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: Boston Globe
Aug 3, 2008
Juanita Patience Moss was shocked to learn that her great-grandfather would not be included among the 200,000 black soldiers honored at the African American Civil War Memorial.
The memorial, at 10th and U streets in Northwest Washington, would name only the soldiers and seamen who served with the US Colored Troops.
So, 10 years ago, when Moss attended a discussion hosted by the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation, she asked several historians whether
Source: Salon
Aug 3, 2008
PRENDEN, Germany -- Nearly 19 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the huge and elaborate bunker where communist East Germany's leadership would have sought shelter from a nuclear strike has opened to the public.
The bunker — known by the military code name 17/5001 — was built between 1978 and 1983 under a pine forest some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Berlin,
"At the time it was built, it was the most elaborate Warsaw Pact protective structure outside the
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Aug 3, 2008
Chip Witte doesn't consider himself a Rebel. He doesn't hang Dixie battle flags in his living room, nor does he wear one on the back of his leather jacket.
Yet when the Tampa motorcycle mechanic saw the world's largest Confederate battle flag unfurl above the intersection of I-10 and I-4 in June, he felt a jolt of solidarity with the lost cause and lost rights that he says the battle flag represents. "I think it's great that they're allowed to fly it," says Mr. Witte.
Source: BBC
Aug 3, 2008
Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed Stalin's prison system in his novels and spent 20 years in exile, has died at 89, Russian media say.
The author of One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich and the Gulag Archipelago, who returned to Russia in 1994, reportedly died of a stroke.
The Nobel laureate had suffered from high blood pressure in recent years.
After returning to Russia, Solzhenitsyn wrote several polemics on Russian history and ident
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 3, 2008
Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a "wee bit silly" for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province.
"I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around," he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely "the sort of thing people put in their canvassing
Source: NYT
Aug 2, 2008
When American troops stormed this island more than half a century ago, it was a hive of Communist trenches and pillboxes. Now it is a park where children play and retirees stroll along a tree-shaded esplanade.
From a hilltop across a narrow channel, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, memorialized in bronze, appears to gaze down at the beaches of Inchon where his troops splashed ashore in September 1950, changing the course of the Korean War and making him a hero here.
In the port
Source: National Post
Aug 2, 2008
The Mary Rose, pride of Henry VIII's fleet, may have sunk because of poor communication between its English officers and foreign crew members, researchers said yesterday. Examination of skulls, which were found near the 16th-century wreck, has revealed the ship was mainly crewed by foreign sailors, either mercenaries or Spanish prisoners of war. Historians have always believed the warship, pictured, sank when it performed a sharp turn during a battle with the French in July,
Source: The Age
Aug 2, 2008
As the new Battle for Australia Day approaches, heated debate has broken out about whether it merely perpetuates a myth about Japan's wartime invasion intentions.
ONE lesson learned from history is that history so often teaches the wrong lesson. Wars can be fought or lost on a faulty premise, a misreading of events, or thinking one step will logically follow another - just as surely as it did before. Drawing on the wisdom of the past presumes the record can be settled.
Source: LAT
Aug 2, 2008
As her chances of becoming vice president recede, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters are pushing for the Democratic Party's new platform to state that the primary elections "exposed pervasive gender bias in the media" and to call on party leaders to take "immediate and public steps" to condemn future perceived instances of bias.
The push for the plank in the party's statement of principles reflects a lingering unhappiness over Clinton's treatment during
Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Aug 2, 2008
You can practically see the sarcasm dripping off the wording in this bill US Rep. Louis Gohmert of Tyler filed last week proposing a new location for Guantanamo Bay.
In light of the US Supreme Court's recent ruling that Gitmo detainees are protected by the U.S. Constitution’s habeas corpus protections, Gohmert wants to move the controversial jail to the Supreme Court grounds, "confined by adequate fencing."
