Free Republic

Olive Garden is hurting itself by piling on too many breadsticks, according to an investor that's disputing how the restaurant chain is run. In a nearly 300-page critique, the hedge fund Starboard Value says Olive Garden restaurants lack training and discipline and that servers bring too many breadsticks to tables at a time. That leads to waste — and cold breadsticks, Starboard says.

With Darden Restaurants' (DRI) announcement that a remodel for its Olive Garden division has started, the main takeaway is a simple one — it's nowhere near to giving up on the Italian-themed chain. The other takeaway is that this latest attempt to spur customers to take a seat at its tables may well mean activist investors, who've been vocally at odds with management, received another reason to complain.

Jews living in Judea and Samaria (Shomron) have argued for years that many Arabs in the region use the olive harvest as a pretext to prepare the ground for attacks on Israeli communities. The annual harvest often leads to conflict as Arabs and foreign left-wing activists insist on entering Jewish communities to pick olives – including communities where the olive harvest formerly led to fatal terrorism. The IDF provides them with security. Now, a new video filmed by Jews in Givat Ronen, near the Samaria town of Itamar, has revealed Arab “farmers” openly threatening terrorism, while filming Jewish homes and...

<p>Oh, pity poor 9/11 defendant Ramzi Binalshibh. The man implicated in the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans and currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay angrily told a judge that during a pre-trial hearing that "there are big problems with the food that was provided — it is a form of psychological torture." Binalshibh's specific complaint? That the government was withholding "condiments such as olives and honey." Binalshibh is accused of having helped finance the 9/11 attackers as well as coordinating their flight training.</p>

"Spain, Italy and Greece, who together dominate global production of the Mediterranean staple, are being threatened by tough competition from their New World rivals.,P> The growing olive oil market in the US is poised to be a "battleground" between the historic European producers and their new challengers from California, Chile and Australia, according to agricultural analysts at Rabobank."

Dear Guest: We are very sorry for any misunderstanding about this issue. We do not have a policy at Olive Garden concerning bringing the American flag into our restaurants. Some members of our team were misinformed about company policy by our corporate office. As a company we take responsibility for that and we regret it. We take pride in how we communicate to our restaurants and we are correcting this so it doesn’t happen again. Like all Americans we have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for the American flag and everything it symbolizes. In fact, we periodically provide...

Tel Aviv- A tree blessed eight years ago by Pope John Paul II during his visit to the Holy Land was the only one in its plot of land to produce olives this year, a Jewish National Fund official said. "It is a miracle," Yossi Karni from the JNF, which maintains the plot, told local media. During a visit to northern Israel, near the Sea of Galilee, John Paul blessed a tree that was planted on the Mount of Beatitudes, where according to Christian beliefs Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount. Karni noted that all the trees on the...

Murky Italian olive oil to be pored over By Malcolm Moore in Rome Last Updated: 12:44am BST 07/05/2007 The secretive world of Italian olive oil will be laid bare after the government insisted that every bottle should show where it comes from. Large olive oil brands, such as Filippo Berio and Bertolli, have long cultivated the image that its oil comes from rustic, rolling groves in the Italian countryside. Instead, it often arrives in Italy in tanker trucks from destinations as diverse as Tunisia, Turkey, Greece and Spain. advertisement According to EU laws, foreign oil can be sold as Italian...

300 now report illness after eating at Indianapolis Olive Garden By CAROL DRUGA Associated Press Writer Published December 15, 2006, 2:44 PM CST INDIANAPOLIS -- More than 300 people say they became ill, and at least three have been hospitalized, after eating at an Olive Garden restaurant last weekend, health officials said Friday. The restaurant on Indianapolis' north side was closed temporarily while health officials and the company investigate what caused customers to complain of nausea, vomiting, fever and diarrhea, a company spokesman said. Steve Coe, a spokesman for the Orlando, Fla.-based chain of Italian restaurants, said health officials are...

A bill aimed at tackling water-thirsty tamarisk cleared a major hurdle Tuesday, passing the U.S. House of Representatives. Tamarisk, the fluffy plant with lavender blooms, is also known as salt cedar and has invaded stream banks throughout the American West. It drinks enough water annually to supply 20 million people, according to some estimates. The Salt Cedar and Russian Olive Control Demonstration Act would provide $80 million over the next five years to assess the extent of the plants’ infestation and offer solutions. It is estimated the tamarisk plant and Russian olive trees, both of which are nonnative species, occupy...

Reid Offers Olive Branch on Bush Nominee By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 25 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid on Monday offered the Democrats' support for one of President Bush's judicial nominees, former Senate lawyer Thomas Griffith, as a goodwill gesture in the confrontation over banning judicial filibusters. "Let's take a step away from the precipice," Reid said. "Let's try cooperation, rather than confrontation, which seems to be the hallmark of what we've been doing here lately." The offer came as President Bush and Senate Republicans renewed their pressure on Democrats to stop...