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: Belfast Telegraph (N. Ireland)
Feb 22, 2007
The embarrassing case of a boat stranded at a Northern Ireland museum is to be the subject of yet another review by officials...
Stories surrounding The Result, a historic schooner, have been likened in Parliament to something from [the TV sitcom]'Yes, Minister'.
The vessel still lies under cover in the grounds of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum -- some 37 years after it was bought.
It has been estimated that around £627,000 [$1.2 million], at today's
Source: NPR/All Things Considered
Feb 22, 2007
Historic buildings in the Islamic world are often covered with breathtakingly intricate geometric designs. Both artists and mathematicians have long puzzled over them, wondering how the patterns were created.
Now, a Harvard physicist has some new ideas about the designs and the advanced math behind them.
The research, conducted by Peter Lu of Harvard University and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, appears in the journal Science.
Source: AP
Feb 22, 2007
JACKSON, Miss. -- A federal judge refused to dismiss charges Thursday against a reputed Ku Klux Klansman in the 1964 slayings of two black men, rejecting arguments that the statute of limitations ran out long ago.
U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate also denied a request to let James Ford Seale, 71, out on bail while he awaits trial. Seale's wife testified that her ailing husband was not getting proper medical care in jail.
Seale's lawyer Dennis Joiner asked Wingate to
Source: Telegraph
Feb 22, 2007
The French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen provoked outrage among British veterans yesterday when he compared the September 11 attacks on the United States to RAF-led bombing raids during the Second World War.
The National Front leader said both were "terrorist acts as they expressly targeted civilians to force military leaders to capitulate". Mr Le Pen, 79, also dismissed the al-Qa'eda atrocities in 2001 as a mere "incident".
He told the Ro
Source: AP
Feb 22, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Iraq war protesters are planning to converge on Washington next month and several organizations, including the POW-MIA group Rolling Thunder, are banding together to protect sacred ground for Vietnam War veterans.
The rally March 17 against the war, organizers say, is to get under way in a grassy park near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, known as the wall.
Two veterans' groups said Wednesday they fear protesters may deface the memorial, a claim dismissed by
Source: Telegraph
Feb 22, 2007
British school pupils could soon be learning history from a European Union textbook under a new proposal from Berlin to be tabled next week.
Germany is to urge the drawing up of a "European history book", to be taught in all schools to foster a common cultural identity across the EU.
The idea, said to have the backing of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is to be the flagship education proposal of Berlin's EU presidency. Annette Schavan, the federal educat
Source: Telegraph
Feb 22, 2007
A British soldier's pocket diary of life in the trenches during the early days of the Battle of the Somme have been made public for the first time.
[Private] Walter Hutchinson was a young shop manager when he enlisted in the 10th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment.
His poignant record of the battle, in 1916, includes a moving account of the first day during which more than 62,000 comrades died.
[Private] Hutchinson's handwritten account gives a graphic story of his own survival as w
Source: Guardian
Feb 22, 2007
The son of Idi Amin has broken his family's two-decade vow of silence about the tyrant, hoping to put the record straight about the dictator following release of the Oscar-nominated The Last King of Scotland.
Jaffar Amin has also called for a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate his father's reign of terror. "Dad is the only person that has ever been accused and sentenced, incarcerated by opinion, without it ever reaching any courthouse," said Jaffar, 40. Jaff
Source: Guardian
Feb 22, 2007
He was a coward, a bully, a lecher and many other dreadful things, according to his critics. All of which may explain why the centenary of the birth of Wystan Hugh Auden passed yesterday without the fanfare that a giant of English literature perhaps deserves.
But the cocktail party and several small soirees which honoured his memory may mark the start of a fightback by enthusiasts for a man whose complications have led to a uniquely split reputation.
"Maybe he's to
Source: Independent
Feb 22, 2007
For a cosmetics billionaire, New York socialite and art collector who is also one of the world's most influential Jewish philanthropists, rescuing Adolf Hitler's favourite Berlin airport for posterity might seem an unlikely goal.
But yesterday, Ronald Lauder, the second son of the cosmetics-maker Estée Lauder, who died in 2004, was heading a last-ditch attempt to prevent closure of Berlin's Nazi-built Tempelhof. His suggestion is for a €350m [$460m or £235m] project to turn the reli
Source: New York Times
Feb 22, 2007
The lineup of potential presidential candidates is a mishmash of senators, governors, former big-city mayors and a retired four-star Army general.
