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Dear friend, On September 21st of every year, the International Peace Day, people around the globe express their desire for a world where war and violence are things of the past and we live in harmony with the natural world. The Giant Peace Dove puppets – flown by young people and the young at heart in cities, towns, and villages near and far – are a symbol and celebration of this yearning for peace. I hope you will choose to be a part of this special day. Last year, peace doves “flew” in 23 countries. Many were flown by our...

Facts to consider: The two have been seen at the Stoned Family Reunion held each year in Ithaca, New York. The content of their films and their production styles bear a striking similarity to one another. They both go to the same dentist. Both boys drive Peugeots. They both have a penchant for French wines and imported German Bratwurst. Oliver enjoys criticizing anything of real value. Matt enjoys criticizing anything. Both collect Jane Goodall documentaries. Both collect the musical works of Judy Garland and Cher. The list of their mutual likes and dislikes goes on and on, but these should...

Bryan Lafond, in a photo taken at his home, before going to the holiday dance at Hampton Academy Junior High School on Friday night.HAMPTON - A parent of a Hampton Academy Junior High School student says the principal of the school told his son to leave the school’s holiday dance on Friday night because the boy was dressed in a Santa Claus costume, which was politically incorrect. Michael Lafond said his son, Bryan, went to the dance dressed as Santa because it was a holiday party. "He asked if he could dress like Santa and we said yes," said Lafond....

DULUTH, Minn. - Investigators were trying to determine on Monday the cause of the Sunday night explosions that destroyed a local ice arena and injured several broomball players and fans. People inside the building said they suspected the explosion came from a room containing an ice-grooming machine, which are often known by the brand name Zamboni. Fire Chief John Strongitharm said after the initial blast in the room, there were at least two subsequent explosions. He thought they were caused by propane tanks stored near the ice-groomer. Ice grooming machines often use the flammable gas as fuel. Strongitharm estimated the...

NEW ORLEANS -- The Louisiana Supreme Court has given a judge a six-month suspension for wearing blackface makeup, handcuffs and a jail jumpsuit to a Halloween party. Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans in Columbia Pictures' White Chicks - 2004Judge Timothy Ellender will lose all of his pay during the suspension. That totals more than $50,000. Ellender, who is white, said the costumes worn by him and his wife were meant as a joke. She dressed as a policewoman. And the party's host, Ellender's brother-in-law, was dressed as Buckwheat. The justices agreed Ellender did not mean to insult blacks. Still, they...

The facade of the reservations office for United Airlines at Ho Chi Minh City. SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A United Airlines jumbo jet took off from San Francisco at the start of the historic first US commercial flight to Vietnam since the fall of Saigon nearly 30 years ago. Flight UA869, a 347-seater Boeing 747-400 airliner, lifted off from San Francisco International Airport bound for Ho Chi Minh City, the southern Vietnamese hub formerly known as Saigon, via Hong Kong. The jet will on Friday become the first American commercial carrier to touch down in Vietnam since the end of...

On Capitol Hill, the latest Republican fad is to get in front of a microphone or a TV camera and demand the resignation of Kofi Annan. According to certain members of Congress, the U.N. Secretary General must leave office immediately because of reported corruption in the oil-for-food program. Leading this mob is Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota who is too impatient to await the results of pending investigations—including the probe that he himself has undertaken as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the official U.N. inquest directed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. In an...

To win a date with this beauty, submit your vital details along with 3" x 5" color photo and mail to:Ms. Helen Thomas %WCVB-TV 5 TV Place Needham, Massachusetts 02492 ================================================== Back in the days of the Vietnam quagmire, the administrations of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon insisted that they couldn't remove our troops from Southeast Asia because there would be chaos, anarchy and a blood bath. The result: Johnson and Nixon -- who did not want to go down in history as having lost a war -- stayed the course and kept us in the killing...

AR always will rage between the two great sovereignties until one or other be crushed. Peace between good and evil is an impossibility; the very pretence of it would, in fact, be the triumph of the powers of darkness. Michael will always fight; his holy soul is vexed with sin, and will not endure it. Jesus will always be the dragon's foe, and that not in a quiet sense, but actively, vigorously, with full determination to exterminate evil. All His servants, whether angels in heaven or messengers on earth, will and must fight; they are born to be warriors—at the...

WASHINGTON — When giving thanks this year, think of Lena Woebbecke. She and many others paid a terrible price for misreading the prairie sky on the afternoon of Jan. 12, 1888. That day was unseasonably balmy, by prairie standards — some temperatures were in the 20s — and many children scampered to school without coats or gloves. Then, at about the time schools were adjourning, death, in the shape of a soot-gray cloud, appeared on the horizon of Dakota Territory and Nebraska.

