• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

More images from UA's Lunar and Planetary Lab's HiRISE camera in orbit above Mars. That's sand spilling across dry ice on on the floor a crater in the lower image. Cindy Hansen fills us in:

Dunes are often found on crater floors. In the winter time at high northern latitudes the terrain is covered by carbon dioxide ice (dry ice). In the spring

The latest legislative summary from state Rep. Steve Farley:

The Capitol is emptying out a bit this week: Three Republican Senators have already announced their intention to resign and run for Congress — Paton against Giffords, and Waring & Gorman for the vacant seat left by Shadegg's retirement.

Perhaps they were not looking forward to spending the rest of the session dealing with budget issues. Here's hoping that four more Republican Senators follow suit, giving Democrats a temporary Democratic majority in the State Senate until their replacements are named!

Last year the Governor decided to wait until June to issue her proposed budget. This year, it's right on time. Unfortunately, it's wrong on almost everything else.

Before we get to the bad news, let's start with the three things she did right. She

Well, I guess that time spent interviewing Vernon Parker last month was kind of a waste of time...

Parker, the mayor of Paradise Valley, has abandoned his gubernatorial ambitions to pursue the congressional seat that U.S. Rep. John Shadegg is giving up this year. That's going to be a crowded primary, seeing how at least three state lawmakers are already lining up for it. But, as Tedski points out, at least Parker won't have to worry about actually solving the state budget mess. Instead, he and other Republicans will just have to concentrate on being the best at raising money and beating up on Democrats.

We're not sure how much this affects the dynamic of the gubernatorial primary, for two reasons:

1. We're still not sure what U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver will say about whether Clean Elections matching funds will be in play this year;

2. We're still not sure how much the political newcomer, Buz Mills, will dump into his campaign. We've heard that Mills, the gun-range owner and NRA guy who has already put $2 million into his campaign war chest, is willing to spend a lot more in the primary.

Also in the hunt for the GOP gubernatorial nomination: incumbent Jan Brewer, state Treasurer Dean Martin and attorney John Munger, who is releasing his own budget plan today.

Republican Jonathan Paton will be resigning his state Senate seat to jump into the Congressional District 8 against Democrat Gabrielle Giffords later this year.

District 30 state Rep. Frank Antenori has already announced he plans to run for Paton’s Senate seat later this year.

“A lot of folks are happy with me and they want to make sure that seat stays relatively conservative and doesn’t get occupied by a softer, squishier Republican,” Antenori says.

Antenori is also in the hunt for an appointment to the seat when Paton resigns later this year, but Antenori’s conservative leanings don’t exactly match up with the Pima County Board of Supervisors’ liberal politics.

The Board of Supes has the final say over the appointment, but they have to pick from three names submitted by District 30 precinct committeemen.

Antenori suggests supervisors may be sorry if they don’t pick him.

“I’ve done a lot to work with Pima County and protect them from a lot of the stuff that was going on in Phoenix,” Antenori says. “I think the Board of Supervisors would much rather have a guy in the Senate that has been working with them than a guy who is working against them. I think they’d rather have a happy Frank Antenori rather than an angry Frank Antenori.”

But Antenori quickly adds: “I’m not trying to threaten anybody, don’t say I’m trying to threaten anybody.”

Antenori is facing a challenger for the Senate seat: Republican Marian McClure, who represented District 30 for eight years before reaching her term limit in 2008, tells us she’s “throwing her hat back into the ring.”

McClure says she’ll also be appealing to District 30’s precinct leaders to try to get her name forwarded to the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

But even if she doesn’t land the appointment, McClure says she’s ready to fight Antenori in this year’s Republican primary.

“I think the state of Arizona needs somebody with some experience, and that’s why I’m running,” McClure says.

Here's a nifty music video that Spanish sensation Amparo Sanchez shot in Tucson with our friends from Calexico last fall. The director is Dan Vinik, who is also directing the Calexico film Flor de Muertos, which was shot at the Rialto Theatre during the Day of the Dead concert last November.

Daniel Scarpinato, the former Arizona Daily Star political reporter, is leaving his job with the Arizona Capitol Times to work as the press guy for Republican Jonathan Paton's campaign for the Congressional District 8 seat now held by Democrat Gabrielle Giffords.

