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: Arthur Milnes in the Globe & Mail
August 22, 2009
Even a leader of the free
world deserves a break, so
tomorrow U.S. President
Barack Obama and his family
start their summer vacation.
His predecessor just loved to
get away. George W. Bush
spent one-sixth of his presidency
at his ranch in Texas
and took more days off – 1,020
– than any other occupant of
the White House.
The Obamas are raising eyebrows
as well, but for a different
reason – because, to the
surprise of many in these penny-
pinching times, they are going
in such
Source: Spiegel Online
August 24, 2009
It was a sweltering summer day when Alan Adyrkhayev, a doctor, received a letter from his 11-year-old daughter Emilia. It was an unusual letter, because, for one thing, the father and daughter live in the same house in Beslan, a small, dusty city in North Ossetia, nestled in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. But Emilia's request was sufficiently important to merit writing a letter.
"This is dedicated to our mother Ira," the girl had scrawled in her child's handwriti
Source: Deutsche Welle
August 26, 2009
An estimated 100,000 people were convicted as ”war traitors” by the Nazis. Some 30,000 of them were sentenced to death, and the death penalties were actually carried out in about 20,000 cases.
Laws on war traitors originated in 1872 following the Franco-German war and were adapted by the Nazis in 1934. Starting then, Germans could be convicted of treason for making negative comments about Hitler, treating POWs too well, helping Jews to flee, or possessing a leaflet calling for an e
Source: Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
August 26, 2009
"The Obama administration, citing an economic downturn that has been deeper than it had first thought, raised its estimate on Tuesday of the government's deficit over the next decade to $9 trillion from $7.1 trillion," reports the New York Times.
"White House officials predicted that the budget deficit this year will peak at $1.5 trillion, though they said the 2009 shortfall will be about $261 billion lower than they had predicted in May. The main reason is that offi
Source: NYT
August 26, 2009
Senator Edward Kennedy's death marks the twilight of one of America's most fabled political families, with no heirs to the Kennedy name poised to emerge with the same mix of gravitas, ambition and celebrity.
Kennedy, 77, one of the most effective lawmakers in U.S. history and the brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, died late on Tuesday after battling brain cancer.
He died just weeks after his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympi
Source: NYT
August 26, 2009
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died Tuesday night. He was 77 .
The death was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family.
“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died l
Source: WBIR.com
August 24, 2009
UT archaeologists have uncovered a significant piece of Civil War history at the future construction site of the school's Sorority Village.
"It's part of our heritage. Just being here, it's like going to Gettysburg on a smaller scale," said Jeff Chapman, director of UT's Frank H. McClung Museum.
Military maps from almost 150 years ago placed confederate artillery during the Battle of Fort Sanders at the location of the planned village near the corner of Kingst
Source: Newsday.com
August 21, 2009
A number of modern homes paid for by American taxpayers stand empty. The freshly painted church welcomes no one. The stark landscape and empty buildings gives this atoll the feeling of a ghost town abandoned by its residents.
Though the government says a portion of Rongelap is safe, the former residents will not return to live there. The northern part of Rongelap - one of a string of tiny islands spread across the vastness of the southern Pacific Ocean - was left so radioactive from
Source: BBC
August 25, 2009
During the Troubles, Libya supplied guns and explosives to the IRA, and the families want the country to face up to its responsibilities.
They are calling on the Libyan leader to demonstrate the same compassion shown to Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi.
The terminally-ill bomber was released from a Scottish prison last week.
