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
Sep 1, 2008
Defying police presence and a thunderous downpour, dozens of Greek pagans huddled near the Parthenon in Athens on Sunday, holding a protest prayer for a museum being built at the foot of the sacred site.
The ceremony, attended by scores of curious onlookers, was performed amid the ruins of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon. The ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman empire in the fourth century.
Dressed in crisp white apparel, the pagans gathered before the e
Source: NYT
Sep 1, 2008
IN the 24 hours before the McCain campaign put the finishing touches on its surprise announcement Friday that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska would be the Republican vice presidential candidate, one Wikipedia user was putting the finishing touches on her biography on the site.
Beginning at 2 a.m Eastern time on Thursday, a Wikipedia user with the name YoungTrigg began an overhaul of the article, adding compelling stories about her upbringing, including that “she earned the nickname ‘Sara
Source: Telegraph
Sep 1, 2008
The traditional bearskin helmets worn by guardsmen on duty at Buckingham Palace could disappear after almost 200 years under plans being considered by the Government.
Baroness Taylor, the minister for defence procurement, will meet representatives from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) this week to discuss the idea of having the 18-inch helmets, worn by Guards regiments on ceremonial duty at the royal residence, made from synthetical materials.
The
Source: Independent
Sep 1, 2008
Four months before he disappears into the Texas sunset, Bush is the least loved president of modern times. He will step down with the US embroiled in two unpopular wars, up to its eyes in debt, its economy sliding into recession, its moral standing in the world deeply damaged.
Not even Harry Truman during the worst of the Korean war, or Richard Nixon as he sank in the morass of Watergate, matched Bush's current disapproval rating of 70 per cent. As early as midway through his second
Source: BBC
Sep 1, 2008
Doris Gibson, who 58 years ago founded Peru's leading news magazine, has died at the age of 98. Her strength of character and determination helped the magazine withstand military dictatorships and repressive governments, as Dan Collyns reports.
She began with 10,000 soles (£2,066), which her uncle had given her, and a typewriter in a single room.
The magazine was going to be called Caras y Caretas - faces and masks - but as Peru was under a military dictatorship at th
Source: BBC
Sep 1, 2008
An inquiry into Australia's worst naval disaster is to begin hearing evidence from former war veterans.
Some 645 sailors died when HMAS Sydney was lost in a battle with a German cruiser off Western Australia in 1941.
HMAS Sydney was regarded as the pride of the Australian navy and defence officials say the investigation is "important unfinished business".
The inquiry will be run by Sir Terence Cole, who presided over a hearing into Australia's
Source: Telegraph
Sep 1, 2008
Professor Robert Connolly, who is working with the Egyptian authorities to analyse the young king's remains and those of the two stillborn children, is due to present his findings at the Pharmacy and Medicine in Ancient Egypt Conference at the University of Manchester today.
He will say that despite their different sizes, the two foetuses would have made more sense as a single pregnancy for Tutankhamun's wife Ankhesenamun.
The smaller foetus is five months in gestationa
Source: LAT profile
Aug 31, 2008
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is as complex as the place she calls home. Plucked from near-political obscurity to become Sen. John McCain's running mate, Palin either has pitch-perfect political instincts or has benefited from a spectacular run of luck that has landed her in the ultimate right place at the right time.
It is easy to see why McCain was drawn to her; their political resumes have much in common. The 44-year-old Republican has sold herself as a political maverick willing to bu
Source: WaPo
Aug 31, 2008
One night in 1957, during his junior year at the U.S. Naval Academy, John Sidney McCain III found himself in trouble, an incident that destined him for yet another tense discussion with his frustrated father. While on liberty, he and a couple of classmates had gotten into an argument at a Washington park with a group of guys from nearby Georgetown University who'd tried crashing an impromptu party that McCain and his friends were having with a few girls. An exchange of insults escalated to pugna
Source: Sunday Mail/ Scottish News
Aug 31, 2008
THE deadly buried legacy of the Nazi blitz on Scotland can be revealed today.
Our map shows how more than 1500 Second World War bombs lie beneath our
cities, towns and villages.
Shock figures show that 1677 of the Luftwaffe's unexploded bombs - known
as UXBs - remain active across Scotland.
Today the Sunday Mail pinpoints their location, from the town of Portsoy
near Inverness to Eyemouth in the south.
