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?"

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.

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.

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.

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?"

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."

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.

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.

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.