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 8, 2010
The curators of a Smithsonian art exhibition that has sparked a firestorm in the last week — first because of the inclusion of a video that included an image of ants crawling on a crucifix, then because of the video’s removal from the show — will talk about the show at the New York Public Library next Wednesday....
Source: NYT
December 8, 2010
For Larisa Shchetinina, now 72, the decision to leave Ukraine — though not the act itself — came suddenly. In 1992, she went to Kiev to say goodbye to her brother, who was moving to Israel. In the center of the country’s capital she saw graffiti on a wall that read, in large letters: “Let’s drown Russians in Jewish blood.”
She and her husband, Victor, 73, survived Hitler and Stalin, tough postwar years and the challenges of perestroika. In the early 1990s, they faced the consequence
Source: NYT
December 8, 2010
Former President George H.W. Bush, who signed and won Senate approval of the original Start arms control treaty with the Soviet Union in 1991, endorsed the proposed follow-up treaty with Russia on Wednesday, lending another well-known Republican voice to the White House campaign for approval.
“I urge the United States Senate to ratify the Start treaty,” Mr. Bush said in a one-line statement that offered no elaboration. His spokesman, Jim Appleby, said by telephone that the former pr
Source: Physorg.com
December 8, 2010
Spencer Pope, an archeologist who specializes in ancient Greece and assistant professor of classics, has teamed up with researchers in medical physics and applied radiation sciences to study the metallurgical content of Greek and Roman coins. By finding out what the coins are made of, says Pope, the researchers are able to reconstruct ancient trade routes, understand the development of economies and even determine the extent of counterfeiting. The work will also shine light on modern societies.
Source: Times (UK)
December 9, 2010
The BBC had to apologise today for showing footage from a Nazi rally during the German occupation of the Channel Islands - instead of the weather forecast.
A human error meant the wrong footage was uploaded on to the BBC's South West region website which includes the Channel Islands.
Web users globally would have been able to spot the error which was quickly changed by BBC staff.
A BBC insider said: 'This is another BBC cock-up. People in the Plymouth HQ we
Source: Fox News
December 8, 2010
A once fertile landmass now submerged beneath the Persian Gulf may have been home to some of the earliest human populations outside Africa, according to an article published Wednesday in Current Anthropology.
In recent years, archaeologists have turned up evidence of a wave of human settlements along the shores of the Gulf dating to about 7,500 years ago. But how could such highly developed settlements pop up so quickly, with no precursor populations to be found in the archaeologica
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 8, 2010
The descendants of a Nazi official have been awarded his Polish property on land once occupied by Hitler's Germany, reopening the nation's Second World War wounds.
A German family has laid claim to a tenement building in the western Polish town of Opole, which until 1945 was part of the German Reich.
The Poles who live in the building have contested the claim, in what has now become a bitter and protracted battle both in and out of the courts.
Property clai
Source: Sky News
December 9, 2010
A source close to the family of the Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset al Megrahi told Sky News Thursday his death is imminent and every day is "expected to be his last."
Suffering from prostate cancer, the Libyan's health has rapidly deteriorated -- and his relatives said he has been in a coma and on life support for around a week.
Al Megrahi -- who was convicted of killing 270 people by bombing a Pan Am jet in 1988 -- has been unable to walk for a number of weeks
Source: CNN
December 9, 2010
The charismatic but unpredictable lead singer of the American rock band The Doors may receive a posthumous pardon almost 40 years after he was convicted of exposing himself on stage during a show in Miami, Florida.
Outgoing Florida Governor Charlie Crist -- an admitted Doors fan -- is proposing an official let-off for the late legendary hell-raiser Jim Morrison. And the state clemency board meets Thursday to consider the request.
Under state law, a pardon must have the consen
Source: Independent (UK)
December 2, 2010
Sweden's royal family has been rocked by a new scandal which has exposed the hidden Nazi past of the Queen's father, only weeks after its reputation was shattered by lurid disclosures about the king's secret sex life.
