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: AP
Mar 20, 2009
President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month.
The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its budget.
Wo
Source: BBC News
Mar 20, 2009
For the first time since 15 April, 1746, a team will attempt to recreate a Jacobite night march from Culloden to the outskirts of Nairn.
Battlefield archaeologist Dr Tony Pollard will lead the group of re-enactors on the trek.
A few thousand men drawn from Bonnie Prince Charlie's forces tried, but failed, to surprise attack a government camp under the cover of darkness.
Source: BBC News
Mar 20, 2009
The air aces of World War I - like the Red Baron - left a rich mythology that persists to the present day. But the man who was, perhaps, Britain's best pilot, remains little known.
A 90-year-old photo album discovered recently in northern France, reveals possibly the last picture of Britain's "highest scoring" fighter pilot from World War I.
It's an innocent photograph. A highly decorated RAF pilot poses for the camera, his arm gently resting on the shoulder of a lo
Source: BBC
Mar 20, 2009
The air aces of World War I - like the Red Baron - left a rich mythology that persists to the present day. But the man who was, perhaps, Britain's best pilot, remains little known.
A 90-year-old photo album discovered recently in northern France, reveals possibly the last picture of Britain's "highest scoring" fighter pilot from World War I.
It's an innocent photograph. A highly decorated RAF pilot poses for the camera, his arm gently resting on the shoulder
Source: BBC
Mar 20, 2009
The world's oldest champagne, bottled before Victoria became Queen, is still drinkable, with notes of "truffles and caramel", according to the experts.
An "addictive" bottle of 1825 Perrier-Jouet was opened at a ceremony attended by 12 of the world's top wine tasters.
Their verdict: the 184-year-old champagne tasted better than some of its younger counterparts.
There are now just two 1825 vintage bottles left - and Perrier-Jouet has n
Source: BBC
Mar 20, 2009
A carpet that was commissioned in India 150 years ago to decorate the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina has sold for nearly $5.5m at an auction in Doha.
Bidding was expected to start at about $5m but the starting price was brought down to $4.5m as there were few buyers.
The rug, known as the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, was created using an estimated two million natural seed pearls.
It is decorated with hundreds of precious stones, including diamonds, sa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 20, 2009
The United States has deported to Austria a former Nazi concentration camp guard who admitted that he participated in the 1943 massacre of 8,000 Jews.
Josias Kumpf, 83, who was living in Racine, Wisconsin, served as a guard at the Nazi-run Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany and at the Trawniki labor camp in Poland, the US justice department said.
At Trawniki, he participated in a mass shooting in which about 8,000 Jewish men, women and children were killed in
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 20, 2009
A portrait believed to be the only surving portrait of William Shakespeare painted in his lifetime could be the 17th century courtier Sir Thomas Overbury, an expert believes.
The Jacobean painting from the family collection of art restorer Alec Cobbe was thought to be the bard because it closely resembled the engraving in Shakespeare's First Folio.
It is also noticeably similar to another painting believed to be the playwright owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library i
Source: AP
Mar 20, 2009
Former chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell says some have been there six or seven years and are innocent.
Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday.
"There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Assoc
Source: Times Online (UK)
Mar 20, 2009
Could this be Obama’s “Reagan” moment? Already comparisons are being drawn to that President’s exhortation to President Gorbachev to “tear down that wall” as he stood before the Brandenberg Gate.
President Obama’s plea is more abstract and more nuanced; less of a call to revolution than food to fuel the growing doubts of the Iranian people about their proud isolation.
Contrast his words with President Bush’s bluster about an “axis of evil”. That phrase did nothing to
Source: BBC News
Mar 20, 2009
Documents revealing the thoughts of the main British prosecutor at the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes trials have been opened to the public.
Letters from prosecutor David Maxwell Fyfe have been released at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge.
Thought to have been lost, the letters to his wife were found by his grandson.
In one of them Mr Maxwell Fyfe refers to Hermann Goering as "the fat boy" and says he feels he "knocked him off his perch&
Source: The Independent (UK)
Mar 20, 2009
The great grandson of Afghanistan's legendary Iron Amir – who once forced an adulterous man to eat his mistress – has joined the race to be the country's next president. Prince Abdul Ali Seraj, who opened Afghanistan's first nightclub in the 1970s, says it is time to launch "psychological warfare" against the Taliban and reclaim Islamic law from the extremists. He insists Afghanistan needs a "change candidate" because President Hamid Karzai has failed.
His great
Source: The Independent (UK)
Mar 20, 2009
A large number of secret documents detailing government blunders over Iraq remain buried in Whitehall, a Foreign Office whistle-blower said yesterday as he called for a full public inquiry into the war.
Carne Ross, formerly Britain's top Iraq specialist at the United Nations, protested that the Butler and Hutton inquiries had not fully examined the events leading to military action in 2003. He told MPs, who are investigating leaks and whistle-blowing by civil servants, that the inte
Source: The Independent (UK)
Mar 20, 2009
The flames are going out all over Italy. Tomorrow, the flame which for more than 60 years has been the symbol of neo-Fascist continuity with Mussolini, will disappear from mainstream politics. The National Alliance, the last important home of that inheritance, is "fusing" with Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party to give the governing bloc a single identity and a single unchallenged leader.
The change has been a long time coming – 15 years and more. Mr Berlusconi br
Source: http://fredericksburg.com
Mar 19, 2009
Local support is building for a Wal-Mart Supercenter in the Wilderness area, but the company is lagging behind expectations from Orange County's Planning Department.
The county Economic Development Authority is the latest group to endorse the store. On Tuesday night, it unanimously passed a resolution that says Wal-Mart would provide "needed tax revenues for the county" and "convenient shopping opportunities" for residents who now must leave the county to buy cer
Source: Reuters
Mar 19, 2009
Iraq has received its first group of Western tourists since the fall of Saddam
Hussein in 2003, the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said on Thursday.
The group of eight holidaymakers -- five Britons, two Americans and a Canadian -- arrived on March 8
and toured Iraq's landmark historic sites, including the Biblical city of Babylon, fabled home to
the Hanging Gardens.
Their three week trip was organized by a British adventure tour operator, ministry spokesman
Abdul-Zahra al-Tel
Source: Foxnews
Mar 19, 2009
An 85-year-old World War II veteran, who dropped out of high school decades ago to enlist in the Naval Reserve, was awarded an honorary diploma in a surprise ceremony, the Star Tribune reported.
Richard Thill finally got his diploma from Humboldt Senior High School in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday, 69 years after leaving school without graduating.
On Wednesday, Thill had been invited to the school ostensibly to speak about his experience in the war. Instead, the school
Source: AP
Mar 19, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is telling federal agencies to release their records and information to the public unless foreseeable harm would result.
Attorney General Eric Holder issued new guidelines fleshing out President Barack Obama's Jan. 21 order to reveal more government records to the public under the Freedom of Information Act in cases where release isn't specifically barred by another law.
The new standard essentially returns to one issued by Attorney
Source: Britannica Blog (click here for graphic display)
Mar 19, 2009
“Roman engineers built an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria [modern Jordan]. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it.”
So reported Spiegel Online last week.
“When the Romans weren’t busy conquering their enemies, they loved to waste massive quantities of water, which gurgled and bubbled throughout their cities. The engineers of the empire inv
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 19, 2009
The Ministry of Defence has pledged to help to get veterans to Normandy for the 65th commemorations of the D-Day landings.
Following reports that the surviving men who stormed the beaches to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation were not being given any funding, the Government said there was "no question" of its commitment to veterans.
Hinting that there will now be a ministerial presence at the commemorations that will be attended by French, German and American poli
