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: BBC
February 3, 2011
A blue and white Chinese Ming Dynasty vase that arrived at a Dorset auction house in a cardboard box is expected to sell for more than £1m.
The 11.5in (29cm) vase is the largest ever recorded from a rare group of early Ming "moonflasks" from 1403-1424, Duke and Son auction house said.
The Dorchester-based firm said it was believed to be one of the most exciting works of art to come to light in years.
The seller, a retired Cadbury's worker aged 79
Source: CNN
February 3, 2011
In his upcoming memoir, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld describes a Bush administration marred by chaos and disorder during the months leading up to the Iraq War – the prime reason, he says, why the postwar transition was so poorly planned.
Rumsfeld writes a key point of disagreement revolved around how quickly to hand power to a new Iraqi government. The Pentagon, he writes, favored a quick transition to power while the more-wary State Department said a slower process
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 1, 2011
Secret documents reveal that the three Qatari men conducted surveillance on the targets, provided “support” to the plotters and had tickets for a flight to Washington on the eve of the atrocities.
The suspected terrorists flew from London to New York on a British Airways flight three weeks before the attacks.
They allegedly carried out surveillance at the World Trade Centre, the White House and in Virginia, the US state where the Pentagon and CIA headquarters are locate
Source: NBC Washington
January 31, 2011
Arlington National Cemetery is making management and technology changes in the wake of the mishandled gravesites and remains that cast a shocking and disappointing shadow over the hallowed grounds.
A report from the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) is blaming the cemetery's severely outdated paper record keeping system for the mix-ups, which came to light last summer.
Speaking at a press conference on the findings Monday, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he face
Source: MyFoxDetroit
February 2, 2011
DETROIT - The Detroit Yacht Club has been notified that it will be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The club that's located on Belle Isle in the Detroit River said Tuesday that the designation will take effect on or around March 1, when the Department of Interior gives it the official listing.
The Detroit Yacht Club was formed in 1868 at the site of what now is Owen Park. The current clubhouse was designed by architect George Mason and built in 1922..
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 3, 2011
[Editor's Note: Click on the link in the source line to see the slideshow.]
The eerie Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo were constructed after the death of Silvestro of Gubbio, a famous 16th century monk. Four long limestone corridors underneath the Capuchin Church hold about 8,000 mummies, lying in repose or hung from hooks by their necks and feet and wearing their best clothes.
Source: Yahoo News
February 2, 2011
HIRBET MADRAS, Israel – Israeli archaeologists presented a newly uncovered 1,500-year-old church in the Judean hills on Wednesday, including an unusually well-preserved mosaic floor with images of lions, foxes, fish and peacocks.
The Byzantine church located southwest of Jerusalem, excavated over the last two months, will be visible only for another week before archaeologists cover it again with soil for its own protection.
The small basilica with an exquisitely decorat
Source: Fox News
February 2, 2011
A federal court in Washington Wednesday heard arguments on a challenge to the Voting Rights Act, a year and a half after the Supreme Court issued an opinion many believe opened the door to undoing the landmark civil rights legislation.
In that 8-1 decision back in 2009, the justices seemed to clear the way for future challenges to the act, while avoiding ruling on the validity of its core provisions. It was originally drafted in 1965 to remedy racial discrimination in voting rules i
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
January 25, 2011
Genghis Khan has been branded the greenest invader in history - after his murderous conquests killed so many people that huge swathes of cultivated land returned to forest.
The Mongol leader, who established a vast empire between the 13th and 14th centuries, helped remove nearly 700million tons of carbon from the atmosphere, claims a new study.
The deaths of 40million people meant that large areas of cultivated land grew thick once again with trees, which absorb carbon
Source: WaPo
February 3, 2011
OSWIECIM, Poland -- The red brick barracks that housed starving inmates are sinking into ruin. Time has warped victims' leather shoes into strange shapes. Human hair sheared to make cloth is slowly turning to dust.
