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: Telegraph (UK)
November 8, 2010
The Natural History Museum has been warned that a forthcoming trip to find hundreds of new species in the remote forests of Paraguay could risk the lives of indigenous people and the scientists.
The 100-strong expedition, one of the largest undertaken by the museum in the last 50 years, is due to set off in the next few days to explore one of the most unknown regions of the world for one month.
However the museum has been warned by campaigners that the trip could cause
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 8, 2010
Nazis dropped propaganda leaflets on British soldiers telling them their wives were sleeping with Americans - complete with cartoons depicting their inidelity - it has emerged.
The German propaganda material was dropped above the British lines in Europe during the Second World War in a last ditch attempt to get the Allies to surrender.
They documents stated: "You are fighting and dying far away from your country while the Yanks ... have got loads of money and loads
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 8, 2010
A new show at the British Museum brings us face to face with our darkest imaginings, says Richard Dorment.
Most of us learnt about Egyptian burial practices at school – how the mummified corpse was entombed along with food, wine, furniture, bowls and eating utensils to stave off hunger, thirst, and boredom in the afterlife. I have to admit that even as a 12-year-old I found the Egyptian practice of taking everyday objects with them into the hereafter lacking imagination. If you need
Source: Live Science
November 8, 2010
Could beer have helped lead to the rise of civilization? It's a possibility, some archaeologists say.
Their argument is that Stone Age farmers were domesticating cereals not so much to fill their stomachs but to lighten their heads, by turning the grains into beer. That has been their take for more than 50 years, and now one archaeologist says the evidence is getting stronger.
Signs that people went to great lengths to obtain grains despite the hard work needed to make
Source: CNN
November 8, 2010
November 8, 2010, marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's election as the 35th president of the United States. During his campaign for the Oval Office, LIFE magazine dispatched some of its best photographers to follow the candidate, taking thousands of photos in the months leading up to his election. Below are some of these previously unpublished photos of Kennedy from the larger photo gallery at LIFE.com...
Source: BBC News
November 8, 2010
George W Bush had a falling-out with Dick Cheney over Mr Bush's refusal to pardon the vice-president's top aide in a spy-outing scandal, Mr Bush has said.
Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction in a probe into the leaking of CIA spy Valerie Plame's identity.
Mr Bush told NBC News his decision at the end of his presidency merely to spare Libby a prison sentence rather than pardon him angered Mr Cheney.
But, in a interview to promote a book, he said t
Source: NYT
November 7, 2010
FRANKFURT — German soldiers, including one wearing a skullcap with his uniform, filed silently through a leaf-covered cemetery in Frankfurt on Sunday to lay wreaths at a memorial for 467 Jewish soldiers killed fighting for the kaiser during World War I.
The memorial, the first public service at the site for as long as anyone can remember, was organized by the Association of Jewish Soldiers, a small but growing group in the German military whose existence testifies to the feeling by
Source: BBC
November 3, 2010
Soldiers from the Age of the Princes, the Napoleonic wars and World War II mingled with visitors at this year's Llangollen history festival.
A number of re-enactors were in costume and character to share their stories during The Festival of History and Remembrance (5-14 November).
The highlight of the festival is a fair with 50 history-related stalls.
Venues include Llangollen pavilion, museum and railway with one of the steam engine carriages forming the
Source: BBC
November 7, 2010
A former squadron leader who flew agents of the Special Operations Executive into Nazi-held Europe is to be guest of honour at the opening of a new museum to the Resistance in France.
Wing Commander Leonard Ratcliffe, 91, is the last surviving squadron leader who led secret wartime missions to drop SOE agents into occupied Europe.
Operating from RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire and under cover of darkness, he took part in more than 70 operations behind enemy lines.
Source: BBC
November 7, 2010
A gigantic statue of Jesus - claimed to be the world's tallest - has been erected in a western Polish town.
Christ the King in Swiebodzin rises 33m (108ft) - one metre for every year that Jesus lived, said Sylwester Zawadzki, the priest who created the statue.
