Free Republic

Venezuela's largest privately-owned beer company has stopped producing beer after running out of malted barley (or, more specifically, running out of foreign currency with which to buy malted barley). The company, Empresas Polar, stopped production yesterday—it warned last week that it would run out of malted barley by then. Polar is putting "your drunk uncle's favorite political forecast to the test," Francisco Toro of the Caracas Chronicles wrote. "You know the one I'm talking about, right? That one uncle of yours who gets drunk at every family gathering and starts to rant about how the only way we're going to...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Christmas may not be quite so merry in California's prisons this year. Orange, raisins and sugar have been banned for inmates in a bid to crack down on brews of that old and potent alcoholic prison brew known as pruno. "Pruno has always been there. Inmates make it up for holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, whatever. Just like everybody lays in wine and champagne and spirits for the holidays, inmates too want to prepare themselves for the holidays," said California Department of Corrections spokeswoman Margot Bach. "The problem is that pruno is tied into assaults. They get...