Auschwitz is crumbling - the world's most powerful and important testament to Nazi Germany's crimes falling victim to age and mass tourism. Now guardians of the memorial site are waging an urgent effort to save what they can before it is too late.
Officials l
Source: USA Today
February 3, 2011
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has often paid tribute to Ronald Reagan.
CAPTION
By Getty Images
The U.S. Senate will pay tribute today to Ronald Reagan, in one of many events tied to the centennial of the 40th president's birth.
Reagan would have turned 100 on Sunday, Feb. 6.
Senators will deliver speeches honoring Reagan from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. today.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has often spoken about the impact Reagan had on his political li
Source: Brisbane Times
February 2, 2011
Poland's culture minister said Tuesday he had asked museums at former Nazi death camps to drop their Polish .pl Internet suffix to help counter the false impression they were Polish-run.
The minister, Bogdan Zdrojewski, told Polish news agency PAP he had written to the directors of three museums in Poland asking them to use other suffixes for their websites, such as the more neutral, pan-European .eu.
The three memorial museums, run and largely financed by the Polish st
Source: Times of India
February 3, 2011
WASHINGTON: An immigration judge ordered a former Ukrainian Nazi policeman's removal from United States for his participation in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution during World War II.
John (Ivan) Kalymon of Michigan served as an armed member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (UAP) in Nazi-occupied Lvov, Ukraine.
The removal orders were issued by US Immigration Judge Elizabeth Hacker in Detroit, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A Breuer of the criminal division, the dep
Source: The Canadian Press
February 2, 2011
MUNICH — A court-appointed expert said Wednesday that she can't confirm or reject the authenticity of John Demjanjuk's signature on a key piece of evidence at his trial on charges that he was a Nazi death camp guard.
Handwriting expert Beate Wuellbeck told the Munich state court that only three letters in Demjanjuk's alleged identity card were clearly recognizable and she could not verify the authenticity of the signature.
Prosecutors say the signature on the identity c
Source: WaPo
February 2, 2011
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A federal appeals court has dismissed claims against the German government by heirs of an art dealer whose collection was seized by the Nazis and sold at auction during World War II....
Source: Orange News
February 2, 2011
Technically the Walmart case, which kicked around on the docket of the Orange County Circuit Court for more than a year, will go down as a no decision. The board of supervisors will maintain their approval of the special use permit (SUP) allowing Walmart to build near Routes 3 and 20 was done legally and appropriately. The Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield and individual plaintiffs will maintain it was not. When Walmart decided it would no longer pursue a store on that site during county at
Source: Time.com
February 2, 2011
Two British historians are leading an eight-day luxury tour of Nazi and Third Reich sites in Germany.
For $3,200, participants will visit key Hitler-related sites including the lakeside villa where the plans for the Holocaust were laid out, Hitler's vacation home in Berchtesgaden, Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the bunker where Hitler committed suicide.
The tour, "The Face of Evil: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" is intended only for serious studen
Source: NYT
February 2, 2011
It's not an easy thing to mount a big exhibition of artifacts from China without any artifacts from China.
That’s the position the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology now finds itself in, as it prepares to open a major show on Saturday, “Secrets of the Silk Road,” which was organized by the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif., last year and traveled from there to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
The Penn Museum, as it is known, had adv
Source: NYT
February 2, 2011
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — Ronald Reagan would have turned 100 this Sunday, and nearly seven years after his death, one might think he were still alive and leading the Republican Party.
Along with the requisite speeches and academic panels, the festivities include: a Rose Parade float, a six-foot-high cake, commemorative stamps and jelly beans, a Beach Boys concert, a tribute from the Jonas Brothers and a video homage at the Super Bowl, which is also on Sunday. The memorials, including a
Source: WaPo
February 2, 2011
More than four years after its publication, five disgruntled readers have filed a class-action lawsuit against President Jimmy Carter and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, alleging that his 2006 book “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” contained “numerous false and knowingly misleading statements intended to promote the author's agenda of anti-Israel propaganda and to deceive the reading public instead of presenting accurate information as advertised.”
The five plaintiffs named in th
