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
Dec 2, 2008
Years before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Iraq's
Kurds with bombs, bullets and gas.
The Reagan White House saw it as a ruthless attempt to put down a
rebellion by a minority ethnic group fighting for independence and allied
with Iraq's enemy, Iran.
But Peter Galbraith thought it was something worse.
"A light went off in my head, and I said, 'Saddam Hussein is committing
genocide,'" said Galbraith, who was on the staff of the Senate Foreign
Relations
Source: Dr. Luke A. Nichter at nixontapes.org
Dec 2, 2008
On December 2, 2008, the Nixon Presidential
Library released 198 additional hours of Nixon tapes originally recorded
between November 1972 and January 1973. With this release, 2,217 hours of
tapes have been declassified and released to the public out of a total of
approximately 3,700 hours recorded. This release was a sequel to a small
release of tapes that occurred on July 11, 2007. For more information on the
2007 release, click here.
Source: CNN
Dec 2, 2008
Two U.S. lawmakers have urged U.S. Army Secretary Peter Geren to recognize
350 American soldiers held as slaves by Nazi Germany during World War II,
saying"these heroes have not received the recognition and honor they
deserve.""As Anthony Acevedo, one of the soldiers chosen, recently described to
CNN, the Nazis picked those soldiers who looked Jewish, had a Jewish name
or were considered 'undesirable,'" Reps. Joe Baca, D-California, and
Spencer Bachus, R-Alabama, said in a later sent to
Source: CNN
Dec 2, 2008
January, President-elect Barack Obama and his family will make history,
becoming the first African-American first family to move into the White
House -- a house with a history of slavery. In fact, the legacy of
American presidents owning slaves goes all the way back to George
Washington.
Twelve American presidents owned slaves and eight of them, starting with
Washington, owned slaves while they lived in the White House. Almost from
the very start, slaves were a common sight in the e
Source: AP
Dec 2, 2008
RAYMONDVILLE, Texas – A judge dismissed indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday and told the southern Texas prosecutor who brought the case to exercise caution as his term in office ends.
Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra had accused Cheney and the other defendants of responsibility for prisoner abuse. The judge's order ended two weeks of sometimes-bizarre court proceedings.
Source: MSNBC First Read (blog)
Dec 2, 2008
Richard Nixon's reputation takes a fresh pounding every time the National Archives releases another batch of audio tapes from his presidency, and today's opening of nearly 200 hours of Nixon White House recordings is no exception.
Again and again, Nixon comes across as ruthless, cynical and profane in conversations with staff members.
Here are some examples:
-- On July 1, 1971, Nixon instructs Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to have someone break into the Brookings
Source: AP
Dec 2, 2008
WASHINGTON — Documents released Tuesday from Richard M. Nixon's White House years shed new light on just how much the government struggled with growing public unrest over the protracted war in Vietnam.
The National Archives opened nearly 200 hours of White House tape recordings and 90,000 pages of documents.
A newly declassified memo to Nixon from his secretary of defense at the time reflects just how much the administration felt and discussed public pressure — even as
Source: Philip Kennicott in the WaPo
Dec 2, 2008
Over time, the U.S. Capitol has taken on two very different faces. What was once deemed the back side of the building -- facing the Mall -- became a grand, ceremonial front, with the addition of dramatic stairs, terraces and landscaping that emphasized its prominence on a hill. To the east, the old "front" of the Capitol became, by contrast, more modest, accessible and pastoral. Before ground was broken for the new Capitol Visitor Center in 2000, you could stand on the east side and im
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 2, 2008
But more betrayals were over petty family and neighbour disputes than accusations of being French Jews.
The findings were aired at the world's first international conference on French denunciation in the Second World War, in Caen.
They challenge some of the popular misconceptions about denunciation in wartime France.
Historians now say only a very small percentage related to Jews and a large proportion – around a quarter – of the letters were about French f
Source: LAT
Dec 1, 2008
The non-Jewish diplomat in France saved tens of thousands during the
Holocaust and spent a year as a Nazi captive.
Gilberto Bosques Saldívar has never been the subject of a major motion
picture by Steven Spielberg. American history books seldom, if ever,
mention his name, and he does not have his own Wikipedia page, in Spanish
or English.