The latest revelations concern Walther Sommerlath, the late father of Sweden's German-born Queen Silvia. He has been unmasked by an investigative television documentary as a Nazi party member who grew rich during the Second World War running an armaments factory that h
Source: Time
December 8, 2010
Today they may have Tweeted: "Thousands dead in Hawaii after JP attack. Worst ever on homeland. FDR: US in it to win it."
But on Dec. 8, 1941, one day after the bloodiest attack on U.S. soil by a foreign country, news organizations attempted to make sense of it all. Far removed from the future 24/7 news cycle, the correspondents of the era had only bits and pieces of information from the Japanese assault on Hawaii and did their best to put it into a broader context. Lookin
Source: CNN
December 8, 2010
Few are in doubt that the legendary Monty Python troupe elevated comedy to an art form. But visual art was as much a part of their identity as silly walks and great songs.
Original Python and film director Terry Gilliam was responsible for the iconic animations that acted as buffers between sketches, as well as the opening credits of the TV series "Monty Python's Flying Circus" that ran from 1969 to 1974, as well as the Python films that would follow.
Instantly reco
Source: NYT
December 7, 2010
BERLIN — Please do not call Mark Gould a Nazi hunter.
He finds the phrase demeaning.
Mr. Gould prefers this description: a 43-year-old college dropout from Los Angeles who says he made a lot of money in finance, became interested in Nazi memorabilia and ended up on an undercover odyssey where he posed as a neo-Nazi to befriend a former Waffen SS officer and recorded many of their conversations with the plan to someday expose the man’s role in the Third Reich.
Source: BBC
December 8, 2010
The Scottish government was neither threatened nor offered "treats" to free the Lockerbie bomber from jail, the country's first minister has said.
Alex Salmond was responding to claims in cables published by Wikileaks and reported in the Guardian.
The leaks claim to show the UK government feared harsh action by Libya against British interests if Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi died in prison.
Ministers insist the decision was based purely on the Scots j
Source: BBC
December 8, 2010
A fascinating and rare set of hospital records dating from Victorian times has been put online.
The records tell the stories of poor, sick children who were admitted to Glasgow Hospital for Sick Children from 1883 to 1903.
It is part of the Historic Hospital Admission Records Project being run by Kingston University in London.
The records give an insight into the common diseases and conditions of Victorian times....
Source: BBC
December 8, 2010
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is to be recalled to give evidence a second time to the Iraq Inquiry.
He is one of a number of key figures, including former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, asked to appear in person before the Chilcot committee again.
In January, Mr Blair defended his decision to take the country to war, saying he had no regrets about it and that Saddam Hussein was a "monster".
The inquiry is looking into the 2003 war and its aft
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 8, 2010
Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was released from jail on the grounds that he was dying from terminal cancer even though ministers expected him to live for years, according to confidential diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks
In the months before the Libyan was allowed to return home, Jack Straw, the then Justice Secretary, told US diplomats he could live up to five years .
But Mr Straw said Alex Salmond’s SNP administration in Scotland was minded to free Abdelbaset Al-Megra
Source: BBC News
December 8, 2010
Fourteen officials who served under the military rule of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile are being tried in absentia in a French court.
The charges, which include kidnapping and torture, relate to the disappearance of four French citizens soon after Gen Pinochet came to power.
The 14 accused were mostly senior military officers at the time and include Manuel Contreras, the former head of the Dina secret police.
A verdict is expected later this month.
Source: BBC News
December 8, 2010
A rare copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America, billed as the world's most expensive book, has sold for more than £7m at auction.
The copy, which comes from the collection of Lord Hesketh, had been expected to fetch up to £6m.
Only 119 complete copies of the 19th-century book are known to exist, and 108 are owned by museums and libraries.
A separate edition of the book on ornithology sold for a record-breaking price of $8.8m (£5.7m) a decade ago.
Source: BBC News
December 7, 2010
A coded manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered in a public library in the French city of Nantes.
The document was found after a journalist came across a reference to it in a Leonardo biography, the library said.
It was among 5,000 manuscripts donated by wealthy collector Pierre-Antoine Labouchere in 1872 and then forgotten.
The text is written from right to left in Leonardo's trademark mirror-writing and has yet to be deciphered.
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