But nearly all of them share one title: published author.
“You’re not a real candidate, Pinocchio, if you haven’t written your own book,” said Mark Halperin, the political director of ABC News. “If you know everybody else is doing a book, you’ve got to do a book.”
The crowded field of early candidates has created
Source: New York Times
Feb 22, 2007
A year ago the settlement was hailed as one of the largest restitutions of art seized by the Nazis. Now about 170 old master paintings returned to the heirs of Jacques Goudstikker, a prominent Dutch dealer who fled Amsterdam in 1940, are to be offered at Christie’s in three sales, beginning in April in New York. The auction house says the paintings, many on view in Dutch museums and government buildings since the 1950s, could fetch from $22 million to $35 million...
The story of Jac
Source: Fox affiliate in St. Louis (Video)
Feb 21, 2007
A beautiful sunset was often the sign for African-Americans to get out of town. That was the rule in hundreds of towns in Illinois and Missouri. The author of a recent book called 'Sundown Towns' claims in some rare cases, it may still be the unwritten rule. FOX 2’s Chris Hayes visited one of those towns near the Missouri/Illinois border, a place called Anna. He discovered the name itself suggests African-Americans are not welcomed.
Source: Boston Globe
Feb 21, 2007
While Leona W. Martin's forebears were fighting for the British during the Revolutionary War, the freed slave that genealogist David Lambert counts as an adopted ancestor was performing heroically for the patriots at Bunker Hill.
For that, Salem Poor was honored in 1975 with his image on a 10-cent postage stamp. Details of Poor's life after the Revolution -- his troubled marriage, his death as a pauper -- were unknown, however, until Lambert pieced them together over the past decade
Source: Maynard Institute website
Feb 21, 2007
The reporter who uncovered a 60-year pattern of expelling African Americans from communities around the country and wrote a series about it last year says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the flagship of the newspaper company he works for, tried to undermine what he produced.
In a book scheduled to arrive in retail stores by March 5, Elliot Jaspin quotes his boss, the Cox Newspapers Washington bureau chief, Andy Alexander, speaking of Julia Wallace, editor of the Atlanta newspaper.
Source: NYT
Feb 21, 2007
Maybe it is his compelling life story. Or perhaps it’s his insistence that Americans can look beyond race and rally around fresh ideas and the possibility of change. But by the time the charismatic African-American senator begins to speak passionately of his unwavering opposition to the war in Iraq, it is clear that something about the man and his message is resonating with the audience.
The man is former Senator Edward W. Brooke, Republican of Massachusetts and the first black poli
Source: New York Times
Feb 21, 2007
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. -- They were refugees of a failed uprising, most of them arriving penniless and alone, baffled by the language, knowing that returning home could mean jail or death.
But for eight weeks in the winter of 1956-57, roughly 300 Hungarians fleeing the Soviet tanks that crushed their startling revolt found a life raft in a small college 90 miles north of New York City.
Even if they could scarcely stop chatting in Hungarian, they learned enough Englis
Source: BBC News
Feb 21, 2007
Baroness Thatcher has become the first living ex-prime minister to be honoured with a statue in the House of Commons.
A 7ft 6ins bronze sculpture was unveiled on Wednesday, with her immediate successor John Major and Tory leader David Cameron attending.
Commons speaker Michael Martin said the tribute was a"fitting" tribute to Britain's first female prime minister.
Baroness Thatcher, 81, said it was"an honour", adding:"I may be made of iron but bronze will do."
Rel
Source: Times (of London)
Feb 21, 2007
ROME -- A 5,000-year-old golden artificial eye that once stared out mesmerisingly from the face of a female soothsayer or priestess in ancient Persia has been unearthed by Iranian and Italian archaeologists.
The eyeball —- the earliest artificial eye found -— would have transfixed those who saw it, convincing them that the woman —- thought to have been strikingly tall —- had occult powers and could see into the future, archaeologists said.
It was found by Mansour Sajjad
Source: Independent
Feb 21, 2007
One of the last remaining bastions of male domination has come crumbling down as one of the oldest libraries in Europe prepares to get to grips with the demands of the 21st century.
For more than 400 years, the Bodleian library - the main research library at the University of Oxford and the second largest in the UK after the British library -- has had a man at the helm. It has also never been run by anyone born outside these shores. But both of those taboos have been broken this wee
