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: CNN
December 7, 2009
One major group in the Tea Party movement -- named after the famous Boston Tea Party -- is set to host its first convention in February, with former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as its keynote speaker.
But there are fractures in the movement that threaten its future. And if history's any guide, such movements tend to flame out.
The Tea Party movement erupted on April 15 -- tax day -- over criticism of President Obama's econ
Source: RGJ
December 6, 2009
It’s been 68 years since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, but Howard J. Spreeman of Carson City says he remembers nearly every detail of the attack that drew America into World War II.
“I was just ordering breakfast,” said Spreeman, who was an aviation radioman stationed at Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay, across from Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. “I ordered bacon and eggs. It’s one of those things I’ll never forget.
“And a plane came over and almost took the roof of th
Source: BBC
December 6, 2009
Archaeologists have found evidence of mass cannibalism at a 7,000-year-old human burial site in south-west Germany, the journal Antiquity reports.
The authors say their findings provide rare evidence of cannibalism in Europe's early Neolithic period.
Up to 500 human remains unearthed near the village of Herxheim may have been cannibalised.
Source: BBC News
July 12, 2009
Wines from one of the world's most famous cellars, belonging to La Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris, are to go under the hammer.
A total of 18,000 bottles - including wine from Cognac, Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux - will be auctioned.
The sale is intended to raise 1m euros (£0.9m) to renew the cellar's contents and ensure the restaurant keeps its multiple Michelin stars.
Its wine list is 400 pages long, with no fewer than 15,000 tipples.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 7, 2009
A senior Army officer has told the Iraq Inquiry he urged Tony Blair to delay the invasion of Iraq two days before the start of the war because preparations for the aftermath of the conflict were not "anywhere near ready".
Major General Tim Cross, who was attached to the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (Orha) set up by the US to manage post-war reconstruction, said plans were "woefully thin".
Previous witnesses have told the in
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 7, 2009
Adolf Hitler’s hatred of Jews stemmed from the mistaken belief that his mother was poisoned by a Jewish doctor, according to a new book.
Hitler’s mother Klara had breast cancer but died as a result of poisoning from the idoform which was given to her by Dr Eduard Bloch. The use of idoform as a treatment for breast cancer was a standard medical practice when she died in 1907 at the age of 47.
The future dictator was 18 at the time and the author of the book, Joachim Ri
Source: Fox News
December 5, 2009
65 million years after they ruled the planet, dinosaurs are back.
A new four-part miniseries on the Discovery Channel peels back the millennia and the skin, revealing a never before seen look at the birth and death of dinosaurs.
Researchers have made incredible leaps in the last year or two, learning previously unknown details about how the giant creatures were born, smelled, thought, acted and more. This Sunday at 8 p.m., a new series captures those advances like never
Source: AP
December 6, 2009
Ed Johann will always remember the sound of planes diving out of the sky to bomb U.S. battleships, the explosions and the screams of sailors. He still recalls the stench of burning oil and flesh.
The 86-year-old retired firefighter is due to return Monday to Pearl Harbor for the first time since World War II to attend a ceremony marking the 68th anniversary of the Japanese attack.
For years, Johann said he wouldn't go to the annual observance in Hawaii in honor of those
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 6, 2009
Spain has apologised to a man jailed for being homosexual in the 1970s under a law introduced by General Francisco Franco.
Antoni Ruiz, 50, has become the first Spaniard to receive official recognition of his suffering more than three decades after he was imprisoned for his sexual orientation.
An estimated 5,000 men served prison sentences during the dictatorship of Gen Franco when homosexuality was made illegal but Mr Ruiz was one of the few sentenced for the crime fo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 6, 2009
The death certificate of Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the legendary First World War German flying ace better known as 'Red Baron', has been discovered in Poland.
Ninety-one years after Von Richthofen died after being shot down near the River Somme in France Maciej Kowalczyk, a genealogist, found the document in archives belonging to the western Polish town of Ostrow Wielkopolski.
