Califiornia's voter-approved stem cell agency is at a critical point, with its financial arrangements under scrutiny and its commitment to transparency questioned. The new head of the agency has called for an all-out communications offensive.

From the California Stem Cell Report: "The new chairman, Jonathan Thomas, of the California stem cell agency last week spoke more forthrightly in public about the financial condition of the research endeavor than we have heard from other CIRM officials."

"Thomas also addressed the "communications war" involving the $3 billion research endeavor along with the dual executive arrangement at CIRM. In a conversation at last week's meeting of the CIRM board, he took issue with the coverage of the management structure by the California Stem Cell Report.  Thomas said his prepared statement would more clearly represent his position on the much-criticized structure."

"Here are excerpts from his remarks dealing with those three areas. The full text of his remarks, which he provided at the request of this blog, can be found at the end of this item."

Delaware, that cute little state is wooing a Silicon Vallery business from California, despite a $200 million incentive offered by the Golden State. The Bee's Dan Morain tells the tale.

"Delaware has a reputation for being friendly to corporations, though what could be friendlier than $200 million? Then again, Mr. Speaker, we Californians are happy to have helped pay for the development of fuel cells that will be assembled in your fine state."

"And a fine state it is."

"Ask Fisker Automotive, the Southern California hybrid plug-in automaker that gave its debut model the oh-so-California name of Karma. It will be assembling vehicles in Delaware, hiring 2,500 workers and receiving about $20 million in subsidies."

"Delaware's people need jobs, though its 8 percent unemployment rate is way below California's brutally high 12 percent rate."

Times are tough and people are unemployed all over, but some workers are in high demand indeed -- the high-tech toilers of the Silicon Valley. The Mercury News'  Pete Carey tells the tale.

"Thousands of people in Silicon Valley are unemployed and looking for work. But for tech workers with the right skills, work is looking for them."

They have what it takes for the booming fields of social media, mobile software and cloud computing and juggle multiple job offers -- some in the six figures -- as they benefit from a tech job market that hasn't been this overheated since the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s. Internet giants like Google (GOOG) are competing with startups for increasingly rare talent: senior software engineers, data analysts, Web designers and application developers."

"If you can write code at a high level, you can write your own ticket," said Tom Silver, a vice president for the technology job site Dice.com."

State Controller John Chiang, who waded intio the center of the state budget fight when he blocked paychecks to legislators, said he's convinced he did the right thing. 

From La Opinion's Araceli Martinez Ortega: "You have to be honest and do the right thing and hopefully people see it that way. Two years ago, this state of near collapse, had to issue notes to guard against insolvency. If you say okay when not well, in a few months would be in trouble, "says Chiang of 48 years who by freezing the salaries of legislators until they pass a balanced budget, dealt a blow to the pocket and the pride of the legislators."

"The decision came after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the budget a few hours after being first approved by a Democratic majority and on time, on June 15, within the deadline marked by the state constitution."

"The easiest way to Chiang was legal and mathematical analysis which found that he lacked the approved budget of $ 1.850 million to be balanced. The hard part was to confront lawmakers."

"Yesterday I went to the Church of Our Lady of Los Angeles near my office and heard the sermon" The Truth against falsehood "that says you have to trust what is reliable before God. I left convinced that I did the right thing," says from his offices on the 18th floor of the Capitol Mall Avenue, steps from the Sacramento River."

And now from our "Fish Tales" file comes the story of the dreaded Lionfish, which is gobbling up other fish from Brazil to Maine. I don't believe it either, but Mother Nature has fooled us before.

""The problem with the lionfish in this area is that it reproduces so quickly, and it doesn't have enough predators," Abernathy said."

"Basically, the lionfish is eating most of the small fish from Brazil all the way up to Maine. There are a lot of different theories on how they got here -- aquariums, hurricane Andrew, filtration systems. Nobody really knows."

"Abernathy wants seafood lovers to try the lionfish in hopes it will get more and more of them out of the water."

"Those of us that have eaten lionfish can tell you it’s a delicacy, and we are hoping that more and more divers will be bringing this fish in for sale," Abernathy said."