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November 11 could be the final Veterans Day for many of the World War II vets, now well into their 90s. Filmmaker Mel Brooks, 98, is one of them. Actor, comedian, composer and filmmaker Mel Brooks was born Melvin James Kaminsky in 1926. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1944, he was drafted into the Army. Due to his high scores on his military entrance exam, Brooks was placed in the Army Specialized Training Program at Virginia Military Institute, where he learned combat engineering and other fighting skills. Twelve weeks later, he was sent to basic training at...

Steven Spielberg probably didn’t realize it at the time, but he dodged a bullet when he rejected the idea of casting Mel Gibson to star in his Oscar-winning 1993 film “Schindler’s List.” Turning down Gibson wouldn’t have been easy, even for Spielberg. In the early 1990s, Gibson was a major star, coming off the box office success of his first three “Lethal Weapon” movies and with plans to soon direct his Oscar-winning film “Braveheart.” “Mel Gibson’s name came up” for the role of Oskar Schindler, according to CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz. Schindler was the real-life German businessman who saved more...

I'm getting tired of this crap of his. Who will it be? Any familiar house member will be too afraid like the rest of them. A no name protest candidate means the seat is gone. Trump will be on the ballot which should help. As for Tillis He could have waited until his 2nd term to start playing games but like Mr. Flake he seems to be afraid of those he needs to stand up to-just like the fictional house member that needs to step up. Hickenlooper(Co.) will run for Gardner's seat once he realizes going for POTUS will leave...

The trailer for Gibson's new film, The Beaver, received its premiere on US television this weekend, amid doubts that it would be the ideal role to kick-start the actor's rehabilitation. Gibson plays Walter Black, a lonely man who is depressed after being abandoned by his family. He begins communicating through the puppet, which he gives a personality and a British accent. The film was directed by Jodie Foster, who co-stars as Gibson's wife Meredith. It is rumoured to be surprisingly good, despite its inauspicious premise.

Disgraced Hollywood actor Mel Gibson is planning a move to Australia with his soon-to-be ex-wife, the Daily Telegraph reported Sunday. Gibson, who is facing allegations that he beat his former girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, during a dispute last January, has reportedly sold one of his homes in the U.S. The actor sold his New York estate, Old Mill Farm, for $28 million, according to the newspaper. He also reportedly put his Malibu, Calif., home on the market for $17 million. The newspaper also reported that Gibson plans to relocate to Australia with his estranged wife, Robyn, who defended the actor in...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez is becoming a banker. Martinez, who resigned from the U.S. Senate last September, was named Monday as chairman of JPMorgan Chase Bank's Florida market and its operations in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. As JPMorgan Chase Bank's senior Florida executive, Martinez will also serve on Chase's corporate executive committee and work with senior level clients ranging from businesses to large corporations and non-profits to governments. The 63-year-old Martinez will be based in Orlando. Chase Bank is the sixth-largest bank in Florida based on deposit market share with nearly $11 billion deposited...

I have always thought this was a great site to get great political info. I come here for political/journalistic references. If you are going to make your queries 'Religious,' why not go to the religious talking board. I have been slammed here on what people believe is my perceived religion. These were for comments which didnt mention religion, and didnt have religious overtones. I

MEL MARTINEZ TOWN HALL FROM OBAMA'S E MAIL IN HIALEAH ON TUESDAY SEP.1 AT PALMETTO HOSPITAL Outside of Health Care Forum with Sen. Mel Martinez Where: Palmetto General Hospital Meet at the corner of the hospital that faces the Palmetto Expressway at the NW 122nd St. Exit 2001 W 68 Street Hialeah, FL 33016

Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, who was named general chairman of the Republican Party only nine months ago, has advised associates that he will leave the post as soon as somebody clinches the party's presidential nomination. That probably will come after the Feb. 5 primary elections next year. When Martinez took the party post Jan. 19, it was expected he would stay on through the 2008 elections as the GOP's principal national spokesman. Many Republicans now grumble that Martinez has been ineffective in that role, partly because he has been drowned out by the many presidential hopefuls. Kentucky lawyer Mike...

<p>TMZ has learned Mel Gibson exploded in anger last night on a college campus after an expert on Mayan culture accussed him of racially stereotyping the Mayans in the movie "Apocalypto."</p> <p>It happened last night at Cal State University at Northridge in the San Fernando Valley. Gibson was speaking to a film class about his movies, and several members of the Mayan community came to hear the famous director.</p>

Some descendants of the Maya tribes depicted in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto have denounced the movie as racist and not representative of their ancient culture. In an interview with Reuters, Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation, said, "Gibson replays, in glorious big budget Technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, needed, rescue." Lucio Yaxon, described by Reuters as a 23-year-old Mayan human rights activist, added, "Basically, the director is saying the Mayans are savages." Today's (Thursday) Los Angeles Times noted that...

