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: George McGovern in an op ed in the WaPo
Jan 6, 2008
As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.
After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeate
Source: Newsweek
Jan 5, 2008
Nearly 200 years ago Venezuelan patriot Simón Bolívar declared his country a free and sovereign state, and went on to liberate four other South American nations from Spanish colonial rule, envisioning a confederation of Andean republics that would stretch from the isthmus of Panama to the high plateau country of Bolivia. His dream inspired another, decades later, when a young Hugo Chávez, then an Army officer in his late 20s, gathered with some of his military colleagues in the Venezuelan city o
Source: NYT
Jan 5, 2008
DRESDEN, Germany — The battle to prevent construction of a proposed bridge in this historic city has embroiled everything from a tiny endangered bat, to the country’s reigning literary lion, Günter Grass, to activists who are staging a round-the-clock occupation of a centuries-old beech tree.
Opponents of the project say that the four-lane, 2,100-foot-long span, called the Waldschlösschen Bridge, will mar the famous vistas of Dresden and the picturesque river that divides it, the El
Source: AP
Jan 4, 2008
This port city unveils an exhibition dedicated to Jewish teenager Anne Frank on Saturday, placing a re-creation of her Amsterdam bedroom beneath the towering arches of Liverpool's neo-Gothic Anglican cathedral.
Organizers hope using a church to house a replica of the room where Frank wrote her diary will convey a message of tolerance in a city afflicted by gang violence and crime. But Liverpool's Jewish schools have banned pupils from attending because the festival is being held in
Source: Discover Magazine
Jan 4, 2008
The effects of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 are only too well known: It knocked the hell out of Aceh Province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, leveling buildings, scattering palm trees, and wiping out entire villages. It killed more than 160,000 people in Aceh alone and displaced millions more. Similar scenes of destruction were repeated along the coasts of Southeast Asia, India, and as far west as Africa. The magnitude of the disaster shocked the world.
What the wo
Source: AP
Jan 4, 2008
Hooded men with machine guns burst into a Lima tenement and killed 15 people at a barbecue, including an 8-year-old boy, two survivors of the 1991 attack testified Friday at the murder trial of former President Alberto Fujimori.
Fujimori, 69, is facing up to 30 years in prison for allegedly ordering the massacre and the 1992 killings of nine university students and a professor. He is also charged with ordering the kidnappings of a prominent journalist and a businessman.
Source: Midlothian Advertiser
Jan 3, 2008
AN unexpected historical discovery has been made at Scottish Water's site at Glencorse, near Penicuik — a Roman marching camp nearly 2000 years old.
The revelation has provided another clue as to how the Romans organised their occupation of the Lothians.
It had not been confirmed whether the site was, in fact, a Roman marching camp, which had previously only been suggested by aerial photographs.
Scottish Water's stakeholder manager for the Glencorse Water Treatme
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 3, 2008
Essays by a Victorian doctor, who was struck off for claiming that smoking was bad for the health, are to be published again.
Dr Thomas Allinson's letters, first published in 1893, were so controversial that the General Medical Council struck him off a year later.
Dr Allinson grew up in Manchester and qualified as a doctor from Edinburgh University in 1881. When he opened a GP's surgery in south London he noticed the poor quality of life for many people.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 3, 2008
Essays by a Victorian doctor, who was struck off for claiming that smoking was bad for the health, are to be published again.
Dr Thomas Allinson's letters, first published in 1893, were so controversial that the General Medical Council struck him off a year later.
Dr Allinson grew up in Manchester and qualified as a doctor from Edinburgh University in 1881. When he opened a GP's surgery in south London he noticed the poor quality of life for many people.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 3, 2008
As an arch propagandist, Adolf Hitler was happy to see his life recorded in dark shades of grey.
The Nazi leader believed that traditional black and white photographs best highlighted the sinister nature of his regime, presenting dramatic images which were both powerful and menacing.
Now, however, an altogether more colourful view of the Fuhrer has emerged.
