By Jefferson Flanders Author Kai Bird and researcher Svetlana Chervonnaya announced at a NYU conference in April that they had uncovered evidence suggesting that U.S. diplomat Wilder Foote—not Alger Hiss—had spied for the Soviets under the code name ALES in the 1930s and 1940s. Most Cold War historians had concluded that Hiss—a prominent New Deal [...]

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This week Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) delivered the Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address. The general topic of Cantwell’s remarks was energy reform, but more specifically it was increasing the fuel efficiency of America’s automobiles.

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The Fantastic Four movie franchise has had some major hurdles to overcome. Dispite being one of Marvel Comic’s oldest titles their big screen debut was only two years ago (though scrapped for obvious quality reasons, an older FF movie can be found through various internet outlets). 2005’s Fantastic Four gave us our four heroes and a [...]

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By Shimon Z. Klein The reasons for the initiation of the Six Day War of June 1967 are well known. However it would be helpful to recap what led to the Six Day War in order to gain some perspective. Israel’s Arab neighbours wished to destroy Israel. They were never able to come to terms [...]

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Double Dead A Steve Harlan Mystery Terry Hoover Five Star ™, an imprint of Thomson Gale http://www.hoovermysteries.com     This is an entertaining and engaging first offering in a soon to be popular mystery series set in the Deep South. It is different form many other series as well, because the PI on the case [...]

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Today in his weekly radio address President Bush discussed the topic of federal spending. He started off by singing the praises of his economic policies.

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From The Gathering Storm The holy war against the infidels being waged by al-Qaeda and other Islamic terror formations – will end in 2020 with the defeat of the West, predicts Author Fuad Hussein. His book ‘Al-Zarqawi – al-Qaeda’s Second Generation’ was published at the end of 2005. Though a couple of years old, it [...]

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During my recent interview with Al Stewart he asked me if I had heard his latest CD A Beach Full Of Shells, I confessed that I had not, “that’s a shame, I really think it is one of my favorites, in fact it may be my favorite album” he told me.  It was with delight [...]

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There are lots of good reasons why they only allow Germany’s Documenta contemporary art show to operate every five years. Right off the top of my head I could think of seventeen at least, but I just don’t have the time to go into detail right now. Let’s just agree to disagree and say that [...]

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Rising Damp was a hugely successful britcom that ran from 1974 through 1978. The action being centered around a seedy boarding house run by an even seedier landlord, Mr. Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter). The other ‘stars’ include Miss Jones (Frances de la Tour), spinster extraordinaire, and university student Phillip (Don Warrington), both of who produce spectacularly [...]

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Whenever a new case of mad cow disease or E. coli breaks out, the media follows the story like a lost puppy. The number of cases are carefully monitored and mapped out to track the spread of the outbreak, and investigations are launched to find its cause. These are appropriate actions to be taken whenever [...]

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With every new Batman film there is a new costume, and the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight, scheduled for release in 2008 is no different. Despite concerns of shooting in the summer heat of Chicago, actor Christian Bale has some advantages thanks to costume designer Lindy Hemming. For one, the new cowl gives Bale [...]

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Currently, one of the top ten most searched topics is “Chuck Norris Facts.” This is a list of 50,000 jokes that take themselves so seriously as to call them “facts” about the martial arts celebrity. They portray Norris as a superhuman, God-like being to be feared. They are especially popular with the high school and [...]

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I discovered a long time ago, it would be pretty hard to keep up with all the data-breaches. After all, they seem to happen with alarming frequency. The most recent blunder, enabled by a State of Ohio security procedure, illustrates how not very secure a lot of personal information is. Stephen Majors of the AP (courtesy [...]

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[I have to share Bill Crain's concern here that African Americans -- particularly males -- are once again being excluded from CUNY.  As background many years ago (1963), I worked briefly as an aide to J. Raymond Jones, the "Harlem Fox," NYC's most powerful behind the scenes politician, to achieve "open enrollment" for those then [...]

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Well, here is an interesting turn of events. A fellow in North Carolina converted his auto to run on vegetable oil so that he could “make a statement” against our usage of fossil fuels. Great, you say? Stick it to the oil companies, the Saudis the whole mess in the Mid East? And on top [...]

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We have a CUNY (City University of NY) faculty group — narrowly based, as it is elected out of our colleges by our faculty governing groups there. Most people have better things to do, so that the quality of those elected varies considerably. This group tends to complain loudly about things, but ironically over the [...]

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Dark Visitor Madsen Pirie Adam Smith Institutre head honcho and think tank guru Madsen Pirie is trying his hand at science fiction with this one. It has a bit of a Babylon 5/Firefly/Serenity feel to it one finds. The storyline is a mysterious stranger shows up in a mysterious craft, predicts bad things to come [...]

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I am going to take the liberty of passing along Hillel Schenker’s comment to an Israel_Palestine list member with a copy to me which explains at least one reason for the breakdown in Palestinian relations in Gaza (and now the West Bank generally).  Needless to say there is also outside manipulation there in the form [...]

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In the ongoing saga of the TB lawyer, we now hear he might face surgery to remove the TB. In some ways, doctors are glad about this lawyer’s immature behavior, including his manipulation of the press, because at least he was only minimally infectious, but the soapopera like press story has brought the importance of [...]

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