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: NYT
Dec 13, 2006
The chancellor of the City University of New York yesterday directed the president of City College to remove the names of two fugitives linked to violent crimes from the entrance to a student clubroom.
Matthew Goldstein, the chancellor, called the designation of the room as the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center “unauthorized and inappropriate.”
Ms. Shakur — once known as Joanne Chesimard — was a member of the Black Liberation Army convicted in
Source: Salon
Dec 13, 2006
The blast rocked Washington's
Embassy Row on Sept. 21, 1976, ripping through the car of one of Chilean
dictator Augusto Pinochet's most outspoken critics.
The assassination of Orlando Letelier and his American assistant two miles
from the White House prompted demands for explanations and helped expose
what President Nixon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and a series of
CIA officials tried for years to conceal: U.S support for a military
dictatorship that was killing thousands of
Source: Salon
Dec 13, 2006
A memorial marking the slaughter of Chinese
citizens of Nanjing by Japanese troops will soon include exhibits showing
visits by Japanese politicians to a Tokyo shrine that honors war dead,
state media reported Wednesday.
The visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted Japanese war criminals
are honored, have become a sticking point in relations between Beijing and
Tokyo.
Lu Yunfei, Web master for the Patriots League, a nationalist Web site,
called the planned exhibition"a si
Source: Breitbart
Dec 13, 2006
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - The mother of a high school senior who posed in
chain mail with a medieval sword for his yearbook picture has sued after
the school rejected the photo because of its"zero tolerance" policy
against weapons.
Patrick Agin, 17, belongs to the Society for Creative Anachronism, an
international organization that researches and recreates medieval history.
He submitted the photo in September for the Portsmouth High School
yearbook.
But the school's principal ref
Source: Breitbart
Dec 13, 2006
Top US neoconservative Richard Perle, a key former architect of US
President George W. Bush's foreign policy, has admitted there were
mistakes in the execution of the Iraq war, saying the invasion had
needed"an Iraqi De Gaulle."
Perle, who was an advisor to former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
told German weekly broadsheet Die Zeit in an issue to be published
Thursday that a string of tactical errors had resulted in the chaos
reigning in Iraq today."The idea was good, the executio
Source: Reuters
Dec 13, 2006
The Chilean army will punish Augusto
Pinochet's grandson for criticizing the judiciary at his grandfather's
funeral, the army said in a statement on Wednesday.
Pinochet's grandson, also called Augusto, was roundly criticized for his
funeral speech on Tuesday, in which he praised Pinochet for overthrowing
the socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973, and attacked
prosecutors who tried to bring the ex-dictator to trial for human rights
abuses.
Source: Reuters
Dec 13, 2006
The appeals chamber of Bosnia's war crimes court on
Wednesday sentenced Bosnian Serb Nedjo Samardzic to 24 years in jail after
his original sentence of 13 years and four month was overturned.
Samardzic had been sentenced in April for abetting and aiding persecution,
rape and torture of Muslims in an eastern Bosnian town early in the
1992-95 war but the appeals chamber then ordered a re-trail because of
procedural errors.
In Wednesday's verdict, the chamber said Samardzic took pa
Source: AP
Dec 13, 2006
Russia's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday criticized Iran for hosting a conference of Holocaust deniers, saying Moscow opposed "the concealment of the truth about the monstrous crimes of the Nazis."
In a statement posted on the ministry's Web site, spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said Russia had condemned Tehran and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the past for threatening Israel and denying the systematic killing of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during World War II.
Rus
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 13, 2006
Archaeologists digging to reach the tomb of St Paul have stumbled across a life-size "sketch" of the dome of St Peter's produced by one of its architects in the 16th century.
The excavation of St Paul's tomb at the church of St Paul's Outside-the-Walls in Rome is now complete, and the sarcophagus will be on view from the beginning of next year.
However, three feet below the floor of the enormous church, which is the second-largest in the city, the project's te
Source: Press Release -- Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
Dec 12, 2006
Doubling the time that schools devote to math and reading in response to state and federal testing requirements won’t truly prepare young Americans for life in the 21st century. It probably won’t even boost reading and math scores long term, concluded a conference of policymakers, business leaders, and educators today.
