As some of you might have noticed, SFist has a spiffy new comments system this morning. Look, you can "like" each others' comments now! Currently, comments from the previous six days are being imported into the new system and will be offline for the next day or two. Update: Looks like all the comments are working now! Fortunately, comments from today and moving forward will appear immediately. So, get to it, Commenters! more ›

"In the face of a $42 billion budget shortfall, and still no budget, measures are needed to preserve the State’s cash." And with that begins the official layoff letter sent out to 200,000 state workers on Tuesday, notifying them that they "face layoff, demotion in lieu of layoff, or transfer." Arnold made good on his promise to send word out of impending terminations if a budget agreement wasn't reached on Tuesday. It wasn't; he did. more ›