With 100% of precincts state-wide reporting, the Secretary of State's office unofficially reported that all 16 constitutional amendments on yesterday's ballot passed, with large margins.

The most popular measure of the night, Prop. 9, was the proposal by Sens. John Carona, R-Dallas, and Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, to end ad valorem property taxes for totally disabled veterans (something seen during the lege session as correcting an earlier legislative error), which passed with 86.19% of votes cast. The closest run result was Prop. 4, the billion dollar maintenance and repair bond issue, which passed by a comparative squeaker margin of 16%.

But before everyone gets too excited about this major victory for participatory democracy, there's another figure: 8.64%. That was the highest recorded turn-out for any issue (Prop. 15, the Cancer Fund financing, which passed 61.43% to 38.57%.)

See this week's upcoming issue for more in-depth coverage.

OK, some of this was my fault. I'd been talking to Taj Mahal’s publicist about doing an interview before his Austin show for more than a week. We went back and forth a few times and after a while I didn’t think it was really going to happen. It’s not inside baseball to reveal sometimes you work on a story idea and it never sees the light of day. Then she calls me with a time to talk to him. The downside was that it only allowed me about an hour to prepare for it. So, to be honest, I wasn’t quite ready. Having whipped together some fairly generic questions, I reach Mahal (originally Henry Saint Clair Fredericks) on the phone from the West Coast and he doesn’t like the questions I’m asking. So he hijacks the interview, and the 65-year-old bluesman starts talking, in his gravelly, Wolfman Jack kind of voice, about what he’s interested in, and that's where this picks up.

The Taj Mahal Trio plays an early show at Antone’s – it was moved from the Glenn – tomorrow evening with opener Ruthie Foster.

When I got the Redwalls' new self-titled CD a few weeks back, it hit the CD player immediately and has lingered nearby ever since. I even pulled out their 2005 release, De Nova, and played them back-to-back for an afternoon of butt-rockin' Britpop with a dollop of Chicago rock chutzpah. When I play the Redwalls, I'm 20 years old and nothing can go wrong.

Except I'm nowhere near 20 any longer and that cussin' you'll hear tonight is me looking for parking spot near Emo's, where the quartet plays with Rooney and the Polyphonic Spree. That's OK. I'll just hum "Modern Diet" and "Little Sister" as I walk the blocks just to watch their shaggy heads bob and their skinny butts shake.

My Chicago buddy Cynthia Plaster Caster loves these boys too, and they were cool (and smart) enough to pay homage at her birthday party in May. I love it when young bands are savvy enough to recognize getting the thumbs-up from old school groupies like Cynthia is as good as a four-star review in whatever the hip publication of the moment is.

Of course, I could be persuaded to drop by Waterloo Records and see their in-store at 5pm today as well. That way I can ask if they named themselves after the Brian Jacques books with all those cute little mice dressed as pirates. If so, their next album should be called Mossflower County.

Voters in Denver have passed Question 100, making adult possession of less than one ounce of marijuana the city’s lowest law-enforcement priority. By early this morning, with a majority of ballots counted, Q100 had earned at least 56% of the vote.

In addition to making adult pot possession last in line for enforcement, the measure also directs the mayor to appoint a panel that will monitor how police and prosecutors actually handle pot cases. In 2005, Denver voters passed the city’s first pot policy, voting to remove all penalties for simple possession by adults. Despite that victory, pot arrests there have hit an all-time high, reports Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, the group behind both ballot initiatives.

Just over 70% of the state's precincts have reported, and all of the constitutional amendments appear headed for passage. The strongest winner is Prop. 9, which would exempt totally disabled veterans from ad valorem taxation — it's getting 86% percent approval. The least popular is Prop. 4, the scattershot amendment that would approve up to $1 billion in bonds for a variety of construction projects (some good, some bad), but it's still winning at 58%.

