Austin Rep. Donna Howard’s HB 772, which would require video webcasts of State Board of Education meetings, easily passed the House moments ago. Currently, SBOE webcasts are audio only, which makes it difficult for people around the state to know whether a completely idiotic statement was uttered by their SBOE rep or someone else’s. The bill now must get through the Senate.

Even though her last version of the Titty Tax is still stuck in court, Rep. Ellen Cohen, D-Houston, finally gets her revised attempt, House Bill 2070, in front of a House committee this week. Cohen's $5 per head surcharge on strip joints (pulverized in court as unconstitutional) is scheduled for a public hearing on April 1 in House Ways and Means. A rival bill, the 10% admissions tax in HB982 by fellow Houston Dem Rep. Senfronia Thompson, is sprinting to the floor and is already in Calendars. But here's an oddity. When HB 982 was initially filed, it was sent to Ways & Means: The same committee scheduled to hear HB 2070. For some reason, HB 982 got bounced over to Licensing & Administrative Procedures. When it was voted out 8-0 on March 18, it was sent to the Local & Consent Calendar, which then sent it back to Calendars (According to Brete Anderson, Thompson's chief of staff, there was disagreement about whether this was really a local bill.) Obviously, committees are set up with overlapping mandates. But two taxes, one industry? Why not the same committee?

Rumor around the Capitol right now is that Betty Brown, R-Athens, will attempt to attach an amendment to HB 71 today that would essentially be a voter ID bill. We've heard this so far from Quorum Report and Burnt Orange Report. The caption on HB 71 says "Relating to the establishment of a program to provide a ballot by electronic mail to military personnel serving overseas and their spouses and dependents residing overseas." So we'll see whether Brown's amendment is germane to the bill. Brown authored an unsuccessful voter ID bill two years ago. The House is breaking for lunch as I type this, so look for this later in the afternoon. They're due to return at 1pm. UPDATE: False alarm, apparently. HB 71 came up for debate, and just as Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas and the Dem's point man on voter ID issues, came to the mic, there was a bit of a break and some off-mic discussion. Then the bill's sponsor came back to the mic, and the bill was passed to engrossment with no amendments.

Cray-cray lay-day and "first supermodel" Janice Dickinson will be co-hosting the Gay VN Awards (gay porn's Oscars) along with GP perennial crush Margaret Cho and comedian Alec Mapa. In past years the awards have been hosted by Lady Bunny and Chi Chi LaRue, but this year the boys decided to ditch the drag for some real queens. Find out who will win in such categories as "Best Bottom," "Best Threesome," and "Best Sex-Comedy" (my picks: Blu Kennedy, Return to Fire Island, and the Twink Whisperer, respectively. I mean, I don't watch gay porn, so how would I know… ?) The awards will be held tonight, Saturday, 8:30pm, and you can watch a livestream of the proceedings here. (WARNING: This will be soooo NSFW and NSFChilluns.)

When you see your state legislator perusing the laptop on their desk during a Senate or House floor session, do you wonder what important documents they're perusing, perhaps arming themselves with crucial information before they take to the microphone? Well, now you know. Sorry, I never got a chance to figure out whose desk that is.

I was out chasing an unrelated story all day, and unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) had to miss the inanity of the State Board of Education's final vote on science curriculum standards for Texas' public schoolchildren. However, the anti-religious-right and pro-science group Texas Freedom Network was there liveblogging it. They report that: • The attempt to re-insert a requirement that instructors teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution failed. A panel of scientists and educators had recommended removing that language, in part because fundamentalist religious groups have seized on it in recent years to push creationism into classrooms.
• A compromise amendment would require examination of "all sides" of scientific explanations.
• Board Chair Don McLeroy's previously approved amendment to analyze the "sufficiency or insufficiency" of the fossil record to prove common descent was deleted in the final reading, which TFN called a "very important victory" for science.
• Fundamentalist Cynthia Dunbar offered an amendment to "analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data on sudden appearance and stasis and the sequential groups in the fossil record." After "the sufficiency of" was deleted, it passed.

This is the way to publish sketchbooks. More, please. You publish the sketchbooks. Actually reproduce, as closely as possible, the same scale, paper, binding, and well, heft of these precious archives. Many artists carry a sketchbook wherever they go, each page, clean and bright with the promise of a new idea, a chance to capture a unique face, a juvenile cartoon, and, maybe most importantly, private failures of experimentation. With his new sketchbook Be a Nose! (McSweeney's, $29), pioneering comics artist Art Spiegelman utilizes the same ace-in-the-hole design sense that made RAW Magazine the most important comic work of the 1980s.

There has always been something about SXSW for me that has been hard to stomach. I had thought it was the onset of rush hour all day with the influx of yet more people who have places to go but have no idea where they are. I had thought it was the shuffling hordes of drunken and hungover zombies – the wristband is the sign that they’ve turned – moaning for water and a bathroom. I had thought it was we “townies” working our asses off like chain gangs and being priced out and crowded out of the fun. I didn’t quite know what it was until this year. The annual invasion of Austin and the siege of SXSW pushes us to the limits of our friendliness and hospitality. I want to vomit for typing this ham-fisted statement, but Austin is populated by some of the nicest people you could find anywhere. They are genuinely friendly people who genuinely want you to have a good time. And it makes the city easy to enjoy. I’ve never been completely comfortable with telling people I live in “the live music capital of the world.” I involuntarily roll me eyes every time I say it. I think I’d rather tell them, “I’m from Austin, where you always find a friend.” (Even if it is just for an afternoon.) I don’t think I would have stumbled upon this if I hadn’t enjoyed SXSW myself with a little help from my friends in the Alternative Softball League (and PJ Harvey).