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
October 27, 2009
Peter Gadiel wants everyone to remember his son, James, who was killed during the September 11 terrorist attacks.
And he also wants people to remember how he died: "Murdered by Muslim terrorists."
Eight years ago, 23-year-old James Gadiel worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. He died when a hijacked plane crashed into the North Tower.
For years, Gadiel's hometown of Kent, Conn., has wanted to honor the young ma
Source: CNN
October 27, 2009
Former President George W. Bush made his debut as a motivational speaker Monday night, telling a Fort Worth, Texas crowd it's futile to waste energy chasing popularity.
The president himself saw wild popularity swings during his eight years in the White House, garnering nearly a 90 percent approval rating in the months following the attacks on September 11, 2001 and exiting office with only the support of 31 percent of Americans, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 27, 2009
War crimes prosecutors have opened Europe's first trial for genocide since the Second World War with evidence that Radovan Karadzic was the "supreme commander" behind the mass killings and ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian war.
Alan Tieger, a counsel for the prosecution, quoted from official Serb documents and intercepted telephone conversations to show Mr Karadzic as the "supreme commander" in a violent campaign to "forcibly carve out an ethnic state".
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 27, 2009
The skull of a pliosaur, a sea monster that experts said could have bitten a car in half, has been found along Britain's Jurassic Coast.
The 7.8ft (2.4m) skull of the predator, which lived 150 million years ago, could belong to one of the largest pliosaurs ever found, and could measure up to 52.48ft (16m).
The fossil, a lower jaw and upper skull, found by a local collector, has been purchased by Dorset County Council for £20,000 using money from the Heritage Lottery F
Source: Daily Mail Online
October 23, 2009
Standing ramrod straight as they assemble in their blazers and caps emblazoned with BMS, the pupils of the British Memorial School fall silent as their headmaster raises the Union Jack before them.
The school captain steps forward to salute the flag. It is the cue for the entire school to launch into I Vow To Thee My Country.
From first-floor windows of their homes overlooking the playground, local children are chanting insults. They jeer at the school's quaint British
Source: AP
October 26, 2009
Fidel Castro's younger sister says she collaborated with the CIA in 1964 following the Cuban revolution.
Juanita Castro, 76, told Univision's WLTV-23 station late Sunday she initially supported her brother's 1959 overthrow of the Batista dictatorship but quickly became disillusioned by the revolution's vast number of executions and rampant expropriation of private property.
Her home became a sanctuary for anti-Communists before she fled the island in 1964. In the TV int
Source: AP
October 26, 2009
Radovan Karadzic boycotted the opening day of his war crimes trial Monday and sent no lawyer to defend himself, forcing judges to abruptly adjourn the hearing. Judges then vowed that the former Bosnian Serb leader's trial would begin Tuesday with or without him.
The decision enraged survivors who had traveled by bus from Bosnia to see Karadzic finally face justice. A small group briefly refused to leave the courtroom after the adjournment and one woman threatened a hunger strike.
Source: NYT
October 25, 2009
Given that Wall Street has turned the myths of Sherwood Forest upside down, the timing was perfect over the weekend for the seventh biennial meeting of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies at the University of Rochester.
The current Sheriff of Nottingham, Leon Unczur, who has cycled across the United States and in 2006 celebrated his civil union with his partner, Jonathan, was there for a live interview via Skype. Friday night featured a long-lost 1912 silent film, w
Source: BBC
October 26, 2009
More than half of adults in a survey of 10 countries thought school science lessons should teach evolutionary theories alongside creationism.
Among those who knew of Darwinism, on average 53% felt other possible perspectives should also be taught.
The figure was 68% in Argentina, in the poll for the British Council, which promotes educational opportunities.
In Great Britain 60% felt this way. In Egypt, 27% said such theories should not be in science lesso
Source: The Bulletin
October 25, 2009
JERUSALEM – The offices of Yad Vashem, the Israeli agency that memorializes the six million Jews murdered by their Nazis and their allies, received an extraordinary and even infuriating proposal recently. The grandson of Rudolf Hoess, the notorious commander of the Auschwitz death camp, offered to sell some of his grandfather’s personal effects to the museum.
