Early voting in the governor's race begins today and we think you need to stay home. Independent candidates Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn could benefit if voters don't participate in the March 7th primaries. The independent candidates need more than 45,000 petition signatures to make the November ballot and they must be from registered voters who did not vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries. For those who choose to early vote (see......

Austin is Taradise! And Lance and Sheryl split Congrats to Adlai McMahon, winner of our giveaway contest for Bloc Party's documentary/concert DVD, God Bless Bloc Party! The SXSW Music Festival roster expanded to over 1,100 this week, including such esteemed acts as Morrissey and The Flaming Lips Austinist photographer Matt Wright captures yet another amazing night shot in Austin, as well as some sexy shots of last week's Box Magazine issue release party. The......

Please let us know if we are missing your favorite blogs. We try to find new blogs each week, but we are going to have to go with our tried-and-true favorites also. Our favorite posts for the week: Lone Star Democracy Association reviews Bob Gammage (if you don’t know already, he's running for Governor). Rachel at A Day in the Life is planning her trip to Canada. The Sound of Crickets Chirping has two major......

The Austin Lesbian/Gay Political Caucus (ALGPC), whose mission is to "unite and organize Austin-area LGBT citizens and our friends and supporters in political action against all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender expression," recently extended an opportunity to the Democratic candidates running in March's primary elections for ALGPC endorsement. Those seeking endorsements were asked to fill out a questionnaire, answering questions such as: Should you receive this endorsement, would you publicize......

Perry stopped in 12 cities last week in his push for re-election. At each stop he delivered his "proud of Texas" speech which usually consists of him reciting his past "accomplishments." I wonder how much the taxpayers were charged for three regular sessions and six special sessions to fix our still-broken, and unconstitutional school finance system. Come on people he doesn't even have an action figure made of him! In other news, it will......

Guess who is shy about having debates with challengers? Come on guess. You're right if you guessed Ricky Perry. Both Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman have declared that they would debate Ricky anytime, anywhere. You hear that Ricky? We can hold the debates at your secret meeting place where your gang plots the end the world. Our two independent candidates have to collect 45,540 signatures from registered voters who didn't vote in either......

Well Ricky Perry has launched his "Proud of Texas" campaign tour, and we feel it's time to carve out the competition he faces. Perryheads say that Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is his most potent rival. You may recall that she surprised folks recently by declaring that she is running as an independent. We're somewhat concerned that she misspelled her name on the candidate form, but we're pretty sure Ricky can't spell her name either.......

Taking a page from former governor Bush's political playbook, Rick Perry has been spending quite a bit of time up conservative Christians' asses of late. In his latest move to pander to the far right, Governor Perry announced Thursday that he believes Texas public schools should teach intelligent design alongside the theory of evolution in science classes. Last month a federal judge in Pennsylvania shot down as unconstitutional a school board's desire to teach......

"I'm on the pavement thinking about the government,The man in the trench coat, badge out, laid off, says he's got a bad cough wants to get paid off." Austin City Council tries to clean up downtown’s image by dealing with solicitors and the homeless. Soliciting during daytime? OK. Panhandling at night? That's a no-no. Couldn’t they get those Jesus-freaks off 6th and Congress? Everytime we look at them we think of that creepy old......