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: Christian Science Monitor
Sep 11, 2007
Sometimes the reaction is a guffaw, sometimes a snort. Either way, it's the disbelieving sound of people learning that an unassuming suburban school called Jefferson County IBS in Irondale, Ala., about as deep in the South as you can get, ranks in the top five high schools in the United States.
"People still have stereotypes of what ... Alabamians are like, and because we talk slower maybe they think we're not on the ball," says Linda Jones, an administrator at the school.
Source: Guardian
Sep 11, 2007
For centuries the ruins in the swamps of southern Panama have been testament to Scottish folly, an attempt to create a tropical empire to rival those of the Spanish and Portuguese.
The five ships which sailed from Leith in the summer of 1698 carried the hopes of a nation. Success in Darien, a central American wilderness chosen as Scotland's gateway to the new world, would bring riches and power and guarantee independence.
Instead it brought disaster. In folklore, the Sc
Source: HNN Staff (Click here to read Mr. Nowrasteh's op ed in the WSJ)
Sep 11, 2007
The screenwriter and producer of the $40 million ABC docudrama, The Path to 9/11 (2006), complains in the Wall Street Journal today that the network is sitting on the DVD version of the production, which was criticized by liberals for insinuating that Bill Clinton was guilty of negligence.
Writes Cyrus Nowrasteh:
The current battle against the DVD version is not taking place in a frenzy of unfounded accusations, but in silence. The normal time frame from b
Source: NYT
Sep 11, 2007
Valencia M. McClatchey thought she was doing the right thing when she gave the F.B.I. a copy of her photo of the mushroom-shaped cloud that rose over the hill outside her home after United Flight 93 crashed in a field here on Sept. 11, 2001.
And, after it became apparent that hers was the only known picture of that ominous gray cloud — and the first taken after Flight 93 crashed — Mrs. McClatchey thought she was still doing the right thing when she gave copies to people who asked fo
Source: BBC
Sep 11, 2007
One of literature's great conspiracy theories has new impetus with Sir Derek Jacobi questioning whether William Shakespeare of Stratford really wrote the works associated with him. So what are the arguments for and against this man really being the Bard?
A formal "declaration of reasonable doubt" about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays and poems has been launched by Sir Derek and Mark Rylance, the former artistic director of the new Globe Theatre.
No new e
Source: BBC
Sep 11, 2007
Scotland's most treasured literary artefacts escaped largely unscathed after a sprinkler system flooded the country's largest library. Five floors of the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh were affected when a sprinkler pipe was broken during renovation work.
Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue said the accident happened at about 2328 BST on Monday.
A spokeswoman said there was no major damage to the collections.
The library had been closed for refur
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Sep 11, 2007
A flap over a Confederate flag is breaking out at the Virginia Capitol.
The dispute isn't over whether to display a Confederate flag -- it's over which Confederate flag to display.
Despite the concerns of Confederate-heritage enthusiasts, officials are not returning a battle flag -- the "Stars and Bars" -- to the Old House Chamber, where it stood for years a short distance from the spot where Gen. Robert E. Lee accepted command of Virginia's armed forces at th
Source: Press Release--Survival International
Sep 11, 2007
Twenty-two years of intensive debate and negotiations climax this week in New York, as the UN General Assembly votes on whether to approve the declaration on indigenous peoples' rights.
Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the Russian Federation (all of whom have large indigenous populations) have been vigorously opposing the declaration's approval. Their actions have provoked outrage amongst tribal peoples worldwide.
Source: http://www.boingboing.net
Sep 11, 2007
Lucy, the famed fossilized skeleton of one of the oldest human ancestors, is coming to visit the US from Ethiopia where Donald Johansen and his colleagues discovered her in 1974. Surprisingly, Lucy won't be on display at two of the premier natural history museums in the country, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Why? Those are just two of the museums who refused the exhibition, arguing that the fragile bones should r
Source: NYT
Sep 10, 2007
A simple wooden cross hanging from his neck, the Rev. Rubén Capitanio sat before a microphone on Monday and did what few Argentine priests before him had dared to do: condemn the Roman Catholic Church for its complicity in the atrocities committed during Argentina’s “dirty war.”
