newsdesk

Wake up, man. Snap to it! It's high time to dig yourself out from this yellowing snowpile of neurotic family members and curdled eggnog. There's a whole world out there that's been going along just fine minus you, you know. Just what the hell have we missed?

First Traffic Light Installed at Mueller: Thursday, Public Works activated the traffic signal at Airport and Aldrich, the main entrance to the former airport. Here's hoping no cars use it, as everyone bikes their 25-quart roasters back from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Housing Authority Receives $350,000 Grant: Lloyd Doggett brings home the housing bacon. More info here.

Craddick Challenged as Speaker: We're not referring to his eloquence; it looks as if Plano Republican Brian McCall is venturing into the lion's den. Whoa.

Water Main Burst Downtown: Bad enough to send Whole Foods packing for the day. Double whoa.

Everyone is Dying: First James Brown, then Gerald Ford. RIP. Read More | Comment »

In our haste to pack it in for the holidays, we almost neglected to call attention to this slightly off-kilter picture of Lee Leffingwell and Mike Martinez cleaning newly-purchased Eastside parkland. Grace it with a caption in the comments section below. Read More | 7 Comments »

Before tonight's game against the Los Angeles D-Fenders, the 0-11 Austin Toros announced that swingman James White had been recalled by the San Antonio Spurs (21-7). White goes from the team with the worst record in the D-League to the one with the best mark in the NBA - making him officially the fastest-rising player in professional basketball. The former University of Cincinnati star, who was assigned to the Toros by the Spurs back on Dec. 16, will take his place on the Spurs bench in time for their game tonight against the Milwaukee Bucks. In three games with the Toros, White averaged 12.5 sorely-needed points off the bench.

As for the Toros, they'll try to avoid a dirty dozen (0-12) start to the season tonight against L.A. The D-Fenders beat the Toros two days ago, 103-97. As of this writing, they're down 19-11 at the four-minute mark of the first quarter. Read More | Comment »

Regular posting will resume by the middle of the week, as we nestle in the bosom of our respective families. It's nice and warm there!

Until then, happy holidays! Read More | Comment »

The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports that former top Texas drug cop Barry Cooper next week will launch a new Web site to promote his video “Never Get Busted Again,” which Cooper says will show viewers how to hide their stash, “avoid narcotics profiling” and to fool, “every time,” those pesky drug-sniffing police dogs.

Needless to say, Cooper’s change in profession – from narco superman to drug war foe – hasn’t exactly charmed his fellow drug-fighting colleagues. “It outrages me personally as I’m sure it does any officer that has sworn an oath to uphold the laws of this state, and nation,” Tyler DEA Agent Richard Sanders told the paper. Read More | 1 Comment »

Mexican soldiers say they’ve found a new hybrid marijuana plant that can grow outside year round and is immune to herbicide, reports the Associated Press.

Soliders in the mountainous western state of Michoacan, which has been ground zero for a raging Mexican drug cartel war, have been trying to clear the mountainsides of the plants – known as “Colombians” – by pulling them out by the root and burning them, the AP reports. “Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it’s taken out by the roots,” army Gen. Manuel Gracia told reporters. Read More | Comment »

Which is why you're reading this, duh. But comments are still wonky, for reasons unknown.

As you might imagine, posting around these parts will be a might light through the holidays, however. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, a joyous Kwanzaa a hep Tet, and a Festive New Year to you all.

UPDATE: Comments a'workin'. Happy Holidays! Read More | Comment »

Lawyers for Anthony Graves on Dec. 21 fired back at Burleson Co. District Judge Reva Townslee Corbett, who, in an apparent screw you to the federal bench, the day before set a $1 million bond for Graves to be released from jail.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March overturned Graves’ 1994 capital murder conviction and death sentence, ruling that prosecutors withheld crucial exculpatory witness statements from Graves’ defenders. Graves has maintained his innocence, repeatedly saying he played no role in the 1992 murder of six people – including four children under 10 – in Burleson Co. Nonetheless, Graves was fingered as an accomplice to the murders by Robert Carter, who was also convicted and sentenced to death for the crime. However, Carter later recanted – shortly before he was executed in 2000 – saying that he had lied and that Graves was in fact innocent. Indeed, during a recent hearing regarding Graves’ impending retrial, one of the original investigators in the case, Texas Ranger Ray Coffman, testified for the first time ever that Carter told him several times during the original murder investigation that Graves was innocent. Sources told the Chronicle that Coffman further testified that he’d passed that information on to former Burleson District Attorney Charles Sebesta, who spearheaded Graves’ first trial. Read More | Comment »

Chronic troll-in-residence M1EK (former Urban Transportation Commission member Mike Dahmus) points us to a lengthy comment in this Austinist discussion by none other than Brewster McCracken. (Or someone claiming to be him. But if it's a fake, then his doppelgänger's got McCracken's mannerisms – his talking points, the bloviation, the hepcat-parlance he adopts for the kids – down to an almost frightening degree.) After dispensing crazy "props," MC Cracken breaks down the science at Northcross, yo:

"1. The Council was told by Wal-Mart reps that the project was going to comply with the Design Standards and Mixed Use Ordinance when we were first told about this project the week before it hit the press. That turned out to be untrue.

