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: Newsweek
Dec 6, 2010
The entire 42-member Senate Republican caucus' decision to filibuster all legislation until an extension of the Bush tax cuts is passed is unusual, but it is not entirely unprecedented. Typically the filibuster, wherein a block of 41 or more senators vote against ending debate and moving to a vote on legislation, is used to stop bills that the minority finds especially dangerous. Historically it was employed infrequently, but its use has proliferated in the last few years. With Republicans now r
Source: NYT
Dec 6, 2010
“As I was going to St. Ives
I met a man with seven wives. ...”
You may know this singsong quiz,
But what you might not know is this:
That it began with ancient Egypt’s
Early math-filled manuscripts.
It’s true. That very British-sounding St. Ives conundrum (the one where the seven wives each have seven sacks containing seven cats who each have seven kits, and you have to figure out how many are going to St. Ives) has a
Source: NY Times
Dec 6, 2010
They came in throngs. On Friday afternoon hundreds of residents from this tiny hilltop town in eastern Sicily excitedly trekked up the steep slope to the town’s archaeology museum to celebrate the return to Aidone of a treasure trove that was buried nearby some 2,200 years ago and illegally whisked away in more recent times.
This year this cache of 16 Hellenistic silver-gilt objects known as the Morgantina silver was on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For decades
Source: AFP
Dec 6, 2010
Archaeologists have discovered an iron oxide mine from 12,000 years ago in northern Chile, making it the oldest mine yet discovered in all the Americas, the El Mercurio daily says.
The iron oxide mined by the Huentelauquen Indians was used as a pigment in dying cloth and in religious rituals, revealing an unexpected sophistication in what was previously considered a primitive group of people, University of Chile researcher Diego Salazar said on Sunday.
"The fact th
Source: BBC Magazine
Dec 6, 2010
A bipartisan agreement has been reached to extend soon-to-expire Bush era tax cuts to all Americans, President Barack Obama has announced
Referring to the bitter wrangling over the issue, Mr Obama said he would not "let working families become collateral damage for political warfare".
Some Democrats have said the deal, which must be voted on by Congress, is too generous to the wealthy.
Unemployment benefits will also be renewed under the agreement
Source: NYT
Dec 6, 2010
Long before its history was marked by the sound of bullets, thousands of fragrant flowers and crowds grievously singing “Imagine,” the Dakota was just another historic Manhattan co-op where among its famous inhabitants lived a musician named John Lennon.
Before he was gunned down in front of the building 30 years ago Wednesday, he was the seventh-floor resident who brought sushi to the building’s October potluck. He was known as a protective father and an enterprising real estate c
Source: CHE
Dec 6, 2010
Harvard University has made the first substantial changes in its primary governing board since 1650, when the university was chartered. In a report released on Monday, Harvard said it would nearly double the size of the seven-member Harvard Corporation, and would also create committees and impose term limits on board members.
The corporation's self-imposed modifications follow a bumpy financial ride for the nation's wealthiest university, which saw its endowment value plummet by mor
Source: Deseret News
Dec 6, 2010
SALT LAKE CITY — In a big glass house overlooking the Utah State Capitol, Ted Nagata, 75, sits in front of his Macintosh and clicks through the scenes of his childhood. Here he is, smiling, with his sister and mother, he says. Here he is with a good friend. Here he is with his schoolmates, behind barbed wire under armed watch.
In the Avenues of Salt Lake City, sandwiched between two $1 million homes, Raymond Uno, 80 — sans photos — recounts a similar story. He was in middle school i
Source: Guardian (UK)
Dec 6, 2010
People living in medieval England were more prosperous than modern day residents of the world's poorest nations, a study into Britain's economic history has found....
The paper, British Economic Growth 1270-1870, is published by the university's Centre on Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy, and estimates that per capita income in England in the late middle ages was about $1,000 or £634 a year when compared with currency values in 1990.
According to the World Ba
Source: Chattanooga Times Free Press
Dec 6, 2010
Dr. David O’Neal said it was just another casualty at the time, but one wrong move might have ended his life and that of his patient.
The retired Chattanooga physician was the chief of orthopedic surgery aboard the USS Repose, moored at Da Nang, South Vietnam, when the incident occurred in 1969.
