Schwarzenegger thwarted by state payroll still run on Cobol

Paul Boutin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:20:00 EDT

Last week — it's amazing how many tech workers missed it — California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger "terminated" (sigh) 10,000 state employees and cut another 200,000 to the state minimum wage of $6.55 an hour. Democratic state controller John Chiang (Schwarzenegger is a Republican, despite his marriage into the Kennedy family) told the Sacramento Bee that it would take at least six months to reconfigure the state's payroll system to issue blanket checks at minimum wage. The state had hired retired Cobol experts to work part-time on the system. Schwarzenegger fired them last week. Entrepreneurs, start your engines — I smell opportunity! (Cobol code from SimoTime Enterprises)

9,388 in Santa Clara disappointed to learn Edwards no longer running

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:38:15 EST

The top ten employers in California congressional District 15 include Cisco, Stanford, HP, Lockheed Martin, IBM, Intel and Google. Here's a hearty congratulations to the 9,388 of you voted for John Edwards. Good job. Too bad he isn't running for president anymore. Absentee voting by mail, a popular option in California, likely explains their votes. Another 8,104 of you voted for a guy — Mike Huckabee — who thinks Noah coaxed a T-Rex on board the Ark. Next time, if you want to participate in civic affairs, why not spend the afternoon editing Wikipedia? Here's how the rest of Santa Clara County voted, according to the Mercury News.

Democratic primary

113,032 for Clinton (55 percent)
80,946 for Obama (39 percent)
9,388 for Edwards (5 percent)

Republican primary

44,709 for McCain (50 percent)
23,050 for Romney (26 percent)
8,104 for Huckabee (9 percent)
4,643 for Paul (5 percent)

Gawker: valleywag, john

Schwarzenegger thwarted by state payroll still run on Cobol

9,388 in Santa Clara disappointed to learn Edwards no longer running