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: AFP
January 10, 2008
Eyebrows were raised in the House of Commons on Thursday when a motion calling for the Church of England to be disestablished was listed with the number 666, symbol of the AntiChrist.
"This number is supposed to be the mark of the Devil. It looks as though God or the Devil have been moving in mysterious ways," said Bob Russell, a Liberal Democrat MP among those proposing the motion for debate.
"What is even stranger is that this motion was tabled last nig
Source: AFP
December 18, 2007
India has its sacred cows, but in La Alberca, a Spanish village renowned for its juicy hams, an ancient Christian tradition has decreed that the chosen animal is a pig.
"Hello pig," the villagers call as they walk by the chosen animal wandering freely across a cobbled courtyard of the medieval village. One man stops to scratch the side of the hefty looking creature.
La Alberca, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the western town of Salamanca near the border w
Source: New Republic
January 8, 2008
Since at least 1978, Ron Paul has attached his name to a series of newsletters--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report, and The Ron Paul Investment Letter--that frequently made outrageous statements:
"A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992: "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. ... What if the chec
Source: NYT
January 9, 2008
Pre-primary tracking polls conducted by some of the nation’s most reputable polling organizations like Gallup and CNN, raised expectations in the Obama campaign, lowered them in the Clinton campaign and had the media reporting that Barack Obama was such a strong candidate after his victory in Iowa that he was virtually unstoppable. But last night Hillary Rodham Clinton proved wrong what had by then become the conventional wisdom and won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, shifting the klieg li
Source: BBC
December 29, 2007
The British Library has admitted an historic diary was damaged while in its care, but refused to confirm reports the book had been left in a car boot.
Owner Peter J Tyldesley handed over the manuscript in 1994, believing it would be safer in the Library than his home.
The solicitor told The Times he "wanted to weep" when he discovered oily stains on the pages seven months ago.
He claimed the book had been removed from the library. A Library spokeswoman
Source: AFP
December 27, 2007
For the past couple of years, these mysterious circles of carved stone figures, which villagers in southern Nigeria still worship on occasion, have been causing a frenzy of excitement here.
Newspapers have trumpeted the Ikom monoliths - phallic-shaped pieces of volcanic rock largely ignored for centuries - as being remnants of a glorious civilization made up in equal parts of Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament.
One theory even cites them as evidence that the biblical G
Source: Reuters
January 9, 2008
As David Matsuda tells it, he's probably the last person you'd expect to see in a U.S. military uniform climbing out of an armored vehicle in Iraq.
An anthropology professor from the East Bay campus of California State University near San Francisco, he's a self-described peacenik who opposed the war in Iraq, did his academic research in Guatemala and never carries a gun.
"I'm a Californian. I'm a liberal. I'm a Democrat," he says. "My impetus is to come h
Source: AP
January 4, 2008
This port city unveils an exhibition dedicated to Jewish teenager Anne Frank on Saturday, placing a re-creation of her Amsterdam bedroom beneath the towering arches of Liverpool's neo-Gothic Anglican cathedral.
Organizers hope using a church to house a replica of the room where Frank wrote her diary will convey a message of tolerance in a city afflicted by gang violence and crime. But Liverpool's Jewish schools have banned pupils from attending because the festival is being held in
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 9, 2008
The Government could be urged to accept that Northern Ireland's terrorist conflict amounted to a war by the official body looking at the legacy of the Troubles.
The proposal was one of a controversial set of options outlined by Ulster's new Consultative Group on the Past, which has also suggested handing an amnesty to paramilitaries who are prepared to admit to their crimes.
The proposals were greeted with anger from politicians and victims' groups, who objected to rede
Source: http://www.vicksburgpost.com
January 7, 2008
PORT GIBSON -- From museums to meticulously preserved battlefields, Vicksburg abounds with reminders of Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1862-63 effort to capture the city and take control of the Mississippi River.
To see the site of the campaign's first battle, though, one must penetrate the tree-studded ravines of Claiborne County to the yard of an inconspicuous building that, until recently, was in danger of falling down.
Restored by the Mississippi Department of Archiv
Source: AFP
January 7, 2008
A record 1.22 million people visited the former Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 2007, a spokesman for the museum in southern Poland said Monday.