The 14-year-old South Vietnamese boy who was brought aboard had a live gas canister buried in his thigh, between two parts of a shattered femur, after absorbing what was thought
Source: WaPo
Dec 6, 2010
LINCOLN, Mont. -- A 1.4-acre parcel of land in western Montana that was once owned by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is on the market for $69,500.
The listing - by John Pistelak Realty of Lincoln - offers potential buyers a chance to own a piece of "infamous U.S. history."
"This is a one of a kind property and is obviously very secluded," the listing says. It doesn't say who owns the property....
Source: NYT
Dec 6, 2010
PHILADELPHIA — A galloping horse weather vane sold for about $20,000, and the cigar store Indians brought in more than $1 million. A Thomas Sully oil painting of Andrew Jackson netted $80,500, and a still life by Raphaelle Peale, part of the family that put portraiture in this city on the map, was auctioned at Christie’s for $842,500.
These were just a few of more than 2,000 items quietly sold by the Philadelphia History Museum over the last several years, all part of an effort to c
Source: BBC Sports
Dec 6, 2010
Marion Jones says she did not deserve a prison term for lying about steroid use and involvement in a drugs fraud case.
Jones, 35, who won three gold medals at the Sydney Olympics, was given a six-month prison sentence in January 2008.
"I know I broke the law and committed a crime by lying," the former fastest woman in the world told Inside Sport.
"My reputation, fame and fortune was lost. Learning that lesson would have benefitted society more than
Source: LA Times
Dec 5, 2010
Reporting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. —
Saul Dreier and Lucy Weinberg lost their families in the Holocaust, and for more than half a century they'd lost each other too.
The cousins emigrated to separate countries, where they learned English, fell in love, married, had children and led happy lives.
Each thought the other had died at the Nazis' hands. But on Thursday, they hugged for the first time since the 1940s.
"Is this Lucy? Is this Lucy?"
Source: BBC News
Dec 5, 2010
The Jesuit church of Concepcion dominates the town's cobblestone main square. Its orange and yellow images of saints and ornate flower designs painted on the facade glow in the full splendour of 18th century architecture.
On a starry night, recalling the days of Jesuit evangelisation a few centuries ago, a sonata for double violin by Domenico Zipoli resonates inside the huge church.
A baroque ensemble of young players is serenading international visitors who have come t
Source: The Washington Post
Dec 5, 2010
Centreville resident Karen Schweikart digs history.
Bent over a shallow pit on a recent Saturday morning, Schweikart, with a garden trowel and metal dust pan, performed the slow and meticulous task of archeology. She was working to exhume what remains of a colonial era building that might help historians learn more about the port town of Colchester.
Colchester once was a bustling port to which tobacco planters from southern plantations would bring their crop for expor
Source: National Parks Traveler
Dec 5, 2010
For 25 cents you'll soon be able to put Glacier National Park in your pocket. Or Olympic National Park, Gettysburg National Military Park, Vicksburg National Military Park, or Chickasaw National Recreation Area, for that matter.
Those five units of the National Park System will be honored by the U.S. Mint next year with commemorative quarters of their very own. They represent the second set of coins in its America the Beautiful Quarters Program.
The Gettysburg quarter r
Source: USA Today
Dec 5, 2010
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — The motto "Remember Pearl Harbor" is taking on a more poignant, urgent tone.
The national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association's numbers have dropped so low, the possibility of shuttering it will be discussed at its national convention in Honolulu, which begins Saturday and runs through Friday.
Out of 60,000 military personnel on the island during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, there are only an estimated 3,000 survivors still participating in
Source: CHE
Dec 5, 2010
In medieval times, Lichfield, England, was a thriving cultural and religious center. As time marched on, though, modern innovations left it behind. The canals of the 18th century, the railroads of the 19th, and the highways of the 20th all passed it by.
Now a literary scholar and a computer scientist from the University of Kentucky have brought 21st-century digital imaging to Lichfield, to study and help preserve one of its most ancient treasures: the eighth-century illustrated Lat
Source: Guardian (UK)
Dec 5, 2010
A country palace given to Spain's former fascist dictator, General Francisco Franco, to use as his summer house is to be expropriated from his family and donated to the people of the country town of Sada, north-west Spain.
The town hall of Sada has passed a motion that it claims will permit it to take control of the Pazo de Meirás, a crenellated country pile with views over the verdant countryside of Galicia.
Town councillors have decreed that the palace, built in the 1
