Rick Perry is enjoying more good news at California’s expense: Texas has surpassed California as America’s leading tech export state, partly because manufacturing costs are lower there. It’s mostly blue voters and officials who have been bemoaning the export of America’s factory jobs to China. But it’s our bluest state whose labor costs are so high that it can’t retain the manufacturing jobs its own tech sector creates.

Only 40 percent of New York City voters support Bill de Blasio’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for an expansion of pre-K programs, preferring Cuomo’s tax-free approach. Cuomo is beating de Blasio on his home turf.

The South Korean edition of Maxim magazine should just stick to what it’s good at: racy photos of attractive women. When the editors deviate from their bread and butter content, like with the February issue, which features a stunningly insensitive headline, bad things happen.

House Speaker John Boehner decided not to repeat last Fall’s showdown and allow a vote on a “clean” debt ceiling bill. Many Republicans are angry with the speaker for caving to the President, but if it helps the party take the Senate their negotiating position next year will be much stronger.

After an unexpected fall, a tentative return to regular blogging.

After 13 years of obstruction and disagreement, a pest-resistant genetically modified crop of corn could finally be making it way to EU’s fields. Bureaucracy is doing what scientific analysis couldn’t: override intractable green resistance and bring a smarter kind of corn to Europe.

Obama and Hollande have made the fruitless pursuit of a Global Climate Treaty one of the key focuses of this week’s visit. The GCT may be dead, but that doesn’t mean the embattled heads of state don’t have a green leg to stand on:

It looks like the EU is grasping for a longer baguette in the knife fight over Ukraine, suggesting that the EU might one day consider letting Ukraine into the fold.

Happy Tuesday from the AI staff! Here’s what we’ve been mulling over this week:1. “Jesus is poisonwood.”2. One if by land, two if by drone.3. Are faculty too quick to “blame the administrators”? (H/T Megan McArdle)4. Penguins, Hindus and egg-throwers.5. Scientific progress: On one hand and on the other hand.6. Honey, while you’re out, could you pick me up […]

Corruption, one of the most pernicious threats to global security and prosperity, thrives because it hides in plain sight. A provocative new book by Laurence Cockcroft helps us get around the thorny question of how to define it.