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: Time
Sep 11, 2009
Like any pair of good TV news hosts, Neth Pheaktra and Ung Chan Sophea deftly play off each other, finishing each other's thoughts and building on each other's ideas. But unlike the playful banter of most local news shows, neither host ever cracks a joke, or even smiles. Instead, the two veteran Cambodian journalists look directly into the camera and talk to viewers every Monday at 1 p.m. about torture, murder and the law.
Neth Pheaktra and Ung Chan Sophea's 24-minute weekly show s
Source: The National Security Archive
Sep 11, 2009
1995 Contractor Study Finds that U.S. Analysts Exaggerated Soviet Aggressiveness and Understated Moscow's Fears of a U.S. First Strike
During a 1972 command post exercise, leaders of the Kremlin listened to a briefing on the results of a hypothetical war with the United States. A U.S. attack would kill 80 million Soviet citizens and destroy 85 percent of the country's industrial capacity. According to the recollections of a Soviet general who was present, General Secretary Le
Source: About.com
Sep 11, 2009
In the mid-1850s, the United States was being torn apart over the issue of slavery. The abolitionist movement was becoming increasingly vocal, and enormous controversy focused on whether new states admitted to the Union would allow slavery.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established the idea that residents of states could decide for themselves the issue of slavery, and that led to violent encounters in Kansas beginning in 1855.
While blood was being spilled in Kansas,
Source: NPR
Sep 11, 2009
Many of the troops at this sprawling U.S. air base were in their mid-teens when they watched the planes hit the World Trade Center's twin towers on television and vowed to join the military.
Eight years later, many of those who enlisted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are now part of a massive military effort in Afghanistan that some are saying has no clear exit.
Remembrances of the attacks started at dawn Friday, with more than 1,000 service members donning
Source: Rasmussen Reports
Sep 11, 2009
"Progressive” is becoming more of a dirty word, but all political labels – except “being like Ronald Reagan” - are falling into disfavor with many U.S. voters, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
“Liberal” is still the worst and remains the only political description that is viewed more negatively than positively. Being like Reagan is still the most positive thing you can say about a candidate.
Source: Fox News
Sep 11, 2009
NEW YORK —
There is the dread of leaving the house that morning. People might stare, or worse, yell insults.
Prayers are more intense, visits with family longer. Mosques become a refuge.
Eight years after 9/11, many U.S. Muslims still struggle through the anniversary of the attacks. Yes, the sting has lessened. For the younger generation of Muslims, the tragedy can even seem like a distant memory. "Time marches on," said Souha Azmeh Al-Samkari, a 22-y
Source: BBC
Sep 11, 2009
Taiwan's former President Chen Shui-bian has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of corruption by a court in Taipei.
Mr Chen was charged with embezzlement, taking bribes and money laundering, involving a total of $15m (£9m) while in office from 2000-2008.
Mr Chen had denied the charges, saying they were politically motivated.
His wife, Wu Shu-chen, already jailed for perjury in the case, was also sentenced to life for corruption.
Source: Max Blumenthal at The Daily Beast
Sep 11, 2009
Since Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina bellowed at President Barack Obama, “You lie!” during the president’s nationally televised speech on health care, the fourth-term backbencher has emerged as a hero for the conservative grassroots. One of the most enthusiastic endorsements of Wilson’s histrionics came from the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a group that Wilson has belonged to according to his own biographical materials.
“Mr. Wilson, never apologize for allowing
Source: BBC
Sep 11, 2009
An Edinburgh engineer worshipped as a hero in Japan is finally being honoured in his home city of Edinburgh.
William K Burton is feted in Japan for his work designing the country's first skyscraper and clean water systems for its cities in the 1800s.
His work helped Japan beat disease and become an industrialised nation.
A bench is to be unveiled on Saturday at Edinburgh Napier University's Craig House garden, which used to be his family home.
Source: The Times (UK)
Sep 11, 2009
Former Chancellor’s memoirs offer an unsparing account of a Prime Minister revealing her prejudices about an old enemy.
