Partiers, art and culture freaks, patrons of the Big Easy, the hurricane of all charitable party causes is upon us. According to the Associated Press, the city of New Orleans has started an online and text-message fundraising campaign to help pay for its annual Mardi Gras celebration. It's too late to get in on the hardcore revelry this year, as Carnival season peaked Feb. 20 with Fat Tuesday, but that doesn't mean the well for giving to the mother of all U.S. Carnival celebrations has run dry. The campaign's goal is to generate $1 million by Carnival 2008. Cell-phone users with PayPal accounts can donate by texting a code and a dollar amount to a specified phone number. To donate online, go here and click on "Mardi Gras Sponsorship & Support Program."

So why exactly was the kidnapping of a Florida teen (and his release, unharmed, less than four hours later) of such massive importance that every TV news channel felt it had to carry the Manatee County Sheriff Office's press conference about it live?

Could it be because half the world's broadcast media was down in Florida anyway, covering the Anna Nicole Smith circus? Now Crazy Larry (aka his honor Judge Larry Seidlin of the 17th Judicial Circuit of Florida) is no longer giving those wacky quotes to camera, and they had to justify spending the weekend down on the coast somehow.

Continuing Beating Burka week here at Chronic, let's turn to the mustached soothsayer's prognostications on the president's poll numbers: "SurveyUSA: Bush Approval Soars."

The evidence of this amazing bounce? "One month after posting an approval rating in Texas of just 40%, with 58% disapproval, President Bush rebounded in SurveyUSA's monthly tracking poll to 47% approval, 50% disapproval." Stop the press! To his credit, Burka says that even these numbers are such the anomaly that he thinks they should be tossed, but c'mon – to anyone scurrying through the granite bowels of the Capitol, browsing Burka's RSS feed on their BlackBerry, what's the underlying message here?

Paul Burka, while an entertaining writer, has done nothing to warrant his absurd position as the dean of Texas political reporting. His status and access is, in fact, seemingly nothing but a reward for what he's done over the decades – regurgitate establishment, right-of-center conventional wisdom, under the guise of some noble third-way that's best for Texas. Worse, when his words lead to action, he downplays any role he has in propping up the status quo.

Obama's in town, Intel's going down – don't expect to go anywhere Downtown.

For the Obama rally, today: Riverside will be closed between South First and Lee Barton Drive from 11am to 6pm.

For the Intel implosion, Sunday, Feb. 28:
• West Sixth will be reduced to one lane from San Jacinto Boulevard to Rio Grande Street. During the implosion, West Sixth will be closed to through traffic.
• Guadalupe will be reduced to two lanes from Third to 10th. During the implosion, Guadalupe will be closed to through traffic.
• West Fifth will be reduced to one lane from Lamar to West Avenue, then detoured north to 12th by way of West Street.
• West Fourth will be closed from Lavaca to Rio Grande.
• West Third will be closed from Lavaca to Nueces.
• San Antonio Street will be closed at Cesar Chavez to Sixth.
• Anyone wishing to view the implosion is encouraged to watch Austin media. Public viewing near the implosion site will be limited. However, pedestrian access will be allowed on Third, Fourth, and Fifth streets between Guadalupe and Lavaca. Pedestrian access also will be allowed on the north curb line of Sixth between Lavaca and Nueces.
• Within the implosion area between Nueces and Lavaca and Second and Sixth, parking will not be allowed after 5am, Sunday, Feb. 25. No parking signs will be posted warning motorists of towing enforcement. The designated towing vendor is Southside Towing Inc.

In a baffling week for war-watchers, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced the UK will be withdrawing 1,600 of its 7,100 troops from Iraq. At the same time, Prince Harry is being sent out to fight there. As the experts say, huh?

Blair, unlike President George Bush, seems to have worked out that no one in the UK backs the war in Iraq. His Labor Party is facing a vicious election in the next year, and even though he's standing down from Parliament, the party may lose because of his inheritance. So, time for a quick policy switch.

The British Army has been picking up a lot of slack in Afghanistan and needs 1,000 more troops there - troops to be freed up from Iraq. There's still a sliver of support for that war, so he's trying to salvage the last of his reputation. After all, he's still young, and it's speculated he'd like to be either European Union president or UN secretary general.

So if the British Army is pulling out of Iraq, why is the man third in line to the throne being sent out to the front line?

In an unsurprising move, the Senate confirmed the reappointment of Julie Parsley to the Public Utilities Commission of Texas on Wednesday. The former solicitor general and Rick Perry appointee sits on the three-person body that's supposed to keep some sort of control in the newly deregulated electricity market. Not that she's ever really shown any sign of that.

Last April, Parsley and fellow Commissioner Barry Smitherman out-voted commission Chairman Paul Hudson in a pivotal showdown. Hudson wanted to force the incumbent energy companies like TXU and Reliant to appear before the PUC over possible price gouging. The big firms had sought permission to raise their electricity prices in the wake of Katrina, due to high fuel prices. Months later, the fuel prices had dropped, but the electricity prices hadn't. Parsley said that it was very sad, but the PUC had no power to do anything about it.

It was a significant message to the big electricity companies that one of the industry's main regulators wasn't a big fan of regulation.

Parsley also sat on Perry's Energy Planning Council, whose 2005 report (see the .pdf here) pushed Texas further down the path of coal and oil reliance.

Whole Foods Markets Inc. is getting bigger - and it's not from stuffing down their oh-so-calorific Boston cream parfaits.

The Austin-based natural and organic food behemoth is shelling out $565 million to buy rivals Wild Oats Markets Inc. (see the .pdf of the press release here). The buy massively expands its national footprint, adding Wild Oats' 110 stores in 24 states and British Columbia (including two Sun Harvest stores in Austin) to Whole Foods' 193 stores across the US, Canada, and the UK. The purchase also gives them Wild Oats' Amazon.com store and its own-brand range of dried and preserved foods.

However, they'll also be taking on Wild Oats' $106 million debt, just as Whole Foods' own profits have dropped around 3% over the last year.

So, aside from knocking off a whopping 6,000 square feet, the major concession in Wal-Mart's offer is closing the store from 1 to 5am?

Good God.

The New York Times reports today that Habitat for Humanity has been criticized for taking too long to build homes along the Gulf Coast after the '05 hurricanes.

Yes, the charity Habitat for Humanity. Apparently, a charity building 1,000 homes by the second anniversary of Katrina isn't enough for some people. Yes, it's tragic that people made homeless 18 months ago still don't have a place to settle down, but why blame Habitat for Humanity? Isn't this the kind of thing that the government should be doing and should have been doing since Katrina and Rita hit?

This is the second recent major instance of private donations picking up the slack for a government failure. When presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and John McCain paid rousing tribute to the new military rehabilitation facility at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, why weren't they railing about the fact that it was paid for by private donations? Or that this was a new home for the established facility at the Brooke Army Medical Center, rather than an extension of services? Shouldn't rehabilitation of wounded service personnel be the responsibility of the Pentagon?

Just why, exactly, are the federal and state governments not being dragged over the coals daily for the failed reconstruction along the coast and the underfunding of veteran's rehabilitation?