We’re not going to count our chickens before they hatch. Still, it’s been heartening to see an improvement in the perception towards marijuana laws of late, even if a very, very slight one. We’re already hearing tales about the green rush in California from friends -- even Arnold seems up for a debate. Locally, we’ve always had Willie speaking out in favor of reformed laws and earlier this year, Austin lawyer Charles Roadman shared his thoughts on the issue. We may soon have an Attorney General furthering the cause as well, if all goes to one Barry Cooper’s plan that is. This Sunday, Club de Ville hosts a fundraiser benefitting Cooper, a narcotics interdiction officer from Texas, currently in the running for the position of the state’s Attorney General. more ›

The old saying, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" may need to be updated to "On Twitter, everybody knows you're not a cop." more ›

Travis County DA candidates debate tonight at Dell Jewish Community Center. On Friday when a Secret Service agent wouldn't let a Capitol employee into the building, she got upset and . . . threw a bowl of egg salad at the agent. Man who sold candy to kids at his Austin apartment complex accused of raping two girls 8 years ago. "Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex": Our own Gov. Perry interviewed in this weekend's NY Times magazine. more ›

Photo by Payton Chung on flickr
• Two remaining candidates for City Manager: Jelynne Burley of San Antonio and Mike Ott of Ft. Worth.
• City Council approved McCracken's downtown parking proposal at today's meeting.
• Cars who park in marked bike lanes can now be ticketed by a few workers from the Public Works Department Bicycle and Pedestrian Program.

Photo by The Chaninator™ on flickr Travis County officials hope to extradite former UT student from Peru; in 1996, her drunk driving led to the death of her passenger. Attorney General Greg Abbott's office collected $2.3 billion in child support last (fiscal) year. Chief Acevedo to decide today if any disciplinary action will be taken against Sgt. Olsen for the death of Kevin Brown earlier this year. Secretary of Defense Gates visited Fort Hood this... more ›

Photo by MotherPie on flickr Attorney General Greg Abbott says the rate of foreclosures in Texas is at crisis level; foreclosures in Travis County have gone down since last year, though. Hit-and-run on Airport Blvd. Sunday morning leads to the deaths of a motorcyclist and his passenger. Fredericksburg wants you to be quiet when you visit. State red-light fines that should be going towards medical trauma centers aren't. Del Rio high school student suspended for... more ›

O.J. Simpson is just weird. Bush to appoint new legal yes-man, er, we mean Attorney General. Greenspan says Iraq War was mostly just about gettin' our grubby hands on some of that cheap oil. The world's top 10 most polluted places, according to Scientific American. Get your iPhone unlocked for, like, $50. Our legs are really, really sore from ACL. Another effect of global warming: The unthawing of prehistoric mammoth dung, which stinks!... more ›

Several state reps, including Joe Farias and David Leibowitz, and Congressman Ciro Rodriguez have recently begun to ask questions about the Texas Department of Transportation's ad campaign promoting toll roads and the use of budgetary funds to lobby Congress. Specifically, they are asking the Attorney General whether TxDOT's actions are legal. Legal or not, ad campaigns and lobbying seem like a poor use of taxpayer money for any state agency, especially one that is... more ›

Authorities in New York arrested 43-year-old Paul Devoe III, the man believed responsible for a grisly quadruple homicide that happened in Jonestown, Texas, this weekend. Devoe is also allegedly linked to the murder of a bartender in Marble Falls last Friday, as well as another slaying in Pennsylvania. Details remain scarce, but a spokesman for the Travis County sheriff's department described Sunday's crime scene as "fairly bloody, fairly gruesome." The Capital Area Metro Planning... more ›

A 17-year-old kid dies after smashing his car into a tree in Central Austin Round Rock police, fed up with pesky juvenile delinquents, close down a popular skate park for a week Tropical Storm Erin was just a warm-up; Hurricane Dean might be on its way The Texas Attorney General closes a local illegal nursing home operation; one resident was found locked in a room with boarded-up windows UT students and others looking to... more ›

Finding hot button issues in Austin is not unlike finding a needle in a needlestack and no issue is as passionately debated as real estate. When Liz Lambert left her law practice with the Attorney General’s office and purchased the run down San Jose Motel, she had designs to create an oasis of hip on South Congress Avenue before the condo-boom had even begun, and little did she know that what she was building would... more ›

As of last week, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is on the warpath against a pharmaceutical corporation based in Coppell, Texas - just outside of Dallas - that appears to be trying to sell unapproved medical cures and bunk therapies to sick people by associating its products not with scientific documentation and development, but instead with Judeo-Christian history and faith. Niiiice. The company is called Mannatech, Inc., apparently a health supplement/therapy company that's named itself... more ›

Authorities at the University of Texas have launched an investigation into alleged illegal dealings that UT associate vice president and financial aid director Lawrence W. Burt may have had with education finance provider Student Loan Xpress Inc. According to the office of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Burt was issued stock from Student Loan Xpress, a glaring conflict of interest given the company's status as one of UT's "preferred lenders." "It is important that... more ›

