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
Jun 30, 2010
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was hit with a blizzard of questions about politically thorny social and economic issues on the third and final day of her part in her Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.
In keeping with the tradition of other recent high court nominees, the 50-year-old solicitor general repeatedly declined to indicate how she might rule if confirmed, leading one senator to bemoan what many observers now characterize as a confirmation process devoid of substance
Source: Greenwich Times
Jun 30, 2010
Warren Platt and Brent Wagaman were taking a trip back in time.
One hundred years ago to the date, two lure manufacturers competed in the first bass tournament — a contest to see which of their surface plugs could catch the most fish.
Now, Platt and Wagaman — avid collectors of antique fishing equipment — were re-creating that piece of fishing history.
Fishing on a private lake in the Kansas City area, they used the same lures that William Jamison and Ans D
Source: Press Release
Jun 30, 2010
The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds are now offering a $1000 reward for information that leads to the recovery of the six wagon wheels stolen from the Hornbek Homestead and the arrest and conviction of the thieves.
On the night of June 10, six wagon wheels were stolen from two historic wagons on display at the Hornbek Homestead at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Two additional wheels were destroyed when the thieves attempted to remove them from the wagons. Both wagons
Source: Sacramento Bee
Jun 30, 2010
A French railway company vowed to make "full disclosure" of its role in transporting Nazi victims to World War II death camps as part of a compromise reached Tuesday in legislation designed to pressure the company to make amends.
The Senate Transportation Committee approved the compromise that requires bidders in California's $45 billion high-speed rail project to reveal whether they transported Nazi victims to death or prison camps between 1942 and 1944.
Rail
Source: Irish Times
Jun 29, 2010
THE RECENT prolonged dry weather spell which put pressure on water supplies in the west has proven to be good news for archaeologists.
The low water table on the western lakes and rivers has yielded a number of significant finds in Connemara, according to archaeologist Michael Gibbons.
Among them has been a new crannóg site which is part of a complex in the south Connemara area. It was located by Co Galway silversmith and archaeological student Ruairí O’Neill and a frie
Source: AP
Jun 29, 2010
John Demjanjuk's son accused a German court Tuesday of pushing ahead with a trial on allegations that his father served as a Nazi death camp guard despite what he said were indications the 90-year-old's health is deteriorating.
Tuesday's court session was canceled after Demjanjuk, a former Ohio autoworker deported from the U.S. to Germany in May 2009 to stand trial, was hospitalized with dangerously low blood hemoglobin levels.
Demjanjuk suffers from a number of ailment
Source: Gulf Times (Qatar)
Jun 29, 2010
German archives said yesterday that they doubt they can afford to buy a major hoard of historic documents about Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler which comes up for auction at the end of this week.
The seven binders of papers were accumulated by prison authorities when Hitler was serving 13 months in jail 1923-24 and writing his book Mein Kampf....
Source: CBC News (Canada)
Jun 29, 2010
Canadian officials will return to the Northwest Passage this summer in search of Sir John Franklin's long-lost ships, after efforts were postponed last year.
Federal searchers say they will take sonar equipment to the waters southwest of King William Island, in the Northwest Passage, in the hopes of finding the ships underwater.Federal searchers say they will take sonar equipment to the waters southwest of King William Island, in the Northwest Passage, in the hopes of finding the ships un
Source: Time.com
Jun 29, 2010
Did someone sabotage the Egyptian king's mummy to hide his less-than endowed genitalia? A new report from The New Scientist presents the possibility of a anatomical conspiracy.
Earlier this year, scientists speculated the cause of famed King Tutankhamen's death to be due to a bone disorder and a bad case of malaria, but just last week a group of German researchers overruled that diagnosis. Instead, they say the 19-year-old pharaoh suffered from sickle-cell anemia, a genetic abnormal
Source: Slate
Jun 29, 2010
Al-Qaida spokesman Adam Yahiye Gadahn released a video last Sunday in which he called President Obama a "treacherous, bloodthirsty, and narrow-minded American war president" of a "declining and besieged empire." Numerous reports suggest that Gadahn was born with the name Adam Pearlman, in California. Why do some converts to Islam change part of their name, but not the whole thing?
