Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner and the Tucson Taco Festival, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, is the perfect place to build up taco-eating and tequila-drinking endurance before the big day.

The Taco Festival is at Rillito Downs, 4502 N. 1st Ave., and costs $10 per person, kids under 12 are free, plus $2 for every taco sample. Twenty-five taco teams comprised of professionals and amateurs will battle it out to make the winning taco and receive a $5,000 prize. The competition categories are: chicken, beef, pork, and fish plus best salsa, guacamole, anything goes taco, and best booth design.

If stuffing your face with tasty tacos isn’t enough fun, there’s Lucha Libre wrestling to enjoy, and plenty to drink. Besides a main bar, bartenders will compete in a Margarita Challenge, and a Boutique Tequila Expo tent will feature over 30 premium tequilas.

For more information visit http://www.tucsontacofestival.com/

Gov. Jan Brewer, House Speaker Andy Tobin and Senate President Steve Peirce say they've reached a budget deal at the state Capitol. Their joint statement:

Today, we can proudly announce that we have reached agreement on an FY 2013 state budget plan that enjoys our full support.

This agreement adheres to our conservative principles by restraining unnecessary spending, paying down debt and setting aside funding for Arizona’s future fiscal challenges. This is a prudent budget that leaves us well-prepared for global and national economic uncertainties, as well as the financial fallout that may come with the outcome of lawsuits regarding ObamaCare and other issues. We have kept the State on a path that helps ensure Arizona’s financial solvency into FY 2015.

Just as important, this budget addresses those services that are vital to citizens and central to Arizona’s ability to compete around the world for jobs and investment: Education, Public Safety and Health and Human Services. By way of this agreement, the State will spend nearly $200 million more for K-12 and higher education, hire additional Public Safety and Correctional officers and create a special investigative unit to target the highest-priority cases of potential child abuse and neglect. Likewise, State funding will be increased for critical safety net programs, including adoption services and assistance for the seriously mentally ill.

We haven't seen the actual document, but earlier today, the Children's Action Alliance fired off a bulletin about the organization's takeaways of the draft in handy graph form:

Sure, it's another ad from the guys responsible for the fame of Chuck Testa, so this is essentially the product of a meme-generating machine, but I'm always going to support the roller-skating industry. They've given so much to me, so it's all I can do to be a little supportive in return.

BONUS ROLLER SKATING MATERIAL FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE: I wrote an article for the now-totally-sucky music blog Idolator about my night as a roller rink DJ (sorta) back in 2007.

The Butterfly Magic exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Gardens is open through Monday, April 30. Don't miss the last chance to be enveloped in a greenhouse kept at tropical temperatures while vibrant butterflies fly around you. Check out the video above for a sneak peek of what you'll see.

For more information visit the Botanical Garden's website here.

On Arizona Illustrated's Political Roundtable tonight: We'll talk about the Supreme Court hearing on SB1070, examine whether the case will affect Latino politics in the 2012 election, look at how the presidential and U.S. Senate races are shaping up and check in on the latest between Republican Jesse Kelly and Democrat Ron Barber in the race to complete Gabrielle Giffords' congressional term. Tune in at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Channel 6 to see Pima County Democratic Party chairman Jeff Rogers and Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries talk about all of this with Arizona Public Media political correspondent Christopher Conover and your moderator, Jim Nintzel.

I had previously assumed that Albuquerque "crunkcore" act Brokencyde would hold the title of "worst band in the world" for some time, but now there's Skip the Foreplay (sigh), a Montreal band working with the magical formula of "metal + screamo + dubstep" (triple sigh). If you want to frighten rats out of your home or something, their debut album is available to stream now!

From the press release:

SKIP THE FOREPLAY STREAM NIGHTLIFE

Debut Album Out 5/1

Band To Spend Summer on Warped Tour

The ground-breaking new band Skip The Foreplay are streaming their debut album, Nightlife in its entirety, starting today. The new album contains thirteen high energy tracks that alternate between technically jaw dropping metalcore, brutal Earth shaking breakdowns, hip-hop and techno instrumentation and will hit streets on May 1st through Epitaph Records.

Fans can see what the buzz is about and stream the album by going to Alternative Press’s website: http://www.altpress.com/features/entry/premiere_skip_the_foreplay_nightlife

The band burst on to the scene, devastating audiences with their original and thoroughly brutal cover of the song “Champagne Showers” by the popular electro pop duo LMFAO.

Polling guru Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com/The New York Times looks at Obama's chances in Arizona. He notes that Obama will have a rough road here, but doesn't totally dismiss his chances. However, Silver doesn't see Arizona as a swing state:

None of this is to say that Mr. Obama couldn’t win Arizona — he certainly could. Bill Clinton won Arizona in 1996 when he won the election by about eight percentage points nationally. If Mr. Obama won by a similar margin, he’d be at least even-money to pick up the state as well.

But if he does win Arizona it will probably be superfluous, since in all likelihood he’ll already have won states like Ohio, Colorado and Virginia that are closer to the tipping point.

The situation is analogous to Mitt Romney winning a state like New Jersey, which is also plausible if Mr. Romney wins the election by several points nationally. But that doesn’t make New Jersey a swing state — it’s just extra spoils for the winner.

I'm not sure what prompted someone to start a Tumblr pairing photos of Bon Iver's Justin Vernon with strange, disconcerting subtitles imagining erotic scenarios featuring the indie rock star, but here it is.

So, KVOA has unveiled one of the TV station news ideas that no one really asked for, but seems to be a big deal anyway called News 4 Tucson SKYNET, a series of HD cameras (or "observation network" as their promo video puts it) around town that allows them to show more clear live footage of rainstorms, traffic jams and homeless people urinating or something.

However, while I'm not thrilled with the idea of a private company setting up cameras around town, the first thing that came to my mind regarding this new initiative was that the name sounded so familiar.

Oh, right, they gave their weird camera system the same name as the self-aware artificial intelligence system that takes over the world in the Terminator movies.

This seems like a peculiar mistake, adopting a name with an existing negative connotation, especially considering the very first Google result is an extensive Wikipedia article about the Terminator series and the first YouTube result is a clip from Terminator 2 about the day when Skynet became aware. It seems worth looking up the name you give your fancy project, but maybe that's just me.

However, is it possible that KVOA's new camera system is actually part of a real life take over by our future computer overlords? Maybe the Terminator movies were created to throw humanity off the scent. April 19, 2011 has come and gone without Skynet becoming aware (OR SO WE THINK), so all future references will just seem like poor decision making by a local media outlet and not at all the installation of "eyes" for a self-educating artificial intelligence system.

Either way, the cameras are kind of creepy.

Conservative Republicans at the Arizona Legislature are notoriously tight-fisted with public dollars, but they are considering giving former state lawmaker Russell Pearce a quarter of a million bucks to cover all the inconvenience of being recalled last year. Jim Small of the Arizona Capitol Times reports:

Former Senate President Russell Pearce is facing a wealthy opponent in this year’s elections, but his campaign could receive a six-figure windfall from the state treasury if some Republican lawmakers have their way.

A senior House Republican is circulating a letter calling for the state to reimburse Pearce more than $250,000 for his recall election last year.

Pearce is running again for the Senate this year in the new Legislative District 25. His opponent in the Republican primary is Bob Worsley, the founder of SkyMall.

House Speaker Pro Tem Steve Montenegro said he began circulating the letter after he was approached by several Republicans concerned about a constitutional provision requiring recalled elected officials to be reimbursed.

“There’s a lot of legislators that have raised the issue,” the Litchfield Park Republican said. “Some members have spoken out, and it’s our constitutional duty.”