State lawmakers review alternative budget plan

Buried on 7A (and not on dCourier.com) we find this story of a supposedly mystified House leadership playing catch-up with a budget plan that's been making the rounds for a couple of weeks. It seems Rep John Kavanagh has no idea who it's coming from.

The Courier could have scooped AP on this one if the editors listened to The People's Business over the last couple of weeks. This is the bipartisan plan that Rep Lucy Mason announced on the show. She's one of the plan's prime movers, advocating for compromise up the middle of the political divide that's brought the Arizona legislature to a standstill.

By the way, Kavanagh is not being entirely truthful about not knowing where it's coming from. Rep Mason and Rep Bill Konopnicki were keeping the plan inside so that leadership would have a chance to sign on before they went public with it.

We'll have more on this week's show, 2pm Saturday and Sunday on KJZA (89.5 FM) and KJZP (90.1 FM).

Update, Sunday morning: Rep. Kavanagh responds in the comments. Here's a link to the story as carried on myfoxphoenix.com, including a big chunk the Courier left out.

Feed-your-head Friday

How figure skaters control spin speed, and how much fun you can have in a physics lab: angular momentum.

Editorial: Plan to keep Cubs in AZ is home run

Apparently the unnamed Courier editor has again forgotten that the editorial column is not a personal blog.

Stories about movie stars go in the entertainment section, stories about church services go on the religion page, and stories about sports go on the sports page. Papers traditionally do this so readers can conveniently toss out the useless pages en masse.

Stories about local sports a hundred miles away have no place in a local paper at all, and that doesn't change just because the editor happens to be interested in sports. Readers don't care about his saltwater fish tank or his stamp collection, either.

What's weird and noteworthy about this piece, though, is the editor's support for a new non-user tax to help pay for his entertainment. This follows his blanket refusal to accept any new taxes to balance the state budget just four weeks ago. Gotta have priorities, I guess.