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: Brennan Center
June 10, 2009
The United States is one of a few democratic nations that place the entire burden of registering to vote on individual citizens. Today, one-quarter to one-third of all eligible Americans remain unregistered — and thus are unable to cast ballots that will count. Even Americans who are registered risk being blocked from casting a ballot because of problems with our voter registration system — unprocessed registrations, inaccurate purges of names from the voter rolls, and other administrative and h
Source: NYT
July 5, 2009
Many American presidents have kept prized possessions within reach during their White House years. Franklin D. Roosevelt cherished a 19th century ship model of the U.S.S. Constitution. One of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s favorite gifts was an engraved Steuben glass bowl from his cabinet. And sitting on John F. Kennedy’s desk in the Oval Office was a paperweight made from a coconut shell he had carved with a distress message after his PT-109 was sunk during World War II.
The objects have b
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 6, 2009
A quarter of all pilgrims who travelled to the New World returned to
Britain after just a few years, a new report shows.
Disease, an unforgiving climate and a stagnant economy in
Massachusetts, forced thousands to make the dangerous three-month boat
journey back to the UK, their dreams of a new life unfulfilled.
Dr Susan Hardman Moore, of the University of Edinburgh's School of
Divinity, has researched the immigration records of ordinary people
who fled religious persecution b
Source: http://www.thesunnews.com
July 6, 2009
The Confederate battle flag flying at the soldiers monument on the Statehouse grounds stirs passions nearly a decade after its move there from atop the Statehouse dome, and it remains the focus of a nine-year NAACP economic boycott.
Supporters of the compromise say history cannot be rewritten and the flag deserves to fly as long as the memorial to Confederate soldiers remains. Critics concede the importance of honoring history but say the flag at the Statehouse represents the denigr
Source: AFP
July 6, 2009
Geneva, once nicknamed the "Protestant Rome", is marking this month the 500th anniversary of John Calvin, an influential figure in the historic schism of Christianity who left his mark on this city.
But local authorities have struggled to find the best way to celebrate the birth of the controversial French theologian and leader in the Protestant Reformation.
He is being celebrated because he turned a "provincial town into a European intellectual capital t
Source: BBC
July 6, 2009
A memorial to one of the youngest British service casualties of the World War II has been unveiled by his former friend and shipmate.
Reginald Earnshaw was "about 15" when he died under enemy fire aboard the SS North Devon exactly 68 years ago.
It is widely believed he lied about his age in order to serve his country - and evidence suggests he may been just 14.
The location of Mr Earnshaw's grave was never reported to the Commonwealth War Graves
Source: AP
July 6, 2009
Iraq's government has banned all organized visits to Saddam Hussein's grave in the village of Ouja, the dictator's birth place north of Baghdad.
A cabinet statement says instructions have been sent to the Education Ministry and local authorities in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit to take the necessary steps to stop such visits.
Since he was hanged in December 2006, thousands of Saddam's supporters, including school children, have been visiting his grave to mark the annivers
Source: BBC
July 4, 2009
The recent damage caused to Lenin's monument in Kiev has provoked a debate about the future of the capital's only public monument to the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Ukrainian Nationalist Congress party is proud to proclaim that it smashed the statue's nose and left hand.
Kiev police have arrested a number of men suspected of causing the damage. After 19 years of Ukrainian independence, statues of Lenin are still quite common
Source: AP
July 6, 2009
Britain's defense ministry ordered an inquiry Monday into allegations that Iraqi civilians were tortured and killed by British troops following a fierce gunbattle in Iraq in 2004.
Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell said in a statement the study will examine events that followed clashes near the southern Iraqi town of Majar al-Kabir.
Six Iraqi civilians are suing the British military and have demanded a full public inquiry into claims that about 20 detainees were killed
Source: AP
July 6, 2009
A trove of letters to one of baseball's founding fathers has been removed from an upcoming auction. The FBI is investigating whether they were among items stolen from the New York Public Library.
The 19th century letters were written to Harry Wright. He built the country's first professional baseball team in Cincinnati.
