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: AP
October 9, 2008
A woman who fabricated a best-selling memoir about surviving the Holocaust by living with wolves has won a Massachusetts court battle with her former publisher.
A judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday filed by publisher Jane Daniel against Misha Defonseca (dee-fohn-SAY'-kuh) and her ghost writer. He said Daniel had missed a one-year statute of limitations.
Daniel sued this year after Defonseca admitted she made up the story of her tortured childhood in her 1997 book, "
Source: AP
October 10, 2008
ALLENSWORTH, Calif. — Spirals of alkaline dust swirl across the hardpan where a century ago 300 black Americans planted alfalfa and corn hoping racial tolerance would take root.
They were led to this remote place by escaped slave Allen Allensworth, a retired Army chaplain and the first black lieutenant colonel. Their goal: to build a prosperous African-American farming community that would change perceptions about people who first suffered slavery, then Jim Crow segregation laws.
Source: FoxNews.com
October 9, 2008
Barack Obama's campaign is trying to fend off a withering attack from his opponents surrounding the Democratic candidate's relationship with former domestic terrorist William Ayers, co-founder of the radical Weather Underground group in the turbulent Sixties.
But there are still questions over when Obama truly learned about Ayers' radical background.
Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor told FOXNews.com that the Democratic presidential candidate was unaware of Ayers' past when
Source: Stan J. Liebowitz at the website of the Independent Institute
October 3, 2008
[tan J. Liebowitz is Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, Ashbel Smith Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Analysis of Property Rights and Innovation at the University of Texas at Dallas, and co-author with Stephen Margolis of Winners, Losers, and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology, published by the Independent Institute.]
Why did the mortgage market melt down so badly? Why were there so many defaults when the economy was not parti
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 10, 2008
An Australian revisionist historian wanted in Germany for alleged Holocaust denial was greeted in court with a Nazi salute from the public gallery.
Dr Fredrick Toben, 64, appeared before City of Westminster Magistrates' Court for an extradition hearing.
He was arrested by Scotland Yard's extradition unit as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on October 1.
Toben, who is fighting extradition, was remanded in British custody for at least another week
Source: International Herald Tribune
October 10, 2008
As America's financial crisis has deepened, Japan has found itself gripped by a sense of déjà vu.
The unfolding drama on Wall Street and in Washington has brought an outpouring of comparisons by Japan's press and policy makers to their own country's banking meltdown in the 1990s and its costly government bailouts. Overwhelmingly, the conclusion seems to be that last week's $700 billion rescue package is only the first step in an arduous journey toward financial recovery similar to t
Source: International Herald Tribune
October 10, 2008
An award that generates as much interest as the Nobel Peace Prize is bound to be surrounded by myths. Geir Lundestad, secretary of the secretive committee that awards the prize, outlines for The Associated Press some of the most common misunderstandings:
_ Myth: The awards committee announces a shortlist of candidates.
The committee does not release the names of any candidates and keeps records sealed for 50 years.
_ Myth: A campaign for a particular candid
Source: Southeast European Times
October 10, 2008
Not far from the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is the town of Visoko. Any resident, asked to cite the primary local attraction, will respond, "It's the Bosnian Valley of Pyramids."
Independent researcher Semir Osmanagic, who has no formal training, started digging three years ago. His work enjoys the backing of a full-fledged foundation called the Archaeological Park of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun. Osmanagic labours on despite mockery from almost all journalis
Source: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk
October 10, 2008
This toy hedgehog, found in a child's grave at Stonehenge, is proof of what we have always known - children have always loved to play.
The chalk figurine was probably a favourite possession of the three year old, and placed next to the child when they died in the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, around 3,000 years ago.
Source: Times (UK)
October 10, 2008
Mysterious shrimp-like creatures from 525 million years ago have been identified as the first to exhibit collective behaviour.
All but one of dozens of the fossilised creatures found by researchers were linked together in chains that had survived even sudden death. The reason for linking in chains is uncertain but researchers believe it is most likely the animals sought safety in numbers while migrating.
