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: Telegraph (UK)
January 27, 2009
The pictures of Hitler were collected by his supporters and Nazi Youth who may even have swapped them in the playground.
The images from 1930s Germany portray the Nazi leader in both a powerful and caring light and were all part of Joseph Goebbels' propagandist policy.
The complete album is made up of 138 pictures in total which would have gradually been collected by Hitler fans over a period of time and stuck into the book.
It was brought back after the
Source: Deutsche Welle
January 27, 2009
Germany's leading Jewish organization, the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said it was boycotting the memorial event in the German parliament because surviving victims had not been personally acknowledged in the past.
"I would understand it if we were talking about representatives of the second or third generations," Council General Secretary Stephan J. Kramer told AP news agency. "But it cannot be that actual survivors are treated like mere onlookers."
Source: NYT
January 24, 2009
In reality the Kennedys ceased long ago to be the nation’s “first” political family. For most of the last two decades the Clintons have dominated the Democratic Party as its power couple. And in scorekeeping terms the Republican Bushes have set a new standard for monopolizing high office — their string of victories now includes three presidential terms, two vice-presidential ones and a pair of governorships in two politically important states (Florida and Texas).
By contrast, the Ke
Source: NYT
January 26, 2009
Since the Great Depression, presidents have frequently experimented with Keynesian economics to combat recessions. Three economists chronicle the history of government policy during past recessions and explain what worked and what didn’t.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
January 26, 2009
There is a great deal of over-classification,” admitted Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the nominee to be the next Director of National Intelligence, at his confirmation hearing last week.“Some of it, I think, is done for the wrong reasons, to try to hide things from the light of day. Some of it is because in our system, there is no incentive not to do that, and there are penalties to do the reverse, in case you get something wrong and don’t classify it.”“So I t
Source: McClatchy
January 26, 2009
Two centuries after Charles Darwin's birth on Feb. 12, 1809 , people still argue passionately about his theory of evolution.
Was Darwin right? Should schoolchildren be exposed to contrary views in science class? These two controversies continue to rage, partly because both sides are evenly matched.
Most scientists and courts that have ruled on the matter say that overwhelming evidence backs Darwin's explanation of the origin and evolution of species, including humans, b
Source: Popular Science
January 26, 2009
Economists find loyalty and sacrifice prevailed among Union soldiers with similar backgrounds.
No experiment can ethically test how humans behave in life-or-death situations. But two UCLA economists dug up the records of 41,000 Union soldiers from the American Civil War to see how men of shared or different backgrounds fared in the worst conditions.
They found that sharing common characteristics with fellow soldiers made all the difference in lowering desertion rates, n
Source: Thaindian News
January 26, 2009
Recently discovered bone inscriptions in a province in China have been analyzed to be approximately 1000 years older than those found in another area in the country, which indicates the new finding to be the oldest record of Chinese language.
The Changle inscriptions were found in Weifang city of Shandong Province in China.
According to Professor Liu Fengjun, doctoral supervisor in art and archaeology at Shandong University, the markings on Changle bones represent some
Source: New York Times
January 24, 2009
The Army has decided to cut off retirement pay for veterans of a militia formed to guard the territory of Alaska from the threat of Japanese attack during World War II.
The change means 26 surviving members of the Alaska Territorial Guard — most in their 80s and long retired — will lose up to $557 in monthly retirement pay, a state veterans officer said this week. The payments end Feb. 1.
The state is pursuing a remedy for “these brave Alaskans, who did so much for the
Source: IHT
January 25, 2009
Gunfire crackled and tank shells boomed in a snowy field outside St. Petersburg on Sunday as hundreds of people re-enacted the World War II battle that broke the Siege of Leningrad, marking the battle's 65th anniversary.
About 4,000 spectators, including survivors of the 900-day Nazi blockade, gathered near the village of Nikolskoye to watch the re-enactment.
The siege began Sept. 9, 1941. German troops surrounded the city, then known as Leningrad, choking off supply ro
Source: Foxnews
January 26, 2009
The German government is suing a British publishing company after they republished 280 copies of Nazi-era newspapers, the Daily Mail reported.
