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: BBC
September 9, 2008
A bid to save Britain's computing heritage has been given a $100,000 (£57,000) boost by a joint donation from US hi-tech firms IBM and PGP.
The donation will help curate and restore exhibits at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, Bucks.
The two firms said they hoped the money would kick-start further donations from the technology industry to make up an estimated £7m needed to run the museum.
Exhibits include Colossus, thought by many to b
Source: Politico.com
September 7, 2008
It’s a tough gig, running for president. The modern media is brutally unforgiving with its microphones and video cameras: Any word, any image, at any moment can haunt a candidate for a lifetime.
This campaign is certainly no exception. Here is Politico’s list of the top eight gaffes that are virtually certain to haunt John McCain and Barack Obama until Election Day: ...
Source: WaPo excerpt from Woodward's new book
September 7, 2008
During the summer of 2006, from her office adjacent to the White House, deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan sent President Bush a daily top secret report cataloging the escalating bloodshed and chaos in Iraq. "Violence has acquired a momentum of its own and is now self-sustaining," she wrote July 20, quoting from an intelligence assessment.
Her dire evaluation contradicted the upbeat assurances that President Bush was hearing from Gen. George W. Casey Jr., t
Source: http://canadafreepress.com
September 7, 2008
Stalin acted ‘entirely rationally’ in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags, a controversial new Russian teaching manual claims.
Fifty-five years after the Soviet dictator died, the latest guide for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young said he did what he did to ensure the country’s modernisation.
The manual, titled A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will form the basis of a new state-approved text book for use in schools next year.
Source: Telegraph
September 9, 2008
Archaeologists have unearthed the mysterious remains of what first appears to be a couple buried together arm in arm more than 1,000 years ago.
The amazing discovery shows the "couple" lying side by side in the grave with one's arm across the other.
But the discovery has left experts with a 1,00
Source: Fox News
September 7, 2008
Is Kim Jong Il for real? The question has baffled foreign intelligence agencies for years, but a veteran Japanese expert on North Korea says the “dear leader” is actually dead — and his role is played by a double.
The expert says Kim died of diabetes in 2003 and world leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China, have been negotiating with an imposter.
He believes that Kim, fearing assassination, had groomed up to four look-alikes to act as substit
Source: WaPo
September 8, 2008
Months before the Bush administration ends, historians and open-government advocates are concerned that Vice President Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming U.S. policy for the past 7 1/2 years.
In a preemptive move, several of them have agreed to join the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in asking a federal judge to declare that Cheney's rec
Source: BBC
September 9, 2008
A dark-haired handsome cameraman is seen standing on a diving board filming a diver from behind as he jumps.
In other shots he is shown carrying a rubber boat next to an empty pool that he used to film the swimming competition and patiently fitting a small camera in a rowing boat seat.
These are just some pictures of the 1936 Berlin Olympics uncovered for the first time, providing a rare glimpse into how Olympia, the film depicting the Games, was made.
T
Source: BBC
September 9, 2008
North Korea is celebrating its 60th anniversary with reports of a large military parade in Pyongyang.
Reclusive leader Kim Jong-il was expected to attend, and his appearance was set to be closely watched because of speculation about his health.
However, a report from the Japanese news agency Kyodo said he failed to make an appearance.
The anniversary comes amid an impasse in international efforts to urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme.
Source: Times
September 9, 2008
A series of fossilised forests the size of small cities have provided prehistoric evidence of how tropical rainforests are destroyed by global warming.
The fossil remains represent the first rainforests grown on the planet and their demise more than 300million years ago “points to the future” of the modern-day Amazon.