More than 62 years after his death in a Berlin bunker, images from a newly opened Paris archive show
Source: Boston Globe
Jan 2, 2008
The 1.2 million spectators who mobbed [Lyndon] Johnson's inauguration - still a record - are remembered today as little more than a trivia question and a crowd-control model. But as Barack Obama prepares to be sworn in Jan. 20 on Abraham Lincoln's Bible to inherit Franklin D. Roosevelt's economy - while facing inevitable comparisons to John F. Kennedy's style and Ronald Reagan's rhetoric - the 1965 event has begun to look like its own precedent: The only inaugural to compare to this one for she
Source: Reuters
Jan 2, 2008
Cuba's revolution is stronger than ever but faces"incessant struggle"
against the threat of the United States, President Raul Castro said on
Thursday in a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the uprising that
its leader, Fidel Castro, was too ill to attend.
Raul Castro spoke proudly of the 1959 revolution that transformed the
Caribbean island into a communist state 90 miles (145 km) from U.S.
shores, but he warned the country must not let down its guard."The enemy will never
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 2, 2008
A Chinese shopping list written 300 years ago has been found stuffed inside an 18th century vase.
The porcelain has been on display for almost 25 years at Fairfax House in York. It was uncovered while the elegant Georgian house, which is closed to the public every January, was being cleaned.
Peter Musgrove, who co-ordinates the work, said: "I took it out to clean and heard a rattling in the bottom of the vase.
"I gently poked a stick inside and dr
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 2, 2008
A float depicting victims of the Holocaust and a Hitler figure has been banned from Rio Carnival after objections from the Jewish community.
A judge issued the injunction, which prevents the float taking part in the carnival parade, after a lawsuit brought by Fierj, the Jewish Federation of Rio de Janeiro.
Judge Juliana Kalichszteim said: "Carnival should not be used as an instrument of hatred, any kind of racism and clear trivialisation of barbaric and unjustified
Source: http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk
Jan 2, 2008
THE twisted and melted remains of a road sign from the Japanese city of Hiroshima, picked up by a sailor in the aftermath of the dropping of the atom bomb, has been uncovered at an auctioneers' day.
The road sign was seen during a valuation tour in Fairford by antiques experts Moore Allen & Innocent.
The event, which ran for an hour longer than scheduled, raised £380 for Fairford and Lechlade Carers Support Group.
Source: http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk
Jan 2, 2008
THE twisted and melted remains of a road sign from the Japanese city of Hiroshima, picked up by a sailor in the aftermath of the dropping of the atom bomb, has been uncovered at an auctioneers' day.
The road sign was seen during a valuation tour in Fairford by antiques experts Moore Allen & Innocent.
The event, which ran for an hour longer than scheduled, raised £380 for Fairford and Lechlade Carers Support Group.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 2, 2008
Even the great fictional traveller Phileas Fogg would have baulked at such a wager: walk around the world while pushing a pram and wearing an iron mask, and pick up a wife along the way without ever letting her see your face or know your name.
Just to make it a little more interesting, you can set off with only one change of underwear and £1 in your pocket and your sole source of income must be the sale of postcards.
Harry Bensley accepted the wager with John Pierrepoin
Source: http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk
Jan 2, 2008
THE twisted and melted remains of a road sign from the Japanese city of Hiroshima, picked up by a sailor in the aftermath of the dropping of the atom bomb, has been uncovered at an auctioneers' day.
The road sign was seen during a valuation tour in Fairford by antiques experts Moore Allen & Innocent.
The event, which ran for an hour longer than scheduled, raised £380 for Fairford and Lechlade Carers Support Group.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 2, 2008
A businessman has spent almost seven years restoring a Spitfire from thousands of parts.
But Martin Phillips, 47, admits that he is still a long way from realising his dream of seeing the aircraft from the Second World War take to the skies again.
"I had a five-year plan, but that is shot - we are looking at another one or two years before it is finished," he said.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Jan 2, 2008
On December 31 President Bush signed into law the "Openness Promotes
Effectiveness in our National (OPEN) Government Act of 2007," which
amends the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).http://www.fas.orgThe new law makes several constructive procedural changes in the FOIA
to encourage faster agency response times, to enable requesters to
track the status of their requests, to expand the basis for
