Don't you love it when everyone wins? Dueling press releases from Attorney General Greg Abbott and the Democrat-affiliated Lone Star Project are both spinning a settlement agreement between the AG and the Texas Democratic Party as victories for their respective sides. In 2006, six individuals and the TDP filed suit in federal court alleging that Abbott was enforcing a provision of the Texas Election Code too tightly. The provision forbids an individual from possessing another person's ballot, and Abbott prosecuted 26 cases. But the six plaintiffs in this case shot back by saying that they were merely trying to deliver the mail-in ballots of a friend or relative, and that the law was overbroad. They also noted that the majority of the Republican AG's prosecutions were against racial minorities, and all of them were against Democrats – and thus, they charged, this was more about suppressing and intimidating Democratic voters than preventing fraud. (Click here for a more detailed rehashing.) Today, the suit was dismissed in Marshall by District Judge T. John Ward after a settlement was reached. Abbott's press release claimed that this was "the latest in a string of victories for the State of Texas, which consistently maintained that its efforts to protect the integrity of the elections process were entirely constitutional," while the Lone Star Project's statement was headlined "Plaintiffs Win Favorable Settlement in Abbott Vote Suppression Case."

We were bummed to miss last week's press screening of The Fall, former music video artist Tarsem Singh's long-delayed followup to The Cell (which plays these days mostly as a punchline, but we remember rather liking it). The trailer looks gorgeous, but early word is decidedly mixed (check out Marc Savlov's very positive review in print tomorrow or online right this very second). We're reserving judgment till we see it in the theatre – which we just might do on Monday, June 2, seeing as how Tarsem will be holding court (or at least a Q&A) at the 7pm show at the Arbor Theatre (9828 Great Hills Trail). Tickets are the usual cost ($8.75 for adults, $7.50 for students, and $6.50 for children/seniors) and can be purchased in advance either at the Arbor box office or online at fandango.com.

The simple wildflower-print dresses worn by the ladies of the Texas polygamist cult (hasn't anybody discovered their real name, or at least created a media moniker?) may indicate innocence, submission, and lack of vanity, but their updos stand for anything but. Cosmetics are apparently forbidden, but hair products can get you closer to salvation. God likes Extra Hold. These hairdos are at once stern, righteous, forbidding, and deliberate. They stand in contrast to the iconic hair of other rural women in, say, the American South – where most any Sunday morning service will find once fashion-forward hairstyles, on certain individuals mutating with every pass of the poison crop-duster into more and more elaborate parodies of the original. (Maybe pesticides gradually cloud up the mirrors around town.) Said permutations are not, in other words, necessarily deliberate. The polygamists' updos, however, seem somehow more, well, pointed. Since their lives are centered mainly around each other (at least that's how it is on HBO's Big Love), for whom exactly are these high and mighty hair messages meant? I think they're meant for each other. It's easy to imagine hair-height and projection of the unicorn-curl signifying some kind of station among the gals. Since male attention is coveted, one must assume that wave-width engineering has something to do with that. I'd be a lesbian polygamist and smuggle contraband around in mine. Murine for the alpha sister's coffee, perhaps, when Mr. Big Breeches' evening visitation schedule doesn't suit. Or flammable cans of travel-sized hairspray for those tricky days. Condoms ordered online, fluttering into the soup tureen. Definitely condoms.

Last Friday was my first time seeing Dustin Welch & the House Band. It won’t be my last. With seven members, they crowded the Continental Club stage and, more importantly, the sound they made was gigantic, big enough to fill a space several times larger. Dustin is the son of Kevin Welch, the Okie songwriter who, following his son's lead, recently left Nashville for Central Texas. Where Kevin’s sound is spare and acoustic, Dustin’s is a forceful amalgam of Southern Gothic and back porch twang delivered with enthusiasm and a cloud of feedback fuzz. The twentysomething singer-songwriter moved to Austin in early 2007 because he claims he was playing more in Texas than in Tennessee. Catch his regular Monday night gig at Momo’s (check out the video below) before he starts playing on stages more appropriate to his colossal vision.