At the event, hosted by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and supported by the Louis Calder Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, scholars and education
Source: NYT
Dec 12, 2006
Kofi Annan, the departing secretary general of the United Nations, challenged the Bush administration yesterday to shun go-it-alone diplomacy and remain committed to observing human rights as it acts to forestall terrorism.
In a speech delivered at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., billed as his last address to an American audience as secretary general, Mr. Annan said, “You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral
Source: BBC
Dec 12, 2006
Why are Jews attending a conference on the Holocaust in Tehran at which star guests include deniers of the genocide? Clue: they also want an end to the Israeli state.
A handful of Orthodox Jews have attended Iran's controversial conference questioning the Nazi genocide of the Jews - not because they deny the Holocaust but because they object to using it as justification for the existence of Israel.
With their distinctive hats, beards and side locks, these men may, to the untr
Source: Letter to the editor of the Murfreesboro Post (TN)
Dec 12, 2006
Much has been written about the appropriateness of the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest on the Military Science Building on the campus of MTSU. I would like to clarify one or two points and elaborate on what the university’s position is on this issue.
The university annually receives numerous resolutions from the Student Government Association. While non-binding on the university, these resolutions are an expression of the sense of the Student Government Association and the students r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 12, 2006
Most will end up in piles of remaindered copies or lie unread in the rooms of students. As literature, they have few redeeming qualities, while their relationship to reality is often questioned, as is their true authorship.
But the presidential candidate's book has become as much part of the race for the White House as the wooing of wealthy donors in Manhattan, trudging through the snows of New Hampshire and endless stump speeches in Iowa.
With the 2008 election arguabl
Source: WaPo
Dec 12, 2006
MATTAPONI INDIAN RESERVATION, Va. -- "Muh-shay-wah-NUH-toe. Chess-kay-dah-KAY-wak."
In his house overlooking the silvery Mattaponi River, Ken Custalow said the words over and over until it drove his wife crazy. Until she yelled from the next room: Have you memorized that thing yet?
Custalow, 70, a member of the Mattaponi tribe, was preparing to give a blessing at a powwow for Virginia Indians in England, part of the events commemorating the 400th anniversary o
Source: NYT
Dec 12, 2006
It has been part of the lore of America’s first black fighter pilots since the end of World War II: the famed Tuskegee Airmen never lost a bomber to enemy fire.
Now, more than 60 years later, a leader of the group says he has uncovered records proving the claim is not accurate.
Air Force records show that at least a few bombers escorted by the red-tailed fighters of the Tuskegee Airmen were shot down by enemy planes, the man, William F. Holton, historian of Tuskegee Air
Source: NYT
Dec 12, 2006
A gathering in Iran billed as a conference to “debate” the Nazi annihilation of six million Jews continued on its second day to spark outrage in the West, drawing fierce criticism today from European leaders, the Vatican and the White House.
The hail of criticism came as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told participants of the conference in Tehran today that a committee should be set up to investigate whether the Holocaust occurred. Among the more than 60 participants in the conferen
Source: Jeff Spurr in the IraqCrisis newsletter
Dec 12, 2006
The latest news from Dr. Saad Eskander, Director-General of the Iraq
National Library and Archive, is that he and the department heads
have met. Despite the fact that the security situation is not one
whit better than it has been of late, they have decided to re-open
their institution. Dr. Eskander has divided the librarians and
archivists into two groups; each group will work a three-day week,
permitting access throughout the week. As he put it in an e-mail
communication,"We al
Source: Breitbart
Dec 12, 2006
A British vicar banned a man dressed as Father Christmas from a
carol service at his church, he said.
Reverend Tim Storey said he told Henry Cuff, a member of volunteer group
the Lions Club, to disrobe because he wanted to"reclaim the Christian
story of the birth of Jesus Christ as being the heart of the celebration".
"I do not believe that Father Christmas should be part of church services
any more than Santa's grotto should have a manger and a baby Jesus
present," Storey said in a s
Source: Breitbart
Dec 12, 2006
After being ensconced for millions of years in the heart of a
South African cave, the most complete hominid fossil found to date
is finally seeing the light of day ... or almost.
A cast of Little Foot, a fossil with both ape-like and human features, was
unveiled last week at an interactive museum at Maropeng, near the
Sterkfontein caves where it was found, effectively bringing it closer to
an eager public.
Another cast will be displayed at New York's natural history museum and a
th
