The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that syndicated political columnist Molly Ivins has passed away at her home in Austin after her third bout with breast cancer.

The Texas Observer has a heartfelt tribute. Also, you can read her final editorial, "Stand Up Against the "Surge," here.

So the blogosphere says Joe Biden just ended the shortest presidential run in history with this quote from an interview released today: regarding Obama, Biden says "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Joe Biden, 1942-2007.

UPDATE: Obama replies: "I didn't take Senator Biden's comments personally, but obviously they are historically inaccurate. After all, we've had presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Mosely Braun and Al Sharpton. They gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns and no one would call them inarticulate."

UPDATE Deuce: Biden was slated to be the guest on tonight's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Should be an interesting episode, if JB hasn't canceled…

It may be a new year, but the DEA is up to its same old tricks. To wit: on Jan. 18 agents in Los Angeles Co. carried out simultaneous raids on 11 medi-pot dispensaries – in West Hollywood, Venice, Woodland Hills and Sherman Oaks – seizing thousands of pounds of pot, hundreds of live cannabis plants, sacks full of cash and several firearms to boot. Twenty folks were detained but, to date, it appears no charges have been filed against anyone.

Vancouver, B.C., Mayor Sam Sullivan last week announced his plan to ask the Canadian government to grant his city an exemption from portions of the national drug-control policy in order to launch a “substitution therapy” pilot program to treat hundreds of the city’s chronic cocaine and methamphetamine addicts (akin to the classic methadone treatment for heroin addicts).

The therapy plan – seemingly part of a drive to make sure the city is spiffed up and ready for the 2010 Winter Olympics – would target at least 700 of the city’s addicts according to the DRCNet, and is part of Vancouver’s broader Project Civil City, a set of initiatives that seek to reduce homelessness, aggressive panhandling and open-air drug dealing by at least 50% over the next three years.

Texas may not have a nominee in the 2008 Presidential race yet, but that doesn't mean it can't throw some money down. Unlikely Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani will be in Houston for a fundraiser tomorrow, touching up the great, the good, and the filthy rich for campaign contributions. Giuliani's exploratory committee chair, former Bush pioneer Patrick Oxford is hoping those billfolds that opened up to shower cash on a right-wing Texan nominee will be as forthcoming for a pro-choice, pro-gay-rights East Coast candidate.

But our advice to all those deep pockets in Houston is: don't start signing those checks too soon. America's Mayor may become another (purely political) victim of the Iraq quagmire.

Today, former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton and former Reagan attorney general Ed Meese blamed the U.S. government for the lawlessness in Iraq (duh!) and said the Justice Department should have taken responsibility for training Iraqi police. Instead, they left it to private firms and external consultants - consultants like former NYPD commissioner, and Rudy's one-time personal driver, Bernard Kerik. Kerik was CEO of Giuliani-Kerik LLC (now Giuliani Security & Safety), the security consultancy arm of Rudy's international consultancy firm Giuliani LLC. Kerik oversaw the patently unsuccessful reconstitution of the Iraqi police force. Undaunted by those failures, he tried to be head honcho of Homeland Security. And who recommended Bernie to Dubya for that gig? Yup, Rudy.

As every presidential hopeful tries to to distance themselves from Iraq, and link their opponent to the debacle, does anyone think that this won't be used against the former mayor of New York?

So now the Jennifer Kim debacle is approaching Zsa Zsa-style levels of insanity. The silliness keeps snowballing, as KVUE dredged another skeleton out of Kim's closet in their coverage of the controversy last night. Sayeth the ABC affiliate, "Documents show in September 2006, Kim was pulled over by an Austin police officer for speeding in the 7300 block of Ben White. During the traffic stop, she admits asking the officer if he knew who she was."

It gets so much better:

"Kim said in hindsight, she should not have asked the question in the manner she did. She said she was only interested in learning more about which Austin police officers lived inside and outside of the city because the officer didn't know her."

"Do you know who I am?" = impromptu civics lesson for the officer in question. Glad we cleared that one up.

With the big Responsible Growth for Northcross meeting tonight promising some big news, (did somebody say boycott?) we thought we'd hit with you a big-time collection of Wal-Mart ephemerata from Teh Intertubes.

• Wal-Mart selling gay Hentai porn: from the fine folks at The Consumerist, who previously revealed Wally-World was slangin' t-shirts with the Death's Head skull of the Nazi SS emblazoned on them.

• Two fake Wal-Mart blogs busted: This is a little older, describing how to pro-Wal-Mart astroturfers were uprooted.

• Lawmakers offer bill banning Wal-Mart bank: Bipartisan bill to prevent the mega-retailer from dominating another market.

• One of year's biggest PR blunders: Sending "Candidate Wal-Mart" on the campaign trail.

• A picture's worth a thousand words: they're all "ewww!" Check out the Flickr photo-stream from Filthy Wal-Mart.

RG4N meeting tonight, Jan. 31, 2007, at 7pm in
Wozniak Hall at St. Louis Catholic Church at 7601 Burnet Road.

Next time you feel like complaining about the Congress Avenue grackles, spare a thought for the children of Seele Elementary School in New Braunfels. Apparently they're being eyed hungrily by an infestation of vultures. One hundred black vultures (a protected species under the Migratory Bird Act) have taken up residence in a sycamore tree in a nearby park, and the USDA is trying to work out how to get them to move. Apparently waving your arms and shouting "shoo" doesn't work, so they may have to cull (i.e., shoot) some.

We at Chronic think this is a lost opportunity. Don't get rid of them - make them part of the learning experience. Explaining to youthful academic underachievers that coragyps atratus has been known to eat young animals would be a quick biology lesson and a great motivator. Especially for the slow-moving ones.

While we hate to direct any traffic to the Washington Times – which is about as "fair and balanced" as Fox News, and should not be confused with the Washington Post – that paper reported today that Texas' senior senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, is not averse to the idea of being the Republican No. 2 on the 2008 ticket. Asked about her vice presidential possibilities in a meeting with Times editors, Hutchison said, "If our party's nominee called me and said we are putting everything in the grid, and we think you are the best person, would I say no? I can't imagine that I would say no. Would I seek it or do something to promote it? Absolutely not." This revelation creates an interesting revival of the rumored rivalry between Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry: It was widely believed that KBH would try to challenge Perry in the 2006 election, but she finally opted to stay in her senate seat; and even before the election, Perry's name was widely tossed about as a VP possibility.