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: Scotsman.com
Nov 12, 2009
HEART specialists have saved the life of an Israeli man who had refused to visit a doctor for 64 years – and learned the terrible secret of his mistrust of the medical profession.
When Yitzhak Ganon, 85, came around from the anaesthetic at the hospital near Tel Aviv, he was informed that he had only one kidney.
"I know," he replied. "The last time I saw the other one it was pulsating in the hand of Josef Mengele. He was a doctor too."
Mr
Source: CNN
Nov 12, 2009
The remains of Adolf Hitler were burned in 1970 by Soviet KGB agents and thrown into a river in Germany on direct orders from the spy agency's chief, a top Russian security official said this week.
The head archivist of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) -- the successor to the former Soviet Union's KGB -- confirmed for the first time the chain of events that led to the disposal of Hitler's body, and who ordered the operation, in an exclusive interview with Russia's Interfax ne
Source: BBC News
Nov 12, 2009
Many in Albania - which has Europe's fastest-growing economy and aspirations to join the EU - feel the former dictatorship has come a long way fast, reports the BBC's Paul Henley from Tirana.
Lufti Dervishi is old enough to compare living in Albania today with how life used to be.
Whenever he thinks the road towards European integration is not a fast enough one, he stops to remind himself how far his country has come since it threw off what was the contine
Source: BBC News
Nov 12, 2009
Thieves have stolen the corpse of Tassos Papadopoulos, the former president of the Republic of Cyprus, police say.
Mr Papadopoulos' body was removed after his grave in Nicosia was broken into overnight, officials said.
Mr Papadopoulos died of lung cancer in Nicosia in 2008, aged 74.
The theft from the Deftera village cemetery in Nicosia was discovered a day before the first anniversary of his death.
The desecration was discovered by one of Mr P
Source: Culpeper Star Exponent (VA)
Nov 12, 2009
Members of the Manassas City Council like the idea of commemorating the 150th anniversary of the First Battle of Manassas so much that they’re ready to give up $100,000 to make it happen in 2011.
The battle, fought July 21, 1861, was the first major engagement of the Civil War.
Creston M. Owen, chairman of the board of Virginia Civil War Events Inc., was before the board Monday asking for the money.
Owen’s outfit of volunteers is poised to begin organizing
Source: BBC
Nov 12, 2009
Winston Churchill's iconic "fight them on the beaches" speech did not make the grade when it was marked by a computer system, exam experts have said.
And extracts from modern classics such as Lord of the Flies by William Golding and a novel by Ernest Hemingway also failed to impress the computer.
All were marked down by a US program designed to assess students' essays.
UK exam boards and the qualifications development agency are experimenting wi
Source: Star Bulletin (Hawaii)
Nov 12, 2009
Silverware from the sunken ship apparently was kept by a Navy diver after salvaging
Lime-encrusted silverware taken from the officers' mess aboard the USS Arizona during World War II have been pulled from an auction.
Cowan's Auctions, a Cincinnati resale house specializing in American historical and military items, had planned to sell the 24 pieces on Dec. 9, with initial estimates of $15,000 to $20,000. But when Navy attorneys got wind of the planned sale, they put pre
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Nov 12, 2009
Former President George W. Bush, speaking today in Dallas, listed education, economic growth, freedom, and global health as the policy areas that will be the focus of a future institute bearing his name at Southern Methodist University, The Dallas Morning News reported. The institute will be part of the $300-million presidential center, which will include a library and museum. In his comments today, Mr. Bush attempted to ease faculty concerns that the institute would be too partisan, saying it w
Source: Talking Points Memo
Nov 12, 2009
Former President George W. Bush has chosen the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia to conduct a "comprehensive oral history of his presidency."
The Miller Center and Bush's foundation announced the George W. Bush Oral History Project this morning, saying the university's scholars will do 100 interviews with the Bush Cabinet and outside advisers during the 5-year project.
Source: NYT
Nov 12, 2009
Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber became infamous for killing a German actor in 1990. Now they are suing to force Wikipedia to forget them.
The legal fight pits German privacy law against the American First Amendment. German courts allow the suppression of a criminal’s name in news accounts once he has paid his debt to society, noted Alexander H. Stopp, the lawyer for the two men, who are now out of prison.
