“'With all that can be said, justly, against journalists," W.H. Auden wrote in his 1970 book, "A Certain World," "there is one kind of journalist to whom civilization owes a very great debt, namely the brave and honest reporter who unearths and makes public unpleasant facts, cases of injustice, cruelty, corruption, which the authorities would like to keep hidden, and which even the average reader would prefer not to be compelled to think about.”

Thank you Vanguard for being the kind of media that encourages and supports the quality of journalism that you do using both public resources and those that require anonymity. The articles you publish are factual and to the point ... and not over editorialized.

An Alameda Superior Court judge has ordered the Schwarzenegger administration to cease and desist its practice of furloughing thousands of state workers who are members of the Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, offering the powerful union a huge victory as it enters 2010.

In a ruling handed down late Thursday, Justice Frank Roesch said the governor's reliance on provisions of the state's Emergency Services Act to order mandatory furloughs was flawed and illegal, saying "the emergency necessitating them was the failure of the Legislature to pass the budgets" yet the administration continued the furloughs even after the budgets were passed. -- Sacramento Bee