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: Press of Atlantic City
Dec 1, 2009
VINELAND — Esther Raab says she remembers John Demjanjuk.
She remembers him as a Ukrainian soldier, working in a Nazi death camp in Poland when she was a captive there in 1943. He would bring ammunition into the armory, where it would be fed into chains for machine guns. He would then leave with the ammo, and she’d hear the firing squads execute camp prisoners. Demjanjuk would return with the spent ammo.
“He wasn’t the tops,” Raab said. “He helped with transport. He put
Source: Rasmussen Reports
Dec 1, 2009
The number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell by nearly two percentage points in November. Added to declines earlier in the year, the number of Democrats in the nation has fallen by five percentage points during 2009.
In November, 36.0% of American adults said they were Democrats. That’s down from 37.8% a
Source: Talking Point Memo
Dec 1, 2009
In an interview with the Politico, former Vice President Dick Cheney attacked President Obama over Afghanistan -- and also insisted that the Bush administration is not responsible for the situation in that country:
But Cheney rejected any suggestion that Obama had to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan because the one employed by the previous administration failed.
Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disint
Source: Salon
Dec 1, 2009
From the moment it was announced, it was clear that Sarah Palin's memoir "Going Rogue" would be a bestseller. But the size of the book's success is still pretty amazing: According to Greg Sargent, more than one million copies have now been sold. That's after a first week in which 700,000 were bought.
Source: Britannica Blog
Dec 1, 2009
Steve Horwitz at the Austrian Economists blog had a good post based on Census Bureau data that were recently released on “Living Conditions in the United States, 2005.” The chart below shows the percentage of all U.S. households owning various household appliances in 1971 and 2005, and the percentage of poor households (below the official poverty line) owning those appliances in 2005. The data show a significant improvement in living standards between 1971 and 2005, as the percentage of househol
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 1, 2009
Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay had fought to try to modernise the island’s 450-year-old system in favour of full democracy. They have decided to take their case to Strasbourg after Britain’s highest court of appeal ruled against them.
Sark’s parliament, the Chief Pleas, used to be made up of hereditary members. It voted in February to switch to an elected chamber.
Opponents led by Sir Frederick and Sir David challenged the reform, arguing that it kept the “relics o
Source: Reuters
Dec 1, 2009
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday published previously secret documents that shed light on a notorious murder 75 years ago that historians say sparked the purges of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
The mysterious killing of Stalin's rival Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934 has remained one of the Kremlin's most closely guarded riddles for decades because many of the key documents were immediately classified by the secret police.
Kirov, a fiery Bolshevik rev
Source: The Washington Times
Dec 1, 2009
The United States is about to lose a key arms-control tool from the closing days of the Cold War -- the right to station American observers in Russia to count the long-range missiles leaving its assembly line.
The end of full-time, on-site access will likely ignite complaints in Congress, with insiders from both parties arguing over whether the George W. Bush or the Obama administration is responsible.
Republicans are worried by the previously undisclosed agreement betw
Source: Yahoo News
Dec 1, 2009
BOSTON – President Barack Obama's aunt buried her face in her hands and sobbed as she described her anguish over no longer having contact with him and his family after the revelation she had been living illegally for years in the United States in public housing.
Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUH'-nee awn-YAHN'-goh) told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview that she is troubled that her immigration woes have made her a political liability to her nephew.
Onyango, the hal
Source: CNN
Dec 1, 2009
Washington (CNN) -- As President Obama announced he's sending more troops to Afghanistan, he also took on critics who made comparisons between the current situation and the war in Vietnam.
Obama addressed those critics, who believe the area cannot be stabalized and think the United States should cut their losses and rapdily withdraw, by highlighting what he beileves are major differences between Vietnam and Afghanistan.
"Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coa
Source: NPR
Dec 1, 2009
Obama's plan will raise the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 100,000. Will that hasten the end of the war? Is the Karzai government, widely seen as corrupt, worth fighting for? Is victory possible? And what defines victory?
