Free Republic

John Wayne explains the damaging use of the hyphen in our American name.

AS this historic Democratic primary season enters its next grueling phase, the party has become embroiled in a conflict between antagonists who would seem better cast as allies. Senator Barack Obama is a black candidate who has built his career on de-emphasizing race, while Senator Hillary Clinton is a white liberal who has been sensitive to minorities, and the issues facing them, during her long years of political activism. And yet, in contest after contest, particularly in large states with diverse ethnic populations, support for the two candidates has reflected the sort of splits that normally divide Democrats from Republicans....

JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority has formed an intelligence apparatus to halt Jewish construction and property ownership in eastern sections of Jerusalem, a PA official announced this week. WND first broke the story last month that the PA recently established an intelligence apparatus in Jerusalem to clamp down on Israeli Arabs selling property to Jews in eastern sections of the city, quoting informed security sources. Palestinians seek to create a capital in eastern sections of Jerusalem. The area has large Arab neighborhoods, a significant Jewish population and sites holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. On Sunday, Hatem Abdel Khader, a...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Saudi King Abdullah that the "enemies of Islam" were trying to divide the Muslim community, his website said on Saturday. The Ahmadinejad-Abdullah telephone call came amid complaints from Iran, which is majority Shiite, that Iranian pilgrims visiting Islam's holiest sites in the mainly Sunni kingdom were being harassed. "The enemies of Islam are trying to spread disunity among Muslim nations, especially between the two governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia," Ahmadinejad said, according to his website. Earlier this month Tehran asked Riyadh to fight against Sunni extremists who Iran said were targeting...

BRISTOL - Trinity Episcopal Church could be called a house divided: Its defrocked pastor led a heavily attended prayer and song service at the church Wednesday night, while Episcopal Bishop Andrew Smith tried to muster parishioners to meet with a new pastor at a church in Plainville. Smith promoted his meeting in a letter to parishioners last week as a way to discuss the dispute between Trinity and the Episcopal Diocese and "begin to identify new leadership for the parish so that we can move forward in our life in Christ within the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal...

The cultural rift between Britain and France endures as an amusing mystery for many, but the physical divide between them can now be blamed on two ancient floods. About 450,000 years ago, a "megaflood" breached a giant natural dam near the Dover strait and began the formation of the English Channel , according to a study detailed in the July 19 issue of the journal Nature. Following this first disastrous flood, a second deluge finished the job. "The first was probably 100 times greater than the average discharge of the Mississippi River," said Sanjeev Gupta, a geologist at Imperial College...

BEHIND THE political divide in America, there is also a religious divide. The split is not just between people who believe and people who do not; it is between those who see religious faith as society's foundation and those who see it as society's bane. So far, the debates on this subject have generated more heat than light, as both sides preach to the converted and talk at, not to, those who disagree. In the most recent volley in the faith wars, British pop star Elton John has said that if it were up to him, he would "ban religion...

Awaiting the recommendations of a commission exploring U.S. options in Iraq, the White House on Thursday emphatically ruled out some proposals to end the war. Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said a suggestion to divide Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions, each with high degrees of autonomy, was a "nonstarter." Similarly, he said a phased withdrawal of American troops — perhaps by 5 percent every two months — also was a "nonstarter." "You withdraw when you win," Snow said. "Phased withdrawal is a way of saying, `Regardless of what the conditions are on the ground, we're going to get out...

Iraqi MPs have passed a law enabling the country to be split into semi-autonomous regions, despite warnings that it could mean the end of Iraq as a sovereign state.The federalism Bill, introduced last month by a Shia party, passed the 275-member parliament by 141 to 0. Its opponents had boycotted the vote in a failed attempt to prevent enough MPs being present to reach the required 50 per cent quorum. The new law comes at a time when reports in the United States say that a commission led by a leading US elder statesman is preparing to tell President George...

WASHINGTON - Unable to agree on sweeping ethics legislation, the House this week will try to pass a narrower bill to shed light on pet projects that lawmakers tuck into spending and tax bills. The measure on "earmarks," a rules change that would apply only to the House, is a small part of comprehensive lobbying and ethics legislation that the House and Senate both passed last spring in the wake of a spate of scandals involving lawmakers and lobbyists. But the two chambers have been unable to find common ground, and prospects for legislation that was deemed a top priority...

Sunnis enraged as Iraq prepares to divide itself into regions By Oliver Poole, Iraq Correspondent (Filed: 07/09/2006) The future of Iraq as a sovereign nation was thrown into jeopardy yesterday after a new law was introduced to parliament that would enable the break up of the country into semi-autonomous regions. If passed, a self-ruling Shia state is likely to emerge in the south, based on the autonomous region Kurds have already established in the north. It would not only be able to levy its own taxes and govern itself but, Shia politicians say, would have its own armed guards posted...