"There can be no better way for the United State
Source: AP
Aug 2, 2008
PHILADELPHIA - Officials at a small Civil War museum made an intriguing discovery while sifting through storage: A document long treated as a photo reproduction of the terms of Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender appears, upon closer inspection, to contain actual signatures and date to 1865.
Museum officials believe they have one of the three original documents signed by representatives of the Union and Confederacy in Appomattox Court House, Va., on April 10, 1865, a day after Lee's surr
Source: Liverpool Echo
Aug 2, 2008
WORKMEN today told how they accidentally unearthed one of the UK’s biggest World War II bunkers.
The Mellwood Construction team workers discovered the disused ventilation shaft near Leighton Road in Tranmere.
It descends 80ft into a network of cavernous brick tunnels.
The Home Office gave Birkenhead the green light to build the most expensive deep tunnel air raid shelter in the country in the 1940s.
They wanted to protect the irreplaceable Camm
Source: IHT
Aug 2, 2008
Officials at a small Civil War museum made an intriguing discovery while sifting through storage: A document long treated as a photo reproduction of the terms of Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender appears, upon closer inspection, to contain actual signatures and date to 1865.
Museum officials believe they have one of the three original documents signed by representatives of the Union and Confederacy in Appomattox Court House, Va., on April 10, 1865, a day after Lee's surrender.
Source: Tampa Bay Online
Aug 2, 2008
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opposes offering reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders.
The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.
"I have said in the past - and I'll repeat again - that the best reparations we can provide are good schoo
Source: BBC
Aug 2, 2008
Colombia's mass graves are starting to reveal the true horror of more than a decade of paramilitary massacres and murders. But few believe the full truth will ever be known or that the government wants it all revealed.
The front line in the search for truth under the country's controversial peace and justice law, which set out the conditions for paramilitaries to disband, is the exhumation of mass graves across the country.
These are being carried out by the attorney
Source: Telegraph
Aug 2, 2008
On a brilliant sunny day in 1938, exactly 70 years ago this week, I stood in the school playground, doing nothing in particular, while all around was clamour. I was seven.
This was an historic day, although I didn’t know it. An older boy rushed up and thrust a comic into my hands: “Look at this!”
I studied the comic politely, then handed it back, and he rushed off. The boy had just shown me the first issue of the Beano, published that day. For him, it was a wonderful
Source: Telegraph
Aug 2, 2008
The regime appears determined to stop any attempt to mark the date, which with four eights - 8.8.88 - is of magical importance in Burma's calendar and of huge significance to protesters who two decades on are still trying to bring down a military government in power under a different dictator.
On 8th August 1988 Burmese soldiers are believed to have shot, suffocated and drowned more than 3,000 protesters after weeks of anti-government demonstrations.
In recent weeks pr
Source: Kuwait Times
Aug 2, 2008
Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem said yesterday they found the imprint of a seal that belonged to an 6th century BC official in the court of the last king of Judah who was mentioned in the Old Testament.
We found the imprint in clay, remarkably well preserved, of a seal with the name of Gedaliah the son of Pashur," Eilat Mazar, who leads the team of archaeologists, said.
Gedaliah is mentioned in the Bible as among the ministers in the court of King Zedekiah who
Source: Reuters
Aug 1, 2008
A drastic cooling of the climate in western Europe happened exactly 12,679 years ago, apparently after a shift to icy winds over the Atlantic, scientists said on Friday, giving a hint of how abruptly the climate can change.
The study, of pollens, minerals and other matter deposited in annual layers at the bottom of Lake Meerfelder Maar in Germany, pinpointed an abrupt change in sediments consistent with a sudden chill over just one year.
"Our data indicate an abrup
Source: Telegraph
Aug 1, 2008
Inaki de Juana Chaos was convicted in 1987 of murdering 25 people and sentenced to more than 3000 years in prison.
But restrictions in Spain's penal code at the time of sentencing meant that with "good behaviour" he was eligible for release after a minimum of 18 years.
A political storm is raging over the release with the conservative opposition Popular Party calling it a "national source of shame".
