News: August 2009 Archives

• Health care reform rally at the First United Methodist Church on Saturday had people shouting at each other across a median on 12th Street, (on a block between Lavaca and Colorado.) See the picture of Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) making his own devil horns!
• Three boaters rescued after being lost for 8 days in the Gulf of Mexico! They survived on crackers, gum and beer, before being picked up by a yacht where they were served steaks!
• Have you seen this escapee from the Burnet County Jail?

• Regime change in Japan...
• U.S. to see post-bailout profit?
• US business economists: No need for a second stimulus package?

Real estate is always unpredictable, but houses are sitting on the market a lot longer now than they were last year and sellers must be nervous. Negotiate like a Pawn Star: offer low and go up slow. Sellers (and your broker and their broker) may not like it, but most will come back somewhere in the middle. None will throw away your number. Today's Hot Real Estate Listings post is on Burnet between 45th and 2222. Good access to a lot of interesting retail (e.g., great restaurants without a wait for a table (e.g., Maru)). Parts of Brentwood, Allandale and Rosedale. It's like living in a Billy Joel's dream, but hotter.

• Federal probe ends, NM Gov. Richardson won't be charged in pay-to-play investigation.
• On Sen. Kennedy's work for immigration reform.
• Mexico's drug violence spilling over the border as informers move north.

• Two men were executed under false arson convictions in Texas, a new report shows.
• Not even the Federal Reserve Chairman is safe from identity theft.
• AIG's new CEO spends his first month on the job on vacation.

This afternoon, City Council will consider a proposal for a 30 acre planned unit development (PUD) between Riverside Drive and Lakeshore Boulevard in southeast Austin. The development would replace 600 apartments now on the site with 1,200 apartments and 97,000 square feet of street-level retail space. Developers are seeking the right to build up to 90 feet high, but the tallest building in the current plan is only 75 feet tall. The recently enacted waterfront overlay ordinance imposes a height limit of 60 feet in the area, but the ordinance does not apply to PUDs.

• Texas lawmakers remember the late Senator Edward Kennedy.
• “It looks like a war zone in Taylor” following a thunderstorm last night.
• First day of classes at UT, and the game has changed. This semester brings the start of plus/minus grading to the university. We’ll totally miss the days of squeaking into an “A” with a 90.

• SMU v. condo owners: the property dispute over the land where SMU wants to set up George W. Bush's presidential library is far from settled.
• A federal appeals court has sided with LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) against the Texas Democratic Party's "Texas Two Step" delegate process. LULAC says the TDP's process should be subject to the federal Voting Rights Act.
• One of the memes circulating today after Sen. Ted Kennedy's death last night is a video of him singing a snippet of "Ay, Jalisco, no te rajes" at a 2008 Laredo campaign stop for Obama.

Lets face it, language is important. Sure, the title ‘Comprehensive Plan’ is accurate but it doesn’t exactly foster an atmosphere of possibility, imagination or openness. In fact, it rather suggests something ‘definite’, something to be fought over and battled around instead of ‘Let’s think how we want our city to look, feel and function for the next couple of decades’ . Unless I am mistaken it is actually a framework and a series of goals, right? So why not change the name or modify it. Austin Tomorrow, the previous plan’s name is more interesting but in my opinion it’s not action oriented or suggestive of the distance that we should be looking in the future. How about Imagine Austin or Envision Austin or Re-Envision Austin or Austin 2040 or my personal creation that is admittedly dead in the water, Make Austin Weirder. Seriously though, if you want imagine and talk about the future, you’ve got to set the stage for it. No better way to get the ball rolling than to re-brand the entire affair. Have a City-wide competition to name it as well as raise awareness of the process. Someone out there can do a heck of a lot better than my, Envision Austin.

• Sen. Edward Kennedy, the "Lion of the Senate", dies at 77 after long battle with brain cancer
• CIA interrogators choked a prisoner repeatedly and threatened to kill another detainee’s children
• Karzai widens lead over Abdullah in Afghan presidential election

• Our Facebook news feed today included a picture of a second-grader with a full Mohawk and a backpack. That’s how we found out it was the first day of school for many students in Central Texas. Drive carefully in those school zones!
• This editorial from weighs in on the trial of Texas appellate court judge Sharon Keller. Hint: Keller might not be emailing this to friends.
• The BBC reports on the Whole Foods boycott. (Sadly, the BBC’s coverage is still lacking in the great eggplant vs. aubergine debate.)

A resolution set to go before the city council this week would change the rules of the road for Austin drivers. The measure would prohibit drivers from texting or emailing while driving and calls for a three-foot safety zone between drivers and pedestrians or cyclists.