Mr Kowalczyk explained that the town, which in 1918 was part of Germany, issued the death
Source: CNN
December 6, 2009
A letter penned by George Washington praising the new Constitution sold for $3.2 million at an auction, the highest price for a letter by America's first president.
The four-page letter in Washington's slanting penmanship was written to his nephew Bushrod Washington in November 1787, according to Christie's, the company that auctioned it.
It was in the possession of an unidentified British descendant of his family, Christie's said.
In the letter written fro
Source: 12-6-09
December 31, 2069
A leading Republican strategist and one-time aide to former Vice President Cheney said Sunday that President Obama’s recently announced decision to send an additional 30, 000 troops to Afghanistan is “a reassertion of the Bush doctrine.”
“The [Bush] doctrine is no safe havens [for terrorists intent on harming the United States] and we go after those that provide a harbor [for such terrorists]. That’s the doctrine,” Republican strategist Mary Matalin explained Sunday on CNN’s State o
Source: Times Online (UK)
December 6, 2009
EGYPT is preparing to make a formal request for the return of the Rosetta Stone, the ancient artefact that helped to unlock the secrets of the pharaohs, from the British Museum.
Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said he is preparing to "fight" for the restitution of the stone which has been on display in the museum in London since 1802.
Hawass hopes Britain will hand it back in time for the opening of a new museum near the pyra
Source: BBC News
December 4, 2009
Google has added Pompeii to its Street View application, allowing internet users to take a 360-degree virtual tour of the ancient Roman city.
Italy's culture ministry says it hopes the move will boost tourism to the site, state news agency Ansa reports.
Among the ruins visible on the search engine's free mapping service are the town's statues, temples and theatres.
The city was buried in ash after Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79 and was not discovered until
Source: AFP
December 6, 2009
THE US has lacked reliable information on al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts for years, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says.
The revelation from Mr Gates, speaking in an interview with the ABC News This Week program to be aired overnight, comes days after US President Barack Obama announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
In excerpts of the interview released ahead of the broadcast, Mr Gates also could not confirm reports about a detainee
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 4, 2009
The 7,112 acres - or 11 square miles - of Crow Creek Sioux ancestral land in central South Dakota was auctioned off on Thursday by the US Internal Revenue Service to help pay off more than $3.1 million (£1.9 million) in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest.
The land, part of the tribe's original reservation established in an 1868 treaty, was originally held by the federal government in a trust for the tribe.
However, it was later divided up between individual tribal mem
Source: Yahoo News
December 4, 2009
A massive volcanic eruption that occurred in the distant past killed off much of central India's forests and may have pushed humans to the brink of extinction, according to a new study that adds evidence to a controversial topic.
The Toba eruption, which took place on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia about 73,000 years ago, released an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere that blanketed the skies and blocked out sunlight for six years. In the aftermath, global
Source: OpEdNews
December 4, 2009
RWANDAN genocide hero and inspiration behind the film Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina, says the east African country has neither healed from the 1994 genocide nor learned any lessons from it, as he accused the Rwandan government of continuing human rights abuses through the alleged arbitrary arrest and transportation of Hutus to work illegally in mines in the Congo.
The former hotel manager, who risked his life and saved 1289 people from machete wielding militias and armed forces by
Source: BBC
December 5, 2009
A retired colonel in the Guatemalan army has been sentenced to 53 years in prison for crimes committed during the country's civil war.
Col Marco Antonio Sanchez's conviction is the first against an army officer since the war ended.
It spanned 36 years and led to the deaths of at least 200,000 people.
Col Sanchez was found guilty of being responsible for the forced disappearance of eight farm workers in what is being seen as a test case.
Source: NYT
December 5, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — These are emotional times in Pakistan, particularly since President Obama told its leaders last week to fight harder against Islamist extremists, and expanded a deeply unpopular covert air strike program in Pakistani territory.
After Mr. Obama’s speech at West Point, newspapers and talk shows here were full of heated commentary that those demands would push Pakistan further toward disaster. “Approval of increasing drone strikes in Pakistan,” blared one headline