“But can we trust them?” Margaret Thatcher’s doubts about a new, merged Germany surfaced again and again during the months that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The dramatic event, followed by a ten-point unification plan put forward by Helmut Kohl, the West German Chancellor, challenged her political instincts and stirred the buried prejudices ab
Source: The Washington Times
Sep 11, 2009
Kennedy, Roosevelt, Lincoln -- President Obama matched them all.
At least that was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's take on the president's health care speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night.
"Last night, President Obama delivered what I believe to be one of the greatest speeches ever delivered in the Congress of the United States," Mrs. Pelosi told reporters Thursday at the opening of her weekly Capitol Hill news conference.
Hist
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 11, 2009
Charlie Sheen has prompted outrage in America by claiming that the government was behind the September 11 terror attacks.
He appealed to President Barack Obama to reopen an investigation into the attacks.
Sheen, who is the highest-paid actor on American televison, claimed that "the official 9/11 story is a fraud" and said the commission set up to investigate the attacks was a whitewash.
He said the attacks served "as the pretext for the sy
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 11, 2009
Galloping purple horses and a giant cosmonaut go on show in Versailles as contemporary art once again storms the royal palace despite complaints that Louis XIV would be turning in his grave.
Works by the French artist Xavier Veilhan will be on show from Sunday inside the Sun King's palace but also in its royal gardens and courtyards until mid-December.
In the first courtyard, visitors come face-to-face with the 50-foot long futuristic coach and horses, said to be a ref
Source: BBC
Sep 11, 2009
Gordon Brown has said he is sorry for the "appalling" way World War II code-breaker Alan Turing was treated for being gay.
A petition on the No 10 website had called for a posthumous government apology to the computer pioneer.
In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.
The campaign was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.
Source: CNN
Sep 11, 2009
President Obama spoke at the Pentagon on Friday to those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001, telling them no words would heal their pain yet calling for a renewed resolve against the ones who attacked the country eight years ago.
Obama laid a wreath of white flowers at the Pentagon, where 184 people lost their lives when a hijacked jet smashed into the military icon outside the nation's capital.
Earlier in the day, the president and first lady Michelle Obama hel
Source: AP
Sep 10, 2009
Services for an unknown Civil War soldier were held Saturday in a Tennessee church that served as a barracks and hospital during the conflict.
The coffin draped in Confederate and Union flags was transported Saturday from St. Paul's Episcopal Church to the Historic Rest Haven Cemetery in a horse-drawn carriage and accompanied by Civil War re-enactors.
Officials don't know which side the soldier fought on when was among the nearly 2,000 killed in the 1864 Battle of Frank
Source: BBC
Sep 10, 2009
The remains of 250 soldiers killed at the Battle of Fromelles in northern France have been recovered after a four-month archaeological operation.
The remains from the group burial at Pheasant Wood will be reburied with full military honours at a new military cemetery close to the site.
The excavation, which began in May 2008, was carried out by Oxford Archaeology whose final day in the field will be 14 September.
DNA samples have been taken from every sol
Source: BBC
Sep 10, 2009
A Georgian cave has yielded what scientists say are the earliest examples of humans making cords.
The microscopic fibres, discovered accidentally while scientists were searching for pollen samples, are around 30,000 years old.
A team reports in the journal Science that ancient humans probably used the plant fibres to carry tools, weave baskets or make garments. Some of the fibres are coloured and appear to have been dyed.
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 10, 2009
LIMA (AFP) – A joint Japanese-Peruvian archeological mission has uncovered the remains of a pre-Incan woman sacrificed more than 2,000 years ago in the Andean nation, experts told local media Wednesday.
"The bones were discovered in a fetal position, with the legs bound by a cord that has been preserved despite the passage of the centuries," Japanese researcher Yuji Seki told the El Comercio daily.
The remains were uncovered at an archeological complex in nort
Source: Physorg.com
Sep 10, 2009
A giant African lake basin is providing information about possible migration routes and hunting practices of early humans in the Middle and Late Stone Age periods, between 150,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Oxford University researchers have unearthed new evidence from the lake basin in Botswana that suggests that the region was once much drier and wetter than it is today.
They have documented thousands of stone tools on the lake bed, which sheds new light on how huma