It varies....
Source: Reuters
Jun 29, 2010
A well-known Nazi hunter criticized a Latvian court Tuesday for allowing a procession to commemorate the day in 1941 when Nazi troops entered the country's capital after ejecting the Soviet Union's Red Army.
Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, criticized a Riga district court decision to allow an event to be held at the central Freedom Monument on July 1.
"To celebrate the anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Riga on July 1 is to celebrate the m
Source: MSNBC
Jun 29, 2010
Greek inventor Archimedes is said to have used mirrors to burn ships of an attacking Roman fleet. But new research suggests he may have used steam cannons and fiery cannonballs instead.
A legend begun in the Medieval Ages tells of how Archimedes used mirrors to concentrate sunlight as a defensive weapon during the siege of Syracuse, then a Greek colony on the island of Sicily, from 214 to 212 B.C. No contemporary Roman or Greek accounts tell of such a mirror device, however.
Source: AP
Jun 29, 2010
Historians want to give Michigan's first governor his due by moving his remains to a prominent spot in downtown Detroit.
They'll have to find his body first.
Workers have told The Detroit News they will resume digging Tuesday beneath the statue of Stevens T. Mason in Capitol Park. Granite slabs and something that appeared to be a crypt were removed Monday.
Source: Austrian Independent
Jun 29, 2010
New research reveals more than three in 10 Austrians consider their country the first victim of Nazi Germany.
SORA researcher Günther Ogris and historian Oliver Rathkolb said today (Tues) they found that 36.5 per cent of Austrians claimed that Austria – which was annexed by the Third Reich in March 1983 – was dictator Adolf Hitler’s first victim. Only 25 per cent dismiss this theory, they added....
Source: Yahoo News
Jun 29, 2010
...Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan let some of her personality show through Tuesday as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee poked into every corner of her legal thinking. And she offered what amounted to a personal declaration of independence when questioned repeatedly about her admiration for her former boss, the late Justice Thurgood Marshall.
She skirted questions aplenty on Day 2 of her confirmation hearings, and held her tongue when Republicans gave it to her good.
Source: Yahoo News
Jun 29, 2010
Following in others' grand tradition of demonstrating gaps in knowledge while addressing a university, Sarah Palin told a crowd at a fundraiser at California State University in Stanislaus last weekend that Ronald Reagan, personal hero and inspiration, was a California college graduate. She told the cheering crowd: "This is Reagan country, and perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California's Eureka College would become so woven within and interlinked to the Golden State."
Source: AFP
Jun 29, 2010
Prehistoric man enjoyed a primitive version of cinema, according to Austrian and British researchers, who are currently seeking to recreate these ancient visual displays.
Rock engravings from the Copper Age found all over Europe in remote, hidden locations, indicate the artwork was more than mere images, researchers from Cambridge University and Sankt Poelten's university of applied sciences (FH) in Austria believe.
Cambridge University and FH Sankt Poelten have now lau
Source: AP
Jun 29, 2010
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the longest-serving senator in history, often told his colleagues that he loved them, but he loved the Senate more. Fittingly, that's where Washington will bid him farewell on Thursday, when his body will lie in repose before returning home to West Virginia for a public funeral.
Byrd's final appearance on the Senate floor, where he became famous for soaring oratory and record-setting speeches, will be as historic as the senator himself. A senator's casket last l
Source: BBC
Jun 29, 2010
The heritage status of a pier in Cornwall has been upgraded by English Heritage.
The South Pier at Penzance harbour was already a Grade II listed building, but it has now been given Grade II* status.
It means the historical significance of the pier is of particularly importance.
The upgraded listing will be one of the factors the government will have to take into account before deciding if the harbour can be redeveloped.
Source: BBC
Jun 29, 2010
The use of so-called "deep-cover illegals" and a patient approach to espionage are two hallmarks of Russian spying dating back nearly a century.
The golden age of the great Russian "illegals" - who were not just living without diplomatic cover and the protection that this provides, but were pretending to be nationalities other than Russian - lies back in the midst of time before even the dawn of the Cold War.
In the 1930s, the KGB's predecessor sent
