According to the anti-regime human-rights group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as many as 80 men were found killed execution-style in an Aleppo suburb on Tuesday, many with their hands bound behind their backs. The group claims to have documented the massacre's aftermath — details of which are still obscure — in a series of extremely graphic videos it posted to its Facebook page.

In the aftermath of last week's presidential election, residents in at least nineteen states have put up petitions on the government's "We the People" petitioning website seeking the right to secede from the rest of the country.

Proving that it's never too late to still be "too soon," the Gettysburg Museum & Visitor Center decided this week to remove a line of controversial John Wilkes Booth bobblehead dolls from its bookstore.

Forensics experts have used plaster molds of sailors' skulls excavated from the wreckage of Civil War warship the U.S.S. Monitor to create facial reconstructions that could provide clues to the identities of two men who perished when the ship was lost at sea in December of 1862.

There are two sides to the Civil War, as CNN has pointed out to us, so it makes sense that a poll commissioned by the network finds that 23 percent of Americans sympathize more with the Confederacy ("the bad guys"). And, let's be honest: Slightly less that one-quarter is actually pretty good, as questions like this go; similar percentages of people believe that President Obama is Muslim. Of course the South has a rate of Confederate sympathy at 38 percent—the highest of any demographic grouping—but (and maybe we have diminished expectations) the fact that a solid majority of southerners prefer the United States to a group of treasonous racists seems like cause for celebration. Maybe in another 150 years we can get that number down to 30 percent! [CNN; image via AP]

Despite a UN resolution and threats by European powers to strike Muammar Qaddafi's forces if they continue to attack Libyan cities, troops loyal to the Libyan dictator today assaulted the eastern city of Benghazi with tanks and aircraft. Update below.

Libya's fledgling rebel leadership, on the defensive after blistering attacks from pro-Qaddafi forces, have added another item to their wish list from Western powers who were meeting in Paris yesterday: That someone please assassinate Brother Leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Anti-Qaddafi rebels continued to lose ground to government loyalists today, as the eastern town of Brega fell and a mass exodus began toward Benghazi. Meanwhile, the Arab League has asked the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over the country.

Should Mississippi honor Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest by giving him a special license plate? Probably not, no. But the Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans seems to think it would be a good idea, having proposed a commemorative Forrest License plate for 2014 as part of a series of license plates that "mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which it calls the 'War Between the States.'"

Georgia's current state flag is based on the first national flag of the Confederacy. So you'd think "heritage"-pimping Georgians would be cool with a painting based on the Confederate Battle Flag. But apparently not. Was it the Klansman, maybe?

A retired CIA codebreaker deciphered a 147-year-old message sent to Confederate Lt. Gen. John Pemberton while he was defending against Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's siege of Vicksburg. It reads, "JP - Kind of reconsidering this whole 'secession' thing. Sry! Peace."

One of the great things about growing up down South is the unending, pathological celebration of the Civil War. Wait, not "great"; bizarre and disturbing. The 150th anniversary of secession is just weeks away. Party time! Right? Yea!

According to Our Virginia: Past and Present, a textbook currently in use in Virginia public schools, "thousands of Southern blacks fought in the Confederate ranks." According to Civil War scholars, that's not true, at all. Who is right, here?

There are indeed two sides to "the Confederacy debate"—the side that committed treason in order to protect the institution of slavery, and the side of America. Next on CNN: Pearl Harbor—did we have it coming?

Republican Virginia Governor who won election by posing as a reasonable moderate declares "Confederate History Month." Every reasonable person in the nation offended. Your American Spectator headline: "Leftist Race Baiting in Virginia."

Virginia's Republican Governor Bob McDonnell forgot something on Tuesday! Was it... his car keys? Not quite. Was it... his wife's birthday? Getting closer! Was it... to include any mention of slavery in his proclamation of Confederate History Month? Why... yes!

This "niche fiction meets stuffy history" trend is getting inscrutable. Seth Grahame-Smith, who introduced us to Mr. Darcy's appetite for human brains, returns with news that Abraham Lincoln juggled the Civil War with a war against pointy-toothed victims of anemia.

MSNBC just aired video of a man with a pistol strapped to his leg waiting for Barack Obama to arrive at a townhall in New Hampshire.

Barack Obama's election means it's time for the country to reexamine the causes and meaning of the Civil War. It was about slavery, yes, but also States Rights, which is code for "slavery." [WP]

Whenever the Russian economy tumbles, predictions of American doom gain new currency. Igor Panarin, a Russian professor, is being trotted out to Putin's state media to make predictions of a U.S. collapse in 2010.