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: NYT
Nov 4, 2008
Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.
Mr. Obama’s election amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as m
Source: AP
Nov 4, 2008
A Florida school board voted late Monday night to keep the name of a Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader at a majority black high school, despite opposition from a black board member who said the school's namesake was a "terrorist and racist."
After hearing about three hours of public comments, Duval County School Board members voted 5-2 to the retain the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. The board's two black members cast the only votes to change t
Source: Times (UK)
Nov 4, 2008
Henry Pierrepoint measured out death in feet and inches. He started a dynasty of hangmen who together executed more than 800 people. His diaries, which came to light yesterday, reveal the undemonstrative efficiency that made his son, Albert, the most prolific of all British executioners.
Pierrepoint senior’s executions, 105 in all, are recorded in an unemotional log by name, age, height and drop. His only remarks describe prisoners’ necks in chillingly stark terms – “long”, “weak”,
Source: Deutsche Welle
Nov 4, 2008
Radio transcripts in which the Nazi-era Pope Pius XII purportedly denounced totalitarian rule have gone on show in a new Vatican exhibition.
Some historians and Jewish groups have charged that Pius XII failed to speak out against the Nazi massacre of Jews.
But the exhibition sets out to paint Pius in a different light.
"The purpose is to allow the general public to get to know the full life of Pope Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII)," Pontifical Committe
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Nov 3, 2008
Classics scholars have accused councils of 'ethnic cleansing' after they banned staff from using Latin words.
The local authorities claim the terms are elitist and discriminatory, and have ordered employees to use often-wordier alternatives in documents or when speaking to the public.
Bournemouth Council, which has the Latin motto Pulchritudo et Salubritas - beauty and health - has listed 19 terms it no longer considers acceptable for use.
They include ad h
Source: National Geographic News
Nov 3, 2008
What may be the oldest known Hebrew text, found on a hilltop above the valley where David is said to have battled Goliath, could lend historical support to some Bible stories, archaeologists say.
The 3,000-year-old pottery shard with five lines of text was found during excavations of the Elah Fortress, the oldest known biblical-period fortress, which dates to the tenth century B.C.
It is the most important archaeological discovery in Israel since the Dead Sea Scrolls, a
Source: International Herald Tribune
Nov 3, 2008
An article of faith among conservative critics of American universities has been that liberal professors politically indoctrinate their students. This conviction not only fueled the culture wars but has also led state lawmakers to consider requiring colleges to submit reports to the government detailing their progress in ensuring "intellectual diversity," prompted universities to establish faculty positions devoted to conservatism and spurred the creation of a network of volunteer watc
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 3, 2008
Carlos Arias Navarro, the last Spanish prime minister to serve under Gen Franco, met with US officials to garner support for such a move, according to documents held in the American National Archive and made public on Monday.
The declassified documents, released to Spanish daily newspaper El Pais, revealed that Gen Franco's government was "deeply concerned" by events across the border following the Carnation Revolution of April, 1974.
The event, a bloodless co
Source: Spiegel Online
Nov 3, 2008
After a high court in Italy ruled that Germany is liable for damages stemming from a 1944 massacre in the village of Civitella perpetrated by Nazi soldiers, Berlin has asked the International Court of Justice to look into the case.
Berlin worries the verdict could set off an avalanche of World War II-related court cases against the German government. On Oct. 22, Italy's highest appellate court, the Cassation, ruled that Germany must pay €1 million in compensation to the descendents
Source: BBC
Nov 3, 2008
Demonstrations have been held in Iran to mark the 29th anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.
The Islamic revolution in 1979 took over from the US backed regime of the Shah and installed the clerical rule of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Students stormed the US Embassy on 4 November 1979 taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
The hostages were released in 1981 and relations between Washington and Tehran have never recovered.
