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: McClatchy
Oct 19, 2008
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain fixed his sights on Saddam Hussein long before President Bush sent the U.S. military to oust the Iraqi dictator in March 2003.
Four years earlier, the Arizona senator told a Kansas State University audience that Saddam was amassing illicit weapons, and that the U.S. should arm opposition groups to overthrow him, along with North Korea's leaders and other "odious regimes."
Saddam, however, no longer had any chemical,
Source: Dr. Lawrence K. Altman in the NYT
Oct 19, 2008
Fifteen days before the election, serious gaps remain in the public’s knowledge about the health of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees. The limited information provided by the candidates is a striking departure from recent campaigns, in which many candidates and their doctors were more forthcoming.
Source: International Herald Tribune
Oct 19, 2008
This is the year, according to an order from a president whom few dare to disappoint, that the architectural scars of war in Grozny, Chechnya's capital, will be removed.
That the order has nearly been fulfilled is a feat.
Not long ago, Grozny (the name means "terrible" in Russian) offered a panorama of sagging husks of buildings and unmarked graves, scenes that eerily resembled the ruins left by the most destructive urban battles of World War II.
Source: NYT
Oct 19, 2008
Tensions heightened this weekend between the Vatican and Israel after a Vatican official said that Pope Benedict XVI had halted the beatification of Pius XII, the pope during World War II, for fear of repercussions from Jewish groups.
The official, the Rev. Peter Gumpel, a Jesuit priest who is directing beatification efforts, also told the ANSA news agency on Saturday that the pope would not visit Israel until a plaque criticizing Pius was removed from the Yad Vashem Holocaust muse
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Oct 19, 2008
The year was 1825, and though a 6-year-old girl named Sally couldn't sign her name, she could sign away the next 22 years of her life.
With the mark of an "X," Sally promised to serve Pittsburgh attorney John McKee in exchange for food, clothing and lessons in the "art and mystery of a house Servant and Cook." At age 28, she'd be granted her freedom, as well as "two suits of women's apparel ... one of which shall be new."
Sally's story -- a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2008
The 19 files, which date from 1986 and 1992, show the extensive records of strange sightings by members of the public and unexplained radar images from air traffic control.
In one instance, an Alitalia flight coming into land at London's Heathrow Airport reported a near miss with a UFO, which the pilot described as "similar to a missile - light brown or fawn - about three metres in length but without any exhaust flame".
Captain Achille Zaghetti was so concer
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2008
It has long been suspected that humans have an ancient history of drug use, but there has been a lack of proof to support the theory.
Now, however, researchers have found equipment used to prepare hallucinogenic drugs for sniffing, and dated them back to prehistoric South American tribes.
Quetta Kaye, of University College London, and Scott Fitzpatrick, an archeologist from North Carolina State University, made the breakthrough on the Caribbean island of Carriacou.
Source: NYT
Oct 18, 2008
As important as the economy may be for voters when they go to the polls, many economists contend that presidents have little power over general economic performance during their terms of office, even though some things, like the minimum wage, are set by the government.
David Backus, an economist at New York University, recently wrote on the blog of the economist N. Gregory Mankiw that while presidents might contribute to long-term performance, the normal ups and downs of the busines
Source: NYT
Oct 18, 2008
While Hawaii’s surf-loving chiefs ruled from Waikiki because they liked its steady waves and idyllic weather, European and American ships turned nearby Honolulu Harbor into a forest of masts, spawning a mariner’s village that eventually became the Pacific archipelago’s capital.
The ship carrying the last of those masts — four to be exact — was sold recently for a symbolic dollar to a group of cash-strapped enthusiasts who hope to save that 266-foot square-rigger, the Falls of Clyde.
Source: AP
Oct 18, 2008
As U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam in early 1974, Seaman Apprentice Frederic D. Jones was fighting his own battles.
The cocky Baltimore teenager spent nearly three months AWOL in the Philippines. There, he said, he played cat-and-mouse with shore patrol while fending off a murderous drug dealer, romancing the sister of a militia leader and robbing other servicemen to feed his heroin habit.
