Free Republic

California's state workforce is so vast and diverse that a journalist can quickly get into trouble making blanket assertions about it.But not this time.State employees love it, love it, LOVE IT that Controller John Chiang decided a new voter-adopted law prevents him from paying legislators because they missed the June 15 deadline to pass a balanced budget. For the last few years, delayed budgets fired up talk about whether state workers would be paid full wages on time.In 2008 and again last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to hold their pay to the federal minimum wage while deadlocked budget talks...

Over the past couple of decades Generation X has seen plenty of mention among the different branches of the regular mass media. This year however the really big story (at least for fisherfolk east of the Mississippi) is Brood X, which seems to be garnering very little, if any, mention at all, outside of a few rather arcane and scholarly scientific publications. In fact, I just only first learned anything at all about this unique upcoming phenomena a few short days ago. Needing to make a trip down to Ft. Wayne anyhow, I decided to use the opportunity to drop...

The USDA Rural Development Puerto Rico announced Thursday the availability of $31 million in federal funds to aid the economic development of rural communities. This is the first time the Bush administration has assigned funding through the USDA for these types of projects, agency officials said. Of the amounts, $19 million has been set aside for grants to develope essential community facilities in eligible areas "with extreme high unemployment and severe economic depression," said Jose Otero Garcia, state director for USDA Rural Development Puerto Rico. The facilities could be childcare centers offering services not available through the municipal government, the...