“The attitude of the church was scandalously close to the dictatorship” that killed more than 15,000 Argentines and tortured tens of thousands more, the priest told a panel of three judges here, “to such an
Source: http://www.swissinfo.org
Sep 10, 2007
Archaeologists have discovered traces of Switzerland’s oldest known building, but it will never draw tourists: it lies underwater in the middle of a lake.
Since it was made of wood scientists used dendrochronology – the technique of dating by tree rings – to give a precise figure of 3863 BC.
The find in Lake Biel, northwest of the Swiss capital, Bern, was described as “sensational” by Albert Hafner, who is in charge of underwater archaeology in the region.
Divers
Source: AP
Sep 10, 2007
From the porch of her mud hut, Vera Filonok saw tens of thousands of Jews shot, thrown in a ravine and set on fire. Many were still alive and they writhed in the flames "like flies and worms."
The memories of what she saw in 1941 have seared her soul for six decades, but until recently she had talked about it with no one except neighbors in her remote Ukrainian village. Then a soft-spoken French priest came to town.
Roman Catholic Rev. Patrick Desbois and his
Source: NYT
Sep 10, 2007
Efforts by preservationists and history enthusiasts to save an Art Deco building in Dayton where a secret program broke Nazi codes have failed to stop plans to relocate some architectural flourishes and raze the rest.
Contractors are scheduled to begin removing the building’s crown molding, limestone window sills, stone lintels and bricks on Monday. What is left will be demolished next year to make way for a 50-acre redevelopment on land bought in 2005 by the University of Dayton.
Source: BBC
Sep 10, 2007
Archaeologists in Jerusalem say they have found an underground drainage channel that was used by Jews to escape from the Romans in 70 AD.
The channel was buried under the rubble of the Second Temple, which was destroyed by Roman conquerors in the Siege of Jerusalem.
Scores of people are thought to have sheltered and lived in the tunnel until they were able to flee the city.
Several parts of the tunnel have been preserved intact.
Source: Time
Sep 10, 2007
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is an unlikely place to launch a bid to become
leader of the free world, but the former Tennessee senator and Law and Order
star Fred Thompson isn't the first 2008 presidential candidate to kick off his
or her campaign in a non-traditional setting.
Rudy Giuliani announced his candidacy on Larry King Live; Mike Huckabee did it
on Meet the Press; Hillary Clinton formally threw her hat in the ring via a
short web video; and John Edwards made his intent
Source: Reuters
Sep 10, 2007
Archaeologists exhumed the body of a Viking queen on Monday, hoping to solve
a riddle about whether a woman buried with her 1,200 years ago was a servant
killed to be a companion into the afterlife.
As a less gruesome alternative, the two women in the grass-covered Oseberg
mound in south Norway might be a royal mother and daughter who died of the
same disease and were buried together in 834.
"We will do DNA tests to try to find out. I don't know of any Viking
skeletons that h
Source: National Security Archive
Sep 10, 2007
A collection of recently declassified NSC and State Department documents published today by the National Security Archive sheds new light on Algerian-Chinese nuclear relations and Beijing's role in U.S. nonproliferation efforts during the George H.W. Bush administration. The discovery of a Chinese-supplied nuclear reactor project in Algeria stimulated a controversy over whether Algiers sought a weapons capability and the extent to which Beijing was abetting nuclear proliferation.
A
Source: AP
Sep 10, 2007
Millions of descendants of Confucius are being listed in an international updating of the Chinese philosopher's more than 2,500-year-old family tree, a Taiwanese newspaper reported Monday.
The laborious task — being conducted in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and several other Asian countries — will include an estimated 3 million descendants when it is completed by 2009, the Liberty Times said.
It said the project was being coordinated in Hong Kong, but did not provide furthe
Source: The Age (Australia)
Sep 10, 2007
History teachers claim the Federal Government has shut them out of the development of a national Australian history curriculum for high schools, alleging the politically sensitive document is being "drafted in backrooms".The History Teachers Association of Australia has written to federal Education Minister Julie Bishop and Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith, claiming it was "increasingly concerned" about what was happening with the proposed nat
Source: CanWest News Service
Sep 10, 2007
It's the oldest object of its kind in Australia's history, but up until this past summer it was buried in the bowels of the Canada's national archives collection.On Tuesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will bring it home, handing it to his Australian counterpart over lunch in the country's capital as he wraps up a week-long trip.The mysterious item is an old theatre program, 211 years old, and now recognized as the oldest printed document in Australia's history. But it onl
