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
December 12, 2006
Kofi Annan, the departing secretary general of the United Nations, challenged the Bush administration yesterday to shun go-it-alone diplomacy and remain committed to observing human rights as it acts to forestall terrorism.
In a speech delivered at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., billed as his last address to an American audience as secretary general, Mr. Annan said, “You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral
Source: http://www.columbiatribune.com
December 10, 2006
LIVE OAK, Fla. ... It is here, just where the water puddles and the sky opens, that Willie James Howard, perhaps the one black boy in town whom everybody believed had a shot at something good, was taken. Just 15, he was dragged from his home at gunpoint, hogtied and forced into the river on Jan. 2, 1944, by three white men for the cultural offense of having a crush on one of their daughters.
He was never seen alive again. But was he never forgotten in the black community, his death
Source: Letter to the editor of the Murfreesboro Post (TN)
December 12, 2006
Much has been written about the appropriateness of the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest on the Military Science Building on the campus of MTSU. I would like to clarify one or two points and elaborate on what the university’s position is on this issue.
The university annually receives numerous resolutions from the Student Government Association. While non-binding on the university, these resolutions are an expression of the sense of the Student Government Association and the students r
Source: BBC
December 12, 2006
Why are Jews attending a conference on the Holocaust in Tehran at which star guests include deniers of the genocide? Clue: they also want an end to the Israeli state.
A handful of Orthodox Jews have attended Iran's controversial conference questioning the Nazi genocide of the Jews - not because they deny the Holocaust but because they object to using it as justification for the existence of Israel.
With their distinctive hats, beards and side locks, these men may, to the untr
Source: http://www.stltoday.com/
December 5, 2006
Over the last 50 years, civil rights litigation has spurred dramatic changes in American life, affecting hiring, housing, voting, education, law enforcement and the justice system itself.
The litigation has produced countless reams of important documents, which are difficult and time-consuming to find and search through. To remedy the problem — and preserve a critical part of our nation's history — a team of professors and students at the Washington University School of Law has cre
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 12, 2006
Most will end up in piles of remaindered copies or lie unread in the rooms of students. As literature, they have few redeeming qualities, while their relationship to reality is often questioned, as is their true authorship.
But the presidential candidate's book has become as much part of the race for the White House as the wooing of wealthy donors in Manhattan, trudging through the snows of New Hampshire and endless stump speeches in Iowa.
With the 2008 election arguabl
Source: WaPo
December 12, 2006
MATTAPONI INDIAN RESERVATION, Va. -- "Muh-shay-wah-NUH-toe. Chess-kay-dah-KAY-wak."
In his house overlooking the silvery Mattaponi River, Ken Custalow said the words over and over until it drove his wife crazy. Until she yelled from the next room: Have you memorized that thing yet?
Custalow, 70, a member of the Mattaponi tribe, was preparing to give a blessing at a powwow for Virginia Indians in England, part of the events commemorating the 400th anniversary o
Source: Newsweek
December 18, 2006
Sometime around the beginning of the Common Era, a nice Jewish girl comes to her fiancé with a problem. She is pregnant; he is not the father. The groom-to-be is understandably enraged. In his world, almost nothing brings more shame on a man and his family than a broken promise of virginity. Her explanation, that the baby was conceived by God, must have sounded implausible, desperate, even insane. On reflection, though, the man, who is profoundly decent—"righteous," as the story goes—d
Source: NYT
December 12, 2006
It has been part of the lore of America’s first black fighter pilots since the end of World War II: the famed Tuskegee Airmen never lost a bomber to enemy fire.
Now, more than 60 years later, a leader of the group says he has uncovered records proving the claim is not accurate.
Air Force records show that at least a few bombers escorted by the red-tailed fighters of the Tuskegee Airmen were shot down by enemy planes, the man, William F. Holton, historian of Tuskegee Air
Source: NYT
December 12, 2006
A gathering in Iran billed as a conference to “debate” the Nazi annihilation of six million Jews continued on its second day to spark outrage in the West, drawing fierce criticism today from European leaders, the Vatican and the White House.
