Free Republic

Before Coming To America, Winstead's Owner Nabil Haddad Was Baghdad's Burger Tycoon"'In America,' he told me, 'In America, we sell hamburgers.'" But Nabil Haddad didn't have a clue what a hamburger was. It was 1958, and Haddad was looking for a job. Earlier that year, tensions started escalating between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon. Haddad's father sent him to Baghdad, Iraq, for refuge. Seven days after Haddad arrived, the Iraqi Revolution broke out. "There was a lot of killing, dragging colonels and generals in the streets naked ... It was atrocious," Haddad says. Haddad immediately lost the job he had...

FURIOUS Muslims have blasted adult shop Ann Summers for selling a blow-up male doll called MUSTAFA SHAG. They complained that the novelty sex toy insults the Prophet Muhammad — who also has the title al-Mustafa. The High Street chain’s jokey £15 mustachioed doll has a 7in manhood and is targeted at hen parties. But the Muslim Association — based at Manchester’s Central Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre — branded him “obnoxious”. Yesterday a spokesman said: “This is the name of our Prophet and it’s very upsetting. This thing should be banned.” In a letter to the store, the Association said:...

Robert N. Serros was one of those entrepreneurs who see opportunity everywhere but take a long time to grasp it. They are the people who plunge into one money-making venture after another, never quite hitting their stride until, at long last, inspiration strikes and everything falls into place. For Mr. Serros, 37, who today presides over Amber Diagnostics, an $8 million company in Orlando, Fla., it took years and goading from his wife before the light bulb came on. The important thing is that the entrepreneurial urge to run his own show was in his bones. In high school, he...