In one of the breaks for executive session during today's council meeting, Chronic took the opportunity to play with the new, shiny info-toy in the lobby of City Hall, the Austin: Past and Present booth.

This potted history of Austin, covering everything from its geological formation to the last time a bat pooped on the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge, is actually quite fun and loaded with "well, I never" factoids. Navigated by trackball, (showing his age, Chronic's first thought was "ooh, Missile Command!"), the system contains two hours of video and some excitingly rare images of the birth of the city. Actually, as an educational resource and a way to while away a few minutes while, say, stuck at the airport, it's really quite spiffy.

But there's some odd choices for what's covered. In fact, it's slightly miraculous that they can talk so long about Sixth Street without mentioning the words "beer," "well drinks" or "body shots." But oddest is the very informative section about the history of KTBC. While a fitting tribute to the station created by Lady Bird Johnson, it then gets all mysteriously gushy about the fact that Fox 7 (as it is now known) is known for its "host of innovative programming, innovative sports packaging, and impactful news." This eBackslap is accompanied by clips of The Simpsons, The X-Files, American Idol and an Orioles game.

Agenda highlights for the Thursday, October 11 council meeting:

Item 5: Picking up the legal bills for former Officer Julie Schroeder in the civil suit brought against her by the family of Daniel Rocha, fatally shot by Schroeder during a traffic stop on June 9, 2005. As Mike Martinez puts it, he may not like that they have to do it, but since she was on-duty, they're legally bound to do so.

Capital Metro communications manager Adam Shaivitz takes umbrage with our story on last week's train derailment, "Off the Tracks: how fast was it." (They sure are fast, aren't they?) Not the weird assertion of the transit authority silencing their employees, but the clip of the felled train:

The two locomotives involved in last week’s incident on Capital Metro tracks were equipped with black box-style data recorders. The attached data was downloaded from those devices. According to the top line of each chart, the train was traveling approximately 8 MPH at the time of the derailment. The track speed limit in this area is 10 MPH.

And to that end, here's the sets of the somewhat-cryptic train data.

In an argument that's gone on so long the lake has changed its name, the city moved closer to rejecting plans to allow development closer to the shores of Lady Bird Lake. Last night, the Planning Commission voted unanimously against agenda items 4 and 5, the two easement variants sought by CWS Capital Partners LLC. This would have allowed them to move their secondary setback line from the river forward 50 ft, and 130ft on East Bouldin Creek, pushing their proposed developments at 222 and 300 East Riverside much closer to the waterfront.

Unsurprisingly, local activists Save Town Lake (will they become Save Lady Bird Lake soon?) are treating this as a major victory. It still has to be taken up by the council, but with vocal opposition from Mike Martinez, Jennifer Kim, Sheryl Cole and Lee Leffingwell, it seems likely that CWS will withdraw to lick their wounds and come up with another plan.

The Texas Youth Commission has had its share of scandals this year, to put it generously. Now there's revelations that the privately-operated Coke County Juvenile Facility has been shut down by TYC after an internal investigation and an ombudsman's report on horrific conditions. But for Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, who lead the TYC reform drive earlier this year, this was bound to happen when public responsibilities are left to the market.

The big problem this time was that the reports they were getting from their quality assurance staff, which TYC is now calling unreliable: so unreliable that TYC has now sacked all four on-site quality assessors, and three of their superiors. But for Hinojosa, the real issue lay with Geo Group, the private prison company that ran Coke County for TYC, who let the facility collapse into grime and squalor, and failed to curb a rising gang violence problem.

Hinojosa made a point about Geo, and why it failed to live up to the standards expected: because it is in its very nature. “These companies are there to make a profit, but the state is there to comply with the constitution.” Kind of like Blackwater Security in Iraq, he added.

From the "you've got to be shitting me" files:

Star-eyed dreamers, here's your chance to get that dream-job you've always wanted – as a barback or bathroom attendant. How much does holding-back Paris Hilton's hair while she purges pay? This from Chronic's inbox:

PANGAEA AUSTIN SEEKING SPECIAL PEOPLE TO MAKE NEW NIGHT SPOT HOT

Documentary Cameras Will Roll During Casting Call for Positions from Managers to Musicians

WHAT: Media is invited to attend and cover Pangaea Austin's casting call for positions at the new nightclub, which opens this fall in the city's Warehouse District. [Here's a taste of what we could be in for – ed.]

