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: CNN
Aug 17, 2009
So ill he could not move, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart supposedly sang parts of his final masterpiece, "Requiem," from his deathbed. Two centuries later, the exact cause of the Austrian composer's premature death, in December 1791 at age 35, is still a mystery.
Theories abound. It's known that his entire body was so swollen he couldn't turn over in bed; some say jealous rivals poisoned him, while others suggest scarlet fever, tuberculosis, or lethal trichinosis from undercooked
Source: Media Matters
Aug 17, 2009
(The following is from Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog)
On August 14, the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, and O'Reilly Factor guest host Laura Ingraham featured a recording of Ronald Reagan speaking in 1961 against"socialized medicine" for the American Medical Association's Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Medicare. Neither Drudge, Limbaugh, nor Ingraham, however, noted that Reagan was speaking out against an early version of Medicare, which has become very popular since
Source: Chron (Houston Chronicle)
Aug 17, 2009
Scratch Henry Cisneros, but add Dolores Huerta, Dr. Hector P. Garcia, Sandra Cisneros, Henry B. Gonzalez and Irma Rangel to the list of important Hispanic figures that Texas school children might be discussing in the future.
State education leaders are still in the early stages of writing new curriculum standards for social studies that will shape future history and geography books.
And by the time those new textbooks arrive in fall 2013, a majority of the children atte
Source: Independent (UK)
Aug 17, 2009
A former chief of defence staff warned Margaret Thatcher's government in 1985 that its "perfunctory" dismissal of UFO sightings near an RAF base shared with the US Air Force in Suffolk could turn into a political "banana-skin" because it was unexplained.
In a letter to Michael Heseltine, Mrs Thatcher's defence secretary at the time, the late Lord Hill-Norton said the sightings of unidentified flying objects in Rendelsham Forest by USAF personnel in December 1980
Source: Times (UK)
Aug 17, 2009
The Scottish government appears to have buckled under pressure from the Obama Administration and abandoned its plans to release the Lockerbie bomber this week.
Senior sources said that there was “no chance” of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi being sent back to Libya on Wednesday as had been expected.
The plan to release the convicted terrorist, who has dropped his appeal against conviction, and return him to his native Libya, was thrown out after the intervention of Hillar
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Aug 17, 2009
Liechtenstein's reigning prince has angered German Jews by invoking the Holocaust to defend his country's banking secrecy laws.
The latest flare-up of fractious relations between the tiny Alpine principality and its much larger neighbor to the north stemmed from comments in a weekend interview Prince Hans-Adam II gave for Liechtenstein's national holiday.
The prince took aim particularly at Germany, which has been pressuring Liechtenstein to clamp down on confidential b
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Aug 17, 2009
The Vatican has accused Britain and the U.S. of complicity in the Nazi extermination of Jews.
It claims the Allies deliberately did nothing to either rescue Jews or destroy the death camps.
An article in L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, says Allied governments knew the Nazis were planning to exterminate the Jews as early as 1942.
But instead of bombing the concentration camps and the railways supplying them, they reacted by first sup
Source: BBC
Aug 17, 2009
Reprieve said the men were arrested by British troops in Iraq in 2004, handed to the US and "illegally rendered" to Bagram Air Force Base.
It says the men are among hundreds held "beyond the rule of law".
The Ministry of Defence said it had no reason to believe the allegations about their welfare were accurate.
It had previously told Reprieve, which is seeking to represent the men, that it would violate their rights under the Data Pro
Source: PressofAtlanticCity.com
Aug 16, 2009
Gov. Jon S. Corzine today signed a bill establishing a Veterans' Oral History Foundation during his visit with 2,750 soldiers of the New Jersey Army National Guard's 50th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) at the Atlantic City Convention Center.
The bill signing is part of a two-day event featuring a Career, Education and Support Services Expo for veterans.
"The Veterans' Oral History initiative will preserve and provide a vivid and far-reaching account of the personal
Source: SF Chronicle
Aug 16, 2009
The skulls and bones of Japanese war dead from World War II's Battle of Saipan are being kept at UC Berkeley in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions for the protection of war victims, The Chronicle has learned.
The remains of several Japanese soldiers or civilians removed from the island of Saipan in 1945 by a Navy doctor are housed on storage shelves maintained by the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology on the UC Berkeley campus, museum officials have confirmed.
