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: Daily Mail (UK)
Aug 15, 2010
One of our most accomplished scriptwriters was initially thrilled to discover his $200 vintage Longines watch was worth £50,000. The catch? He is Jewish – and a secret swastika inside proved it once belonged to Hitler's right-hand man . . .
Working for a Hollywood studio should carry a warning: Comedy can seriously damage your health. It certainly damaged mine when, in 1985, I was employed as a house writer at Paramount Studios on a new television comedy series.
There w
Source: AP
Aug 15, 2010
Now a new history by a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara seeks to reinforce that view, arguing that fear of Soviet invasion persuaded the Japanese to opt for surrender to the Americans, who they believed would treat them more generously than the Soviets.
Frank, who is writing a three-volume history of the Pacific war, said he continued to disagree with Hasegawa on the relative importance of the Soviet intervention and the A-bombs in forcing the surrender decision.
Source: AP
Aug 15, 2010
A cancer expert who said Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi had only three months to live before his release from prison was quoted Sunday as saying he should have been more cautious about the prisoner's chances of survival.
Al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds from a Scottish prison in August 2009, and allowed to return home to Libya, where he continues to be treated for prostate cancer.
Three other experts provided an opinion for the Libyan government
Source: BBC
Aug 15, 2010
...The world's attention to Myanmar has focused largely on pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her struggle with the junta that has held her under house arrest for 18 years in Yangon, formerly Rangoon.
Mentioned mostly parenthetically is the relentless war to eradicate a 60-year-old insurgency among the Karen, the country's second largest ethnic minority, by cutting it off from the general population. Although the regime denies it, the U.N. and international human rights group
Source: BBC
Aug 15, 2010
Ministers in Japan's new centre-left government have stayed away from a controversial shrine on the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.
It is the first time an entire cabinet has not attended ceremonies at the Yasukuni shrine in at least 25 years.
Government ministers paying respects at the Tokyo shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including war criminals, have in the past angered Japan's neighbours.
The new DPJ-led government had promised to b
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 15, 2010
With his hunched back and deformed face, Quasimodo, the tragic hero of Victor Hugo's novel The Hunch Back of Notre Dame, has always been considered a mythical creation drawn from the depths of the author's imagination.
But a new discovery appears to reveal the real-life inspiration behind the character from Hugo's seminal novel, which tells the story of the deaf bell-ringer of Notre Dame and his unrequited love for the gipsy girl Esmeralda.
Clues suggesting that Quasi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 15, 2010
President Barack Obama has backtracked over his enthusiastic support for the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York, saying he was "not commenting on the wisdom of making the decision".
President Barack Obama
The decision to build an 15-storey Islamic centre in Manhattan, including a mosque, two blocks from the Ground Zero site of the September 11th terrorist attacks has incensed many Americans, with polls indicating that more than two-thirds oppose it.
Source: CNN
Aug 15, 2010
British Prime Minister David Cameron, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will join hundreds of veterans Sunday to commemorate the 65th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day, or VJ Day, which was Saturday.
Cameron will lay a wreath on behalf of the British government, the statement said.
On August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered to Allied forces, effectively ending World War II....
Source: CS Monitor
Aug 15, 2010
Until recent years, Indian citizens could fly their flag only on two days: Republic Day (Jan. 26) and today's holiday, Independence Day. That changed after an Indian studying in Dallas saw Americans proudly waving Ol' Glory six ways from Sunday....
"What we are facing is something America faced from its foundation. If you have a non-homogenous population, a multicultural nation, what unifying thing have you got?" says Graham Bartram, chief vexillologist of the Flag Institu
Source: WaPo
Aug 15, 2010
On a recent summer afternoon, Alaskan and American flags fluttered together above the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center, a low-slung gray building on the banks of Portage Lake. Inside, tourists perused a chart on sockeye salmon and maps of the surrounding Chugach Mountains. Few people paid any attention to a black-and-white memorial to the center's namesakes.
