Rick Perry

The California fishing industry appears to be on the upswing. After overfishing and conservation efforts limited the catch for fishermen in recent years, those who ply the seas are now enjoying bigger hauls and raking in more profits, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some fishermen who were initially skeptical of tighter regulations say they now see the benefit of the curbs, and towns along the Pacific Coast that depend on fishing are enjoying a rebound, the Associated Press reported.

So Texas Gov. Rick Perry is trying to poach California companies? Perry has been on a whirlwind trip to the Golden State, pitching his own brand of woo, in person, to our sun-splashed but, apparently, anxious-to-bail business folks. (Although presumably he didn't mention that other kind of whirlwind, the kind that flattens buildings and tosses cars every spring, summer and fall in the Lone Star State.) And I can hear his pitch now: “Come to Texas, padnah, for three things: our low taxes, our loose regulations and, uh, dang it, don't tell me, I'll think of it ... ” The death penalty?

Not every Texan is cheering on Rick Perry as he travels to California in hopes of bringing tax-weary businesses back to his home state. The Lone Star Project, a Democratic organization, aired its own radio advertisement in Sacramento on Tuesday calling the Texan governor's trip a publicity stunt. "Hello, California, this is Texas," drawled a narrator. "Well, it looks like Rick Perry got out again. " The advertisement praises Texas but criticizes Perry, whose image took a hit following a gaffe-filled presidential campaign.

Gov. Jerry Brown ought to cut his Texas brother, Rick Perry, a little slack. Texas Gov. Perry arrived in the Golden State this week trolling for California businesses he could poach and carry home with him in his saddlebags. His trip here comes on the heels of a Texas radio come-on, which aired statewide, and which Brown memorably dismissed as "barely a fart. " But there are reasons why Perry's efforts deserve more serious scrutiny. One is that the campaign exposes an important shortcoming of Texas' job-development program: It focuses on using incentives to steal jobs from other states because it's not so hot at creating jobs from scratch.

SACRAMENTO -- Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Loma Rica) has long touted the virtues of low-tax, limited-regulation Texas as a model for what California should aspire toward to improve its business climate. He has led fact-finding missions to the Lone Star State, where colleagues join him in seminars with Texas officials and business leaders. His efforts to import the Texas style of government have largely fallen flat in Sacramento. Now, with Democrats having more power in the Capitol than they have in decades, it is looking even less likely Logue's pitch will gain traction.  So Logue is turning to stinging sarcasm.

Outspoken California Gov. Jerry Brown has roundly dismissed radio ads by Texas Gov. Rick Perry that slam the Golden State's business environment. "It's not a serious story, guys," Brown told reporters at a Tuesday business event. The radio spots voiced by Perry, who has tried before to woo California businesses to the Lone Star State, starts out with the Texas governor proclaiming that "building a business is tough, but I hear building a business in California is next to impossible.

Gov. Rick Perry is the kind of politician many Texans seem to like: straight-talking, rigidly Christian, a bedrock conservative. His Lone Star State popularity apparently deluded him into believing he'd have a shot at national glory, yet when the rest of the country got a close look at him during his run for the GOP presidential nomination, it became clear that all wasn't quite right with the leather-faced former cotton farmer. It wasn't just his frequent gaffes and memory lapses; it was that at key times he didn't seem quite all there mentally, such as during a debate in Orlando, Fla., when his speech was so slurred that pundits questioned whether he had suffered a stroke or had been drinking beforehand.

Wow. Can you believe it? Tetanus vaccinations do not make children likelier to walk barefoot on rusty nails. Masturbation does not cause blindness or hairy palms. And girls who get the HPV vaccination to protect against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, the cause of 70% of cervical cancer, do not turn slutty because of it. For this we actually had a study -- a sober, clinical response to the notional premise afoot in segments of American politics and culture that the vaccine, which can give young girls a lifetime's protection from cervical cancer, loosens their morals.

With the first presidential debate Wednesday night, we will enter the last chapter of a campaign dominated by gaffes. A gaffe, as the fellow once said, is when a politician tells the truth. We journalists love gaffes. They are compact little newslets that save us from having to write about sprawling and difficult issues like the economy. With the first presidential debate Wednesday night, we will enter the last chapter of a presidential campaign dominated by gaffes. PHOTOS: Memorable presidential debate moments Mitt Romney has been both lifted up and tossed down by the ruthless gods of gaffery.