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: CNN
Aug 19, 2005
Move over, Mark Felt. Just three months after the identity of "Deep Throat" was finally made public, authorities are chasing a new lead in one of the 20th century's other great unsolved mysteries: What ever happened to Judge Joseph Crater?A recently discovered letter asserting that Crater was murdered and buried near the Coney Island boardwalk prompted tabloid headlines Friday about a case that has puzzled authorities ever since the newly minted judge entered
Source: Reason
Aug 19, 2005
At its height, the empire founded by Genghis Khan stretched from Southeast Asia to Europe and encompassed half the world’s population. Eight hundred years later, he may not have the reach he once enjoyed, but in his country of origin he is once again everywhere.
Forbidden under seven decades of Soviet rule, newly abundant images of the Universal Leader cast him as a popular hero and familiar trademark.Mongolians can buy Grand Khaan vodka at the Genghis Khan nigh
Source: Russian News and Information Agency
Aug 19, 2005
Archaeologists have discovered two profanity-inscribed ancient birch bark pieces in Veliky Novgorod in northwestern Russia. Experts said they dated back to the first part of the 12th century, based on the occupation layer and other signs. Historians said half-jokingly if the authors had known these works would be found nearly a thousand years later, they would have signed them and thereby gone down in Russian history as the first foul mouths. Archaeologists did not disclose
Source: Independent (South Africa)
Aug 19, 2005
The Vatican has forcefully rejected accusations that wartime Pope Pius XII was an anti-Semite and Nazi sympathiser who turned a blind eye to the Holocaust during the second world war. "He certainly was not. He helped the Jews," said Father Pierre Blet, the Vatican's leading historian on the period.Father Blet, a French Jesuit, was responding to a point-blank question - "Was Pius an anti-Semite?" - asked at a news conference launching the Itali
Source: BBC
Aug 19, 2005
A rare TV interview with Adolf Hitler's sister will be screened for the first time since 1959, having been found in a hunt for missing shows. Paula Wolf was filmed talking about her brother for hour-long ITV documentary Tyranny: The Years of Adolf Hitler, which also interviewed his chauffeur. It was rediscovered in ITN's archives as part an ongoing search for footage by the British Film Institute (BFI). It will be screened from November by the BFI to mark ITV's 50th anniversary.
Source: Reuters
Aug 19, 2005
A German Jewish leader touched a sore spot in relations with Catholics on Friday when he urged Pope Benedict to open up all the Vatican's archives dealing with World War Two and the Holocaust. Welcoming him on a historic visit to a synagogue in Cologne, Abraham Lehrer told the German-born pontiff he had a special responsibility to open files that critics say would show how much Pope Pius XII knew about the Nazi slaughter of Jews.Jewish groups accuse Pius of turning a deaf ea
Source: NYT
Aug 18, 2005
The Lycian League was mentioned twice in the Federalist Papers, once by Alexander Hamilton, once by James Madison, so it could safely be said that it entered into the history of the formation of the United States.
Now, after literally centuries of neglect, teams of Turkish and German archaeologists have been working under the hot sun of this small Mediterranean seacoast town, uncovering some of its treasures.
Source: NYT
Aug 18, 2005
The African Union plans to review South Africa's mediation role in Ivory Coast, where the peace process has stalled repeatedly, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the AU head, said on Saturday.
The 53-member AU had asked South Africa to mediate in the crisis in the West African nation after a civil war split the world's largest cocoa producer in two and a string of peace initiatives failed.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Aug 18, 2005
Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures are teaming up to slay a classic beast. The two studios are taking the reins on Robert Zemeckis' "Beowulf," a big-budget performance-capture film that is being co-financed by Shangri-La Entertainment and boasts an international cast headed by Ray Winstone, Crispin Glover and Angelina Jolie.
Source: Donny George, head of the Iraq Museum, in an email to Francis Deblauwe, founder of Iraq Crisis
Aug 18, 2005
The reconstruction work in the Iraq museum is continuing, the last phase of the security project is going on now, surveillance cameras outside the museum are being installed, motion detectors inside all the halls and electronic switches are all over, the control room is almost finished. This was after the earlier phases of good strong fences and gates, redoing roofs, and iron bars for all the windows of the museum. More work will be done very soon, that includes repai
Source: Daniel Pipes Blog
Aug 18, 2005
Daniel Pipes reports that the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. has removed a question from an exam that implied that Abu Nidal, an infamous terrorist, was a freedom fighter.
