Free Republic

SACRAMENTO — With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's historic furlough of more than 200,000 state employees set to begin Friday , a major labor union warned that the state is ill-prepared to handle the work stoppage. Leaders of SEIU Local 1000, which represents at least 80,000 employees being furloughed, reviewed dozens of memos directed to state workers by management this week and concluded the directives are rife with "chaos and contradictory information." "There's mass confusion," union President Yvonne Walker said, adding that many employees late Thursday didn't know if they should show up for work Friday because they were unsure if their...

WASHINGTON - The news from Iraq and other national headlines may be grim, but in Greenville, N.C., John Given has a new baby and his first home, and life is good. So, too, for Sandra Trowbridge in tiny Magnet Cove, Ark. The situation in Iraq makes her feel pessimistic about the state of the nation, but at home, at least, all is well. Even if nothing special has happened to her family, she says, "we still love each other," and that's enough. And so it goes for most Americans. An AP-AOL News Poll finds that while most Americans said 2006...

<p>For years, a citizen who wanted to know the name and phone number of a Pentagon official could buy a copy of the Defense Department directory at a government printing office. But since 2001, the directory has been stamped ''For Official Use Only," meaning the public may not have access to such basic information about the vast military bureaucracy.</p>

Chaos reigns as armed looters steal drugs in Nasiriyah By Philip Smucker (Filed: 04/04/2003) It did not take long for the looters to appear. Just hours after US marines left the hospital in Nasiriyah following their dramatic raid to rescue Pte Jessica Lynch, the wards were under attack yesterday by 20 men in long gowns and head scarves, carrying grenades and machineguns. Hospital workers said the men rampaged through the wards stealing drugs and generators as terrified patients on all floors fled. If Nasiriyah is the future of "liberated Iraq", the anarchic scenes in the municipal buildings and streets of...