The new AISD Diane Gorzycki Middle School in southwest Austin will begin the school year on a green note. By later this week, Austin lawn might be a little brown. Falling lake levels have prompted the LCRA to demand additional water conservation steps from their wholesale customers. Beginning today, August 24th, and until further notice, Austin will begin enforcing stage two water conservation regulations.

• City creates grace period after confusion over new parking meters.
• Water break shuts off service for 500 in W. Travis County.
• Midland deputy fired over Twin Peaks photo.

After an extensive renovation project , the Great Lawn at Zilker Park is reopening to the public today. The 46-acre north section of Zilker has been fenced off since January, as it underwent the final phase of its first major improvement project since it was original developed in the 1930s.

• Man killed in drive-by shooting on Willow Street.
• Lockerbie bomber released from prison. U.S. not happy.
• South African athlete humiliated by gender testing.

• Sherwood Cryer, 83, Co-Founder of the Pasadena nightclub Gilley’s—the venue featured in the film “Urban Cowboy’s—goes to that great honky-tonk in the sky.
• They’re no angels: Katrina victims whom Oprah helped get new homes on “Angel Lane” are in court. They allegedly bilked rent money out of FEMA after moving into their new homes!
• When we read about jewelry being stuffed into bears, we immediately wondered if this crime had anything to do with the plushophile community. (It didn't, that's just the first thing we thought of.)

• Man shot in Austin by TABC officers, after a pursuit where a TABC agent was nearly run over.
• Police in Southlake, Texas are looking for a late model Bentley in conjunction with a road-rage incident that started in the drive-thru lane of a Chick-Fil-A. (In 2008, Forbes reported that Southlake was the most affluent suburb in the country.)
• Police officers and the city manager in Taft, Texas are in trouble for facilitating this rap video about “Swangn.” We admit the video is boring, but should a city worker be in trouble for allowing it to happen?

• White House considering compromise on health care reform
• Senate Dems propose nonprofit health care co-ops
• American Public: Whazzat?

Yeah Yeah Yeahs at Lollapalooza (Jim Kopeny)
• Chicagoist had a surreal Lollapalooza experience, starting with a soaked first day that included a man dying during one of the first sets, followed by hot and steamy days two and three, lots of amazing pictures, people in Buckingham Fountain, and ending with a man punching a horse.
• Londonist witnessed href="http://londonist.com/2009/08/some_london_children_speak_foreign.php">unecessary
  tabloid shock at the languages spoken by some of London's
  children.
• DCist watched the premiere of a new documentary about the life and
  times of the District's "Mayor for Life," href="http://dcist.com/2009/08/watching_old_mb_videos_you.php">The
  Nine Lives of Marion Barry on HBO.

A health-care editorial in the Wall Street Journal displayed the Libertarian side of Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey, leaving many among his company's mostly liberal customer base wondering how to react.

RNC chair says the "death panel" falsehood started by Palin is "appropriate." The end (of the recession) is near. Or so they say. Planet overcrowding to continue. One-year-old boy found dead in car at Freescale. Last public boat ramp on Lake Travis closed due to drought. You think it's hot in Austin? You too can rent Rupert Murdoch's sailboat - only $319K/week!

JetBlue, perhaps hoping to lure more customers its way in these dismal times, is trying out a new All-You-Can-Jet program from September 8 to October 8. For $599 (taxes and fees included), they'll allow travel to and from any of the 50+ U.S. cities that they service.

Update 2:30 p.m.: MoveOn just sent an apology email clarifying that "Senators Cornyn and Hutchison are not expected to attend, as we said in the email—nor are any other members of Congress." Regardless, it's a chance for you to weigh in on the matter.

The concept of sustainability has become a hot button issue in the design field within the last few years. So much so that “green” architecture has found its way into the mainstream. Clients are now requesting, if not demanding, LEED certified projects. The general public seems to have begun linking sustainability to architecture. I believe that this trend will continue and eventually the concept of sustainability will be codified both the theory and practice of architecture. But for now, the problem is that most people have a limited view of what it means to be “green.” They have equated sustainability solely with material choices and energy savings/efficiency.

• Marines launch assault on Taliban-held Afghan town
• Remembering Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died Tuesday at age 88
• Aspirin cuts risk of colon cancer

The W Austin Hotel & Residences project downtown, which is the planned to be the future home to Austin City Limits tapings, needs new financing. Corus Bank was signed up to provide a $165 million construction loan, but has been hit hard by the economic downturn and assigned the loan to a subsidiary of the developer, Stratus Properties, in exchange for a $250,000 reduction in the outstanding balance. According to Stratus, they are "aggressively pursuing other options for financing the future construction costs," including additional equity contributions by the current developers, a new loan, new equity partners, or a combination. If they can't come up with the money, construction may be delayed.

