Congressman Raul Grijalva talks about the gulf spill in today's Roll Call:

Energy companies, including BP, promised the Congress, the Minerals Management Service and the public that this terrible accident could not happen. Proponents of expanded drilling eagerly swallowed these company promises and used them to justify expanded drilling. Opponents — those who warned that a spill could destroy beaches, wildlife, tourism and even lives — were mocked as extremists, out of touch when it comes to the marvels of modern-day energy exploration.

It is not only appropriate to point this out, it is our obligation to declare that the promises on which the drilling policy is based were hollow. Those who cautioned against expanded drilling were absolutely, 100 percent right.

This week, Charlie De Mar, a UA journalism student, introduces us to golf instructor Mark Terry. Terry has been a golf instructor for more than 20 years, and takes pride in helping people improve their performance. He spends his winters in Tucson, while traveling to Northern California for the summer. Terry said he enjoys teaching a golf class at the UA.

The classic Harold and Maude shows outdoors at Cinema La Placita this evening. Suggested donation: Just $3. Details here.

If memory serves, I first saw this at the pre-renovation Temple of Music Art, in my high-school days, when they used to show old flicks on weekends. (Yes, kids, that was in the days before we had VCRs!)

A new restaurant called Joe Mama’s Grill will start slinging fast-casual fare next week at 4230 N. Oracle Road, Suite 100.

Sean and Krista Kanter, a husband-and-wife duo who have spent most of their adult lives in the restaurant business, expect to open the eatery on Friday, May 28. It’s not their first restaurant venture, and to say it’s been a roller-coaster ride is not only a worn-out cliché; it’s also a bit of an understatement.

Sean and Krista met while working at a Tony Roma’s in California. They bartended and did catering gigs for a while, got married and decided to open a Jersey Mike’s Subs franchise in Simi Valley. After a bit, they sold it at a profit, built a beachside housing development in Costa Rica—and watched their dreams evaporate during the recent financial crisis. They eventually found themselves, their two kids and everything they owned packed into a 1995 Isuzu Trooper headed for Tucson.

Joe Mama’s menu is full of breakfast, sandwiches, salads and a very nice assortment of yummy sounding stuff ranging from the simple to the somewhat adventurous. The Southwest eggs Benedict come with pesto hollandaise (also available on a burger) and jalapeño cornbread. The fish tacos made with blackened halibut and handmade corn tortillas sound nice. And I could care less how the “muffcakes” taste; I’d order them just so I could say it and giggle to myself.

I will also be naming my next cat Mr. Muffcakes, if anyone cares.

Sean said patrons will order at the counter, get their drinks and sit down while their meals are cooked and delivered. Hours will be 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., daily.

From McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — The latest video footage of the leaking Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico show that oil is escaping at the rate of 95,000 barrels — 4 million gallons — a day, nearly 20 times greater than the 5,000 barrel a day estimate BP and government scientists have been citing for nearly three weeks, an engineering professor told a congressional hearing Wednesday.

The story also says federal officials are now putting together a "crack team" to figure out just how massive the spill is. Maybe I'm being negative, but doesn't it seem like that should have happened a really long time ago?

This just in. A total of 23 Arizona State Parks will stay open. The full press release below:

Arizona's Rural Communities Rescue State Parks from Closures

(Phoenix, AZ - May 19, 2010) - The Arizona State Parks Board voted today to keep five more State Parks from closing on June 3 by directing Executive Director Renee Bahl to sign unique management and financial agreements with rural communities to keep each one open.

"The State Parks Board, a volunteer group of seven members, has voted in the last three months to negotiate with counties, cities and parks friends groups to fund a total of 23 State Parks to be open into the next fiscal year. The real key now is that we need every Arizonan to use their State Parks as often as possible," said Bahl. "We want the public to know that the Board and staff are focusing on keeping State Parks open because the fiscal impact and loss of jobs from closed parks would be devastating to these rural towns and we believe every Arizonan deserves a robust State Park system."

