Free Republic

In a purely political sense, Gov. Jerry Brown wants to eliminate local redevelopment agencies and shift much of their tax money to other services for the same reason that legendary bandit Willie Sutton reputedly robbed banks – "because that's where the money is." Brown wants to recapture a third of the $5 billion-plus that more than 400 redevelopment agencies skim off the top of the property tax pot each year. He also wants to eliminate local "enterprise zones" and their tax breaks, and tap into a special fund, financed by surtaxes on high-income taxpayers, that pays for mental health services,...

House Democrats have been taunting Republicans to come up with concrete budget cuts ever since the GOP rode to victory last November on a platform of reducing spending. Now, the GOP leadership has proposed an impressive $35 billion down payment on reducing spending for the remaining eight months of the current fiscal year. But don't expect any applause from the Democratic side of the aisle. House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., offered the cuts from non-Defense discretionary programs. They include hefty slices out of the budgets for education, environmental programs, food for poor women and children -- all sacred cows...

The half-dozen contestants, 20-something aspiring artists all, enter the famous Phillips de Pury art auction house. Mr. de Pury himself ushers them into the special room where they are presented with a collection of paintings by Andres Serrano, the man who came to fame in 1989 with the ghastly painting, sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts, depicting a crucifix dunked in a jar of urine. They are hugely impressed. The final painting they are shown is just that -- the original "Piss Christ." They are in awe, quietly expressing their amazement at the talent. And then the door...

As the fiscal travails of California's state and local governments grow more acute, hitherto sacrosanct – or ignored – governmental sectors have found themselves under intensifying scrutiny. An obvious example is the array of state and local government pension funds. Those funds have been losing money in stocks, property and other investments, reducing their actuarial soundness and demanding higher payments from public budgets that are already leaking red ink. A recent Stanford University study, for instance, said that three big state pension funds may be a half-trillion dollars underwater. The mind-boggling pension numbers, in turn, have ignited much media interest,...

Slowly Strangling America's Golden Goose© 2006 J. Marvin HerndonTransdyne Corporation   Imagine: You wake up tomorrow and find that America’s judicial system has changed. Now, prosecutors can present secret witness testimony and only provide their own brief excerpts or summaries to the defense; judges are no longer independent, they have been replaced by the prosecutor’s boss. Your first thought, “Now, we will get much needed criminal convictions.” Then, “Ohmygosh! Are we in deep yogurt! We have seen all that before, in the Spanish Inquisition and in virtually every totalitarian regime on Earth, so we know what will happen. Soon...

Cows flee after seeing McDonald's The Associated Press WEST HAVEN, Utah --McDonald's? The burger joint? Stampede! Eight cows escaped from a trailer when the rear gate opened as the driver pulled into a McDonald's. It took about two hours to round them up Monday. "Maybe they were going to ... hop in the freezer, save the middleman," Weber County sheriff's Sgt. Dave Creager said. Lt. Kevin Burns had another theory: "They didn't like their future." The roundup was called "Operation Hamburger Helper." A nearby resident even hopped on his horse. "I thought my eyes were lying," said Wayne Sanders, who...

This is satire. If you have a problem with satire, STOP READING NOW. If you have a problem with literacy, i.e. you can't read, I'd tell you to STOP READING NOW but I doubt you'd understand me. ============================ Shutdown Season: Willow Creek Community Church Will Close its Doors for the Summer   SOUTH BARRINGTON, IL – In perhaps the most extreme example to date of churches halting ministries during the traditionally slower summer months, Willow Creek Community Church – one of America's prototypical mega-churches – has decided to close its doors until after Labor Day. "The church leadership took a...

If you are Hindu and believe cows are especially holy, should you be able to have cows on your property? How about if that property is a house and yard on Main Street in a rural village? "In this circumstance, it's ridiculous not to allow animals," says Linda Voith of the Allegany County Village of Angelica. She and her husband Stephen practice the Hindu religion and believe it is their right to keep cows on their property and in their house. For several years, they boarded six cows at a nearby beef farm but occasionally brought them to their home...

A year ago, the Bharatiya Janata party in power, the economy was 'shining', the stock market was soaring to new heights, the global economic environment was benign, animal spirits were back in businessmen, inflation was low, and things were on a roll. Now, as 2004 winds down, it is more of the same -- other than the Congress replacing the Bharatiya Janata Party. This is unusual; India has not had good years in succession since the mid-1990s. In fact, the story has only got better. Growth has been sustained despite the double-whammy of a below-normal monsoon and record oil prices....

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The story of Rosa Parks won two NAACP Image Awards on Saturday, although the civil rights pioneer shunned the event over its nominations for the film "Barbershop," which features a character making unflattering jokes about her and other black leaders. CBS' "The Rosa Parks Story" won both its nominations: best TV movie and best TV movie actress for Angela Bassett, who starred as Parks. "(Parks) wants to thank the NAACP for lifting her up. She wants to thank all of you for loving her," executive producer Willis Edwards, a friend of Parks, said onstage on her...

Liberal Social Fictions By Robert Locke FrontPageMagazine.com | July 24, 2002 There are a number of liberal social fictions that we all agree to believe in, or pretend to, because ... well, because everyone else does, and because the smooth functioning of liberal society requires it. Let’s pop a few.One of the worst sins in the PC calendar is "treating someone like a sex object." But it seems to me that this is entirely appropriate, given that human beings are sex objects. I mean, we are neither disembodied souls nor neuter, which is what it would actually mean for us...