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: Daily Mail (UK)
Sep 3, 2009
This astounding picture purporting to capture a young Adolf Hitler playing chess against Vladimir Lenin 100 years ago has been put up for auction.
Prospective buyers will be taking a huge gamble on the authenticity of the picture, said to have been created in Vienna by the Fuhrer's art teacher, Emma Lowenstramm.
It is titled 'A Chess Game: Lenin with Hitler - Vienna 1909' and the vendors claim the signatures on the back are of the two dictators.
Experts, ho
Source: Guardian (UK)
Sep 3, 2009
The World Wildlife Fund and an ad agency have admitted that a press campaign comparing the loss of life in the New York 9/11 attacks and the Asian tsunami "should never have been made".
The Brazilian press ad, created by local advertising agency DDB Brasil, is called "Tsunami" and uses images of dozens of planes about to crash into New York City skyscrapers to illustrate the scale of the lives lost in the 2004 Asian tsunami.
WWF's ad, which also show
Source: Irish Central
Sep 2, 2009
A mystery revolving around President Barack Obama’s Irish roots was solved when a tomb containing the remains of Obama’s Irish ancestor was discovered in the Irish medieval city of Kilkenny.
After a painstaking search, film maker Gabriel Murray, who is in the process of making a documentary on Obama's Irish roots, finally found “Obama’s Lost Tomb” inside the 13th century St. Canice’s Cathedral.
Murray, along with Cathedral assistant Frances Moore, used a centuries-old m
Source: The Nation
Sep 2, 2009
Locals in the sleepy Delta town of Mileston, Mississippi, where King Cotton once reigned supreme, have lately begun to note a resurgence of wild fig trees and blackberry bushes, while creatures like lightning bugs, bees and caterpillars have bounced back after enduring heavy casualties from the harsh pesticides used to combat cotton's archenemy, the boll weevil. Calvin Head, a farmer and local leader, together with a handful of other small farmers in Mileston, a New Deal planned community, sees
Source: NYT
Sep 2, 2009
Precisely 100 years ago today, the New York Times newsroom must have been a gloomy place. The newspaper was a sponsor of Robert E. Peary’s polar expedition, but Peary still hadn’t been heard from as of Sept. 2, 1909. On that day, the New York Herald’s entire front page was devoted to the scoop that it had just received by telegram from Peary’s rival: “The North Pole Is Discovered by Dr. Frederick A. Cook.”
Now, just in time for the centennial anniversary, a historian has found the
Source: NYT
Sep 2, 2009
It was long ago, the end of summer in 1949. She was 13. But for Joan Landzberg, the memories will never go away.
Not that Aug. 27, when a scheduled concert by the singer Paul Robeson was canceled after a terrifying attack by dozens of men swinging clubs and folding chairs, making bonfires out of sheet music. Not the night of Sept. 4, when she left the rescheduled concert lying flat on the bed of a pickup, other frightened children lying on top of her, as mobs threw bricks and rocks.
Source: The Raw Story
Sep 2, 2009
Political columnist Pat Buchanan is coming under fire for a column arguing that Adolf Hitler didn’t want to launch a European war, and that World War II could have been avoided if Poland had agreed to hand over the city of Gdansk to Germany.
He even appears to have implied that the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened if the Allied powers hadn’t guaranteed Poland’s security.
In his column published Monday by Creators Syndicate, Buchanan wrote:
The Ge
Source: Reuters
Sep 2, 2009
BEERSHEBA, Israel (Reuters) – Researchers in Israel say they have developed a computer program that can decipher previously unreadable ancient texts and possibly lead the way to a Google-like search engine for historical documents.
The program uses a pattern recognition algorithm similar to those law enforcement agencies have adopted to identify and compare fingerprints.
But in this case, the program identifies letters, words and even handwriting styles, saving historia
Source: Fox News
Sep 2, 2009
The circumstances of Obama's address to Congress on health care reform will be quite similar to President Clinton's speech on the same topic 16 years ago -- but with some key difference
When President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress next Wednesday to push for health care reform, the speech will come nearly 16 years after President Bill Clinton delivered his own address to Congress on the very same topic.
Clinton's push for health care reform ultimately faile
Source: NPR
Sep 2, 2009
There was no doubt that Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts had died if anyone listened to NPR in the days after his death late on Aug. 25 from brain cancer. Between Aug. 26 and 30, NPR ran 53 stories.