Texas Democratic Party chair Boyd Richie has released a tribute to Rep. Joe Allen, D-Baytown, who died on Saturday, aged 68.

Today, Texas laid to rest Joseph Hugh Allen, an honorable man who dedicated his life to bettering his community, state, and nation. As a family man, legislator, and businessman, Joe always put the interest of others before his. His time on this earth was far too short and his presence will always be missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time.

The oft-times bow-tied former state rep (and later vice-president of government affairs for Enron) represented the Harris district for 13 years. starting in 1966. He was most famous in Democratic circle for being part of the Dirty Thirty that fought to oust House Speaker Speaker Gus Mutscher. Mutscher was accused of being a dictator in the House, and finally ended up doing five years probation after being found guilty of accepting a bribe.

This just in: The Austin Aztex have drawn a home game in the first round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup; they'll host the Atlanta Silverbacks of the USL First Division, at 7:30pm Tuesday, June 10. The full draw is below.

Dealing with online social networking is like a bad blind date. You’re never quite sure what you’ll get. For the uninitiated, Twitter is the place to be in the world of social networking right now. (Except when it's down, and you have no place at all to be. That's been happening a lot lately.) Every few minutes, ADHD-driven technogeeks gleefully inform you of their every thought and move, all in a 140-character limited haiku format. And guess what! There are some bonus benefits from this headlong rush into this self-indulgent navel-gazing. For instance, it does appear that someone who has named himself Luke Wilson is carrying on a Twitter account. Do we really think Luke Wilson's publicist suggested he Twitter? Do we think he’d list a Wikipedia entry as his bio? Does it matter? Imagining is half the fun. (And if you're interested in a real-live Twitter celeb, stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody has her own account and appears to talk a lot about lingerie and sushi. I'm not including Cody's picture because I'm not that interested in running into her at Club DeVille.) If you are above all the social pandering but still want to try out Twitter for its educational value, the Mars Phoenix lander has its own account, with real-live updates. In the meantime, if you are signed up on Twitter, they’ve created an All-Austin-All-The-Time Twitter channel at Aus Twits. They call themselves “Tweeple.” Yep, it’s like a cult. Or the next big thing after MySpace, soon to be replaced by the next tech trend.

Seems that Houston Mayor Bill White woke up this morning and decided to have himself an Austin Moment. What else to explain the man's sudden penchant for words like "sustainability," "quality of life" and "energy efficiency" in a town that couldn't be happier with the smell of petroleum on the air and gridlock on its freeways? It appears, from the front page of this morning's Houston Chronicle, that White is suddenly on the bandwagon for making Texas' smog capital a Truly Green City. He's talking a hybrid city fleet, a citywide recycling program and a fight over benzene emissions from local power plants. It's like a sudden incarnation of Will Wynn, just without the good hair. But not to worry. Houstonians have this strange malady figured out. White must be running for Governor in 2010. Well that explains it.

So Villa Muse is in discussions with Bexar County about moving their planned studio-in-a-city to San Antonio. "We didn't confirm it, but someone confirmed it for us," said vice president of strategic development Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, (that someone being Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who let it slip to the San Antonio Business Journal). But that's half the story. Before canceling negotiations with the city, they spent a lot of time and money getting options to buy land in Eastern Travis County from a patchwork of private owners. Alvarado said no firm decision had been made as to what to do with that land. But who holds the options? The city was in negotiations with called Villa Muse Development, but according to Alvarado, the options were in the name of Carpenter and Associates. That's not that strange, since developer Jim Carpenter's company is involved in Villa Muse. According to Assistant City Attorney Tom Nuckols, "We had always assumed it was Carpenter, because in all the publicity on Villa Muse team, he was the only person with a development background." So what will to happen with the options, and all that land that Carpenter so painstakingly bolted together, now that Villa Muse has rode off into the sunset?