There are many questions; fewer answers.
More important, many Democrats are demanding a say in the process. Only five times in the nation's history, and not since World War II, has Congress used its power to declare war.
In
Source: AP
Dec 1, 2009
Remains believed to be those of four American servicemen killed during the Vietnam War were loaded on a plane Tuesday and flown back to the United States for identification.
U.S. honor guards carried the four American flag-draped aluminum cases holding the remains onto the U.S. military transport plane at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi. The remains were headed to a lab in Hawaii for forensic testing.
One set of remains was recovered by joint excavation teams in
Source: BBC
Dec 1, 2009
The Lockerbie bomber wore a white shellsuit to hide the fact he was wearing body armour when he was released from a Scottish prison.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi wore the casual clothing as he boarded a flight from Glasgow to Libya in August.
He later swapped his shellsuit and baseball cap for a formal grey suit before landing in Tripoli. Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill revealed the security measure to a committee of MSPs.
T
Source: BBC
Dec 1, 2009
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former US President George W Bush has found himself on the receiving end of a shoe-throwing attack.
Muntadar al-Zaidi was speaking about Iraqi war victims at a news conference in Paris, but managed to duck in time.
Media reports said the attacker was an exiled Iraqi journalist who defended US policy and accused Zaidi of "working for dictatorship in Iraq".
The AP news agency said Zaidi's brother, Maitha
Source: The Neew York Times
Dec 1, 2009
An 1852 contract — a delicate sheet of paper, with tinges of yellow — outlined plans for the Cooper Union foundation building. On it are the signatures of the college’s founder, Peter Cooper, and the architects Frederick A. Petersen and F. H. Knevitt.
Nearby, a letter and invoice show a lab director’s request for equipment totaling $7,407, which included steam engine thermometers and sewing machine motors.
There is also a 1901 letter from an alumnus, John F. O’Rourke,
Source: BBC
Dec 1, 2009
Singer Pete Doherty has apologised after being asked to leave a stage in Germany for performing a verse of the national anthem with Nazi connotations.
Doherty, 30, was booed after singing "Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles" at a concert in Munich on Saturday that was broadcast live on Bavarian radio.
A spokesperson for the singer said he was "unaware of the controversy" about the anthem's rarely used first verse.
Source: BBC
Dec 1, 2009
Alleged Nazi guard John Demjanjuk was a willing participant in the Holocaust, and herded thousands of Jews to their deaths, a German court has heard.
Prosecutors said Mr Demjanjuk, 89, volunteered to join the Nazis and shared their racist ideology.
He maintains that he was a Soviet soldier who was captured by the Germans, and therefore spent most of the war in prison camps.
Source: AP
Dec 1, 2009
Prosecutors accused John Demjanjuk of playing an active role in the Nazis' machinery of destruction, saying Tuesday that he was a willing follower of Hitler's racist ideology as they read the indictment against the retired Ohio autoworker.
The 89-year-old, who was deported from the United States in May to stand trial in Germany, rejects the charges of being an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews in the Sobibor death camp, saying he has been mistaken for someone else.
Source: Fox News
Dec 1, 2009
An African-American newspaper in Cleveland published an editorial cartoon that portrayed a black lawmaker as Aunt Jemima, angering her supporters.
Some blacks find the food company advertising character offensive because of its use as a racist stereotype.
The weekly Call & Post cartoon cast state Sen. Nina Turner as Aunt Jemima. The cartoon accompanied an editorial criticizing the Cleveland Democrat for supporting last month's successful ballot issue to overhaul cou
Source: CNN
Dec 1, 2009
Dick Cheney's throwing cold water on a new group's effort to try and convince the former vice president to seek the Republican presidential nomination in the next race for the White House.
"Draft Dick Cheney 2012" officially launched on Friday and unveiled a new Web site. The group hopes to follow up the on-line launch with a more formal structure, which they say will include building a database and reaching out through social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
