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: AP
November 11, 2009
The famed Navajo Code Talkers, the elite Marine unit whose unbreakable code stymied the Japanese in World War II, fear their legacy will die with them.
Only about 50 of the 400 Code Talkers are believed to be still alive, most living in the Navajo Nation reservation that spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Many are frail or ill, with little time left to tell the world about their wartime contribution.
But on Wednesday, 13 of the Code Talkers are coming to New York City
Source: CNN
November 11, 2009
Red Army tank commander Sgt. Mikhail Kalashnikov invented his first machine gun in 1942, during the Second World War, as he sat in a hospital bed recovering from a wound that he got in western Russia.
But as Russians say, the first blintz always comes out wrong. His first model had inborn flaws and defects, and is now on display in an arms museum bearing his name.
It took him several more years to develop and fine-tune what later became an internationally recognized per
Source: NYT
November 8, 2009
For decades the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has been the subject of passionate debate. His critique of Western thought and technology has penetrated deeply into architecture, psychology and literary theory and inspired some of the most influential intellectual movements of the 20th century. Yet he was also a fervent Nazi.
Now a soon-to-be published book in English has revived the long-running debate about whether the man can be separated from his philosophy. Drawing on new e
Source: NYT
November 9, 2009
MOSCOW — What’s powering your home appliances?
For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones.
“It’s a great, easy source” of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war.
But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn’t secured soon, the pipeline
Source: Discovery News (via OpEdNews.com)
November 8, 2009
The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology's biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.
Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said
Source: VOA News
November 10, 2009
President Barack Obama says he wants to visit the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sometime during his presidency, but will not have time when he travels to Japan later this week.
In an interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK, Mr. Obama said he would be honored to have the opportunity to visit the two cities that were devastated by U.S. atomic bombs at the end of World War II.
If he does, Mr. Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and
Source: Rasmussen Reports
November 9, 2009
Twenty-eight percent (28%) of adults nationwide believe that veterans of today’s conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan face more challenges when they return home than veterans of the Vietnam War.
However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that another 24% believe veterans of today’s conflicts face fewer challenges when they arrive home compared to those who served in Vietnam.
The plurality (42%) believes the challenges veterans from both eras have
Source: CNN
November 10, 2009
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- North and South Korea said their naval forces clashed Tuesday in disputed waters, and each blamed the other for what is the first such violent incident in seven years...
... North and South Korea have been bitterly divided since the 1950-53 war between them ended without a peace treaty.
There was, however, an armistice with the U.N. Command establishing the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a demarcation on the Yellow Sea designed to avert clashes a
Source: Yahoo News
November 10, 2009
CAIRO – Egypt's famous Tomb of Tutankhamun will undergo a five-year project to clean and restore the lavish wall paintings in the underground chambers of the boy king whose golden mask and artifacts have long awed the world.
The project to restore the country's most famous tomb is the latest collaboration between Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute, which in the past restored nearby tombs and designed airtight cases to displa
Source: The Daily Beast
November 10, 2009
With his final appeal rejected by the Supreme Court on Monday, the mastermind behind the D.C. sniper attacks is scheduled to be executed Tuesday, barring a last-minute commutation of his sentence from Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. John Allen Muhammad, working with his young accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, killed 10 people in the D.C. metro area in 2002 in a series of sniper attacks that terrorized the populace and garnered national interest. The two were captured on October 24 of that year at a Maryla
Source: BBC
November 10, 2009
A blackened bottle of beer found in the wreck of the Hindenburg zeppelin is expected to fetch thousands of pounds at auction.
The bottle was found by a fire-fighter cleaning up the American airfield where the German airship exploded in 1932.
The bottle will be the most expensive ever bought if it meets its estimated price of £5,000 ($8,337) on Saturday.
The airship was engulfed by flames as it landed in New Jersey, killing 38 people and injuring 60.
Source: NYT
November 9, 2009
TARAKHEL, Afghanistan — The locals call the place “The Taliban Cemetery,” a weed-clotted memorial to the men who died for the movement during its fiercest campaigns in the years before 9/11.
The graveyard, next to this tiny village north of Kabul, sits a few miles from what was once the front line against the rebels who fought the Taliban after the group captured Kabul in 1996. Those rebels, then known as the Northern Alliance, finally overran the Taliban and captured Kabul — with A
Source: WSJ
November 10, 2009
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. -- Stuart Vorpahl has waged a lonely battle since 1984 against the state of New York over his right to fish. For refusing to obtain a commercial fishing license, he has been arrested at least four times, once on a dock after a police officer seized 490 pounds of fluke and two lobsters from his 40-foot trawler.
Now, others here on Long Island's East End are joining the 69-year-old Mr. Vorpahl's cause. And they are supporting his argument, based on a 313-year-old co
Source: WSJ
November 11, 2009
In 1997, Congress passed a budget law that mandated tough curbs on Medicare spending, setting up formulas to reduce doctor payments if broad spending targets were exceeded. But when the formula began taking a serious bite out of doctor reimbursements in 2002, Congress acted to reverse the cuts -- a step it has repeated five times since then.
That history shows why some critics believe billions of dollars in budget savings Congress is promising through its health-care overhaul might
Source: WSJ
November 11, 2009
WASHINGTON -- Former President Bill Clinton came to Capitol Hill Tuesday to underline for Democrats the political consequences of failing to pass a health overhaul, saying doing nothing was the worst outcome.
Mr. Clinton spoke as both sides in the Senate braced for a battle on the floor. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Tuesday that once Senate debate begins, Republicans would offer "a lot of amendments" on subjects from abortion to immigration to a go
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 10, 2009
East German products have received a new lease of life 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall as Germans bask in nostalgia for the old Democratic Republic.
Years after the last Trabant chugged off the production line, the iconic car it is set to take to the roads again, but this time sporting an ultra-modern electric engine instead of the dirty two-stroke of communist days.
Despite possessing a body made of plastic and cotton matting, and a poor reputation for reli
Source: BBC
November 10, 2009
A Jacobean manuscript of a play which was to have been performed for James I and was later found in a trunk at a castle has sold at auction for £84,000.
The heavily crossed out draft for The Amazon was discovered in an attic at Powis Castle in Welshpool, Powys.
The hitherto unknown play by Lord Edward Herbert of Chirbury had been valued at £90,000 by Bonhams in London.
It is believed the play was to have been performed before the king and his court in 161
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 10, 2009
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood gunman, had been in recent contact with a radical imam said to have been a "spiritual adviser" to two of the September 11 hijackers.
The communications, believed to be emails, between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, who is in Yemen, were sent over the last two years and had been intercepted by US intelligence agencies.
They were investigated but it was decided that they did not require following up. The disclosure will open U
Source: BBC
November 10, 2009
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has said he was duped by Nigeria into being arrested there in 2006.
Speaking at his war crimes trial in The Hague, he said Nigeria's then-leader had reneged on a promise to let him leave the country freely.
He also claimed a plot involving the UK and the US led to his indictment.
Mr Taylor is accused of backing rebels, who committed widespread atrocities throughout the 1990s in Liberia's neighbour Sierra Leone.
Source: BBC
November 10, 2009
Three Czech soldiers who served as part of the Nato force in Afghanistan have been suspended for wearing Nazi symbols, Czech defence officials say.
Two are said to have adorned their helmets with symbols of SS divisions while serving in eastern Afghanistan.
Czech Defence Minister Martin Bartak said their behaviour was "unacceptable" and suspended them immediately.
