A few weeks ago, I talked with the Arizona Department of Corrections public-information officer about the ADC request for proposals for private prisons to provide 5,000 beds in the state.

The RFP was enough for private-prison industry leader Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to begin working with local land owners and developers to submit a site proposal with Pima County for a 5,000-bed complex off Wilmot Road, near the state and federal prison complexes.

Well, an Associated Press article from yesterday states that the ADC evidently scrapped the RFP earlier this month because of security concerns:

Three inmates' escape from a privately operated state prison near Kingman has prompted Arizona to start over on getting bids from private prison companies for 5,000 additional beds.

Corrections Director Charles Ryan says he canceled a request for proposals earlier this month because changes are necessary to avoid repeats of the July 30 escape. The three violent offenders who broke out have been apprehended, but two are accused of murdering an Oklahoma couple in New Mexico while on the loose.

Ryan has said the Kingman prison was riddled with security flaws that the department's oversight failed to detect.

He says the canceled RFP for the 5,000 additional beds will be replaced with one that ensures bidders meet security and operational requirements.

Colbert takes on McCain's opposition to repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in The Word.

Glass Illusions owners Pattie and Mark Johnson talk about sculpting glass and metal into petroglyphs, artistic engravings usually on rock.

Photographed and Produced by Corinne O'Donoghue/JSAC Visual Task Force

Charles Sennott, editor of Global Post; Gary Knight, founder of VII Photo Agency; and Jacqueline Sharkey, director of the UA School of Journalism, joined Mort Rosenblum, author of Little Bunch of Madmen: Elements of Global Reporting for a free-fire symposium refereed by Nancy Sharkey, a former editor with The New York Times, on Saturday, Sept. 25, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Downtown Tucson.

In this video, Rosenblum gives his final thoughts on the hour-long discussion on the state of journalism today and the need for good reporting.

Produced by John deDios and Christopher Veck

The lucky winners, who will be selected at the Spoon show on Oct. 4, will also take home a CD and shirt from whichever band's guitar they win.

Click here to buy a $5 raffle ticket.

Bill Buckmaster moderates a debate between Republican state Sen. Al Melvin and his Democratic challenger, Cheryl Cage.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, a Republican now running for attorney general, isn't happy with an interview on Phoenix's KPNX Channel 12, and is asking supporters to send comments to "outrageous liberal reporter" Brahm Resnik.

This weekend on Channel 12's 'Sunday Square Off' Tom Horne was interviewed by an obviously biased Brahm Resnik. Many of you witnessed how he intentionally didn't allow Tom to explain his position on various issues by speaking over him numerous times, yet he allowed his liberal Democrat opponent, Felecia Rotellini, to talk at lengths about her views. He was extremely rude towards Tom. Liberal bias in the media, especially when it is this rude and unprofessional, should be protested.

Harrod Blank will be touring the Southwest in his Camera Van—along with 10 to 20 other "art cars" and his new documentary Automorphosis. The film is a 77-minute tribute to art cars and the psychology behind what inspires creation.

On Friday, Oct. 8, the tour reaches Tucson, and the film will be played at The Screening Room, followed by an after-party from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Candelabra Gallery.

On Oct 9, the art cars will be on display at Second Saturdays downtown from 5:30 p.m. to midnight, and the film will play again at 7 and 9 p.m. at The Screening Room.

Republican Jesse Kelly, who hopes to unseat Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in November, told the press for the first time last week that he supports a new national sales tax of 8.5 cents per dollar on goods and services.

Throughout the primary, Kelly said the country should sharply lower taxes for its wealthiest residents by establishing a 10 percent flat income tax because “if 10 percent is good enough Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for the federal government.”

At a debate in Green Valley, he said he didn’t care how much money a flat tax of 10 percent would raise. He’d set the federal budget to fit within it, whatever it was.

But last week, after once again telling voters that the country could implement a 10 percent flat income tax for all its citizens, he told The Range that he now supports a different plan that has a 10 percent income tax rate for up to $50,000 for individual filers and 25 percent on any remaining income. He bases his plan on a proposal laid out in the Roadmap for America’s Future that been created by Congressman Paul Ryan.

To make those numbers pencil out—and to get rid of the corporate income tax, as Kelly also wants to do—Ryan's plan calls for creating a new 8.5 percent national sales tax on goods and services. That would come on top of the state and local sales taxes that people now pay.

Asked last week if he’d support the new national sales tax, Kelly said: “Over what we have now? You bet.”

Kelly has been critical of the Giffords' campaign for running a TV ad saying he supports a new national sales of 23 percent. Kelly has said he supports such a proposal, as long as it eliminates all other federal taxes, but prefers the flat income tax. But last week was the first time he said he would support a 8.5 percent sales tax along with the flat income tax.

Giffords favors keeping the existing tax system and closing the deficit by repealing the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent of earners. She’d leave the tax cuts in place for the rest of the country.

“I think long term solutions to the debt are not wacky tax schemes that are going to raise taxes on the working class, the middle class and the lower class while eliminating taxes for corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” Giffords says.

More on the Ryan Roadmap here.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on the Roadmap here. Money quote:

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.

And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of

Photographed and Produced by Josh Morgan/JSAC Visual Task Force