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: http://www.wjbc.com
May 5, 2008
There are plenty of places in Downstate Illinois, including here in Bloomington-Normal, to find Abe Lincoln. Promoting them is the job of the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition.
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin is announcing congressional approval of $15 million over 15 years to promote the local projects. The allocation awaits the signature of President Bush.
Durbin says the $15 million over 15 years does not sound like much, but there will be plenty of publici
Source: http://www.thewest.com.au
May 7, 2008
Germany today banned two regional far-right organisations suspected of denying the Nazis’ slaughter of six million Jews and launched early morning raids against their members.
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the groups outlawed were the Collegium Humanum and the Association for the Rehabilitation of Those Persecuted for Questioning the Holocaust (VRBHV)”.
Based in Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the neo-Nazi groups are “collecting pool
Source: NYT
May 7, 2008
As Israel toasts its 60th anniversary in the coming weeks, rejoicing in Jewish national rebirth and democratic values, the Arabs who make up 20 percent of its citizens will not be celebrating. Better off and better integrated than ever in their history, freer than a vast majority of other Arabs, Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens are still far less well off than Israeli Jews and feel increasingly unwanted.
On Thursday, which is Independence Day, thousands will gather in their former
Source: History Today
May 2, 2008
A 16th-century shipwreck is thought to be the oldest uncovered in Sub-Saharan Africa. The 500-year-old treasure ship was discovered off the Atlantic coast of Namibia on April 1st by diamond company Namdeb. Human remains, thousands of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins, and elephant tusks have been found already. Three bronze canons are thought to originate from early 16th-century Spain. Experts from Spain and Portugal are due to arrive at the site amidst speculation that the ship may be linked to
Source: National Security Archive
May 6, 2008
The White House yesterday admitted to a federal magistrate judge that it has no computer back-up tapes with data written before May 23, 2003, and that it cannot track the history of individual hard drives within the White House system that may contain missing e-mails.
The White House filing responded to an April 24, 2008, order from Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola of the U.S. District Court directing the White House to provide more precise information about e-mail customers and ha
Source: Fox News
May 6, 2008
An ancient Egyptian necklace was stolen from a museum in Dayton, Ohio, according to WHIO TV.
The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery artifact, made from carnelian gems, has been estimated to be several thousand years old, the station reported.
The thief damaged the case that held the necklace, which has been on display since it was donated in the 1940s, said Lynn Simonelli, the museum's vice president of collection and research.
Source: NYT
May 5, 2008
A 246-foot tall, rocket ship-like monument to the late ruler of Turkmenistan, topped with a golden statue of himself that rotates to always face the sun, will be removed from the center of the Turkmen capital, state news media there have reported.
A decision by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to move the monument was his latest step in dismantling the personality cult of Saparmurat Niyazov, whose often bizarre decrees turned the isolated, energy-rich country into the punch li
Source: NYT
May 5, 2008
A memorial to Boris N. Yeltsin was dedicated late last month in a central spot in Russia’s most illustrious cemetery, a landscape of earnest tributes to generals and composers, mathematicians and diplomats. The veil was lifted, and there it was: a slab that brought to mind a giant, wobbly, tricolor birthday cake.
Many passers-by do not know what to make of it, which seems fitting, given that it honors a man whose legacy these days remains just as confounding.
Mr. Yeltsi
Source: NYT
May 5, 2008
As envisioned by its designer, the memorial to the victims who died on Sept. 11, 2001, when United Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa., would follow the topography of the bowl-shaped land, creating a circular pathway ringed by trees, all focused on the “sacred ground” of the crash site near the bottom of the circle.
