University of Arizona President Robert Shelton has informed UA employees that they will not have to take a furlough this year.

Shelton's email:

In the spring, when we were preparing for the current fiscal year, it was unclear whether the state would accept federal stimulus funding. In anticipation of further budget cuts for the FY10 year, furloughs became a

Wanna relive the TAMMIES? Check out some clips of the event made by our man Sean Fitzpatrick on Tucson Weekly TV!

Emily Gray Junior High School will not be airing the president's speech to kids on Tuesday, and I couldn't be more disappointed.

Like just about every other public school in the country, Emily Gray has a U.S. flag flying in front of it. But it's also the alma mater of both Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and former Arizona State Senate President Tim Bee, who now runs the Tucson office of Gov. Jan Brewer.

With all of that, and its reputation for superior education, you'd think it would have a better perspective on democracy.

Instead, the school gives the appearance of having its Socratic instincts shut down by the loudest voices.

As the grandmother of an Emily Gray student, I have had high expectations. This is one school, I believed, that understood the ephemeral nature of rote facts imparted to pre-teens in the modern world, and focused, instead, on the crucial importance of learning how to learn. A school that could be depended upon to support developing building blocks for their charges' future contributions to our society and our democracy—analytical thinking, informed and reasoned debate, personal responsibility, the importance of having goals and the persistence to achieve them—the essential tools of our fast-changing, modern world.

So what possible harm could come from lending an ear to the elected President of the United States of America? Apparently a withering racket inflicted upon teachers and administrators of Tanque Verde Unified School District.

A Wildcat basketball news brief you won't see anywhere besides The Onion:

TUCSON, AZ—In an effort to impress his new University of Arizona teammates, Wildcats freshman point guard Lamont Jones was already referring to the school as "Zona" after his very first practice, sources reported Tuesday. "I waited until I was halfway through junior year to start calling the school Zona," senior guard Nic Wise told reporters. "For Lamont to come in here and start saying 'Zona this' and 'Zona that' like it's no big deal—that's just spitting in the face of everyone who came before him. Zona is a privilege, not a right." Wildcats sources later confirmed that, while dining in the student union, Jones twice referred to the team as the "Sun Devils."

Your Labor Day Friday Roundtable courtesy of KUAT-TV's Arizona Illustrated, after the jump.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne explains how he's worried about Obama's big talk to schoolkids, tells you to vote to the TUSD override and more on KUAT-TV's Arizona Illustrated, after the jump.

Just in time for Labor Day weekend, we sorta have a state budget. Not that it’s balanced or anything, but Gov. Jan Brewer did some slicing and dicing of the GOP blueprint that came her way and says she’s mostly done for now, at least when it comes to talking lawmakers into putting her sales-tax proposal on the ballot. (Rep. Steve Farley tells us a special session to clean up some of the budget details may be in the offing next week.)

Long story short (we’ll work on getting more details here over the weekend and in next week’s print edition): Brewer vetoed the $250 million property tax cut and used the funds to restore other cuts in education and welfare spending.

But it appears the state will not have enough money to make it through the fiscal year, so we can expect more cuts when the Legislature reconvenes in January.

And on top of that, the stimulus funds that are helping to get us through this fiscal year will be gone when it comes time to start writing the 2011 budget next January.

Various talking points from different players:

Gov. Jan Brewer: “This fall and in the next regular session of the Legislature, legislative leaders and I must work to break the stranglehold that

The New York Times encourages sanitary greetings with the elbow rub.

• Ross McDonald/The New York Times

• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

More great snapshots of Mars taken by the UA Lunar and Planetary Lab's HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Zilair Crater? The dunes of Aonia Terra? Who names these places, Edgar Rice Burroughs?

The first shot features gullies at the edge of Hale Crater. Shane Byrne explains:

Several years ago gullies carved into hill-slopes and the walls of impact craters like the ones pictured here were discovered. Scientists are excited to study these features because, on Earth, they usually form through the action of liquid water - long thought to be absent on the Martian surface. Whether gullies form under today's cold dry conditions is a major question that planetary scientists are trying to answer.

The gullies pictured here are great examples of what a typical Martian gully looks like. You can see wide V-shaped channels running downhill

I apologize if you're Russian, or if you love yoga and you feel I've insulted you by sharing the following pictures here and here.