Reshaping of the geography of South Asia in order to combat international terrorism has become necessary. The entire terrorism network has been managed by terrorist forces stationed in Pakistan under the safe umbrella of Government of Pakistan. These terrorist forces have taken the shelter of Islamic identity in order to implement their dangerous designs of dominating South Asia and make it an Islamic territory altogether thereby driving out Christians, Hindus and Sikhs living in India. The ultimate scheme was first made during the lifetime of late General Zia-ul-Haq who can be termed as the main actor towards this direction. The...

Speaking at Saturday's opening session of the National Council of La Raza convention, former U.S. President Bill Clinton accused the Republican Party of using the immigration issue to divide Congress and the nation. "It is a way of creating a divided community and distracting people from the real challenges facing the country, whether it is in Iraq and Afghanistan, or homeland security, or how to build a clean energy future, or how to solve the healthcare crisis, or how to create new jobs for America," Clinton told one of the nation's largest Latino civil rights groups in Los Angeles Saturday...

Dueling protests reflect immigration divideBy SUZANNE GAMBOA Associated Press Writer May 12. 2006 10:41PM Reflecting the American divide over immigration, protesters on both sides stood a few feet from each other near the Capitol shouting chants and exchanging accusations of racism. The protesters were kept apart Friday by helmeted police officers who stood inside a ring of yellow police tape. A Minuteman Project rally marked the end of a cross-country caravan by the anti-immigration group, whose members patrol the U.S.-Mexican border in search of illegal border crossers. The caravan began in Los Angeles. Minuteman demonstrators, who numbered less than 100,...

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (Courtesy Haaretz) JERUSALEM – Just five days before national elections here, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party revealed yesterday it would divide Jerusalem and allow a Palestinian state to be established in parts of Israel's "eternal capital." The revelation follows months of denials by top Kadima officials that the party would advocate withdrawing from Jerusalem. "The Old City, Mount Scopus, the Mount of Olives, the City of David, Sheikh Jarra will remain in our hands, but [regarding] Kafr Akeb, Abu-Ram, Shuafat, Hizma, Abu-Zaim, Abu-Tur, Abu Dis, in the future, when the Palestinian state is...

Some of my leftist friends have one thing in common with the Muslims now sacking foreign embassies: a fundamental lack of understanding as to how democracy works, and how precious it is. The leftists have grown up knowing nothing but freedom and opulence, and take things like the Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers, and Constitution for granted (if they have even read these hallowed documents). The Muslim radicals (Islamists) are throwing lit jugs full of gasoline at Danish embassies because they have known nothing except Big Brother (One Newspaper, One Nation, One Religion, One World), and do not even know...

Courage under fire Pat Robertson isn’t playing some pernicious political game By Stan Goodenough January 11th, 2006 “Instructive” is a good word for describing the reaction to Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) President Pat Robertson’s remarks about the stroke that incapacitated Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last week. Certainly it took immense courage of conviction for an influential man like the former candidate for the American presidency to say something he knew would enrage many people and put ammunition into the hands of his avowed enemies, and to nonetheless say it because he believes it is true, and because his conscience...

Washington, PLO begin dividing Jerusalem Netanyahu slams capitulation to US pressure on capital By Ryan Jones January 9th, 2006 Israel's firm position regarding Jerusalem notwithstanding, it appears American pressure will win the day and “Palestinian” parliamentary candidates will campaign for votes among the thousands of Arab residents of the Jewish state's capital. For months the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was adamant candidates for the Palestinian Legislative Council would not be permitted to campaign in Jerusalem, and that the Arab residents of the city would have to mail in their ballots on January 25, if they were allowed to...

Amid divide, Bush moves toward 'split-the-baby' immigration plan PHOENIX The immigration issue is creating a quandary for the Bush White House.Bush and his advisers are caught in the middle.On the one side are supporters who believe the economy needs those workers who have come into the country illegally.On the other are conservatives whose priority is to clamp down on illegal immigration.Bush is moving toward allowing illegal immigrants who came to the U-S before February 2004 to qualify for guest-worker visas.People smuggled in after then would be deported.The White House hopes to have a detailed proposal to Congress in late September...

Children studying in their "classroom".. Child Labourers.. A rural Chinese classroom.. More pics at: http://www.india-defence.com/node/310

 Japanese paper tells China not to divide TaiwanCNA , TAIPEI Thursday, Apr 28, 2005,Page 1 The mass-circulation Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun urged China yesterday not to use Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's visit as a "political tool to divide Taiwan." Instead, Beijing should use the historic meeting between Lien and President Hu Jintao, the general-secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as a "strategic tool to enter into peaceful dialogue with Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party [DPP]," the daily said in an editorial. If the KMT-CCP summit can develop into cross-strait dialogue -- that is, the resumption of...

