Free Republic

Being thankful that “Don’t touch my junk” is today’s version of “Give me liberty or give me death.” This Thanksgiving season I am thankful for small pleasures, like being able to order a Mad Happy Ale at Twain’s in Decatur, Georgia, and listen to jazz, bluegrass, and blues musicians jamming on various days of the week.I am thankful that we ended Prohibition. I am thankful that free enterprise is working on a small scale at Twain’s, where musicians gather on their own time and play for tips, where waiters work for tips, where the brewers are free to concoct that...

Sharia Law: Coming Soon to a Courtroom Near YouAn Oklahoma judge rules against the public interest. If you thought only U.S. laws ruled the land, you thought wrong — at least according to a crazy decision recently handed down by a federal judge in Oklahoma. On November 2, Sooner State voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum that directs courts to “rely on federal and state law when deciding cases” and forbids “courts from considering or using international law” or “Sharia law.” Muneer Awad responded by filing suit, and Judge Micki Miles-LaGrange, a Clinton appointee, promptly issued a temporary restraining order, putting...

The House of Wisdom By Jonathan Lyons Bloomsbury / 272 pages / $26 Dust will never gather on Jonathan Lyons' lively new book of medieval history - the opening page of his The House of Wisdom cites a cleric scandalized by the Crusader ladies of Antioch and their penchant for the plunging neckline and the bejeweled merkin. If this is the Middle Ages, thinks the reader, bring it on! But this pleasure gradually gives way to another beguilement, to be found in Lyons' subtitle: "How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization." That phrase suggests a brave viewpoint for a historian nowadays,...

Two Morris County men were so proud of pulling off a UFO hoax that they chronicled it in an online magazine. But the Morris County prosecutor regarded the stunt as a threat to aviation and tonight said he was filing disorderly person charges against Chris Russo, 29, and Joe Rudy, 28. "If there is a single word to describe this ... it is in essence 'stupidity'," Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said at a press conference in Morristown. Bianchi said although there were indictable offenses with which he could have charged the men, he wanted to take a "measured approach" toward the...

I was one of a number of Jewish conservatives who spoke out in defense of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of The Christ. (See "More Power To Mel," published in FrontPageMag.com on February 10, 2004.) For that, I have no regrets. I believed then – and continue to believe – that The Passion is not anti-Semitic. However, based on what followed Gibson’s drunk-driving arrest on Friday, I’m convinced that the actor/director himself is an anti-Semite. According to various news reports, when he was arrested by a sheriff’s deputy in Malibu for DUI, Gibson was enraged. At one point, he reportedly...

July 31, 2006 — Mel Gibson has reportedly sought rehab treatment, three days after he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. "He is in a program of recovery at this time," Gibson's spokesman, Alan Neirob, told Star magazine. The 50-year-old Oscar-winning director and actor was arrested Friday in Los Angeles. Law enforcement officers said they clocked him doing 87 mph in a 45 mph zone. A breath test indicated Gibson's blood-alcohol level was 0.12 percent, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. In California a driver is legally intoxicated at 0.08 percent. While it's not known where Gibson will...