It's budget week up at the Capitol! OK, so maybe that doesn't sound all that exciting. Still, the politics behind the spending blueprints in the House and Senate are kinda interesting.

Senate President Tim Bee worked out the Senate bipartisan budget through negotiations with members of both parties, with input from the governor's office. Bee had hoped to get the $10.6 billion wrapped up and sent over the House, where members were supposed to be still squabbling over a budget.

But a funny thing happened to that plan: House Speaker Jim Weiers managed to come up with his own "bipartisan" budget that's heavier on the tax cuts and lighter on the social spending. He's calling the House spending plan bipartisan, because a handful of Democrats who are on the outs with Minority Leader Phil Lopes backed the Weiers plan. One of the rebel Democrats is Tucson's Linda Lopez, who has already been the target of a robocall blasting her for abandoning her team.

Now Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services is reporting that the Senate budget proposal is getting held up with some last-minute monkey business regarding tax credits for private schools, an amendment sponsored by Sen. John Huppenthal, a Republican from Chandler.

While there are still plenty of bills moving through the grinder up there, the budget is the big piece of business that needs to be resolved before lawmakers can call Sine Die. Our prediction: The final budget will look a lot more like the Senate version than the House version.

More on the budget in next week's ol'-fashioned print edition. Bet you can't wait!

The Shield, FX's high-octane cop thriller, remains one of my favorite hours of TV as it charges through its sixth season. This is a show that brilliantly balances action, humor and drama with rich characterization of nearly every character that walks into the Barn, the rehabbed church that serves as police headquarters for L.A. Farmington district.

Because the show does such a good job of building on earlier episodes, it's tough to comment on this week's episode without spoiling the surprises for those of you who haven't yet caught up with it. But as usual, there's a noose tightening around the neck of Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), the frequently dirty leader of the Barn's Strike Team. Mackey remains one of the most captivating characters on TV because, like Tony Soprano, you know what he's capable of, but you still find yourself wanting to see him beat the odds against survival.

Meanwhile, Mackey's partner and best friend, Shane Vendrell (Walton Goggles), is wrestling with his own conscience over a particularly despicable choice he made last season. Shane, whose reprehensible actions and attitudes have never made him particularly sympathetic, is careening towards a total breakdown. He knows there's a storm gathering because of the mistakes he's made--and that's there's no path for forgiveness.

Season Six, sadly, is scheduled to wrap on June 5, and we've only got one season after that. But hey, at least when The Shield wraps in June, we get the return of Denis Leary's great firefighter drama, Rescue Me.

This just in, from a TREO news release:

Target, one of the nation's largest discount merchandise store chains, announces today that it will open a new fulfillment center in Tucson, Ariz. for its on-line business, Target.com. Target is in the process of finalizing agreements to purchase land along the I-10 corridor on the SE side of Tucson to build a brand new 975,000 square-foot facility. Operations are scheduled to begin in Spring 2009.

Specific employment numbers have not been announced by Target, but the facility's capacity will provide employment opportunities for a significant number of team members. The locally-hired team members will manage and fulfill on-line merchandise orders. The new state-of-the-art facility will utilize the latest technology in distribution efficiencies.

I got this interesting e-mail from the Animal Defense League of Arizona ...

ADLA ALERT: ASK MARICOPA COUNTY TO DENY COVANCE PERMIT!

Last night (April 30, 2006) ADLA and other groups spoke out at the Maricopa County Air Quality Department’s hearing on Covance’s proposed air quality permit. 

As you know, Covance, a contract laboratory, plans to build a large animal testing facility in Chandler. This company has a record of animal abuse including a recent USDA fine for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

Covance is also the largest U.S. importer of non-human primates, and has brought Ebola into the US, as well as other diseases that slipped past its quarantine. The proposed Chandler facility will house approximately 170,000 animals each year, most of which will be killed in experiments. Covance has refused to disclose to the public or government agencies how it plans to dispose of its diseased and contaminated animal carcasses. 