The letter to the museum, which was sent several months ago and entitled “Rare objects, Auschwitz, Commander Hoess,” was shor
Source: NYT
October 25, 2009
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — On a Saturday night 40 football seasons ago, just before kickoff of the penultimate game in his career, Coach Jake Gaither of Florida A&M strode toward midfield of Tampa Stadium. There he extended his hand to the opposing coach, Fran Curci of the University of Tampa, and they strained to speak above the din of a capacity crowd.
“Jake, this is bigger than I thought it would be,” Coach Curci recently recalled saying.
“Not me,” Coach Gaither respond
Source: LA Times
October 26, 2009
We always imagined how this might end: GeoCities would finally take down all of the animated "under construction" signs, and we'd hear one last Midi file to the tune of horns playing taps.
Instead, GeoCities will probably go down with a whimper today.
Time is up for Yahoo Inc.'s scheduled closing of perhaps the most significant virtual museum in recent history. Years ago a central meeting place for a massive chunk of American Web surfers, GeoCities will lock i
Source: NPR
October 23, 2009
Live radio is tricky. Some times reporters talking 'live' say things they instantly regret.
Just ask NPR political editor Ken Rudin, who appears on the Political Junkie segment every Wednesday on Talk of the Nation. He said something this week that resulted in a flood of instant criticism.
Rudin told listeners he thinks the Obama administration is unwise to take on Fox News. The administration has gone to war against the network calling it a mouthpiece for the Republica
Source: Secrecy News
October 26, 2009
The records of several noteworthy congressional hearings that were held in the past two years have been published in the last few weeks, including these:“A Report Card on Homeland Security Information Sharing,” House Homeland Security Committee, September 24, 2008.“Turning Spy Satellites on the Homeland: The Privacy and Civil Liberties Implications of t
Source: The Nation
October 26, 2009
AMMAN // Jordan and Israel mark 15 years of peace today, but ties between both countries are cooler than ever.
Since the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netenyahu took office in May, Jordan has been left further disappointed with its neighbour.
“Our relation is getting colder,” King Abdullah told Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper this month. “Let’s remember that the peace treaty was signed as part of a process to achieve comprehensive peace. And the full potent
Source: Boston.com
October 26, 2009
Native American rituals and beliefs have emerged as a surprising last-minute obstacle to federal approval of the nation’s first offshore wind farm, threatening to significantly delay the Cape Wind project.
Two Massachusetts tribes say the 130 proposed wind turbines in Nantucket Sound would disturb their spiritual sun greetings and submerged ancestral burying grounds.
The Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes - with help from the main opposition group to Cape Wind - are
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 26, 2009
n a written statement to mark her 75th birthday, she said that Obama’s speech in Prague in April had shown a “strong determination to eliminate nuclear weapons”, and had contributed to his winning the Nobel peace prize earlier this month.
“The horror of nuclear weapons lies, in addition to the magnitude of the destruction, in the enormity and misery of the effects of radiation which continue to afflict the victims long afterwards,” she said.
Japan is the only country t
Source: Newsweek/OpEdNews.com
October 23, 2009
With just under a month to go before it’s released to the masses, Sarah Palin’s upcoming autobiography, Going Rogue, has already been near the top of Amazon’s bestseller list for weeks. No surprise, considering the enormous amount of interest—both bad and good—the former Alaska governor has generated since John McCain named her as his vice presidential running mate last year. But there may be more to the story: over the past week or so, Amazon has been steadily dropping the price of Palin’s boo
Source: Rapid City Journal
October 25, 2009
A jewel of United States history quietly resides in the bowels of a nondescript building at the University of South Dakota.
The South Dakota Oral History Center isn't widely known outside of academia, but the center, located in a basement, contains eyewitness accounts of history that, in many cases, have remained undisturbed for decades.
"We sit on a very valuable collection here _ probably one of the most valuable in North America," said Edward Valandra, chai
Source: WSJ
October 26, 2009
A new study found that rates of marriage outside the faith were sharply curbed among young Jews who have taken "birthright" trips to Israel, a development that could hearten Jewish leaders worried about assimilation.
Fears of shrinkage among the American Jewish population heightened after studies in the early 1990s showed that more than 50% of Jews were marrying non-Jews, potentially making it more difficult to pass the religion on to offspring. Most estimates of America's