2. Whether the neighborhoods would have the same reaction to a Costco or Target is apples and oranges, because this Super Wal-Mart will be 24 hours/7 days a week and will be 225,000 square feet. Costco is 153,000 square feet, located on a highway, and closes at 8:30 pm M-F, 6 pm Sat. and Sun. The largest Target in Central TX is 171,000 sq. ft, located on I-35, and closes at 9 pm M-S, 8 pm on Sunday… It's a completely different experience from other power center retailers.

3. It appears likely that Lincoln and Wal-Mart have been untruthful about the traffic impact of this highway-style development… At a minimum, Wal-Mart and Lincoln have some explaining to do, and they have a responsibility to start telling the truth.

4. It's a bum rap on the neighborhoods to try to label them as NIMBY's. They are supporting significant Triangle-caliber densities (which are far denser than the Northcross power center) at Crestview Station."

Which M1EK responds to with his hoary argument that locating Wal-Mart on a freeway or frontage road is a bad idea, because it's bad for pedestrian traffic. Read More | 6 Comments »

So folks up in Minnesota elected an African-American to Congress who converted to Islam some years ago, and will take his oath of office on a Koran instead of a Bible. And one of his colleagues, some dumbass from Virginia named Virgil Goode, somehow decided this merited a call for tighter immigration laws to keep Muslims out of America. Aside from the utter hatefulness of this, we're almost as appalled by his lack of logic – how can tighter immigration laws do a damn thing to stop Americans from converting to Islam?

Still, you have to love democracy: Even the ignorant, fearmongering bigot community has representation. Read More | 1 Comment »

Holiday hesitaters, listen up: with today's publication of the Chronicle's 2006 Political Procrastinators' Holiday Gift Guide, there's no excuse for an empty stocking. The best doesn't come cheap though, like this motivational picture for the condo impresario that has everything. But Christmas only comes once a year, right? Condos are forever.

For those on a tighter holiday budget, here's a few final suggestions:

The Gift that Keeps on Hoarding: Post-apocalyptic survivalists are always the hardest to shop for. So why not give them a gift certificate to survivormall.com? That way, there's no egg on your camo-greasepainted face when they get a second Scott M-95 Military Grade Gas Mask in the mail. Done and done!

Joe Lieberman "Go Joe" 2004 Bumperstickers:
The Joementum's only 50 cents. Don't order all at once, lest you "crash" Joe's website. Last, and decidedly least...

1600 For Men Exfoliating Power Scrub: The irony of the Bush White House licensing an official "power scrub" is almost suffocating. Or how about their "hand wash?" (Blogger David Neiwert says it's great for "getting out those nasty bloodstains.") Setting aside the Nixonian/Metrosexual connotations, one Amazon shopper wonders, "Can you imagine the uproar if Clinton had done something like this?" Read More | Comment »

On the heels of a ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordering the state to set a bond for Anthony Graves – whose murder conviction and death sentence the appellate court overturned earlier this year – or free him on a bond set previously by a federal district judge, state Burleson Co. District Judge Reva Townslee Corbett on Dec. 20 set Graves’ bond at $1 million.

The six-figure bond is a far cry from the $50,000 bail set by U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent in November – a bond that would’ve allowed Graves to walk away from prison after 12 years on death row for just $5,000 up front, while the state prepares to retry him on capital murder charges for the murder of six people – four of them children under 10 – and for the arson prosecutors say was set to cover the crime. Read More | Comment »

Since our first round of suggestions got the blogosphere going nuts, here's another round of last-minute gift ideas, leading up to our print-edition extravaganza tomorrow. Suck it, secular humanists!

Shop WorldNetDaily: Aside from being a platform for black helicopter paranoia, standing firm against the nefarious homosexual/tofu agenda, and fanning Chuck Norris' literary flames, this winger-site par excellence offers plenty of ways to ruin the holidays. Their "Operation: Just Say... Merry Christmas" bracelets are an inexpensive way to remind loved ones that the season of peace on earth means nothing less than outright spiritual warfare. But WND doesn't totally hate the Jews – they need Israel to fulfill biblical prophecy and bring about the Antichrist, remember – so they've prepared a "The Gift of Chanukah" DVD. For their Muslim friends, WND offers… ha, we had you going there!

