Free Republic

PERRIS - Gov. Schwarzenegger hopes to increase the state education budget by 6 percent to $61.5 billion, the largest amount given to schools at any time in history, his staff said Wednesday during a visit to the Inland area. But some local educators say it won't be enough -- even if the Republican governor's budget is passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature. Schwarzenegger's representative, Scott Himelstein, met with an invited group of educators, school administrators and community leaders at Val Verde Union School District office in Perris to discuss the education budget. Himelstein will become deputy secretary of education and chief...

WASHINGTON - The public's image of the Supreme Court has eroded over the past few years, with just over half of those in a new poll saying they have a favorable view of the high court. With major changes expected as aging justices leave the bench, 57 percent of people had a favorable view of the court in the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, who is 56, is under the age of 65. Nominations of new justices are likely in the coming months and years. For more than a...

NEW YORK Public trust in newspapers and television news continued to decline in Gallup's annual survey of "public confidence in major institutions" in the United States, reaching an all-time low this year. Those having a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers dipped from 30% to 28% in one year, the same total for television. The previous low for newspapers was 29% in 1994. Since 2000, confidence in newspapers has declined from 37% to 28%, and TV from 36% to 28%, according to the poll. However, some other institutions fared far worse this year, suggesting a broad...

Big electricity producer Calpine Corp. said it asked the New York Stock Exchange to investigate trading of its stock and "reckless and unfounded rumors" about its finances that have circled the company the past two weeks, pushing its stock down 35%. Calpine sought to reassure investors on Friday that is able to meet its obligations. The company said it will report first-quarter earnings Thursday that will be in line with earlier projections. Specifically, it said it will report a loss of 38 cents a share for the quarter and expects a loss of 80 cents to 90 cents a share...

A bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference in a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Jeremy Stribling said that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with nonsensical text, charts and diagrams. The trio submitted two of the randomly assembled papers to the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13 in Orlando, Florida. To their surprise, one of the papers -...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An elderly motorist was killed Wednesday when a large pine tree fell on top of his car on a San Fernando Valley street, the Fire Department said. The accident occurred as the man drove south on Reseda Boulevard in Tarzana. The tree trunk crushed the roof of the victim's SUV. What caused the tree to fall was unknown. Witness Mel Harrison told KABC-TV he heard a crack and saw the tree coming down.

Dollar Falls to Record Low Against Euro 2 hours, 39 minutes ago NEW YORK (Reuters) - The euro hit a record high against the dollar above $1.2927 on Friday as the beleaguered U.S. currency weakened across the board in technically driven trading.

Stunned Dems, jubilant GOP look for lessons By Peter Savodnik November 4, 2004 Americans want gutsy, unwavering leadership on the war on terrorism, judges who won’t make laws, energy independence and a government that cuts taxes and spends less of their money. Above all, they want a president and a Congress that will lead the world and not be led by world opinion. Those were some of the lessons an emboldened Republican Party took away from Tuesday night’s election results, as the GOP held on to the White House for another four years and padded its House and Senate majorities....

Joe Falls' influence went beyond his columns By MARK TOMASIK August 17, 2004 Joe Falls, a retired sports columnist for The Detroit News, died last week. We didn't know one another, but I'll never forget him. He was a major influence in my life. When I was a teenager in the early 1970s, it was a pleasure to get The Sporting News in the mail every week. There was no ESPN, no Internet, no USA Today. The Sporting News was the best way to get the inside information on national sports. It was a magazine that looked and read like...

Californians were in denial for many years about the deterioration of their state and local governments, but no reasonable person can now deny that the state is afflicted with a massive crisis of governance at all levels - one that has become, in fact, official dogma. The opening passages of a voluminous report by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Performance Review Commission are devoted to a diagnosis of the state's governmental ills, citing a "chaotic and cumbersome" organizational structure, "outdated and ineffective" management systems, useless but costly programs, outmoded technology and other maladies. Alas, the too-wordy report itself is a disappointment,...

Hall of Fame writer Falls dies at 76 By Jason Beck / MLB.com OAKLAND -- Longtime Detroit sportswriter and columnist Joe Falls, who was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame two years ago for nearly six decades of covering the game, passed away Wednesday at age 76. Falls died from heart failure. His passing cast a somber mood on many places around the Detroit sports scene, including the Tigers clubhouse at Network Associates Coliseum on Thursday morning. "It's sad to see," manager Alan Trammell said. "Certainly his reputation, not just in Detroit but nationally, is one of a Hall...

