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: Reuters
June 23, 2008
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev condemned on Sunday what he described as attempts to rewrite wartime history -- an attack the Kremlin said was aimed at Ukraine and the three Baltic states.
In a joint declaration marking the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Medvedev and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko denounced a "politicised approach to history".
Their countries "strongly condemn any attempt at rewriting history and revision of the res
Source: Media Matters (liberal watchdog group)
June 23, 2008
Reporting on the forthcoming book The Case Against Barack Obama (Regnery, 2008), authored by former Human Events writer and National Review Online staff reporter David Freddoso, a June 23 Politico article stated that Marjory Ross, the president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, "likens the goal of Freddoso's book to that of 'Unfit for Command' " (Regnery, August 2004), which was co-authored by Swift Vets and POWs for Truth co-founder John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi. As Media Mat
Source: AP
June 21, 2008
Mexico recovered more than 900 pre-Columbian artifacts seized from smugglers in the U.S. and Canada, including 800-year-old fiber sandals, spears and hunting bows looted from nomadic caves, officials said Friday.
The artifacts were seized over seven years by customs agents in Texas, Arizona and Toronto, said Alfonso de Maria y Campos, the director of Mexico's National Anthropology Institute. It took several years to recover the objects because of the bureaucracy involved in identify
Source: USA Today
June 22, 2008
Don't tell Indiana Jones, but most archaeologists pack spades, not bullwhips, and big discoveries usually come after lots of digging, not looting. Maya discoveries in Mexico that are rewriting the history of this classic civilization, for example, are coming from years of careful digging, not looted idols.
The classic Maya were part of a Central American civilization best known for stepped pyramids, beautiful carvings and murals and the widespread abandonment of cities around 900 A.D. in
Source: Independent (UK)
June 23, 2008
They've been talking about the gold in California's hills since 1849, when tens of thousands of pioneers rushed across the continent or even sailed round Cape Horn to join the fabled gold rush that transformed this remote rural backwater into the beating heart of the American dream.
Today, record gold prices, widespread economic turmoil, and the enduring optimism of America's entrepreneurial classes have combined to entice fresh swarms of prospectors to head west in search of hidden
Source: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette
June 21, 2008
The Grade 10 provincial history exam has always been a pressure-cooker test for many students because they need to pass the course to graduate.
It might have been more stressful this year because several history teachers say Monday's provincial exam for the History of Quebec and Canada course was the toughest they've seen in years.
"We're seeing very high failure rates and we're worried about that," said Ken Elliott, director of educational services at the Lester B.
Source: Media Matters
June 23, 2008
Shelby Steele, author of A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win (Free Press, December 2007), acknowledged that he thinks Sen. Barack Obama "can definitely win" the presidential election, despite the claim in the book's subtitle -- "Why He Can't Win" -- which he said was an "afterthought" that he "regret[ted]" and which he said did not represent the book's thesis.
Appearing on the June 22 edition of Fox News' Hannity's
Source: Letter to IraqCrisis newsletter
June 21, 2008
Saad Eskander,
Director General,
Iraqi National Library & Archives
An Open Letter to the Director of Hoover Institute
I have read Mr. Sousa's letter to Mr. Mark Greene, President of the Society of American Archivists (dated 06-06-08), Mr. Al-Jaberi's statement (dated 27-04-08) and the article published by Stanford University's official site regarding the illegally seized documents of the former Iraqi state and the archive of the Ba'ath Party (dated 18-
Source: Press Release--David S. Wyman Foundation
June 23, 2008
One hundred and twenty Israeli political and cultural leaders --including former Supreme Court justices, cabinet ministers, and cultural figures-- have signed a petition to Yad Vashem, Israel's central Holocaust institution and museum, urging it to add to its exhibits material about the Holocaust rescue activists known as the Bergson Group.