Up in Fort Worth, with 41 of 45 precincts counted, Democrat Dan Barrett is headed for a runoff in the special election to replace retiring Anna Mowery in state House District 97. Barrett is leading at 32%. As for the six Republicans, it's been back and forth, but Mark M. Shelton has passed Bob Leonard; Shelton now has 23% to Leonard's 19%.

Shockingly, here in Travis County, the Lance Armstrong-supported Prop. 15 is barely getting majority support at 50.47% with 96% of precincts reporting.

The polls are closed, early voting numbers are in, and you can already stick a fork in this election: Everything is passing handily. The least popular so far is Proposition 16, and that's passing with 71.87% voting "In Favor." Those results aren't likely to change.

But WOW, this is interesting: While all the props are also passing in Travis County, the "in favor" numbers are lower, significantly in some cases. Most notable: Prop. 15, for the creation of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas – which was pushed heavily by local sports idol and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong – only has 51.27% of the early Travis vote! Hmm, is Austin's hero-worship of Armstrong not as great as we thought?

There is an actual candidate election to watch tonight: a special election for House District 97, which covers the southwestern corner of Tarrant County. The seat came open when Republican Anna Mowery decided to retire early. The Democrats would certainly love for this seat to edge them ever closer to the majority in the Texas House – they are currently six seats away – and tonight's election pits Dem Dan Barrett against six Republicans. After the early vote numbers, Barrett appears headed for a runoff – he currently has 32%; the leading Republican thus far is Bob Leonard at 22%.

Meaning, 7pm. If you haven't voted yet, get on down to your local precinct.

Then come back here for the results.

P.S. My wife just called to tell me that there was actually a line, if you can believe it, to vote at our neighborhood polling place (possibly because some polling places were consolidated, presumably due to a lack of poll workers). Given the apparent low interest in this constitutional amendment election, that's good news. Get on down there. Hurry!

The turning point was when Mack Brown got red-faced raving mad. His cheeks puffed up as Mr. Nice Guy let loose with a spew of bile that had his players’ eyes wide and their cleats trembling. It was about time. His Longhorns were pathetic. Oklahoma State bitch-slapped them up and down the field and crazy Mike Gundy was trying to hide the smirk nesting somewhere beneath his winter tan. Mack the back-slapper, the pal, the go-with-the-flow soft-salesman blew a gasket. And his team responded for an improbable 38-35 comeback win that may say as much about Gundy’s ability to lose as Brown’s need to win.

This one was necessary. In College Station the Dennis Franchione death watch is counting down the days, the minutes. Two games to go. Same for Bill Callahan at the University of Nebraska. Win or die. Be cut free to hang in the breeze and rot. No, this wasn’t an essential win for Mack Brown. This was the game instead that said it wasn’t a fluke two years ago. That the string of 10-win seasons didn’t just happen to a nice guy. Brown was frothing at the mouth because his players were embarrassing him with a string of missed tackles and piss-poor pass defense. They were playing like chumps, and this time it didn’t look like they’d wake up. But they did, and Daddy was smiling as the final seconds ticked off.

Yesterday, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson basically said that, unless a state agency could sprout wings and fly a better deal to his door, the Christmas Mountains were going to be sold to private bidders. Most observers had expected the School Land Board to simply accept Patterson's plan (and the public opposition and possible litigation that came with it.) But in closed executive session, Patterson's privatization fell off the rails somewhat.

Superficially, what was adopted was the same as the Patterson proposal: the National Park Service has 90 days to come up with a rival plan to the private bids received. But that was actually the only point of similarity. No bid has been accepted, with both remaining sealed for the 90 days. More importantly, there were no preconditions. This meant the "poison pill" clause, that NPS would have to allow public hunting, was gone.

That complete removal of the preconditions was very important. As Dr. Ken Kramer, chapter director of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, noted many of the terms Patterson was demanding were the same things a rancher would do to propagate game species (even though, as Patterson kept saying, hunting wasn't the real issue because the area is not currently good terrain for game species.)