Release Date: December 8, 2006 Ever since Mel Gibson directed the amazingly successful “The Passion of the Christ,” he has been dogged by questions of whether that film is anti-Semitic in its portrait of Jewish complicity in the death of Christ. He also has been accused of reveling in cinematic violence – an action-movie star who chooses violent roles in front of the camera and violent stories to film as a director. Gibson’s recent outburst after being arrested for drunken driving revealed an ugly streak that emboldened those who believe him to be an anti-Semite. Now, with “Apocalypto,” the filmmaker...

Mel Gibson is sicker than we thought. As his new film "Apocalypto" makes clear, he's not just a drinker and a raving anti-Semite, but a man with a grotesque appetite for human suffering and an enormous talent for exploiting it. There was great violence in "Braveheart," too, but it was cloaked in historical context. And the stripping of Jesus' flesh in "The Passion of the Christ" had the cover of Scripture. But "Apocalypto" exists solely as an action-adventure and a deft cinematic demonstration of man's capacity for cruelty. This is the true passion of Mel. If you can take unflinching...

Let's get right to the point, shall we? About halfway through Mel Gibson's movie "Apocalypto," which opens this week, viewers are treated to a stomach-turning scene of human sacrifice, set in a Mayan city around 1500. It's not revealing too much to say that the movie's hero is captured by a gang of marauders, bound, marched through the jungle, painted blue, and forced to the top of a pyramid where heads roll. In a smaller version of the outrage and skepticism that preceded the opening of "The Passion of the Christ"—is it historically accurate? is it anti-Semitic?—scholars who study the...

'Apocalypto' Is More 'Mad Max' Than Mayan With the subtlety of several thousand flying mallets and arrows, here comes Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto," a two hour plus torture-fest so violent that women and children will be headed to the doors faster than you can say "duck" when the film opens on Dec. 8th. Indeed, 'Apocalypto' is the most violent movie Disney has ever released, with so much blood spurting out of orifices that even Martin Scorsese would blush. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to see heads and hearts removed without anesthesia, then this is the movie for...

Hutton Gibson has been making a three-hour drive each week for the past year from his home in Summersville, W.Va., to rural Westmoreland County, a round trip of more than 300 miles, just to attend Sunday Mass. Now, the 87-year-old Gibson plans to have his own church in Mt. Pleasant Township. The church is St. Michael the Archangel Chapel, now located in a ranch-style brick home along Route 982 South between the villages of Lycippus and Weltytown. Gibson is no ordinary parishioner. Gibson is the father of actor-director Mel Gibson and a follower of an ultraconservative branch of Catholicism that...

A Los Angeles rabbi, who gained attention by inviting Mel Gibson to attend Yom Kippur services at his synagogue to apologize for anti-Semitic statements made during a July 29 arrest for drunk driving, has been rebuffed by the publicist for the actor and director, saying the public nature of the request has been inappropriate. Rabbi David Baron, of Temple of the Arts, this week told TMZ, the entertainment-focused website that first broke the story of Gibson's DUI arrest and anti-Semitic outburst, that Gibson had officially declined an invitation to apologize before his congregation. On Aug. 1, Gibson issued a statement,...

[Quix note: The green bold emphases are in the original. But I'm too tired to code them here or even to pour it through Word to do it. Sorry. I did use some spacing, paragraphing for emphasis on the fly] = = = = = = Lengthy Mel Gibson Codes Presage DUI Incident The May 2004 issue of Bible Code Digest (BCD) featured an article http://www.biblecodedigest.com/page.php/232 [May 2004 original article] describing a 146-letter-long code about Mel Gibson. This astonishing code portrayed him as being guilty of something and of being "rotten." Interwoven codes further described him as hurrying and insulting...

The prosecutor who vigorously pursued the case against conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has been accused of going easy on a wealthy Democrat accused of sex crimes with kids. Billionaire Palm Beach financier Jeffrey Epstein, 53, was indicted last month on a charge of felony solicitation of prostitution. But Palm Beach County Police Chief Michael Reiter wanted Epstein to be charged with the more serious crime of sexual activity with minors. Florida State Attorney Barry Krischer of Palm Beach County rejected that call – even though police believe Epstein regularly brought girls as young as 14 to his mansion for...

Inquiring minds want to know: Did Red Sox TV guys Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy catch some heat from their NESN bosses for letting “Rescue Me” stars Denis Leary and Lenny Clarke go wild in the broadcast booth Tuesday night? The FX funnymen, who were on the air to promote Leary’s Firefighters Foundation, went on a hilarious three-minute rant about Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis, who is Jewish, and Mel Gibson, who checked into rehab after a drunken, anti-Semitic tirade. Although Orsillo and Remy completely lost it, laughing uncontrollably during the boys’ diatribe, at the end of the bit Clarke...