Plans to award a new 'European Heritage Label' to sites or monuments that symbolise European history came one step closer to fruition this week (27 October) after the European Parliament's culture committee unanimously backed the scheme. But critics of the plans accused the EU of trying to create "a synthetic European identity".

In a drive to foster a common identity, the European Parliament has thrown its weight behind an initiative to brand monuments and sites across the bloc with an 'EU heritage label'.

For the last hour and a half or so all sorts of sites (including this one, the site for the hosts, the Speccie, Bishop Hill, various US sites as well) have been coming up as 503, or can't find, various types of "nope, you can't go there sonny". Other sites (the newspapers say) have been coming

Despite having said that I was going to support A B E on the Wales Home site, I have changed my mind. Apart from Welsh politics my other delight is family history, which can be an expensive business when one has to pay for access to family history sites such as Find My Past. Find my Past has pay to view family history records that include all the England and Wales Census records from 1841 to

Previous blogs have carried info on the proposed mast near Ash Lane (click on label below and scroll down for info) - officers at the District Council have recommended refusing planning permission - great news indeed. Photo: view of mast site The main reason SDC are rejecting are the lack of consideration of other suitable sites fails to demonstrate that this is the least visually intrusive.

The Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild website is of value for researchers of family history, geneaology and immigration history. It provides links to sites to research emigration, immigration and naturalization. These include many containing searchable databases of passenger lists for individuals travelling from Britain to the colonies from earliest times. Much of the site is maintained by volunt...

The Wilmington Race Riots of 1898 were a key event in the history of North Carolina and in the political history of black African Americans. On November 10, 1898, a white mob seized rule in Wilmington and imposed legal restrictions and segregation upon the Black community. This site provides information on a commission which was established in 2000 to document the events of the riot and their hist...

I've just added a brief comment on the ConservativeHome website about the provision of travellers' sites, I thought I'd re-produce it here. The centrally imposed policy on travellers' sites is a ridiculous piece of work by this inept Government. South Gloucestershire Council has been told they need to find additional sites, but this completely ignores the fact that neighbouring Bristol has a

Challenging and countering "academics" that study "anti-Americanism"It is quite clear that the label "anti-Americanism" is in need of serious academic challenge, since it is clear that this malious label is intended to squash all speech that is critical of American domestic and foreign policy but painting America's critics with a label interned to malign them with al-Qeada, the Soviet Union. ...

Rights campaigners have criticised plans to ask search engines to demote illegal sites in order to fight piracy.