"On October 16, 1972, United States House of Representatives Majority Leader Thomas Hale Boggs and United States Representati
Source: WaPo
Aug 15, 2010
In July, one of the longest losing streaks in the history of culinary combat finally came to end. According to the Nielsen Company, 52-week dollar sales of packaged wheat bread topped those of white bread for the first time in U.S. supermarkets. Call it a victory for health -- but nutritional aspects alone don't account for this reversal of fortune.
For years -- no, make that millennia -- the public has chosen white bread over its darker, grainier counterpart. In 77 A.D., Pliny note
Source: WaPo
Aug 15, 2010
Hundreds of couples donned sailor hats and nurse's caps and smooched in Times Square on Saturday to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The couples were re-enacting the famous Life magazine photograph of a nurse being passionately kissed by a sailor at the end of the war. A 26-foot statue replicating the original photo was also erected for the celebration.
World War II veterans and their children on hand for the kiss said they want today's generat
Source: AP
Aug 15, 2010
Japan's new liberal prime minister shunned a visit to a shrine that has outraged Asian neighbors for honoring war criminals, breaking from past governments' tradition and instead apologizing Sunday for the suffering World War II caused.
Members of the now-opposition Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled Japan nearly continuously since the end of the war, made a point by carrying out their own trip to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Source: NYT
Aug 14, 2010
...If there were a formula for becoming a folk hero — a secret recipe handed down from Robin Hood’s cap designer, and adapted for the social networking era — then Steven Slater, formerly an active employee of JetBlue Airlines, may as well have discovered it....
Cultural historians generally divide folk heroes loosely into several categories. One is reserved for acts of spectacular courage and skill, and includes Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, who landed a US Airways jet on the H
Source: Times of India
Aug 14, 2010
It's one of the ironies of history that even as India celebrated its independence, the man who had led its unique struggle stayed away from the festivities. On August 15, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi was in Calcutta, where he had gone to calm Hindu-Muslim communal violence. Through the day, he fasted and prayed....
Gandhi almost collapsed. But even as he fell down, he recited some lines from the Quran. On hearing them, the Muslim said, “I am sorry. I am prepared to protect you. Give me any
Source: Jakarta Post (Indonesia)
Aug 14, 2010
Precious historic collections from the 8th and 9th centuries — ranging from gold jewelry, gold plates and statues — have vanished from Sonobudoyo Museum in Yogyakarta.
Yogyakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Atang Heradi said Friday his office was investigating Tuesday night’s theft at the museum and had questioned four museum officials, including head curator Martono.
“This case is a challenge for the police. We will thoroughly investigate this case,” he said.
Eighty-seven
Source: CNN
Aug 14, 2010
The discovery of the exact location of a stockade and dozens of personal artifacts belonging to its Union prisoners is one of the biggest archaeological Civil War finds in decades, federal and Georgia officials said Monday.
Outside of scholars and Civil War buffs, few people have heard of the Confederacy's Camp Lawton, which replaced the infamous and overcrowded Andersonville prison in fall 1864.
For nearly 150 years, its exact location was not known, the U.S. Fish and
Source: Toptenz.net
Aug 13, 2010
The world has never been more technologically advanced than it is now, but that doesn’t mean that some things haven’t been lost along the way. Many of the technologies, inventions, and manufacturing processes of antiquity have simply disappeared with the passage of time, while others are still not fully understood by modern day scientists. Some have since been rediscovered (indoor plumbing, road building), but many of the more mysterious lost technologies have gone on to become the stuff of lege
Source: BBC
Aug 13, 2010
An Indian entrepreneur is relaunching the famous East India Company with the opening of a luxury food store in London on Saturday.
The event takes place on the same day that - more than 135 years ago - the company was dissolved.
At the height of its power, the East India Company controlled large parts of India with its own armed forces.
But it was disbanded after soldiers of the company's own army rose in revolt against the British in 1857.
A t
Source: Live Science
Aug 13, 2010
Following in the footsteps of Howard Carter and Abbot and Costello, a specialized robot will penetrate deeper into the Great Pyramid of Giza than ever before. The robot, part of a years-long exploration called the Djedi Project, will explore a shaft inaccessible to a previous robot, unlocking a room that has remain sealed for 4,500 years.
The robot explorer, built by researchers at the Leeds University, England, in collaboration with French aviation company Dessault and British robo
