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: AP
May 2, 2008
Akhenaten wasn't the most manly pharaoh, even though he fathered at least a half-dozen children. In fact, his form was quite feminine. And he was a bit of an egghead.
So concludes a Yale University physician who analyzed images of Akhenaten for an annual conference Friday at the University of Maryland School of Medicine on the deaths of historic figures.
The female form was due to a genetic mutation that caused the pharaoh's body to convert more male hormones to female
Source: http://mag.awn.com
May 2, 2008
One of the strangest animation-related stories of this year to date has to be the discovery, in Norway, of a set of four watercolor paintings stashed behind the frame of a fifth. This artwork depicted three of Disney's Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio, and would be of no great import unless one knew the identity of the purported painter: Adolf Hitler, supreme leader of the Third Reich.
Source: The Age (Australia)
May 2, 2008
Philipp von Boeselager, the last survivor of a failed 1944 plot to assassinate Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, has died at the age of 90.
A German army officer, Boeselager said he obtained for the other plotters the explosive that was detonated under a table at Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in present-day Poland on July 20, 1944.
A feature film about the plot, starring Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who planted the bomb, is set for release next year.
Source: Australian
May 1, 2008
THE man who led Australian troops in the Battle of Long Tan more than 40 years ago should be awarded one of the country's top gallantry decorations, a federal review has recommended.
The review by a panel of retired senior army officers was ordered by the Howard government on the eve of the election in October to investigate why the nominated awards for the heroes of the best-known battle involving Australian troops in the Vietnam War were downgraded or ignored.
Senior
Source: UPI
May 1, 2008
A TV station run by the Palestinian militant group Hamas aired a program saying Jews organized the Holocaust to get rid of the weak, a media watch group said.
The Al-Aqsa TV program features recordings from the World War II Nazi Genocide in conjunction with images of former Israeli prime ministers David Ben Gurion and Golda Meir, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in its Friday edition.
The newspaper reported the program alleges Gurion and "the Satanic Jews thought
Source: History Today
May 1, 2008
Dramatic events in a remote Persian wilderness exactly a hundred years ago heralded the beginning of a new era in the Middle East. A wealthy British entrepreneur, William Knox D’Arcy (1849-1917), had secured a concession to prospect for oil in the country in 1901. After several years of exhausting andsy seemingly fruitless work, a drilling team led by a maverick British explorer, George Reynolds (1852-1925) was about to strike gold. During the early hours of May 26th, 1908, a short distance fro
Source: http://www.katu.com
May 1, 2008
CRESWELL, Ore. - A cannon round from the World War I era exploded Wednesday while a man tried to disassemble the projectile to recycle the brass.
Vernal Miller, 50, suffered serious injuries to his legs and lower torso. He was transported by air ambulance to Sacred Heart Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition in the intensive care unit.
"What it looks like at this point is a man was working with ammunition," Lt. Byron Trapp of the Lane Count
Source: Robert Fisk in the New Statesman
May 1, 2008
No wonder Seven Pillars of Wisdom - indeed, all of T E Lawrence's work - now tops the reading list of almost every senior US officer in Iraq. Long after his legend was established in Arabia and Damascus and at the Versailles Treaty negotiations - almost 90 years after he realised that his promises to his Arab allies were to be broken by Britain's adherence to the Balfour Declaration - Lawrence's wisdom is now serving to guide (and no doubt misguide) the Americans, who have walked into the hell-d
Source: AP
May 1, 2008
After three decades of keeping mum, Barbara Walters is disclosing a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as “exciting” and “brilliant.”
Appearing on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press.
Source: Boston Globe
May 1, 2008
Long before NASA was established in 1958, before JFK's impassioned speech about the space race, and before any of the Apollo missions or space shuttle successes and disasters, Percival Lowell devoted much of his career and considerable fortune to trying to prove that Mars hosted intelligent life. Viewed through his telescopes, the ancient, baleful Red Planet was about the size of a dime. Lowell believed he was seeing a network of canals on its surface. Therefore, he declared, Mars holds intellig
Source: http://www.bellinghamherald.com
May 1, 2008
One of the Pacific Northwest's most astonishing archaeological finds in a generation has languished for more than a year, lingering on metal shelves in a Seattle warehouse, unseen by the public and unexamined by scientists.
