Wednesday, November 19, 1997

From the Iraqi situation to exploding whales

By Doug Williamson / Abilene Reporter-News

From the Iraqis to Star Wars and from pencils to College Station, today's look into the Internet spans a wide spectrum.

-- If you are trying to keep up with the latest news on the Iraqi situation, I think there are two sites that are the best places to start.

Our own Reporter Online has a link to The Wire -- the Associated Press' online service. You can get the latest AP news there.

Yahoo gets you into United Press International and Reuters news services at http://search.main.yahoo.com/search/news?p=iraq&n=20/.

-- DefenseLINK, one of the better military-related sites, offers several pages of information on our last battle with Iraq -- Desert Strike, as the military folks called it.

-- Pencil buffs, sharpen you interest. Doug Martin provides an introducation to pencils and pencil collecting at http://ernie.bgsu.edu/(tilde)dmartin/geninfo.htm/. I didn't know there was an American Pencil Collecting Society.

-- If you haven't had a chance to visit the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum down in College Station, you might visit it through the Internet at http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/bushlib/.

-- For those Star Wars fans out there, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum has a new site "Star Wars: The Magic of Myth." It is at http://www.nasm.si.edu/StarWars/. James Earl Jones narrates the trip through the site, via Real Audio.

-- Have you heard about the exploding what in Oregon? This tale begins with the Oregon Division of Transportation being called to a beach outside of Portland to help move a beached whale. To get the full story, you have to go to the "Officially Unofficial Exploding What Website" at http://www.sitenetwork.com/whale/. Check out the video. (This columnist is not condoning this behavior.)