Free Republic

<p>Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson called for a recess last week during a long night of bill debate so that he and fellow caucus members could make their appearances at a health care industry fund-raiser for the Democratic Party, prompting Republicans to take him to task.</p>

<p>The new chairman of the two-house budget committee that will negotiate a legislative budget plan has some unique tools to try to twist arms during his year's talks: burgundy and brie.</p> <p>Sen. Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata, whose home district includes wine-producing Napa and Sonoma counties, has been hosting Wednesday night wine-and-cheese parties to try to "get to know people," as he prepares for his role as legislative budget steward, said spokeswoman Darby Kernan.</p>

<p>It took them nearly a year, but the staff of the state's political watchdog agency has determined that Davis administration officials didn't break mass-mailing rules by flooding state publications with gushing tales of the Democratic governor's greatness during last year's re-election campaign.</p>

Beverly Hills police said they are investigating a complaint that Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin struck a man in the face Monday after the man asked Aldrin to swear on a Bible that he had been to the moon.

<p>Bart Sibrel, a man who claims that man never set foot on the moon, also claims that famous Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin punched him in the jaw on Tuesday in Beverly Hills.</p> <p>There's a small cottage industry of people who, like people who still believe that the earth is flat, or alternatively, that it's round but hollow, live in an alternate reality--one in which NASA was not capable of sending men to our sister orb in the 1960s. Unfortunately, it's not small enough. While just a few percent believe this, according to most polling, that still constitutes millions of people deluding themselves about what many consider the greatest achievement of the 20th century, and perhaps in history to date.</p>

Cannabis poses a greater threat to health than tobacco, lung experts have warned. The warning comes on the day that Home Secretary David Blunkett is due to make a Commons statement about the future of government drug policy. Many young people are simply not aware that smoking cannabis may put them at increased risk of respiratory cancers and infections . Dame Helena Shovelton: The Home Affairs Select Committee has recommended that cannabis is downgraded from a class B drug to class C. This would mean that possession would lead to a caution, rather than arrest. The British Lung Foundation is...