No one questions the discoveries - artifacts from a 2,700-year-old Native American village excavated from the Port Angeles waterfront amid great public interest - should be exhibited, analyzed and celebrated.
But the 900 boxes of artifacts - such thi
Source: AP
May 1, 2008
A bill to find ways to preserve the Newtonia Civil War battlefields is headed to President Bush after securing final congressional approval Wednesday.
The bill was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt. It authorizes the National Park Service to conduct a study to determine if the Newtonia sites could be made a separate unit of the park service or brought under the management of Wilson's Creek National Battlefield near Springfield.
Source: AP
May 1, 2008
Thousands of young Jews, Poles and World War II survivors took part Thursday in the March of the Living, an annual event at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi death camp.
This year’s march, the 17th, started with the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn, at the iron gate — crowned with the words “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “Work Sets You Free” — that leads into the former camp of Auschwitz.
The Israeli army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, led the marchers, accompanied by
Source: http://www.news4jax.com
May 1, 2008
One man's pride in and loyalty to his Confederate flag has landed him in a free-speech fight with his employer, who doesn't want it displayed on company property.
The flag is attached to Bobby Tillett's pickup truck, which he drives to work every day. Because his employer has banned the flag from his parking lot, Tillett is forced to park far from his job.
"If I take it down, that means you know the politically correct people would have won, and that's wrong," Bobb
Source: International Herald Tribune
May 1, 2008
In early April, when North Korea called President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea an "impostor," a "traitor" and an "American running dog," the barrage sounded all too familiar to Jin Yong Seon. Jin has a museum filled with such verbiage.
In his Remembrance Museum in this former mining town 140 kilometers, or about 90 miles, east of Seoul, Jin is exhibiting 700 samples of what he calls "paper bombs" - the leaflets North and South Korea fired at e
Source: Independent (UK)
May 1, 2008
A senior Iraqi official has accused the West of not doing enough to stop the thriving trade in antiquities smuggled out of the country's depleted archeological sites and sold in auction houses across Britain, America and Europe.
Dr Bahaa Mayah, a special adviser to Iraq's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, called for an immediate global ban on the sale of at least 100,000 artefacts that have been stolen since the invasion.
Speaking at the British Museum, he said it wa
Source: Dallas Morning News
May 1, 2008
The Dallas blog Pegasus News is reporting that the "governing body of the United Methodist Church has come out against the George Bush Library being constructed on the campus of Southern Methodist University."
Only problem is it isn't true. Instead of approving a petition against the library, the UMC General Conference on Wednesday voted 844-20 to refer the matter to the South Central Jurisdiction's conference scheduled for July in Dallas.
The jurisdiction's m
Source: Dallas Morning News
May 1, 2008
War and politics were colliding for Lyndon Johnson in March 1968 as he talked tough to a foreign enemy while assuring key backers – people he badly needed for his re-election campaign – that he yearned for peace, tapes released Thursday show.
The embattled president faced a commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam who wanted more troops, a Congress that wouldn't pass his tax bill to pay for the war and political embarrassment after an obscure Minnesota senator almost beat him in the New
Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com
May 1, 2008
About 50 to 75 members and supporters of the sovereignty group Hawaiian Kingdom Government occupied the mauka-ewa corner of the 'Iolani Palace grounds from early this morning but did not try to stop others from going onto the property as they did yesterday.
Group members, including leader Mahealani Kahau, declined to speak to media, saying they were inaccurately and unfairly portrayed regarding their actions yesterday.
The group said its action was not a protest or demo
Source: Deutsche Welle
Apr 30, 2008
The Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ASF) was founded by the synod of
the Evangelical Church in Germany in 1958 in response to Nazi atrocities during
World War II. Since 1961, Action Reconciliation has sent thousands of young
Germans to Israel to volunteer in nursing homes, youth centers, hospitals and
memorial sites. The grassroots work of this social action group became the basis
of a political rapprochement between Germany and Israel, when diplomatic
relations were established i
