What kind of person would use candles made from people? Witches? Cannibals? Oil executives?

Seemingly, oil execs. Last Thursday, attendees at an oil-industry convention were fooled into thinking that the solution to peak oil is processing people into premium unleaded.

For those of you that have never come across the work of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, aka the Yes Men, these arch-pranksters have made a reputation exposing the psyche of the corporate world. They call their technique "identity correction": They pose as representatives of business and government, get invited to big conferences, and then propose schemes that are so obviously insane, oppressive, or just flat-out immoral that no one would take them seriously. They then watch as the business community nods sagely and thinks how they can turn a profit on this – not, as most sane people would do, throw up in their own mouths a little bit.

In this case, the Yes Men pretended to be from ExxonMobil and the National Petroleum Council and got themselves invited to Gas & Oil Exposition, Canada's biggest oil-industry conference. They were there to promote a "new product" that would revolutionize energy production – Vivoleum, an oil substitute made out of dead people. The photos of the event reveal oil-industry execs blithely burning candles they think are made from the rendered remains of a dead Exxon janitor.

(Please note, no janitors were harmed in the making of this situationist art prank.)

On the heels of recent gay pride celebrations, Austin’s GLBT community is banding together with Austin Habitat for Humanity to build a home this fall. The home, in the Montopolis neighborhood, is being constructed for Marta Maldonado, a 64-year-old East Austin resident, who, like all HFH home recipients, will contribute her own sweat equity – 400 hours – to the build. When it’s finished, she’ll live there with an interest-free mortgage. “Austin Habitat is proud to be working with the GLBT community in this partnership to address one of the biggest needs facing all Austinites today – affordable housing. Austin is so diverse in its people and cultures, but we all share the need for shelter,” said Michael Willard, AHFH executive director. To donate or volunteer – they need $60,000 in materials and 1,800 in volunteer hours – call 472-8788 or send an e-mail to info@ahfh.org. More information is available at AHFH's website here.

The Lance Armstrong Bikeway, proposed in 1999 by local bike crusader Eric Anderson to create a dedicated east-to-west bicycle route across Downtown, is finally under way. After years of delays, even after the project was fully funded, many people were beginning to believe it may have to be dedicated to Armstrong posthumously by the time it was completed. The 6-mile bikeway extends from Veterans Drive at Lake Austin Boulevard on the west side of town to the Montopolis Bridge at Highway 183 on the Eastside. The path consists of a combination of off-street concrete trails, on-street striped bike lanes, and on-street signed bike routes. It will intersect with the planned extension of the Pfluger bike/pedestrian bridge just north of Cesar Chavez, providing a safe passage over Town Lake to the south, as well as hook up with the Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Park near 183 at its eastern terminus. The bikeway is also expected to cruise through the planned Seaholm redevelopment Downtown. “Studies show that areas with new bicycle facilities experience an increase in bicycle commuting,” said Annick Beaudet, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian project manager in a statement. “The bikeway will likely increase bicycle use to, from, and within the downtown area, helping to achieve City-wide goals such as sustainability, congestion management, and downtown vitality.”

PBS's weekly news magazine NOW is taking a trip to Austin this week. The topic is The Unforseen, Laura Dunn's lyrical, dreamlike doc about Gary Bradley's plans to develop over Barton Springs Aquifer. Featuring extensive interviews with Bradley and his cabal, and footage from the legendary 1991 all-night uprising at City Hall which birthed the Save Our Springs movement, the film's an intriguing document of the swirling, coalescing forces behind development and environmentalism (if frustratingly noncommittal – Dunn tries her best to present Bradley as some venture-funded Icarus who flew too close to the sun, a move which doesn't entirely succeed).

NOW host David Brancaccio will interview Dunn and show clips from the film, no doubt extrapolating questions about what the rest of the nation can glean from Austin's environmental movement – a question we still haven't answered here definitively. NOW airs locally at 7:30pm on Channel 18/cable Channel 9; the entire episode will also be available for streaming after tonight's broadcast.

The fallout from Brewster McCracken spilling the refried beans on the Congress Avenue Business Retention and Enhancement Fund, aka the Migas Slush Bucket, continues, with Sarah Coppola's reporting in today's Statesman. Reading it, and having caught a replay of last week's council meeting last night while Chronic cooked his frozen pizza in the oven (yes, it's really as sad as it sounds), Will Wynn definitely, albeit obliquely, referred to the alley vacation. It was kind of swallowed up whole on our first listen, buried in descriptors of the merits of the project, but here's the relevant passage:

"But the project would not happen without the cooperation of adjacent property owners, in part because there’s going to be an alley vacation. Alley vacations require the consent of adjacent property owners. Las Manitas at their new location, the corner of Third and Congress, will be consenting to that cooperation to allow this product to even be built. So had we done nothing, more than likely, this project doesn’t happen."

