On ACLU Austin leader Debbie Russell's words about the CM's profile: here's the first major plea before the dais to give Futrell the boot before her planned farewell in May, for her not to "hand-hold" the new CM. With all the conflicts-of-interest and dubious deals that definitely don't meet the fabled "appearance of impropriety" smell test, can you blame her? Debs sez Austin's got to avoid "new overlap from this old reign that might serve to infect the new." A little melodramatic, but, hey.

Of course, to this Will Wynn gets pissy and says, "we're here to discuss the profile of the new City Manager, not discuss the performance of the current one. Talk about whipped! Keep expecting glowing Statesman editorials about the namby-pambiness of your office – we honestly can't say they're not warranted. If not for you, then at least for future mayors, shit – show a little backbone.

Richard Franklin, Black Austin Democrats, says the new CM needs "impeccable integrity." Burn! "How do I explain (to kids I mentor) when money is misdirected, misappropriated … and they're no calls for a full investigation … The buck has to stop with the City Manger," but rightly, notes a council unwilling to push back bears as much blame. Brings up how much the Convention Center delay of Austin's bond ratings will cost the city. Awesome. Franklin is one to watch.

Wow, is this gonna be as much fun as the title makes it sound? Let's hope so! Buckle up!

Whatever, we all know the real action is gonna be in an hour, "to receive comment on the profile of a new City Manager." I've prepared an interpretive dance to share my feelings on the matter with council.

Mike McDonald is giving an overview of budget changes, vis a vis last year – which I wrote up in today's column.

Slight decrease in public opinion on the quality of Municipal Court services? Dirty pool, I say! Dirty pool!

$40K "for a truck for the graffiti abatement program." The Krylon Krusher?

Lee Leffingwell's a little flummoxed about how graffiti services are spread out from department to department. Toby Futrell says H&HS do the actual abatement, are "the brain center …"

Public Safety and Emergency Management: Uhh, I totally missed that …

Fire: Man, that J.J. Adame cuts quite the grandfatherly figure, huh? Diversity recruiting efforts is getting a big push, for reasons self-evident.

Mike Martinez has questions about getting accurate staffing numbers on fire engines. Seems 2-per-1000 isn't the only whipping boy out there.

EMS: $775,000 for a station at Mueller Airport. Hopefully they'll be ped-friendly and walk to any critical incidents.

Police: Ooh, that Art Acevedo is sooooo dreamy! True story – he comes on, and the girls in the office (yes, I'm cheating and writing this from the bunker) start talking about how good he looks in his blues! The jokes start coming. Will Wynn says he has to start signing his High School fight song. Uhh …

AA talking about salary: should shrink once "we start using our overtime budget for what it's really meant for … unexpected circumstances."

All the Compstat talk is getting my inner public safety wonk all hot-and-bothered: The Wire is finally coming to Austin! (Well, hopefully not the urban squalor and drug epidemics, but still … )

And we're out. Time for the City Manger qualifications love-in. To the extent we can keep the nasuea down, we'll keep you posted.

"Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps,' and 'killing fields.'" – President George W. Bush, addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, yesterday.

Time, yet again, for a history lesson. The re-education camps and killing fields were an aspect of the history of Cambodia, not Vietnam. They were crimes against humanity inflicted by the Khmer Rouge on the Cambodian population: Amnesty International estimates 1.4 million people, almost one-fifth of the population, were massacred by Pol Pot's thugs between 1976 and 1979.

The reason it stopped in 1979 was that a neighboring country invaded and set up its own puppet government. That country was Vietnam. Meanwhile, the United Nations refused to strip the Khmer Rouge of their UN seat. One of the countries that voted against handing their seat to Vietnam's proxy rulers, the Kampuchea People's Revolutionary Party was the United States of America. Meanwhile, the US was pressuring the World Food Program to hand over $12 million in food to the Khmer Rouge in exile.

So what qualifications does it take to get put in charge of the great outdoors in Texas? On Friday, Gov. Rick Perry announced three new appointments to the board of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. First up there's Karen Hixon (already on the board of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, the Peregrine Fund based in Boise, the advisory board for the Trust for Public Land and the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center, as well as previously serving with Environmental Defense, San Antonio Zoological Society and Texas Nature Conservancy). Then there's Margaret Martin (a rancher, chair of the Webb County Texas Cooperative Extension Leadership Advisory Board, Agricultural and Natural Resources Committee, and the Wildlife and Fisheries Committee.) And filling out the numbers is Dr. Antonio Falcon, a doctor from Rio Grande City.