Six petrified forests, dating from 303.9 million to 309 million years ago, have been discovered in coalmines in the United States. Because they straddle
Source: History Today
September 8, 2008
The UN’s cultural and scientific agency has asked Britain to report on seven of its world heritage sites by February. Unesco could place the sites, including the Tower of London and Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, on its ‘at risk’ register if its concerns are not tackled. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, as well as introducing a new heritage protection bill, addressed spoints raised by Unesco during its annual meeting in July in Quebec. Its concerns include the rerouting of a road at Stonehe
Source: Telegraph
September 9, 2008
The combative right-wing mayor of Rome refused to condemn fascism as evil, while the country's defence minister paid homage to fascist troops who fought with the Nazis in resisting the Anglo-American landings of World War II.
The minister, Ignazio La Russa, was speaking at an event marking the 65th anniversary of Rome's resistance to Nazi occupation in 1943 and the role played by anti-fascist partisans.
But he also recalled the "Nembo" parachute division from
Source: Ottawa Citizen
September 8, 2008
Hockey historians are celebrating the discovery of a document hailed as a missing link in the early evolution of the sport. Two Swedish researchers have unearthed the second-oldest written reference to hockey being played on ice, a vintage description of an 1839 game contested on a frozen river in southern Ontario near Niagara Falls.The latest find comes from a British army officer's memoir of his years in what was then the colony of Upper Canada.
"During t
Source: LAT
September 8, 2008
Historians and open-government advocates are concerned that Vice President Dick Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming U.S. policy for the last 7 1/2 years.In a preemptive move, several of them have agreed to join the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in asking a federal judge to declare that Cheney's records are covered by the Presiden
Source: WaPo
September 8, 2008
The great edifice that is the United States Constitution has always had eccentricities, wobbly parts, some joists held together with duct tape. From one edge juts a curious protrusion, an architectural afterthought. It is called the vice presidency.
The Framers didn't know what to do with the backup executive. He was conjured very late in the summer of 1787, as the Constitutional Convention was winding down. He had no power at all, initially -- he was just a body, a seat-warmer, rea
Source: Australian
September 5, 2008
THE suspected remains of a World War II airman found dangling in trees in the jungle of Papua New Guinea have turned out to be just a moss-covered branch, the Australian military revealed today.
Hikers on the famed Kokoda Track, site of a brutal 1942 battle between Japanese and Australian troops, reported they had discovered what appeared to be the suspended skeleton of a flyer tangled in parachute cords two weeks ago.
But the Australian Defence Force said it had sent
Source: Telegraph
September 8, 2008
Scientists have discovered that even after more than 40 years, people can still vividly recall where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the Fab Four’s music.
They say it shows that music is one of the most powerful triggers of memory, and Beatles music in particular is more than mere “auditory cheesecake”.
The online research was the biggest ever survey into the links between memory and music, and scientists believe its findings will be replicate
Source: NYT
September 6, 2008
Turkey’s president arrived in Armenia on Saturday, the first visit by a Turkish leader in the two nations’ history.
The president, Abdullah Gul, was invited by the Armenian president, Serge Sargsyan, to attend a soccer game in Yerevan, the capital, between the national teams.
The trip was widely seen as a symbolic gesture to normalize relations between the countries, which have recognized each other but have not established diplomatic relations.
The two nat
Source: NYT
September 6, 2008
A FINANCIAL firm borrows billions of dollars to make big bets on esoteric securities. Markets turn and the bets go sour. Overnight, the firm loses most of its money, and Wall Street suddenly shuns it. Fearing that its collapse could set off a full-scale market meltdown, the government intervenes and encourages private interests to bail it out.
The firm isn’t Bear Stearns — it was Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund based in Greenwich, Conn., and the rescue occurred 10 years
Source: NYT
September 6, 2008
WE all must think anew about Russia. But this process will prove harder for some of us than for others. When I grew up in the late 1960s and early ’70s, the Soviet Union had already begun to look like the Ottoman Empire on its last legs; the face of Soviet Communism belonged to Leonid Brezhnev, with his drooping cheeks and beetle brows and thick, square glasses.
What was there to fear from this pitiful giant? In my left-wing, antiwar, social democratic hothouse world, anti-Communism