Legislators seek changes to Endangered Species Act KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) - A House subcommittee looking for ways to change the Endangered Species Act came to the Klamath Basin on Saturday, where irrigation water was cut off to 1,400 farms in 2001 to conserve water for threatened and endangered fish. "In 30 years, only seven species of 1,300 listed have been recovered, and those are mainly due to other conservation laws," said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power. "At the same time, communities across the West are stopped cold in their tracks...

Opening Prayer Mary, my Mother, you were the first to live the Way of the Cross.You felt every pain and every humiliation. You were unafraid of the ridicule heaped upon you by the crowds. Your eyes were ever on Jesus and His Pain. Is that the secret of your miraculous strength? How did your loving heart bear such a burden and such a weight? As you watched Himstumble and fall, were you tortured by the memory of all the yesterdays-His birth, His hidden life and His ministry?You were so desirous of everyone loving Him. What a heartache it wasto see...

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) -- An inmate found himself before a judge sooner than he expected when he fell through the courthouse ceiling into the judge's chambers while trying to escape, police said. Ben N. Rogozensky, 31, was one of about a dozen inmates awaiting hearings Monday when he was taken to the empty jury room to speak with his attorney. The inmate asked to go into the adjacent restroom and from there climbed into the ceiling crawl space, DeKalb County sheriff's spokeswoman Mikki Jones said. State Court Judge J. Antonio DelCampo was in the courtroom when the barefoot Rogozensky fell...

Chinese acrobat Adily, a five time Guinness world record holder, plans to walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls, state press reported on Friday. The 32-year-old member of the Turkic-speaking Uighur minority said he would leave for Canada on September 13 to survey the site, the Xinhua news agency said. "After I see around the Niagara Falls, I will decide where to walk across. If nothing unexpected happens, I will walk across the Niagara Falls next May," said Adily. Toronto high wire walker Jay Cochrane has already succeeded in walking the falls but Adily said he would better the feat, although...

THE charred body of a 22-year-old man who died while trying to get a photo of an erupting volcano on France's Indian Ocean island of Reunion was recovered today after a difficult high-altitude operation, police said. Alexandre Thiault, a student from the island's capital of Saint-Denis, was killed late yesterday after the cooled lava he was standing on crumbled away and he fell into a crack on the side of the Piton de la Fournaise volcano. Firemen who extracted his body today said the Frenchman probably died of asphyxiation from the poisonous gases inside. His body was burnt beyond recognition...

<p>Twelve people attending a gospel music convention at the downtown Ramada Inn and Conference Center on Broadway were injured yesterday after the elevator they were riding in fell at least three stories, Metro fire officials and hotel officials said.</p> <p>''It started to come down, and all of a sudden it took off,'' Clifford Robinson, 76, said about what he described as a ''free fall.''</p>

Chirac popularity falls as economic problems return By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris (Filed: 03/05/2003) The political benefits of President Jacques Chirac's diplomatic war with America appear to have reached their expiry date as the latest polls show his domestic popularity dropping sharply from a month ago. At their highest, the polls showed that M Chirac had the confidence of 75 per cent of French voters and more than 85 per cent backed his opposition to war in Iraq. Not since Georges Pompidou had a president received such support. But with the memories of the war fading and social and...

National Post columnist Robert Fulford explains how the war in Iraq marks a turning point in world history. - - - A monstrous bronze version of Saddam Hussein, its elephantine arm outstretched, towered above Paradise Square in the core of Baghdad, one of the hundreds of self-glorifying symbols that he installed in his capital and across the country to tell the world that he was omnipresent as well as all-powerful, the only man of consequence in the Republic of Iraq. It stood there until late yesterday. Then, with Saddam himself still nowhere in sight, the citizens and their liberators, the...

Tue Apr 8, 2:39 PM ET U.S. Army PFC Derek Whitehead, from Moore Haven, Fla., takes down an piece of anti-American artwork from the wall of a presidential palace in Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites) Tuesday, April 8, 2003. The palace was the second that soldiers from A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment had secured in as many days, both lavish buildings heavily damaged by previous Air Force bombing. (AP Photo/John Moore) Tue Apr 8, 3:17 PM ET U.S. Army Pfc. Joshua Butler, from Jackson, Mo., guards a blown-in window after helping secure a presidential palace in...