With today's announcement that the city will be hiring Art Acevedo as Austin's next police chief (see post below), that leaves acting Chief Cathy Ellison – who had applied for the position herself – to ponder her future. City Manager Toby Futrell said in today's press conference that Ellison still has a job at the Austin Police Department, if she wants it. Ellison just released this statement:

"I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Chief Art Acevedo on his selection as Chief of Police for the Austin Police Department. I wish Chief Acevedo the best of luck and offer my total support to him. I believe that the Austin Police Department will be in the very best of hands under Chief Acevedo’s leadership [Ellison's italics].

"I have been honored to serve as Acting Chief of Police and my thanks to all the men and women of the Austin Police Department for their continued good work during this time of transition. Many of you are wondering about my future plans after 28 years of police service to the community. I sincerely appreciate the interest, but I can only tell you that my future plans include going home this weekend, putting my feet up, and giving it a great deal of thought."

Here's Austin American Civil Liberties Union President Debbie Russell on Art Acevedo:

Hope is in the air; hard work in front of us.

Art Acevedo was the only candidate to outreach/respond to community groups before the short, brief time we had them all this week. He sympathized with our calls to be included in the process and began building bridges before coming to town (the first time). Community groups labored not only to have oversight of the process and to be more intimately involved, but to do our own investigations of the candidates and eventually secure one single meeting in which to interview the candidates more in-depth than in the larger forums. This meeting allowed for making a comparative analysis in which Art stood head and shoulders above the rest of the highly-qualified bunch. Many had suspicions he was "it" already … the chemistry seemed right...the background checks were impeccable … but seeing it now on paper via our scorecard, he reigned.

The process WAS seriously flawed, but things seemingly worked out. We have laid new ground for the future – for more community inclusion in city processes; for more responsiveness from our leaders. Art speaks, and he does so MOST eloquently, to these democratic ideals.

He has charmed the pants off this weird little city of ours. We've taken his hand in good faith; let's hope the honeymoon lasts forever. Let's work for it!

And on a more personal note: Thank you to all the many, many activists and leaders who allowed me to stand in the eye of our common storm. Blessings for all of your respective hard work, dedication, forgiveness (!), sage advice and love. More so than a new, community-minded police chief, the collaborations made and the camaraderie developed across race lines and issue concerns inspires me to push even harder to build a better community. Today, it sure feels like another world IS possible.

On the heels of the last TXU post, more details on their latest plant:

The mammoth Oak Grove plant – really two plants in one – would on its first day of operations be among the highest-emitting power plants in the country. Opponents fear it will push Austin into federal violation for smog and ozone pollution, keep other metropolitan cities from lifting themselves out of violation, and dramatically exacerbate the state’s already worst-in-the-nation mercury and globe-warming CO2 pollution. The commissioners (all Perry appointees) voted two to one to approve the permit, overturning a decision by two state administrative law judges recommending that Oak Grove’s permit be denied based on TXU’s failure to demonstrate its pollution controls could function properly with low-grade lignite coal.

Mayor Will Wynn urged commissioners to deny the permit Wednesday. He had plenty of company, including representatives of Dallas and Houston, counties, school districts, and conservation groups, in addition to all of the state’s environmental groups. Representatives of several nearby rural towns spoke in favor of the permit, including Fairfield Mayor Roy Hill, who revealed last year during testimony that the pro-coal group he headed up, Texans for Affordable and Reliable Power, was partially funded by TXU.

It's hard to know what to make of Brewster McCracken's kinda-culpa to Jeff Ward on KLBJ this morning regarding Las Manitas. If you missed it, the audio is here.

Basically, Brewster says the $750,000 forgivable loan to Las Mas had fuck all to do with the eatery's iconicness but was given as the building up the block from Las Manitas – which the Perez sisters own – had a right-of-way on an alley the $200 million Marriott needed for construction – an "absolute trump cards to kill the hotel deal," says McCracken.

As a commenter says, "Why go to all of the trouble of putting lipstick on the pig if you're gonna immediately turn around and claim 'We had no choice – those educated chicanas held us up!" Especially after McCracken voted for it. When crouched in purely economic terms, the penny-ante arguing over a $750,000 grant to expedite a project bringing $7 million in annual tax revenue sounds like a no-brainer – so why not sell it that way from the outset, as "both or neither," which Brewster does here?

So confused …