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: LA Times
March 8, 2010
The ceremony takes places on Wednesday at 11 a.m. at Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol. Surrounded by statues of some of the nation's most treasured icons, nearly 200 women who served as military pilots during World War II as part of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program will be on hand to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Recruited to fill a manpower shortage among male fliers, 25,000 women applied. Nearly 1,100 completed training. This little-known band of
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 6, 2010
A new book has claimed that Robin Hood was not as selfless as he is often depicted, suggesting he stole from the rich and lent money to the poor as an early kind of loan shark.
By stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, Robin Hood gained legendary status as a selfless re-distributor of wealth.
But a new book claims that the outlaw of Sherwood Forest was in fact something of a loan shark, who operated a sophisticated lending scheme for those short of cash.
Source: Discovery News
March 3, 2010
Paleontologists have discovered a new dinosaur relative that could completely rewrite the history of these animals, according to a new study which appears in tomorrow's issue of Nature.
Fossil remains of the new species, Asilisaurus kongwe, date back to about 240 million years ago -- around 10 million years before the oldest known dinosaurs first emerged.
Aside from reshaping the dino timeline, Asilisaurus has shed new light on the evolution of dinosaurs. Researchers be
Source: BBC
March 7, 2010
A number of artefacts discovered during work on an £87m road development in Dorset are to go on display.
The Weymouth Relief Road is being built to ease traffic between Dorchester and Weymouth and Portland, where Olympic sailing events will be held in 2012.
The site attracted much interest when archaeologists found an ancient burial pit on Ridgeway Hill last year.
Items including ancient bones, Iron Age pottery and shale jewellery will go on display at We
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
March 7, 2010
A bid to change the face of America’s currency has come under fire from US historians and politicians.
Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry has introduced a new law to replace Ulysses S. Grant with Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill.
The change is designed to coincide with next year’s 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth.But Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee, which will vote on the measure, complain they aren’t ready to replace t
Source: CNN
March 7, 2010
A narrowly passed committee measure that recommends the United States recognize the 1915 killings of ethnic Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide will likely not get a full vote in the House of Representatives, according to a senior State Department official.
The official said Friday that the State Department has an understanding with House leadership on the issue, and, "We believe it will stop where it is."
The Obama administration had urged the House Forei
Source: BBC
March 7, 2010
Cannons which last saw action at the Battle of Trafalgar are fired on Tyneside to mark the 200th anniversary of Admiral Lord Collingwood's death.
The four huge guns are at the base of a statue of the Newcastle-born naval hero which stands in Tynemouth.
The cannons, which are no longer in working order, were fired on Sunday using pyrotechnics.
They were last used in battle on board Collingwood's vessel Royal Sovereign as it led British ships in 1805.
Source: BBC
March 7, 2010
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq damaged President George W Bush's reputation, his former strategist Karl Rove says.
In his memoir, Mr Rove writes that he felt he should have done more to reject claims that President Bush lied about the existence of Saddam's weapons.
He called his perceived failure one of the worst mistakes he made.
But he described the achievements of the Bush administration as "impressive, durable and signifi
Source: Fox News
March 7, 2010
The possibility that President Obama could send the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks to a military tribunal has earned him the highest insult from the left -- that he's another George W. Bush.
A full-page ad in Sunday's New York Times left no doubt as to how the American Civil Liberties Union feels about the possibility of the president reversing the decision to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators to civilian court.
"What
Source: AP
March 6, 2010
A historic metal forge that made ashtrays for the ill-fated German airship the Hindenburg and did custom work for Walt Disney has been destroyed by a fire.
Saturday's fire at the Wendell August Forge workshop and gift shop is believed to have started in the workshop, where lacquer was sprayed on bronze pieces such as awards and trophies, spokeswoman Danielle Elderkin said. All employees and customers escaped unharmed.
The Wendell August Forge had been in business in Gro
Source: CNN
March 7, 2010
The post office gets a lot of criticism. Always has, always will.
