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: Spiegel Online
Jan 23, 2009
In Malbork, Poland, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Gdansk, Radoslaw Gajc slings a pick-ax over his shoulder. Dressed in green overalls like all the city's housing industry employees, he crosses an icy dirt track, then descends into an open pit. Just 200 meters (650 feet) away, the majestic brick walls of Malbork Castle soar in the background.
Gajc is a construction worker, and together with his colleagues he's supposed to be building a luxury hotel here. Instead, he fin
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jan 23, 2009
The project, which focuses on reprinting newspapers from 1933 to 1945, is meant to educate Germans but has instead sparked outrage from Jewish groups and authorities worried about the possible offence to Holocaust survivors and the potential misuse of the material by neo-Nazis.
On Thursday, the Bavarian finance ministry, which says it holds the rights to all publications from the main Nazi publishing house, said it would resort to the courts to stop future papers being published. It
Source: http://www.stonepages.com
Jan 22, 2009
Cory Holliday almost didn't see the stick figure painted on the sandstone. His first impression was that it was a clever fake. A cave specialist for the Tennessee chapter of The Nature Conservancy, Holliday was searching for caves in a remote part of Fentress County on the Cumberland Plateau (Tennessee, USA) when discovered the foot-long painting of a dancing stick figure. The left leg appeared misshapen, and the right hand resembled a claw.
The rock shelter painting came as a c
Source: http://www.orangenews.com
Jan 22, 2009
Despite a high profile effort to prevent a Wal-Mart from locating near Civil War battlefields close to the intersection of Route 20 and Route 3 in Orange County, the big-box store is moving forward with planning.
The national retail giant announced plans months ago to build a 140,000-square-foot retail and grocery store, but progress was delayed as project engineers worked to iron out traffic plans.
The store, as proposed, will take up 19 acres of a 50-acre parcel on the nor
Source: Fox 13 (Salt Lake City)
Jan 22, 2009
A recently discovered diary is shedding insight into early Mormon history. The dairy belonged to William McLelling, a controversial and excommunicated apostle. The dairy was revealed by a Provo collector and historian. Its pages have anecdotes or early Mormon life and people, and parts of the dairy are also critical of the Mormon faith. McLlenin is said to have remained a believer of The Book of Mormon, but lost faith in the Church's founder. FOX 13's Max Roth reports.
Source: AP
Jan 22, 2009
Video testimony of nearly 600 survivors of Nazi forced labour programmes was posted online Thursday for historians and students to better understand their ordeal, organisers said Thursday.
The project is an offshoot of a compensation fund founded by the German government and major companies in 2001 for survivors of a programme that saw 12 million people rounded up and conscripted to work during World War II.
The 341 men and 249 women featured in the videos tell of worki
Source: Azzaman
Jan 22, 2009
The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has drawn up a new plan to retrieve “all the antiquities
that have been stolen,” according to the minister, Qahatan al-Jibouri.
Jibouri, whose ministry is in charge of the Antiquities Department, said the return of smuggled and
stolen Iraqi relics as well as the protection of Iraqi ancient sites was a top priority.
The relative quiet in the country has encouraged the government to draw the plan which among other
things calls for the deploy
Source: AP
Jan 22, 2009
A federal judge ordered Russia on Thursday to preserve sacred religious documents that members of a Hasidic Jewish movement fear could be headed to the black market.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued a restraining order telling Russia to protect the documents and return any that may already have been removed from the Russian State Military Archives.
The order comes in a lawsuit filed by members of Chabad-Lubavitch, which follows the teachings of Eastern European
Source: NYT
Jan 22, 2009
CRAPSTONE, England — When ordering things by telephone, Stewart Pearce tends to take a proactive approach to the inevitable question “What is your address?”
In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high. But Britain is full of them. Some are mostly amusing, like Ugley, Essex; East Breast, in western Scotland; North Piddle, in Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, in Derbyshire.
Others evoke images that may conflict with residents’ efforts to appear d
Source: NYT
Jan 22, 2009
Mother Teresa recited the simple prayer of St. Francis every day. Margaret Thatcher cited it upon becoming prime minister of Britain, and Alcoholics Anonymous included it in its “12 steps” book.
