Free Republic

<p>There is a pic of Evita and Lurch under the headline, which currently is unclickable. More news to follow, I would gather.</p>

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lit the fuse on his promise to blow up the boxes of state government with the release last week of the massive, 2,500-page California Performance Review report. Many Sacramento insiders, including legislators and advocacy groups opposed to the reforms, are already frantically trying to stamp out that fuse. They say it won't work, reforms can't be made. Others say the report, like so many reports before, will simply end up in the dustbin of failed government reform efforts. But there's a difference this time: Schwarzenegger himself. "Of course there will be the special interests that will be...

A business couple is moving their office from its current location because a neighbour embarrasses their staff by pretending to have sex with a blow-up sheep and pig. Insurance brokers, Patricia and Graham Wadsworth decided to move their office after a judge ruled that the law could not stop the eccentric neighbour Stefan Halan's daily performances at a bedroom window. According to The Sun, Judge Stephen Gullick said at Bradford Crown Court that Halan's behaviour was wholly unacceptable but it did not breach any court order. Graham was upset with the ruling of the court and has described it as...

KHANKALA, 21 February, 2004 (RIA Novosti correspondent) - In Ingushetia (Russia's autonomous republic in the North Caucasus), two militants blew themselves up during a shootout with police officers, a source in the Russian Interior Ministry's provisional press centre in the North Caucasus said on Saturday. "On Friday afternoon, police officers carrying out a special anti-terror operation in Nazran (Ingushetia's capital city) were shot at by armed men driving past in a Zhiguli car," the source told RIA Novosti. As a result, he added, one of the police officers was wounded. The police chased the attackers and soon spotted one of...

<p>Washington, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, who endorsed Howard Dean in his bid for the presidential nomination, said Thursday that Dean hurt his chances with his arm-swinging speech in Des Moines following his third-place caucus finish.</p> <p>Harkin, a Democrat, also criticized the former Vermont governor's advertising in the last days before the caucuses. He praised rivals John Kerry and John Edwards for running "great" campaigns in Iowa, and said Dean needs to bring his wife on the campaign trail more.</p>