Free Republic

Remember the Danish cartoons? A 27-year old Somali does: Danish police on Friday shot and wounded a man trying to enter the home of an artist who drew controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The man, a 27-year-old Somalian who was armed with an axe, was caught trying to break into the home of Kurt Westergaard at 10pm local time, police said. Police shot the man, injuring him in his leg... Mr Westergaard's cartoon was seen at the time as the most controversial, as it depicted the Prophet with a bomb in his turban. "Controversial" but entirely vindicated by events...

Mystery of 'missing' Shakespeare portrait 30 October 2007 NewScientist.com news service It is the kind of argument William Shakespeare himself would have enjoyed. On one side is a claim that a famous portrait of the Bard has gone missing and been replaced by a fake. On the other side, the claim is dismissed as nonsense. The row is over a painting of Shakespeare known as the Flower portrait. Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel from the University of Mainz, Germany, examined the portrait in 1996 and pronounced it an authentic representation of Shakespeare, painted in 1609. In 2006, the National Portrait Gallery in London...

Diplomat 'was real Shakespeare'   The authorship of Shakespeare's plays has often been questioned An Elizabethan diplomat named Sir Henry Neville was the real author of William Shakespeare's plays, a new book claims.The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare says the courtier, nicknamed "Falstaff" by close friends, used Shakespeare as a "front man". The book by Brenda James and Professor William Rubinstein contains a foreword by Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. Many experts remain sceptical at claims to have found the "real" Shakespeare. Jonathan Bate, professor of Renaissance Literature at the University of...