NukAlert: At all times, the Right must be vigilant in the war against Islamofascinazipinkonmulticulturalism. Who knows where you'll be when a dirty bomb's detonated – blogging from the front lines in the GWOT, in the bunker some call your Grandmother's basement, or, God forbid, on a Wasabi Funyuns and Mr. Pibb refueling mission. Well now there's NukAlert, the only $160 keychain authorized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Domestic Preparedness. Read More | Comment »

Apparently, Escuelita del Alma is preparing itself for the inevitable. According to the Austin Business Journal, the stalwart child-care center "tapped Southwest Strategies Group and Principal John Rosato to assist in the search for space… "Since our situation has left us with no alternative but to leave that prime location, I prefer to look for a new, permanent location," says Dina Flores, executive director of Escuelita del Alma. "Given Austin's hot real estate market, my fear is any leased space close to downtown stands to leave Escuelita in the same situation in which it is now."

Which would mean no day-care Downtown. Oh well, kids weren't very New Urban anyway. Read More | 1 Comment »

Intriguing news from the Scientific American, of all places:

"(A) new genetic census of some air samples from Austin and San Antonio, Tex., finds that as many as 2,000 different kinds of microbes may be present in the air we breathe on any given day.

Microbial ecologist Gary Andersen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and his colleagues collected air samples in the two Texas cities over a period of 17 weeks, starting in 2003… In the air samples, the researchers uncovered at least 1,800 different types of microbes, including those such as the diarrhea-causing Arcobacter and ulcer-inducing Heliobacter genera that can be dangerous to human health."

Good God. Still, I'm sure the chamber of commerce can flip this into a net plus. How long until we see tees and stickers emblazoned with "Austin: Live Microbial Capital of the World?" Read More | Comment »

As a follow-up to the post below, apparently Wal-Mart sent a sacrificial lamb into the North Shoal Creek Neighborhood Association meeting last night. But Lincoln Property Group, ehh, not so much:

"Tonight, the North Shoal Creek Neighborhood Association — my neighborhood association — held a general meeting with the Northcross developers scheduled to attend. And again, Lincoln Properties was nowhere to be found.

Is Lincoln Properties ever going to talk with anybody, or are they just trying to run out the clock? The empty chairs are not a sign of good faith." Read More | Comment »

You didn't think we could leave you this long without a Northcross Wal-Mart update, did you?

Yesterday, Responsible Growth for Northcross posted information about a meeting of the Crestview Neighborhood Association and Wal-Mart/Lincoln Properties scheduled for that day. Alas, it wasn't to be. To wit:

"Nobody from either Wal-Mart or Lincoln Property Co. showed up tonight. They may not show up tomorrow.

Here are the people who did show up:

Mark Aflatooni - Doucet and Associates - Land Use
Joe Grasso - Doucet and Associates - Civil Engineer
Kalinda Howe - Martin and Salinas Public Affairs

None of these people have the authority to speak for either Wal-Mart or Lincoln Properties but they took our comments to present to their clients."

Ouch. We'll see what happens tonight, during the North Shoal Creek N.A's meeting. Read More | 1 Comment »

The Chronicle learned Dec. 18 that Burleson County District Attorney Renee Mueller this afternoon filed a motion voluntarily recusing her entire office from handling the retrial of Anthony Graves, who was convicted and sentenced to die for a 1992 multiple murder in that county. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year overturned Graves’ conviction on grounds that several crucial witness statements had been withheld from the defense at his original trial. Moreover, also Dec. 18, the 5th Circuit again ruled in Graves’ favor, denying a state motion to keep him locked up until he can be retried. The appellate court ruling orders the state to hold a bond hearing by Jan. 4, or release Graves no later than that date on a $50,000 bond already set by U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent. Read More | Comment »

Over in Postmarks, City Manager Toby Futrell writes the Chronicle. An excerpt:

"Michael King circuitously questions my professional integrity while acknowledging he has no knowledge of either a conflict of interest or any inappropriate personal interventions [“Point Austin,” News, Dec. 15]. He then tries to draw a parallel about how I handle my job as city manager and my husband's employment to a past conflict-of-interest case involving a contract project manager on a major city utility project. In that particular case, the project manager did not disclose that he had a live-in relationship with an individual who obtained significant financial subcontracts at the same time and on the very same project he was hired to directly manage."

Read the rest over here. Read More | 5 Comments »

Editor's note: This text has been revised and corrected since its original publication.

In the spirit of open government in the New Year, House Speaker Tom Craddick could resolve to turn over a new leaf by making his 2007 political calendar available to the public. The chance of that happening is slim, but an open-book policy could save the speaker another legal go-around with Austin attorney Cris Feldman, who last week won a long-awaited ruling concerning Craddick's 2003 calendar. Read More | Comment »