Bloomberg reports that Virgin America, Richard Branson's sexy low-cost domestic airline, is considering Austin as a possible city to add to its dozen or so destinations. The company, whose hub is in San Francisco, mostly services California and the East Coast, and recently added Fort Lauderdale as its tenth market.

As there's no such listing in the Guinness World Record, this year's race winners will automatically earn the distinction. It's expected that they'll come in close to the reigning course champions, Team Jack and Adam’s, who clocked in at 2:21 and 15 seconds last year. The current solo men's and women's record holders, both set in recent years, are 2:03:59 and 2:15:25—on the other end of the record-holding spectrum, other equally worthy titles include the fastest marathon dressed as Santa Claus (2:55:50), fastest marathon dressed as a vegetable (3:34:55), and the fastest marathon dressed as a leprechaun (4:22:08). [pdf link]

KLRU's Austin City Limits television program, long a cornerstone of Austin music culture, can now count itself as a national institution: the 34-year-old show has been designated as a "historic rock and roll site" by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Two Presidents and a Prime Minister walk into a bar... 47 killed in Iraq bomb attacks Economic MadLibs: Cash-for-(insert noun here) Republicans stashing away the pennies for 2012 Back-to-school shopping? Don't forget your sexually transmitted disease vaccine! Porn industry at half-mast Dylan to release Christmas album -- no joke.

Since his first town-hall meeting didn't go so well, Congressman Lloyd Doggett appeared at the CommUnity Care healthy kids fair in Northeast Austin this weekend to further discuss the health care reform bills now being discussed in Washington. As before, impassioned citizens—both for and against the proposed reform plan—came out in droves, though this one seemed to encourage less of the disruptive vitriol that spewed forth from angry "Tea Party Patriots" last week.

This year’s meteor shower should have better than normal activity, but less than optimal viewing conditions. A waning gibbous moon (about 60%) will brighten the night sky. The peak activity, up to 100 per hour, will occur in the wee hours of the morning of August 12th, but the celestial spectacle should also be visible from that nightfall until a little before midnight when the moon rises.

• Report cites violations in the raid of Ft. Worth's Rainbow Lounge.
• APD fusion center has many worried about privacy.
• Arrest made after South Austin home invasion.

A recent ranking of pet-friendly cities by Rent.com puts Austin in sixth place, for such amenities as Zilker Botanical Gardens and off-leash parks.

The T. Don Hutto Residential Center will no longer be a detainment center for families awaiting judgments on their immigration cases, the Obama administration announced this morning.

After nearly a year on the market, the Statesman is no longer for sale. Parent company Cox Enterprises announced today that they will retain ownership of the paper.

In a surprise move few saw coming, Lindsay Lohan landed a job—a real, honest-to-goodness paid acting gig. Confirmed via Lohan’s Twitter and a plethora of gossip sites, it looks like the crazy bus is about to make a stop. Destination: Austin.

Obama administration to overhaul Fannie and Freddie? How will Bill Clinton's visit to N. Korea affect future nuclear talks? 15-year-old Iraqi girl sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for her part in an attempted bombing. But was she a willing participant? Woman and her baby, both kidnapped from North Austin, rescued (sort of) in Uvalde; authorities let their kidnapper walk away. Louisiana politician William J. Jefferson found guilty on corruption charges. ll the cool kids are studying statistics. Bens out of At the Movies; film critics A. O. Scott and Michael Phillips in. Beastie Boy Adam Yauch recovering after having a cancerous tumor removed.

If every dog has its day, then that day is Sept. 8 for the free-roaming Fidos at the Bull Creek District Park. Blaming unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria in the unleashed dogs’ fecal waste, the city proposed yesterday to make Bull Creek an on-leash park this September.

• How former president Bill Clinton secured the release of two journalists from a North Korea prison
• Ahmadinejad sworn in as Iran's president amid boycotts and street protests
• Pittsburgh man with "grudge against women" kills three, wounds nine in health-club shooting

Back-to-School, an event annually hosted by Manos de Cristo, will take place in a former Chair King warehouse, offering the first glimpse of an impromptu collaboration between Travis County, Ridgetop Neighborhood Association, and AIA Design Voice. Holding this event in this empty big box began as a “what if” posed by motivated and altruistic citizens, but rapidly revealed a rich and exemplary beacon of hope for all of Austin.

• OMG! The socialists are coming, the socialists are coming!
• Cash for clunkers program boosts auto sales, expected to continue…
• …Unless it doesn’t…