The sparks are flying fast in Congressional District 8. Today, the Pima County Democratic Party blasted Republican state Sen. Jonathan Paton's plans to resign from the Arizona Legislature for a shot at challenging Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords:

State Sen. Jonathan Paton is pledging to bring the failures of Phoenix to Washington, D.C., and to return to the disastrous policies that got America into the wrong war, while setting the stage for the greatest economic crash since The Great Depression.

Paton has announced that he will run for Congress against U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose hard work has served southeastern Arizona well. In her three years representing Southern Arizona, Giffords has earned a reputation as a thoughtful and hard working lawmaker who reaches across the aisle to find common sense solutions to our nation's problems. She has kept the pressure on Washington to secure our border and fought to make sure our local communities are reimbursed for the costs of jailing illegal immigrants. She has worked tirelessly for the development of renewable sources of energy, like solar. And as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, she has been a passionate advocate for Fort Huachuca, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and the 162nd Fighter Wing.

Paton on the other hand, failed to do his job in the Legislature as prescribed by the Arizona Constitution: he has failed to produce a balanced budget by June 30, he has failed in his duty to provide quality public schools and access to higher education as near as free as possible. The budget still is not balanced, Arizona ranks dead last in class room spending and Paton has abandoned our universities in favor of giveaways to out-of-state corporations.

He's also shown disdain for voters. When Tucson voters four times rejected non-partisan, ward-only elections, Paton forced them on Tucson from Phoenix. When voters said "no" to payday lenders, Paton ignored the people and supported legislation that said "yes" to predatory lending.

“Paton talks about fighting for the people, but in reality he is the classic Capitol insider, an ex-lobbyist who is still cozy with the big developers and predatory payday lenders," said Pima County Democratic Party Chair Jeff Rogers. "His voting record doesn’t match the district. He's let Arizona slip below Mississippi in school funding, allowed one in five Arizonans to subsist without health care and aided and abetted Phoenix politicians' attack on the state universities. And when the voters speak? He won't listen. That's hardly grounds for a promotion."

Republican State Sen. Jonathan Paton has confirmed to The Range that he's running for the congressional seat now held by Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords—and issued his first press release of the campaign, which flatly denies a press release issued earlier today by the Arizona Democratic Party.

Here's the original statement from Arizona Democratic Party Executive Director Luis Heredia:

After months of speculation, Jonathan Paton was apparently convinced by former President George W. Bush that he could challenge one of Arizona's hardest-working members of the House of Representatives. It is disturbing to learn how Jonathan reached his decision. It raises serious questions about whether he will continue to advance the failed Bush policies that resulted in greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. With Jonathan Paton leading the charge, Arizonans suffered as Republican legislative leaders spent most of 2009 paralyzed by bickering and then eventually joining forces with Gov. Brewer to enact devastating cuts to our schools, universities and critical services. Their approach has failed, and the budget crisis is far from resolved. We are surprised that Paton, who is an entrenched part of the GOP problem at the state Capitol, feels qualified to ask voters to grant him even greater responsibilities.

I’m glad Democrats think I’m important enough that George W. Bush would take a break from raising funds for Haitian relief efforts to convince me to run for Congress. Do they offer any proof? Reportedly? From whom? It is disappointing that they would lie from the very first line. Maybe they should turn on the news rather than making up things up. Fact is, I’ve never talked to George W. Bush in my life, and the only president that I can say has ever encouraged me to run for Congress is Barack Obama—due to his failed policies supported by Gabrielle Giffords. Is this an indication of the Democrats’ strategy this year? One based on lies? Just make things up at the end of a slow news day? I’m going to talk facts: 10 percent unemployment, a ballooning $12 trillion national debt, and a $900 billion government health care bill.

The Friday Roundtable gang at KUAT-TV's Arizona Illustrated talk about the State of the State, the city's budget troubles and more! Watch it all after the jump.

My colleagues and I on KUAT-TV's Friday Roundtable had a few questions for state Treasurer Dean Martin, who announced this week that he was running for governor. He says the state does not need any tax increases, unless voters agree to pay more to maintain health-care coverage for people earning up to 100 percent of the federal poverty level. He also says the state should cut back and explains why he'll still take public money for his gubernatorial campaign.

Watch it after the jump.