Free Republic

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- A Southern California man mowing his lawn fell into his backyard swimming pool with the mower and drowned. Read more: http://www.kcra.com/news/29701529/detail.html#ixzz1d2ZYHPeJ

SAN DIEGO - This seaside city was a bystander as liberal strongholds like San Francisco and Santa Cruz created identification cards for sick patients who use marijuana and wrote regulations to permit storefront pot dispensaries. Now, 10 years after Californians voted to decriminalize marijuana for medical purposes, conservative San Diego County is leading a backlash against the groundbreaking law. The county is challenging California's medical marijuana law in state court, saying it should not be required to comply with a state law directing counties to issue ID cards to users. At the same time, local police, working with federal agents,...

Mother of slain soldier decries 'military and governmental fascism'Fresh from a visit to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, anti-Bush activist Cindy Sheehan is demanding the U.S. military be removed from "occupied New Orleans." In a dispatch on leftist filmmaker Michael Moore's website, Sheehan said she was troubled by the "level of the military presence" in the Gulf Coast state. "George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power," she said. "The only way America will become more secure is if we...

AT least 20 Egyptian policemen were injured today when 1000 Christians staging a sit-in at the main Coptic cathedral in Cairo threw rocks at them. Roads leading to the cathedral, the seat of Pope Shenuda III, head of the Coptic Church, were sealed off, as the police tried to restore calm and restrain a protest over the disappearance of a priest's wife. The protesters claimed the woman was abducted by her Muslim boss and forced to convert to Islam.

— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Countering a basic principle of American anti-drug policies, an independent U.S. study concluded on Monday that marijuana use does not lead teenagers to experiment with hard drugs like heroin or cocaine. The study by the private, nonprofit RAND Drug Policy Research Center rebutted the theory that marijuana acts as a so-called gateway drug to more harmful narcotics, a key argument against legalizing pot in the United States. The researchers did not advocate easing restrictions in marijuana, but questioned the focus on this substance in drug control efforts. Using data from the National Household Survey on Drug...