Free Republic

New St. Louis Hiking Club 'Fat Stoner Babes' Welcomes the UnathleticOn May 11, Amber Strautkalns put out a call on Reddit. As a mom of three, Strautkalns sought an inclusive group of like-minded introverts she could enjoy the outdoors with. The only groups she could find were helmed by fitness junkies with washboard abs. “Fat stoner babes hiking club??” She wrote. “Where do I find them? Or do I need to create?!?!” Strautkalns answered her own question two days later after an outpouring of people said they wanted the same thing. She designed a graphic and posted it on social...

Ford Motor Company Employees have asked the company’s leadership to stop making and selling police vehicles. According to Verge, the internal discussion came as the demands for racial justice raged across the country. In response, Ford CEO Jim Hackett has told employees in a letter that he doesn’t think it’s “controversial that the Ford Police Interceptor helps officers do their job” and that Ford will continue the business. Ford has the market when it comes to making police cars, accounting for two-thirds of the cop cars on the street. Despite Ford’s success in the police car market, employees, including black...

For those of us living in cities, the memories of the 2007 economic crash are a distant memory. But for our neighbors in rural counties, the ghosts of the depression are still haunting vacant towns where farming and manufacturing used to thrive. According to the Economic Research Service arm of the USDA, rural and metro employment equalized in the early part of 2008 before bottoming out, but while metro employment has more than recovered, rural employment has yet to achieve parity with its pre-crash levels. Farmers are suffering especially hard, and many are having to find supplemental work off the...

Users of cannabis, cocaine and heroin are victims of discrimination and should no longer be called druggies or junkies, an international drug legalisation pressure group declared yesterday. It called for an end to negative language for drug users and their habits in order to ensure their human rights are respected. As part of the drive to persuade people to think differently about drugs, the words addict and even drug user must be thrown out, a report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy said. It urged newspapers and broadcasters to encourage more positive attitudes by calling a drug user a...

The Clay County Sheriff's Office said that there's nothing they can do. Orange Park, FL - Attention is being drawn to an unknown man or men who have been holding "Kill A Cop" signs in Orange Park. The signs are being held by the men near schools, and one witness is concerned, according to WJAX. Janice Gibson said she saw the man with the sign at the corner of Moody Avenue and Filmore Street on Monday, Dec. 18, and she took photos of the man. “People need to know about this. Its in my back yard. To me that’s not...

At first glance, it looked like Greg Perdue was stretching. The 58-year-old sat cross-legged on the matted wall-to-wall carpet in his Aberdeen, Maryland, apartment, a head of shaggy, graying hair bent toward his knees. But when medical examiners gingerly turned him over, they found his bloated face was a deep purple, his nose and mustache covered with crusted blood. Next to a pack of cigarettes on the kitchen table were three clear pill capsules: two empty, one containing an off-white powder that was later identified as heroin. After being prescribed painkillers to treat a work injury, he started snorting heroin...

Outrage as toy company creates 'crystal meth lab' for children with Breaking Bad play sets • 500-part set has all the drugs paraphernalia used in hit American series • Lego refused to sanction or endorse the toy, which was made by independent company Citizen Brick • Twitter users blasted £160 toy as an inappropriate plaything Children can now build their own drug dens with a shocking new play kit inspired by TV show Breaking Bad. The sell-out £160 kit, branded 'SuperLab', lets any child or adult recreate Walter White's notorious crystal meth lab. Complete with protective masks, drug paraphernalia, figurines...

Forty-odd (exceedingly odd, I might add) years ago, who would have envisioned a national war against drugs? Nobody took drugs -- nobody you knew, nobody but jazz musicians and funny foreign folk. Then, after a while, it came to seem that everybody did. Drugs became a new front in the war on an old social culture that was taking hard licks aplenty in those days. I still don't understand why people take drugs. Can't they just pour themselves a nice shot of bourbon? On the other hand, as Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy argue, in a lucid piece...

Joseph Frederick, a student rebel halfway through his senior year of high school, tried the patience of his principal when he displayed a drug-referenced sign reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" at a public parade in Juneau, Alaska, in 2002

The story of this nation has been collectively written by the immigrant pen. Titled “The American Dream,” this wildly successful and popular tale is about to gain a new author. Yet instead of simply writing the next verse, this wave of immigrant authors seems intent on starting a new book. There is no longer satisfaction with building for the future; an entitlement culture has grown. This contemporary tale is to be authored by illegal immigrants, but the pen, paper, and publishing are paid for by the American taxpayer. Not offended yet? Soon. When reading this piece, remember that the term...

Snowman shirt gets cold reception in school York Suburban bans item, citing drug culture link HEIDI BERNHARD-BUBB The York Dispatch Unlike Frosty, the snowman on one of this year's most popular T-shirts has nothing to do with Christmas. In fact, Mix Unit, a Connecticut-based retailer that sells the shirt, warns: "This snowman is definitely not for children." York Suburban school officials agree. The shirt, which features a simple drawing of a snowman with a threatening grimace, has been banned from York Suburban Middle School because administrators say it is symbolic of drug culture. The image was popularized last summer by...

For those of you interested in late 60s-early 70s-era rock, I just watched the "Cream" Reunion Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Wow. Can those guys still play. Ginger Baker is 60 or older. Jack Bruce nearly died of, I think, a kidney disease. While some of the tunes may have lacked their electricity (no pun intended) of 30 years ago, it was a joy to hear "White Room," "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Badge," "Toad," and, of course, "Sunshine of Your Love." If you didn't already know it, Eric Clapton is simply one of the three or four greatest...

At 14, Justine Maxwell discovered Montrose and threw herself headlong into its unconventional, artistic underground. Though she came from the very representation of suburbia -- a two-story house in the Champions West subdivision with two parents, older siblings and pets -- and grew up with every creature comfort imaginable, a stint at summer camp changed everything. There, Maxwell met some street-savvy girls who showed her how to ride the bus and introduced her to the Montrose way of life. Everything about the famously eclectic neighborhood appealed to her -- the street kids who answered to no one, the wild hair...

Police Raid 'Head Shop' Thanks To New Law Prosecutor Says He Will Run Shops Out Of County POSTED: 10:29 p.m. CDT May 7, 2003 UPDATED: 10:52 p.m. CDT May 7, 2003 BELTON, Mo. -- Cass County prosecutor Chris Koster is cracking down on so-called "head shops" in his jurisdiction thanks to a new provision in a state law. Head shops are stores that sell types of pipes often used to smoke drugs, KMBC's Martin Augustine reported. Until recently, head shop owners had legal protection because it was assumed that tobacco could also be smoked in those pipes. But now,...