peace

"Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms." - Ron Paul

The thunderous applause for Paul rocked the bleachers and caused a crush of media to turn their cameras away from the stage in the middle of the gymnasium...Affable and clearly enjoying his celebrity status with the young voters, Paul said he was at somewhat of a loss to explain why his candidacy resonates so strongly with young voters.

“The common answer is that I endorse and defend the Constitution … and believe you only get permission to go to war with a vote of Congress, not NATO,” Paul said, his remarks cut short by applause.

*Update: Jan. 25, 2012*  read more »

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Palestinian children stand to form Pablo Picasso's Dove of Peace as part of a project by British aerial artist John Quigley and the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), at the foot of the Mount of Temptation in the West Bank city of Jericho November 25, 2011. It took some 1000 children from United Nations schools to create the project produced as part of the "Peace on Earth" project, a global musical prayer for peace which will be broadcast globally from Bethlehem's Manger Square on Christmas day, a U.N. press release said.

Palestinian pupils at UN schools form group image as dove of peace
25 November 2011 - Hundreds of children from United Nations-run schools in the Jericho area of the occupied Palestinian territory today created a massive aerial image jointly with the renowned artist John Quigley to send out a peace message to the world.  read more »

From the publisher:
"New Year 2011 wishes Peace to the World, Health to the Earth, Love to all life, Wisdom to decisions. Be merry."

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The First Emperor of United China, Qin Shi Huang (18 February 259 BC – 10 September 210 BC) became the King Zheng of Qin when he was 13, then China's first emperor when he was 38 after the Qin had conquered all of the other Warring States and unified seven warring states of China in 221 BC. His public works projects included the unification of diverse state walls into a single Great Wall of China and a massive new national road system.

Qin Shi Huang and Li Si unified China economically by standardizing the Chinese units of measurements such as weights and measures, currency, and the length of the axles of carts to facilitate transport on the road system.

The emperor also developed an extensive network of roads and canals connecting the provinces to improve trade between them. The currency of the different states were also standardized to the Ban liang coin. Perhaps most importantly, the Chinese script was unified. Under Li Si, the seal script of the state of Qin was standardized through removal of variant forms within the Qin script itself. This newly standardized script was then made official throughout all the conquered regions, thus doing away with all the regional scripts to form one language, one communication system for all of China.

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Image courtesy Wikipedia and psu.edu

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Gaza War has strained the relationship between Israel and Turkey, Israel’s closest Muslim ally. Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel as a state, and it has built up more than $3 billion in annual trade with Israel, far more than for any other Middle Eastern country. “It’s not a business-as-usual relationship anymore,” said Cengiz Candar, a columnist for Radikal, a Turkish daily. “It’s a very uneasy sort of cohabitation in this region now.”

Israel’s Arab allies stood behind it in the war, but Turkey, a NATO member whose mediating efforts last year brought Israel into indirect talks with Syria, protested every step of the way in a month of angry remarks capped when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stalked off the stage during a debate in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 29.

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