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: Civil War News
Sep 8, 2008
FAIRFAX, Va. — Ox Hill Battlefield Park will be dedicated on Sept. 1, the
146th anniversary of the 1862 battle where Union Gens. Philip Kearny and
Isaac Stevens died.
The new 5-acre county park is a tribute to persistence and efforts over
more than 20 years to save something of the battlefield (also known as
Chantilly), which lies under and surrounded by suburban Washington
development — highways, malls, townhouses and office buildings.
Opening ceremonies at the park, at 4134
Source: McClatchy
Sep 7, 2008
John McCain made a quick stop at the Capitol one day last spring to sit in on Senate negotiations on the big immigration bill, and John Cornyn was not pleased.
Cornyn, a mild-mannered Texas Republican, saw a loophole in the bill that he thought would allow felons to pursue a path to citizenship.
McCain called Cornyn's claim "chicken-s---," according to people familiar with the meeting, and charged that the Texan was looking for an excuse to scuttle the bill. C
Source: Politico.com
Sep 7, 2008
It’s a tough gig, running for president. The modern media is brutally unforgiving with its microphones and video cameras: Any word, any image, at any moment can haunt a candidate for a lifetime.
This campaign is certainly no exception. Here is Politico’s list of the top eight gaffes that are virtually certain to haunt John McCain and Barack Obama until Election Day: ...
Source: http://canadafreepress.com
Sep 7, 2008
Stalin acted ‘entirely rationally’ in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags, a controversial new Russian teaching manual claims.
Fifty-five years after the Soviet dictator died, the latest guide for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young said he did what he did to ensure the country’s modernisation.
The manual, titled A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will form the basis of a new state-approved text book for use in schools next year.
Source: Fox News
Sep 7, 2008
Is Kim Jong Il for real? The question has baffled foreign intelligence agencies for years, but a veteran Japanese expert on North Korea says the “dear leader” is actually dead — and his role is played by a double.
The expert says Kim died of diabetes in 2003 and world leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China, have been negotiating with an imposter.
He believes that Kim, fearing assassination, had groomed up to four look-alikes to act as substit
Source: Telegraph
Sep 7, 2008
Speculation has recently grown again that Kim, who is 66 and has not been seen in public for more than three weeks, is unwell. Some media have long thought that Kim, a former smoker and heavy drinker, was ill but Seoul intelligence officials say they believe he has diabetes and heart problems, but those are not serious enough to affect his job.
But a book by Japan's Professor Toshimitsu Shigemura at Japan's respected Waseda University says Kim died in the autumn of 2003 and a serie
Source: LAT
Sep 7, 2008
Today's Home section introduces a new feature by Sam Watters. The first installment looks at the history of the Huntington estate in San Marino.
Source: WaPo excerpt from Woodward's new book
Sep 7, 2008
During the summer of 2006, from her office adjacent to the White House, deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan sent President Bush a daily top secret report cataloging the escalating bloodshed and chaos in Iraq. "Violence has acquired a momentum of its own and is now self-sustaining," she wrote July 20, quoting from an intelligence assessment.
Her dire evaluation contradicted the upbeat assurances that President Bush was hearing from Gen. George W. Casey Jr., t
Source: AP
Sep 7, 2008
It is not a tidy anniversary this year. Seven years between that
awful day and this Sept. 11, the terrorist attacks linger between the
immediate, a conscious part of Americans' days, and the comfortable remove
of the distant past. No longer yesterday and not yet history.
What happened seven years ago colors the country's life today. There are
the two wars, of course. But in smaller ways, too: People sing"God Bless
America" at the ballpark. They weigh"evil" as a campaign issue. They s
Source: Observer
Sep 7, 2008
Portraits of famous people tend to look like the painters because the artists were all simply depicting themselves, according to new research.
Computer-aided comparisons made between a series of portraits of British monarchs and the self-portraits of the artists who painted them prove that there has always been a hidden agenda in top-level portraiture, argues the art historian Simon Abrahams.
