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: Independent
Oct 1, 2007
When the Neolithic farmers and hunters of Skara Brae first built their stone houses on Orkney, they were careful to place their settlement more than a mile from the coast to avoid their homes being pounded by the harsh winter storms that sweep across the Bay of Skaill.
Some 5,000 years later, the custodians of Europe's most complete prehistoric village no longer have the luxury of land to shelter them from the sea. Slowly but surely, erosion has brought the sea ever closer to the gr
Source: Fox News
Oct 1, 2007
Officials at Grambling State University were meeting Monday after the school newspaper ran photographs of adults at a campus-run elementary school putting a noose around at least one child's neck.
Kindergarten and first-grade students at Alma J. Brown Elementary School were being taught why nooses are a symbol of racism, an article from the historically black university's student newspaper said.
The article said the children also were being taught about the "Jena S
Source: WSBTV.com (Atlanta)
Oct 1, 2007
Nazi hunters have tracked a suspected World War II concentration camp guard to Lawrenceville.
Members of the Justice Department's elite Nazi tracking force said Paul Henss, 85, served as a prison guard and attack dog handler at the notorious Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany.
"It is not 100% true, what they charge me," said Henss Monday afternoon. Henss appeared confused as he tried to answer a barrage of questions from reporters Monday
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Oct 1, 2007
Last week the National Archives announced the release of the final
report to Congress on implementation of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure
Act, which is said to be the largest single-subject declassification
program ever performed by the U.S. government. Millions of pages of
records from World War II and the early Cold War years relating to Nazi
war crimes have been released as a result.
But the lessons learned from declassifying the"extraordinary
collection" of documents may prove e
Source: AP
Oct 1, 2007
When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.
But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one sc
Source: National Security Archive
Oct 1, 2007
Today the National Security Archive publishes a collection of documents concerning U.S. policy with regard to acknowledging the "fact of" U.S. satellite reconnaissance operations--particularly satellite photoreconnaissance. It was 29 years ago today that President Jimmy Carter, in a speech at the Kennedy Space Center, acknowledged that the U.S. was operating photoreconnaissance satellites.
As the documents illustrate, the perceived need to persuade segments of the public t
Source: NYT
Oct 1, 2007
One hundred years ago today, the first guest checked into the Plaza Hotel, signing the register with a flourish. He was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the heir to a famous fortune.
His arrival was orchestrated by the Plaza’s first manager, who wanted the new hotel to open with a splashy, attention-getting stunt.
The Plaza will celebrate its anniversary tonight with another stunt, a party in its front yard — Grand Army Plaza, on Fifth Avenue at Central Park South — as this st
Source: Reuters
Oct 1, 2007
Hundreds of demonstrators fearing a state coverup of the murder of a Turkish-Armenian editor demonstrated outside an Istanbul courthouse on Monday proclaiming: "We are all witnesses. We demand justice."Dink had angered Turkish nationalists with his comments on the massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War One. More than 100,000 people turned out at his funeral to show solidarity and protest against violent nationalism. Lawyers were expected to quest
Source: Der Spiegel
Oct 1, 2007
Germany's federal police is admitting that most of its founding members had blood on their hands as active members of Hitler's brutal security apparatus. It's the first time one of Germany's security services is examining its own history. But there may be more to come.Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) President Jörg Ziercke has launched a series of conferences to shed light on the history of the BKA. At one such conference last month at the BKA's headquarters in Wiesbaden, he said the
Source: Baltimore Sun
Sep 30, 2007
In a county that has museums for boats, rural art and duck decoys, John T. Lee Sr. says there is a noticeable omission in Harford's repertoire.
For more than 10 years, Lee has advocated for establishing a museum dedicated to African-American history in Harford County.
"We haven't had anything that our people can really associate with and feel good about, where people can look and say 'That's my uncle, my grandfather,' and make them feel proud and really learn the h
Source: AP
Sep 30, 2007
Down a dirt driveway, in one of the whitest states in the nation, is a museum dedicated to the experiences of black servicemen and women during World War II.
