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: Sam Tanenhaus, New York Times
May 20, 2007
With the death on Tuesday of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Baptist minister and founder of the Moral Majority, and the announcement on Thursday that Paul D. Wolfowitz would resign from the presidency of the World Bank, two major figures in the modern conservative movement exited the political stage. To many, this is the latest evidence that the conservative movement, which has dominated politics during the last quarter century, is finished.
But conservatives have heard this before, an
Source: New York Times
May 20, 2007
Surveying the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920’s, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk saw an impoverished peasant society that was 90 percent illiterate, whose primary exports were tobacco and dried fruit.
An autocrat, a drinker and a brilliant nation builder, Ataturk set about assembling a state meant to wrench his countrymen out of their backwardness.
Today, Turkey is poised to join Europe —- if the continent will have it —- in what would be the fulfillment of Ataturk’s v
Source: NYT
May 20, 2007
IN 19th-century Russia, Czar Nicolas I commissioned an official national anthem known as “God Save the Czar.”
In 21st-century Washington, the anthem would be more suitably titled “God Help the Czar.”
It’s not good to be the czar, not here, not now. The czars dwell in bureaucratic jumble, not palatial privilege. Indeed, you know it has gotten messy, the problem so immense — and the managers so desperate — that the only solution lies with something as fundamentally undemo
Source: Observer
May 20, 2007
Scientists will outline dramatic evidence this week that suggests a comet exploded over the Earth nearly 13,000 years ago, creating a hail of fireballs that set fire to most of the northern hemisphere.
Primitive Stone Age cultures were destroyed and populations of mammoths and other large land animals, such as the mastodon, were wiped out. The blast also caused a major bout of climatic cooling that lasted 1,000 years and seriously disrupted the development of the early human civilis
Source: Azzaman.com
May 19, 2007
U.S. occupation troops forced their way into the offices of the Antiquities Department with its chief denouncing the move as “a violation.”
In a statement to Azzaman, Abbas al-Hussaini, said the raid was the second in a week. Earlier a force of four U.S. military vehicles had forced its way into the department’s offices.
“This action is a violation of the Iraqi ancient heritage,” Hussaini said.
Source: AP
May 19, 2007
MADISON — Thirty-seven years after a car bomb devastated a campus building and shook the nation’s anti-Vietnam war movement, University of Wisconsin leaders dedicated the first memorial Friday to the young scientist killed in the blast.
The 1970 bombing by four student radicals protesting weapons research at Sterling Hall was the most powerful act of domestic terrorism on U.S. soil until the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
But until now, the UW had nothing commemorating Rob
Source: New York Times
May 19, 2007
Former President Bill Clinton is speaking today in the presidential swing state of New Hampshire, but he is not speaking on her behalf; he is speaking with a Republican. And not just any Republican: Former President George Bush, the father of the man whom Mrs. Clinton routinely criticizes on the campaign trail as an incompetent and disastrous leader.
When it comes to the first President Bush, both Clintons appear to have a soft spot, and the feeling seems mutual. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cl
Source: Reuters
May 19, 2007
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez demanded Pope Benedict apologize to Indians in Latin America for saying this month in Brazil that the Roman Catholic Church purified them.
Chavez, who regularly clashes with the Catholic Church in Venezuela but had not directly criticized the Pope before, accused the Pontiff on Friday of ignoring the "holocaust" that followed Christopher Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas. "With all due respect your Holiness, apologize because the
Source: AP
May 19, 2007
NEW YORK -- The word "amnesty," at the core of the debate over a proposed immigration overhaul, has been a volatile, politically charged term throughout its history, often applying to acts hailed by supporters as magnanimous and assailed by critics as weak-kneed.
It's a word with flexible meanings. There were sweeping amnesties after the English and U.S. civil wars; nowadays the term is sometimes used when authorities invite the public to turn in unregistered guns or overd
Source: AP
May 19, 2007
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. -- The Searles Castle has towered over this Berkshire town for 120 years, its seven turrets and blue dolomite exterior creating a fortress at the end of Main Street. It has been walled off from the public as a home to the uber-rich and as a private school, and has opened its gates as a conference center and cultural attraction. Now, the French chateau-style castle is for sale -- a $15 million property joining a small niche of the world's luxury real estate market.
