The battle over House Speaker Tom Craddick's future has rumbled on well after the end of the 80th session: Now two senior House Republicans are dragging Attorney General Greg Abbott into the fight.

On Monday Reps. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, and Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, asked Abbott's office to make a formal advisory on whether Craddick overstepped his powers by refusing to hear motions to vacate the chair – House-speak for a vote of no-confidence.

The last days of the session descended into bitter conflict after members of both parties tried to remove Craddick. Many called his method of management dictatorial and unresponsive: Craddick shut down the rebellion, saying he interpreted the rules as barring a speaker race midsession and that he didn't have to hear any motion that he didn't want to recognize.

In his letter to Abbott, Keffer challenged Craddick's presumption of "absolute authority," questioning whether Craddick violated the Texas Constitution. In four very technical questions, they ask Abbott to rule whether the House has any way to get rid of a speaker, short of impeachment or waiting for the next session. One of seven representatives to file paperwork with the Texas Ethics Commission challenging Craddick in the next speaker race, Keffer could be setting a new political precedent by reducing the powers of an office that he's seeking.

Cook was unavailable for comment, but Craddick's office issued a statement that he welcomed Abbott's opinion, as he was sure it would back his interpretation.

Oh noes! Although, there are no reports of serious injury. From the Austin Police Department's Public Information Office:

Media Advisory: APD responded to a collision with a school bus and a Honda Accord at 7:21am this morning at Braker Lane and Ptarmigan Drive. According to the officer on the scene the school bus was at a stop sign on Braker Lane attempting to go North. When the bus pulled out, it was struck by the Accord. There were 12 students and one driver on the bus and a female driver in the Honda. Officers issued a citation to the bus driver (the officer did not have the name when I spoke with him) for failure to yield right of way at a stop sign.

The Austin Outlaws full-contact women's football team accepted a forfeit victory from the Dallas Rage this weekend but needed the Pensacola Power to beat the New Orleans Blaze by at least 59 points for the Outlaws to be eligible for the National Women's Football Association's postseason. Pensacola won but not by enough and ended the Outlaws successful yet disappointing 5-3 season.

Shadana Hurd led the Outlaws in rushing with 934 yards, 15 TDs, and a 10-yards-per-rushing-attempt average! Her agent should be contacting the Houston Texans for a tryout. Lisa Walters was Austin's top receiver with 13 catches for 203 yards and two TDs. Quarterback Julie Wilke completed 29 of 69 for 471 yards with three TDs and a 43.8 QB rating. Congrats to the Outlaws on a winning record for their 2007 campaign and good luck next year.

Beware the wrath of the O'Dayists!

Texas Monthly's Paul Burka has run into some serious online flack after dumping on Rep. Mike O'Day, R-Pearland, in his Burka Blog.

The sometime "Dean of Texas Political Blecch, err, Blogs" has been defending himself over mysterious allegations against the coastal GOPer. After releasing his best and worst legislators list, he followed up with honorable and dishonorable mentions. In this, he darkly muttered that O'Day had "engaged in ungentlemanly personal conduct."

When called on this quip, the blogger said, "We know what [O'Day] did and he knows what he did and it is going to stop there" and muttered that the story about O'Day – which he still didn't actually repeat – had passed the highest journalistic standards and even had been passed by a fact-checker.

We at Chronic can discount one rumor that has hit the Burka boards – that "Mike o'day [sic] tried to get into every reporters pants!" We can honestly say he never even bought us flowers.

I don't have too much to add to it; I just wanted to point out AustinContrarian's fine dissection of Brewster McCracken's talking points in the Las Manitas fracas – specifically, the assertion that the Perez sisters had the ability to bring the entire Marriott project to a halt by denying an alley right-of-way the hotel needed. I think this passage lays it out pretty well:

"I am skeptical that the Perez sisters have the right to force the alley to stay open. No, not skeptical: I think Brewster is flat wrong. Cities need to close streets and alleys from time to time. Abutting landowners will not always agree. It would be unreasonable to allow a single property owner to hold the city hostage. (According to Austin's loan program director, the Las Manitas loan is not even conditioned on the alley being closed – a bizarre omission if this was the real reason for the loan.)

The Perez sisters do have a legal interest in the alley. But that does not mean they can force the city to keep it open. The government, through eminent domain, can condemn virtually any property interest, including an abutting landowner's interest in a right of way."

This is also astute:

"Here's my take: Council does not want to obstruct the Marriott project. Marriott's made it clear that it needs part of the alley closed. But this would require Council to close the alley over the Perez sisters' objection. Council can legally do that, but then it would be in the awkward position of battling the Perez sisters publicly over the amount of compensation they are due (with the city's legal staff probably telling Council that the city owes them nothing). Council didn't have the stomach for that fight, so it gave Las Manitas the forgivable loan, which some may have wanted to do anyway for reasons of "icon preservation." The forgivable loan is really just the Council's attempt to buy itself out of a politically awkward spot."

AC also raises a question that has completely managed to sail under the radar: If the loan secured the Perez sisters' compliance with the development, isn't it more of a gift to Marriott than Las Manitas?

Academics and film buffs seem to agree – Texas legislators shouldn't act as arbiters of good cinematic taste.

Saturday night at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown, as part of the farewell to the original site at Fourth and Colorado, Joe Bob Briggs (the man that loved drive-in schlock before Quentin Tarantino made it cool) and UT lecturer/Texas film historian Don Graham talked about the history of Texas films and Texas in film.

The conversation turned to Senate Bill 782, the Texas Film Incentive Program's tax-breaks-for-movie-makers bill. Legislators are talking seriously about not funding scripts that make Texas look bad, and when Joe Bob heard about this, he had some words about trying to define good and bad for Texas.

"The first movie under the Texas Film Commission was Lovin' Molly, which made Texas look bad by being bad. The second movie under the commission was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which made Texas look bad by being so good."

Graham had noted earlier that, historically, a lot of Texas movies were about the victory of good, white, protestant folks over, well, everyone. So will the tax breaks mean more Walker, Texas Ranger and less The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada?

So the Transportation Security Administration has found itself embroiled in what we at Chronic would like to dub Sippy Cup Gate, after an argument about whether passenger Monica Emmerson was trying to smuggle a cup of water through security for her infant. The TSA claims that its staff was following regulations and that Emmerson deliberately poured the water on the floor. Emmerson says that the staff was harassing a woman struggling with a small child and luggage and failed to show basic human decency – in turn creating an Internet cause celebré.

So how does the TSA respond to claims that its staff acted in a high-handed, out-of-control, power-hungry, and unaccountable manner? By issuing a reasoned press release? By launching a full internal investigation? By issuing an apology? By standardizing all its regulations, so they don't vary seemingly arbitrarily (seriously, do the shoes have to come off or not?) between airports?

No – by launching a subsection of its website called (and only press officers and comedians can make this kind of stuff up) Mythbusters, where the TSA puts its security-camera footage and its incident report of Sippy Cup Gate. Yes, Mythbusters.

And the winner of Most Superfluous Press Release is …

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.)