But something else is notable about the prayer that begins: “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith.”
St. Francis of Assisi, who was born in the 12th century, probably had nothi
Source: Talking Points Memo/TPM Muckraker
Jan 22, 2009
The experts' verdicts on the potential impact of President Obama's executive order on presidential records are starting to come in. And they're bolstering our initial take that Obama's move could significantly boost efforts to release crucial records that the Bush administration has fought to keep secret.
Doug Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine law school and expert on executive privilege, told TPMmuckraker that the order makes it harder for former presidents to blo
Source: PIPA/WorldPublicOpinion.org
Jan 22, 2009
The world is full of nationalistic people certain that their country is morally superior to others, right? Actually, a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 21 nations around the world finds that people can be remarkably modest.
Asked to assess the morality of their nation's foreign policy, in 19 out of 21 nations the most common answer is that their nation is about average or below average.
In the United States, about half (49%) say the morality of US foreign policy is av
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 22, 2009
Charles Darwin's tree of life, which shows how species are related, is " wrong" and "misleading", claim scientists.
They believe the concept misleads us because his theory limits and even obscures the study of organisms and their ancestries.
Evolution is far too complex to be explained by a few roots and branches, they claim.
In Darwin's The Origin of Species, published in 1859, the British naturalist drew a diagram of an oak to depict h
Source: Foxnews
Jan 22, 2009
A headline proclaiming "Huge Fire in the Reichstag" greeted Germans at newsstands Thursday — and although the story is more than 70 years old, customers are snapping it up.
Dieter Grosse, who runs a newsstand at Berlin's busy Friedrichstrasse station, said he has sold about 600 copies of Zeitungszeugen — a new publication that reprints Nazi-era newspapers — since it first edition went on sale Jan. 8.
But the project has drawn criticism from Jewish organization
Source: CNN
Jan 22, 2009
George Bush should have pardoned I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney said after stepping down as vice president this week.
"He was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon. Obviously, I disagree with President Bush's decision," Cheney told Stephen F. Hayes of the Weekly Standard, a leading conservative Washington magazine.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was convicted of ob
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Jan 22, 2009
In a breathtaking series of statements and executive actions, President Barack Obama yesterday announced “the beginning of a new era of openness in our country.”“For a long time now there’s been too much secrecy in this city,” he told reporters at a January 21 swearing-in ceremony.“The old rules said that if
Source: Independent (UK)
Jan 22, 2009
Both will be remembered as vertically challenged men in a vertiginous hurry. Both were helped into power by beautiful wives, with whom they quarrelled. Both believed that they had a destiny to rebuild France and, above all, to change the way the French think of themselves. Both are known for a weakness for kitsch and anything that glitters.
Both came from non-French, minor aristocratic backgrounds and despised the Parisian elite. Both had, from the start of their career, an o
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 22, 2009
The Pope is preparing to cancel the excommunication of four traditionalist Catholic bishops including one who believes the Holocaust never happened and the gas chambers were a myth.
Pope Benedict XVI has already signed the decree lifting the excommunication of the four bishops of the ultra-conservative Society of St Pius X, according to well-sourced reports in the Italian press today.
One of the bishops, Richard Williamson, an English former Anglican and graduate of W
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 22, 2009
Hailed as a genius and the father of astronomy, researchers believe Galileo Galilei could have been even more accurate in his work had he not been suffering from a genetic disease which eventually left him blind.
They want to extract DNA samples from his remains, which are kept in a tomb in Florence's Santa Croce Basilica.
"If we succeed, thanks to DNA, in understanding how this disease distorted his sight, it could bring about important discoveries for the history
Source: IHT
Jan 22, 2009
When he vowed in his inaugural address to "restore science to its rightful place," President Barack Obama signaled an end to eight years of stark tension between science and government.
But many of the Bush administration's restrictions on science, like those governing stem cell research, will take time to be removed. And whether the Obama administration entirely reverses strict controls over the government's main scientific agencies remains to be seen.
On iss