According to Parks Board Chairman, Reese Woodling, "We have been successful in finding solutions to keep State Parks open, but these are only short term measures. It is a miracle that these communities have raised the funds to keep these parks open so far this year. Arizonans should be proud that so many concerned individuals have stepped forward to lead the communities to cobble together these monies."

A new Rasmussen survey shows that support for Arizona's new immigration law is growing:

Arizona voters now support the state’s new immigration law more than ever and are still more inclined to think the law will be good for the state’s economy rather than bad. A lot of voters in the state are thinking it’s payback time, too, to those cities or states that boycott Arizona.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Arizona finds that 71% now favor the immigration law, while 24% oppose it.

Despite boycotts by Los Angeles and Boston and threats from other cities, states and organizations, 47% of voters in Arizona think the new immigration law will be good for the state’s economy, up three points from late April. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it will be bad for the state, and another nine percent (9%) say it will have no impact.

We'd like to see some other firms do some numbers on this one.

Reuters reports that Congressman Raul Grijalva is calling for BP to shut down another rig in the Gulf until it can be inspected:

A group of U.S. lawmakers will recommend BP (BP.L) be ordered to idle its Atlantis oil and gas platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico until federal regulators can prove the region's second biggest rig is operating safely.

At least 17 Democratic lawmakers will urge the Minerals Management Service to shut down Atlantis, which pumps up to 200,000 barrels per day of crude, pending a broad safety probe, according to a letter they will deliver to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday, obtained by Reuters.

"We urge MMS to listen to the expert engineer who reviewed the Atlantis situation and called for an immediate shutdown until it can be shown that this platform is operating safely," the letter said.

An earlier, Feb. 24 letter from 19 lawmakers to the MMS urged an investigation into Atlantis's safety, months ahead of the rig explosion at BP's Macondo field in April and the resulting growing oil spill and environmental disaster.

Arizona Representative Raul Grijalva, who sits on the Committee on Natural Resources, led the February effort and is the first signatory on the new letter.

"Given the backdrop of what has happened, the idling of the (Atlantis) platform I think is justified," Grijalva said in a phone interview on Wednesday. "We need to make sure another catastrophe doesn't happen."

This week's "Slick Politics" examined the Center for Biological Diversity's concerns over the permitting process for deep-sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was revising his plan to divide Minerals Management Service, the scandal-plagued agency that oversees leases with oil companies that do business with the feds:

In Washington, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that he was dividing the troubled Minerals Management Service into three offices reporting to two different senior managers at Interior. The move amounts to the dismantling of an agency that has been scarred by scandal for years and has come under criticism for poor oversight of drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

A new bureau of ocean energy management would oversee development of offshore resources, including oil, gas and wind, and would be responsible for planning and leasing decisions. A bureau of safety and environmental enforcement would enforce regulations and perform other police functions.

Both offices would report to the assistant secretary of interior for land and minerals management. A third office would be responsible for revenue collection; it would report to the assistant secretary for policy, management and budget.

The response from Keiran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity:

From today's New York Times editorial page:

Four young immigrant students risked everything on Monday when they sat down in Senator John McCain’s office in Tucson and refused to leave. They were urging passage of the Dream Act, a bill offering a citizenship path to illegal immigrants who, like them, were brought to the United States as children, too young to have willfully broken the law.

For the undocumented, any encounter with law enforcement is perilous — especially in Arizona, where a new law pushes the hunt for illegal immigrants beyond the limits of reason, proportion and the Constitution.

Three of the student protesters were arrested for misdemeanor trespassing. Though later freed, they faced the risk of prison and deportation to press for a bill.

Who else has shown such courage in the long struggle for immigration reform? Not Mr. McCain, who ditched his principled support of rational immigration legislation to better his odds in a close re-election campaign against a far-right-wing opponent. Not President Obama, who has retreated to lip service and vagueness in his calls for reform. Not his administration. The Justice Department has stood by as a civil-rights coalition — the American Civil Liberties Union, Maldef, the N.A.A.C.P., the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and others — has swiftly sued to block the Arizona law.