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: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
December 10, 2007
During the Battle of Iwo Jima in March 1945, as American soldiers went cave to cave looking for enemy soldiers, a Japanese soldier emerged, wearing nothing but a loin cloth.
The Americans took him into custody. They fed him and clothed him, and took him to a foxhole with them. A short time later, he asked if anyone spoke French.
One soldier did, and all of a sudden, the Americans realized they had captured a high-ranking man -- with a lot of knowledge of Japanese plans
Source: http://rawstory.com
December 10, 2007
History has a way of repeating itself.
White House press secretary Dana Perino has been front and center of the White House's push to continue to label Iran a rogue state for its pursuit of uranium enrichment technology.
This comes against the backdrop of a new intelligence estimate positing that the Islamic state abandoned its nuclear weapons in 2003.
Turns out she doesn't know quite so much about nuclear weapons as she supposes. And we're not talking abou
Source: Newsweek
December 17, 2007
In a telephone interview with NEWSWEEK'S Holly Bailey, Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, declined to say whether he agreed with evangelical Christians who believe Mormonism is a heretical cult. "First of all, I don't think it's appropriate for me to start evaluating other religions," Huckabee said. "The more I answer these questions, the more people want to say, 'Ah, you describe yourself as a theologian,' or 'Oh, you're the one who is setting yourself up as a judge
Source: Boston Globe
December 9, 2007
Since its founding in 1830 by Joseph Smith, a young self-proclaimed prophet from upstate New York, the Mormon church has become one of the most influential religious groups in the United States. Officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), it claims nearly 7 million adherents nationwide, and even the lowest outside estimates - about 3 million American Mormons - suggest there are now more Mormons in the US than there are Congregationalists.
Mormons contr
Source: http://www.thetimes.co.za
December 9, 2007
SA Indians could lose priceless treasures because of neglect at Durban documentation centre.
The future of the Durban Cultural and Documentation Centre, which houses valuable pieces of Indian history, hangs in the balance.
The centre, home to artefacts, musical instruments, traditional clothing, important documents, books and photographs, some dating back to the 1800s, was opened in 1996.
It was once a hive of activity and regarded as a tourist attraction,
Source: AFP
December 10, 2007
The Greek myth that ancient Spartans threw their stunted and sickly newborns off a cliff was not corroborated by archaeological digs in the area, researchers said Monday.
After more than five years of analysis of human remains culled from the pit, also called an apothetes, researchers found only the remains of adolescents and adults between the ages of 18 and 35, Athens Faculty of Medicine Anthropologist Theodoros Pitsios said.
"There were still bones in the area,
Source: National Security Archive
December 10, 2007
Previously secret Soviet Politburo records and declassified American transcripts of the Washington summit 20 years ago between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev show that Gorbachev was willing to go much further than the Americans expected or were able to reciprocate on arms cuts and resolving regional conflicts, according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarch
Source: National Security Archive
December 10, 2007
As disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori goes on trial in Lima, Peru, for human rights atrocities, the National Security Archive posted a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency cable tying him directly to the executions of unarmed rebels who had surrendered after the seizure of the residence of Japanese ambassador in 1997. "President Fujimori issued the order to 'take no prisoners,'" states the secret "roger channel" intelligence cable. "Because of this even MRTA
Source: NYT
December 10, 2007
When editors at the New Oxford American Dictionary recently announced that their word of the year was “locavore,” which means someone who eats locally grown food, they also became the very definition of publicity.
In the last few weeks Ben Zimmer, an Oxford University Press dictionary editor, appeared on numerous radio shows and on a syndicated public radio program to talk about the word contest. The selection of locavore also had 25 mentions in major newspapers like The Philadelphi
Source: NYT
December 11, 2007
Unbeknownst to Anna Plumstead, her attic in Wiscasset, Me., held a treasure: one of the earliest copies of the Declaration of Independence, delivered to her town in 1776 as part of a campaign to spread its message through the original 13 colonies.