“They should be able to go on and be resocialized, and lead a
Source: NJ
Nov 12, 2009
NEWARK -- One of the artifacts brought out from behind the heavy, six-inch doors of a basement vault in Newark is an oil portrait of Arthur T. Vanderbilt, New Jersey’s chief justice from 1948-1957.
Still stored there are original letters from the Olmsted Brothers, famed park designers, and even original art-deco door knockers, shaped as human figures and once gripped by Newark visitors to an "Egyptian-style" courthouse razed in 1907.
The black-doored vaults al
Source: CNN
Nov 12, 2009
At 75, Charles Manson has spent more than half his life in prison for masterminding the notorious Helter Skelter killing spree that left actress Sharon Tate and six others dead in Los Angeles during the summer of 1969.
Manson spent his 75th birthday this week at the state prison in Corcoran, California, where he is isolated from the rest of the prison population. Some records indicate that Manson was born on November 12, but Manson's current associates and California corrections rec
Source: BBC
Nov 12, 2009
The key to preserving the old, degrading paper of treasured, ageing books is contained in the smell of their pages, say scientists.
Researchers report in the journal Analytical Chemistry that a new "sniff test" can measure degradation of old books and historical documents.
Source: Yahoo News
Nov 12, 2009
TOKYO – Tens of thousands of well-wishers gathered outside Japan's moat-ringed Imperial Palace — many shouting "Banzai," a traditional wish for long life — to mark Thursday's 20th anniversary of Emperor Akihito's coronation to the world's oldest throne.
Parades, concerts and speeches by leading athletes, actors, businesspeople and politicians marked the festivities that lasted most of the day.
But in unusually somber comments of his own, Akihito appealed for f
Source: Guardian (UK)
Nov 12, 2009
A key adviser to Nato forces warned today that Barack Obama risks a Suez-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise.
David Kilcullen, one of the world's leading authorities on counter-insurgency and an adviser to the British government as well as the US state department, said Obama's delay in reaching a decision over extra troops had been "messy". He said it not only worried US allies but created uncertain
Source: Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
Nov 12, 2009
CBS News reports President Obama's trip to Asia will bring his total to 8 foreign trips and 20 countries since becoming president.
"The only other president to come close to Mr. Obama's first-year-in-office globe-trotting numbers is President George H. W. Bush, who took 7 foreign trips to 14 countries."
In addition, as Politico notes, Obama is stopping in Alaska on his way to Asia. It's the only state he hasn't been to since he declared his run for president.
Source: BBC
Nov 12, 2009
The Australian government has approved the extradition of an 88-year-old alleged former Nazi to Hungary to face accusations of murder.
Charles Zentai is accused of killing Jewish teenager Peter Balazs in Budapest in 1944.
At the time, Mr Zentai was a warrant officer in the Hungarian army, then allied to Nazi Germany.
Hungary has two months to complete the extradition. Mr Zentai's family say they will try to overturn the decision.
Source: BBC
Nov 12, 2009
Traditional African rulers should apologise for the role they played in the slave trade, a Nigerian rights group has said in a letter to chiefs.
The letter said some collaborated or actively sold off their subjects.
The group said it was time for African leaders to copy the US and the UK who have already said they were sorry.
It urged Nigeria's traditional rulers to apologise on behalf of their forefathers and "put a final seal to the history of slav
Source: BBC
Nov 12, 2009
Andy Warhol artwork 200 One Dollar Bills has sold in New York for $43.8m (£26.5m) - the second highest auction price for a work by the pop artist.
The 1962 silk screen print, which shows 200 life-sized images of dollar bills, had a pre-sale estimate of $8m to $12m (£4.8m to £7.3m) at Sotheby's.
The contemporary sale fetched $134.4m (£81.3m) with 52 out of 54 lots sold.
Warhol's 1963 painting Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) sold for a record $71.7m (
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 12, 2009
The Mona Lisa originally had eyebrows, according to a French art expert who has analysed Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece with a special camera.
Pascal Cotte said da Vinci built the painting up in layers, the last being a special glaze whose optical properties increased the illusion of a three-dimensional face. Above the glaze Da Vinci painted details such as the eyebrows.
He has uncovered a host of secrets about the Mona Lisa using a 240 megapixel camera. It can measu
