Free Republic

A recent headline declared "bye bye booty, heroin chic is back," referring to a fashion look in the 1990s and 2000s that glorified women with ultra-thin figures. But the backlash to the headlines from people recalling how this trend harmed their relationships with food and their bodies, shows that plenty of people are not interested in going back. So what really makes a "trend" go in and out of fashion? Professor Sabrina Strings says that while we may have had a few years in which having curves was considered fashionable, the thin ideal has never truly gone "out" of style....

Democrat-controlled Oregon has become the first state to decriminalize hard drugs, including meth, heroin, and cocaine, according to reports. The state's lawmakers passed legislation early on Wednesday morning in a 59-41% vote, according to the Associated Press. The "Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act" seeks to transition Oregon's drug policy from a punitive, criminal approach to "a humane, cost-effective, health approach."

Urban Outfitters Pinpoints Hairroin Salons With Free Hypodermic Pens Urban Outfitters has teamed up with the NYC Hairroin Salon in glamorizing drug use at a time when heroin has devastated the city. Pinpointing Hairroin Salons in their stores that give away free hypodermic needle pens, it’s clear that Urban Outfitters has failed to learn their lesson. After previously pulling shot glasses designed as prescription medication bottles from its shelves after an uproar, the teen-focused store has actually teamed up with a hair salon with the name Hairroin in its latest New York City location. The so-called cutting edge salon glamorizes...

For a magazine that styles itself Reason, it’s surprisingly unreasonable. Nick Gillespie of Reason attacks Truth Revolt’s Ben Shapiro for writing that “Philip Seymour Hoffman['s] self-inflicted death is yet another hallmark of the broken leftist culture that dominates Hollywood, enabling rather than preventing the loss of some of its greatest talents. Libertarianism becomes libertinism without a cultural force pushing back against the penchant for sin; Hollywood has no such cultural force.”It’s a point that’s rather hard to argue with. Freedom opens up the arena for individual character to define how people will use it. Freedom alone is a blank slate...

Supermodel Kate Moss tried to stop military planes bound for Afghanistan from flying over her wedding ceremony and reception, The Sun reported Thursday. Moss, 37 -- who is now honeymooning on a $16 million superyacht -- wanted to get married without the drone of jets from the Royal Air Force's (RAF) Brize Norton base overhead. She asked chiefs at the base near her Little Faringdon, central England, home to divert or postpone their flights -- but was politely refused. HOT SHOTS: Kate Moss A military source said, "RAF Brize Norton is a fully operational wartime air base. Flights from the...

This is disgusting. Or, is there a hidden meaning of which I'm unaware? Because I'm appalled at the message.

She is just out of rehab after a drug scandal which has seen her stripped of some of her most lucrative fashion contracts - but Kate Moss is already gracing magazine covers again. Vanity Fair has taken the plunge and splashed "cocaine Kate" across its front cover. The 31-year-old supermodel is shown in a charcoal Chloe camisole, above a headline questioning: "Kate Moss - can she come back?" And the answer to that seems to be: yes she can, and she probably already has. Merely by putting the supermodel on its front page, the American magazine can expect to see...

Thought for the day If you believe in a truly libertarian society, your only way to success is in working to build a society based upon traditional morality, shame and chastity. Contradictory? Actually, no. Given a little examination, it turns out to be rather obvious; almost self-evidently true. If you want to live in a country where every man supports himself rather than looking to the taxpayer, where crime is rare and so massive police powers, ID cards and DNA databases are superfluous, you will not do so on the back of the destructive policies of social liberalism. Libertarians traditionally...