The hail of criticism came as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told participants of the conference in Tehran today that a committee should be set up to investigate whether the Holocaust occurred. Among the more than 60 participants in the conferen
Source: National Security Archive
December 11, 2006
Twenty-five years after Polish authorities, on December 13, 1981, declared martial law and cracked down on the Solidarity movement, the Washington DC-based, non-governmental National Security Archive is publishing, through Central European University Press, a collection of previously secret documentation entitled "From Solidarity to Martial Law," edited by Andrzej Paczkowski and Malcolm Byrne. The documents from inside Solidarity, the Polish leadership, the Kremlin as well as the White
Source: Jeff Spurr in the IraqCrisis newsletter
December 12, 2006
The latest news from Dr. Saad Eskander, Director-General of the Iraq
National Library and Archive, is that he and the department heads
have met. Despite the fact that the security situation is not one
whit better than it has been of late, they have decided to re-open
their institution. Dr. Eskander has divided the librarians and
archivists into two groups; each group will work a three-day week,
permitting access throughout the week. As he put it in an e-mail
communication,"We al
Source: Breitbart
December 12, 2006
A British vicar banned a man dressed as Father Christmas from a
carol service at his church, he said.
Reverend Tim Storey said he told Henry Cuff, a member of volunteer group
the Lions Club, to disrobe because he wanted to"reclaim the Christian
story of the birth of Jesus Christ as being the heart of the celebration".
"I do not believe that Father Christmas should be part of church services
any more than Santa's grotto should have a manger and a baby Jesus
present," Storey said in a s
Source: AP
December 11, 2006
Government health officials tried to build their case for school
closings and similar steps during a flu pandemic by showcasing
new research Monday that suggests such measures seemed to work
during the deadly Spanish flu of 1918.
Researchers found that cities like St. Louis, which instituted"social
distancing" at least two weeks before flu cases peaked in their
communities, had flu-related death rates less than half that of
Philadelphia, which didn't act until later.
The whirlwind
Source: Breitbart
December 12, 2006
After being ensconced for millions of years in the heart of a
South African cave, the most complete hominid fossil found to date
is finally seeing the light of day ... or almost.
A cast of Little Foot, a fossil with both ape-like and human features, was
unveiled last week at an interactive museum at Maropeng, near the
Sterkfontein caves where it was found, effectively bringing it closer to
an eager public.
Another cast will be displayed at New York's natural history museum and a
th
Source: Breitbart
December 12, 2006
Officials in central Latvia said they were stumped by the theft of
a 300-kilogram (660-pound) bust of Lenin from in front of a museum
in the town of Rujiena.
The headless torso of the first leader of Soviet Russia, which had been
displayed outside the museum since 1998, disappeared one night late last
week. The head had been detached by hooligans in an earlier incident and
was kept inside the museum."We have no tangible leads as to what happened," Normunds Sulcs of the
Rujiena polic
Source: Reuters
December 12, 2006
CAPE EVANS, Antarctica (Reuters) - A neat stack of seal meat sits in an
enclosed porch, tins of cocoa and cabbage are piled on shelves inside, and
all seems ready for Antarctic explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest
Shackleton to take shelter.
Of course they won't: their kind of exploration of the southern continent
ended nearly a century ago. But this remote, snow-shrouded shelter hut
appears eerily intact.
Prefabricated in New Zealand in 1910, transported by ship and reassem
Source: Breitbart
December 12, 2006
Sheet music of all of Mozart's works is now available online for
free, following an initiative by Salzburg's International
Foundation Mozarteum in honour of the 250th anniversary of his
birth."With over 400,000 hits on the website in the first 12 hours, one can say
demand surpassed our expectations," Mirjam Nellman, spokeswoman for the
foundation, based in Mozart's birthplace of Salzburg, told AFP Tuesday.
Source: Breitbart
December 12, 2006
An Ethiopian court has convicted former dictator Mengistu Haile
Miriam of genocide for atrocities committed during his 1974-1991
Marxist regime after a marathon 12-year trial.
Mengistu, on trial in absentia, and 11 co-defendants who served on the
ex-government's central committee were found guilty, of genocide,
homicide, illegal imprisonment and illegal confiscation of property by
Ethiopia's Federal High Court Tuesday.
"Accused numbers one to 12 are found guilty of all charges," Justic
Source: Breitbart
December 12, 2006
The White House denounced Iran's Holocaust conference, featuring
revisionist historians who doubt the World War II-era slaughter,
as"an affront to the entire civilized world.""The United States condemns the conference on the Holocaust convoked by
the Iranian regime on Monday in Tehran," spokeswoman Dana Perino told
reporters.
"The gathering of Holocaust deniers in Tehran is an affront to the entire
civilized world, as well as to the traditional Iranian values of
tolerance and mutual r