"The majority of visitors are from abroad, mainly from Great Britain, the United States and Germany," museum spokesman Jaroslaw Mensfelt told AFP.
Last year, 755,000 foreigners visited the twin death camps, including 104,000 British citizens, 91,000 Americans and 60,000 Germans, he said.
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Source: NYT
January 9, 2008
NICE, France — On a February morning in 2006, a group of experts in Russian art approached the onion-domed Russian church here and demanded to be admitted to take an inventory of the building and its contents — icons, liturgical vestments, incense burners, everything.
“We refused them entry,” even though they had an order from a local judge, said the Rev. Jean Gueit, for the last four years the archpriest of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas. “It was a long morning,” he added.
Source: Chicago Tribune
January 9, 2008
Maps don't just describe the landscape. They can transform it.
It's because of a map that Chicago has 1,900 miles of alleys, the most in the world. Maps were key in making the lakefront beautiful -- and in helping to ruin some neighborhoods.
A 172-year-old map is at the center of the ongoing dispute in Chicago about building the new Children's Museum in Grant Park.
Maps have made the careers of some Chicago alderman -- and destroyed those of others. Indeed,
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
January 9, 2008
In a report issued today, a Presidential advisory board proposed dozens
of steps to promote a more rational, uniform and productive process for
declassification of historical records.
Declassification policy must"take into account the interest of
ordinary citizens in having as 'thorough, accurate, and reliable' a
record of their country's history as soon as it is possible to provide
it," wrote Martin Faga, acting chair of the Public Interest
Declassification Board (and former directo
Source: Deutsche Welle
January 7, 2008
Organizers of a rolling exhibit that highlights the role of the German transport system in the Holocaust have complained of a lack of support from Germany's largest national railway company.
The citizens' action group that created the Train of Commemoration, a vintage steam locomotive hauling two carriages containing pictures of child Holocaust victims, has begun touring German cities since early November. It is to reach the Auschwitz death camp in Poland on May 8.
But
Source: CNN
January 8, 2007
Some historians credit Republican President Warren G. Harding with running the first campaign that made liberal use of celebrity endorsement.When Harding ran in 1920, film was still just a fledgling industry. Harding was backed by conservative silent film stars like Lillian Russell, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Al Jolson, evidently as part of a well-orchestrated campaign by ad agency Lord & Thomas.
Evidently, W.C. Fields, curmudgeonly comedian on the
Source: AFP
January 8, 2008
North Vietnamese made hoax calls to get the US military to bomb its own units during the Vietnam War, according to declassified information that also confirmed US officials faked an incident to escalate the war.
The report was released by the National Security Agency, responsible for much of the United States' codebreaking and eavesdropping work, in response to a "mandatory declassification" request, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said Monday.
Fro
Source: History Today
December 29, 2007
An expedition, including the great-grandson of Sir Ernest Shackleton, is to recreate the journey to the South Pole attempted by the explorer a century ago. Alongside 36-year-old descendant Patrick Bergel will be Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Worsley, a relative of Frank Worsley, the captain of the Endurance. The team will start the 900-mile journey in October and hope to launch a £10 million Shackleton Foundation. Shackleton’s trek was curtailed in January 1909 during his attempt to reach the Pole fo
Source: National Security Archive
January 8, 2008
In an Order issued today, Magistrate Judge Facciola of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the White House to answer questions about over 5 million missing e-mails generated between 2003-2005. Noting that the need for information the missing e-mails is "time-sensitive" because of the risk that stored copied of the e-mails "are increasingly likely to be deleted or overridden with the passage of time," the Court demanded answers in a sworn decl
Source: http://canadianpress
January 6, 2008
A rusty, diamond-shaped iron blade, its sharp point jutting from the dirt where it was discovered, could be a centuries-old clue that sheds new light on the obscure path taken by the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto.
For archeologist Dennis Blanton it has erased most doubts that the patch of ground in southeast Georgia was visited more than 460 years ago by some Spanish explorers - if not by de Soto himself.
"It's pretty much case-closed," says Blanton, stand