Governor Rick Perry's much-harangued executive order of mandatory HPV vaccines for Texas schoolgirls has drawn the ire of Attorney General Greg Abbott, who yesterday declared that the order was merely "advisory" in nature, and devoid of legal substance. more ›

In the 80th Texas Legislature – going on right now in case you haven’t been near the Capitol lately and seen all the people with megaphones and message-slathered posterboards on the lawn – a bill has just been filed that would regulate commercial party boats on Austin’s local lakes. Senate Bill 997 – filed by freshman State Senator Kirk Watson (D-Austin), former Mayor of Austin and former candidate for Texas Attorney General – would essentially... more ›

Microsoft rolled into town yesterday on its Family Gaming bus, stopping at the state capitol as part of a national marketing campaign showing off "appropriate gaming and entertainment choices for their family." The "Safety is no game. Is your family set?" campaign sees the software giant partnering with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Best Buy to teach parents how to limit their kids' exposure to raunchy video games and movie content. "With success... more ›

The Grand Old Party nearly swept the statewide race yesterday, led by Governor Rick Perry, who after beating Democratic nominee Chris Bell and independent candidates Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn may very well become the longest-serving Governor in Texas. In a press conference this morning, Perry was vague when addressing rumors of a possible vice presidential bid, merely saying it was "up to the good Lord." Bell, who posted yesterday in his blog... more ›

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbq's and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder? Phillyist is concerned that the war on Trans fats could affect it's beloved cheese steak sandwiches, something for which we should all be concerned.... more ›

• Who can blame a dog for loving girls' panties?
• You should know that any kind of "cum" on your resume could eliminate you from contacting potential employers. Think of another way to say "magna cum laude".
• In Connecticut, a woman was bitten by a coyote apparently because she didn't have a Big Mac on her. Perhaps the coyote should travel to France, where they have the largest number of McDonald's franchises outside the US and an increasingly obese population.
• Monopoly is getting a makeover. New game pieces will advertise resemble items associated with any major corporation who was willing to pony up the goods.
• Having our feet licked in a Wal-Mart would certainly be a religious experience of sorts. Of course you'd have to get us in to a Wal-Mart first.
• Attorney General Gonzales wants ISP's to save the internet surfing habits of their clientele. We think he just wants to know where all the good, free porn is.
  

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it... more ›

Independent goober candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn Rylander Cougar Mellencamp is suing the Texas secretary of state over his refusal to let her use "Grandma" on the Nov. 7 ballot. We're pretty sure the filing of a frivolous lawsuit will do very little to help Carole Cougar gain new supporters. It seems Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is reluctant to release information about his investigation of Tom DeLay. In fact, he is suing the... more ›

News Corp, mother company of MySpace.com, yesterday announced that it would be spending "millions of dollars" to launch TV and online ad campaigns promoting internet safety for kids. No doubt motivated in large part by lawsuits, such as the one recently filed by a Travis County mother-daughter duo, that accuse MySpace of making it too easy for online predators to pick up underaged teens, and emotionally troubled youths like the 13-year-old girl who ran... more ›

The Statesman just reported that a teenage girl in Travis County, who was allegedly sexually assaulted last month by nineteen-year old Pete Solis, has filed suit against MySpace for $30 million: more ›

Former Austin "spam king" Ryan Pitylak and his former cohorts settled with the Texas Attorney General's Office yesterday, agreeing to pay $10 million in penalties and associated costs for running what the Statesman calls "one of the 'largest and most notorious' spam operations in the world": more ›

Add 197,000 names to the laundry list of people hurt by data and identity theft, as the University of Texas announced yesterday that the computer system for the McCombs School of Business was hacked by an "unknown person or persons" from April 11th to April 21st, when the breach was discovered due to unusual activity within the system. more ›

French MP goes on hunger strike. "Like a sad clown," he says, "I'm not asking to win. I'm asking for good sense to triumph." Reason for the dramatics? He didn't want a paint factory in his district to close. When they say "Long Live the Queen" they're not kidding. Today Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 80th birthday with a small get-together. MySpace has been quite the forum for do-no-gooders lately. Some kids were planning... more ›

Ah the amazing things technology has ushered into our lives over the past five years: The increase in medical technologies leading to early treatment of disease; mobile technology that allows people to work from home while raising families; ten different ESPNs; the ability to have child pornography on a handheld MP3 player that you can take to other degenerates houses and watch said smut on their computer. Um, nix that last one. Here's where... more ›

We knew there was some devious reason John Mayer’s “Daughters” topped the charts. That song managed to be both cheesy and creepy at the same time. This morning, New York’s illustrious Attorney General Eliot Spitzer subpoenaed nine major radio conglomerates for their role in this crime against music. Buying airplay has been illegal since the 1960, when a federal law was put into place to ban the rampant practice of “payola” (pay plus Victrola,... more ›

Although we are by no means experiencing any of the havoc from Hurricane Katrina that our neighbors in Louisiana are going through, the effects we are feeling are hitting us in the wallet. We all expected this to happen, and true to form, gas prices have been going up since Monday. more ›

Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by Hurricane Katrina. more ›