It's just too easy to poke fun at the Small Business Group. The pseudo-libertarians inveigh against needless government spending on things everyone can get use out of – "parks, libraries, puppies, and sunshine" – but demand more money be spent fighting graffiti and panhandling – not exactly what I'd call urgent priorities in the Austin of 2007.

So while we'll obviously take it with a boulder of salt, this message from the SBG on the city's dire financial forecast is interesting reading. It identifies and anticipates the shopworn clichés – “structural imbalance,” “tough choices,” and “strategic enhancements" – the city will trot out when framing the 2008 budget and raises some good questions about the city's foreknowledge of the "cost drivers" being blamed for the shortfall. It's not like these things appeared overnight:

Dear Friends,

At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, we cannot avoid the temptation to say “WE TOLD YOU SO!” in response to a recent article in the Austin American Statesman. If you carefully read between the lines with one eye, and keep your other eye trained on the shoe that’s about to drop, it appears that the City Council and City Management are setting the stage for one of those budgets where they trot out old phrases like “structural imbalance,” “tough choices,” and “strategic enhancements.” This is all management jargon for: “we have no money again and basic services are about to suffer.”

When we last checked with Austin Fit Magazine, they were ladeling out a velvety bowl of Will Wynn's beef mansummé. When you last laid eyes on Wells Dunbar, he was doing his best Kim Jong-il impersonation on the cover of the Chron. Well, like some slash fanfic, those worlds have collided.

Photo taken from the May issue of AFM; to see in all its online glory, go there, click Life at the top, then fantasy celebrity vacation, on the left.

Mavens of etiquette are breathing a deep sigh of relief that the biggest mistakes that President George Bush made during this week's visit by Queen Elizabeth II were tripping on his tongue, winking at a fellow head of state, and saying she looked matronly. But don't sigh with too much relief.

This just sounds like another example of his folksy, down-home, brush-clearin' charm clashing with some stiff old dame. However, the gaffe and fumbled apology show a real difference.

The reality is that, whatever the view of the continued existence of a monarchy in a supposedly developed democracy, the queen is a pro. Brenda (as she is quasi-lovingly known in the UK) has two jobs. Firstly, defend "the Firm" (as the Royal family is less lovingly called), and secondly, be a floating ambassador. Her nuanced grasp of diplomacy and cultural differences has been pivotal in helping keep the UK a power-player internationally, especially in the factious development of the Commonwealth, a trade alliance of most of Britain's previous colonies.

Bush's grand contribution to the diplomatic canon reads like a "how not to" guide. Highlights include yelling, "Yo, Blair!" at his last remaining noteworthy North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, trying to give German premier Andrea Merkel a back-rub, and wholly failing to understand the dynamics of Arabic and Persian geo-religio-politics – and that was all at one G8 meeting.

Oh, well, at least he's still not as bad as her hubby, Prince "faux pas" Philip.

Texas' parks last week came one step closer to seeing the funding they need to reverse years of budgetary-shortfall-induced decay as the House of Representatives passed House Bill 12, which would lift the cap on Parks' funding source, the state sporting-goods tax, fully devoting the approximately $100 million the tax generates to state and local parks. The measure also lays the groundwork for the controversial transfer of 18 historic sites from Parks and Wildlife Department purview to the Texas Historical Commission. The two actions were initially separate bills, both filed by Kerrville Republican and House Culture, Recreation, & Tourism Committee Chair Harvey Hilderbran, later fused together to the chagrin of many parks advocates – chapped by the lack of public discussion and planning surrounding the historic site transfers, not to mention the appearances of sending control of the sites to an organization headed by beer-distribution-baron, GOP benefactor, and Speaker of the House Craddick crony John Nau, who strongly favored the move.

Move carefully in the Lege this week, because you may be struck down by a fast-moving legislator, desperately trying to get to a committee. Any committee. Every committee. As everyone tries to get as much legislation moving to a floor vote as fast as possible, they find themselves booked for too many meetings or caught up in backroom dealings or too tired from the night before to get out of bed for those 8am public meetings.

End result? Less politically alluring committees end up devoid of members and do no business. So, for example, the House Public Education and Environmental Regulation committees this morning were both canceled when neither could get enough members together to be quorate.

The few members of Public Education that turned up shuffled papers for 45 minutes, until their chair, Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, admitted defeat. The assembled crowd, most of whom presumably wanted to testify on at least one of the 14 bills on the agenda, were told that the committee might reconvene after the session. Unless, that is, the House runs past 10pm, at which point they're going home.

OK. So who are we to say if eating at Hooters is wrong? To dust off the shopworn stripper defense, we're sure it's put a bunch of nice girls through college. Even so, if you're a self-professed Christian Taliban like Sen. Dan Patrick, you've got to be entering somewhat of a gray area. That's a little odd of him to eat there, right? But honestly, the most disturbing thing about this incognito camera-phone snap of Patrick getting his wing on, sent in to Houston's ABC13.com, is the defense he's mounted: that he was eating there with his son and – wait for it – his future daughter-in-law. At least he kept the family-values thing consistent.

Your tax dollars at work. How many days until this session's over and Patrick – hopefully - never comes back again? (Via PinkDome.)

As the Lege inexorably drags toward the end of the session, the excitement is all about the "down to the wire" bills. However, some stillborn legislation that was never even heard in committee should be remembered for just one second.

What is it? House Bill 221, sponsored by Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford.

What would it do? Create permanent tent prisons. Currently, Texas can house prisoners in tents temporarily; this bill orders the Commission on Jail Standards to set rules on housing prisoners in a "tent or other facility that [is] not a county jail." Hey, it's just taking the word temporary out of there. One word, how big a deal can that be?

Why would it be good? Erm … the fresh air would do them good?

What are the odds of it passing? None whatsoever. Lurking and unloved in House Corrections since Jan. 31, this always had "constitutional violation," "enforcement nightmare," and "flat-out bad plan" written all over it. Bad luck for everyone's favorite Ned Flanders' look-alike.

Time for a real-time death on the floor.

What is it? House Joint Resolution 44, sponsored by Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, et al.

What would it have done? Change the Constitution so that if the Lege ever wanted to pass a change in the business franchise tax rate, they'd need a three-fourths majority.

Why would it have been good? Because Texas needs to secure its reputation as never seeing a business tax it couldn't slash.

What are the odds of it passing? None. Since it just only picked up 93 votes on the floor, it failed to get adopted. A bloody fight in the House (well, they are its stock-in trade) had the numbers bounce between a two-thirds, three-fourths, and four-fifths majority for a rate change. It was all about constitutional philosophy: On one side, there are those like Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, that say that it's unfair to hamstring future legislatures with a supermajority on one tax; on the other, there are legislators like Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson, R-Waco, who believe that businesses shouldn't be taxed. It may have failed this time, but it's a pretty solid barometer on where the taxing proclivities of the House stand.

Everyone's favorite coal-burner, TXU Corp., is thinking very seriously about its role in the world and has done the only thing that a power-generating company can do in this age of global warming. Yup, it's changing its name.

The Dallas-based energy behemoth will split into three components. First, its production component will become Luminant Energy, then its delivery people (the cables and repairs guys) become Oncor. And don't those just sound like cuddly, nonpolluting li'l corporations?

If you're wondering about the retailers who actually sell to domestic and industrial users, they'll remain TXU Energy. Possibly this is because the experience of electricity deregulation around the state had shown that people hate it when the name at the top of their electricity bill changes.

Does this mean they'll stop shilling the untenable notion of clean coal (the kind that produces kittens and lavender instead of soot and carbon dioxide)? Now that's crazy talk.