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)
Oct 22, 2009
A former New York police chief, Bernard Kerik who was hailed a hero after the September 11 2001 attacks, has been jailed after a federal judge revoked his bail ahead of a corruption trial.
He has become the first police chief in the city's history to be thrown into jail.
In a hearing in White Plains, New York, Judge Stephen Robinson said he was revoking the $500,000 bail granted to Kerik, 54, who led the police under the previous administration of then-mayor Rudolph Gi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 22, 2009
Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary and architect of the Soviet Union, died from syphilis caught from a Parisian prostitute and not from a stroke as has always been believed, new research has claimed.
Helen Rappaport, an acclaimed historian and author, said that books, papers and journals charting Lenin’s last years show that he contracted the sexually transmitted disease and that it ultimately claimed his life.
She said Lenin showed many symptoms of syphilis an
Source: Dominican Today
Oct 21, 2009
SANTO DOMINGO.- Thousands of artifacts from colonial era shipwrecks now lying on the ocean floor have been stolen from the Dominican coasts for the lack investments to recover them, said a marine archaeologist yesterday.
Pedro Borrel said the country’s submerged cultural patrimony is being sacked and thousands of pieces have been taken from ships which have sank in Dominican territorial waters.
The Archaeology advisor to the Cultural Patrimony Office said the underwater
Source: Fox News
Oct 21, 2009
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that the Bush administration had developed a new strategy on the war in Afghanistan before leaving office -- a strategy that he said "bears a striking resemblance" to the one announced by President Obama in March.
In a speech to the Center for Security Policy, Cheney said the Bush administration handed Obama's transition team a policy review of the Afghan war conducted last fall to meet the new challenges posed by the Taliba
Source: The WashingtonPost
Oct 21, 2009
His first article in the Washington Blade was a front-page scoop, but Lou Chibbaro Jr. didn't claim credit. He wrote under a pseudonym, Lou Romano, because those were the days when being associated with a gay newspaper could ruin a reputation.
More than 30 years later, as Chibbaro chronicles momentous changes in the gay community, the press credentials hanging around his neck bear his name and a photo of his smiling face. The notes and files he has accumulated have become part of th
Source: NYT
Oct 21, 2009
He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.
Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.
Source: Google News
Oct 21, 2009
WARSAW, Poland — The U.S. violin virtuoso Joshua Bell helped raise funds Wednesday for a Jewish History museum in Poland with a charity concert at Warsaw's Opera House.
After years of seeking sponsors, construction of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is starting in a vast square next to the monument honoring the fighters and victims of the 1943 ill-fated Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Partly funded by the city of Warsaw, the museum will show in an interactive way some 1,000 years o
Source: The Daily Tell
Oct 21, 2009
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $10 million to the Smithsonian Institution, which will go towards the construction of the new African-American History and Culture Museum, set to open on the National Mall in Washington D.C. by late 2015...
... The founding director of the museum, Lonnie G. Bunch III, said "[w]e are so pleased that the Gates Foundation has joined donors from across the country who have built a groundswell of support for this museum. We recognize
Source: LA Times
Oct 21, 2009
It weighed less than 2 pounds and was just 28 inches in length. But the Fruitadens haagarorum, as it is now known, represents a significant piece of the puzzle in mankind's knowledge of the dinosaur era.
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County said Tuesday that an international team of scientists had recently identified and named the species, which lived during the late Jurassic period in the western region of North America. It is the smallest dinosaur discovered on the co
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 21, 2009
He says in the video that he fought for equality at Omaha Beach. At the time of writing, the YouTube clip has received over 66,000 views.
Mr Spooner, a chaplain of the Veterans of Foreign Wars organisation, addressed the Maine Judiciary Committee in April.
The video shows the veteran addressing the committee in a faltering voice, saying: “Good morning committee. My name is Philip Spooner. I am 86 years old and a lifetime Republican.” ...
... His voice crac
Source: Yahoo News
Oct 21, 2009
BEAUFORT, N.C. – An anchor from a shipwreck thought to be Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, was so unstable that divers in North Carolina retrieved it Wednesday rather than waiting until next year.
