Eric Buss, besides being a guy I went to high school with, is an inventor, comedian and magician working in L.A., which means that he does interesting things with props of his creation. However, he is good for more laughs and is more magical than Carrot Top, as can be seen in this currently trending YouTube video. Sure, the title gives away the premise, but the brevity and execution make watching worthwhile.

Sen. John McCain eulogized a former Vietnam War cellmate and longtime friend George "Bud" Day on the Senate floor today, saying that when they were both captives, "Bud showed me how to save my self-respect and my honor, and that is a debt I can never repay."

(Hat tip: Talking Points Memo)

• Lee Lambert

A few months ago, after months of bad press, community discontent and administrative controversies, Pima Community College's accreditation was put on probation. The college has about a year to straighten itself out before submitting proof to the Higher Learning Commission that it deserves to remain accredited. Lee Lambert, PCC's new chancellor, has taken this responsibility upon himself. Lambert, who took over as chancellor of PCC on July 1, has an almost surprising online presence. Keep up with him on Twitter and on his blog.

What is the next chapter for Pima?

As I think about the first year, juxtaposed to the challenges that are before us , we’ve got to focus on two big things. One is accreditation. We’ve got to start to make sure we understand what is being expected of us as an institution. And then align ourselves according to that. That’s huge because there’s so much that weighs in the balance. Really what it is, is an opportunity for us to really self-examine what we’ve been doing and to understand it better and get better at what we’re doing. So, that’s one piece. I think the other piece is we have to become a place where employees start to trust each other and that we’re all here for the same reasons, we’re all good people, committed to teaching and learning and starting to come back together around that notion of why we’re here.

Southern Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva responded last week to Iowa Congressman Steve King's assertion that many of the potential DREAM Act kids are actually drug mules who have "calves the size of cantaloupes" from hauling all that weed across the border:

I appreciate the Speaker, Mr. Cantor and others who have repudiated what Steve King said. I think that's important. But the point is that this is a pathological habit and a performance on the part of Steve King. He's done it before. He's made commentaries as offensive, if not more offensive, on other instances, and it's been an attitude about seeing immigrants and to some extent, maybe, the Latino community as some sort of threat. And he applies his agenda that way. I think the leadership of the Republican Party should seriously consider removing him from Judiciary. That is the committee from which some sort of movement on immigration reform is going to emanate, and they should put somebody in there from their party who wants to get something done, as opposed to somebody who is in there to effectively sabotage any effort to get immigration reform done."

New York magazine's Jonathan Chait sizes up King's appearance on the House floor last week to defend his accusations about kids smuggling drugs across the border. ICYMI: Former state lawmaker Frank Antenori defended King on last week's AZ Illustrated Politics and boasted that he, too, once had calves the size of cantaloupes.

As the standard sort of food-loving jackass that seems to be everywhere these days, I enjoy the food blog Eater. They do a great job with the fun national trend stuff, but also provide a solid insight into what's happening in the various cities they cover. However, for better or worse, Tucson has rarely made it on to their radar (the Boca lion meat story, the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru jerk, the forthcoming Pizzeria Bianco and a few other things).

Today, Tucson gets a prime spot on the site with a local installment of their Heat Map feature. The idea is to cover the most interesting new restaurants in a city, but in Tucson's case, that's more or less the nine places you'd expect, considering not that many places really open here any given year. I guess this information might be helpful for someone from out of town or who doesn't follow local food news, but at least as Tucson's culinary culture stands right now, I think a wider net still makes more sense (plug alert: like our 100 Essential Dishes feature from earlier this year!)

So, here's the list, as composed for Eater by Adam Lehrman of Tucson Foodie:

Diablo Burger
Falora
Penca
Wild Garlic Grill
Dante's Fire
Proper
The Twisted Tandoor
Reilly
Umi Star

If you follow the NFL beyond just the 17 Sundays in the fall — a necessity if you played fantasy football — you're probably aware that the first few days of preseason training camp has been akin to a maiming field. Several high-profile players have been injured already, some so bad they'll miss the entire season.

And preseason games don't begin for another week.

But for every freak injury that could have been avoided if NFL owners weren't so greedy that they had to have a preseason schedule equivalent to one-quarter of the regular season, there's a player who benefits from a teammate's malady by moving up the depth chart.

Former Arizona quarterback Matt Scott might be the latest benefactor.

According to a beat writer covering the Jacksonville Jaguars, likely starting QB Blaine Gabbert was carted off the field today with what looked like a pretty severe ankle injury.