The o
Source: NYT
Nov 3, 2008
Timothy J. Petumenos, the independent counsel to the Alaska
Personnel Board, concluded that in the firing of the former
Alaska public safety commissioner Walt Monegan,"There is no
probable cause to believe that the governor or any other
state official violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in
connection with these matters."
Source: NPR
Nov 3, 2008
Madelyn Payne Dunham, the maternal grandmother of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, died Monday at the age of 86 after a battle with cancer, his campaign announced Monday. The Illinois senator has called his grandmother one of the "cornerstones" of his life.
In a statement released with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama called his grandmother "a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us
Source: http://civilwarinteractive.com/
Nov 3, 2008
On the verge of crisis 145 years ago, the Confederate States of America sought an economic rescue not unlike the one U.S. financial institutions recently got.
Confederate accounts were overdrawn, and credit from overseas investment firms was about to dry up because lenders weren't confident the Southern states could repay their mounting debts.
So, in 1863, Alabama businessman Colin J. McRae was sent to Europe to orchestrate a bailout of the Confederacy.
A r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 3, 2008
One of the great mysteries surrounding the collapse of the Chinese empire may have been solved by scientific tests suggesting the last emperor but one was poisoned with arsenic.
Analysis of hair and other fragments taken from the tomb of the Guangxu emperor, who died 100 years ago this month, showed high levels of the chemical.
The findings are seen as proving suspicions that the emperor was murdered, and the implications will be eagerly discussed, not just by historian
Source: International Herald Tribune
Nov 3, 2008
Much of South Africa's self-image is built on the iconography of the African National Congress: the long walk to freedom, the devotion to democratic principles, the racially tolerant rainbow nation of Nelson Mandela. In the three national elections since the end of apartheid, the ANC has won each time with the overwhelming support of voters.
So this weekend's convention led by an ANC breakaway faction was somewhat jarring. Dissidents repeatedly described the party they once loved as
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Nov 3, 2008
On a trip out in London just days after being freed from jail, this is the only terrorist to survive the Iranian Embassy siege - enjoying his new life on benefits.
Fowzi Nejad, 51, has been granted parole after serving 28 years for his part in the hostage-taking, and will not be deported back to his native Iran because of human rights laws.
Instead, he has been placed in a safe house in London and receives hundreds of pounds every week in free housing and benefits.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Nov 3, 2008
Headstones at the Commonwealth War Graves commission cemetery in France are being re-engraved to ensure the writing remains legible.
The war graves in La Targette, near Arras in the north of the country, are being repaired by stone cutters to combat the ravages of time.
The natural erosion of the Portland Down headstones, first engraved 80 years ago, has made reading the inscriptions increasingly difficult.
Source: BBC
Nov 3, 2008
Adolf Hitler had ambitious plans for Linz, the city where he grew up.
He wanted to make the town on the Danube into one of the five Fuhrer cities of the Third Reich, along with Berlin, Hamburg, Nuremberg and Munich.
Linz is now examining this page of its past in an exhibition called the Fuhrer's Capital of Culture.
Martin Heller, the artistic director of Linz 2009, says there was an obligation to tackle the city's Nazi history.
"We wan
Source: Washington Post
Nov 3, 2008
TOKYO -- Once again, a Japanese official with nationalist sympathies -- in this case, the head of the air force -- has glossed over the Asian suffering caused by Japan during World War II.
Once again, China and South Korea -- principal victims of Japan's wartime depredations -- have expressed shock and anger.
And once again, the government in Tokyo has restated its official policy, which is that Japan deeply regrets and apologizes for its wartime aggression.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 2, 2008
The animation, posted on the New Zealand company's internet website for Hallowe'en and still on display, depicts Sir Edmund's decaying corpse flanked by the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the late Australian actor Heath Ledger.
The three are seen climbing out of their graves and gyrating to the tones of the Michael Jackson song Thriller.
Sir Edmund died in January, aged 88.
His son Peter Hillary called the advertisement "a little grotesque&q
