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My middle son is a (straight) professional actor in a major metropolitan area. He asked me to name my favorite movie fights/action pics of all time. I figured I'd put it to the FReeper community of military, martial arts, movie buffs and various masters of mayhem to help come up with the best of the best.

Politicians, being what they are, tend to have an inflated view of what they can do. Some claim to create jobs while others claim to raise taxes. In truth, they are limited to passing political laws. Once enacted, those laws run into the laws of economics – which have never been repealed and have been largely the same since the beginning of time. The results are often different than those intended – and so it is for Jerry Brown, whose policies fly in the face of economics and Californians are paying the price. Few can doubt the magnitude of the...

Looks like Dodgers fans aren't just dishing out the hooliganism these days. A pregnant woman and her brother, both apparently Dodgers fans, were hospitalized after they were beaten, allegedly by Angels fans, following an exhibition game between L.A. and the Angels at Angels Stadium. A blogger's account of the dust-up described it as a fan-based outbreak of violence that put the woman and her brother in the hospital. The game was March 29. Both victims were released from the hospital within 24 hours, police said. Sgt. Rick Martinez of the Anaheim Police Department downplayed the clash, saying ... ... both...

The Knesset’s Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee held a special discussion on Wednesday on the subject of J Street, the supposedly pro-Israel organization which in fact is sympathetic towards terror groups such as Hamas. “The committee’s conclusion is very loud and clear,” committee chair MK Danny Danon told Israel National News. “You cannot be pro-Israel if you work against the interests of the State of Israel.” Danon noted that “J Street is pro-Palestinian. It’s not a pro-Israeli organization. We told the people who came to the discussion, especially those who came from Washington, that they have to be Zionist...

A drug derived from the curry spice turmeric may be able to help the body repair some of the damage caused in the immediate aftermath of a stroke. Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are preparing to embark on human trials after promising results in rabbits. Their drug reached brain cells and reduced muscle and movement problems. The Stroke Association said it was the "first significant research" suggesting that the compound could aid stroke patients. "This is the first significant research to show that turmeric could be beneficial to stroke patients by encouraging new cells to grow and...

SIERRA VISTA — Although Arizona is the target of people and groups who say the state’s soon-to-be-enacted immigration law is wrong, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer said, “I believe they are getting misinformation.” And, the incorrect information is coming from all levels, including the federal government, the Mexican government and groups who say they are protecting the rights of people who fear Senate Bill 1070 will lead to racial profiling, Brewer said Sunday. “We have a huge population that are illegal,” she said after arriving the Sierra Vista Municipal Airport. Brewer was one of the speakers at the annual Sierra Vista...

The Country Club Plaza area was awash with pepper spray Saturday night as police struggled to disperse a rowdy gathering of hundreds of young people. At least one person was reported with a serious head injury about 11:20 p.m. in the parking lot outside Winstead’s restaurant. It wasn’t immediately clear how the person was injured. The victim was taken to nearby St. Luke’s Hospital. Several dozen police officers spent much of the evening attempting to disperse large crowds — totaling an estimated 500 to 1,000 people — that gathered at various spots in the shopping district. Police at times used...

Tulsa police arrested about half a dozen people today following fights that broke out after the Martin Luther King Jr. parade. Cpl. Scott Anderson said the fights started about 1:30 p.m. after the parade had ended. Anderson said about 20 small fights broke out along Pine Street near Greenwood Avenue. ``We had just large groups of people and some instigators started some fights. It just took awhile to disperse the groups," Anderson said. Mounted patrol from the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office also responded to help police. Anderson said police arrested about half a dozen people. He said despite rumors of...

KENILWORTH -- Biagio Sciscione has trouble walking and usually needs a cane or motorized wheelchair to get around. But when four people tried stealing a safe from his home, the 88-year-old Kenilworth resident said an adrenaline rush propelled him to his feet and into a front-lawn brawl with the alleged thieves. It’s a fight he won. "I ran right out there, I dropped my cane and I just went in action," Sciscione, a World War II veteran and retired butcher, said today.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration argued late Monday that allowing terrorism detainees in Afghanistan to file lawsuits in U.S. courts challenging their detention would endanger the military mission in that country. Although the Pentagon is giving the roughly 600 detainees at Bagram Airfield a new chance to challenge their detentions, the Obama administration stuck with Bush administration policy in a court filing Monday night that said the Bagram detainees' rights shouldn't extend as far as U.S. courtrooms. In a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, the Justice Department said Bagram detainees should not be given equal...

