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: WSJ
November 7, 2009
Klaus Rader's rise began when the Wall fell.
He was 26 years old and managing a McDonald's in the sleepy West German town of Hof when the Berlin Wall was toppled 20 years ago on Monday. The next day, East Germans poured into the West. The first stop for many was Mr. Rader's Golden Arches, a siren of capitalism's long-forbidden fruits.
"We were overrun," Mr. Rader recalls. In just hours, all his hamburgers and fries were devoured. What piles of gold awaited the
Source: NYT
November 3, 2009
Most of Tocqueville’s letters from America, which were written between the spring of 1831 and February 1832, when he sailed for home, have never been published in English, but Frederick Brown, a biographer of Flaubert and Zola, has collected and translated them for a volume that Yale University Press is to release next year. A sample of the letters, roughly 20 percent of the whole, appears in the current issue of The Hudson Review, and they reveal a Tocqueville different from the one we know, or
Source: Truthout
November 3, 2009
Buenos Aires, Argentina - A federal court in Buenos Aires on October 23 convicted two former army officials - Jorge Olivera Rovere and Jose Menendez - to life sentences, for crimes committed during Argentina's "Dirty War." Rovere, 83, was commander of the city of Buenos Aires for the army during the first year of the last military dictatorship in Argentina in 1976. Official government reports say that just fewer than 9,000 people were forcibly disappeared during the last dictatorship,
Source: CNN
November 4, 2009
Thirty years ago Wednesday, Iranian student revolutionaries climbed over the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and seized dozens of Americans, whom they ultimately held hostage for 444 days.
The hostage crisis, coming in the aftermath of Iran's Islamic revolution, ended diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran -- a rift that persists to this day.
Iran celebrates the embassy takeover as an official holiday, and tens of thousands showed up in Tehran on Wednesd
Source: Google News
November 4, 2009
LUXOR, Egypt — A German expert will attend talks next month to discuss Cairo's demand for the return of a 3,400-year-old statue of Queen Nefertiti, Egypt's antiquities chief said on Wednesday.
The bust of the Egyptian beauty is the centrepiece of Berlin's "Neues Museum", which reopened last month 70 years after it was closed following heavy bomb damage during World War II.
"The director of the Egyptian antiquities department at the Berlin museum will come
Source: Daily Mail
November 5, 2009
The owner of the house where Adolf Hitler was born wants to put it on the market with a likely asking price of over £2million.
But the local authority in Braunau-am-Inn, Austria, has vowed to try to find a way of blocking any sale because it fears it could land up in the hands of extreme right-wingers who would turn it into a grotesque shrine to his memory.
The mayor of Braunau, Gerhard Skiba, said ideally the town council would like to purchase it and so control its fu
Source: Yahoo News
November 5, 2009
CONCORD, N.H. – The infamous photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle in his backyard would have been nearly impossible to fake, according to a new analysis by a Dartmouth College professor.
Oswald, who was shot to death days after being charged with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, claimed the photo of him holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other had been doctored. Over the years, many others have pointed out what appear to be incon
Source: PRweb
November 5, 2009
Himmler’s WWII Third Reich Gold & Red Velvet Tapestry goes to auction on December 5th, 2009. This rare and desirable U.S. 101st airborne war capture piece is an original one-of-a-kind museum quality German Third Reich WWII antiquity. Originally hung in the Reichstag, later moved to Himmler's personal residence following a fire at the Reichstag. Captured by the United States Allied forces from Himmler's residence in 1945. Complete provenance and authenticity to accompany this war treasure.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 5, 2009
An ashtray that belonged to Prime Minister Winston Churchill is due to be sold at auction in Norfolk, with experts estimating the silver dish could fetch £1,500.
The silver dish used by Churchill is expected to fetch a premium price when it goes under the hammer in Norfolk, owing to its famous connections.
Churchill, a keen smoker who was frequently pictured with a cigar clamped between his teeth, used the ashtray at The Other Club – a political dining club he co-founde
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 5, 2009
Organisers of a pub crawl which led to a student urinating on a city centre war memorial should have been prosecuted with him, a judge has suggested.
Philip Laing, 19, an ex-public schoolboy, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency when he appeared at Sheffield magistrates’ court and was warned he could face jail.
