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: Telegraph (UK)
June 18, 2008
The 8th Duke of Wellington has joined leading military historians in a bid to save the farm that was pivotal to British victory at the Battle of Waterloo.They are trying to raise €3 million (£2.4m) to save the dilapidated Belgian farmhouse where the 1st Duke of Wellington's men staged a brave defence that swung the famous 1815 battle in favour of the Allied forces.
They want to turn the Hougoumont farmhouse near Waterloo into an education centre that
Source: Salon
June 18, 2008
A first edition of the Nicolaus Copernicus book that puts forth the theory that the sun — not the earth — is at the center of the universe has fetched more than $2.2 million at an auction, nearly double the expected price.The 1543 copy of Copernicus' "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) was among more than 300 books offered Tuesday at Christie's auction. It was expected to sell for up to $1.2 million.
Source: http://www.cronaca.com
June 17, 2008
One hundred years after the first Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil, the country as a whole has been reflecting on an anniversary that has left a significant legacy.
Second generation Brazilian-Japanese are known as Nisei
Numbering an estimated 1.5 million, there are more people of Japanese descent in Brazil than anywhere in the world outside of Japan itself.
The celebrations are a chance to pay tribute to the pioneering immigrants that first arrived at the p
Source: Politico.com
June 16, 2008
Politico's Ben Smith reports that Stephen Mansfield, whose sympathetic 'The Faith of George W. Bush' spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 2004, will be out this summer with 'The Faith of Barack Obama.' Ben says the book could help 'lend credibility to Senator Obama's bid to win Evangelical Christian voters away from the Republican Party: 'Its tone ranges from gently critical to gushing, and the author defends Obama-and even his controversial former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah
Source: AP
June 16, 2008
Tony Schwartz, who helped create the infamous "daisy ad" that ran only once during the 1964 presidential race but changed political advertising forever, has died.
Schwartz, 84, died Sunday at his Manhattan home, said his daughter Kayla Schwartz-Burridge. He had been suffering from heart valve stenosis.
Schwartz, who started his career as a graphic designer, collaborated with a team from the Doyle Dean Bernbach ad agency to create the spot featuring a little
Source: LAT
June 18, 2008
Rafid Ahmed Alwan hoped for an easier life when he came here from Iraq nine years ago. He also hoped for a reward for his cooperation with German intelligence officers.
"For what I've done, I should be treated like a king," he said outside a cramped, low-rent apartment he shares with his family.
Instead, the Iraqi informant code-named Curveball has flipped burgers at McDonald's and Burger King, washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant and baked pretzels in an all
Source: Harris Poll
June 17, 2008
The latest Harris Poll finds the nation in a foul political mood. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice all register their worst ratings ever. More people than ever also think the country is on the wrong track.
But this does not seem to help the Democrats. The Democratically-controlled Congress gets even worse ratings than the President and Vice-President, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ratings have also fallen to their lowest
Source: AP
June 16, 2008
A federal appeals board has upheld a deportation order for a Wisconsin man who served as a Nazi concentration camp guard during World War II, the Justice Department announced Monday.
The federal Board of Immigration Appeals upheld a deportation order issued in January 2007 against 83-year-old Josias Kumpf of Racine, who had served as a guard at the Trawniki training camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. The Board of Immigration Appeals is
Source: WaPo
June 17, 2008
The Bush Administration has long maintained that the overtly cruel and abusive treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was the conduct of a few "bad apples."
But a Senate investigation is tracking the rot to its source. And its findings add to the mounting evidence that the sometimes systematic torture of detainees at American hands was the result of decisions made at the highest levels of government -- and particularly within the office of the vice president.
Source: NYT
June 17, 2008
If Sok Chear had her way, she would slice the elderly man into ribbons and pour salt into his wounds. She would beat him up and torture him and give him electric shocks to make him talk.
For Ly Monysar, even that would not be enough. “Only killing them will make me feel calm,” he said. “I want them to suffer the way I suffered. I say this from the heart.”
Sok Chear, an office worker, and Ly Monysar, a security guard, are two of the millions of Cambodians who suffered fo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 17, 2008
An internationally wanted 'Nazi war criminal' has been spotted supporting his national team at the Euro 2008 football championships in Austria.
Milivoj Asner is wanted by Interpol for alleged genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during his service as a police chief in Croatia during the Second World War, when the country was ruled by a Nazi puppet regime.
But Mr Asner, 95, who now lives a quiet and undisturbed life in Klagenfurt, Austria, has been
Source: AP
June 15, 2008
Robert Stamps, one of nine Kent State students wounded in the Ohio National Guard shootings that killed four other students 38 years ago, died in Tallahassee, Fla., of complications from pneumonia, his wife said.
Stamps, an observer who was sympathetic to anti-war demonstrators, was struck in the lower back on May 4, 1970 while fleeing tear gas and gunfire during a protest against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. He rode in the same ambulance as Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, both
Source: WaPo
June 17, 2008
The White House does not have to make public internal documents examining the potential disappearance of e-mails sent during some of the Bush administration's biggest controversies, a U.S. district judge ruled yesterday.
In a 39-page opinion, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said that the White House's Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), even though its top officials had complied with the public records law for more than two decades.
Source: http://www.scoop.co.nz
June 16, 2008
A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover .
"This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to
Source: Andina
June 8, 2008
In the last days, a team of archaeologists headed by Ruth Shady has discovered a number of anthropomorphic figures believed to be some five thousand years old near the district of Vegueta in the province of Huaura on the coast north of Lima.
These relics have been unearthed in the archeological site of Vichama, or "hidden city", a place that belongs to the same civilization of Caral and which is located 159 kilometers north of Lima. Caral is considered the oldest city of A
Source: Times (UK)
June 14, 2008
It has been a source of enduring fascination for archaeologists and amateur Egyptologists everywhere: what exactly happened to the sarcophagus of Menkaure, one of Egypt's greatest Pharaohs? Now, more than 170 years after it was found and lost, the mystery could be solved.
Built from polished blue basalt to transport the king's earthly remains to the next world, the elaborately decorated vessel lay hidden inside the third-largest of Giza's renowned Pyramids for more than 4,000 years.
Source: Press Release--Bradley Foundation
June 3, 2008
The Bradley Project on America’s National Identity today released its Report, “E Pluribus Unum,”the product of a two-year study involving a number of our nation’s leading academics, public figures, journalists, educators and policy experts. The report examines four aspects of American life crucial to American identity: historical memory, civic education, assimilation, and national security.
The report finds that America is facing an identity crisis and calls for a national dialogue
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 16, 2008
[First Minister] Alex Salmond dropped a cultural bombshell yesterday when he claimed that the Stone of Destiny, one of Scotland's most famous relics, was a medieval fake.
Scottish, English and British monarchs have been crowned on the ancient coronation stone since the ninth century.
It spent 700 years under the chair in Westminster Abbey after it was seized in 1296 by King Edward I, and was finally returned to Scotland 12 years ago.
It has since been viewe
Source: AFP
June 13, 2008
Genetic material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, according to a study to be published Sunday.
European and US scientists have proved for the first time that two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial.
Previous studies had suggested that the space rocks, which hit Earth some 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon im
Source: Daily Mail
March 23, 2008
In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.
On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.
In
