Today’s Sacramento Bee has a very interesting article about a sharp rise in calls to the State Department of Personnel Management asking for grief counseling assistance for state employees dealing with suicides of co-workers.

The Bee writes:

California government departments  in 2009 made 33 requests for “critical incident stress debriefings,” in which counselors meet with employees traumatized by the suicide of a colleague.

In 2008, the state made 14 such calls. In 2007, when the Department of Personnel Administration began tracking the incidents, government departments made 18 requests for such grief counseling.

The data are drawn from such a relatively small population and over such a brief period that it’s impossible to determine any trends, said mental health experts interviewed by The Bee. Identifying a single cause for the kind of hopelessness that leads to suicide can be next to impossible.

But it’s clear, they said, that the state’s unprecedented labor unrest – on-again, off-again furloughs that cut state worker pay nearly 15 percent, fractured labor relations with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, rising public disdain for civil servants – has increased tension for a group of people who tend to value security and predictability in their work.

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Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California lifted his temporary stay of his decision last week that ruled that Prop. 8 was unconstitutional.  The stay will be lifted as of August 18 at 5 pm. Gay and lesbian couples had been lined up since early this morning at City Hall in San Francisco and Santa Cruz in anticipation of the announcement that the temporary stay would be lifted.

Chambers of commerce, event planners, caterers, restaurants, and hotels in California’s most beautiful and beloved locales let out a big sigh of relief at the thought of the money to be spent by gays and their guests at local nuptials.

Right wingers had their talking points lined up since early this morning about how heterosexual marriage will be destroyed by this lifting of the stay by the evil homosekshual San Francisco judge.  A handful of Yes on 8 supporters were outside San Francisco City Hall along with those waiting to get married, and their fashion choices demonstrated how desperately they’re in need of gay assistance.

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No, that’s not the rates paid by Eliot Spitzer and David Vitter for female companionship and diapering, that’s how much Meg Whitman spent on her campaign for California Governor from May 23 to June 30, according to campaign disclosure reports filed with the state on Monday.  That works out to $531,378 spent per day. She’s cranked it up from May when she was only spending $138,828.63 per day.  Whitman has now spent $99.7 million on the race since January 1, 2010.  $91 million of it is her own money.

Attorney General Moonbeam has only spent $377,000 since January 1, 2010.  That’s one fourth of what Whitman has spent on chartered jets and travel for herself, her family, and her staff, and one-twenty-fifth of what she has spent on campaign consultants.

Your Stinque.com breakdown of the data (since there are no “real” reporters left who would do this): Read more »

California Sen. Gloria Romero (D-El Ay), with the backing of an asbestos awareness organization funded by asbestos attorneys, is sponsoring S.B. 624, a bill that would remove serpentine’s designation as California’s state rock.

And geologists, a usually mild-mannered bunch who only get riled up about whether the Hayward or San Andreas Fault is going to rupture first, and if the State Earthquake Map accurately reflects the risk of that fault east of Sandy Eggo sliding another 10 feet, are fighting back.

Geologists rock!

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Stinque’s favorite Israeli-Russian emigre, birther, dentist, and soon-to-be-disbarred member of the California Bar may very well end up winning the GOP primary for California Secretary of State tomorrow.  While she’s only raised $6,000 for her campaign (H/T Bloggie), and there has been no official polling for this race,  straw polls at Tea Party events indicate that the teabaggers are rallying to support Orly Taitz’s campaign against a former professional football player, Damon Dunn, who is the party establishment’s choice.

More than a few party operatives are chewing their fingernails at the thought of another Rand Paul-type upset in a GOP primary.

On the other hand, your West Coast editors at Stinque are overwhelmed with excitement at the thought of four months of covering Meg, Carly, and Orly campaigning across the state. Oooh, and what if Talibunny joins them on the campaign trail?

A girl can dream…

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In the past week, Jerry Brown finally donated $3,000 of his own money to his campaign for California Governor. In the same week, Meg Whitman donated another $3,000,000 to her campaign, taking the total amount of her wealth spent on the election to date to $71,000,000.

[SF Chronicle]

You would expect the CEO of a major technology company to understand a few things about — what’s that called? — ah, yes: science.

Maybe that’s another reason why she’s the former CEO.