The Museum of Black World War II History is run by Bruce Bird, a white, retired factory worker who sold his home and used the proceeds to convert a two-room 19th century schoolhouse to house it. The museum, which opened in June 2006, offers display cases filled with World War II weapons, models of tanks and aircraft and other m
Source: AP
Sep 30, 2007
Leaders of India's Jewish community expressed outrage Sunday over a new line of bedspreads called "The Nazi Collection" from a Mumbai-based home furnishing company that used swastikas in its promotional material.
The furnishing dealer said the name stands for "New Arrival Zone for India" and was not meant to be anti-Semitic.
But Jewish groups said they would file a lawsuit against the company.
"This is an enormous insult to Jews and
Source: AFP
Sep 30, 2007
European Neanderthals, modern man's ill-fated cousins who died out mysteriously some 28,000 years ago, migrated much further east than previously thought, according to a study released Sunday.
Remains from the slope-browed hominid have previously been found over an area stretching from Spain to Uzbekistan, but the new study extends the eastern boundary of their wanderings another 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) deep into southern Siberia, just above the western tip of what is today C
Source: NYT
Sep 30, 2007
The students and teachers [at Idaho's New St. Andrews College] call what they are doing “classical Christian education.” They believe it’s much more than memorizing Latin declensions and Aristotle’s principles of rhetoric, though they do plenty of that. Doug Wilson, 54, the pastor who spearheaded New St. Andrews’ founding, puts the college’s purpose simply: “We are trying to save civilization.” He’s not alone in his mission. The C.C.E. movement began in the early 1980s among Protestant evangelic
Source: NYT
Sep 30, 2007
THE president of the university faced a no-win situation. A controversial speaker had been invited to campus, alumni were in an uproar, members of the faculty were outraged, even local business leaders protested.
The university president responded with a fierce declaration of principle: “It is my view that as long as our students can be orderly about it they should have freedom to discuss any problem that presents itself and in which they are interested.”
The writer was
Source: NYT
Sep 30, 2007
Senator John McCain said in an interview posted on the Internet on Saturday that the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation and that his faith is probably of better spiritual guidance than that of a Muslim candidate for president.
“I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, that’s a decision the American people would have to make, but personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid groundin
Source: NYT
Sep 30, 2007
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in a forcefully rendered new autobiography, says he was pilloried during his 1991 confirmation hearings because liberal advocacy groups who feared he would vote to overturn abortion rights were willing to stoop to “the age-old blunt instrument of accusing a black man of sexual misconduct.”
They did so by, he writes, by using untrue sexual harassment claims by Anita F. Hill, a law professor and former subordinate, whom he described as a mediocre
Source: http://www.homesworldwide.co.uk
Sep 30, 2007
A recently discovered cave, in Tasmania's remote south-west World Heritage Area, yields clues to early human occupation.
In the early 1980s, Australia was embroiled in a bitter environmental battle, centered on the Franklin River valley, an ancient rainforest wilderness that was due to be dammed in a massive hydro-electric scheme. The issue attracted worldwide attention, divided families and ultimately brought down the Federal government.
For a long time everyone though
Source: AP
Sep 29, 2007
The Smithsonian Institution's maintenance backlog has grown to $2.5 billion as the museum complex faces problems such as corrosion of historic airplanes and leaky pools at the National Zoo, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Friday.
The GAO noted some progress in addressing maintenance issues since its last report in 2005. But it urged the Smithsonian to more thoroughly consider alternatives to government funding — including charging admission — to addres
Source: http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk
Sep 29, 2007
Adolf Hitler was plotting to make Northampton his northernmost outpost in an invasion of Britain, according to secret war documents unearthed by Oxford University academics.
The Nazi leader hatched a plan to land his forces on the south coast in 1940.
They were then expected to take all the major towns and cities in their path, as far north as Northampton.
Once they had conquered the town, Hitler expected the rest of the demoralised nation would crumble and quick