But the former Mexican diplomat, stationed in France during World War II,
helped save as many as 40,000 Jews and other refugees from Nazi
p
Source: Scientific American
Dec 1, 2008
More than five and a half years into the Iraq War, the condition of archaeological sites and
antiquities in Iraq remains a frustrating and contentious topic among archaeologists and art
historians. Two surveys in the past year—one in northern Iraq in May, the other in the south in
June—have persuaded some that the ongoing damage is far less extensive than most observers had
believed. Yet with more than 10,000 registered sites and numerous other mounds of earth that may
still conceal uncatal
Source: Chicago Tribune
Dec 1, 2008
GEORGETOWN, S.C. — Tiny wooden cabins line the dirt road once known as Slave Street as it winds through Friendfield Plantation.
More than 200 slaves lived in the whitewashed shacks in the early 1800s, and some of their descendants remained for more than 100 years after the Civil War. The last tenants abandoned the hovels about 30 years ago, and even they would have struggled to imagine a distant daughter of the plantation one day calling the White House home.
But a hist
Source: http://www.walesonline.co.uk
Dec 1, 2008
THE distinction between the nations of Britain is more in the eye of the beholder than in our genes.
Over thousands of years the blood spilled in wars between the ruling classes “artificially” created Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England, not the DNA in our blood.
DNA studies show that anyone with a few generations of ancestors who lived in any part of the British Isles is descended from the original inhabitants of Britain.
These people arrived in small numbers from the Iberia
Source: BBC
Dec 1, 2008
As the government battles to steer youngsters away from gangs and knife
crime, one group has enlisted the help of a 19th century explorer.
Elders from London's Congolese community have begun a scheme to teach
teenagers about Sir Henry Morton Stanley.
He was one of the Victorian age's greatest adventurers and helped to open
up the Congo basin.
The scheme hopes to give children with Congolese backgrounds a sense of
identity and stop them getting involved in gangs.
Source: Deutsche Welle
Dec 1, 2008
Knobloch was speaking at ceremonies marking 50 years of work by the so-called central office, which was established Dec. 1, 1958.
The agency's greatest achievements include compiling evidence between 1963 and 1965 to prosecute the key surviving commanders and guards from the Auschwitz death camp.
At Ludwigsburg in south-western Germany, where the agency has its office, German President Horst Koehler highlighted its contribution to restoring German honor in the world by
Source: NYT
Dec 1, 2008
The Bank of New York — America’s first financial firm — was founded in a rich man’s house on Pearl Street in 1784. While it is no surprise that the august institution has a long history of business in the country, it is less well known that it has also made a business of the country’s history — writing, for example, the first loan to the federal government (for $20,000) that helped retire debts from the Revolutionary War.
The original copy of that note hangs today in a small alcove
Source: BBC
Dec 1, 2008
For the first time since 2003, Iran and Iraq have exchanged the remains of
soldiers killed in the war between the two countries.
The bodies of 241 soldiers, most of them Iraqis, were handed over at a
border crossing near Basra.
It is the first time remains were exchanged since the fall of Saddam
Hussein in 2003.
Source: CNN
Dec 1, 2008
Thousands of Cubans, including President Raul Castro and Communist Party
leaders, flocked to a Catholic ceremony on Saturday putting a 19th century
monk on the path to sainthood.
Saturday's Mass honored Friar Jose Olallo Valdes, known as the father of
the poor. It was the first beatification ceremony on the island."From here on, let him be called blessed," said the pope's representative,
Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints
at the Vatican.
Source: BBC
Dec 1, 2008
More than 500,000 people have died from Aids-related illnesses in the US
in the last 27 years - but has Aids really changed the country?
The actor Paul Michael Glaser, who presents a Radio 2 documentary on the
subject on Tuesday, has no doubt it has had a tremendous impact at a
personal level.
Best known as Starsky in the long-running television show"Starsky &
Hutch," Glaser said:"Aids had a huge impact on my life and on hundreds of
thousands of my fellow Americans."
Gl
Source: http://www.theartnewspaper.com
Dec 1, 2008
The British Army is offering to help create a museum in Basra, which would be set up by the
Iraqi authorities in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. British military planners have codenamed the
project Operation Bell, after Gertrude Bell, the archaeologist who helped establish the Baghdad
Museum in 1926. Assistance is also being offered by the British Museum, but all parties stress that
this is an Iraqi venture.