Source: LA Times
Aug 16, 2009
President Nixon's determination to eliminate the socialist government of Salvador Allende led him to offer financial support to efforts by the Brazilian military to undermine the Chilean leader, according to a newly declassified summary of a White House meeting between Nixon and the president of Brazil.
"The president said that it was very important that Brazil and the United States work closely in this field. . . . If money were required or other discreet aid, we might be able
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Aug 16, 2009
A century ago this month, between 12 to 26 people died in the Pressed Steel Car strike -- Pittsburgh's second bloodiest next to the railroad strike of 1877. Among the dead were John C. Smith and John L. Williams, the first two state troopers to die in the line of duty. When the anniversary of the conflict's worst bloodshed arrives on Saturday, a state historical marker will be unveiled in Presston, an intact company town of 240 duplexes in Stowe. Located near the plant, Presston was often deride
Source: 5-Minute Herald (Miami Herald)
Aug 15, 2009
More than 10 years after taxpayers shelled out $27 million to buy the land around the Miami Circle, ground was finally broken Friday on a new park that will open the ancient Native American site to the public.
Located at the mouth of the Miami River, the 2,000-year-old limestone slab was not on display and the park is not scheduled to open until next spring, but local officials said the groundbreaking was an important first step toward developing the historic space.
Arc
Source: LA Times
Aug 15, 2009
Bill Geary, 88, a cattle rancher from Montana, paused today to look at pictures and maps detailing the carnage of the World War II battle on the island of Peleliu.
Geary, who fought there as a Marine, was succinct in his assessment.
“It was a nasty place,” he said as he walked a passageway dubbed the Hall of Heroes aboard the amphibious assault ship named for the battle.
What was nasty about it? Geary was asked. “Everything,” he said, “absolutely everything
Source: AP
Aug 15, 2009
The son of a civil rights leader said that he planned to seek pardons on behalf of his father, who was arrested many times while helping organize the Montgomery bus boycott and protests against segregation in Birmingham, Ala.
Ralph David Abernathy III of Atlanta said Friday that he would apply for the pardons for his father, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, who died in 1990, under a 2006 Alabama law that provided a mechanism for granting them to people arrested in civil rights prote
Source: BBC
Aug 15, 2009
During the last century Poland endured both Nazi and Communist totalitarianism with atrocities on a colossal scale. Many decades later there are still those who remain determined to see compensation paid and in Krakow Nick Higham has been following a baroness's quest for justice.
Poland still has no law covering the restitution of private property seized by the Nazis or nationalised by the communists.
Historian Norman Davies says tens of millions of people in Poland we
Source: NYT
Aug 15, 2009
In 1809, a young boy from a wealthy Virginia estate stepped into President James Madison’s White House and caught the first glimpse of his new home. The East Room was unfinished, he recalled years later in a memoir. Pennsylvania Avenue was unpaved and “always in an awful condition from either mud or dust,” he recounted.
“The city was a dreary place,” he continued.
His name was Paul Jennings, and he was an unlikely chronicler of the Madison presidency. When he first walk
Source: NYT
Aug 15, 2009
A former militant in the Irish Republican Army who lived in the United States for 25 years before being detained last year by the Border Patrol is scheduled to be deported this week to Ireland.
The former militant, Pol Brennan, 56, has spent 17 months in immigration detention centers while fighting deportation. His lawyers had appealed to the Homeland Security Department in May for a stay of removal and deferred action...
... Mr. Brennan testified at a hearing in Novemb
Source: NYT
Aug 15, 2009
As the convoy rumbled up the road in Iraq, Specialist Veronica Alfaro was struck by the beauty of fireflies dancing in the night. Then she heard the unmistakable pinging of tracer rounds and, in a Baghdad moment, realized the insects were illuminated bullets.
She jumped from behind the wheel of her gun truck, grabbed her medical bag and sprinted 50 yards to a stalled civilian truck. On the way, bullets kicked up dust near her feet. She pulled the badly wounded driver to the ground a
Source: BBC
Aug 15, 2009
Two Japanese ex-PMs have visited a controversial shrine honouring Japan's war dead, including war criminals.
The visit by Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe coincides with the anniversary of the end of World War II.
Mr Koizumi's visits to the shrine when in office caused tensions with China and South Korea, which see it as a symbol of past militarism.
Current PM Taro Aso vowed not to go but expressed remorse for Japan's wartime actions at a Tokyo memorial s
