Joining the popular opposition to impending Department of Homeland Security plans to construct a 70-mile Texas-Mexico border wall, The Lone Star Sierra Club last week joined Defenders of Wildlife, a number of nearby community groups, U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, and the mayors of Eagle Pass, Laredo, Brownsville, Rio Grande City, and El Paso in decrying the wall. Sierra Club state director Ken Kramer said, “A wall along the Texas-Mexico border would undermine decades of work to establish a vibrant wildlife corridor on the Rio Grande,” and “devastate” local eco-tourism business. The Sierra Club is calling on the DHS to complete a comprehensive environmental impact statement, and fully assess negative impacts on wildlife habitat, migratory birds and other species, river flows, livestock management, and local economies. The group also wants a better public process, improved coordination between federal and state agencies, and consideration of border protection alternatives. The Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife successfully sought a temporary restraining order to halt wall construction in an eco-sensitive portion of Arizona, only to have it overturned by the DHS, which invoked the 2005 Real ID Act, which grants the authority to waive all U.S. laws in constructing border barriers.

The next big high-rise tower passing through city commissions – 800 West Ave. – has offered plenty of fodder for discussion. This development, an attractive 250-foot tower fronted by a park or row houses on West Avenue, would sit on a deep lot right in the middle of the Old Austin neighborhood. Can height and homes coexist? It might be right for Downtown but not so right for the edge of Downtown, commissioners have agreed. At Design Commission this week, Commissioner Richard Weiss coined a potential name for a new zoning category for such development: CRD, or central residential district. And Chris Riley, who represents the Old Austin Neighborhood Association, suggested it might be time to create an overlay for that first outer ring of Downtown – those places just outside the clear urban core where density is wanted but where projects must peacefully coexist with their neighbors.

Want to hear a spooky story? According to a new AP-IPSOS poll, a third of Americans believe in ghosts.

34% of adults polled said they were OK with the idea of spooks drifting in from the beyond, while 23% believed they'd seen one or been in contact with some otherworldly presence. That roughly two-to-one ratio of people having at least some anecdotal evidence is better than for U.F.O.'s. 34% of respondents believed in extra-terrestrial visitors, even though only 14% claim to have seen one.

Possibly the biggest surprise is that 48% said they believed in extra-sensory perception. Actually, scratch that: a bigger shock may come from the fact that one in 20 people think they've seen a monster in their closet. Chronic doubts they mean the Pixar/Disney Monsters. Inc. cuddly kind.

To put that all into context, there's about as many people who believe the spirits of the dead still walk the earth as think President Bush is doing a good job.

I'm no fan of Ron Paul, but his local supporters have hit on an ingenious way to welcome Rudy Giuliani to Austin for a fundraiser today: they've recruited local "eccentric" Leslie Cochran to try and meet Giuliani, and urge him to hew to his cross-dressing past:

Ron Paul Revolution members have invited Leslie to join a Texas Ron Paul greeting for Rudy Giuliani this Friday evening.

“To our knowledge, no candidate has yet reached out to the ‘cross dresser’ vote, and we’re curious to see whether Leslie is convinced that Rudy properly A-dresses this issue”, quipped RPR volunteer Pam Farley. At press release time, no one had yet purchased a Leslie cross-dressing refrigerator magnet for Rudy as a Texas gift.

WHEN: Friday, Oct. 26, 5:30pm

WHERE: Corner of Stratford Dr. and above Stratford Place (see map link)

WHAT: Ron Paul Revolution welcome for Rudy, with special guest Leslie.

WHY: To welcome Rudy to Texas’ own Ron Paul country.

Giuliani, Leslie, and Ron Paul? If this doesn't constitute the perfect storm of nuttiness (Norman Podhoretz in fishnets excepted), what will?

Next month, the UT School of Journalism is hosting Paul Krugman, economist, New York Times columnist and author of a new book (with an old title), The Conscience of a Liberal.

In this talk, Krugman will discuss the ideas in his new book, published by W.W. Norton. James K. Galbraith, a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas and director of the Inequality Project, will introduce the program and offer reflections on the issues Krugman raises in his work.

Sponsored by the School of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin, this lecture is free and open to the public.

When: 7 pm, Nov. 13, 2007

Where: The University Teaching Center (UTC 2.102) on The University of Texas at Austin campus. Maps are available online. Parking is available in the Brazos Garage off MLK Blvd.

Is there a more giving time than Halloween? Seemingly not.

Remember The Defuser, winner of Sci-FI network's second season of Who Wants to be a Superhero? In real life, he's the Austin Police Department's mild-mannered Det. Jarrett Crippen, and ever year he runs a Halloween attraction for charity, Scare For A Cure. This year, the cash is going to the Austin Breast Cancer Resource Center

The proposed land swap between Austin Energy and Crestview Station LP is off. AE owns property adjacent to the Capital Metro commuter rail station being built at Airport and North Lamar, and its current use as a pole yard is the exact opposite of the dense, transit-oriented development city planners desire near transit hubs. Its proposed use as a needed electric substation didn’t fit the bill either, so AE considered exchanging the land for a property further north on Lamar owned by Crestview Station, the mixed-used development planned on the former Huntsman Chemical property. However, Cheryl Neely, AE vice president for electric utility development, said the city’s power company decided to keep the pole yard and just buy the Crestview Station land outright for its substation after the Electric Utility Commission raised concerns about timing of the transaction and whether it was the best deal for the utility. This still leaves unresolved the eventual use of the property – while some neighbors support goals outlined in the city’s Transit-Oriented Development Ordinance, others have noted there are no public parks within the Crestview neighborhood and would like the property converted to green space.

As you may have heard, the centerpiece of Mayor Will Wynn's speech to his supporters at the Downtown Austin Alliance today was a call for a November 2008 rail referendum – specifically, a "linear circulator alignment" to run from Downtown, the Capitol, UT, Mueller, and the Triangle. But what did he say that we can make fun of?

Well, how about this: The "fabulous" descriptor was trotted out at least a dozen times, with "dazzling" closing in towards the end. Is our mayor angling for a post-politics rap career or what?

Time for the tale of the quotes:

First, – U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas yesterday on the latest budget-gobbling estimate for the cost of the Iraq War.

"Today, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the total cost of the Iraq War will exceed $2.4 trillion […] With almost $700 billion already appropriated, another emergency $200 billion requested, and only the promise of endless war, the dollar cost is surging into the trillions."

Now White House press secretary Dana Perino responding Tuesday to press questions about how the attempts to combat wildfires in California being hampered by the combat role of the state's National Guard.

"When we are a nation at war there are priorities that you have to make sure that the National Guard units that are serving – that live in California, but are serving right now in Iraq, you want to make sure that they have the equipment that they need in order to protect themselves. And so you have to weigh those priorities. But I think that there are ways that we can make sure that California has what it needs."