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: The Daily Beast
May 31, 2009
Sonia Sotomayor's critics have zeroed in on a firefighter affirmative-lawsuit currently before the Supreme Court to allege that she shows racial favoritism, but does her record bear out the accusation? Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSBlog looks over all 96 cases dealing with race-related claims that she presided over. "Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved oth
Source: NYT
May 29, 2009
WHEN Sonia Sotomayor first set foot in the Bronxdale Houses along Bruckner Boulevard in 1957, they encapsulated New York’s promise. The towers beckoned to the working class as a coveted antidote to some of the city’s unlivable residential spaces and, later on, its unfathomable rents. These were not the projects of idle, stinky elevators, of gang-controlled stairwells where drug deals go down. In the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, when most of the city’s public housing was built, a sense of pride and comm
Source: AP
May 30, 2009
The bronze likeness of Lt. Richard W. Dowling, a Confederate officer, has survived two hurricanes in the last five years, an accomplishment as against the odds as the victory he and few dozen rebel Texas soldiers won against a huge Union force almost 150 years ago.
But the double whammy of Hurricane Rita in 2005 and Hurricane Ike last year left the Sabine Pass Battleground Park in shambles. Trees were toppled and ripped out. Historical markers were snapped off and creature comforts
Source: NYT
May 29, 2009
In 1996, Judge Sonia Sotomayor delivered a speech comparing campaign contributions to “bribes” and asking whether elected officials could credibly say they were “representing only the general public good, when private money plays such a large role” in helping them win office.
“If they cannot, the public must demand a change in the role of private money or find other ways, such as through strict, well-enforced regulation, to ensure that politicians are not inappropriately influenced
Source: NYT
May 30, 2009
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black member of the Supreme Court, ended his 24 years there bitter and frustrated. He had been unable, he said, to persuade his colleagues in many cases concerning racial equality, the cause to which he had devoted his life.
“What do they know about Negroes?” Justice Marshall asked an interviewer. “You can’t name one member of this court who knows anything about Negroes before he came to this court.”
But the other justices did get to
Source: BBC
May 31, 2009
Romeo and Juliet's Adult Boutique is due to open in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, on Friday after it was given planning permission.
Mayor Jenny Fradgley said: "It can't be good for the image Stratford is trying to promote for itself."
But the shop owner Katie Gilbert said the Bard's plays had many sexual references and "he would be proud".
Ms Fradgley feels the shop could lower the tone and was not in line with the
Source: BBC
May 31, 2009
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed in China's crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
There has been no official inquiry so the exact death toll remains unclear.
Among the crowds in Hong Kong on Sunday was Xiong Yan, a leading student protester during the 1989 demos, now living in exile in the US.
Source: BBC
May 31, 2009
The prime minister told BBC One's Andrew Marr programme if any royal wants to be at the commemorations on 6 June he would "make that possible".
Buckingham Palace has said there would be no royal presence because no-one was invited, but denied claims of a snub.
Mr Brown will represent the UK at the event in Normandy, to mark those who died storming the beaches 65 years ago.
Source: Lee P. Ruddin
May 31, 2009
On 1 June 1939 His Majesty’s submarine Thetis sank in Liverpool Bay while on her diving trials. Her loss is still the worst peacetime submarine disaster that the Royal Navy has suffered with ninety-nine men drowning.
Why did it take so long to find the Thetis especially after those aboard had so skillfully managed to get her stern a good 18 feet above sea level? Then, once found, why was no action taken to cut into the submarine to get those trapped aboard out?
Now, a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 30, 2009
Fang Zheng's last memory before he passed out was the sight of the bone popping out of his upper right leg as the Red Army tank rolled into him.
He woke up the next day in a Beijing hospital, both legs mangled and inoperable. But he was among the lucky ones - 11 fellow students were crushed to death in the tank attack on pro-democracy protestors retreating from Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4, 1989.