Source: AP
May 19, 2007
BATH, Maine -- Le T. Phung credits the USS Sterett with saving her life: The ship rescued her after a week adrift in the South China Sea when she fled Vietnam nearly 25 years ago.
On Saturday, Phung was the matron of honor for the christening of the latest Navy warship to bear the Sterett name: a 510-foot destroyer. It is the fourth warship named after Lt. Andrew Sterett, who served aboard the frigate Constellation during the U.S. Navy's first victory against a foreign
Source: BBC News
May 19, 2007
...So just how did the explorers find one of the most lucrative shipwreck sites of all time?
First things first, this venture had nothing to do with luck.
It took months of painstaking research, dozens of dedicated crew members, a needle-in-a-haystack type search and several millions pounds to recover one of the largest coin collections ever salvaged.
An almighty task, but to those in the world of shipwrecks, pirates and treasure troves, this
Source: AP
May 19, 2007
TAIPEI -- Taiwan's president [Chen Shui-bian]renamed a landmark Taipei memorial honoring the late dictator Chiang Kai-shek on Saturday, less than an hour after pro-and anti-government demonstrators fought running battles in an adjacent boulevard...Earlier, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin of the main opposition Nationalists said Chen lacked authority to change the name of the Chiang memorial to the National Democracy Memorial Hall and vowed to try to stop him...
Surrou
Source: UPI
May 19, 2007
PHILADELPHIA -- A pipe bowl depicting a stereotyped African head was found in Philadelphia at the site of the first presidential mansion.
Jed Levin, an archaeologist with the National Park Service, said the pipe bowl is probably not connected directly with the President's House but is relevant to the project's exploration "of the racial and racist legacy that allowed human bondage" at the birth of the nation, The Philadelphia Inquirer said Friday.
Levin said &
Source: Los Angeles Times
May 19, 2007
Deep-sea treasure hunters said Friday they have recovered what could be a record haul of gold and silver coins from a colonial-era shipwreck -- but their failure to provide many details has set off a galleon-sized controversy over their claims...
"There is no such thing as $500 million on any wreck in the world," said Robert Marx, a veteran treasure hunter. "Anybody who says so is...lying."George Bass, an archaeologist at Texas A&M Univer
Source: Rocky Mountain News
May 18, 2007
A faculty group defending the accuracy of works by embattled University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill misrepresented sources or relied on books the authors themselves have since repudiated.
"That's just blatant distortion to make their point," said Russell Thornton, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose book was quoted in defense of Churchill.
University of Oklahoma professor Circes Sturm, who was also quoted, said she has sinc
Source: AP
May 18, 2007
CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- More than a century ago, Buffalo Bill Cody took Wyoming to the world with his Wild West show.
His trick-roping cowboys, stern-faced Indian chiefs and exotic animal displays made Cody a celebrity in East Coast cities and European capitals alike. With his ever-present hat and distinctive goatee, Cody hobnobbed with kings and presidents as one of the best known U.S. citizens of his day.
Now Wyoming is planning to scour the world for the showman's correspo
Source: AP
May 18, 2007
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Amelia Earhart became famous in life as a pioneer for women in aviation, but the mystery of her death has helped maintain interest in her, seven decades after she disappeared at age 39 while attempting an around-the-world flight.An Oklahoma City museum run by a women's aviation group has unveiled an exhibition that includes personal mementos of the Kansas-born Earhart to commemorate the 70th anniversary of her 1937 disappearance and the 75th anniversary of h
Source: UPI
May 18, 2007
TOKYO -- Japan is trying to get the younger generation to be more patriotic by changing the law.
A bill was passed Friday by the Diet's Lower House to make teaching patriotism and "love of country" part of compulsory education. If passed, it will be the first time since World War II that Japan will make teaching patriotism part of the national curriculum for all elementary and junior high school students.
Source: AP
May 18, 2007
SEATTLE -- A man who tried to position himself as a leader of the anti-war movement by claiming to have participated in war crimes while serving in Iraq is facing federal charges of falsifying his record.
Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, formerly of Phoenix, garnered attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocents in a Fallujah mosque. His story was contradicted
