After a couple of weeks of BOT debate and name calling, seems like King Marlow (I can't seem to put the "peace and love" part of your last monicker here) and others could use a smile or two. I know for a fact 6-year-olds love this ... so, KMD, I think you'll like it, too.

The Tucson Police Department's photo-radar van will be in the following areas on Wednesday, Oct. 10:

• 7 to 9 a.m.: Walter Douglas Elementary, 3300 Block N. Flowing Wells Road
• 9 to 2 p.m.: On Grant Road near Oracle Road
• 2 to 4:30 p.m.: Duffy Elementary, 5100 Block E. Fifth Street
• 4:30 to 8 p.m.: On Craycroft Road near Fifth Street

You could win a pair of tickets to see Avenue Q, the Broadway musical, brought to you by Broadway in Tucson.

Get your glue sticks, yarn and googly eyes out! Broadway in Tucson is sponsoring a puppet-making contest. The winning puppet creator will receive a pair of tickets to see Avenue Q, winner of three Tony Awards, including 2004 Best Musical.

Bring a handmade puppet to the Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St. Please include your name, age and contact information on the the back of your puppet. The deadline is Monday, Oct. 15. Judging will take place during the week of Oct. 15, and the winner will be notified by Friday, Oct. 19.

Local judges are:

• Dan Marries, KOLD 13
• Lori Riegel, Arizona Jewish Post
• Blake Rogers, 92.9 the Mountain
• Me! Karyn Zoldan, "Noshing Around," Tucson Weekly

Put your creativity to work, and have some fun.

The Tucson Police Department's photo-radar van will be in the following areas on Tuesday, Oct. 9:

• 7 to 9 a.m.: Near Maxwell Middle School, 2800 Block S. Greasewood Road
• 9 to 2 p.m.: On Starr Pass Boulevard near La Cholla Boulevard
• 2 t0 4:30 p.m.: C.E. Rose Elementary, 12th Avenue near Michigan Street
• 4:30 to 8 p.m.: On Kino Parkway near 22nd Street

The Rialto Theatre is hosting Rilo Kiley on Tuesday, Oct. 9. (That's tomorrow in the way that you earthlings measure time.) I've been listening to them ever since someone slipped me a song called "More Adventurous" on a mix last summer. I totally dug the mix of a little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll; my heart breaks a little bit everytime I hear Jenny Lewis' vocals. Find out for yourself tomorrow night. Opening acts: The Bird and The Bee and Grand Ole Party.

We hear there's a whole bunch of politicians all set to come out against Prop 200, which voters will decide in November, later this week.

Meanwhile, in our upcoming issue, TW weighs in on what we think you should do with Prop 200, which would repeal the trash fee, put a cap on new water connections once the city is delivering most of its CAP allotment, and restrict what the city can do with treated effluent. Wonder what our advice will be?

Early voting starts this Thursday, Oct. 11.

The Tucson Police Department's photo-radar van will be in the following areas on Monday, Oct. 8

• 7 to 9 a.m.: Near Prince Elementary, 3700 Block N. Stone Avenue
• 9 to 2 p.m.: On 22nd Street near Swan Road
• 2 to 4:30 p.m.: Reynolds Elementary on Stella Road near Clinton Avenue
• 4:30 to 8 p.m.: On Valencia Road near Houghton Road

Shortly after George W. Bush took office, U.S. Sen. John McCain made his first and last visit to Weekly World Headquarters. In a Q&A with a group of reporters, he predicted that the Bush tax cuts would not pass the Senate.

McCain clearly overestimated his colleagues' sense of financial responsibility. In the years since, he appears to have abandoned his own. Despite the fact that the U.S. government has been running deficits since Bush took office, McCain now wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

In an appearance in South Carolina earlier this week, McCain said he wanted Alan Greenspan to review the U.S. tax code, dead or alive. according to The Associated Press account.

"If he's alive or dead, it doesn't matter. If he's dead, just prop him up and put some dark glasses on him like, like Weekend at Bernie's," McCain joked. "Let's get the best minds in America together and fix this tax code."

While the quote got the attention, it's McCain's eagerness to serve the nation's wealthiest citizens that deserves scrutiny.

McCain says he would support a flat tax that charges everyone the same percentage of their income, rather than the current progressive system. Given the wealthiest U.S. citizens pay the lion's share of income taxes, that would mean that the richest would get a nice break and the poor would have to make it up. Either that, or Congress would have to enact massive spending cuts that would cut services that the poor--and middle-class--depend on. Or we could run up more debt.

McCain also said he supports scrapping the income tax altogether and instituting a national sales tax.

Before you jump at that idea, keep in mind that the supporters of the so-called FairTax are extraordinarily deceptive about how their system would work. They use math tricks to distort the real percentage of their own tax and aren't honest about how much it would raise. I've written about it in the past; The New Republic recently had a piece about how the how idea was ginned up by Scientologists.

Plus, since state income taxes are based on data sent into the federal government, you'd probably have to scrap state income taxes as well, which would mean a higher state sales tax. By the time you're done reforming the tax system, your sales tax would be up to about 50 percent, which creates all sorts of incentive to find ways to avoid paying it. Like, for example, shopping on the Internet, or buying things second-hand.

The tax code could use a lot of trimming, but the reform shouldn't shift the burden from America's richest citizens to the poor and middle-class.

McCain either hasn't given the matter much thought, which is bad; or he's pandering, which is worse.

Something you may wanna know, from a late news release:

Tucson has a local event as part of the U.S. Campaign to free Burma uscampaignforburma.org

Our event will be at noon, Sunday, Oct. 7 at Himmel Park on the big hill. Our flier is at btucson.com/docs/burma.pdf

I encourage y'all to check out ClubCrawl.Net. It's a cool new Web site corporate Web dude Sean Fitzpatrick has set up for tonight's Weekly-produced event.

At the site, you can:

-- Sign up for text-message updates with news and information about the event, compliments of our on-scene mobile correspondents, including band updates, venue news, news and schedule changes.

-- Send photos and video to [email protected], and share those photos with the world! 

-- Make friends with fellow music-lovers!

If you're going to Club Crawl(TM), I highly recommend going to the site, joining it and signing up for the text-message updates. If you're not going, check out the site and give us your two cents. Thanks!