Other animals, including trilobites, are known from their distri
Source: Times (UK)
October 10, 2008
The famous eve-of-battle speech by Colonel Tim Collins electrified the British public and drew widespread praise, but it left the men under his command fearful and demoralised, according to one of his officers.
In a new book, Captain Doug Beattie claims that Colonel Collins’s address to the 1st Battalion, the Royal Irish Regiment, just a few hours before they went into battle against Saddam Hussein’s troops in March 2003, was rousing but also sobering.
Many commentato
Source: Dominion Post
October 7, 2008
A university student who wrote about a Kiwi extremist's views on neo-Nazism and satanism wants his thesis back on the library shelf after complaints from the subject resulted in it being taken off.
Roel van Leeuwen's masters thesis on the link between neo-Nazi and satanist beliefs in New Zealand had won him class honours but a few weeks ago it was quietly pulled from Waikato University's library and online publication when the subject, Kerry Bolton, complained to the vice-chancellor
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
October 9, 2008
As CNN's pundits wondered whether instant post-debate polls favoring Sen. Barack Obama meant he would win on election day, analyst David Gergen - who has been an adviser to Republican and Democratic presidents - stopped them.
"I think it's too early to declare victory, because Barack Obama is black," Gergen said Tuesday night. "And until we play out the issue of race in this country, I don't think we'll know and maybe (not until) late in the campaign."
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 9, 2008
A Second World War pilot is to be buried with full military honours 64 years after his plane was shot down after his remains were tracked down by a comrade who survived the crash.
Sgt John Bremner was among eight crewmen on a Halifax bomber which came down near Berlin during a night raid on the city in 1944.
Four men died but the bodies of Mr Bremner, then 21, and Canadian Warrant Officer Charles Dupueis were never found.
The plane's wreckage, scattered acr
Source: USA Today
October 8, 2008
WILMINGTON, Del. — The pungent aroma of spices, beans and rice fills the matchbox-size Dominican Cafe on West Fourth Street. The lunch counter is packed when community activist Carlos Dipres enters and chats with diners about el censo. He's met by blank stares.
A block away at Juan's Auto Repair, owner Juan Vargas says he doesn't know much about the U.S. Census but is pretty sure he'll respond to the government survey when it's sent out in 2010. "As long as it's in Spanish," he
Source: Independent (UK)
October 8, 2008
A British artist who risked his life to draw intricate sketches of enemy front lines during the First World War was finally unmasked yesterday more than 30 years after his death.
Len Smith, a sapper and espionage expert with the Royal Engineers Special Branch, would hide in no man's land for days on end, sketching enemy positions with remarkable accuracy. Now a book of Sapper Smith's drawings has been released to the public. Armed with little more than a set of coloured pencils Mr S
Source: Chicago Tribune
October 8, 2008
When a state of emergency was declared this summer at the ancient grounds of Pompeii, the move by Italy's government touched off an eruption of media accounts about how the ruins near Mt. Vesuvius were, well, in ruins.
Now authorities responsible for a yearlong evaluation no longer want the lost city of Pompeii to be viewed as being in dire need of repair. Rather, the top administrator in this emergency year said the expansive trove of mosaics and villas is in search of a marketing
Source: http://www.business24-7.ae
October 8, 2008
The authorities call it a Greek tragedy, but the graffiti artists who have increasingly left their mark on this ancient city and its monuments say they are simply responding to a different sort of muse.
Churches and archaeological sites in Greece used to enjoy a certain immunity from graffiti and the stylised signatures known as tagging, but are now increasingly part of the action as the phenomenon takes off in Athens.
"There is an inability to distinguish what is
Source: CNN
October 8, 2008
A genealogy Web site says it has found the king of America -- or rather, the descendant of George Washington's family who would have most likely held the title had the nation's first president been its first monarch instead.
Long live Paul Emerson Washington, 82, of San Antonio, a retired regional manager for a building supply company.
Paul Washington is the one among 8,000 possible Washington descendants that the chief family historian at Ancestry.com believes would cu
Source: http://newsroom.ucla.edu
October 7, 2008
Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.
"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always b