Source: Telegraph
Aug 31, 2008
Banners and bunting for the Paralympics have replaced those of the Olympics on Beijing's streets, and the first of the 4,200 disabled athletes who will compete in the Games have started arriving.
Yet with less than a week to go before they open, China's vast and growing army of disabled citizens has little cause to celebrate.
Hosting the Paralympics has been talked up as an opportunity to challenge the deep-seated prejudice which the disabled face in China, just as the
Source: Telegraph
Aug 31, 2008
Melita Norwood, the "granny spy" who passed Britain's nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, helped speed up Stalin's atomic bomb programme by five years, according to a controversial new biography.
Norwood, a committed Communist who began spying for Moscow in the 1930s, handed over technical information which provided Russian scientists with a crucial breakthrough.
Her contribution allowed them to overcome problems, which blocked the development of their nuclea
Source: Telegraph
Aug 31, 2008
The brother of Lord Haw-Haw, the notorious Second World War propagandist, was interned for four years by the British government even though the security services believed he was innocent of any crime and posed no danger to the country....
###
Edwin Quentin Joyce, a member of the National Socialist League, was interned in 1939 shortly after the outbreak of war and his brother William’s escape to Germany.
The security services became suspicious of his links to a su
Source: International Herald Tribune
Aug 31, 2008
It's decline time again in America, like every 20 years or so.
Last time round, in 1988, the doomsayers got everything right - except the
name of the country. For it was the Soviet Union which collapsed while the
United States went on to savor its"unipolar moment." This time it is a
consumptive greenback, shrinking credit, soaring gas and two wars with no
V-Day in sight in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Now let's look across the Atlantic where Europe used to strike Americans
as one huge
Source: International Herald Tribune
Aug 31, 2008
Last year, a Russian teachers' manual described Josef Stalin as an "effective manager." Now, a new teachers' manual says the Soviet dictator acted rationally in conducting a campaign of terror to ensure the country's modernization.
The new manual, "A History of Russia, 1900-1945," is part of a series of educational material that the authors say will help promote patriotism in young people. Critics have taken exception to excerpts that they say are attempts to whi
Source: Observer
Aug 31, 2008
Italy has agreed to pay Libya £2.75bn in compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country, which ended in 1943. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi signed a memorandum pledging a compensation package involving construction projects, student grants and pensions for Libyan soldiers who served with the Italians during the Second World War.
'It is a material and emotional recognition of the mistakes that our country has done to yours during
Source: Observer
Aug 31, 2008
Sixty thousand years ago, a small group of African men and women took to the Red Sea in tiny boats and crossed the Mandab Strait to Asia. Their journey - of less than 20 miles - marked the moment Homo sapiens left its home continent.
The motive for our ancestors' African exodus is not known, though scientists suspect food shortages, triggered by climate change, were involved. However, its impact cannot be overestimated. Two thousand generations later, descendants of these African em
Source: Observer
Aug 31, 2008
Secret files made public today reveal how an Etonian fascist sympathiser was used by the British government in an ill-fated attempt to explore the possibility of a peace deal with Germany during the Second World War. Memos written by the security service, MI5, and released by the National Archives, show James Lonsdale-Bryans, who was known to hold extreme right wing views, was given Foreign Office clearance to make secret trips to Italy.
One file states that in 1940 Lonsdale-Bryans
Source: Observer
Aug 31, 2008
Stratford has Shakespeare. Blenheim boasts Churchill. And Dickens boosts the coffers of Broadstairs. But when it comes to fame by association, nowhere, it seems, can surpass a small seaside town in Scotland.
For Helensburgh has 'Heroes' - 75 of them at the last count, and rising. Residents believe it is the most talented town in Britain and are looking to create a Hollywood-style 'Walk of Fame' to shout it from their elegant Victorian rooftops.
The Glasgow town, on the
Source: Telegraph
Aug 31, 2008
Archeologists have uncovered the remains of what they believe to be a 20ft fence designed to screen Stonehenge from the view of unworthy Stone Age Britons.
The wooden construction extended nearly two miles across Salisbury Plain more than 5,000 years ago, and would have served to shield the sacred site from the prying eyes of ordinary lower-class locals.
Trenches have been dug around the monument, tracing the course of the fence which meanders around the stone circle.