A Texas high school used cage fights to settle disputes among problem students, internal investigation documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News allege. The principal and other staff at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas repeatedly put students in a steel utility cage located in a section of the boys basketball locker room to battle it out — with their bare fists and without head protection, the documents show. A 2008 investigation within the Dallas school district's Office of Professional Responsibility found that then-principal Donald Moten and other school officials "knew of the practice, allowed it to go on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8K7roZu3WU

2 guys who are wooping on each other using computer keyboards...

Feuding Democrats have handed Senator John McCain the gift of time. How well he uses it may determine his chance to beat them in November. At the moment, Republicans can savor protracted warfare between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. As the Democratic rivals trade attacks, Mr. McCain, already the presumptive Republican nominee, has crept ahead of both in national polls. Yet Mr. McCain’s advisers recognize their long-term challenges in a remarkably threatening political environment. Voters remain weary of the Iraq war, worried about the economy and disenchanted with the lame-duck Republican president.

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the luxury of being polite along with the Iowa caucuses. On the ropes after a third-place finish, Clinton is coming out swinging against new Democratic front-runner Barack Obama with a vigor she hasn't shown before in the contest she used to lead. She says she is the candidate who deserves the mantle of change, not this newcomer Obama. Sunday morning, with the New Hampshire primary in sight, she told supporters here, "There's a big difference between talking and acting, between promising and performing. Over the next three days, I'm going to be making...

<p>The summer I turned 6 years old, some of the neighborhood boys started bullying me. Back then, I owned a pair of cabbage patch kid roller-skates and my favorite activity was skating around the block singing nursery rhymes at the top of my lungs. One day, a few boys in the 8-10 range thought it would be pretty humorous to push me around and watch me flail. I tried to run from them, but I couldn’t skate faster than they could run. They taunted me for a while and then knocked me down. Angry, humiliated, and with two freshly skinned knees, I did what any 6 year old girl would do in my position.</p>

In an unusual use of political resources in the first year of his new term as governor, Tim Pawlenty's campaign committee has released a new radio ad decrying DFL tax-increase proposals in the Legislature. The ad, which is airing statewide, is fueling the now-customary speculation about Republican Pawlenty's ambitions and is a sign of the intensifying policy battles in St. Paul. DFLers, including Senate leaders taking advantage of the Legislature's Easter-week recess to travel on a statewide marketing tour to promote their tax plan, criticized the ad as inaccurate posturing that divides rather than mediates. The spot will run for...

HARLINGEN, Texas - Asked by a federal judge why she sold her birth certificate, Rosie Medellin said she needed a few bucks and didn't really think it through. Bobby Joe Flores said he sold his ID documents to buy drugs. Margarita Moya and her son did it to raise money for medicine for a loved one. Their documents were destined for illegal immigrants. In all, seven defendants pleaded guilty in Corpus Christi this past week to charges of selling their birth certificates and Social Security cards for $100 each. Seven other defendants pleaded guilty to buying or reselling those documents...

DALLAS - Texas' largest Baptist group is taking a rare step into environmental advocacy, working to block Gov. Rick Perry's plan to speed the approval process for 18 new coal-fired power plants. The Christian Life Commission, the public policy arm of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, is mobilizing Baptists against the coal-fired plants and urging the convention's 2.3 million members to voice their opposition to state lawmakers. "A lot of people felt like our industries, our policy leaders, are going to take care of these big issues like air quality, (and) it's not going to be something our local...

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C., Oct. 6, 2006 — Growing up in a military household, Thomas Green, gained an early understanding of what the red, white and blue meant to not only himself and his family, but to everyone who served in the United States military. The former military dependent now walks full stride amongst his brothers-in-arms within the Corps. Lance Cpl. Thomas Green, a heavy equipment operator with Transportation Support Company, 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward), has led many walks of life, from England to numerous locations within the states, which ultimately led him here. “I guess you could say I...