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: NYT
September 29, 2009
WASHINGTON — To many Americans, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s February 2003 speech to the United Nations on Iraq’s unconventional weapons was powerfully persuasive. It was a dazzling performance, featuring satellite images and intercepts of Iraqi communications, delivered by one of the most trusted figures in public life.
Then a long and costly war began, and the country discovered that the assertions that Iraq possessed illicit weapons had been completely unfounded.
Source: NYT
September 29, 2009
HONG KONG — To prepare for the National Day holiday, retailers here have been stocking up on merchandise like designer bags, gold jewelry — and banned books.
Big downtown bookstores and airport kiosks alike carry paperbacks detailing the latest gossip about Communist Party cadres. More serious fare can be found at the city’s tiny “upstairs” political bookstores tucked above ground-floor storefronts. Inside are stacks of books on the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the T
Source: Secrecy News
September 29, 2009
DRAFT ORDER WOULD SET NEW LIMITS ON CLASSIFICATION
"No information may remain classified indefinitely," according to a draft of an Obama Administration executive order on national security classification policy.
As a statement of principle, this may seem tame and self-evident. But until now, no Administration has been willing to make such a categorical statement about the temporal limits of national security secrecy, and it may have significant policy consequ
Source: CNSNews.com
September 29, 2009
High-ranking government officials are usually protected from claims that they violated a person's civil rights. But in lawsuits stemming from law enforcement and intelligence efforts after the Sept. 11 attacks, three federal courts have left open the possibility that former Attorney General John Ashcroft and a lieutenant may be held personally liable.
In two cases, judges appointed by Republican presidents have refused at an early stage to dismiss lawsuits that were filed against As
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 29, 2009
Remains of the fabled dining hall have been discovered on the city's Palatine Hill, where emperors traditionally built their most lavish palaces.
The hall is said to have had a revolving wooden floor which allowed guests to survey a ceiling painted with stars and equipped with panels from which flower petals and perfume would shower onto the tables below.
The remains of the room were found by archeologists excavating the Domus Aurea, or Golden House, which was built for
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 29, 2009
Officials in Moscow say they have no record of a US researcher who claims to have examined a skull fragment said to belong to the late Nazi dictator.
Russia responded after a History Channel documentary claimed to have subjected the bone, which is kept in Moscow, to DNA testing and discovered it belonged to a woman and not Hitler.
The program suggested its findings bolstered the theory that Hitler did not commit suicide in 1945 as is widely thought.
But Vla
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 28, 2009
For hundreds of years history followers have visited Ambion Hill in Leicestershire, believing it to be the site of the Battle of Bosworth, which marked the end of the War of the Roses and the beginning of the reign of the Tudors.
It was also the last time a British king was killed on a battlefield and immortalised by Shakespeare’s Richard III’s famous offer of his kingdom for a horse.
However, after an extensive three-year archaeological survey, experts now believe that
Source: Associated Press
September 27, 2009
FORT EDWARD, N.Y. — A mistake made along the Hudson River is offering archaeologists a rare glimpse into how colonial military engineers built wooden forts, including the key stronghold constructed here by the British during the French and Indian War.
A formal excavation of the original Fort Edward was called after crews dredging PCB-contaminated sediment from the Hudson River last month accidentally ripped out wooden beams thought to have been part of the original fort, which was b
Source: BBC
September 29, 2009
The extension - assigned to the former Republic of Yugoslavia - has been replaced by .rs (for Serbia) and .me (for Montenegro).
Icann - which oversees the assigning of top-level domain names - allowed extra time for sites to make the transition before removing the .yu extension.
It is thought up to 4,000 websites have still not migrated to a new domain.
However, the Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names has requested a postponement of several m
Source: BBC
September 29, 2009
Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, the top secret code-breaking hub of World War II, has been awarded nearly £500,000 of lottery funds.
The development money from the Heritage Lottery Fund will help the historic site become a world heritage and educational centre.
It is the first step towards a target of £10m to completely revamp the site.
