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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)