Whether Covance builds its own incinerator, contracts with another crematory, or dumps carcasses in a landfill, it will pollute our community’s environment.  There is simply no good way to dispose of thousands of animal carcasses that have been injected with concentrated amounts of chemicals, including pesticides and experimental drugs.  Moreover, Maricopa County has been ordered to reduce air pollutants by December, 2007 or lose $1 billion in highway funds. At a time when we are struggling to clean Arizona’s air, it is irresponsible to build a facility that will emit significant amounts of toxins into our community.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Public comments are currently being accepted by Maricopa County Air Quality Department.  Please submit a brief statement concerning how you feel Covance’s proposed facility will impact our community.  Written comments must be either faxed or mailed to the agency and received by Friday, May 4, 2007 by 5:00 p.m.  (Unfortunately emails will not be accepted).

Fax comments to Permit Engineer Sara Seuberling at (602) 506-6985

Or

Mail to:

Maricopa County Air Quality Department

1001 N. Central Ave. Suite 400

Phoenix, AZ 85004

Attention: Sara Seuberling

Comments should focus specifically on Covance’s air quality permit.  The County Air Quality Department needs to know that the public is concerned about the negative impact that Covance will have on Arizona.  Below are examples of points to make. It is most effective to put comments into your own words. 

Covance’s air quality permit should be denied because its application is incomplete due to Covance's refusal to disclose how it plans to dispose of thousands of animal carcasses that have been contaminated with chemicals, including pesticides and experimental drugs. 

Here are a few events that were received too late for inclusion in our print issue.

• Friday, May 4 at 1 p.m.

  Raskob Kamourian Financial Advisors

  4100 N. First Ave.

  Planning for Retirement. A free, no-obligation financial education seminar will be offered. Learn how to start financial planning and the steps to take that will prepare you to reach your retirement goals. Seating is limited. RSVP required. Call 690-1999 to reserve your place.

• Saturday, May 5 from 1 to 6 p.m.

  Mason Audubon Center

  8751 N. Thornydale Road

  Ironwood Festival. The Tucson Audubon Society hosts the 8th annual Ironwood Festival. Enjoy hands-on educational activities, live animal presentations, music and trail walks. $5 adults. Children 15 and younger are free. Proceeds benefit the Mason Audubon Center.

• Saturday, May 5 from noon to 1 p.m.

  Sunday, May 6 from noon to 1 p.m.

  La Encantada shopping center

  2905 E. Skyline Drive, Suite 123

  Pet Allergy Discussion. Dermatologist Cindi Donnelly will be on hand to answer allergy and skin care questions. Free. Call 299-6888 for info.

• Wednesday, May 9 from 7 to 10 p.m.

  Crossroads Grand Cinemas

  4811 E. Grant Road

  Straight to Video. The UA Department of Media Arts students will present their final films from this semester, including documentary and fiction works. Free. Call 626-1405 for info.

I suspect many of our esteemed blog readers disdain TV viewing already—with the possible exception of Red Star, who, judging from his conduct 'round these parts, is a victim of the mind-numbing aftereffects of a Weather Channel overdose.

Here’s more fuel for the fire: I’m indignant about the continuing encroachment of advertising while watching my beloved Arrested Development on G4. It’s not enough that the length of TV programs has been whittled away over the years to make room for more commercials, or that the closing credits from shows have largely gone the way of the dinosaurs so networks can promote other programs (which they do over and over again during commercial breaks anyway). The latter phenomenon has been taken to its most annoying extreme by Bravo, which ran the same spots for Work Out ad nauseam while I was caught in the orbit of Project Runway last year. And guess what? I still didn’t watch Work Out.

It also grates on me when GSN cuts away from the groovy Match Game theme song to let me know that, yes, I’m watching GSN. No fucking duh!

Don’t even get me started on the network-TV channels, which are often the worst offenders.

G4, which was originally conceived of as a channel for video gamers before its management started targeting hormonal young men more generally, has already been criticized by some for taking product placement to new heights. And the channel has Attack of the Show!, which is essentially one long, inanely scripted infomercial aimed at getting technologically savvy males to buy smokin' hot gadgetry.