Divers raised the 4.5-foot, 160-pound grapnel, or anchor, from the wreck in the Atlantic Ocean near Beaufort on Wednesday and will display it Thursday at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. The anchor originally had four prongs, but now has 1 1/2...
Source: Truthout
Oct 21, 2009
Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah is expected to finally gain access to diaries he wrote during the years while he was being tortured by CIA interrogators. A federal court judge has ordered the government to turn over unredacted volumes of the diaries and other "specified" writings to defense attorneys representing Zubaydah.
Zubaydah was the first high-value detainee captured after 9/11. He was repeatedly waterboarded and subjected to brutal torture techniques by CIA in
Source: NBC News
Oct 21, 2009
MEDINA -- A World War II veteran is making another contribution to U.S. history, more than 60 years after the Bronze Star recipient served his country.
Herman Graebner, 89, remembers virtually every detail of his four years in the U.S. Army. What he didn't reveal until recently though, was that he had shot two reels of color movie film of the action he saw in the war.
Graebner, spry, alert, and bright eyed, says he put the two canisters of film into a box sometime after
Source: USA Today
Oct 21, 2009
The Gallup organization first started asking Americans how they approved of the job the president was doing in the 1940s. See how each president since then has fared in the approval poll, look at some news events that influenced public opinion and compare how approval ratings evolved for each president.
Although the Gallup organization started asking Americans their opinions on presidential job performance during Franklin Roosevelt's term, Harry Truman's presidency was the first tha
Source: The Daily Beast
Oct 21, 2009
Next Tuesday George W. Bush will join Terry Brandshaw, Zig Ziglar, and Rudy Giuliani as a featured speaker at a "Get Motivated!" business seminar in Fort Worth, Texas. Tickets to event are running at $19 per office. Bush will reprise his role as motivational speaker on December 2nd too. The organizers promise, "This motivational mega-show packs more inspirational firepower than a stick of dynamite!"
Source: Stuff.co.nz
Oct 21, 2009
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sought to sustain Serbian loyalty on Tuesday, declaring the two countries, both seeking to reassert themselves in Europe, should unite in pride at their roles in World War 2.
Moscow views Serbia as a future hub for its planned South Stream pipeline which would deliver Russian gas to southern Europe; a plan viewed as a rival to Europe's Nabucco project...
... "Russia and Serbia are united today by common spiritual values. . . includ
Source: WSJ
Oct 21, 2009
BERLIN -- The world believes Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev or peaceful protests brought down the Berlin Wall 20 years ago next month. But for those who had front-row seats, the argument boils down to Ehrman vs. Brinkmann.
Riccardo Ehrman, a veteran Italian foreign correspondent, and Peter Brinkmann, a combative German tabloid reporter, both claim they asked the crucial questions at a news conference on Nov. 9, 1989, that led East German Politburo member Günter Schabowski to make
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 21, 2009
Jean Chretien, Canada's former prime minister, has said he once made the Queen laugh by uttering a swear word during a historic ceremony.
The faux pas in question happened during the signing ceremony of the Constitution Act in Ottawa in 1982 that severed virtually all remaining constitutional and legislative ties between the UK and Canada.
The former politician was justice minister at the time and after the Queen signed the document, then then prime minister Pierre Tr
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 21, 2009
An ancient South American pyramid may lose its status as a UN World Heritage Site and even collapse after it was spruced up to "make it more attractive to tourists".
In a makeover of the 59-ft high Akapana pyramid in Bolivia that an expert has described as archaeologically disastrous, the structure was rebuilt with abobe instead of the original stone.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, or UNESCO, is due to visit Tiwanaku soo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 21, 2009
The last surviving Union Jack flown by the Royal Navy at Trafalgar will remain in Britain after ministers promised to block any foreign attempts to buy it.
The flag will be auctioned in London today, the anniversary of Admiral Lord Nelson’s victory over a joint French and Spanish fleet off the Spanish coast in 1805.
It is expected to fetch at least 15,000 pounds. Charles Miller, the auctioneer, has said he believes it is the last surviving flag flown during the battle