District Judge Anthony Browne told him: “I have no doubt whatsoever it was the vast amount of alcohol you consumed that led you to behave that way.
Source: Leicester Mercury (UK)
November 4, 2009
Archeologists have unearthed an 8,000-year-old weapons factory.
The find, near Melton, is the biggest ever mid-Stone Age discovery in Leicestershire, with fingernail-sized flint pieces, burned animal bones and evidence of tents.
The bonus for the University of Leicester team is the site has not been churned up by ploughs, like most county land has.
It has remained undisturbed since the time before Britain became an island.
The dig took place pr
Source: BBC
November 4, 2009
The Segontium Roman Museum in Caernarfon, Gwynedd is on a site which experts call one of the best preserved Roman fortresses in the world.
But cash from a five-year funding deal is running out, and the trust says it may not be able to open in the spring.
The Welsh Assembly Government says it hopes a solution can be found to save the centre from closure.
Segontium Cyf, a trust made up of local people, took over the running of the centre from National Museum
Source: NYT
November 4, 2009
MAN on the premises!
Martha Morales, the evening supervisor at the Webster Apartments, a large, brick home to 370 women of varying ages and occupations, strode down a long corridor lined with identical doors. She zeroed in on one of them and knocked.
“Can I come in your room?” she called out politely — and then got straight to the point. “We think you have a man in there.”
A young woman opened the door.
There was no man to be seen in the small,
November 5, 2009
PARIS -- In retirement, former French President Jacques Chirac has achieved something that eluded him while in office: popularity.
Days after he was ordered to stand trial on embezzlement charges, Mr. Chirac is rated as France's most admired political figure, according to French polling agency Ifop. During Mr. Chirac's presidency, from 1995 to 2007, his approval ratings slipped to 30% as he struggled with issues such as unemployment and crime.
The publication of his mem
Source: WSJ
November 5, 2009
The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood is history. At least, so think two groups of residents who are planning museums to capture memories of the 1960s hippie movement before they fade with its aging participants.
One, led by Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics founder David E. Smith, will function as a "library museum" of the free-clinic movement, which began in the Haight in the 1960s to provide free health care to residents. The other effort, led by local artist David Wills, will chro
Source: NYT
November 3, 2009
PARIS — France will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with an open-air musical spectacle featuring 27 cellists and a laser show telling the fall of communism in a series of gigantic projections in the center of Paris, the minister for European affairs, Pierre Lellouche, announced Monday.
The festivities will take place on the Place de la Concorde, where the annual Bastille Day military parade culminates, and will begin at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 9. Inspired by
Source: CNSNews.com
November 4, 2009
Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama noted Wednesday's 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, while insisting he wants the U.S. and Iran to move beyond "suspicion, mistrust and confrontation."
Islamic militants stormed the embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, seizing its occupants. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.
The crisis "deeply affected the lives of courageous Americans who were unjustly held hostage, and
Source: Digital Journal
November 2, 2009
A Hungarian Bishop, Zoltán Meszlényi, has been recognised as a martyr for his faith by the Catholic Church. Meszlényi is the first of the Hungarian victims of the Stalin-era anti-church persecution to be beatified.
The mass marking the Beatification of the one-time Bishop of Esztergom, Zoltan Meszlenyi, was celebrated by Hungary’s Cardinal Péter Erdő at the Esztergom Baszilica at the weekend, according to the Caboodle.hu website. Esztergom is Hungary’s historical religious capita
Source: NewScientist
November 3, 2009
The discovery of an early human fossil in southern China may challenge the commonly held idea that modern humans originated out of Africa.
Jin Changzhu and colleagues of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing, announced to Chinese media last week that they have uncovered a 110,000-year-old putative Homo sapiens jawbone from a cave in southern China's Guangxi province.
The mandible has a protruding chin like that of Homo sapiens, but
Source: The Hill
November 3, 2009
A key liberal group released an ad Tuesday encouraging lawmakers to support health reform, likening the vote to support for historic social programs.
A new 30-second television spot from the group Americans United for Change pushes lawmakers do weather any controversy over the health proposals before Congress and cast a vote in favor of the reforms.
The ad notes controversy over Social Security, child labor laws, and national parks when those were authorized by Congress