Sports memorabilia dealer Hunt Auctions said Monday that it was removing the letters from the July 14 auction in St. Louis because "many questions
Source: Deutsche Welle
July 6, 2009
On October 20, 2008 in the northern Afghan region of Kunduz a suicide bomber blew himself up near a vehicle carrying Henry Lukacz, Jan Berges, Alexander Dietzen and Markus Geist. The explosion killed two German paratroopers as well as five Afghan children. At the risk of their lives the four soldiers, between 28-33 years of age, rescued a seriously wounded soldier and stood by another one trapped inside the burning vehicle.
An appropriate honor
The new Cross of Honour f
Source: BBC
July 6, 2009
Despite a distinguished career which saw him at the centre of power or influence at some of the most troubled times of the 20th Century, it was Errol Morris's 2003 film, The Fog of War, subtitled Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara, which singled out this former defence secretary.
In the film, McNamara spoke frankly about the Vietnam war, the Cuban missile crisis and World War II, giving a behind-the-scenes account of the context in which important decisions were taken,
Source: Yahoo News
July 5, 2009
The surviving parts of the world's oldest Christian Bible will be reunited online on Monday, generating excitement among biblical scholars still striving to unlock its mysteries.
The Codex Sinaiticus was hand written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.
Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of
Source: http://www.islandpacket.com
July 4, 2009
Welcome to South Carolina, where we never have to make up anything peculiar because our peculiarities are way too peculiar.
The tales of Gov. Mark Sanford's affair with an Argentine woman he calls his "soul mate" will live in infamy. But the almost addictive daily Sanford episodes won't have to dance alone. This kind of story from the political class has plenty of company in South Carolina.
We may not have seen anything this racy since the ex-wife of a jailed
Source: Vancouver Sun (BC)
July 2, 2009
A controversy has erupted over one of the most famous corpses from the War of 1812.
U.S. general Zebulon Pike was killed when retreating British and Canadian troops intentionally blew up a munitions depot during the American capture of York (present-day Toronto) in April 1813.
His remains were taken by ship across Lake Ontario and buried at a military cemetery in Sackets Harbor, N.Y.
But a subsequent re-burial and lingering confusion over the exact location
Source: Reuters
July 2, 2009
The Catholic Church should not fear scientific progress and possibly repeat the mistake it made when it condemned astronomer Galileo in the 17th century, a Vatican official said on Thursday in a rare self-criticism.
Galileo, who lived from 1564 to 1642, was condemned by the Inquisition in 1633 for asserting that the earth revolved around the sun.
Known as the father of astronomy, he wasn't fully rehabilitated by the Vatican until 1992, nearly 360 years later.
Source: NYT
July 4, 2009
Opponents lined up quickly when Honolulu Christian Church announced plans to convert a modest residential lot in the Hawaiian capital into parking for its growing congregation.
Surely there were enough spots on the street, opponents said. Turning the small driveway into a parking lot entrance would create safety and traffic problems. The cute old house on the property, built in the 1940s, is worth preserving.
Besides, the president used to live there.
“We d
Source: NYT
July 3, 2009
He was born on July 10, 1509, a religious thinker and leader who may have done as much as anyone to shape the modern world. And yet after 500 years, John Calvin is still not an easy man to understand.
Calvin is often imagined, if he is imagined at all, as the implacable snoop who enforced a prudish morality on the citizens of Geneva, a steely spinner of harsh theological doctrines about a depraved humanity and a fierce God predestining people to heaven or hell.
“When we
Source: NYT
July 4, 2009
In the depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Columbia University wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of “a nuclear free world.” He railed against discussions of “first- versus second-strike capabilities” that “suit the military-industrial interests” with their “billion-dollar erector sets,” and agitated for the elimination of global arsenals holding tens of thousands of deadly warheads.
The student was Barack Obama, and he was clearly trying to sort out
Source: AP
July 4, 2009
Visitors to the National Archives here know they will find the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the main building’s magnificent rotunda.
But they can no longer find the patent file for the Wright brothers’ flying machine or maps for the first atomic bomb missions in the archives inventory.
Many historical items the archives once possessed are missing, including Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln, presidential portraits of Fra