Pistons fans are taking some flack for Friday night's brawl at The Palace. Following the game, ESPN's John Saunders expressed his opinions about the fans' behavior. "I'm here to tell you that the Pistons' fans, based on what I saw, are a bunch of punks."- John Saunders, ESPN commentator"I'm here to tell you that the Pistons' fans, based on what I saw, are a bunch of punks. It's easy to throw beer on top of somebody who's already down. It's easy to throw a punch at somebody when you're behind them," Saunders said. "Show us that you're not a sissy....

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An unmanned NASA jet was launched over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday in a bid to demonstrate a radical new engine technology by flying at a world-record 7,000 mph - almost 10 times the speed of sound. The 12-foot-long X-43A "scramjet" was carried aloft under the wing of a B-52 aircraft and released over a test range off the Southern California coast. It was to fly under its own power at Mach 10 for about 10 seconds at 110,000 feet, then glide to a splash landing. The craft was designed to sink and will not be...

"My beauty is hypnotic, no?" This is a requiem for Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat, the fallen leader of the benighted but unbowed Palestinian people. He never achieved an independent state for his people or the return of thousands of exiled Palestinians to their homeland, but there was no question he was their unchallenged spiritual and political leader. To the masses who live under Israeli occupation, Arafat was revered as a Palestinian patriot who represented their national aspirations. He also was demonized as a Hitler by the Israelis who reviled him and in the end isolated him in the...

EDITOR’S NOTE: June 8 [2003] marks the 25th anniversary of “A World Split Apart,” the commencement address delivered by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn at Harvard University. Last month, Harvard staged a conference commemorating this event, at which Jay Nordlinger, among many others, spoke. In the below remarks, you will see references to “Stephan” and “Ignat.” These are two of Solzhenitsyn’s sons (and they both attended, and addressed, the conference).It’s a pleasure to be here, among so many I admire. It’s a further pleasure to be a representative of National Review. This is a magazine that was pro-Solzhenitsyn before pro-Solzhenitsyn was cool....

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Now, with the American election over, the negative images of Europe planted in Americans' minds over the last four years by the fervently anti-European Bush administration will surely grow. Europe is a bunch of pacifists who wouldn't lift a sword in their own defense if the Mongols themselves reappeared! Organized Europe -- i.e., the European Union -- doesn't care a whit about helping to democratize the world, or "regime change" in dictatorships! Finally, Europe is "old" (particularly you-know-who), and we Americans are eternally, innocently, hopefully young! The only problem with these "truths," which have predominated in the...

I got a brief glimpse of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's news conference on Monday, as the battle for Falluja began. I couldn't help but rub my eyes for a moment and wonder aloud whether I had been transported back in time to some 20 months ago, when the war for Iraq had just started. Watching CNN, I saw the same Rummy joking with the Pentagon press corps, the same scratchy reports from the front by "embedded reporters,'' the same footage of U.S. generals who briefed the soldiers preparing for battle about how they were liberating Iraq. There was only...

Stare for 30 seconds at the blue-state/red-state map of the continental United States and you might get a cold shiver, for the stark grouping of the colors looks as if we're having a second Civil War. It's not that bad—but it's bad. President Bush, he of the victorious red states, says—just as he did four years ago upon his first victory—that he will be a uniting force. But then, how to explain why the acts of this unifier's first four years have brought us to such disunion? Bush was asked that very question at his post-election news conference. He chose...

"Can you resist my beauty?" America is in for four more years of conservative governance as a result of the Republican election sweep. The world now knows that President George W. Bush has political support for his brand of hard-edged conservativism at home and his tough, unilateral foreign policy abroad. Bush's lack of credibility in staging the Iraqi invasion and his willingness to alienate longtime allies apparently meant nothing to a majority of American voters. The president views the outcome of the election as vindication of his policies. Now he can really get down to business. With the same political...

There is new information on two abiding mysteries about the Iraq war: How many Iraqis have been killed? and, Why did President George W. Bush order a U.S. attack on Iraq in the first place? Last week, American and Iraqi researchers -- writing in the respected British medical journal, The Lancet -- estimated that the Iraqi death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq was about 100,000 "and may be much higher." Most of them were women and children, victims of bombs or bullets from helicopter gunships. The estimates reported in Lancet were made by comparing the Iraqi...

Obviously, I am distressed at the outcome of the election. I hope, but don't trust, that the second Bush administration will have learned something from the mistakes of the first. What is at stake is our ability to recognize our own fallibility. I established GeorgeSoros.com in order to engage in a critical discussion with readers about President Bush's policies, particularly in Iraq. To all those who sent in messages, thank you. I found the dialogue to be thought provoking, and I hope visitors to the site did as well. Georgesoros.com proved more popular than I initially imagined. There have been...