Dan Shearer of the Green Valley News brings us this bulletin regarding the proposed Rosemont Mine:

State Senate President Bob Burns and Speaker of the House Kirk Adams said in a letter to the head of the Coronado National Forest that they support the Environmental Impact Statement process under way on Rosemont mine, and added that the proposed mine presents “a tremendous economic opportunity” for the state.

The letter dated Feb. 2 was sent to forest supervisor Jeanine Derby and copied to 11 people, including U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar and Tom Tidwell, chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

But Burns and Adams evidently didn't check with state Sen. Jonathan Paton, who represents the area and is well aware that his constituents are mostly against the mine:

But state Sen. Jonathan Paton, who represents District 30, where Rosemont is located, said the letter was sent out without his knowledge and that there was no discussion or resolution in the Legislature about the matter.

Paton, who has opposed the mine from the start, said it appears Rosemont is “going further afield looking for support” after finding little backing in Southern Arizona.

“You can’t really say it’s on behalf of the members when I don’t even know about the letter,” he said.

Paton said he is drafting a letter and considering calling for a resolution to measure support for the mine at the Legislature.

“I completely disagree with the mine and it’s very simple,” Paton said. “I don’t believe trading CAP water with ground water is a fair trade, and I don’t trust our good friends in California to always keep the (Colorado River) water flowing.”

As reported in Jim Nintzel's Jan. 21 cover story, Slashing the State, "adult education and GED courses would be zeroed out" in Gov. Jan Brewer's budget.

A rally has been scheduled for today from 5 to 6 p.m. at El Rio Learning Center (1390 W. Speedway Blvd.) to save adult education. Organizers would like to see at least 500 in attendance and encourage all to bring banners and signs.

Here's a social media release from Literacy Volunteers of Tucson that says Arizona would be the only state without GED classes.

The budget cuts Governor Jan Brewer is proposing are painful, but one will earn us national recognition. Not only will Arizona have one of the highest high school drop-out rates in the nation, if the proposed cuts are approved, GED classes and testing will no longer be offered in this state. Arizona would become the only state in the country without this service.

“The economic impact of NOT educating the nearly 800,000 Arizonans who do not have a high school diploma is enormous. The elimination of Adult Education will prevent the development and re-training of a prepared workforce that we urgently need to attract and keep existing businesses in Arizona,” says Paula Stuht, Vice President of Business Development of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

Without a GED it is nearly impossible to go on to further training or

When Jesus said turn the other cheek, perhaps it was so he could kick your ass.

From a recent New York Times story on Christian cage fighters:

The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.

“The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.”

These pastors say the marriage of faith and fighting is intended to promote Christian values, quoting verses like “fight the good fight of faith” from Timothy 6:12. Several put the number of churches taking up mixed martial arts at roughly 700 of an estimated 115,000 white evangelical churches in America. The sport is seen as a legitimate outreach tool by the youth ministry affiliate of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 churches.

• DAVID H. McERLEAN
• Karl W. Hoffman, a border photographer, explores the railroad fence on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Hoffman has spent the past few years covering border issues dealing with immigration.

David H. McErlean, a Laguna Niguel, Calif. transplant, is an advanced photographer at the University of Arizona School of Journalism. McErlean excells in underwater photography and aspires to pursue a career in documentary photography, film making and multimedia production.

McErlean, who has photographed subjects such as a rape tree located on the U.S.-Mexico Border, border journalist Karl W. Hoffman and other border-related issues, is also an advanced diver who is working on his master diver certification to further enhance his underwater photography.

For more of McErlean's work, visit his Web site. or his photography blog at VII Visionaires.

• DAVID H. McERLEAN
• A school of fish swarm around coral on a reed in the Sea of Cortez, off the coast of San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. San Carlos is the top diving destination to visit from Tucson, Ariz.

We hear that the Brewer budget package will be heard in the House Appropriations Committee tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. and will be heading for the House floor later that day. Does this mean that someone has rounded up enough votes to put a sales-tax question on the ballot?

We explained here why it was proving to be a tough deal to make.

Reader John Nemerovski recently sent us this delightful e-mail:

John "Nemo" Nemerovski's BEST OF TUCSON(R) Photo Essay, featuring Nemo's daughter Sheba, visiting from Chicago. We studied Tucson Weekly's 2009 BEST OF TUCSON(R) special section three times through, choosing places to visit that were interesting and reasonably convenient during Sheba's three day trip to Tucson.

• FANTASY COMICS on First Avenue was our first stop. We were awed by the organization, quantity, and depth of the comic titles. Sheba purchased a "creepy" graphic novel, that she read while we were not out and about on our tour.

• THE BAGELRY on Campbell had closed at 2. We were disappointed, but vowed to return earlier in the day, as soon as possible.

Sen. Jack Harper (R-District 4) explains his opposition to repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" with a story from his military days. Jack nearly had to share a room with a pot-smoking gay soldier who eventually got kicked out of the service—and the soldier who did share a room with the homo soldier ended up HIV-positive! (He may or may not have caught the bug from the gay soldier. Guess we'll never know.)

Here's what budget cuts have done to Colorado Springs, Colo.:

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."

Here's the latest bulletin from Rep. Steve Farley:

Howdy, Friends O'Farley…

Remember the classic Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day? Where he keeps re-living the same day over and over again, and eventually starts trying to change his behavior to end the cycle? His attempts never work until he finally decides to do the right thing and take care of the most vulnerable citizens in town and do other kind things to help make his community a better place.

It is SO appropriate that today is Groundhog Day, since we are now in our SIXTH Special Session and are once again considering the Governor's sales tax referral. If only we could skip to the ending of the movie and have the guts to do the right thing for our state by approving a real budget plan that really provides the revenues we need to provide the services our citizens need.

Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck in the middle of the movie where we are changing our behavior in destructive ways, without solving the problem.

About two hours ago the Senate passed a series of special session bills including (for the first time) the sales tax referral with the bare majority of votes — seven Democrats and nine Republicans. This action was indeed different from the past five special sessions.

What was not different was the fact that, even if the sales tax makes it through the House and passes muster with voters on May 18, it will still not fix our deficit.

Everyone in Arizona knows Governor Brewer has been pushing for a three-year, one-cent sales tax proposal and calling it her silver bullet to get us out of our crisis. The problem is, even her own budget proposal admits that the extra billion dollars a year won't even fill

The Senate has managed to pass the Brewer budget package in the special session.

Asked about why it’s a good idea to essentially borrow $750 million and push another $450 million in expenses into next year’s budget, Senate President Bob Burns said:

“I wouldn’t put in the good, fiscally responsible plan category. I think there are things we should do, things we want to do, but it all comes down to what we can do.”

Burns also said that the package of tax cuts passed by the House would be “on hold” until other budget business was resolved.

“They weren’t overjoyed by that position,” Burns says.

It remains to be seen if that's a deal-killer in the House.