So, apart from being named after a bird of prey, what exactly what are the good doctor's qualifications for running this massive, cash-strapped and over-burdened state organ? Well, until 2001 he sat on the Nursing Facility Administrators Advisory Committee. He was also on Perry's infamous pro-privatization 2005 Medicaid Reform work group, and in 2003 was co-chair of the "Yes on 12" committee, boosting Perry's pet project Proposition 12, which limited medical malpractice payments.

Hang on, there must be some connection to wildlife and park management in his resume, right? It can't just be that he's a loyal supporter of Perry, right? Right?

Hmm …

The alcohol-pot equalization effort drama continues to unfold in Denver, where city council members on Monday approved the signatures needed to place a new pot initiative – making minor pot possession the lowest policing priority – on the November ballot. The group behind the initiative effort, Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation, was also behind the city’s successful 2005 ballot measure that removed criminal penalties for possession of minor amounts of pot by adults. (Not that this has stopped cops from arresting adults in possession, which they’re bound to do, they say, because state and federal law outlaw pot.) The ultimate goal, SAFER director Mason Tvert has said, is to have the law treat pot and booze the same.

Still, many on the Denver council aren’t too jiggy with the measure, including Mayor John Hickenlooper who, ironically, is a brewery operator. That many council members enjoy adult beverages hasn’t exactly stopped the anti-pot rhetoric flowing from the dais: “I want to issue a challenge to those pushing this initiative,” council President Michael Hancock said in an Aug. 21 story in the Rocky Mountain News. “I hope you’ll go and spend time with the children abandoned and left behind by drug-addicted parents. I guarantee you’ll find marijuana is a gateway drug to harsher addictions.”

Hmmm. What about booze? Indeed, says Tvert, alcohol “contributes more to death and destruction than any other substance.” In all, he says, the Denver council is drinking from the well of hypocrisy with this one: “They are alcohol users opposed to people using a different drug.”

At an Aug. 22 campaign stop in New Hampshire, Illinois Senator and Prez candidate Barack Obama finally came outta the closet to support a ban on using federal resources to raid and prosecute seriously ill patients that use medi-pot in compliance with state law, according to medi-mari advocates, Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana.

Obama was the last Dem candidate to publicly pledge his support for ending the raids. “I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users,” Obama said in response to a question by GSMM volunteer Scott Turner. “It’s not a good use of our resources.”

No shit.

With Obama on board there are now 11 prez candidates – all eight Democratic candidates and three Republicans (Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, and former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson) – that have vowed to end the raids in the 12 states that have legalized the use of medi-mari by qualified patients. “For the first time in history, the leaders of one of our nation’s major parties have unanimously called for an end to the federal prosecution” of pot patients, said GSMM campaign manager Stuart Cooper. “Compassion and reason are finally overcoming politics and propaganda.”

At least one would hope.

Apparently, nicely asking Gov. Rick Perry to stop executing kids and people with mental retardation is tantamount to imperialism.

Yesterday, the European Union issued a statement asking Perry to contemplate a moratorium on executions. Perry responded quickly and in no uncertain terms. Sometimes it's just best to let the press release from the governor's office speak for itself. According to Perry's flack, Robert Black, “230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.”

Erm … which would be fine, but the real gist of it is that the EU was concerned about the fact that Texas is just about to have its 400th execution since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. Oh, and that four of the five executions scheduled nation-wide this week take place here. And the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the execution of minors and people with mental retardation unconstitutional. Oh, and that Texas didn't actually get rid of European rule until Spain left in 1821, but that's nit-picking.

But Chronic is just wondering: if the governor is thinking about a vice-presidential run, he better learn that playing to the base might not always make for good diplomacy training.

New Mexico Governor and Democratic Prez candidate Bill Richardson on Aug. 17 fired off a letter to Prez George W. Bush, urging him to end the feds' "heartless" policy of harassing seriously ill medi-pot patients who use the drug in compliance with state laws.

The Bush Administration has reportedly threatened to target New Mexico state officials with federal prosecution in the event that New Mexico lawmakers passed a medi-pot law – which they did earlier this year, making the Land of Enchantment the 12th state to pass a law legalizing the use of medi-mari by seriously ill patients. Richardson said Friday that he would fight any such efforts at "intimidation," and pledged to use all state resources available to fully implement the new law. Richardson also directed the state Dept. of Health to continue with implementation plans -- including fulfilling a provision that would have the state devise a means to guarantee patient access to medicinal pot.