We at Chronic have seen the future of student dorms, and it's nicer than where we live.

The Association of College and University Housing Officers International, a think tank for colleges to work out new ways to squeeze housing cash out of students, has just announced the winners of its 21st Century Project competition. The competition, sponsored in part by Texas A&M, dreams of a Jetsons-esque phütür, where students will live in modular accommodations with movable walls, plasma-screen homework, and flat-packed lecturers. Unfortunately for this utopian vision, the winning design, the JLA "flexDorm," features a "a one-piece sink and toilet."

Now, not to put too crude a spin on it, but when did any drunken frat-boy need encouraging to pee in the sink? And more importantly, will these idealized rooms with "smart-media walls" be more than an overpriced, socially exclusive way to piss money up the wall?

Boston came to a screaming halt when aliens invaded and gave them the bird.

Austin had some street teams clamping magnetic advertising light boxes to walls. And went, “Oh, look, it’s Ignignokt, leader of the Mooninites.”

Electronic advertising devices that were mistaken for explosive devices brought Boston to a halt yesterday. It’s been widely reported that the Beantown Po-Po have charged two men with putting up magnetic ads for the upcoming spin-off movie from the Cartoon Network's animated show Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters but a little less widely reported that the same light boxes turned up in a dozen cities – including Austin.

Nowhere else did the population start shrieking about terrorists. Or alien invasions. It’s been suggested that Boston was a little more edgy about potential terrorist attacks because of 9/11, but since 40 of the light boxes were put up in New York and no one got freaked out, that dog don’t hunt.

So does this mean that Austin is too blasé about potential IADs on its streets, or is Boston just so square that it can’t recognize a Mooninite when it sees one?

More on Boston mayor Thomas Menino's totally retarded reaction here.

So the blogosphere says Joe Biden just ended the shortest presidential run in history with this quote from an interview released today: regarding Obama, Biden says "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Joe Biden, 1942-2007.

UPDATE: Obama replies: "I didn't take Senator Biden's comments personally, but obviously they are historically inaccurate. After all, we've had presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Mosely Braun and Al Sharpton. They gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns and no one would call them inarticulate."

UPDATE Deuce: Biden was slated to be the guest on tonight's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Should be an interesting episode, if JB hasn't canceled…

Texas may not have a nominee in the 2008 Presidential race yet, but that doesn't mean it can't throw some money down. Unlikely Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani will be in Houston for a fundraiser tomorrow, touching up the great, the good, and the filthy rich for campaign contributions. Giuliani's exploratory committee chair, former Bush pioneer Patrick Oxford is hoping those billfolds that opened up to shower cash on a right-wing Texan nominee will be as forthcoming for a pro-choice, pro-gay-rights East Coast candidate.

But our advice to all those deep pockets in Houston is: don't start signing those checks too soon. America's Mayor may become another (purely political) victim of the Iraq quagmire.

Today, former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton and former Reagan attorney general Ed Meese blamed the U.S. government for the lawlessness in Iraq (duh!) and said the Justice Department should have taken responsibility for training Iraqi police. Instead, they left it to private firms and external consultants - consultants like former NYPD commissioner, and Rudy's one-time personal driver, Bernard Kerik. Kerik was CEO of Giuliani-Kerik LLC (now Giuliani Security & Safety), the security consultancy arm of Rudy's international consultancy firm Giuliani LLC. Kerik oversaw the patently unsuccessful reconstitution of the Iraqi police force. Undaunted by those failures, he tried to be head honcho of Homeland Security. And who recommended Bernie to Dubya for that gig? Yup, Rudy.

As every presidential hopeful tries to to distance themselves from Iraq, and link their opponent to the debacle, does anyone think that this won't be used against the former mayor of New York?

With the big Responsible Growth for Northcross meeting tonight promising some big news, (did somebody say boycott?) we thought we'd hit with you a big-time collection of Wal-Mart ephemerata from Teh Intertubes.

• Wal-Mart selling gay Hentai porn: from the fine folks at The Consumerist, who previously revealed Wally-World was slangin' t-shirts with the Death's Head skull of the Nazi SS emblazoned on them.

• Two fake Wal-Mart blogs busted: This is a little older, describing how to pro-Wal-Mart astroturfers were uprooted.

• Lawmakers offer bill banning Wal-Mart bank: Bipartisan bill to prevent the mega-retailer from dominating another market.

• One of year's biggest PR blunders: Sending "Candidate Wal-Mart" on the campaign trail.

• A picture's worth a thousand words: they're all "ewww!" Check out the Flickr photo-stream from Filthy Wal-Mart.

RG4N meeting tonight, Jan. 31, 2007, at 7pm in
Wozniak Hall at St. Louis Catholic Church at 7601 Burnet Road.

It's a very sad day around the Chronicle offices – Barbaro was euthanized early this morning. How the paper will go on, I don't know.

Without veering too far off into tinfoil hat territory, I think it's increasingly obvious the troop escalation in Iraq isn't designed to pacify the country – how on earth could 20,000 troops, creating approximately the same number that were there last summer, hope to do so – but instead to create the conditions for attacks on Iran.

Despite the proclamations in the president's library address and his aggressive overtures during the State of the Union, there's practically no evidence that Iran is providing insurgents with bombs and munitions to attack American forces in Iraq. Still, the AP reports "President Bush has authorized U.S. forces in Iraq to take whatever actions are necessary to counter Iranian agents deemed a threat to American troops or the public at large." The policy professes to stop short of Iran's borders, but all we need is one Bay of Pigs-type incident – easily done with a recently deployed carrier in the region– and we're in.

Those of us whose lives are governed by logic may see a massive air strike on Iran as insane, an inflammatory move which will make the current chaos in the Middle East look tame and contained by comparison. But we are not dealing with sane men – we are in the sphere of truly psychotic people who profess to make their own reality. Witness this recent exchange between Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concerning the escalation:

"I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?' And he said, 'Because I told them it had to.' "

As an addendum to today's Beside the Point regarding the mayor's push for plug-in hybrid cars, let me add this: following the president's otherwise lackluster State of the Union address, Bush issued an executive order which didn't involve wiping his ass with the Constitution. (How refreshing!) Instead, the EO instructs federal agencies operating 20 or more vehicles to use "plug-in hybrid (PIH) vehicles when PIH vehicles are commercially available at a cost reasonably comparable, on the basis of life-cycle cost, to non-PIH vehicles."

While the order, like the rest of his energy proposals, is a little wishy-washy, it's a start. Will Wynn is a little more excited, saying "I'm delighted by the President's Executive Order today. In fact, I'm going to frame it. Austin truly is helping to drive national energy policy in a way that will, one, reduce our over-reliance on foreign oil; two, dramatically reduce carbon emissions that are warming the planet; and three, help the American consumer and economy by reducing the cost of fuel."

As M1EK points out, plug-ins are far from perfect. And yes, Austin Energy has as variety of reasons for pushing plug-ins, not the least of which being a boost to their bottom line. But I credit Wynn for raising the issue and creating demand. Further efficiency and adoption of plug-in tech will only come as demand grows – we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.