After Ms. Plumstead died in 1994, the document was sold at an estate auction. It changed hands several times, ending up with a private collector in Virginia who paid $475,000 for it in 2001. Now Maine is seeking to reclaim it, citing a st
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 11, 2007
The leader of a far-Right party in Germany was facing a parliamentary inquiry last night after he questioned the number of Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis.
Udo Voigt, the head of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), also demanded the return of land lost after the Second World War.
"Six million cannot be right. At most, 340,000 people could have died in Auschwitz," he said in an interview with Iranian journalists.
"The Jews al
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 11, 2007
More than six out of 10 English voters say they feel "British", according to a new opinion poll.
The poll suggests the concept of 'Britain' still retains a deep hold on the affections of English people
An even greater proportion - 69 per cent - want to keep the historic Union between England and Scotland, while only 24 per cent want the two countries to separate.
However, the ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph also reveals great concern about th
Source: Earth Times
December 9, 2007
Excited archaeologists are raising part of a Roman barge that sank near the wharf nearly 2,000 years ago in the German riverside city of Cologne. Cologne, which derives its modern name from the town's Latin name, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, is full of Roman remains including a largely intact aqueduct.
But the oaken boat, found 12 metres below the surface during excavations a few days ago for an underground mass-transit line, is something special, offering scientists a new wi
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
December 10, 2007
Somewhere in the ground overlooking the Delaware River, amid the trees and brush at a Paulsboro oil-storage terminal, is a long-forgotten piece of American history. Identified on a British map 230 years ago as a "rebel fort," the site was the nation's first federal land purchase, made the day after the Declaration of Independence.
It's the "birthplace of homeland security," says a group of local historians, preservationists and municipal officials who hope to res
Source: AP
December 8, 2007
An independent pollution-control agency has rejected environmentalists' claims that a planned landfill could desecrate possible burial grounds near the ruins of a once-thriving prehistoric city.
The Illinois Sierra Club and American Bottom Conservancy failed to show that Madison's approval process for a landfill near the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site was "fundamentally unfair," the Illinois Pollution Control Board ruled Thursday.
The St. Louis suburb, whi
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
December 11, 2007
The Office of the Vice President is not an "agency" for purposes of the executive order on classification and therefore its classification and declassification activity no longer need be reported to the Information Security Oversight Office, the Justice Department finally informed ISOO Director Bill Leonard in a newly disclosed letter (pdf).In a January 9, 2007 letter to the Attorney General, Director Leonard had questioned the OVP's refusal since 2003 to submit to
Source: ABC News
December 10, 2007
A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.
In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds....
Source: BBC
December 10, 2007
The former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, has made a fiery outburst in court a few hours into the first day of his murder and kidnapping trial. Mr Fujimori shouted angrily: "I reject the charges entirely. I'm innocent."
The former president, who could receive up to 30 years in prison if convicted, was told by a judge to calm down.
He is accused of authorising two death squad massacres in the early 1990s in which 25 people were killed. He denies the charg
Source: AP
December 10, 2007
Las Vegas is building a museum about some of its founding fathers and most influential figures — guys with names like Bugsy, Lefty and Lansky.
The mob museum will stand as frank acknowledgment of the major role mobsters played in developing Las Vegas into the gambling capital of America and giving the city its rakish glamour during the 1940s and '50s.
"Let's be brutally honest, warts and all. This is more than legend. It's fact," said Mayor Oscar Goodman, a f
Source: AP
December 10, 2007
The new Polish prime minister suggested that a World War II museum be set up in Poland, presenting it in remarks published Monday as an alternative to German plans to commemorate people displaced during and after the war.
Donald Tusk made the proposal for a museum in Gdansk a day before his first visit to Germany since taking office — a trip meant to help improve relations that cooled under his nationalist predecessor, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Tusk argued that Gdansk, a port
