Ya know who's great? Drug companies! I mean, they wouldn't research or promote a cure for cancer if it meant they couldn't patent it, but look at all the good things they're doing. At no small expense, they've hired talk-show host Montel Williams to tell you just how great they are. Montel, the Partnership for Prescription Assistance, and their Here to Help Express are pulling into the capital Feb. 20 in a rally big-upping the benevolent drug dealers. If you're lucky, they might give you the first one free - so why should Medicare bother negotiating with them for lower prices?

I mean, when Montel was battling MS, I'm sure he didn't even need health insurance - just an astroturfed PR effort!

As a follow-up to the Northcross square-footage debate, we got these numbers straight from the man himself, Brewster McCracken, on Wal-Mart sizes in Austin (who in turn got them from the APD):

Super Wal-Mart, 1030 Norwood Park: 223,233 square feet
Super Wal-Mart, 12900 N. I-35 service road: 208,552 square feet
Super Wal-Mart, I-35 at Ben White: 206,359 square feet
Super Wal-Mart, I-35 at Southpark Meadows: 206,142 square feet
Super Wal-Mart, 13201 FM 620: 200,000 square feet
Wal-Mart, 290 at Mopac: 135,001 square feet

Proposed Northcross Super Wal-Mart: 225,085 square feet (and that's including the quasi-outdoor garden center)

Granted, this doesn't back up the claim of Northcross being biggest in the world, but it disproves KXAN's claim: "Wal-Marts at 183, at 620, ... and on Ben White" are larger than what's proposed at Anderson.

Let the pwnage commence.

Thursday, Feb. 15, 2007

Item 3: Creates Retail Retention and Enhancement Program for Congress Avenue and East Sixth Street. Where'd that last part come from? Are they gonna give Midnight Cowboy Massage some bucks to relocate?

Item 23: Adopting the Mayor's Climate Protection Plan.

Item 24: Allows UT's Clean Energy Incubator to work with Austin Energy in developing clean energy technology. Sponsor Brewster McCracken's self-satisfaction is an inexhaustible resource.

Item 26: Supporting passage of legislation directing sporting-goods sales tax to fund parks and rec programs. Finally, our jockstrap dollars can go somewhere wholesome.

Item 38: 2pm briefing on on the disturbingly titled Families With Children Report.

Item 39: The Golden Bulldozer procession - zoning - starts.

Item 43: The Town Lake Hyatt, pending a supermajority vote, receives permissive PUD zoning for a mammoth revamp of the site, including condos. City shrugs.

Items 67-68: Rezoning of Concordia campus into high-density mixed use.

Item 69: Zoning on 400-foot condo tower behind Katz's, on Seventh & Rio Grande. Development never kloses!

5:30 Proclamations: Meteorologist Troy Kimmel gets city's Certificate of Appreciation. Jim Spencer goes on weeklong bender.

6pm (more likely midnight) Public Hearings and Possible Actions:

Item 71: VMU opt-in/opt-out.

Item 72: At long last, the Big Box Ordinance. Will anyone be awake?

So the big gag everywhere today: At her pretrial court appearance, convicted West Campus murderer Colton Pitonyak's traveling partner, would-be Breed & Co. spokesmodel Laura "that's just how I roll" Hall, was carrying a copy of - what else - Maureen Dowd's Are Men Necessary? You go girl!

While MoDo's kvetching how guys are always scared off by how smart, successful, and fabulous she is, we think people might be wary of Hall for, err, other reasons.

UPDATE: Our Laura makes the big time, on Gawker.

In this week’s print edition, "Reefer Madness" incorrectly reported that, at press time, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s top narco, Karen Tandy, had not yet responded to North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson’s request that Tandy’s agency waive federal registration requirements for individual NoDak farmers licensed by the state to grow industrial hemp. In fact, that was an error caused by a miscommunication with Johnson’s office.

As it turns out, Tandy’s deputy assistant administrator in the DEA Office of Diversion Control, Joseph T. Rannazzisi, penned a three-page letter to Johnson, received in Bismarck, N.D., on Feb. 1, denying the waiver request. The problem, writes Rannazzisi, is, in essence, that to waive registration would mean waiving DEA oversight – and that ain’t gonna happen. According to the DEA, “registration” of industrial hemp farmers “is the foundation” of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act – the federal legislation that (erroneously, many think) offered the DEA oversight of hemp, even though its cultivation is a purely agricultural endeavor. Of course, the DEA doesn’t see things that way.

Fox 7 repeated the strangely irrelevant story Sunday that Australian Prime Minister John Howard bad-mouthed Barack Obama over his Iraq policy.

The outburst has won the Australian prime minister no friends back home (we at Chronic know it's not scientific, but four out of every five respondents to The Sydney Morning Herald's poll said that Howard had "put his foot in it." But it's being pimped in the blogosphere and, erm, "legitimate" media like Newsmax are treating it like it's a death knell for the presidential hopeful.

Of course, many were shocked that some real international news came from the House That Rupert Murdoch Built, and it's undeniably a good start. But it's really not overly relevant, as it's very unlikely President Obama would meet Prime Minister Howard. Howard's Liberal Party/National Party coalition government is facing a very stiff challenge from the Labour Party in the upcoming elections, and Howard will probably not be prime minister in a year, no matter who wins in '08.

So why make a big deal of it? Do the anti-Obamists really think they'll appeal to the internationalist instincts of their audience? Do the core anti-Obamists even have internationalist instincts? What the hell is an Obamist anyway?

TXU may have the ear of Gov. Rick Perry when it comes to their proposed coal-fired power stations, but they're facing an opposition that is well-funded, well-organized, and well-motivated. At a rally held Sunday on the Capitol steps, more than 1,000 protesters said "hell no" to the Dallas-based energy company's proposed pollution-production. They'd been organized through an auto-dialer phone campaign (normally the reserve of big-budget election campaigns) and got free T-shirts (printed front and back - nice) for turning up.

But never fear! There were still some brave proponents of TXU's right to dump carbon dioxide, methyl-mercury, sulfur, and other particulates into the atmosphere. Fearless First Amendment types, speaking for the corporate underdog. But who were those noble souls sporting the huge "Texas Needs Power" pins?

Err ... TXU employees, imported from around the state, especially for the occasion.

Austin's George Bush-slamming country trio the Dixie Chicks just won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for "Not Ready to Make Nice," along with their co-songwriter Dan Wilson. So much for their anti-war outspokenness destroying their career. Congratulations.

EDIT: And now they just added Best Country Album to their trophy case, and Natalie Maines just got off one of the funniest lines in the history of Grammys by quoting The Simpsons. Damn, it's great to live in America where free speech is ultimately rewarded.

Sorry to interrupt everyone's post-demonstration warm and fuzzies, but drop whatever you're doing and do this:

1) Go to www.kxan.com.

2) Click the right arrow button at the bottom of their media player to cycle through to older stories, then click on the box now on the left: "Northcross Wal-Mart Opponents to Form Human Chain."

3) Wait for Brewster McCracken's statement at the 1:20 mark: Northcross will hold the largest Wal-Mart "in the world."

4) Wait a minute, back that up. (I didn't know Flash players rewound like that!) Rinse. Repeat.