But almost from the moment the winning entry for the memorial was chosen in 2005 over 1,058 others it has been beset by controversy, most of it coming f
Source: History Today
May 1, 2008
Dramatic events in a remote Persian wilderness exactly a hundred years ago heralded the beginning of a new era in the Middle East. A wealthy British entrepreneur, William Knox D’Arcy (1849-1917), had secured a concession to prospect for oil in the country in 1901. After several years of exhausting andsy seemingly fruitless work, a drilling team led by a maverick British explorer, George Reynolds (1852-1925) was about to strike gold. During the early hours of May 26th, 1908, a short distance fro
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
May 6, 2008
The newspapers all said it was the grandest spectacle of the age - that great day exactly 100 years ago today when what looked like the entire United States Navy steamed through the Golden Gate, 16 battleships bristling with guns and trailing plumes of bla
Source: WaPo
May 6, 2008
Identifying with the common man has been a requisite in presidential elections for almost two centuries. But the stakes are especially high in a race largely defined by an economic crisis, and campaign experts say the candidates have gone especially far in their appeals.
In the past six weeks, Clinton hammered down a shot of Crown Royal whiskey -- not necessarily the first choice of the workingman -- and chased it with a beer. Obama visited a Pennsylvania sports bar and sampled a Yu
Source: http://www.canada.com
May 3, 2008
There was nothing special to distinguish the casually dressed, middle-aged woman and man who arrived in Ottawa one morning this week on a flight from Washington. That's just the way they wanted it.
The woman, a conservator from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), was carrying one of the most important documents from American history. The man walking nearby was a NARA security officer on hand to make sure it arrived safely at its destination -- an exhibition hall
Source: Toronto Star
May 3, 2008
Israeli historian Yosef Gorny owes his life to three strokes of good fortune, or so he says.
First, an errant German bomb destroyed his family's home near Warsaw in 1939, sending him fleeing with his parents into Russian-occupied Poland.
Next, Russian dictator Josef Stalin decided to transport 200,000 Jews from Poland to Siberia – the Gorny family among them.
By these fortuitous means, the trio managed to avoid the fate of millions of other Jews who perishe
Source: Cronaca
April 25, 2008
Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year.
Zahi Hawass, prominent archaeologist and director of Egypt's superior council for antiquities announced a proposal to test the theory that the couple were buried together.
He discussed the project in Cairo at a media conference about the ancient pharaohs.
Hawass said that the remains of the
Source: Bloomberg News
May 6, 2008
A medieval processional cross that was looted from Poland by the Nazis and discovered decades later in an Austrian garbage bin has been returned to the heirs of the countess who owned it before the war.
The Limoges enamel cross was part of the Dzialynska collection at Goluchow Castle in Poland, according to a statement from the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, a London-based organization which helps families recover property stolen by the Nazis. The 13th-century cross features
Source: LiveScience
May 6, 2008
The effects of a massive volcanic eruption in Peru more than 400 years ago might have significantly impacted societies and agriculture world-wide, according to a new study of historic records.
Huaynaputina erupted in southern Peru on Feb. 19, 1600, driving volcanic mudflows that destroyed villages for many miles around and spewing a huge column of smoke and ash into the atmosphere.
The eruption of Huaynaputina represents the largest known eruption in South America in th
Source: Independent (UK)
May 6, 2008
The former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein feared catching Aids or some other venereal disease during his US-supervised captivity, according to excerpts from his prison writings, published in a leading Arab newspaper yesterday.
The London-based daily Al-Hayat said its correspondent had obtained the material from the US authorities, and the US military confirmed that pages of Saddam's writings have been released.
They describe how, when Saddam found US guards were also usi
Source: WaPo
May 4, 2008
The new black revolution, as singer Gil Scott-Heron famously predicted, is not being televised.
It is raging online.
A growing cadre of young black activists is using the Internet in an attempt to eclipse traditional civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and hit the refresh button on the civil rights movement. Bloggers with names such as the Cruel Secretary, and blogs called What About Our Daughters? and the African American Political Pundit, have railed against
Source: http://www.katu.com
May 1, 2008
CRESWELL, Ore. - A cannon round from the World War I era exploded Wednesday while a man tried to disassemble the projectile to recycle the brass.
Vernal Miller, 50, suffered serious injuries to his legs and lower torso. He was transported by air ambulance to Sacred Heart Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition in the intensive care unit.
"What it looks like at this point is a man was working with ammunition," Lt. Byron Trapp of the Lane Count