Scott, who went undrafted after his senior year but signed a deal with Jacksonville minutes after the three-day draft ended in April, is one of a handful of quarterbacks that move up the charts with Gabbert's injury. Veteran Chad Henne is still ahead of Scott, though that all could change the way this preseason is going.

Though he's yet to set foot in a professional game, this ancillary news still means it's time for another look at the awesome Matt-Scott-vomiting-rainbows GIF that won the Weekly's GIF contest earlier this year.

• mikij

• Blake Collins

At 8:55 am Saturday morning Gangplank was very quiet, with only a few people enjoying a breakfast of bagels donated by Bruegger's Bagels. Then 9 am rolled around and enthusiastic citizens began pouring through the doors. It was good to see a fair number of women among the majority of male participants, and a great range of ages were in attendance. People stood in small groups holding mugs of coffee provided by Ike's, catching up with those they knew and making new contacts as they waited for everyone to sign in. It was a comfortable affair, which is to be expected from a group of people who work late into the night and don't often get up before noon.

The 10th season of UA basketball great Corey Williams' Tucson Summer Pro League finished up Sunday with a championship-game upset led by a not-so-surprising title game MVP.

The Casino del Sol-sponsored squad, which finished sixth in the 10-team league's regular season, beat No. 1 seed Clausen Moore in the semifinals then downed No. 2 Nimbus 115-112 in an electrifying championship at St. Gregory College Prep.

Casino del Sol was led by Donte Williams, who earned his seventh TSPL championship in 10 seasons and earned finals MVP honors.

TSPL scoring leader Larry Boyd, who averaged 20.5 points per game, was named league MVP, while Jason Timpf of Nimbus won the league's 3-point shooting contest and Michael Purdie took home the Slam Dunk Title and a $500 prize.

A Muslim writes a book about Jesus and the world implodes. Oh, yeah, only on Fox News. Author Reza Aslan is the latest guest to make the folks at Fox News look inane.

"You're a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?" asked Fox News' Lauren Green.

His response: "Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament, and fluency in biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades, who also just happens to be a Muslim."

The nine immigration activists, DREAM 9, who were taken into custody after crossing the Nogales Port of Entry on Monday, July 22, remain in custody at the Eloy Detention Center. A second vigil and rally is planned for today at 5 p.m. outside the detention center, with a carpool meeting at 3:15 p.m. and leaving by 3:30 p.m. from the Southside Presbyterian Church, 317 W. 23rd St.

A the last vigil, those who attended reported response from inside the center was clear with inmates pounding on the windows.

In an update from Prerna Lal:

In a radical, transnational action at the U.S.-Mexico border yesterday, 8 “dreamers” walked up to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and asked to be admitted to the United States.

The initial DREAM 8 grew to DREAM 9, when Rosie Rojas, formerly from Tucson, Arizona, joined the action and presented herself to CBP. She went back later but thirty other formerly deported dreamers showed up, asking to come back home. CBP did not know how to react.

The DREAM 9 requested humanitarian parole as formerly deported Dreamers who should never have been deported or forced to leave in the first place. CBP waited until late at night to take them to the Florence Detention Center.

Update: As of now the 9 are at Eloy Detention Center. Keep making those calls.

You’ve to wrap your head around this one — and not just the political ramifications.

Three undocumented youth leaders left the country WITHOUT a visa, WITHOUT any sort of advance parole.

They brought back SIX other undocumented persons who had left the country previously or had been deported.

They ALL entered LEGALLY.

And now, they will be organizing hundreds of other detainees at Florence Detention Center in Arizona, getting legal status for many others while we make the calls to ERO and ICE to let them out of detention.

Why did they take this radical action? “Millions of families like mine have been separated for far too long,” Lizbeth Mateo wrote in a blog piece published by The Huffington Post on Monday. “I waited 15 years to see my grandfather again, and to meet the rest of my family.”

Put simply, the fight to end deportations does not end after deportation. We would not need to take this bold step if the Obama Administration was not deporting and ripping apart families every second at more than 1000 deportations per day. We would not need to take these actions if people were free to see their families on both sides of the border. It is time to bring them all home — they deserve to be home!

How You Can Help

Join the real immigrant rights movement in one of the solidarity events happening across the country in Boston, Massachusetts, Cincinnati, Ohio, Pomona, California, Chicago, Illinois, Asheville, North Carolina. More will be added in the coming days.

Make calls and send emails to release the #DREAM9