After spending months squabbling about a budget that turned out to be a train wreck because of the usual wildly over-optimistic revenue estimates, the California legislature is focusing its attention on vastly more important matters, like regulating and monitoring the behavior of the citizenry in all manner of silly, foolish, and intrusive ways.

The annual California grape harvest is in full swing and so far field reports are positive, with few weather related issues. Raisin grape growers are picking their produce at its peak this week. Wine grapes and table grapes have already started moving to market earlier this month.

Tomorrow will mark the close of dove season in the greater Phoenix Metropolitan area. The past two weeks have been a trial run for a new state law that has opened over one million acres of city-owned land to small game hunters. The relaxed regulations have allowed hunters to avoid congestion and potential accidents by spreading out, wildlife professionals say.

After taking first earlier this year at the California GOP's spring convention, Ron Paul is hoping for a repeat performance by attending the California GOP's three-day September convention in Los Angeles from the 16th - 18th, where the state party, taking a cue from Ames, is heavily promoting a presidential straw poll.

The ATF and/or the US Attorney's office in Phoenix allowed at least 1,400 guns to be smuggled from the US to drug cartels in Mexico, ostensibly so they could track the guns up the food chain and then make big arrests. Instead, and tragically, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered.

In a little-noticed move in late August, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that would award all of California's electoral votes in presidential elections to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, a solution that proponents say would make presidential elections more rational and fair.