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
April 21, 2009
President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.
“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrot
Source: http://www.wsls.com
April 21, 2009
VMI unveiled this plaque Tuesday to commemorate Captain Henry du Pont of the union army, who helped rebuild the college, after destroying it during the civil war.
Historian Colonel Keith Gibson said, “he shelled, burned, and completely destroyed the barracks and at that time the barracks were the institute.“
In the video box there are some pictures of what the college looked like after it was bombarded with cannon-fire. It was Captain du Pont’s efforts 50-years l
Source: AP
April 21, 2009
A bomb squad carefully removed a Civil War-era relic from the Porter County Museum after determining that it could be an explosive grenade.
The metal ball and two other items were removed from the museum in Valparaiso last week and taken to a secure location.
Source: BBC
April 21, 2009
A website offering free access to rare manuscripts, books, films and maps from around the world is being launched by the UN's cultural agency.
Unesco says the World Digital Library will help to promote curiosity and understanding across cultures.
Among the artefacts are a 1,000-year-old Japanese novel and the earliest known map to mention America by name.
About a tenth of the 1,200 exhibits are from Africa - the oldest an 8,000-year-old painting of bleed
Source: BBC
April 21, 2009
Fossils found in China may give clues to the evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex.
Uncovered near the city of Jiayuguan, the fossil finds come from a novel tyrannosaur dubbed Xiongguanlong baimoensis.
The fossils date from the middle of the Cretaceous period, and may be a "missing link", tying the familiar big T rex to its much smaller ancestors.
The fossils show early signs of the features that became pronounced with later tyrannosaurs.
Source: AP
April 21, 2009
Nearly nine years after 17 sailors were killed in a terrorist attack on the USS Cole, some relatives of the victims are set to receive at least $200,000 each from Sudan, a lawyer said Tuesday.
The 33 spouses, parents and children of the sailors have fought in court for the compensation for six years. They successfully argued the Sudanese government provided support, including money and training, that allowed al-Qaida suicide bombers to attack the Navy destroyer at a refueling stop a
Source: NYT
April 21, 2009
In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.
This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate a
Source: NYT
April 21, 2009
How does a professional writer discuss “The Elements of Style” without nervously looking over his shoulder and seeing Will Strunk and E. B. White (or thousands of readers of their book) second-guessing him? (Is “second-guessing” hyphenated or not? Is posing a question the same as using the passive voice?)
William Strunk Jr. wrote and self-published the famous “Little Book” as a professor of English. White, his student at Cornell in 1919 and later an author and essayist, first revise
Source: Reuters
April 22, 2009
A Pulitzer Prize-winning book on a brutal aspect of U.S. history has reignited debate on the country's racial past just as the country's first black president is seen as evidence of racial progress.
"Slavery By Another Name" recounts the little-known story of how in the decades after President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves, hundreds of thousands of black Americans were re-enslaved as convict laborers.
Author Douglas Blackmon s
Source: BBC
April 22, 2009
Love letters between a prisoner of war who was held in Italy and Germany and his young wife in Norfolk have been found in a house in Suffolk.
The letters, written by Miriam King and her husband George, were found by Tony Roe who works at RAF Honington.
After the story was broadcast on BBC Look East, Mrs King, 94, was traced to Gorleston in Norfolk.
RAF Honington has now formally handed the 50 or so letters, which were found in an old chest of drawers, to
Source: BBC
April 22, 2009
A portrait of William Shakespeare thought to be the only picture made of him during his lifetime has been unveiled in Warwickshire.
The painting is on show at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon, to celebrate the playwright's birthday on 23 April.
The trust said it was convinced the artwork, thought to date back to 1610, was an authentic portrait.
But some critics have gone on record to say the picture is not of Shakespeare.
Source: BBC
February 21, 2009
A wail of sirens brought Israel to a standstill on Tuesday morning for a two-minute silence to remember the victims of the Holocaust.
At a ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Holocaust deniers would never be allowed to carry out another Holocaust of the Jewish people.
Remembrance ceremonies were held across the world, including at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland.
Thousands of young Jews and elderly survivors took park in th
Source: Inscience
April 21, 2009
Archaeologists from Bristol’s Museum and Art Gallery, working in advance of redevelopment at the University of Bristol, have uncovered the remains of one of the most significant fortifications from the English Civil War (1642-53): the Royal Fort, located on a hill overlooking the City of Bristol.
For many years, considerable doubt has surrounded the Fort’s exact location, as it was largely destroyed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the few remains that survived were
Source: Salon
April 22, 2009
The Senate Armed Services Committee has just released an exhaustive review of torture under the Bush administration that, among other revelations, torpedoes the notion that the administration only chose torture as a last resort. Bush officials have long argued that they turned to coercive interrogations in 2002 only after captured al-Qaida suspects wouldn't talk, but the report shows the administration set the wheels in motion soon after 9/11. The Bush White House began planning for torture in
Source: The University of Texas at San Antonio
April 21, 2009
UTSA Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) researchers are examining artifacts they recently discovered that date from 3700 B.C. to 600 A.D. The artifacts were discovered during a three-month dig at Miraflores Park, east of Brackenridge Park.
CAR researchers were hired by the San Antonio design firm Rehler Vaughn & Koone to conduct an archaeological site inspection before construction of a pedestrian bridge over the San Antonio River from Brackenridge Park. What was expected
Source: news.com.au ( Australia)
April 23, 2009
ARGENTINE police arrested 36 skinheads at an event celebrating the 120th anniversary of the birth of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
The arrests came after a "prolonged and meticulous investigation'', said Daniel Perez, the second in command of the Federal Police unit in charge of investigating hate crimes.
Police broke into the Central Argentine Club, in the town of San Martin, in Buenos Aires province, while a recital was being held by the local chapter of the neo-Naz
Source: AP
April 22, 2009
Turkey and Armenia have agreed on a roadmap for normalizing relations and reaching reconciliation, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, but it wasn't immediately clear how they would tackle their bitter dispute over Ottoman-era killings of ethnic Armenians.
Turkish officials would not discuss that issue and the ministry statement said only that the two countries had worked out a framework for reaching a solution that would satisfy both sides. There was no immediate comment
Source: http://www.astigan.com
April 22, 2009
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a 3,000 year-old fortified city and four ancient temples while working on an ancient military road known as “Way of Horus”. Archaeologists say the discoveries might rewrite the historical and military significance of the Sinai for the ancient Egyptians.
Digging near an old military road in the Sinai, Egyptian archaeologists have discovered an ancient fortified city dating back about 3,000 years. According to Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s top archaeolog
Source: BBC
April 22, 2009
US government backing for the CIA's harsh interrogation methods set the tone for abuses by US troops towards detainees in Iraq, a US report says. It was not appropriate simply to blame low-ranking officers for what occurred at Abu Ghraib prison, the report by the Senate Armed Services Committee said.
Top officials had sent the message that such acts were appropriate, it stated.
The report follows the release of Bush-era memos that justify the use of what some criti
Source: Deutsche Welle
April 20, 2009
Gerd Honsik, 68, had already been sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1992 for propagating Holocaust denial in his book "Acquittal for Hitler?" However, he fled to Spain during his appeal and spent 15 years there before being extradited to Austria in 2007.
He now faces new charges for articles he allegedly wrote and circulated on the Internet.
The opening of his trial coincided with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's 120th birthday - a fact that was not lost on the pr
