and errors in intelligence intercepted before and during the Vietnam War.
The National Security Agency had some 10,000 cryptographers and other intelligence gathering and translation personnel in Southeast Asia in 1964, yet NSA historian Robert Hanyok wrote in the agency's history that two key points in the war had intelligence problems....
Source: NYT
Jan 9, 2008
Pre-primary tracking polls conducted by some of the nation’s most reputable polling organizations like Gallup and CNN, raised expectations in the Obama campaign, lowered them in the Clinton campaign and had the media reporting that Barack Obama was such a strong candidate after his victory in Iowa that he was virtually unstoppable. But last night Hillary Rodham Clinton proved wrong what had by then become the conventional wisdom and won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, shifting the klieg li
Source: Reuters
Jan 9, 2008
As David Matsuda tells it, he's probably the last person you'd expect to see in a U.S. military uniform climbing out of an armored vehicle in Iraq.
An anthropology professor from the East Bay campus of California State University near San Francisco, he's a self-described peacenik who opposed the war in Iraq, did his academic research in Guatemala and never carries a gun.
"I'm a Californian. I'm a liberal. I'm a Democrat," he says. "My impetus is to come h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 9, 2008
The Government could be urged to accept that Northern Ireland's terrorist conflict amounted to a war by the official body looking at the legacy of the Troubles.
The proposal was one of a controversial set of options outlined by Ulster's new Consultative Group on the Past, which has also suggested handing an amnesty to paramilitaries who are prepared to admit to their crimes.
The proposals were greeted with anger from politicians and victims' groups, who objected to rede
Source: NYT
Jan 9, 2008
NICE, France — On a February morning in 2006, a group of experts in Russian art approached the onion-domed Russian church here and demanded to be admitted to take an inventory of the building and its contents — icons, liturgical vestments, incense burners, everything.
“We refused them entry,” even though they had an order from a local judge, said the Rev. Jean Gueit, for the last four years the archpriest of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas. “It was a long morning,” he added.
Source: News Tribune (Jefferson City, MO)
Jan 9, 2008
Worried about a push to take the religious references out of time, a state senator has filed a bill that would mandate the use of B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini or “Year of our Lord”). Many historians and textbook publishers have switched to B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) as a nod toward non-Christians.“There is an effort to sort of scrub our public institutions of acknowledgment of God,” said Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield. He said it would b
Source: Chicago Tribune
Jan 9, 2008
Maps don't just describe the landscape. They can transform it.
It's because of a map that Chicago has 1,900 miles of alleys, the most in the world. Maps were key in making the lakefront beautiful -- and in helping to ruin some neighborhoods.
A 172-year-old map is at the center of the ongoing dispute in Chicago about building the new Children's Museum in Grant Park.
Maps have made the careers of some Chicago alderman -- and destroyed those of others. Indeed,
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Jan 9, 2008
In a report issued today, a Presidential advisory board proposed dozens
of steps to promote a more rational, uniform and productive process for
declassification of historical records.
Declassification policy must"take into account the interest of
ordinary citizens in having as 'thorough, accurate, and reliable' a
record of their country's history as soon as it is possible to provide
it," wrote Martin Faga, acting chair of the Public Interest
Declassification Board (and former directo
Source: http://www.physorg.com
Jan 8, 2008
The historical, competitive, and ideological factors that structure the practices of commercial mythmaking remain largely unexplored and undertheorized. Now, a study from the February 2008 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research investigates these interrelationships by performing a comparative analysis of two prominent New South mythmakers – editors of nationally distributed magazines about the South – who are seeking to ideologically reconstruct the historical legacy of antebellum, confederat
Source: AFP
Jan 8, 2008
North Vietnamese made hoax calls to get the US military to bomb its own units during the Vietnam War, according to declassified information that also confirmed US officials faked an incident to escalate the war.
The report was released by the National Security Agency, responsible for much of the United States' codebreaking and eavesdropping work, in response to a "mandatory declassification" request, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said Monday.
Fro
Source: National Security Archive
Jan 8, 2008
In an Order issued today, Magistrate Judge Facciola of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the White House to answer questions about over 5 million missing e-mails generated between 2003-2005. Noting that the need for information the missing e-mails is "time-sensitive" because of the risk that stored copied of the e-mails "are increasingly likely to be deleted or overridden with the passage of time," the Court demanded answers in a sworn decl
Source: AP
Jan 8, 2008
New Jersey became the first Northern state to apologize for slavery, as legislators approved a resolution Monday expressing "profound regret" for the state's role in the practice.
The Assembly and the Senate 29-2 both voted overwhelmingly to approve the resolution, which expresses the Legislature's opinion without requiring action by the governor.
"This resolution does nothing more than say New Jersey is sorry about its shameful past," said Assemblym
Source: AP
Jan 8, 2008
The war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, resumed Monday as prosecutors opened their case, with testimony from an expert on “blood diamonds” and video of a miner from Sierra Leone whose hands had been hacked off.
Mr. Taylor, 59, the first former African head of state to appear before an international tribunal, has pleaded not guilty to the 11 charges against him, which include murder, rape, enslavement and conscripting child soldiers.
He
Source: New Republic
Jan 8, 2008
Since at least 1978, Ron Paul has attached his name to a series of newsletters--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report, and The Ron Paul Investment Letter--that frequently made outrageous statements:
"A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992: "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. ... What if the chec