U.S. & Europe, Inc. EAST LANSING, Michigan The main purpose behind President George W. Bush's visit to Europe is said to be mending fences with European allies. Beyond the waxing and waning of rhetoric, however, the health of the alliance was never in doubt. Alarmist analyses about the health of the trans-Atlantic alliance, so popular in the wake of the Iraq war, underestimated the ties that bind the affluent, industrialized, and powerful countries of the global North. They failed to recognize - or deliberately ignored - the common grand design that underpins the North Atlantic "Concert," the major industrialized democracies...

Apparently Senator Edwards had a close brush with the truth some months back, though like the proverbial "broken clock" that shows the correct time twice each day, he didn't linger for long on the cusps of reality. According to Edwards, we live in a split society, which he described as the "two Americas." Edwards attempted to portray this nation as being divided between the "haves" and the "have nots," by which he delineated between those who are financially well-off, as opposed to others who struggle to make ends meet. However, another far more insidious divide exists across the nation, as...

He is viewed with some suspicion by Democrats, who promised on Wednesday to question him aggressively about his role in setting administration policy on detaining and questioning people captured in the effort to combat terrorism. And he is seen as unreliable by many conservatives, who said he has not been sufficiently hard line on the issues of most concern to them, including abortion and affirmative action.

The guy flip-flops more than the bass I used to catch as a boy and toss into the floorboard of my rowboat. I, and many here, could list HUNDREDS of times in Kerry's very unglamorous Senate career and life where he has done precisely that. Now he is using the same tired, divisive rhetoric that the left-wing of his party (people like the loser Al Gore) wants -- in order to divide America even further. On top of that, he lies about all his so-called "plans." Everyone knows what he has said so far is mathematically impossible to achieve, yet...

WEIRTON, W.Va. — John Edwards (search) says voters should know that religion is important to him and to presidential candidate John Kerry (search) but the issue shouldn't be used to divide people in the election. "My faith is very important to me, and the same is true of John Kerry," the Democratic vice presidential candidate and son of a deacon said in a brief interview with The Associated Press after a campaign stop in West Virginia. "The two of us talk about our faith — with each other," he said Wednesday. "Our faith is important to us and it's always...

Racial divide returns to US schools By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 19/01/2004) A creeping return to segregation of American schools has left its classrooms as racially divided today as they were in 1969, at the height of the civil rights movement. A Harvard study has found that most white schoolchildren now have "little contact" with ethnic minorities. The study, timed to coincide with Martin Luther King Day today, a federal holiday honouring the assassinated civil rights leader, found that America's schools reached a high point of racial integration in 1988. Since then a string of court rulings and federal...

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA (Talon News) -- North Korea has launched a vigorous war of words against the United States and Japan while seeking to foster closer ties with Russia and China, in an apparent bid to damage unity among the powers in advance of September's talks. In doing so, North Korea once again reserved its harshest words for U.S. Undersecretary of State Bolton, who initially provoked the nation's wrath when he called life in North Korea a "hellish nightmare" and called Kim Jong-il a "tyrannical dictator." The White House has since defended Bolton, voicing its overall agreement with his statements....

Lieberman's attack on anti-war rivals shows deep divide within Democrats By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 29 July 2003 The deep divisions on Iraq among the Democratic presidential contenders burst into the open yesterday when the senator Joseph Lieberman, a strong supporter of the conflict, accused his more critical rivals "of not knowing a just war when they see it". Mr Lieberman said the Bush administration had failed to draw up adequate plans for the aftermath of the war and had not moved quickly enough to secure Saddam Hussein's suspected illegal weapons facilities. But his most significant words were aimed at...

Since its modern establishment, the state of Israel has been a hotbed of controversy. Jews and Palestinians have long battled over who should rightfully inhabit the land of Israel, a land promised to the Jews 4,000 years ago. In the Bible, the book of Genesis details the covenant God made with the descendants of Abraham. "On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, 'to your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river of Euphrates.'" - Genesis 15:18. For more than a decade, America has led attempts to...

<p>The first thing you notice, talking on the phone with Shannon Larratt, is that he doesn't have a lisp.</p> <p>You thought he would, as his tongue has been split.</p> <p>Intentionally.</p> <p>By choice.</p> <p>Split.</p> <p>But the man who edits BMEzine online - that's BM as in body modification - says he's never known a splitter to develop a lisp. For that to happen, he says, the cut would have to be extreme.</p>

Under new management: Garner plan will divide the country into three zones By Raymond Whitaker 10 April 2003 Iraq is to be divided into three zones by the interim civil administration headed by the retired American general Jay Garner, whose staff have just established a foothold in the far south of Iraq. Speaking a day after a team from Mr Garner's Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) arrived in the port of Umm Qasr, a spokesman said the first priority was to bring in aid. "In many ways we are learning as we go," said Major Jeff Jurgensen, one...