But the United States Postal Service deserves a standing ovation for something that's going to happen this month: Bill Mauldin is getting his own postage stamp.
Mauldin died at age 81 in the early days of 2003. The end of his life had been rugged. He had been scalded in a bathtub, which led to terrible injuries and infections; Alzheimer's disease was inflicting its cruelties. Unable to care for himself af
Source: CNN
March 7, 2010
Two days before his official trip to Afghanistan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a "big lie" intended to pave the way for the invasion of a war-torn nation, according to Iranian state media.
Ahmadinejad, known for his harsh rhetoric toward the West and Israel, said the attack on U.S. soil was a "scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure," Iran's state-run Press TV reported Saturday.
T
Source: CNN
March 7, 2010
The Rev. Maurice Ouellet remembers the day vividly: March 7, 1965. As he walked out of church after serving Sunday Mass, he encountered silence. Then sirens.
Standing on the steps of St. Elizabeth's -- Selma, Alabama's "black" Catholic church -- the young white priest was about to witness one of the most iconic days of the civil rights era. It would come to be known as Bloody Sunday.
The sirens were coming from the Edmund Pettus Bridge, only a few miles away
Source: Times Online (UK)
March 7, 2010
Neville Chamberlain read and annotated Hitler’s Mein Kampf in its original German before he embarked on his policy of appeasement, says a new biography.
The former prime minister, who acquired a 1933 copy of the book, highlighted sections that he thought revealing of the German dictator’s mindset, and even added exclamation marks alongside some passages.
Chamberlain was struck by sections that underlined Hitler’s anti-Semitism, his faith in Aryan superiority and his sen
Source: NYT
March 5, 2010
Jimmy Ruck, a Stanford University junior, wakes up at 5:20 a.m. so he can make the 15-mile journey to Santa Clara University, where he attends training as part of the Reserve Officer Training Corps, or R.O.T.C. It begins at 6:15. Promptly.
“They have a saying in the Army — ‘If you’re on time, you’re late, and if you’re five minutes early, you’re on time,” Mr. Ruck said.
He has to get up early because there is no R.O.T.C. program at Stanford. The university has not had o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 1, 2010
Decaying sea walls going back to the time of Napoleon were being blamed for the deaths of at least 50 people in violent storms which ravaged France.
In a growing scandal, those left homeless by the disaster on the western coast said proper Atlantic defences could have saved everybody.
"The sea was being held back by puny walls which were hundreds of years old," said a Gilles Aucoin, who lives near the town of L'Aiguillon-sur-Mer.
"Massive
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 6, 2010
Lufthansa, the German airline, was left embarrassed after a competition to name a new aeroplane was rigged by Russians who nominated "Stalingrad," the site of one of Nazi Germany's worst defeats.
Lufthansa launched the online poll last month in order to find a name for one of a batch of new Airbus A380s it will start using soon. It offered the person who dreamt up the winning name the "glittering prospect" of acquiring one million air miles, enough to fly round
Source: AP
March 6, 2010
The current partisan divide is as stark and nasty as any in recent history and on almost every issue — from health care to energy independence to reviving the economy — there's little or no effort to find common ground.
But fierce political battle is also a tradition ingrained in American history. If today's hostile environment is particularly intense, it's downright genteel compared to many battles of the past.
The Civil War, when anti- and pro-slavery forces split the
Source: BBC
March 6, 2010
A Gothic inscription recently discovered hidden behind a monument at Salisbury Cathedral is now thought to date from the 15th Century.
The text was found in January when experts moved the Henry Hyde monument from the south aisle wall to clean it.
Archaeologist Tim Tatton-Brown said: "The basic questions of what exactly the words are and why it was written on the cathedral wall remain unanswered.
Source: BBC
March 4, 2010
James Cameron has not ruled out making a film of a book about the atomic bombing of Japan which was pulled because of concerns over accuracy.
Publisher Henry Holt and Co ceased production of Charles Pellegrino's Last Train From Hiroshima on Monday.
It said Pellegrino "was not able to answer" questions about its accuracy or the reliability of his sources.