Before Kennedy even died, NPR had 7 in-depth stories already prepared, according to David Sweeney, NPR's managing editor. "From shortly after he was diagnosed with brain cancer, we worked up a list of stories both for the air and online," said Sweeney. "We also worked
Source: Truthout
Sep 2, 2009
The CIA said in court papers late Monday that it intends to withhold hundreds of pages of documents related to the Bush administration's torture and detention policies on grounds that disclosing the information will threaten national security.
In a 33-page declaration, Wendy M. Hilton, the associate information officer of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, said the documents the agency is withholding are "primarily" those "from closed investigations conducted
Source: CNN
Sep 2, 2009
SANTIAGO, Chile (CNN) -- Arrest warrants for more than 120 former soldiers and agents of Chile's National Intelligence Directorate were issued Tuesday for alleged human rights violations during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, CNN Chile reported.
The scale of the order by Judge Victor Montiglio makes this the largest human rights prosecution case in Chile's history.
The Pinochet dictatorship ruled from 1973-1990, after which Chile returned to civilian rule under a
Source: The Independent
Sep 2, 2009
Libyan officials were secretly told that Gordon Brown wanted the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi to return home rather than have him die on British soil.
The message was conveyed by a former Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell after the Libyans had warned that Megrahi's death in a Scottish prison would have a "catastrophic" impact on relations between the two countries.
The revelation was contained in a pile of documents released yesterday by the
Source: Amazon
Sep 2, 2009
For the more than fifty years that Democrats controlled the U.S. House of Representatives, leadership was divided between Massachusetts and Texas. When the Speaker was from Texas (or nearby Oklahoma), the Majority Leader was from the Boston area, and when the Speaker was from Boston, the Majority Leader was from Texas.
The Austin-Boston Connection analyzes the importance of the friendships (especially mentor-protégé relationships) and enmities within congressional delegations, regi
Source: NYT
Sep 2, 2009
In a memoir being published posthumously, Senator Edward M. Kennedy talks remorsefully about the car accident that claimed the life of Mary Jo Kopechne – a turn of events many consider a chief reason that he was never able to mount a successful bid for the presidency.
Writing in his book “True Compass,” which is scheduled to be published on Sept. 14, Mr. Kennedy, who died a week ago, described his actions in the 1969 accident as “inexcusable” and said that at the time he was afraid,
Source: BBC
Sep 2, 2009
A dwindling number of veterans now represent Scottish servicemen and women's involvement in key areas of conflict during World War II.
The Russian Convoy Club Scotland and Italy Star Association North of Scotland Branch have fewer than 30 veteran members each.
The Normandy Veterans Association will hold what is expected to be its last gathering of veterans on 13 September, ahead of an AGM in London where branches will consider the organisation's future.
L
Source: BBC
Sep 2, 2009
A former Serb paramilitary leader wanted in Croatia for war crimes has won an appeal against his extradition.
Australia's federal court said he faced a "substantial or real chance of prejudice" if he was sent to Croatia.
Dragan Vasiljkovic was arrested in Perth in 2006 after Zagreb requested his extradition for atrocities during its 1991-1995 war of independence.
The Croatian government accuses Mr Vasiljkovic of ordering subordinates to kill Cro
Source: BBC
Sep 2, 2009
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said there was "no conspiracy" leading to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
He added there had also been "no cover-up" over the UK's dealings with the Scottish or Libyan governments.
And in a further development, a lawyer who represents the families of Lockerbie victims in the US is planning legal action to force the US government to publish details of its correspondence with London and Edinburgh in the run-up to M
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 2, 2009
Russia has released classified intelligence files it claims proves Poland was secretly conspiring with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union prior to the Second World War.
The files, which Moscow says it extracted from its SVR foreign intelligence service archive, purport to prove that Poland was pursuing an aggressive anti-Soviet foreign policy throughout the 1930s, while ingratiating itself with the Nazis.
Their release coincides with the seventieth anniversary of th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 2, 2009
Rare and unseen manuscripts from the First World War poet Edmund Blunden are being put online by Oxford University.
They include 17 poems that Blunden, a friend of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen, wrote during his three years of service.
Also available to see online will be extracts from his trench diary and his 'Minute Book', which he started to assemble after 1918 to record and illustrate his experiences.