Printing and disseminating Nazi symbols, such as the swastika, is a criminal offense in Germany.
The publishing company's CEO said the reprints were for education purposes and were not to promote Nazism, the Mail reported. He also denied copyright rules were violated
Source: BBC
January 26, 2009
On the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, two experts on Auschwitz argue for and against the idea that the former Nazi death camp should be allowed to crumble away.
Historian Robert Jan Van Pelt says that once the last survivor has died it should be left for nature to reclaim, and eventually forgotten.
But former Polish Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, once an inmate, says Auschwitz must be preserved to bear witness to the fate of its victims.
Source: Knox News
January 25, 2009
Dismissed for 175 years as a fake, a letter threatening the assassination of President Andrew Jackson has been found to be authentic. And, says the director of the Andrew Jackson Papers Project at the University of Tennessee, the writer was none other than Junius Brutus Booth, father of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.
Dan Feller and his staff solved the mystery of the July 4, 1835, letter to Jackson. The story of their investigation will be featured this summer on PBS' "His
Source: CNN
January 26, 2009
Archaeologists in Israel have discovered what they believe is
the bust of a Roman boxer from the second or third century.
The figurine, made of marble, comes from a time when “the art of Roman
sculpture reached its zenith,” Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets said.
The archaeologists believe a merchant family from the eastern part of the
Roman empire most likely passed down the “precious object” through the
generations until the fourth or fi
Source: Tehran Times
January 26, 2009
The discoveries were made at the cemetery of the city during the 12th season of excavation that began in late December 2008.
The team led by Iranian archaeologist Mansur Sajjadi completed this season’s studies last week.
Twelve of the skeletons belong to children and a skeleton of a newborn is among the discoveries, anthropologist of the team Farzad Foruzanfar told the Persian service of CHN on Sunday.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 24, 2009
Science historians Adrian Desmond and James Moore have compiled compelling new evidence which reveals Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery and this was the moral impetus behind his work.
Private notes and letters uncovered by the pair reveal that Darwin's opinions on slavery were far stronger than had previously been believed.
Notebooks from his five year voyage on HMS Beagle, during which Darwin first began to form his famous theories on natural selection, deta
Source: Foxnews
January 24, 2009
At times, ever since he left the White House in defeat 28 years ago, Carter's freewheeling, freelance diplomacy has put him squarely at odds with his successors. While other ex-presidents have rode off into the sunset to enjoy, for the most part, quiet retirements, Carter has stayed busy writing best-selling books, conducting his own foreign policy and winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work.
His supporters hail him as a hero and his critics deride him as self-righteou
Source: Fox 13 (Tampa)
January 23, 2009
TAMPA – The massive Confederate flag that flies over the intersection of Interstate 4 and Interstate 75 has been raised again after coming down for repairs.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans took it down to fix wind damage.
They say they hope to have it lit up during Super Bowl week, but they say the lights are not installed yet.
The NFL said whether the flag is up during Super Bowl week or not is a private matter.
"The NFL does not have ju
Source: Time
January 21, 2009
City Bank of New York was founded in 1812 by a group of merchants hoping to fill the void left by the demise of the first Bank of the United States, the sort-of central bank whose charter Congress had allowed to expire the year before. City nearly went under in the Panic of 1837 but was bailed out by the country's richest man, fur magnate John Jacob Astor. Astor's associate Moses Taylor built City into a bulwark of sound finance--big capital reserves, stingy lending standards--that bankrolled th
Source: Telegraph(UK)
January 25, 2009
A huge stained glass window celebrating the 90-year history of the RAF is to be unveiled.
The window, which cost £50,000, depicts a Battle of Britain pilot scrambling to get airborne and looking up to a sky filled with aircraft and events from every decade of the RAF's existence.
The window was funded with a donation from ex-City businessman and Lloyds "name" Ivan Heath, 93, who served with the RAF during WW2 and has been a club member of more than 50 years.