Source: The National Security Archive
August 25, 2009
Today, the National Security Archive posted a side-by-side comparison of two very different versions of a 2004 report on the CIA's "Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities" by Agency Inspector General John Helgerson. Yesterday, the Obama administration released new portions of the report including considerably more information about the use of torture and other illegal practices by CIA interrogators than a version of the report declassified by the Bush administration in
Source: Montpelier
August 24, 2009
ORANGE, Va.— James Madison’s Montpelier today will celebrate the legacy of slave and freedman Paul Jennings with an exclusive White House visit and walking tour of Washington, D.C. for his descendants. Family members of the former slave, who helped First Lady Dolley Madison rescue the portrait of George Washington before the White House burned in 1814, will gather on the 195th anniversary of its rescue to learn more about their ancestor from one of the nation’s leading Paul Jennings experts. The
Source: The Wall Street Journal
August 25, 2009
Scottish lawmakers grilled the official who freed the Libyan agent convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, as support mounted for inquiries into both that decision and the original conviction.
In a special parliamentary session Monday, Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill defended his move to release terminally ill Abdel Baset al-Megrahi despite vehement opposition from the U.S., saying the decision was his alone and wasn't affected by political or economic concerns.
Source: Truthout
August 24, 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan - A young Afghan whose six-year detention at Guantanamo came to symbolize many of the problems of the Bush administration's war on terror detention policies arrived in his home country today, less than a month after a federal judge in Washington ordered his release.
Mohammed Jawad, whose confession to throwing a hand grenade that wounded two U.S. soldiers in 2002 was rejected as coerced by torture, was helicoptered into Kabul from Bagram Air Base and taken to the
Source: http://medievalnews.blogspot.com
August 23, 2009
Dozens of medieval castles in Germany will soon be receiving more than 320 million euros to help with restoration work, with the money coming from the countries economic stimulus package.
The latest cash injection was announced earlier this week when the federal government and the states of Berlin and Brandenburg pledged €155 million for the Foundation of Prussian Palaces and Gardens for the period through 2017. The government has already made 150 million euros available for the pre
Source: Dallas News
August 25, 2009
A deal that was supposed to end a long-running lawsuit against SMU – and smooth the path for George W. Bush's presidential library – has fallen apart amid charges that both sides broke the terms of a confidential agreement.
Last month, Southern Methodist University and two former condominium owners announced that they had settled the bitter four-year fight over who is the rightful owner of land now slated for the grounds of the Bush library.
The lawyers hailed the deal
Source: CNN
August 25, 2009
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says documents released Monday support his view that harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects prevented attacks and yielded crucial information about al Qaeda.
Cheney also criticized the Obama administration's decision to ask a federal prosecutor to determine whether U.S. intelligence agents violated the law in interrogations that some have equated to torture.
The former vice president spoke after the federal government
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
August 24, 2009
Rocky ocean cliffs and tangles of green foliage. Crowded Edgartown restaurants, large yachts, and even larger gray-shingle mansions. These are the images that many people equate with Martha’s Vineyard.
What is less known is that the island has a long-enduring African-American history as well.
President Obama, who arrived Sunday on Martha’s Vineyard with his family for a week-long vacation, is helping to highlight that history.
Source: CNSNews.com
August 22, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now tells CNSNews.com it will not destroy archaeological artifacts from the site of the largest British fort in the American colonies – at least not yet.
As CNSNews.com reported last week, an EPA-mandated project to remove pollutants from the Hudson River recently dislodged the potentially toxic artifacts -- two large timbers from the site of Fort Edward in upstate New York . The dredging destroyed most of the historic site.
EPA
Source: BBC
August 25, 2009
A row has erupted in Mexico after the government distributed a history textbook to primary schools which makes no mention of the Spanish conquest.
The chronology of the text neatly avoids the issue by ending before the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s.
Some opposition figures have seized on what they see as a calculated omission.
The arrival of the conquistadors resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people and the colonisation of M
Source: AP
August 25, 2009
Officials in central Virginia approved a Walmart Supercenter early Tuesday near one of the nation's most important Civil War battlefields, a proposal that had stirred opposition by preservationists and hundreds of historians.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to grant the special permit to the world's biggest retailer after a majority of more than 100 speakers said they favored bringing the Walmart to Locust Grove, within a cannonball's shot from the Wilderness Battle