Being sought are operations managers, day and night managers, comptroller, bookkeeper, wait staff, bartenders, VIP host, doormen, security guards, DJs, dancers, drummers and other musicians, graphic designers, promotional models, corporate events and marketing personnel, lighting and audio technicians, bar backs, bus boys, porters, and bathroom attendants.

During the casting call, documentary cameras will capture this important phase in the making of Pangaea.

WHEN: 5-7pm Thursday, October 11

WHERE: Pangaea, now under construction at 409 Colorado St.

WHO: AVAILABLE FOR PHOTOS, INTERVIEWS & SOUND BITES

Michael Ault, creator of Pangaea and the impresario who brought the bottle-club service concept to the United States clubs in clubs with such famous names as Spy, Chaos, Gryphon, MercBar and Privé -- some of the most exclusive, most celebrated, most-written about clubs in the world.

Managers and staff members already hired, including musicians and brightly costumed dancers and drummers.

WHY: "Making of Pangaea" documentary could become a TV reality show [And monkeys could fly outta my ass – ed.]

When it opens, Pangaea will be Austin's first ultra lounge fully devoted to the philosophy of bottle service -- and designed with an exotic tribal-safari style to transport guests to another time and place ("somewhere they haven't been," says Ault.)

And, save a select L.A. transplant or two, someplace they'll never go.

According to our friends at the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University (who spend their days pursuing and crunching mass amounts of federal data, bless their hearts) federal drug prosecutions in June dropped 16.8% over the previous month, with the feds reporting 1,058 new drug cases. Moreover, TRAC reports that federal drug prosecutions dropped nearly 7% over last year.

Still, don’t go getting any crazy ideas – like, that the feds aren’t still dogging drug users. In fact, fully 32% of June cases were handled by U.S. Magistrate Courts, which handle less serious crimes – including “petty offenses” like simple possession. Interestingly, Texas’ Western District, which includes Austin, has fallen from the No. 1 most active judicial district, per capita, for drug prosecutions last year to No. 8, behind comers Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, and Montana.

Bexar Co. District Attorney Susan Reed cares about you. Really, she does. So much so that she’s single-handedly derailed the start of the confidential needle-exchange pilot program that state legislators passed this spring, with threats that individuals facilitating the exchange as well as drug users availing themselves of the public health project would likely be subject to prosecution for possession of drug paraphernalia. “I’m telling [local officials], and I’m telling the police chief, I don’t think they have any kind of criminal immunity,” Reed told the San Antonio Express-News in August. “That’s the bottom line. It has nothing to do with whether they do it or don’t do it – other than if you do it you might find yourself in jail.”

With Reed invoking the jailhouse boogeyman, the needle-exchange start date, Sept. 1, came and went, forcing state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio and chair of the Senate Jurisprudence Committee, to pen a request for a legal opinion, asking state Attorney General Greg Abbott to weigh in on whether it is “self-evident from the context and language” of the needle-exchange law that an “exception or defense” to prosecution was “intended” by lawmakers – or, if there’s somehow something more to Reed’s embarrassing Wacky World of Criminal Law than meets the rational eye. (A 20-page PDF of Wentworth's request is available here.)

And now, the $64,000 question: Can the U.S. beat its drug war addiction? Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, says yes – but that we actually have to try to do so. That’s refreshing, eh?

Cole is a 26-year veteran New Jersey State Police officer who spent 12 years doing undercover work busting drug dealers. Since retiring, Cole has been working to reform national drug policy – policies that he says are racially biased. To Cole, there are far better approaches that can be taken to address the social problems associated with drug use – including, notably, ending drug prohibition. Want to hear more? You’re in luck: Cole will be at UT Oct. 17 to deliver the UT School of Social Work’s Dean Jack Otis Social Problem and Social Policy Lecture. The lecture will be held from 2-3:30p in the atrium of the Peter T. Flawn Academic Center. Admission is free. For more information, call 512/471-9227.