After lengthy research and the examination of hundreds of famous paintings fro
Source: Independent
Sep 7, 2008
The assassination of the journalist Georgi Markov in London in 1978 by a man wielding a poison-tipped umbrella was one of the most infamous episodes of the Cold War and brought relations between Britain and Bulgaria to breaking point. Thirty years on, with the Bulgarian authorities closing the case on the anniversary of the dissident's death this Thursday, secret official documents have uncovered the truth behind the killing.
The papers, from the archives of Bulgaria's National Inte
Source: Times
Sep 7, 2008
Good time Charlie, the hard-drinking, skirt-chasing Texan politician played by Tom Hanks in the film Charlie Wilson’s War, is facing a new battle.
Plans to endow a Charlie Wilson chair in Pakistan studies at the University of Texas have riled the college’s liberal academics, who feel he is too “gung-ho” to be a role model for students.
They say Wilson’s support for Afghans fighting Soviet occupiers during the 1980s, when he covertly funnelled American government aid t
Source: Times
Sep 7, 2008
A British spy who was a cross between James Bond and Robin Hood plotted to use a longbow to assassinate one of the most notorious Nazis, according to a new book.
Tommy Sneum lay in ambush in occupied Copenhagen armed with a bow and arrows to kill Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS. He planned to strike from a penthouse that belonged to a Danish film starlet he had seduced. Sneum chose a longbow because he did not want the sound of a bullet to be traced back to her flat.
Source: Observer (UK)
Sep 7, 2008
The great landmark that once separated the Roman empire's British citizens from the Celtic tribes of the north will be highlighted, literally, next year by a spectacular art installation as all of Hadrian's Wall is lit up.
The team behind the Northumberland Lights project are to announce plans this week to set up lights along the 73 miles of the wall for three days to draw visitors to the site at night.
'This will be a way of getting people to see the landscape in a di
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2008
Turkey’s president arrived in Armenia on Saturday, the first visit by a Turkish leader in the two nations’ history.
The president, Abdullah Gul, was invited by the Armenian president, Serge Sargsyan, to attend a soccer game in Yerevan, the capital, between the national teams.
The trip was widely seen as a symbolic gesture to normalize relations between the countries, which have recognized each other but have not established diplomatic relations.
The two nat
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2008
A FINANCIAL firm borrows billions of dollars to make big bets on esoteric securities. Markets turn and the bets go sour. Overnight, the firm loses most of its money, and Wall Street suddenly shuns it. Fearing that its collapse could set off a full-scale market meltdown, the government intervenes and encourages private interests to bail it out.
The firm isn’t Bear Stearns — it was Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund based in Greenwich, Conn., and the rescue occurred 10 years
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2008
WE all must think anew about Russia. But this process will prove harder for some of us than for others. When I grew up in the late 1960s and early ’70s, the Soviet Union had already begun to look like the Ottoman Empire on its last legs; the face of Soviet Communism belonged to Leonid Brezhnev, with his drooping cheeks and beetle brows and thick, square glasses.
What was there to fear from this pitiful giant? In my left-wing, antiwar, social democratic hothouse world, anti-Communism
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2008
Despite decades of free-market rhetoric from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, Washington has a long history of providing financial help to the private sector when the economic or political risk of a corporate collapse appeared too high.
The effort to save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is only the latest in a series of financial maneuvers by the government that stretch back to the rescue of the military contractor Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and the Penn Central Railroad under Pre
Source: AP
Sep 6, 2008
Ralph McClintock expected only a three-week mission when he boarded the USS Pueblo in January 1968.
Instead, he and his shipmates became pawns in a Cold War sideshow when North Korea captured the Navy spy ship and imprisoned its 82 crew members. Some still suffer the physical effects of torture or malnutrition they suffered in 11 months of captivity.
McClintock is proud of his service as a 24-year-old communications technician and the bonds he made with his crew mates,
Source: Telegraph
Sep 6, 2008
The Communist rulers of former East Germany used to inflate their hunting
prowess by displaying frozen carcasses bought from the butcher, it has
emerged.
Details of how the state's former leader, Erich Honecker, cheated at
shooting parties have been revealed out as a unique collection of guns
owned by him and other top party officials has come up for sale.
The 31 rifles, shotguns and pistols which once belonged to Honecker and
other Communist officials, including the hated Sta