Nobody knows how many people were killed that night in th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 30, 2009
Historians enjoy the most active sex lives according to a survey of students at Oxford University.
The survey of more than 850 students by Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell also revealed that students who do not have sex more than once a month are most likely to get a first in their degree.
But students who claimed to have a more active sex life are more likely to attain a 2:1 or 2:2 in their degree.
Historians were found to claim to be more s
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 30, 2009
A remarkable set of letters from the sister of the last Russian Tsar, which were written at the height of the Communist Revolution and have never been seen in public, have come to light
The 60 letters from the Grand Duchess Olga to her mother and sister reveal her desperation to discover the truth about the disappearance of Nicholas II a first cousin of George V, his wife, and their five children.
The correspondence, which is a fascinating insight into the bloody uphea
Source: CNN
May 29, 2009
A chain link fence now stands between Tim Lambert's land and the impact site of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed here on September 11, 2001. The property has been in Lambert's family for almost 80 years.
Lambert says he had no plans for the land, he just knew he wanted to hold on to it. "There's a lot of natural resources in this area -- natural gas, coal," he says.
In the seven years since, some of the most important land needed for the massive proje
Source: Time
May 30, 2009
"Welcome to the Bill and George Show."
That was how former President George W. Bush greeted a crowd of 5,000 Friday evening in Toronto who had paid a few hundred dollars to hear Bush and fellow former leader of the free world Bill Clinton share their experiences — and perhaps their differences — as commander-in-chief.
Thwart them they did. For the most part, the two men, who have been friendly for a couple of years now, traded stories and compliments, part of
Source: USA Today
May 29, 2009
Taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt and other government promises, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
The 12% rise in red ink in 2008 stems from an explosion of federal borrowing during the recession, plus an aging population driving up the costs of Medicare and Social Security.
That's the biggest leap in the long-term burden on taxpayers since a Med
Source: Time Magazine
May 29, 2009
France and England have fought each other in the 100 Years' War, the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars and scads of less memorably named conflicts. And more recently, the French and English have treated the blood-and-tears clashes between their national rugby and soccer teams as fetishes for those battles of yore. The geysers of bile pouring forth from the London tabloids this week suggests a new chapter in Anglo-French enmity may be upon us. Call it the "Great D-Day Hissy Fit."
Source: WaPo
May 28, 2009
In the seven years since enactment of the federal No Child Left Behind law, students have spent ever more time filling in bubbles on high-stakes tests. But Virginia could soon join a movement to roll back testing programs, as it considers abandoning an exam that spans such matters as bartering, the ancient empire of Mali and pie charts.
Florida and Georgia have cut testing budgets, citing financial pressures. North Carolina might soon follow. And today, the Virginia Board of Educati
Source: http://www.kansascity.com
May 28, 2009
Authorities broke a cold case that involves the history of cow town exploits of Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, the FBI said Thursday.
A stolen Dodge City police docket ledger for 1878 to 1882 — missing since the 1950s — has been found in Ohio, they reported.
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday filed a civil lawsuit in Topeka to take possession of the large historic book. How it disappeared remains a mystery, but court records list recent travels that almost ended in public
Source: NYT
May 29, 2009
Every so often, Britons in large numbers seem to rally around a common theme, a newly coined orthodoxy that brooks no dissent and rudely demands change. And, as events over the years — indeed the centuries — have shown, their leaders ignore such junctions in the nation’s history at their peril.
It happened, perhaps mawkishly, when Princess Diana died in 1997 and the royal family — perceived as stuffy and unresponsive, remote and unfeeling — seemed to disdain its subjects’ communal g
Source: NYT
May 28, 2009
A group of Orthodox Jewish leaders from New York has called on Spain to stop what they said is the excavation of an ancient Jewish burial site in Toledo, in central Spain.
Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and one of those leading the campaign, said that the cemetery lay beneath, and adjacent to, a school built in Toledo in the 1970s. Builders, who unearthed Jewish graves during the school’s original construction, were now excavatin