But other local officials said the statue was 51m-high (167ft), if one included a mound it sat on and the golden crown on the head.
They said it was higher than famous Christ figures in Bolivia and
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 7, 2010
George W Bush will on Monday begin a media blitz that will thrust him back into the lives of Americans after two years of near silent retirement.
The former US president campaign to rehabilitate his reputation in multiple interviews and television appearances to publicise the memoir, which is published this week both in the US and UK.
He will be on screens and the airwaves every day for a week, conducting interviews with giants of American broadcasting such as Oprah W
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 8, 2010
A 91-year-old Dutch Jew who fought the Nazis in World War II has marked his bar mitzvah – the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony – almost 80 years late.
Hans De Leeuw says he was "shaking" during the service – usually meant for 13-year-olds – at Jerusalem's Western Wall on Sunday....
Source: AP
October 6, 2010
Michael Seifert, a former Nazi SS prison guard known as "the beast of Bolzano" for his cruelty, died Saturday in an Italian hospital at age 86, officials said.
The Ukrainian-born Seifert was serving a life sentence at the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison in southern Italy. He died in the nearby Caserta hospital, according to officials at the hospital and at the prison.
Seifert, tried in absentia by a military tribunal in Verona, was convicted in 2000 of nine co
Source: NYT
November 7, 2010
...Republicans now hold at least 93 of the 131 House seats from the states of the old Confederacy. Less than 20 years ago they did not even hold half. With the defeat of long-serving fiscally conservative Blue Dogs like Representatives Gene Taylor of Mississippi and John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, Southern white Democrats in Congress have become as rare as a Dixie blizzard....
Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University and a co-author of “The Rise of Southe
Source: Reuters
November 7, 2010
ROME (Reuters) - Archaeologists, commentators and opposition politicians accused Italy's government of neglect and mismanagement on Sunday over the collapse the 2,000-year-old "House of the Gladiators" in the ruins of ancient Pompeii.
Some commentators said the UNESCO World Heritage site should be privatized and removed from state control because the government had shown it was incapable of protecting it.
"Pompeii -- the collapse of shame," La Stampa
Source: NYT
November 7, 2010
NEW DELHI — Not long after Barack Obama was elected president, the United States Embassy in India printed a postcard showing him sitting in his old Senate office beneath framed photographs of his political heroes: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and the great Indian apostle of peace, democracy and nonviolent protest, Mohandas K. Gandhi....
Yet if paying homage to Gandhi is expected of visiting dignitaries, Mr. Obama’s more personal identification with the Gandhi
Source: NYT
November 7, 2010
When the hip-hop star Kanye West says he can “connect with” George W. Bush, perhaps it is time to think about whether America has begun to reconsider its 43rd president.
It was Mr. West, after all, who delivered one of the harshest attacks on Mr. Bush during his eight years in office. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, Mr. West memorably charged that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
After learning last week that Mr. Bush considered that the l
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 5, 2010
Former President George W. Bush says he considered ordering a US military strike against a suspected Syrian nuclear facility at Israel's request in 2007, but ultimately opted against it.
Israel eventually destroyed the facility, which Syria denied was aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability.
A covert raid was discussed but it was considered too risky to slip a team in and out of Syria undetected.
Bush received an intelligence assessment from the
Source: CNN
November 5, 2010
Years after his death, baseball legend Honus Wagner hit a home run for a group of nuns, who will use proceeds from the sale of his extremely rare baseball card to do charitable work.
Texas-based Heritage Auctions conducted the internet auction, which concluded Thursday night with a winning bid from Doug Walton, whose family owns seven stores in the Southeast specializing in sports cards and collectibles.
Walton paid $262,900, Heritage said, with $220,000 of that going t
Source: CNN
December 5, 2010
Former President George W. Bush has stayed out of politics since he left the White House and, except for his own career, he largely keeps the subject at arm's length in his new memoir, "Decision Points."
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey to air on Tuesday when the book is to be released, Bush said he is "through with politics" and refused to offer an opinion on the 2012 presidential election.
In the 481-page book Bush compliments Obama's political