But that’s apparently not enough. G4 repeatedly runs an obnoxious ticker across the bottom of the screen, carrying so-called “news” about what’s hot to buy, along with an incredibly irritating, animated scroll across the top—taking up a fifth of the screen and commanding attention—while I’m trying to get my Bluth-family fix. The top scroll appeared twice in the span of about two minutes one evening, announcing that Star Trek: TNG was next and some other program was on later that night. The whole thing was especially galling, because they had already gone over the night’s programming during the break, mere minutes before they ran those scrolls. Why do we need to be badgered with this information?

I went to advertising school for a while, and I think I appreciate a clever promotion more than most people, but I don’t need ads prying their way into every nook and cranny of my life. Why do these channels feel entitled to do this? Is it this way in other capitalist economies? Do they have constant promotions running across the TV screen during programs, which are supposed to be the filler between commercials that get people to watch the commercials in the first place? TiVo is no longer safe from their onslaught, and YouTube is about to jump on the bandwagon. I can’t even read the news on Web sites without some ad covering what I want to see. The button marked “close”—written in miniscule type—is always hidden somewhere other than the top-right corner, which is the intuitive place for it to be.

I’d like for there to be some pushback. It's not OK for people to talk on TV like they do in real life, cusswords and all, according to the puritans among us. It’s not OK for a breast to be flashed across the screen for a few seconds, because impressionable youngsters might be ripped from the enchanted Candyland Americans are trying to create for their children. But it’s perfectly all right for people to continually assault our senses to get us to buy, watch or do something, and to do so in the most base, thoughtless ways possible.

To partially quote Ab Fab’s Edina Monsoon, advertisers have already taken “everything that was ever real and genuine and honest and original and attached it to a toilet cleaner.” Must they distract from Arrested Development, too?

It's official, Range readers! Gov. Janet Napolitano has picked Design No. 2--or The Range Quarter, as we like to call it--as the official quarter of Arizona. In just one year, these rugged coins will be hitting the streets across America. We encourage all our loyal rangers to conduct all their financial transactions with these quarters, which combine the awesome beauty of the Grand Canyon with the solemn dignity of a saguaro cactus.

The Range Quarter got the support of more than 43 percent of the nearly 113,000 Arizonans who voted in the online poll, according to Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services--a number no doubt driven by our call for support just a few weeks ago.

Our junior staff members, Saxon Burns and Kelli Hart, are expressing some bitterness elsewhere on this blog to compensate for their pick of clearly inferior designs. Quarter No. 1, which Saxon was slobbering over, got the support of only about 21 percent of those who voted in the online survey. Guess Police Dispatch readers just aren't that loyal. Kelli's pick--Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in a little boat traveling down the Mississippi River--barely got 2 percent, which isn't that surprising, seeing how the Mississippi River doesn't even cross Arizona. How did that one get in there, anyway?

Has 24 just totally gone off the rails? My buddy Curtis McCrary says it's jumped a whole school of two dozen sharks, lined up end-to-end.

Sure, the show always played fast and loose with the whole real-time gimmick, but now the writers have abandoned any pretense. This season's big "unthinkable" moment--a nuke going off in L.A. way back in the fourth episode--has been totally ignored since the first 10 minutes of Episode 5. In fact, ever since then, people seem to just be going about their day as if nothing happened. If you're going to have a nuke go off, there ought to be consequences. Otherwise, it's just like a Looney Toon cartoon where Daffy gets blown up in one scene and is just fine in the next.

Then again, they've abandoned plenty of storylines this season: Jack's evil dad, Ex-Prez Logan getting stabbed in the neck by his crazy ex-wife, the internment camps for Middle-Eastern immigrants. Not that any of those stories were going anywhere, so maybe they were better off jettisoning them.

It's not really worth the time to run down all the stupid moments of this season (my faves: When a terrorist escaping on foot left behind a nuclear bomb with a five-minute countdown; and when CTU analyst Morris gets right back to work after said terrorist has driven an electric drill into his back), but it sure seems like the writers need to spend a little more time thinking their storyline through next year.

In the meantime, I'll be watching Heroes.