The petition was organized by the Washington,D.C.-based David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
The Bergson Group was a mav
Source: Guardian
June 23, 2008
Extra staff have been dispatched to guard the great cultural gems of Greece as the government in Athens tries to deflect growing criticism of its handling of national treasures.
Amid unprecedented protests from tour guides, travel companies and tourists irritated by conditions at prime archaeological sites, the ruling conservatives last week rushed hundreds of additional personnel to staff museums and open-air antiquities.
"The situation at museums and sites around
Source: Guardian
June 22, 2008
They are the amazing pictures that were beamed around the globe: a handful of warriors from an 'undiscovered tribe' in the rainforest on the Brazilian-Peruvian border brandishing bows and arrows at the aircraft that photographed them.
Or so the story was told and sold. But it has now emerged that, far from being unknown, the tribe's existence has been noted since 1910 and the mission to photograph them was undertaken in order to prove that 'uncontacted' tribes still existed in an ar
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
June 18, 2008
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, founded 112 years ago to protect all that is noble about the South, is itself racked by angry divisions these days.
Since the 1990s, clusters of Sons members have aligned themselves with "heritage groups" like the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens, both considered hate groups by the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center. The center says the Sons itself may have been taken over by extremists.
&quo
Source: AP
June 20, 2008
British detectives are back on the trail of a Cold War-era killer who used a poison-tipped umbrella to slay a communist defector.
British detectives acknowledged Friday that they had questioned suspects in the 1978 death of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov. The playwright and broadcaster was a stern critic of his country's communist regime in reports for the British Broadcasting Corp. and Radio Free Europe.
Markov was jabbed in the thigh with an umbrella tip as he wait
Source: NYT
June 23, 2008
In the long-running culture war between evolution and creationism, Philadelphia is firing the latest shot.
Nine academic, scientific and cultural institutions around the city are holding a Year of Evolution, a series of exhibitions, seminars and lectures to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin next February, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, “The Origin of Species.”
Events will include a talk by John E. Jones III
Source: AP
June 22, 2008
Germans who care about their relations with the United States are in an upbeat mood this week, looking both to the past and the future.
Thursday is the 60th anniversary of the start of the Berlin Airlift—the daring American-led operation to feed some 2 million West Berliners under Soviet blockade.
As they celebrate the event with fond reminiscences of American courage and generosity, many Germans are filled with excitement at the possibility of Barack Obama capturing th
Source: WaPo
June 22, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama's historic victory in the Democratic primaries, celebrated in America and across much of the world as a symbol of racial progress and cultural unity, has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.
Neo-Nazi, skinhead and segregationist groups have reported gains in numbers of visitors to their Web sites and in membership since the senator from I
Source: WaPo
June 22, 2008
As Sen. Barack Obama opens his campaign as the first African American on a major party presidential ticket, nearly half of all Americans say race relations in the country are in bad shape and three in 10 acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Lingering racial bias affects the public's assessments of the Democrat from Illinois, but offsetting advantages and Sen. John McCain's age could be bigger factors in determining the next occu
Source: NYT
June 22, 2008
In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda’s engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a C.I.A. offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave
Source: Times (UK)
June 22, 2008
Israel’s iconic leader Golda Meir was blamed for her country’s near-defeat in the Yom Kippur war. But secret government files reveal that while the war hero Moshe Dayan considered surrender, it was Golda who pulled victory from the jaws of defeat.
###When Meir became prime minister of Israel in 1969, the Jewish state that she had done so much to bring into existence was barely 20 years old and faced Arab nations committed to its destruction. Al
Source: WSJ
June 21, 2008
With his two Purple Hearts, three tattoos and spoiling-for-a-fight attitude, Sen. Jim Webb is emerging as the Democrats' point man on two of the most profound matters facing the electorate this November: national defense and the military.
A highly decorated war veteran who opposes the Iraq war, Sen. Webb is considered by many Democrats to be the best person to go into battle against another war hero, expected Republican nominee Sen. John McCain. The ex-Marine, who hails from the imp