Eventually caught, Jones negotiated an honorable discharge but couldn't stay cl
Source: AP
Oct 18, 2008
For all Barack Obama's talk about change, there are signs that in style — if not substance — a new White House under Democrat Obama would operate much like the current one under President Bush.
Think discipline, efficiency and secrecy. These are hallmarks of Obama's campaign, just as they have been for the last eight years in the leak-proof, tightly managed Bush administration.
If Obama becomes the nation's 44th president, however, the extraordinary history-making aspec
Source: Las Vegas Sun
Oct 18, 2008
A Nevada Republican Party mail piece that accuses Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of having “close ties to (a) domestic terrorist” is reckless and inflammatory, historians say, because it could stir dark passions, including a desire to inflict violence on Obama.
“This is dangerous politics,” said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian. He noted the country’s long history of political assassination and racial violence.
Shouts of “Kill him!” an
Source: NYT
Oct 18, 2008
ST. GALLEN, Switzerland — One of the oldest and most valuable collections of handwritten medieval books in the world, housed in the magnificent baroque halls of the library in this town’s abbey, is going online with the help of a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
For centuries scholars from around the world have flocked to the Stiftsbibliothek — literally, the abbey library — in this quaint town nestled in the rolling hills of eastern Switzerland, to pore over i
Source: International Herald Tribune
Oct 18, 2008
Thai and Cambodian field commanders worked Saturday to strengthen a fragile truce following a deadly gunbattle between their soldiers stationed on the border.
The commanders, Cambodian Maj. Gen. Srey Doek and Thai Col. Chayan Huaysoongnern, conducted a joint inspection of their troops, ate lunch together and discussed how to prevent future flare-ups of violence in disputed territory near an 11th century temple.
Fighting between the two sides Wednesday killed two Cambodi
Source: WSJ
Oct 18, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The five life-sized bronze men line up, in hats and overcoats, their shoulders slumped. Outside a closed door, they wait for bread or, perhaps, a job.
Eva Durak, 31 years old, slipped into the queue of statues and assumed a glum pose appropriate to the Great Depression, while a friend snapped a picture. It wasn't hard for her to fake the misery. Business at the restaurant where Ms. Durak tends bar is off about 75%, she figures.
"We're almost there,&qu
Source: Guardian (UK)
Oct 18, 2008
A former head of MI5 today describes the response to the September 11 2001 attacks on the US as a "huge overreaction" and says the invasion of Iraq influenced young men in Britain who turned to terrorism.
In an interview with the Guardian, Stella Rimington calls al-Qaida's attack on the US "another terrorist incident" but not qualitatively different from any others.
"That's not how it struck me. I suppose I'd lived with terrorist events for a go
Source: Times (UK)
Oct 18, 2008
The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, played an important part in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland, a leading negotiator in the peace process said.
Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, said yesterday that he believed the extent of the damage and carnage caused by the attacks deterred the IRA from further bombings. Speaking at The Times Cheltenham Literary Festival, Mr Powell said: “It’s true, 9/11 was important. Terror is competitive, or
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 18, 2008
Dozens of previously unseen doctors' reports, diaries and prescriptions show that people visited hospitals with symptoms including depression, inflamed bodies, excessive erotic desire, irrational thoughts and a loss of self control.
The term love sickness would now be considered to be unrequited or forbidden love or the distress of being broken-hearted.
Doctors prescribed remedies including potions, diets, mental exercises and listening to music.
In drastic
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 18, 2008
Papers which were kept secret for almost 70 years show that the Soviet Union proposed sending a powerful military force in an effort to entice Britain and France into an anti-Nazi alliance.
Such an agreement could have changed the course of 20th century history, preventing Hitler's pact with Stalin which gave him free rein to go to war with Germany's other neighbours.
The offer of a military force to help contain Hitler was made by a senior Soviet military delegation
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Oct 18, 2008
Night after night they climbed into their cramped and freezing aircraft to strike at Germany's cities and factories.
And each time they flew, the odds of them surviving the night-fighters and flak grew longer and longer.
Yet the sacrifice and seemingly inexhaustible bravery of the young men of Bomber Command has gone almost unrecognised for 60 years.
Even Churchill snubbed them, though they faced some of the worst losses of any branch of the British mili
