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: DNRonline.com
September 9, 2009
HARRISONBURG - Funding to preserve 178 acres of the Civil War battlefield at Port Republic is nearly in hand, according to a letter from the national Civil War Preservation Trust.
In a letter received last week, the trust said it is joining forces with the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation headquartered at New Market to buy the development rights on the land.
Spokeswomen for the trust and foundation both said Tuesday they would not comment on what property the m
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 9, 2009
A war crimes investigation was launched on Wednesday into the killings of five journalists – including two Britons – during Indonesia's invasion of East Timor more than 30 years ago.
Australian police announced the probe two years after a coroner ruled that the deaths of the five, who included two Australians and a New Zealander, were deliberate and probably ordered by Indonesian commanders to conceal their part in the operation.
Indonesia has long claimed the five wer
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 9, 2009
Humans may have lived outside Africa hundreds of thousands of years earlier than first thought, fossilised evidence suggests.
A skull found by scientists in Georgia has been dated back 1.8 million years - about 800,000 years before the first humans were thought to have left the region.
The skull was one of five remains of primitive humans found at the Dmanisi archaeological site, south-west of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, the British Science Festival heard on Tues
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 9, 2009
A new image showing the alleged September 11 mastermind at Guantanamo Bay has surfaced just days before the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
Several pictures of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were reportedly taken by Red Cross delegates at the secret Camp 7 inside the detention centre at the US naval base in Cuba.
The first photos of him for more than six years show him looking healthy, heavily bearded and apparently about to pray.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 9, 2009
More than three quarters of all Europeans support President Barack Obama's foreign policy and America has enjoyed one of the biggest popularity "bounces" in polling history, a survey will disclose today.
The annual "Trans-Atlantic Trends" study found that 77 per cent of European Union citizens back Mr Obama's handling of international affairs, compared with only 19 per cent who thought the same of President George W Bush.
Overall, 75 per cent of Eur
Source: foxnews
September 8, 2009
Using a dozen social networking sites to mobilize constituents opposed to big-government spending, the grassroots movement has taken on issues far beyond taxes to protest President Obama's sweeping agenda. And by all appearances, its efforts have not gone unnoticed.
They claim to be a grassroots movement, but critics call them astro-turf. In either case, the Tea Party movement is quickly shaking off its "greenness" to become a force that some coalition members contend is
Source: AP
September 9, 2009
North Korea, facing international pressure to abandon its nuclear program, marked the communist country's 61st anniversary Wednesday with a vow to "mercilessly annihilate the U.S. imperialists" if they attack.
The anniversary of the country's founding is a major holiday in North Korea, along with the birthdays of the leader and his father, late founder Kim Il Sung.
North Koreans streamed to Mansu Hill in Pyongyang on Wednesday to lay flowers and bow before a t
Source: AP
September 9, 2009
Former Army reservist Lynndie England is suing the biographer who wrote the book she hoped would tell her side of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and salvage her image.
England claims writer Gary S. Winkler has seized control of what was intended to be a shared copyright by abruptly resigning in July from A Few Bad Apples LLC, a West Virginia company set up to handle finances, and forming his own Virginia-based publishing company, Bad Apple Books LLC.
Winkler denies any w
Source: CNN
September 9, 2009
Amid conservative opposition, a bill that would designate a day of "significance" in California for slain gay politician Harvey Milk is heading to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk.
The legislation would denote May 22 -- Milk's birthday -- as a day of significance across the state.
The governor's office said Tuesday it had received more than 100,000 constituent phone calls about the bill, although it was not immediately clear if most were in favor of it or op
Source: CNN
September 9, 2009
Friends and colleagues of legendary CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite gathered Wednesday in New York's Lincoln Center to remember "the most trusted man in America."
Friends and colleagues of legendary CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite gathered Wednesday in New York's Lincoln Center to remember "the most trusted man in America."
The memorial included performances by Jimmy Buffett, Mickey Hart and Wynton Marsalis.
Source: BBC
September 9, 2009
In 2007, an Australian coroner found that they were executed by Indonesian special forces in the town of Balibo.
It is believed they were killed to stop them revealing details of an impending Indonesian invasion of East Timor.
Indonesia maintains the men were killed in crossfire. An official said Jakarta had no intention of reopening the case.
Source: History Today (UK)
September 9, 2009
Gladiators were mostly vegetarians and their diets consisted, above all, of barley and vegetables. They were neither too poor to buy meat nor staunch defenders of animal rights; instead, their carbohydrate-rich diets made them put on weight, which both protected them during fights and made them appear more spectacular, which pleased the crowds.
A 200-square-foot plot of land in the city of Ephesus (now in western Turkey), alongside the road that originally led from the city centre t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 8, 2009
The building in Beeston, which the leader of the terrorist gang used as a recruiting ground, is the only Muslim place of worship included in the Church’s official sightseeing guide to religious “staycations”.
It has prompted fresh calls for the Church – condemned last year when the Archbishop of Canterbury called for some aspects of Sharia to be adopted in Britain – to avoid further embarrassment by steering clear of all matters Islamic.
The established religion set u
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 3, 2009
US President Barack Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day and is being protected by an increasingly over-stretched and under-resourced Secret Service, according to a new book.
Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.
Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret
Source: AP
September 8, 2009
Dutch Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife, Princess Maxima, got a rousing welcome from West Point cadets as they visited the U.S. Military Academy for the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage.
The royal couple headed up the Hudson River after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mayor Michael Bloomberg welcomed them to Manhattan.
Tuesday's festivities included NATO vessels, Dutch barges and a replica of Hudson's ship, the Half Moon. A Dutch naval ship of
Source: Foxnews
September 8, 2009
President Obama's speech to school children Tuesday has received a lot of attention. As we've reported President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech to students back in 1991. But the Washington Examiner reports the complaints leading up to Obama's speech were relatively muted compared to the outrage 18 years ago.
Back then, some Democrats not only denounced Bush's speech, but even launched congressional hearings into the matter and asked the Government Accountability Office
Source: Connecticut Post
August 30, 2009
A 1907 catalog of the New Haven County Historical Society listed several rare and odd items, including a necklace from an Egyptian mummy, slave chains, a small block of wood from the Old South Bridge in Concord, Mass., which the British guarded at the start of the Revolutionary War.
But lot 23 in the inventory -- "a skull of an American soldier, one of 42 who died of the 200 in a destitute and sickly condition that were brought from a British prison ship ... and suddenly cast
Source: The Wall Street Journal
September 8, 2009
Bob Dole, a venerable 86 years old now, was back in the Washington limelight over the weekend, appearing on ABC TV to dispense counsel on a bipartisan approach to health care, popping up in newspapers explaining how to cut a deal, even suggesting Gen. David Petraeus as a presidential possibility.
But his most heartfelt weekend activity took place elsewhere, out of sight of Washington politicos and devoid of any potential for gain or notoriety. It came under a brilliant Saturday-morn
Source: Truthout
September 3, 2009
Washington - Presidential adviser Van Jones is resigning after coming under fire for signing a controversial petition regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks...
... The Jones controversy centers on a 2004 petition he signed on a Web site that said: "A call for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11 attacks to occur."
Source: The Daily Beast
September 8, 2009
Not surprising, but shocking still: The Bush administration tried to soften the language on a treaty that punished “enforced disappearances” between 2003 and 2006, so that officers at the CIA’s secret prisons would not be prosecuted, The Washington Post reports. Documents reveal that in 2004, the administration sought to limit prohibitions on those who placed detainees outside of legal protections. The documents, which were released last week in response to a Freedom of Information Act made by A
