Free Republic

MEL Gibson once had close links to the Australian League of Rights, a Far Right group notorious for its anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. The league claims the world is run by a secret society of Jews. The Hollywood star's foray into Far Right activist politics in Australia occurred in 1987 when he campaigned for a friend, Rob Taylor, who stood unsuccessfully for the northern Victorian federal seat of Indi. Charles Pinwill, a former Queensland state director of the League of Rights, said he knew Gibson's father, Hutton, and said Gibson was interested in the league's ideas. "They were...

WASHINGTON, July 27, 2006 – Soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team are working to set conditions for the Iraqi government to take charge of essential services and public works within Baghdad. Army Lt. Col. Joe Gandara, commander of Special Troops Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, meets with neighborhood representatives in the Doura Baladiya, in southwestern Baghdad. Local representatives often detail the most pressing needs of their neighborhoods and communities. Photo by Staff Sgt. Brent Williams, USA  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The brigade's Special Troops Battalion has taken the lead in...

Scientists debate role climate change plays in creating civilizations Tuesday, July 04, 2006 BRADLEY T . LEPPER One of archaeology’s "big questions" is explaining the origins of civilization. In anthropology, "civilization" has a technical definition. To qualify as a civilization, a society must have all or most of the following characteristics: cities with large populations; a hierarchical social organization, with a king, pharaoh or president at the top of the organizational chart; an economy based on agriculture; monumental architecture; and a system of record-keeping. The earliest civilizations arose in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley and northern China. Based on this...

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2006 – Josh Gracin, the former Marine who won fame on the TV show "American Idol," performed at the Pentagon for the Army's 231st birthday celebration today. Servicemembers and civilians at the Pentagon enjoy concert by country music star and former Marine Josh Gracin performs at the Army's 231st birthday celebration June 14. Photo by Sgt. Sara Wood, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Gracin was a lance corporal in the Marine Corps when he participated in the second season of "American Idol." He finished fourth place overall, and went on to land a record...

AL ASAD, Iraq (Oct. 18, 2005 ) -- As statues of Saddam Hussein fell across Iraq, he watched from a television, safe in Glendale, Ariz. Then, he volunteered his safety and freedom to serve with the Marines in Iraq and to help bring freedom and democracy to his homeland. Gaby Biroutta, an interpreter with 1st Brigade Service Support Group, has been in Iraq for more than seven months, bridging the crucial communication gap between Marines and the citizens of Iraq. Biroutta, an Assyrian Christian whose family fled Iraq while Saddam’s regime was in power, speaks English, Arabic, Assyrian, Armenic, Kurdish...

Bono incensed as Hillary plays politics at U2 gig By Philip Sherwell in Washington (Filed: 16/10/2005) The Irish rock star, Bono, has been angered by Senator Hillary Clinton's use of a U2 concert this week to raise funds for her political campaign coffers - even though he is a good friend of her husband, Bill. "U2 concerts are categorically not fund-raisers for any politician. They are rock concerts for U2 fans," said his close associate, Jamie Drummond, who runs Data, the Third World advocacy group set up by Bono with Sir Bob Geldof. "If any political fund-raising events take place...

"Great drama is great questions," Arthur Miller wrote, "or it is nothing but technique." He was right, but his counsel had become a lonely one by the second half of his career. In many ways, the American theater has returned to what it was before Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Miller arrived -- light entertainment. Even today's dramas, more often than not, tend to confirm fashionable points of view while pretending to be shocking or politically daring. One thinks of Six Degrees of Separation, among others. Great questions extend beyond place and time, and Miller's greatest play, Death of a...

DENVER — Hell House, the controversial morality play first staged at a suburban church for Halloween, is set to be spoofed in a new stage production in Los Angeles starting Aug. 28. With Bill Maher playing Satan and Andy Richter as Jesus, the production will use the original play's script and special effects "to lampoon (Christian) fundamentalist beliefs about hell," producer Maggie Rowe said Monday. "It will be a parody of itself. It will be very funny. We're having a hoot," said Rowe, who represents the Center for Inquiry-West, which says it promotes and defends reason and science. The original...

When Mel Gibson's film about the death of Jesus, "The Passion of the Christ," opens this month, critics contend that it may spur anti-Jewish bigotry. Those critics have been led by the Anti-Defamation League, arguably America's most prominent Jewish organization. If the ADL is right that the film "could fuel latent anti-Semitism," whom should we hold responsible if any Jews get hurt as a consequence of its release? Mel Gibson, you say? How about the Anti-Defamation League? This film will be seen by lots and lots of people, thanks largely to the controversy around it, and nobody has done more...

CIA plays down hopes of finding Saddam's WMD By George Jones, Political Editor, and Alec Russell in Washington (Filed: 25/09/2003) In its first public comments on the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the CIA conceded last night that a long-awaited report on the hunt would reach "no firm conclusions". The comments appeared to underline diminishing hopes in Washington and Whitehall that WMD would be found. After several months in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, David Kay, a former United Nations weapons inspector and the civilian head of the 1,400-strong Iraq Survey Group, is expected to submit...

<p>More than one in four Californians, nearly 9 million of us, was born in another country.</p> <p>Yet this land of immigrants has never elected an immigrant as governor. Nor can historians recall the last time a major gubernatorial candidate was born in another country.</p>

<p>California has 35 million people, the globe's fifth-or sixth-most-powerful economy, enormous conflicts over water, land use, transportation, education, health care and dozens of other vital social and economic matters -- including, lest we forget, a state budget deficit so huge it almost defies description.</p>