Source: Reuters
Aug 18, 2005
Israel is urging the United Nations to establish an annual international holocaust memorial day, a top Israeli diplomat said on Thursday. More than 30 European countries support Israel's plan, British Deputy Ambassador Adam Thomson said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Assembly President Jean Ping made public on Thursday.An Israeli draft resolution, which it hopes will be adopted by the 191-member General Assembly during its 60th session opening nex
Source: NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 11, #31; 18 AUGUST 2005)
Aug 18, 2005
On 18 July, the White House submitted to the Senate the nomination of Bruce Cole for another four-year term as Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities.Cole's current term, which began in 2001, expires at the end of 2005. However, assuming Cole is reconfirmed two of his top aides -- his current deputy, Lynn Munson and his Senior Counselor and Congressional affairs officer, Cherie Harder -- won't be there to assist him. Harder is leaving to become one of six policy
Source: FrontPageMag.com
Aug 18, 2005
Tony Blankley, former top aide to Newt Gingrich, argues in a column today that leaders of the anti-war movement are trying to pull a Munich.Quote:
Those people today calling for a quick exit from Iraq after the shortest possible decent interval apparently can't imagine anything worse than the sad loss of American troops at the current level in Iraq. Just"stop the killing" and"return to sanity." I don't accuse such people of being foolish -- merely lacking
Source: WSJ
Aug 18, 2005
For 14 years, a giant statue of Lenin lay in a shallow grave in the Köpenicker forest. Occasionally, grave robbers would dig around the site, looking to chip pieces off the dissected remains and forcing the foresters to rebury him. Now, a move by locals to have the father of Soviet communism recycled has led to the likelihood of him being resurrected.The Lenin in question is a 60-foot statue, made of Ukrainian red granite, that once lifted an admonishing hand over East
Source: WSJ
Aug 18, 2005
Peggy Noonan says there's something unserious about Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush's newfound affection. In a conversation with friends this summer, says Noonan, "someone called the growing chumminess 'creepy' and asked what I thought of it. I said I found it creepy too. What, I was asked, did I think was behind it? Why are Mr. Bush senior and Mr. Clinton so publicly embracing each other, yukking it up for the cameras and complimenting each other?Because it serves their individual needs
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Aug 18, 2005
Francis Gary Powers, who became a Cold War icon when his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, was honored yesterday when the state unveiled a highway marker outside his hometown. "It is about time!" exclaimed his sister Joyce Stallard of Pound. "It's long overdue. Even if he was my brother, he was a hero."Stallard was among a crowd of dozens, including Powers' son, Francis Gary Powers Jr. of Midlothian, who attended a brief cere
Source: Washington Times
Aug 18, 2005
To hear some newcomers to Hanover County, Virginia, tell it, "Dixie" is a five-letter four-letter word. They want to change the county's annual Civil War commemoration from "Dixie Days" to something else, to avoid, among other things, offending Yankees who have moved into the county. Dixie cups are probably OK, concedes one county official, but not "Dixie" ? that reminds everyone of, well, the South.
Jamelle Wilson, a member
Source: NYT
Aug 18, 2005
The National Archives started a formal investigation Wednesday into the loss of a file of Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s papers on affirmative action from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Senate Democrats, preparing for hearings on Judge Roberts's nomination to the Supreme Court, had asked Tuesday for the investigation. They noted that Bush administration officials had reviewed the files in July before they went missing. Members of the archives staff have sai
Source: NYT
Aug 18, 2005
It has been 292 years since Britain's Navy finished muscling away Gibraltar, a speck at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula, from Spain. But for residents here, the fine print of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which officially ceded Gibraltar to Britain, is as effortlessly quoted as this year's soccer standings. No historical slights are ever entirely forgotten in Europe, but few flourish quite as robustly as the one between Gibraltar and its formidable neighbor, Spain.