The home of the code-breakers has been open to the public since 1994 but is in an advanced state of dilapidati
Source: NPR
September 28, 2009
The former chief executive of Enron Corp.'s failed Internet business was sentenced Monday to 16 months in prison for lying about the capabilities of the once mighty energy giant's broadband network in order to help pump up the company's stock price.
The former broadband unit CEO also agreed to pay $8.7 million in restitution.
Joseph Hirko apologized for his actions before being sentenced. He had previously pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud as part of a plea deal
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
September 25, 2009
This week, Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memorandum instituting new Department of Justice policies and procedures making it more difficult for the government to assert the state secrets privilege in litigation. The state secrets privilege allows the executive branch to block discovery in civil litigation when the government believes that there is an unacceptable risk of disclosure of sensitive national security
Source: Politico
September 28, 2009
The past few months have seen a marked improvement in Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-Conn.) poll ratings, to the point where the most recent Quinnipiac poll had him within 5 points of his best known GOP challenger, former Rep. Rob Simmons. In that same survey, Dodd's disapproval rating had dropped below 50% for the first time in roughly six months.
But Monday's Wall Street Journal report about Countrywide Financial Corp., which refinanced mortgages for Dodd in 2003, threatens to put the brake
Source: Time
September 29, 2009
Beyond the lavish palaces of the last Shah in north Tehran, beyond the sweeping Enqelab (or Revolution) Street, which cuts through the city center, and even beyond the southern outskirts of the city's rambling tenements, looms the Islamic Republic's most notable landmark: the $2 billion tomb of its founder, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Though situated on a desolate piece of desert convenient only if you're headed to the international airport, the enormous scaffolding-enclosed shrine, still under
Source: Google News
September 29, 2009
LOS ANGELES — Military officials are investigating a historian's report that the wreckage of an Air Force jet lost at sea 54 years ago has been found off the Southern California coast.
A volunteer group headed by amateur historian Pat Macha claims it found debris of the Lockheed-Martin T-33A that went missing on Oct. 15, 1955.
Source: BBC
September 29, 2009
As China prepares to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, many people in Taiwan will not be celebrating what for them is the loss of a civil war.
They will instead see the event as a reminder of a major turning point in history that dramatically impacted their lives.
About two million refugees from China, including hundreds of thousands of soldiers, fled to the island - changing its political, economic and social structure, and l
Source: BBC
September 29, 2009
A former Prisoner of War camp in County Durham is being sold on eBay.
Harperley camp, near Crook, was turned into a tourist attraction in 2004, but the owners can no longer afford to complete its restoration.
The camp housed German and Italian prisoners in World War II and won ancient monument status after being bought by its present owners in 2001.
James and Lisa McLeod had hoped to turn it into a national visitor centre. It has gone on sale for £900,000
Source: Salon
September 29, 2009
A top official at Arlington National Cemetery steered millions of dollars to a handful of contractors operating a series of different companies over the past several years. When the contractors would leave one company and start another, the official would hire them again, yet the work they were hired to do has never been completed. The firms have ostensibly worked since 2003 to computerize burial records at the cemetery, but to date, despite receiving as much as $5.6 million, they have produced
Source: Mother Jones
September 28, 2009
Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have done something that, apparently, no one has done before: rigorously collect data on debt and risk management (or lack thereof) over the past 800 years, rather than only since 1980. Their conclusion: excessive debt accumulation is always and everywhere a very, very bad thing.
Also: credit booms and busts happen over and over throughout history, with only the details changing; public sector debt crises are common and devastating; banking crises
Source: BBC
September 28, 2009
An ex-mayor has denied charges he took part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide when he appeared at a UN-backed tribunal.
Gregoire Ndahimana is accused of responsibility for the massacre of some 2,000 ethnic Tutsis sheltering in a church which was bulldozed.
He was arrested in August during operations against Rwandan rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The US had offered a $5m (£3.2m) reward for information leading to his arrest, but nobody claimed the m
