Free Republic

SACRAMENTO - For the first time since then-private citizen Arnold Schwarzenegger persuaded voters to pass Proposition 49 in 2002, the state will start spending more than $500 million on after-school programs next year. Under Schwarzenegger's proposed 2006-07 budget, the state will spend an additional $428 million on after-school programs under Proposition 49, bringing the total funding for those programs to $550 million. That is new spending required for the first time under Proposition 49 as triggered by an increase in state revenue, although it is not supported by new taxes or other revenue sources. But some critics say the measure...

I've grown up in Oklahoma and went through Boy Scouts (am an Eagle Scout) learning to shoot various types of firearms but haven't even touched one in 5+ years. Now that I'm about to leave college I'm thinking of getting a firearm of some kinda but don't know where to start. What should I be looking at and why?

Make no bones about it: I am a liberal who believes that guns in themselves are not evil. Are you shocked? You shouldn’t be. Some conservatives like to present the cliché counterargument that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people in debates about gun control. However, the question still remains: Exactly what argument do they think they are countering? It is not the “liberal stance” that guns in themselves have the ability to kill people and are evil. In fact, anyone who believes this nonsense, liberal or conservative, is just plain dumb. In fact, I – and most intelligent people...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - As a giant faucet spewed red-colored water in the background, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger touted his plan Wednesday to eliminate the state's red ink and said he wasn't worried about a poll showing his popularity dropping. "Don't be so negative," he told a reporter who asked about a new Field Poll that found 54 percent of Californians approve of his job performance, down from a near-record high of 65 percent in September. "I am very happy with my numbers. As you can see, I am smiling." Schwarzenegger staged the campaign-style event at the state fairgrounds to promote his...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Researchers create tool to automatically search handwritten historical documents Historians and researchers searching through handwritten documents, such as the 140,000 pages that make up George Washington’s personal papers in the Library of Congress, now have a new powerful tool to aid their work – a first-of-its kind manuscript retrieval system developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The search tool has been developed by the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval in the computer science department at UMass Amherst. R. Manmatha, research assistant professor of computer science, along with graduate students Toni Rath and Victor Lavrenko, have created a demonstration of...

OAK CREEK - A gunman killed his girlfriend and another man and wounded two others in a hotel early Friday, at one point spraying the hallways with bullets in this Milwaukee suburb, police said. The 34-year-old man, who was holding a hostage when officers arrived, surrendered to police after about 30 minutes of negotiations and was taken into custody, Police Chief Thomas Bauer said. He did not release the man's name. Bauer said officers were called about 2:30 a.m. to the Comfort Suites, where a man indicated he had killed "some people." The man, who had fired 30 to 40...

The requirement for Florida is that Independent candidates signitures are not required, no wonder McAWFUL was pissed, Nader can easily make the ballot in several of these states. Here are some critical states that it should be easy for FREEPERS to help Ralph get on the ballot Louisiana No signiture requirement pay $500 Fee Tennessee 275 Valid Signitures Arkansas 1,000 Valid Signitures Iowa 1,500 Valid Signitures in 10 Counties Wisconsin 2,000 Valid Signitures New Hampshire 3,000 Signitures, 1,500 in each Congressional District Ohio 5,000 valid signitures Nevada 5,015 valid signitures Arizona 10,000 valid signitures Missouri 10,000 valid signitures West Virginia...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The test results are in, and they confirmed what many in baseball suspected: Some players were taking more than vitamins. Now, Major League Baseball will begin penalizing players for steroid use after learning that more than 5 percent of this year's tests came back positive. Rumors regarding steroids had run high recently as bulked-up sluggers set all sorts of home run records. Stars such as Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa denied taking the drugs. But former MVPs Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti admitted they had done it before their careers ended. ``Hopefully, this will, over time,...

It is the next big thing in vehicle automation: the self-parking car. In a revolutionary development for lazy and skill-deficient drivers, Toyota engineers in Japan have developed a car that can perform a perfect reverse park between two objects. The system will be launched in Japanese showrooms late next month as an optional extra with the second generation Prius petrol-electric hybrid car, which sells for about $40,000. The system took three years to develop and is being touted as a step towards the ultimate in vehicular automation: the self-driving car. The self-parking system uses a rear-mounted camera and a computer...

Diane Feinstein today announced she will vote "NO" for recall and will NOT vote for any governor to replace Gray Davis. Feinstein stood with a grinning Gray Davis and challened Arnold Schwarzenegger to support the automatic weapons ban because his "type" of movie promotes the violence and use of such weapons.

Springs Officer Believes AR-15 Fell Out Of Trunk The Colorado Springs Police Department is looking for help to find a semi-automatic weapon that fell out of the back of a police cruiser Tuesday evening. Police believe that the rifle, which was in a black case approximately 3.5 feet by 1 foot by 6 inches, fell out of the trunk of a patrol car when an officer was traveling between two locations. The trunk lid somehow became open when the officer was driving, police said. The route the officer took led him from 3680 Citadel Drive North, to Citadel Drive, to...