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: Fox News
November 21, 2009
Justice Ministry spokeswoman Katharina Jahntz on Saturday confirmed a report in Der Spiegel that a German observer would attend the trial to ensure that no evidence provided by Germany would be used to apply the death penalty.
A German government official says the nation will send an observer to the upcoming trial in New York of the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and four accused henchmen.
Three of the four suicide pilots who carried out the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 21, 2009
The latest initiative by our "Children's Secretary", Ed Balls, is to abolish what remains of fact-based teaching of history and geography in our schools. He plans to "roll them together into themed lessons on social issues such as global warming" (funny how that seems to seep into everything nowadays).
The ruthless drive of educational progressives to eliminate history-teaching from schools has been under way since the 1960s. The aim is to ensure that children kn
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
November 21, 2009
A cigar smoked by Prime Minister Winston Churchill as he planned D-Day has been discovered - after being hidden for more than 60 years.
Christian Williams, 33, was given the artefact when he was just 12 by his grandfather Ronald Williams, a WWII veteran who served as the British premier's butler.
At more than 6in long, the cigar has never been touched by its owner, who keeps it safe in a sturdy wooden box.
It was taken from the historic Casablanca Conferenc
Source: Time
November 18, 2009
As a teenager, Leonor Marquez led a fleet-footed unit of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrilla fighters through the steep mountain passes of Perkin, El Salvador. "We were young and fast," Marquez, now 37, remembers. She and her comrades, who were known as "Las Samuelitas", were a fierce group of insurgents who might have been giddy junior high girls had they not been in El Salvador in the 1980s.
The civil war ended 17 years ago, but Marqu
Source: Talking Point Memo
November 20, 2009
President Obama's approval rating has fallen below 50% in the Gallup poll for the first time, the organization has announced.
The full number will be released at 1 p.m. ET. (Late Update: The number has been posted, with 49% approval to 44% disapproval.)
As Gallup has previously noted, every president since World War II, except for John F. Kennedy, eventually went below 50%. The shortest time for such a fall belongs to Gerald Ford at three months, while the longest (exce
Source: Time
November 21, 2009
... China's concerns, of course, have dramatically expanded in recent years, as was emphasized by Beijing's anxiety over the implication for its own dollar-denominated wealth of U.S. budget deficits. At the same time, Beijing is in no hurry to play the "other" global superpower rule vacated by the Soviet Union two decades ago.
Herewith, three key lessons to draw from the visit:
1. China's Star Has Risen and America's Has Ebbed, But the U.S. is 'Too Big to Fail
Source: Rasmussen Reports
November 20, 2009
Just 35% of New York State voters agree with Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try the confessed mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks and five other suspected terrorists in a civilian court in New York City rather than before a military tribunal.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds that 55% are opposed to that decision, which is part of the Obama administration’s effort to close the terrorist prison camp at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba.
Source: NYT
November 20, 2009
Britain may finally be emerging from recession, but many analysts warn that it is a false dawn. In fact, they argue, the economy here is so ravaged by growing debts and ruined banks that it could well be following in the steps of Japan’s lost decade of the 1990s.
The parallels are eerie: Like Japan, Britain enjoyed more than a decade of booming growth, fueled by aggressive bank lending and real estate investments. Haunted by the comparison, policy makers here have been extra aggress
Source: NYT
November 20, 2009
Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.
The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skept
Source: BBC
November 21, 2009
Letters sent by a Battle of Britain fighter pilot to his sweetheart in Norfolk have sold at auction for £2,100.
Sgt Eric Arthur Redfern wrote to Joan Preston, who would later become his wife, while serving in the RAF under the command of Douglas Bader.
The collection also included a letter informing her of his death in action in 1942, a few months after their wedding.
Photographs and medals were also sold at Ely in Cambridgeshire.
Source: BBC
November 20, 2009
Ceremonies are taking place around the world to mark the 20th anniversary of a landmark agreement protecting children.
The UN says the Convention on the Rights of the Child has transformed the way children are treated.
But it says a billion children in the world still go without food, shelter or healthcare and that millions are facing lives of poverty and abuse.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), signed in 1989, guarantees children the right
Source: Fox News
November 21, 2009
A German auction house says it has withdrawn from sale a painting that the Max Stern estate claims was one of hundreds the Jewish art dealer was forced to sell off by the Nazis.
Karl-Sax Feddersen, responsible for legal affairs at the Duesseldorf-based Lempertz auction house, said the picture by Alexander Adriaenssen had been pulled from Saturday's sale and its owner notified.
The estate claims it is one of some 400 works from Stern's collection sold under duress betwee
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 20, 2009
Adolf Hitler was "the German Mussolini" who was "a very cunning demagogue", according to a hand-written report from a French spy in 1924.
The document is among thousands of paper on 1920s Germany that are about to emerge from obscurity as part of a major overhaul of the French National Archives.
The yellowed note from 1924 features a photograph of Hitler in a suit and tie, sporting his trademark side-parting and moustache, and lists his occupation a
Source: Inside Higher Ed
November 20, 2009
The Ku Klux Klan is planning a rally at the University of Mississippi Saturday to protest the university's ban on shouting the final line of a fight song: "The South shall rise again," The Memphis Commercial Appeal reported. The university has been discouraging the last line -- going so far as to change a song commonly performed at football games -- because the line is offensive to many who see it as a link to the university's racist past. The Klan sees the issue in a different way. &q
Source: Truthout
November 20, 2009
Since Veterans Day, Thomas E. Mahany, a 62-year-old Vietnam War veteran, has been on a hunger strike in front of the White House to raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder and protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mahany recently wrote a letter to President Obama calling on him to "withdraw our military men and women from the Middle East now." He said he plans to only drink water "until specific action is taken by your administration and our military
Source: Spiegel Online
November 19, 2009
Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.
At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the lon
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
November 20, 2009
A new contemplation garden at the University of California at Davis honors the Patwin people, who once inhabited the land that became the campus. The garden, part of the university's 100-acre arboretum, is located on the bank of Putah Creek and includes 34 kinds of trees and plants that the Patwin used. The garden identifies many by their Patwin names.
The garden also includes a series of engraved basalt columns, one of which records the names of 51 Patwin men, women, and children w
Source: CNSNews
November 20, 2009
About 1,200 Christian activists mobilized on college campuses nationwide on Wednesday to give away 170,000 copies of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the classic text on evolution. The book, however, contains a ‘Special Introduction’ by evangelist Ray Comfort that argues against Darwin’s theory and presents a creationist alternative to man’s origins and nature’s growth...
...November 24 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. Because the bo
Source: Secrecy News
November 20, 2009
“In recent years, China has become the world’s fastest growing automotive producer,” according to a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.“[China's] annual vehicle output has increased from less than 2 million vehicles in the late 1990s to 9.5 million in 2008. In terms of production volume in 2008, China has surpassed Korea, France, Germany, and the United States, trailing only Japan.”“China’s automobile ind
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 19, 2009
The Global Language Monitor, which uses a math formula to track the frequency of words and phrases in print and electronic media, said "Obama" came third in the list with the surname of U S President Barack Obama used as the stem for other words.
"Bail-out" was listed fourth after the bank bail-out was one of the first acts of the financial crisis, "evacuee" came fifth in the wake of Hurricane Katrina devastating New Orleans, and "derivative"
